Kari Barclay

Cleveland, Ohio

Kari Barclay (they/them) is a playwright, director, and theater maker interested in deepening audiences’ sense of time and sparking curiosity about sexuality and gender. Based in Cleveland, Ohio, they teach a new generation of artists at Oberlin College and craft plays in the Midwest and beyond.

Kari’s original comedy Can I Hold You? was one of the first full-length plays about asexuality performed in the U.S. and enjoyed a sold-out run in San Francisco and workshop in New York. It has been taught at colleges and universities across the country and published in Marathi language translation. Kari’s play Stonewallin’ was the winner of the 2021 Southern Queer Playwriting Festival and opened at Richmond Triangle Players in February 2022. New projects include a solo show about sexuality and crossword puzzles, an adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac around a seventh-century genderqueer poet, and a meditation on wildfire and queer history in the San Francisco Bay Area.

In their other life, Kari is a theater scholar and historian with a focus on politics and performance. Their nonfiction book, Directing Desire, examines the rise of consent-based approaches to staging sex in contemporary theater, known as intimacy choreography. Kari earned their PhD in Theater and Performance Studies in 2021 from Stanford University, where they studied with playwright Young Jean Lee. They are an alum of the Humanity in Action Fellowship, the Headlands Center for the Arts Artists Residency, and Directors Lab North. kari-barclay.com. Instagram at @karibarclay

Gretchen Suárez-Peña

Boca Raton, Florida

Gretchen Suárez-Peña is a Puerto Rican playwright based in Florida. She received her MFA in Dramatic Writing from Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama (Class of 2024). She is an Assistant Professor at Florida Atlantic University Department of Theatre and Dance. She is currently the book writer for Sometimes Love (music and lyrics by Michael Mott). Her play, Epiphany, was the winner of the 2025 Tampa Bay Theatre Festival Staged Reading competition. Her play, 2052, is part of the Theater Masters Take Ten anthology published through Concord Theatricals. Her piece Searching for Abuelo was the first-place winner at the 2023 Voices of Women Theatre Festival, the best full-length play at the 2023 Tampa Bay Theatre Festival, and an official selection of the 2024 NYC Downtown Urban Arts Festival and the SheATL Festival. Her show Across the Atlantic opened the 2023 BIPOC Play Reading Series at the Straz Center in Tampa, Florida. Her short play, The Arithmetic of Memory, has been produced across the country and was published in the Stonecoast Review, where it was nominated for a Pushcart Award in Drama (2021). It was the 2023 Gary Garrison National Ten-Minute Play Award winner for the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF). Her play, With a Torch of Seven Virtues, was the 2nd Place Latinx Playwriting Award recipient for the 2024 National KCACTF. A portion of her work is available to be read on the New Play Exchange, and she is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild.

Instagram:@playsbygretchen

Lolita Stewart-White

Miami, Florida

Poet, playwright, screenwriter, and educator Lolita Stewart-White lives and works in Miami. Her full-length plays have been developed at City Theatre Miami’s Homegrown Playwriting Development Program and the Miami Light Project. Stewart-White has received commissions from the Coconut Grove Theater Festival, Miami 1 Acts, and City Theatre Miami. She is the author of black frag/ments, winner of Hub City Press’s Poetry Readers Series Prize, selected by Alabama Poet Laureate Ashley M. Jones. Stewart-White’s art pushes black poetic expressiveness. She experiments with genre and form and utilizes linguistic economy to manipulate words on the page as a form of resistance. Her poems have appeared in the African American Review, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Beloit Poetry Journal, and the NAACP award-winning anthology, “This is the Honey,” (Little, Brown/Hatchette, 2024) edited by New York Times bestselling author, Kwame Alexander. Stewart-White’s honors include O’Neill National Playwriting Center semifinalist, Paris American Reader Series winner, and the Boston Review’s Poetry Contest finalist, selected by Sonia Sanchez. Stewart-White also received fellowships from the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Sundance Institute Miami Screenwriter’s Intensive, Cave Canem Poetry Retreat.

Thelma Virata de Castro

San Diego, California

Thelma Virata de Castro is a Filipinx dramatist based in San Diego whose plays explore identity and belonging. She looks to Nature for inspiration and studies with Writing theWild. She was a commissioned artist for The Old Globe and has been awarded grants from The William Male Foundation, California Humanities, Far South/Border North, and San Diego Foundation. Selected productions, festivals, and readings include Asian Story Theater, Playwrights Project, Southwestern College, CIRCA-Pintig’s Chicago Filipino American Theatre Festival, Loud Fridge Theatre Group’s New Year, New Draft, Magnolia Theatre Company’s Femme Artisan Series, and The Old Globe’s Powers New Voices Festival. Thelma’s interview-based work with Asian Story Theater investigated history and race within specific communities, with subjects ranging from the incarceration of Japanese Americans to contemporary mixed racial identity. She acted as a playwright and Community Liaison for Halo-halo, which centered San Diego’s Filipinx stories. Access Inc. awarded her the Esperanza Award for extraordinary commitment to eradicating domestic violence in San Diego County for “The Fire in Me,” which examined domestic violence in the Filipinx community. She was a 2022 finalist for the AGE Legacy Playwright grant from Advance Gender Equity in the Arts. She received three Hedgebrook residencies and attended the A Room of Her Own Foundation retreat. She serves on the San Diego Writers, Ink Board of Directors and the Dramatists Guild National Affairs Committee. She works as a teaching artist and dramaturg. The San Diego Union-Tribune included her in its list of Phenomenal San Diego Women: Creators and Performers.

Instagram:@tvdecastro

Petron Brown

Hattiesburg, Mississippi

Petron Brown (he/him) is a Bahamian-born theatre artist. He is the recipient of several national theatre awards including an honorable mention for the KCACTF Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award at the 2023 national festival, the ASPIRE John Cauble Award at the 2022 national festival, and a Special Achievement in Performance Award at the 2021 national festival. He is also a two-time KCACTF Irene Ryan Region IV Acting Finalist and a member of the 2023-24 Conch Shell Productions Artist Collective. He was recently recognized as the Live Arts: 2023 WATERWORKS x The Bridge Emerging Artist for his play, The Colour Woman, as well as one of the 2024 Artists in Residence at Nancy Manocherian’s the cell theatre in NYC. He will be receiving his MFA in Theatre Performance from the University of Southern Mississippi this year, where he will be inducted into the 2024 Graduate Student Hall of Fame. Petron also holds a dual bachelor degree in Environmental Studies and Theatre. He has partnered with the Arkansas Coalition Against Sexual Assault both as a performer and playwright on multiple occasions, most recently at their 2023 state conference. He recently co-wrote a children’s play as a part of a grant commission from the Hattiesburg Arts Council. His work as a theatre artist explores international conversations on humanity. At present, his ever-evolving identity as an artist lies in a melting pot of Caribbean/West Indian culture both clashing and combining with American culture.

Nabra Nelson

Los Angeles, California

Nabra Nelson (she/her) is a playwright from Egypt, Nubia, and California. She is a founding company member of the Seattle based MENA theater company, Dunya Productions, a founding company member of the Milwaukee-based womxn-of-color performance troupe Heard Space Arts Collective, leads the Nubian Foundation for Preserving a Cultural Heritage, and is the co-host of the Kunafa & Shay Theater Podcast (produced by HowlRound Theatre Commons). Currently, she lives in Los Angeles where she is a teaching artist with The Unusual Suspects Theatre Company, a DEI Consultant with Avent Diversity Consulting, and Grant Writer for Dunya Productions. She was previously the Director of Arts Engagement at Seattle Rep, and the Community Engagement Associate at Milwaukee Rep. She is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Playwriting credits include: Nubian Stories (Dunya Productions, The Scratch’s In Pencil: Staged Readings, and Renaissance Theaterworks’ Br!NK New Play Festival), What to Expect When You’re Simulating (Macha Theaterworks’ Distillery, Golden Thread Productions’ New Threads Reading Series), A Muslim Christmas Carol (Dunya Productions, reading); Confessions (or the Secret Play for Secretly Liberal Muslims) (New Arab American Theatre Works Playwrights Showcase, University of Washington, readings), Paint Me (Strawberry Theatre Workshop), Induced Labor (Golden Thread Productions’ ReOrient 2019 honorable mention), In the Village Across the Nile (UCF Pegasus PlayLab Finalist), Creation Gossip and Lillith (Heard Space Arts Collective), Nebula & An Endless Staircase (Mini-Plays Magazine June 2023 Issue), and Minute to Minute and Le Serious Shit (MultiCultural Drama Company).

Hope Villanueva

Rockville, Maryland

Hope Villanueva (she/her) is an AEA stage manager by profession, but constantly writes. Her interest is in exploring the humanity of characters in their most challenging moments. She believes that the point of art is to examine ourselves and make ourselves better as a result of that reflection.

Her work has been presented by Honolulu Theatre for Youth, Next Act! New Play Summit at Capitol Repertory Theatre, Baltimore Playwrights’ Festival, The Black and Latino Playwrights’ Conference, The Kennedy Center Page to Stage Festival, The Discovery New Play Festival, The Kitchen Dog New Play Festival. The Women’s Voices Festival, INKubator On Air and WTF Occupy the Space Festival, Rapid Lemon, NextStop Theatre Company, and The Wayward Artist. Her plays have been selected as O’Neill Conference Semi-Finalist (2022) and Finalist (2020).

More recently, Vanishing Girl: A New Musical (with William Yanesh, book and lyrics), was hosted for multiple readings at NYC’s Latiné Musical Theatre Lab and a developmental workshop at Flying V in Washington, DC in 2023. Her newest play, BUZZ, was presented at the 2023 Valdez Theatre Conference and has been selected for the 2023 AGE Legacy Playwright Grant.

Ms. Villanueva is the current literary manager at Bay Street Theatre, holds a BA from the UCSB in Playwriting, and is pursuing a Master’s Degree in Writing for Stage and Screen at Lesley University. She is represented by IPEX Artists’ Agency.

Hope Villanueva

Germaine Shames

Tucson, Arizona

Germaine Shames (she/her), a Kilroys List playwright and recipient of her state’s Literary Fellowship in Fiction, is author of the award-winning novels, Between Two Deserts and You, Fascinating You. Writing under the pen name Casper Silk (Hotel Noir, Echo Year), she has been compared to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Graham Greene, and P.D. James “on steroids”. After covering world conflicts as a correspondent and witnessing firsthand the gamut of senseless tragedies behind the headlines, she realized that hard news could never convey an iota of the deeper story she was gleaning. She turned to fiction writing, learning that she can find light in the most horrific situations and leave readers (and now an audience) with hope. As a playwright, Shames has celebrated premieres across the U.S. as well as abroad and been recognized in a number of festivals, including Fulton Theatre’s Stories of Diversity 2023, Pegasus Theatre’s Fresh Reads 2023 (First Place), ThinkTank TYA’s inaugural Playwrights Festival, Cimientos 2019, and Festival of New American Theatre 2018. As a librettist-lyricist, Shames collaborates with world-class composers in musical theatre, opera, choral and popular music. Her eco-opera The Bird Lady (with composer Timothy Miller) previewed in 2021 at the National Opera Center. Her immigration musical, Capri (w’ Paul Scherer), won Skyline Theatre’s new musical search and was their singular offering at the 2022 NJ Theatre Alliance Stages Festival. In 2019 and 2020 respectively, Theatre Elision produced her musicals If the Spirit Moves (w’ Erin Murray Quinlan) and The Manifesto (w’ Nadav Amir-Himmel). Shames holds a Master’s degree in Intercultural Studies. Her writing reflects the breadth of her worldview and fascination with the interplay of cultures, often drawing on events and settings from her sojourns abroad. She writes from a global perspective with the conscious aim of fostering interethnic, intergenerational and cross-gender understanding. It’s all about love.

https://germainewrites.wixsite.com/buzz

Beth Kander

Skokie, Illinois

Beth Kander (she/her) is a Chicago-based writer, with tangled roots in the Midwest and Deep South. The granddaughter of immigrants, she loves exploring how worlds old and new can intertwine—or collide. Beth earned a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Michigan; an MFA in Creative Writing from Mississippi University for Women, where she currently serves as adjunct faculty; and a Bachelor of Arts from Brandeis University. Playwriting honors include: T. Jefferson Carey Memorial Playwriting Award (2022); Henry Award for Best New Play or Musical (2020); Headwaters Festival Award (2018); Equity Library Theatre-Chicago (2017); Ashland New Plays Festival (2015, 2016); New Stage Eudora Welty Awards (2008, 2010, 2012); and the Charles M. Getchell New Play Award (2012). She is a founding member of Fondren Theatre Workshop in Mississippi and served for seven seasons as Ashland New Play Festival’s resident playwright. Beth’s debut novel for adults, I MADE IT OUT OF CLAY (Mira/HarperCollins), hits shelves in fall 2024. She is the author of multiple children’s books, including DO NOT EAT THIS BOOK! (Sleeping Bear Press) and GLUBBERY GRAY, THE KNIGHT-EATING BEAST (Pelican Publishing). Her YA dystopian trilogy ORIGINAL SYN won a 2019 Foreword INDIE Award. A proud parent-artist, her favorite characters are her two brave, hilarious kids (for real—they’ve got jokes), and she cheers for parent-artists everywhere. Beth is represented by Allison Hellegers at Stimola Literary Studio. For more: www.bethkander.com

Alan Stewart

Oakland, California

Dr. Alan Stewart (he/him) aside from being a veterinary internal medicine specialist is also an award winning playwright. He dedicated his first chapter to helping animals and preserving the human animal bond. Now he dedicates his playwriting to dramatizing important ethical questions and often uses animals to help with those questions. His play In Our Bones was a semifinalist in the Bay Area Playwrights Festival and the Gary Marshall Competition and received a “rough read” from Playwrights Foundation; Of a Feather was the finalist at Madison New Works Laboratory. A short play, Final Fire was produced by UpMarket productions. His plays are often described as five plays in one because they are so dense. With his background as a doctor and decades of practice and having the privilege to witness amazing stories his brain overflows with theatrical ideas. Animals are excellent entrees to human tribulations because we express raw emotions with them. He loves challenging audiences with unresolvable dilemmas often involving ethics and science and yet leaving them with a heartwarming sensibility. Life is not simple. Animals make it better. For a veterinarian he immersed himself in a strong liberal arts education and has taken playwriting classes at the Dramatist Guild Institute, Berkeley Rep, ACT, Playwrights Foundation and HB Studios. He is a member of the Kennedy Center’s Playwriting Intensive. He is currently working on a TV pilot placing Grey’s Anatomy in a 24/7 Emergency Specialty Veterinary Hospital. A world he knows very well.

https://www.alanplaywright.com