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.

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).

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.

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.

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

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.