Eliana Pipes is a playwright, actor, and filmmaker. She’s the 2019 recipient of the Academy Gold Fellowship for Women and the Leah Ryan Fund Prize for Emerging Women Writers.  Her work has been developed or presented at the NNPN MFA Workshop, Ars Nova ANT Fest, San Diego Rep New Latinx Plays Festival, Two River Theater Crossing Borders Festival, The Fire This Time Festival, and the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival. She’s the recipient of the KCACTF Ken Ludwig Scholarship, the WAVE Grant through Wavelength Productions, and a two-time Finalist for the O’Neill National Playwright’s Conference. She received a BA in English from Columbia University, and has just completed coursework on an MFA in Playwriting from Boston University.  More at www.elianapipes.com.

Calley N. Anderson is an up-and-coming playwright from Memphis, Tennessee. Her ten-minute plays have received five festival productions to date (Emerald Theatre Company, TN 2016; Pride Theater at Chandler, VT 2017; Stable Cable Lab Co., NY 2017; InVersion Theatre, NY 2018; Fade to Black Fest, TX 2018). Anderson is a graduate of Davidson College (BA in English, Concentration in Film and Media Studies) and The New School for Drama (MFA in Playwriting). She is a member of the Dramatists Guild and is currently commissioned by the University of Memphis Dept. of Theatre and Dance. Anderson is also one of sixteen Memphis Hub fellows of the Salzburg Global Seminar’s Forum for Young Cultural Innovators and an MFA alumni representative on The New School for Drama’s Cultural Change Task Force. More at calleynanderson.com.

Juan Ramirez, Jr., is a Borinquén-Chapín-Bronx playwright, monologist, director, screenwriter, filmmaker, poet and producer. His play Calling Puerto Rico is a Miranda Family Voces Latinx Finalist with Repertorio Español, 2020 BAPF Finalist and a recipient of the 2019 BRIO Award. Notable produced works include Ridin‘ Shotgun (Best Play Downtown Urban Arts Festival), The American Dream (NAV Playwrights Festival, BBTF), Wall (LaTea, Cimientos), Stroke of Madness (Ingenio Milagro, Cimientos) and Don Juan (Dixon Place). Semi-finalists include Jimmy’s Tab (2011 Princess Grace). His horror short Alone With My Demons won Inwood Art Works’ NYC Quarantine Film Festival’s Best Bronx Film. He’s a founder of The PlayPen Collective and R&R Productions with his wife Cristy Reynoso. He’s a member of the Dramatist Guild, NYC LatinX Playwright Circle and The Bronx Repertory Company. He received his B.A. in Theater from Lehman College and his MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU Tisch. www.JuanRamirezJr.com

Regina Velázquez was born and raised in Knoxville, Tennessee, and earned her BA and MA in creative writing from the University of Tennessee. After teaching writing courses there as well as Northeastern University, she transitioned to educational and trade publishing, working both in-house and freelance as a writer and editor for such companies as Houghton Mifflin, Oxford University Press, McGraw-Hill, Macmillan, and Storey Publishing. 

A brief stint onstage with her children at the Williamstown Theatre Festival’s COMMUNITY WORKS production of Once Upon a Time in the Berkshires led her to participate in the program’s inaugural playwriting intensive in 2019, where she began working on Space and Time. The experience encouraged her to push her personal writing in new directions, including essays, short stories, screenplays, and a YA novel—and, of course, more plays. She was named a finalist for SPACE on Ryder Farm’s Greenhouse Residency in 2020 (delayed due to the pandemic) and is a Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellow 2020–2021. She lives in western Massachusetts with her husband and two children.

Nikhil Mahapatra is a writer from India/Singapore. They are an inaugural member of the Lit Council at the Tank, led by Akin Salawu and Beto O’Byrne, a 2018-2019 Gingold Theatre Company Speaker’s Corner writer, and now delighted to be a 2019-2020 Dramatist’s Guild Foundation Fellow. Latest works include CARNAL, The Fields and the short film SPF, which recently had its premiere at The New York Indie Theatre Film Festival (NYITFF).

Melis Aker is a writer, actor, and musician from Turkey. Her plays have been commissioned by and developed at Atlantic Theatre, Ars Nova (Play Group member), NYTW (2050 fellow), New Group, Dramatists Guild Foundation (DGF Fellow), Roundabout Space Jam, LaMaMa, The Lark, The Flea, Noor, Golden Thread Productions, 24 Hour Plays, Corkscrew Festival and BRIC in the U.S., as well as the Finborough and Park theatres in London.

Melis’ plays include: Field, Awakening (2019 Kilroy’s List, Columbia@Roundabout finalist, Sundance final-round, Berkeley Rep Ground Floor final-round, Playwrights Realm finalist); Dragonflies (2019 Sundance final-round); Scraps and Things (Playing on Air, starring Carol Kane); Azul (O’Neill NMTC); When My Mama was a Hittite (Columbia@Roundabout finalist); Fractio Panis (Homebound Project/No Kid Hungry, starring Brian Cox); Manar (Columbia@Roundabout finalist, Theatre503 Playwriting Award semifinalist); 330 Pegasus: A Love Letter (Jerome NY Fellowship final-round); OPET Diaries; and Gilded Isle. Her screenplay “ARI” (“Bee”) was at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival as part of Maison des Scenaristes, and her pilot of “MANAR” was accepted to Orchard Project’s Episodic Lab, Trans Atlantic Partners, and IFP week. She has also worked on the development of a screenplay with Revelations Entertainment, headed by Lori McCreary and Morgan Freeman.

Selected acting credits include: “The Blacklist: Redemption” (NBC), “Seneca” (HBOMax), Love in Afghanistan (Arena Stage & Roundabout), We Live in Cairo (NAMT, New World Stages), Proof (Edinburgh Fringe). Her song “The Unknowing” was in the final reel of the 2017 NPR Tiny Desk contest. Melis has worked as Ayad Akhtar’s assistant, and given a StoryCorps and TEDx talk. She is a proud member of The Lark’s Middle East America writers room.

Upcoming: Melis is developing a musical play with Benjamin Scheuer and Jemma Williams based on their illustrated book Hundred Feet Tall,  and working on a new play commission from Ars Nova. Her play Field, Awakening will receive its world premiere at the Finborough Theatre directed by Rory McGregor (covid-19 pending). Training: Columbia (MFA), Tufts (BA), RADA (Acting). Representation: CAA and Brillstein Entertainment Partners. www.melisaker.com

KYOUNG H. PARK was born in Santiago, Chile and is the first Korean playwright from Latin America to be produced and published in the United States. Kyoung is author of DISORIENTED, TALA, PILLOWTALK and many short plays including MINA, which is published in “Seven Contemporary Plays from the Korean Diaspora in the Americas” by Duke University Press. Kyoung writes and directs his own work as Artistic Director of Kyoung’s Pacific Beat, a peacemaking theater company, and has been a resident artist at the The Tank, New Ohio Theater, Baryshnikov Arts Center, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, BRIC Arts Media, Performance Project @ University Settlement, HERE and La MaMa. He is co-founder of The Sol Project, a member of Ma-Yi Writer’s Lab, NYTW Usual Suspect, and serves on the Board of the Indie Theater Fund. He’s currently a 2018-2020 APAP Leadership Fellow and 2018-2019 ILI Fellow and has been a grant panelist for the NEA, TCG, NALAC and ART/NY. MFA: Playwriting (Columbia University).

Kate Douglas is a writer, composer and performer. Recent work includes THE NINTH HOUR, her operetta with Shayfer James at The Met Cloisters (the first performance of its kind in the Fuentidueña Chapel), her immersive play EXTINCT (produced with support from a LMCC Engagement Grant) and her audio experience DANDELION STORY, which received an Honorable Mention from SPACE on Ryder Farm’s CSArt Program. Her work has been developed at SPACE on Ryder Farm, The Orchard Project, New Victory Theater, The Civilians R&D Group, Rhinebeck Musicals and the Writer’s Colony at Goodspeed. She has over eight years of experience creating, writing and directing immersive events as Associate Artist at The McKittrick Hotel, home of SLEEP NO MORE, where she was also a performer. As a complement to her artistic practice, she is a Master Naturalist and student herbalist. She is currently working towards her Horticulture Certificate Sustainable Garden Design with the New York Botanical Garden.
www.kate-douglas.com

Andrew Rincón is a Queer Colombian-American playwright. His plays have been developed with Rising Circle Theatre, Amios, Austin Latino New Play Festival, PFP Productions (Seattle), Out Front Productions (Atlanta) and The 24 Hour Plays. He was a member of Wright Club, The Amoralist’s Theatre Company’s yearlong playwright development program (’15-’16). He was a member of INKtank Lab for Playwrights of Color (2017) and the 2017 Fornés Playwriting Workshop (Chicago). He is the winner of the 2018 Chesley/Bumbalo Grant for writers of Gay and Lesbian Theatre. Company member of Unit 52 at INTAR. Plays include You Got That Same Kind of Lonely and That Rhythm in the Blood and I’ll meet you outside the airport, ok?

His play I Wanna Fuck like Romeo and Juliet is the winner of New Light Theatre Project’s “New Light New Voices Award” (2019) and will receive its New York stage premiere in their 19/20 season.

Mathilde Dratwa is a member of Dorset Theater Festival’s Women Artists Writing Group, a former member of New York Foundation for the Arts’ Immigrant Artist Program and a two-time Pulitzer Center Grant recipient. Her theater credits include Milk and Gall (Great Plains Theater Conference, Jane Chambers award finalist, O’Neill National Playwrights Conference Semi-Finalist) and Escape from Garden Grove (Last Frontier Theater Conference, Maxim Mazumdar New Play Competition Finalist). Her plays have been workshopped and presented by LAByrinth Theater Company (Barn Series) and InProximity Theatre. She wrote and directed the short films PETA PAN (starring Independent Spirit Award Nominee Nisreen Faour) and ESCAPE FROM GARDEN GROVE (Sundance Channel Contest Finalist). A seasoned educator, Mathilde is a Master Teaching Artist for Roundabout Theatre Company, the New Victory, the Shakespeare Society and the School of The New York Times. She is the co-founder of Moms-in-Film.