The 2023 Council Election

Within this ballot, you will find the biographies and statements of the candidates for the 2023 Dramatists Guild of America Council Election. Please note that you may be voting for both your Regional Council Member and National Council Members. By voting in this election, you have the opportunity to make your voice heard, and to shape the future of the Guild. We thank you for your participation.

Only those at the Member level, including Lifetime, Student, and Estate Members, can participate in this election. Associates are not eligible to vote without upgrading their membership.

Carefully read the following directions on how to cast your vote for the Dramatists Guild Council.

1. Enter your Member Number.
To access your member number, please log onto your DG Member profile HERE.

2. Check your region via the map below and note the following: If you are in New York City, you should only vote for your National Council members. If you are in the Midwestern/Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Southern/Puerto Rico, Southern California/Hawaii, or Western/Alaska regions, you should vote for both your National and Regional Council members.

3. If you are unsure of which region election you should vote in, please contact our office at (212) 398-9366 or please reach out to our Election Manager, Amy VonMacek, at avonmacek@dramatistsguild.com.

4. Read the bio and personal statement for each nominee and make your selection(s) for Council seats. Please note that for the National Council Election, you may vote for up to ten candidates. Please note that for the Regional Council Election, you may vote for one candidate.

5. Once you have finished making your selections, please submit your ballot by pressing "Cast Your Ballot" at the bottom of the screen. You must submit your online ballot on or before Monday, February 27 at 3pm EST.

Would you prefer to have the DG Officers vote on your behalf? Click here to submit a proxy ballot. If you submit a proxy ballot, you cannot use this ballot to vote.

If you have any questions about the following material, or if you require any further instruction, please contact Amy VonMacek, Election Manager and Director of Council Programs, by phone at (212) 398-9366, or by email at avonmacek@dramatistsguild.com.

Please note that only eligible Guild Members can vote in the DG Council election. If you are not sure if you are eligible, please call the DG Offices at (212) 398-9366 or email questions@dramatistsguild.com.

General Election

(Every eligible member worldwide can vote)

National Election

Regional Elections

(Only eligible members who live in the region can vote in that region's election)

Southern California/Hawaii Region
Western/Alaska Region
Southern/Puerto Rico Region
Midwestern/Mid-Atlantic Region
Northeastern Region (Please note that residents of New York City or International Members are not eligible to vote in this region.)

National Election

Bio

Kristen Anderson-Lopez (Incumbent) is an Oscar, Grammy, and Emmy award winning songwriter. She is the co-writer of Frozen on Broadway as well as Disney’s Frozen (Oscar and Grammy wins), Frozen II, “Remember Me” from Pixar’s Coco (Oscar win), and Marvel’s WandaVision (Emmy win). She is also the co-writer of In Transit, the first-ever all a capella musical on Broadway, Finding Nemo the Musical, running at Disney World since 2006, Disney’s Winnie the Pooh, and Emmy nominated songs for TV’s 87th Academy Awards and The Comedians. Upcoming projects include Up Here, a streaming series for Hulu premiering in 2023. A recipient of the BMI Harrington Award and the 2014 Lilly Award, Anderson-Lopez serves on the Council for the Dramatists Guild and on the Advisory Board for the Brooklyn Children’s Theatre. She resides in Brooklyn with her husband and two daughters.

Statement

It has been an intense couple of years since I was last up for election. Across the industry we’ve been challenged to get audiences back in the theatre and reckon with long ignored inequities in systems and practices.  As a member of the DG board, I am constantly looking for opportunities to use whatever voice, platform, or industry relationships I have to face these issues head on. I believe in supporting and championing all writers – especially those under-represented, under-supported voices in our community.

Over the last few years, I’ve been part of numerous panels, fundraisers, and evenings of song championing the under-represented work of women, parents, and people of color in theatre. As a Lilly Board member and a writer for Disney Theatricals, I helped forge a unique and meaningful partnership with our membership and Women’s Day on Broadway. A hard-working mother of two, I’ve struggled to balance parenthood and writing during out-of-town productions, at summer artist colonies, with bi-coastal development of movie-musicals, Broadway production schedules, and more recently, an original streaming musical TV series. If reelected, I would be honored to continue to passionately speak up and share my experiences as a working-artist-parent, to work with other artists to create a list of best practices, and to build relationships with theatres, studios, and organizations with the aim of finding solutions that would make it easier for all artists to tell their stories.

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Bio

Kristoffer Diaz (Incumbent) is a playwright, librettist, screenwriter, and educator. His play The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. Other full-length titles include Welcome to Arroyo’s, Reggie Hoops, Hercules, and The Unfortunates. His work has been produced, commissioned, and developed at The Public Theater, Dallas Theater Center, Geffen Playhouse, ACT, Center Theatre Group, The Goodman, Second Stage, Victory Gardens, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival, among many others. Awards include the Guggenheim, Jerome, Van Lier, NYFA, and Gail Merrifield Papp Fellowships; New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award; Lucille Lortel, Equity Jeff, and OBIE Awards; and the Future Aesthetics Artist Regrant, among others. As a screenwriter, Kristoffer has developed original television pilots for HBO and FX, written for the first season of Netflix's GLOW, and adapted the musical Rent for FOX. Kristoffer teaches playwriting at New York University. He is an alumnus of New Dramatists and a member of its Board of Directors, and the current secretary of the Dramatists Guild Council.

Statement

It has been one of the great honors of my career to have served as an officer on the Dramatists Guild Council for the past two years alongside Amanda Green, Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins, and Christine Toy Johnson. It’s been a period of unprecedented uncertainty (and shockingly scarce live theatre) thanks to the in-retreat yet ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. We’ve yet to have a single in-person meeting during our tenure, but I remain proud of the work we’ve done to help the Guild, and the field, weather the storm.

In the early days of Covid, shuttered theatres pivoted to digital, scrambling to find ways to continue to produce new work (and keep their companies alive). The Guild immediately sprung into action, forming a New Media committee to track this new way of doing business and, as always, protect our member writers from unfair business practices. We listened to your stories and created multiple model agreements for online production. I’m proud to have headed up that committee, and while I am thrilled that most, if not all, US theatres have returned to in-person performance, we remain committed to monitoring the role of digital in our field. The entertainment word is changing rapidly. We must make sure the Guild evolves with it.

Towards that end, we’ve embarked on a major strategic planning initiative that will continue to unfold over the next few months. We’ve been speaking with stakeholders inside and outside of our membership, trying to understand what the Guild is, what you all want it to be, and what we can do to continue that evolution. I have been heartened by the progress we’ve already made and look forward to finding ways to ensure that the Guild, its Council, and all of its many programs and affiliated organizations can speak to, for, and on behalf of the diverse population of professional dramatists throughout the country.

This is a vital moment in our organizational history. It has perhaps never been quite so difficult to make a living as a professional dramatist. Issues of censorship, representation, unsavory business practices, complicated labor laws, and more continue to loom large as impediments to the dramatist’s pursuit of career and artistic success. I feel blessed to play some small role in supporting you in your efforts, and I humbly ask for a few more years to keep this process moving.

Committees

Education, Steering, New Media (Founder)

DG Council Secretary

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Bio

Amanda Green (Incumbent) has been nominated for two Tony Awards and four Drama Desk Awards for her work as a lyricist and composer. Most recently, she wrote the lyrics for Mr. Saturday Night starring Billy Crystal. Currently writing lyrics for Female Troubles, an original musical comedy she co-created, set in Jane Austen’s England, about women’s reproductive freedoms, which will premiere in 2024. Also Broadway: Hands On A Hardbody (Lyrics and Co-Composer), Bring It On (Co-Lyricist with Lin-Manuel Miranda), High Fidelity (Lyrics), Tony nominated revival of Kiss Me Kate (Additional Book and Lyrics), Tony nominated revival of On The Twentieth Century (Addt’l Lyrics). TV: Peter Pan Live! On NBC (Addt’l Lyrics). Awards: recipient of the Frederick Loewe Award for Composition, Jonathan Larson Award. BA: Brown University; BMI Musical Theatre Workshop Alum.

Statement

It has been the honor of my life to serve as The Guild’s first female President. I am grateful to work closely with my brilliant and dedicated fellow Officers, Vice President Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Treasurer Christine Toy Johnson, and Secretary Kristoffer Diaz. I have gotten to witness the passion and commitment of the staff, DG Council, and writers across the country to the well-being of our craft, industry, and fellow writers. We care deeply about protecting our work and making a career writing for the theatre more equitable and tenable for ourselves and those who come after us.

Since I became President, the Guild created The Inclusion Rider, a tool to allow writers to better exercise our right of approval and hire diverse inclusive creative teams in productions of our work. We co-filed a request with the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice for Collective Bargaining Rights for creators of copyrighted works, including playwrights, lyricists, composers, and librettists. We advocate for The PRO Act, which would allow gig workers such as ourselves these rights. Our friends at the DLDF, under the leadership of John Weidman, released a Toolkit to Producing Shows on College Campuses in the 21^st Century, and filed amicus briefs in several cases impacting dramatists. The Dramatists Guild Foundation, brilliantly led by Andrew Lippa, provided over $3 million in emergency grants to writers during the pandemic. As our activities grew online, we moved to protect members by creating a Code of Conduct for Community Spaces.

As Chair of The Dramatist Committee, when the pandemic struck, I co-hosted The Dramatist Live with editor Joey Stocks and Christine Toy Johnson, a weekly Zoom broadcast with writers and artists throughout the country. Under Joey’s lead, The Dramatist magazine has flourished, including the first Opera Issue, the superb Sondheim Issue, and essential Money Issue. I continue to serve on the Board of The Lilly Awards, which under the brilliant direction of Lynn Nottage and Julia Jordan, saw the creation of the Lorraine Hansberry Initiative, which includes a statue of Lorraine, currently traveling the country, and a scholarship program for female and/or non-binary theatre writers of color in graduate programs.

I started serving in the midst of the pandemic. Despite its calamitous impact, thankfully the Guild never had to close its (virtual) doors or stop providing services; through careful management, the Guild remains fiscally sound. I would love to continue as Council Member and President of our Guild. Thank you for your consideration.

Committees

The Dramatist (Chair), Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Access, New Media, Contracts (Chair)

DG Council President

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Bio

Samuel D. Hunter (Nominee) grew up in Moscow, Idaho, and lives in New York City. He is the recipient of a 2014 MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship for his work as a playwright. His full-length plays include The Whale(Drama Desk Award, Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, GLAAD Media Award, Drama League and Outer Critics Circle nominations for Best Play), A Case for the Existence of God (New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play), A Bright New Boise Obie Award, Drama Desk nomination for Best Play),Greater Clements (Drama Desk nomination for Best Play, Outer Critics Circle Honoree), Lewiston/Clarkston (Drama Desk nomination for Best Play),The Few, A Great Wilderness, Rest, Pocatello, The Healing ,and The Harvest, among others. A film version of The Whale, directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Brendan Fraser, was released by A24 films. He is the recipient of a 2012 Whiting Writers Award and an honorary doctorate from the University of Idaho. His work has been produced Off Broadway in New York City by Lincoln Center Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, LCT3, Signature Theatre, Page 73 Productions, Clubbed Thumb, and Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre. Elsewhere, his work has been produced by Theatre Royal Bath, Dallas Theatre Center, Seattle Rep, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, South Coast Rep, and Victory Gardens, among others. Two published anthologies of his work are available from TCG Books, and a third is forthcoming. He is a member of New Dramatists and a current Resident Playwright at the Signature Theatre in New York City. He holds degrees in playwriting from NYU, The Iowa Playwrights Workshop, and Juilliard.

Statement

It would be my honor to advocate on behalf of both new and established playwrights as a member of the Dramatists Guild Council. I've been writing plays for off-Broadway and regional venues my entire career, but throughout it all, I have also engaged with emerging writers whenever I could, either as an adjunct professor or mentor. I've seen firsthand the ways that early-career writers are disenfranchised and disempowered. Many new writers, especially those without representation, are in an increasingly vulnerable position, and it is so important that they feel that the Guild has their backs. As we continue to rebuild after the tumult of the last few years, protecting writers should be one of our top priorities.

Committees

Awards

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Bio

Rajiv Joseph's (Nominee) play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo was a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist for Drama and also awarded a grant for Outstanding New American Play by the National Endowment for the Arts. He has twice won the Obie Award for Best New American Play, first in 2016 with Guards at the Taj (also a 2016 Lortel Winner for Best Play) and then in 2018 with Describe the Night. Other plays include King James, Letters of Suresh, Archduke, The North Pool, Gruesome Playground Injuries, and Animals Out of Paper. He wrote the book and co-wrote lyrics for the musical Fly, based on Peter Pan, and he wrote the libretto for the opera Shalimar the Clown, based on the novel by Salman Rushdie. He has written for TV and film, most recently for the Hulu series Welcome to Chippendales. He has been awarded artistic grants from the Whiting Foundation, United States Artists, and the Harold & Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust. He served for three years in the Peace Corps in Senegal.

Statement

It is an honor to be considered to serve on the Dramatists Guild Council. I was a DG Fellow my first year out of graduate school, in 2004, and have been a member since. Over the last 15 years, my artistic home has been the Lark Play Development Center. I was a board member there; I developed all my plays through the Lark’s programs, and I volunteered my time there to assist in those programs and help foster new work. I also participated frequently in the Lark’s international translation programs abroad, in Romania, Russia, and Mexico. It was through those experiences that I began to consider how the work of a theatre artist so closely resembles the work I did as a volunteer in the Peace Corps. There’s always a sense, as both a Peace Corps Volunteer and a playwright, that the odds are stacked against you: There aren’t enough resources; everyone’s speaking a different language; there’s a creeping sense that the work isn’t making a lick of a difference to anyone. And yet, through patience and faith, sometimes things change, communities are strengthened, and someone continues to carry a torch. With the Lark sadly gone, I am eager to find other ways to reach out and continue to serve my community. It would be such an honor to join this Council—with so many others I admire—and continue that work together.

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Bio

Helen Park (Nominee) is best known for her work as composer-lyricist, music producer, and arranger for the Broadway musical, KPOP, for which she is a three-time Drama Desk nominee and recipient of a Lucille Lortel Award and Richard Rodgers Award. Additionally, Park co-wrote songs for the Oscar-nominated Netflix animated musical film Over The Moon, directed by Academy Award-winning animator Glen Keane. She has written songs for Off-Broadway’s Sesame Street: The Musical and for television on Central Park on Apple TV. She holds an MFA from NYU’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program and is an alumna of the advanced BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop.

Statement

As the first AAPI female composer to have been on Broadway, my biggest passion is to ensure all writers and composers receive fair and equal opportunities and payments, regardless of race, gender, and background. Since becoming a member in 2013, I have received so much support from fellow Dramatists Guild members along the journey to getting here, and I would love nothing more than the opportunity to pay it forward. I’m excited about bringing in more diverse voices within the next generation of theatre writers into the Guild, and uplifting stories told from authentic points of view that have not yet been represented on stage. I’m also eager to advocate for better health care and fair pay and copyright protection for all songwriters in various stages of their career and in their projects. If you vote for me, I promise I will dedicate myself to serving the community to the best of my ability. It would be an honor to serve on the council as a representative from the future generation of theatre writers.

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Bio

Benj Pasek (Nominee) is an Oscar, Grammy, Tony, and Olivier Award-winning creator and producer. Alongside frequent collaborator Justin Paul, Benj is best known for his work on La La Land, Dear Evan Hansen, and The Greatest Showman. The accompanying albums for each project have appeared in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, the latter of which is certified Platinum in over a dozen countries. Recent credits include Sony’s live-action hybrid musical Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, and Apple’s original live-action musical Spirited. Other credits include: Broadway - A Christmas Story, The Musical; Off-Broadway/Regional - Dogfight, James and the Giant Peach, Edges; Film – Aladdin, Trolls; Television – Harlem, Smash, The Flash, and A Christmas Story, Live! Upcoming film projects include Disney’s live-action Snow White. With Dear Evan Hansen: The Novel, Benj became a New York Times best-selling author. Most recently, Benj was awarded a Tony Award as co-producer of the Pulitzer prize-winning Broadway musical A Strange Loop. A graduate of the University of Michigan, Benj serves on the board of the Dramatists Guild Foundation as well as the American LGBTQ+ Museum.

Statement

I appreciate your consideration to join the Dramatists Guild Council. I am eager to continue to serve the theatre community, particularly theatrical writers, in an expanded capacity. I have served on the board of the Dramatists Guild Foundation for the past five years, working to ensure increased equity and access in the American theatre. It has been an honor to serve on a board that provides so much for artists in our community, from free spaces to create new work to emergency grants for writers in need. I believe in the deeply transformative power of art but know how many barriers stand in the way for creators. It is essential to provide support for artists in bringing their stories to life, and I hope to continue this mission throughout the work that I do.

To that end, I recently joined the board of Musical Theatre Factory, a musical theatre developmental organization working to center artists who exist at the intersections of underrepresented groups. Alongside Broadway Advocacy Coalition, I was part of a team working with Columbia Law School's Entrepreneurship and Community Development Clinic to identify how legal tools can be used to strengthen Inclusion Riders and empower Broadway creatives. I am now joining the board of the ASCAP Foundation, an organization dedicated to nurturing emerging voices and providing educational and humanitarian programs for students.

Additionally, this past year I was part of a team serving as co-producers of Michael R. Jackson's A Strange Loop. It is my hope that having experiences on the other side of the table in a producorial capacity will allow me to continue to advocate for writers with increased knowledge and perspective. Thank you for your consideration. It would be an honor to serve on the council.

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Bio

Austin Pendelton (Incumbent) is a playwright, a director, and a teacher of acting at HB Studio in New York City. The plays he's written are Booth, Uncle Bob, and Orson’s Shadow, and the libretto for the musical A Minister’s Wife, music by Josh Schmidt and lyrics by Jan Tranen. This musical was conceived by Michael Halberstam for Writers' Theatre in Chicago. It then transferred to NYC, at Lincoln Center. His current work as a director in New York is Between Riverside and Crazy, by Stephen Adly Giurgis, at the Hayes Theatre.

Statement

Writers need to be protected. Sometimes from producers (although there are many honorable producers), sometimes, particularly of course in a musical, from collaborators, who have been known to hunger for the lion's share, both in billing and in contracts. The writer of the book for a musical is, quite frequently, under siege.

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Bio

Award-winning actress, dramatist, educator, and advocate Nikkole Salter (Incumbent) launched her professional career with the co-authorship and co-performance (with Danai Gurira) of the Pulitzer Prize nominated play, In the Continuum (ITC) for which she received an OBIE Award (2006), and the NY Outer Critics Circle's John Gassner Award for Best New American Play (2006), the Seldes-Kanin fellowship from the Theatre Hall of Fame, and the Global Tolerance Award from the Friends of the United Nations, to name a few. Since then, Ms. Salter has written seven full-length plays, been commissioned for full-length work by six institutions, been produced on three continents in five countries and been published in 12 international publications. Her work has appeared in over 20 Off-Broadway, regional, and international theatres, and the Crossroads Theatre production of her play Repairing a Nation (directed by Marshall Jones, III) was taped for the second season of the WNET program “Theatre Close-Up,” which aired on NYC’s channel THIRTEEN, WLIC, NJTV, and streamed on the internet beginning fall 2015. The National Black Theatre production of her play Carnaval was nominated for 7 AUDELCO awards including Best Playwright and Best Production and won for Best Ensemble Performance. Ms. Salter is a 2014 MAP Fund Grant recipient, a Eugene O'Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference semi-finalist, a two-time Playwrights of New York (PoNY) Fellowship nominee and is currently working to revise the book on the co-written musical Grace, which has just been nominated for 12 BroadwayWorld awards after a sold-out 2022 run at Ford's Theatre. She serves as chair of the Department of Theatre Arts in the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University. www.nikkolesalter.com

Statement

Since 2017, I’ve had the pleasure to serve on the Council of the Dramatists Guild helping to bring the experiences of the field into the governance of one of the ONLY institutions dedicated to helping dramatists thrive.

From spitballing with the Curriculum committee as they look for ways to help educators expand the canon, to strategizing with the New Media committee to devise an agreement that helps dramatists avoid being exploited by national broadcasters (like I was!), from working with the Political Engagement Initiative and the #BeAnArtsHero campaign to help get a Congressional Hearing on the Creative Economy with the Small Business Committee, to taking with contemporaries on the podcast The Dramatists Guild Presents: Talkback about diverse pathways of success that expand opportunities for the work of dramatist beyond the stage — I’ve been working.

I’d love to continue representing the demographic of dramatists who work Off-Broadway and in the Regions, who are published and who self-publish, who teach the next generation of dramatists and those who are fighting to educate themselves about this art and industry, who stand up against book banning at their local libraries, and who work to develop the infrastructure within the Guild so members have paved pathways for their own advocacy efforts. It’s been a nearly two decades since I’ve started writing professionally, but I’m still a voice for the emerging artist: Playwrights who have had that NYC production, but are still looking for opportunities to advance; writers still finding their voice and style; artists without representation who desperately need the aids provided by the DG to successfully negotiate their own contracts; storytellers who haven't graduated from top writing programs and struggle to find a network; hustlers who don't have enough Twitter followers to warrant news features, but who can find some space in the pages of The Dramatist and get national exposure; dramatists who would get trampled on if it weren't for the DG's efforts to publish things like The Dramatist’s Bill of Rights, so they know their worth; newbees (and old-bees, for that matter) who need a grant, a class, or just some acknowledgement that their efforts have not been in vain and that they can and should continue; people who want to take a stand for inclusion, and need a powerful institution to stand with them in the struggle. This is how the DG has helped me. I am grateful for it; it's why I continue to pay my dues, and it's why it would be an honor to continue to serve on the council looking for even more ways to advocate for the dramatist.

Committees

New Media, Political Engagement Initiative (Co-Chair)

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Bio

Shaina Taub (Incumbent) is an Emmy-nominated songwriter and performer. She is a winner of the Kleban Prize, the Fred Ebb Award, and the Jonathan Larson Grant. She is a signed artist with Atlantic Records, and an artist-in-residence at the Public Theater, where her Drama Desk and Drama League nominated musical Suffs had its world premiere, sold-out run this year, and where she has a regular concert residency at Joe’s Pub. She created and starred in critically acclaimed musical adaptations of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and As You Like It that were commissioned and produced by the Public Theater at the Delacorte in Central Park as part of their groundbreaking community-based program, Public Works. Those adaptations have now received over a hundred productions around the world. She has written songs for television on Sesame Street, Julie’s Greenroom starring Julie Andrews on Netflix, Central Park on Apple TV, and the opening number for the 2018 Tony Awards. Her songwriting collaborators include Sir Elton John, Sara Bareilles, Josh Groban, and Rachel Bloom, and her songs have been performed by Audra McDonald, Sutton Foster, and Ariana DeBose. She’s a proud member of the Resistance Revival Chorus, the Working Families Party’s Artist Council, and co-chairs the NYCLU’s Artist Ambassadors. She was honored with the NYCLU’s 2022 Michael Friedman Freedom Award for her activism.

Statement

I have been the grateful beneficiary of support and encouragement from many Guild artists on my path so far. I’ve loved serving on the council for the last three years and want to do everything in my power to keep showing up for the Guild in the way it’s shown up for me time and again. I would love the opportunity to continue serving on the council as a representative from the up-and-coming generation of theatre songwriters, especially women songwriters, so we can carry the torch forward and learn from all the great work being done currently by the DG. I’m passionate about creating more sustainable practices for inclusive, accessible theatre that serves the whole community and I’ve learned a great deal about putting those values in action in my six years with the Public Theater’s Public Works program. I work in both the theatre industry and music business spaces and think I bring valuable insight to the table about successful cross-pollination between the two for songwriters. I’m passionate about bringing the next generation into the Guild, which is why I created the recruitment committee during the pandemic. If elected for another term, I hope to focus even more on gender parity in the field, better health insurance, and copyright advocacy. It would be an honor and privilege to keep serving next to so many artists I look up to on this council and to expand my service to this organization I love so much.

Committees

Awards, Music, Nominating, Recruitment (Founder)

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Bio

Cori Thomas (Incumbent) is a playwright and actress. Her plays include LOCKDOWN (upcoming production at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, NYC); When January Feels Like Summer (World Premiere at City Theatre, Pittsburgh; Performances at EST/Page73/Women's Project in NYC; Mosaic Theater Co., D.C.); Citizens Market (World Premiere also at City Theatre, Pittsburgh; Underground Railway Theater, Cambridge, MA); The Princess, The Breast, and, The Lizard; The Unusual Love Life of Bedbugs and Other Creatures; My Secret Language of Wishes (Various theatres and university productions including Mixed Blood, MN); and the Liberian Legacy Trilogy--Pa’s Hat (Pillsbury House Theatre, MN); Flight 109; and In The Beginning. Short plays: Waking Up, His Daddy, and The Hair Play. Cori’s plays have been developed and produced at New Dramatists, O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, Sundance Theatre Lab, Bogliasco Foundation, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Goodman Theatre, City Theatre Co., Momentum, Page 73, Playwrights Horizons, Lark Play Development Center, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Going To The River, Pillsbury House Theatre, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Mixed Blood Theatre, Penumbra Theatre, Passage Theatre, The Playwrights Realm, New Federal Theatre, New Georges, The Black Rep (St. Louis), The New Black Fest, and National Black Theatre. Cori has been commissioned by South Coast Rep, The Sloan Foundation, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, The Working Theater, NYSCA, EST, and Pillsbury House Theatre. Publications: When January Feels Like Summer (Dramatic Publishing), Waking Up (Viking Press, Plays for Two), His Daddy (Smith and Kraus, Best Short Plays 2010), When January Feels Like Summer (Smith and Kraus, selections for monologue and scene anthologies). Among other projects, Cori is contracted to write a screenplay for HBO Films. Cori is founder of The Pa's Hat Foundation, a 501(c)3 nonprofit helping former child soldiers and other under-served citizens in Liberia, West Africa with education and employment opportunities.

Statement

As a female playwright of color, my interests are in making sure all playwrights receive equal treatment and opportunities irrespective of race, age, and gender. The contracts committee has also been an area of special interest to me in my first term. If re-elected, I hope to continue on there, as contracts are the bread and butter of our careers. As a member of Honor Roll (a group of female playwrights over age 40), defeating ageism, and continuing to fight for representation by that community is crucial. I have been produced regionally and off-Broadway and understand those specific circumstances and the needs you have as the playwright in those productions. One issue that feels important to me is making sure productions of new plays receive the appropriate amount of allotted rehearsal time. Presently, and usually, new and established plays receive the same allotment of rehearsal time. That does not provide the best circumstance to develop and rehearse new plays and musicals adequately enough so that they have the opportunity to be best represented against plays that have already had multiple productions. If you vote for me, these are all the areas and any that you share with me. I will promise to continue to always support you to the best of my ability. I am very proud to be a member of the Dramatists Guild and look forward to continue serving you. My door is always open.

Committees

Contracts

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Bio

Julianne Wick Davis (Nominee) is a NYC-based composer/lyricist. Trevor (music) had its world premiere at Writer’s Theatre, Chicago, which received a Jefferson Award for Outstanding New Musical. Trevor played Off-Broadway in the Fall of 2022 and is now streaming on Disney+. Southern Comfort (music) received a production at The Public Theatre which was a NY Times Critic’s Pick and received Lortel and Outer Critics Circle Nominations for Outstanding Musical. Southern Comfort was also a part of the 2012 NAMT Convention, received a production at Barrington Stage Company, a reading at Playwrights Horizons, and a developmental production at CAP21 which garnered a GLAAD Media Award and was a Time Out NYC and NY Times Critic’s Pick.  The Pen (music) for Inner Voices was also named a NY Times Critic’s Pick and is being conceived as a film short.  When We Met (music & lyrics), was a part of the O’Neill Musical Theater Conference, York NEO Development Series, Broadway Bound Concert Series, and received a developmental production at CAP21. The Willard Suitcases (book, music, & lyrics) had its world premiere at the American Shakespeare Center in Fall of 2019 and was named a 2019 Top 10 Theatrical Events by the Washington Post and was also featured in the Broadway Bound Series at Merkin Hall. Lautrec at the St. James (music) was selected for the NAMT 2019 Conference and was chosen for the inaugural Applause Concert Series at the Olney Theatre Center in 2022.  Harold & Lillian (music) was a part of the Pacific Playwrights Festival in 2021 and will receive a production at South Coast Repertory Theatre in 2023. Julianne has also contributed songs for Shakina Nayfack’s Manifest Pussy and was commissioned to write a song for Lonny Price’s Lincoln Center Originals series. Named one of the Fifty Women to Watch in 2020 by the Broadway Woman’s Fund, Julianne has received the Jonathan Larson Award and the Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award for Outstanding Female Musical Theater Composer, as well as a recipient of the Lotte Lenya Competition Songbook Series Award from the Kurt Weill Foundation. Julianne is a Dramatists Guild Fellow, York Theatre’s NEO 9 Emerging Writer, Sundance Fellow at Ucross, and received her MFA from NYU’s Tisch Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. She is currently the Program Director for Writing and Design for Musical Theater at BerkleeNYC at the Power Station.

Statement

I’m honored to be nominated to serve on the Dramatists Guild Council. The mentorship I received as a DGF Fellow and the support I have received as a Guild member has impressed upon me the value of this organization. If I were able to serve on the council, I would want to work on the Education Committee and focus on expanding initiatives to prepare writers for all aspects of the development process. As a musical theatre writing educator for over a decade, I have witnessed the impact of teaching the process of developing the work alongside teaching the craft itself - providing clarity and defining expectations about the role of the writer in every stage of development. Understanding what a healthy collaboration looks like - not just with other writers but with theatres, directors, music directors, designers, and producers - sets everyone up for success. I’m passionate about helping writers feel fully equipped as they step into each room of the process, whether it’s knowing how to navigate the power dynamic in a pre-production meeting or being conscious of their role in a rehearsal. Serving on the Council would allow me to advocate for ways to make this information clear and accessible, giving writers the tools to be proactive in their careers while feeling confident in knowing their rights. As storytellers we are lifelong learners, and the Guild exists because we understand the joy of growth and the necessity of protecting each other and our stories. I hope that you will give me the honor of being able to serve this membership and be a part of its growth.

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Northeastern Region

Bio

Marjorie Bicknell (Nominee) is a Chicago native and a happy Philadelphia transplant. Marjorie started as an actor, director, and producer but switched to playwriting when she was forced to write a play and discovered she liked it – a lot!

Marjorie is the author of Frankenstein, which won three Joseph Jefferson Awards in its world premiere production at Chicago’s Pary Production Company. Her play, The Boys Club, is the winner of the 53rd Annual John Gassner Memorial Playwriting Award and the TNTPops! National New Play Contest, a finalist at the CSC Women Playwright Series at the Centenary Stage Company, and a second-rounder at the Austin Film Festival in the stage play division, among other honors. Another full length, The Family Room, is the winner of the Pennsylvania Playwright Award and was nominated for the Weissberger Prize. Two of Marjorie’s plays – Carmageddon and Carolee’s Closet – were featured in ARTemis Art’s Wisdom Anthology. She was the only playwright to have more than one play accepted. In addition, Marjorie’s work is published by Dramatic Publishing and Heartland Plays. Since Marjorie didn’t study playwriting as part of an organized program, she takes every opportunity to hone her craft and has studied at the Walnut Street Theatre (Playwrights Circle, by invitation), PlayPenn, the Dramatists Guild Institute, and Primary Stages. Most recently, she has worked with Jeffry Sweet, Rogelio Martinez, and Winter Miller. Currently, she studies with Eric Webb as part of the Davenport Writers Group. She is a two-time participant in the Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensive. A consummate “joiner,” Marjorie has served as readings director at the Playwright Center: Chicago, and on the board of Theatre Center Philadelphia, a new play development organization. She was a founding member of Pary Production Company, a Chicago-based professional theatre, founder of three non-profits: Playwrights Alliance of Pennsylvania (PAPA), Playwrights Roundtable, Marathon Acts, a non-profit literary agency for playwrights over 50, and is president emeritus of the Philadelphia Dramatists Center.

Marjorie currently serves as the Philadelphia Regional Rep for the Dramatists Guild of America.

Statement

You know what’s great about the Dramatists Guild? It is the advocate for ten thousand individual small businesses. Imagine that! The Guild advocates for each and every one of us – whether we have just been awarded a shiny new MFA, are starting a new career after years of work in another field, or sit at the very top of our profession. In the Dramatists Guild, we are all one.

Over the 40 years that I have been involved with the Dramatists Guild, I have watched in awe as it created a strong national community for a group of people who do their work alone with only their thoughts and ideas for company.

Although I consider myself a hardworking professional, I may never reach the heights of success that I dreamed of in my youth. But I can pave the way for the success of others, by strengthening the bond between playwrights here in the Northeast and throughout the country.

The Guild has accomplished much over the past 40 years, but the work of supporting and advocating for playwrights will never be over. If I am elected, I will work my hardest to ensure that the needs of our membership are communicated to the Council and that every playwright in my region knows exactly how the Guild works for them. I will advocate for all of you, and build bridges between playwrights and theatres. I will try my hardest to see that the Dramatists Guild continually becomes a more perfect union of playwrights, composers, lyricists, and librettists.

Philadelphia Regional Rep

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Bio

Dominic D'Andrea (Nominee) (he/him) is the current elected NY Representative for the Dramatists Guild of America and directs programming and community engagement at Queens Theatre in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. Prior to QT, he was director of The One-Minute Play Festival (#1MPF), where he created and led work with more than 50 professional theatres and originations around the country, for over a decade. He's also a director who has worked in NY and regionally since 2003. As a playwright he’s penned dozens of shorts and microplays, which have been performed all over the country. Dominic holds a BA with ODK Honors from The University of Maryland, College Park, an MA in Applied Theatre from CUNY, and an MFA in playwriting and producing from The University of Idaho. Fellowships and Residences have included: The SDC Obverership (3x reciepent), Lincoln Center/Chicago/LA Directors Labs, Manhattan Theatre Club Directing Fellowship, Edward F. Albee Foundation Playwriting Fellowship, SPACE at Ryder Farm Creative Solutions Social Justice Residency & Creative Residency for playwriting. He’s been a guest artist at many universities and colleges, a master artist at The Kennedy Center/ACTF, and has been awarded citations from The City of Providence, The Maryland State House of Delegates, and The Senate. Dominic is the son of immigrants, a dad; a disability, inclusion, and accessibility advocate, and, in Nov of 2022, he recently completed the TCS New York City Marathon.

Statement

I'd be honored to serve as your next Northeast Regional Council Member. I've served in DG since 2018, first as the inaugural ambassador to the Hudson Valley region for a few years, and then as the elected NY State Rep. During my time in both of these roles, we held in-person convenings, strengthened our sense of regionality and our hyper-local awareness, appointed new ambassadors and held community convenings in corners of our state that had not previously had representation; and, I established robust and popular digital programming such as New York State Fest, the annual week-long digital event that saw some of the most popular programming in DG event history like Write Fast! instant prompt workshops, The B'way Panel on The State of Musical Theatre, and writing workshops on memory, process, dramaturgy, and script submissions, led by DG luminaries; the COVID era digital and election week One-Minute Play Festivals, which supported the work of a combined 725 global DG and non-DG playwrights; and, establishing digital footlight readings. In addition to my time volunteering at DG, I'm the director of community engagement for Queens Theatre, work as a lead creative producer, and serve as a disability, access, and inclusion advocate and educator. Community engagement, service, and human connection are core values of my work as an artist and practitioner. Relationships, change, understanding, and connectivity are durational challenges. It's about showing up, listening, responding, making yourself available, sharing resources, reporting out, and gathering people in. The roles of reps and ambassadors in DG has always been in alignment with these values, placing art, humanity, and decency at the center. If I were given the opportunity to serve in this next phase, I would continue to center the artist, foster a greater understanding of our regionality and connectivity, and would grow and develop programming opportunities to serve our rich and diverse communities. I love DG, and serving in this space has been a highlight of my career. In this moment of cultural and political turmoil, finding a community that understands how to value art and to center the artist is the most sacred work. It would be a pleasure to be even a small part of that. Thank you!

New York State Regional Rep

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Bio

L M Feldman (Nominee) is a queer, feminist playwright (and circus artist) who pens plays that are wildly theatrical but deeply intimate. Her plays include Thrive, Or What You Will (New Georges & Page 73 Residencies); Another Kind of Silence (FEWW Prize Honorable Mention, Magic Theatre New Play Festival, PlayPenn & Sewanee Writers’ Conferences, Playwrights Realm Fellowship); Amanuensis, or The Miltons (Georgetown University, Ramah Theatre commission); The Egg-Layers (Jane Chambers Honorable Mention, New Georges/Barnard College commission); Grace, or the Art of Climbing (Denver Center, Barrymore & ATCA/Steinberg New Play Award Nominations); and A People (Orbiter 3, Jewish Plays Project); as well as several ensemble-devised works, including Gumshoe (New Paradise Labs + the Free Library of Philadelphia + the Rosenbach Museum), War of the Worlds: Philadelphia (Swim Pony + Drexel University), And If You Lose Your Way, or A Food Odyssey (The Invisible Dog), Lady M (Philadelphia Live Arts Festival), and others. She has been nominated for the Wendy Wasserstein Prize, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Barrie and Bernice Stavis Playwright Award, the New York Innovative Theatre Award, and the Doric Wilson Independent Playwright Award. She was awarded an artist grant through the Boomerang Fund and a creation grant from the State of Vermont, and she has been an artist-in-residence at the MacDowell Colony, Fresh Ground Pepper, Terra Firma, SPACE at Ryder Farm, the School of Making Thinking, Tofte Lake Center, Montana Artists Refuge, Montana Repertory Theatre, Sewanee University of the South, Cornell University, and Theater Emory/Brave New Works Festival. A graduate of the Yale School of Drama, L is also a New Georges Affiliated Artist, a devised-work collaborator, a teacher of playwriting, and a freelance dramaturg. In 2010, L fell in love with theatre and circus as a hybrid art form through the queer-feminist, Brooklyn-based ensemble LAVA; soon she began creating theatrical circus duets with Megan Gendell, and her passions led her to the New England Center for Circus Arts for full-time professional training. L is based in Philly – where she is an InterAct Core Playwright and a proud member of Orbiter 3 (Philly’s producing-playwrights collective). She is writing two commissions from the EST/Sloan Foundation and the Children’s Theatre of Charlotte.

Statement

I write plays to examine, interrogate, subvert, problematize, to shine a light where I want folks to look. I’d love to offer that work to our DG Regional Council as well. To devote my questions and experiences, my labor and humility, to helping more widely establish a healthy, inclusive, innovative, and sustainable life in the arts.

How do we transform this industry from a road-map of gatekeepers, to an open field of partnerships and ideas? How might we reimagine how production processes could more genuinely serve the ART and support the ARTISTS? What if more theatres initiated not just a new commission, but also a radical thought-partnership, a wellness-and-livelihood coalition, an artist fleet, a three plays-per-writer production commitment, a year of productions entirely by local living playwrights … ?

I write ensemble-driven, theatrically audacious plays that are hard to produce within the confines of the conventional American regional theatre new play production model. And I’d love to bring this same communal, expansive, playful, and radical approach to the systemic table. As a brainstormer and a nurturer, I want to work with our artistic kin who are thinking more expansively about how art gets made, and about whose voices are(n’t) heard, in this country. I want to collaborate with more colleagues at more institutions that are ready to imagine, research, and explore alternative models of leadership, audition processes, compensation practices, audience engagement, resource sharing, and community relationship.

Recently laid off from three of my four adjunct teaching jobs, I’m finding myself – like our industry – in a critical moment of transition: dancing with questions of how best to move forward. I’m asking: How can I spend my time not only rebuilding my life, but also more effectively rebuilding the systems that we as working artists are continually navigating? How might I support more organizations to be courageous enough not only to ASK the hard and gnarly questions, but also to COMMIT to experimenting with ways of theatremaking that are ACTUALLY equitable, that are ACTIVELY joyous, and that are bravely RESPONSIVE (rather than nominally reactive, or – worse – harmfully inert)? How might I help empower our theatre industry to become more porous, deft, and lithe? More cooperative? More compassionate? More daring? More joyous? How can I be a buoyant and creative advocate for NEW WAYS OF WORKING that are viable and enduring, healing and visionary?

If useful, I couldn’t be hungrier or readier to offer my questions, ideas, and labor to the Guild and our Council on these and related fronts.

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Bio

Donna Hoke (Nominee)’s work has been seen in 47 states and on five continents, including at Barrington Stage, Barrow Group, Celebration Theatre, Gulfshore Theatre, Queens Theatre, Lake Dillon Theatre Company, Theatre Aspen, The Road, Phoenix Theatre, Atlantic Stage, Purple Rose, Skylight, Pride Films and Plays, New Jersey Rep, Hens and Chickens (London), The Galway Fringe Festival, and Actors Repertory Theatre of Luxembourg. Plays include Brilliant Works of Art (Kilroys List), Elevator Girl (O’Neill, Princess Grace, and Austin Film Festival finalist), Safe (winner of the Todd McNerney, Naatak, and Great Gay Play and Musical Contests), and Teach (Gulfshore New Works, O’Neill semifinalist). She has been nominated for the Primus, Blackburn, and Laura Pels prizes, and is a three-time winner of the Emanuel Fried Award for Outstanding New Play (Seeds, Sons & Lovers, Once in my Lifetime). She has also received an Individual Artist Award from the New York State Council on the Arts to develop Hearts of Stone, and, in its final three years, Artvoice named her Buffalo's Best Writer—the only woman to ever receive the designation.

Donna also been serving the Dramatists Guild in various capacities since 2012, is an ensemble playwright at Road Less Traveled Productions, blogger, former moderator of the 15,000+-member Official Playwrights of Facebook, New York Times-published crossword puzzle constructor, children's and trivia book author, and founder/co-curator of BUA Takes 10: GLBT Short Stories. Speaking engagements include Citywrights, Kenyon Playwrights Conference, the Dramatists Guild National Conference, Chicago Dramatists, the Austin Film Festival, and a live Dramatists Guild webinar. Her commentary has been seen on #2amt, Howlround, The Dramatist, the Official Playwrights of Facebook, Workshopping the New Play (Applause, 2017), and at donnahoke.com

Statement

As a fierce advocate for community and playwrights through blogging, speaking, moderating Official Playwrights of Facebook, and serving the Dramatists Guild in myriad capacities since 2013, my number one charge has always been going to bat for you, my fellow regional playwrights. Two months ago was a high point for these efforts: my persistence in championing the need for a nationally inclusive program of Dramatists Guild Fellows paid off. National Fellows is now a reality and a prime example of the kind of advocacy I have put forth, one that provides hope for national inclusion at all levels. Serving on the Awards Committee, I fought hard for regional nominees for the Lanford Wilson Award—the only one that can go to a playwright outside New York—and introduced non-NYC playwrights to the committee; ultimately, two of them tied for the prize, which is a win for all regional playwrights. Serving on the Dramatists Guild Council better allows me to serve you in a place where having that voice matters.

At a time when it's harder than ever for playwrights to find productions, at every meeting and with every initiative, I am your voice, asking “How can we include regional playwrights in this?,” discussing the career trajectory of regional playwrights, educating about what our opportunities look like and what we need to make the most of them.
As chair of the Best Practices for Festivals and Contests, I spearheaded new guidelines to help playwrights in assessing submission opportunities. I still actively chair this committee as it works to ease and streamline the playwright submission process, another one of my active goals; I’ve done seminars on it and even recorded a webinar for the Guild. Currently, Best Practices is working on a document to help playwrights assess practices at nonprofit theatres as well as a guide to writers groups. The work is endless, and I can better serve it from a position on Council.
I also serve on both the Education and National Affairs (an idea I proposed during my last Council term) committees. In these endeavors, I have a voice for all regional playwrights to help even our playing field, make us heard, and prove that great theatre happens between the coasts. In my three years on Council, I never missed a meeting. I ask for your vote so that I can once again serve and continue the work I have continued even during my hiatus. I love the Dramatists Guild (see page 82 of The Dramatist craft issue for all the reasons why) and serving it—first as Western New York Regional rep and then as Council Member and New York State rep—has been a continuous honor and highlight of my playwriting career.

Committees

Awards, Best Practices for Festivals and Contests (Chair), Copyright Advocacy, Education, National Affairs

Buffalo/West New York Regional Ambassador.

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Bio

Stephen Kaplan (Incumbent) Selected awards, commissions, and productions: National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere: Tracy Jones (Finalist: ScreenCraft Stage Play Contest, B Street New Comedies Festival, Trustus Playwrights Festival; Winner: Southeast Texas Festival of New Plays); Un Hombre: A Golem Story (Finalist: Jewish Plays Project, Wild Imaginings Epiphanies, Gulfshore Playhouse New Works Festival, Chameleon Theatre Circle’s 22nd Annual New Play Contest), Branwell (and other Brontës) (Semi-Finalist: O’Neill); Community (Finalist: Seven Devils; Road Less Traveled National Residency, Semi-Finalist: Premiere Stages, March Forth Productions – Upcoming Productions: The Loft Ensemble, The Blue Room); Exquisite Potential (Theatre Ariel, Dezart Performs, Project Rushmore; Winner: NJ Playwrights Contest, Across the Generations New Jewish Play Festival, Finalist: Woodward/Newman Award, Semi-Finalist: Seven Devils); A Real Boy (59E59 Theatre, Last Act Theater, This Is Water Theatre and Semi-Finalist: PlayPenn, Ashland New Play Festival, Dayton Playhouse FutureFest and MTWorks’ Newborn Festival); una casa/a home (Finalist: Landing Theatre’s New American Voices Reading Series, Route 66 Theatre’s New Play Development Program, Rorschach's Magic in Rough Spaces); Death Defying (NJ Rep/Theatre Brut); For Unto Us (published by DPS; Barrington Stage Company 10x10 Festival, MiniFest - Acadia Theatre Company, Luna Stage New Moon Short Play Festival, QueerShorts); In Mrs. Baker’s Room (Commission: Abingdon Theatre Company, Father Hamblin Award for Outstanding Playwriting, Center for Spiritual Living Playwriting Festival, Theatre Southwest); The Seventh Son (Semi-Finalist: Ronald M Ruble New Play Festival). He wrote his first play, And Jack Came Tumbling After (Old Globe Theatre, EST, HERE/Lincoln Center Theatre’s American Living Room Series), when he was 15. MFA: Point Park University. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild and serves as Northeastern Regional Representative for the DG National Council and received a 2021 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. For more information visit www.bystephenkaplan.com

Statement

I’ve been a Guild member since I wrote my first play when I was a sophomore in high school. I used to associate the Guild solely with New York City and thought I had to be in NYC in order to be a playwright. I remember the old tiered system of membership where, in order to be a full, “real” member, you had to have a first-class production contract. Two of the best things the Guild did was to create the Regional Representatives, recognizing that one can be a playwright anywhere, and to level the membership, recognizing that playwrights exist on multiple levels and a Broadway production is not the only way to succeed as a writer.

I have loved serving as Northeast Council Rep for the past three years as it’s enabled me to elevate the voices and concerns of a wider range of members. With my fellow Regional Council Reps, I’ve instituted National Town Halls/Community Conversations, bringing the issues discussed directly to Council to improve conditions for dramatists across the country. Based on these conversations, we sent out our National Affairs Survey and are in the process of interpreting the data to use as evidence to further advocate for initiatives and programming that more accurately reflect what writers across the country need.

Committees

Archive, Best Practices, Education (Co-Chair), National Affairs

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Southern/Puerto Rico Region

Bio

Arianna Rose (Nominee) is an award-winning writer of plays and musicals, and a theatre educator. A native New Yorker, she has lived in South Florida for ten years. Plays:Touch The Moon (Dean Productions, Walking Shadow, HRC Showcase, Fantasy Theatre Factory, Know Theatre, Windsor Fringe UK, William Inge Playlab),The Equivalent of Sensation (Alumnae Theatre, WriteHER LA, Finstrom Festival,), Make Mulch From It (Fight Like Girl 2 UK, Viterbo New Works, Theatre Lab@FAU, Drunken Owl Theatre), (Theatre Odyssey, Lowell Arts, Theatre Three, Interlochen Center, Columbia University, & many others). Musicals: The Lost Girl (w/ Ben Bonnema: JET, Florida Festival of New Musicals, Viterbo New Works, NYU Steinhardt, Buck Hill Skytop Music Festival, CDP, Top 20 finalist NAMT 2022), A Collectible Sensation (w/ Amy Engelhardt: current O’Neill semi-finalist), Gutter Balls (Bucknell University), R.S.V.P. (w/ Donna Warfield & Aden Kent Ramsey: Atlanta Theatre -to-Go, Columbus State College, Miami New Musicals), (w/ Shelly Gartner: MicroTheater Miami, Theatre Lab@FAU OTP), and songs in TADA! Ensemble Theatre revues and many cabarets. Her catalogue has been presented to date in 27 states and seven countries. Recipient of the MAC Song of the Year and the York Theatre NEO (w/Robby Stamper), and best play/playwright awards from Theatre Odyssey, Tree City Playhouse, Mixing It Up Productions, Know Theatre, Studio 1 Theatre, South Baldwin Theatre, VetRep, Clocktower Theatre. 2020 finalist, Edward Kleban Lyric Writing Award; one of three finalists, 2020 Kenneth Branagh Award for New Drama Writing, UK.

2019-2021 Miami-Dade County Playwright Development Program, moderated by Kia Corthron; 2022 Kennedy Center Playwrights Intensive and William Inge Theatre Festival Playlab. Publications: Smith & Kraus, Applause Books, Theatre Odyssey Publications, and Gemco Publications Australia. Adjunct Theatre Professor at Broward College, current Adjunct Professor of the Year. Teaching artist for 22 years, including: Metropolitan Opera Guild, PBS/WNET, Miami Theater Center, MAD Performing Arts, TADA! Children’s Theatre, Actorshop/Theatre Royal Stratford East UK, South Florida Performing Arts Centers, and Rockaway Artists Alliance. B.A. in Theatre, Bucknell University; M.F.A. NYU Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. An alumna of the BMI-Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Writing Workshop, Arianna has taught Word Craft: Lyric Writing for Theatre to DG members. Member: ASCAP, Maestra, Musicians Local 802, New Play Exchange, South Florida Theatre League, the Dramatists Guild. DG Ambassador for South Florida since March 2020. Founder-moderator of Plays on Purpose/Miami New Musicals weekly writers group, now in its fourth year.

Statement

I joined the Dramatists Guild around 2004 when Ralph Sevush spoke to our BMI-Lehman Engel musical writing class. Since March 2020, I’ve been of service to our South Florida members as their DG Ambassador, where I’ve created and moderated many seminars on a variety of topics with playwrights and theatre professionals. Four years ago, seeing a need for a group for theatre writers, I founded and continue to moderate the Plays on Purpose/Miami New Musicals group, with two groups that meet weekly. I’ve co-produced several short play and monologue events for South Florida playwrights at area theatres, and beginning in January 2023 I’ll be teaching Writing for the Stage: Short-Form Plays at a local theatre. I’ve discovered a talent and passion as a ‘script doctor’ and for the past two years have been a member of the Literary Managers & Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA). I’ve assisted many of our South Florida members with honing their skills as dramatists.

I’ve always been a leader and catalyst. My years as a theatre director and visual artist have enhanced my ability to see the big picture and focus on the details. Being elected to DG Council would allow me to share and further develop my gifts and experience on a national level. As a highly trained musical theatre writer, collaboration skills are ingrained. I’m also blessed with excellent organization, speaking and writing skills, and in ‘cutting to the chase’ in a diplomatic and kind manner. It gives me great joy to connect people who can assist each other. In addition to being a writer, director, and educator, I’ve worked in leadership positions/arts administrator for Music for People Inc., the Omega Institute for Holistic Arts, The Russian Tea Room Cabaret Room, Duplex Cabaret Theatre, and the Raw Spirit Festival. I’ve learned and modelled how important it is for leaders to ‘contain the space’ and set an atmosphere conducive to equity, expression, and learning. As a long-time arts educator, I’m particularly interested in serving on the Education Committee. I’m also quite drawn to the Member Recruitment, National Affairs, and The Dramatist magazine committees.

It would be my great honor to serve as council for the Southern Region. The Dramatists Guild has played a vital role in my development as a writer, leader, and human, and I welcome this opportunity to serve the members of the South. Thank you for your support.

South Florida DG Ambassador

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Bio

Clyde Santana (Nominee) received a B.S. from Springfield College in 1973 and an M.F.A. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1975.

Recently, his fantasy stage play OOPS, which received a workshop production in 2019 at Zeiders American Dream Theatre, was accepted to be read at the NBTF 2022 by the Garland Lee Thompson Sr. Readers Theater in Winston Salem, NC. His stage play comedy, Likker Outta Control won the Proteus Festival 2022 New Plays audience favorite and was given a two-week full staged production at Zeiders American Dream Theatre in November 2022.

A Playground Miracleco-written by Gail E. Davis and Clyde was a Top 100 Finalist in the 2012 Sundance “Read My Screenplay” Competition, won the sci fi / fantasy feature screenplay category at the International Family Friendly Film Festival 2016 (IFFF), and recently won the Virginia Film Office’s “Virginia Screenwriting Competition 2022.”

Clyde 's screenplay Scholarship was a finalist in the South Carolina Underground Film Festival, Feature Screenplay Category 2017. Recently renamed Ace and Bingo's Butt Revenge, the screenplay was again selected as a finalist in the Peachtree Village Film Festival 2018 Feature Screenplay category.

Also, a second screenplay entry, Angels in Hip Hop Land, was selected as a finalist by the Peachtree Village Film Festival Feature 2018 Screenplay category, then a finalist in the Beverly Hills International Film Festival 2020 and a finalist in Virginia Film Office’s “Virginia Screenwriting Competition 2019.”

Statement

A true dramatist lives in the world he or she creates in and is intimately involved in its workings. At the ground level, someone must be there to cheerlead and guide the fledgling playwrights who wonder if they can even write or finish a story. This is the where the beginning of all story writing mentorship and training exists. The desire to take a beginner from their simple desire to write to accomplishing the rewriting of a full horrible first draft. Then be there to support, mostly without any compensation, with the next few attempts by the playwright to create a work from that horrible first draft that that hopefully, others will become interested in helping to develop. And just being there and able to nurture those who want to promote this craft of writing is where I fit in. As a grassroots interlocutor, I enjoy encouraging others and helping them to develop their works. Also, I try to do what a person of meager means can to explore and hopefully find avenues for their work to continue to be developed on stage by places that will do new works. All American theatre project start here. And this is where I have been since 1986, working, volunteering at the grassroots level. And sometimes seeing others dreams in the theatre come true.

Committees

National Affairs

Virginia Beach/Norfolk DG Regional Ambassador

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Bio

Pamela Turner (Incumbent) is an award-winning, Pacific Northwest-bred, writer, director/dramaturg, and educator, presently based in Atlanta, and with original playwriting credits in the U.S, Germany, Guam, and Ireland. Current projects include a commission writing the book for a musical adaptation of Louise Shiver's award-winning novel Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail with composer Mark Swanson. Productions of original work in the U.S. have appeared at 7 Stages Theatre; Found Stages; Circle Ensemble Theatre; Alliance Theatre; Center for Puppetry Arts; UGA University Theatre; Piccolo Spoleto Festival; American Theatre Co-op; Live-Wire theatre; Theatre Gael; Pulse Theatre; Atelier Stage; Firehouse; and Academy Theatre, among others.

Produced plays include Ravenwood; Free-dum; Burning Man; Hidden Man; Voices Deux; Cosmeticos; Funny Valentine; The Lady and the Poet; Valentines Day; The Further Adventures of Louise Heavingbodice; and The Judas Gospel. Other commissions include FACES (7-Stages); Mother/Monster (Cine-magic Design and AngelWorks); Majik! (Theatre Emory, for the opening of the Schwartz Performing Arts Center); Voices (Academy Theatre and the US Cultural Olypmpics); and Frijoles on the Side (Fly-By Theatre). The Lady and the Poet was commissioned by Theatre Gael.

Pamela Turner is co-founding AD of multiShades.atlanta; Director of Theatre and Film at Ben Franklin Academy-Emory; and Chair of DG's National Affairs Committee. She is also a long-time and avid Formula One Racing fan and believes that much can be learned from driving fast and keeping your eyes on the road.

Statement

When I ran for this office three years ago, it was simultaneous with stepping down after many years as a Regional Rep. I wanted to remain involved with an organization I cared deeply about and also to figure out a way for members out in the regions to feel more connected to it. With the honor of being elected, I came on board determined to advocate for the unique and disparate needs of writers throughout the regions and most particularly those living and working throughout the South. It was ironic that sitting on Council during our prolonged COVID “season” became a study in the challenges of remaining a strong organization while (also) acting sensitively on the complex concerns of members across the “success” spectrum. I realized this meant creating opportunities for members to talk to those they perceived as peers and for us as Regional Council to listen and then create a proposal for responsive action.

As a first step, I helped create and became Chair of the National (Regional) Affairs Committee with the stated goal of advocating for the needs and interests of regional members and finding ways to bring more of them to the “table.” So far, the committee has set up national Community Conversation events, initiated development of a Codes of Conduct for DG events, and inducted regional members into the committee. I hope to continue with that work, including support for increased presence on council committees, pushing forward with creating program guides for writer’s groups; and developing feedback models for diverse script structures and styles that support alternate theatrical forms. I’d also like to generate topic-focused meetups across the country as an extension of the committee’s Community Conversations.

This has been a tough three years and many of us were forced to deal with closures, cancellations, and disappointments in concentrated form along with all the other personal and financial trauma. Recovery seems uneven, or, to paraphrase Jim Morrison and the Doors --- been down so long seems like up to me. I’d like to build on the “up” part and work to initiate opportunities for further professional development and resource sharing. As someone who spent some time racing in various machines with engines, I believe in the mantra: the only road is on the road. So, I’d love to stay the course and do my part in helping the Guild remain strong, sustainable, flexible, and inclusive in its most generous application.

Committees

National Affairs (Chair), New Media, Publishing

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Bio

Danielle Wirsansky (Nominee) is a playwright, librettist, director, and dramaturg. She has served as an Ambassador for the Dramatists Guild in the Gulf Coast region, specifically in the Florida Panhandle, since 2021. Danielle also facilitates the Gulf Coast Theatre Writer’s Circle, a monthly virtual meeting where theatre writers around the globe can hear their work read and receive feedback.

She is currently a History PhD candidate at Florida State University, where her focus is using theatre as a platform for public history, or teaching the community about important historical events, figures, and themes through theatre. Her plays have been performed both nationally and internationally, from Florida State University to the Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust NYC to Sligo, Ireland.

Past professional administrative theatre experience includes serving as the Associate Managing Director for Lost Nation Theatre, a regional theatre in Vermont, the Producing Apprentice for Infinity Theatre Company, and a casting assistant for the English National Theatre of Israel. Additionally, she served as the founding Artistic Director of White Mouse Productions, a theatre company in Tallahassee geared towards social change, as well as the Marketing Director, before recently settling into the Managing Director position within the company. In the past, she was named a Young Theatremacher Fellow by the Alliance for Jewish Theatre and she has also been awarded the MRCE, URCAA, and IDEA grants from Florida State University towards her research in using theatre as a platform for public history.

In addition to being a member of the Dramatists Guild, Danielle is also a member of the Society for Military History, the Women in Intelligence Network, the North American Society of Intelligence History, and The Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender History. She also has an additional BA in Theatre, a BA in Creative Writing, and an MA in Modern European History.

Statement

Telling a story, making an impact, creating change—these are among the basic goals of any playwright. Though I have dabbled as a historian, academic, and arts administrator, my focus throughout each of these roles has been on playwriting and theatre-making, with a special focus on new works and social change. While I have not yet had the honor of serving on the Dramatists Guild Council, I have served as the Ambassador for the Panhandle of Florida within the Gulf Coast region and have formed and led the DG’s Gulf Coast Theatre Writer’s Circle. Not only do I bring creative knowledge and experience of theatre writing as a playwright, but I also bring to the table my experience as a director, dramaturg, producer, and arts administrator.

Connecting with the other playwrights in my area and providing them opportunities, from organizing a Footlights reading to producing a festival of works by local Gulf Coast playwrights, has made me realize the scope of the playwriting community I live in. Additionally, facilitating the Gulf Coast Theatre Writer’s Circle has also opened my eyes to amazing playwrights all over the world. Hearing new works, being in conversation with the writers of these pieces, and giving a platform for these works to be read, heard, and discussed has completely revolutionized my playwriting, reinvigorated my passion for arts administration, and made me into a better advocate for theatre writers. I continue to learn more with each session.

As a queer woman from a religious minority, it has been so meaningful to create opportunities and spaces through the Dramatists Guild that allow for theatre writers of all walks of life a place of safety and regard. This in turn has inspired me to continue to push and make a place for local and emerging playwrights and works, not only through the DG but in my own community where I serve as the Managing Director for a small theatre company dedicated to social change. My goal in serving on this council is not only to aid the DG in whatever ways I can but to also gain important and useful skills to assist playwrights on a more local level as well.

It has been an honor to be nominated for this council!

Tallahassee/Florida Panhandle DG Ambassador

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Western/Alaska Region

Bio

Andrew Creech (Nominee) is an award-winning writer, performer, and content creator, currently based in Seattle, WA. He is the creator of The Legacy Plays Project—a nine-play, multi-century-spanning meditation on the lives and journeys of Black Americans during pivotal moments of American History. Awards/Nominations: 2022 Semifinalist—Blue Ink Award, 2021 Winner and 2020 Finalist—Ashland New Plays Festival, 2021 Recipient—Grants for Artists' Progress Award, 2018 Recipient—4Culture Art Projects Grant, 2018 Gregory Awards People’s Choice Nominee for Outstanding New Play, 2014 Gypsy Rose Lee Award Nominee for Excellence in Performance of a Play as a Supporting Actor. Commissions: Currently working on a three-play commission from ACT Theatre and Trial & Error Productions.

His plays have been produced with companies including: Seattle Public Theater, Copious Love Productions, and Radial Theater Project, and have been workshopped, presented with ACT Theatre, and more. As a performer, Andrew has been on many major Seattle stages including: Seattle Repertory Theatre, ACT Theatre, Seattle Shakespeare Company, and Seattle Children’s Theatre. As a content creator, under the names “AndrewThaScribe” and "Papadontcreech," he has built a community of over 90,000 followers across all social media platforms, where he is known for his theatre industry analysis and hit comedy series Breaking News!.

Andrew holds a BFA in Theatre from Cornish College of the Arts. He is a proud member of both the Dramatists Guild of America and Actors' Equity Association. He’s passionate about telling stories which privilege a Black lens, create lead roles for Black actors, and add more Black narratives to the American theatre canon. Also, he's a full-time cat dad.

Statement

I was among the inaugural class of Regional Ambassadors, and proudly served in that role for six years. Under the leadership of, and in partnership with Kate Danley and Duane Kelly, I created educational programming, fostered community, and created networking events for our region. I’ve written for The Dramatist to keep our region in the national conversation and connected to the East Coast. I served on the board of Rain City Projects for two years, where I supported Pacific Northwest writers through networking events, writing retreats, and mini grants. And to address the lack of community and development opportunities during the pandemic shutdown, I helped develop the “New Plays, No Pants” Zoom-based play development program, which has continued to thrive in the post-pandemic climate. I create content on social media that both empowers playwrights to take control of their careers through tips and wisdom, and sparks urgent industry conversations about race, equity, and the modern challenges playwrights face. With my work, many director/playwright connections have been forged, theatre writers are finding confidence, support, and growth, and the needs of our region continue to be voiced. I’m excited by the opportunity to deepen that work by serving on this council.

Theatre writers are the foundation of our industry. It is from our work that the creative process for live performance begins. And I care deeply about the rights and treatment of all theatre writers. I am passionate about skills-building, business-oriented education, and empowering the next generation of theatre writers. The Guild is here to support playwrights at all levels of their careers. Being a Black emerging writer working to establish a career, myself, I’m uniquely attuned to the challenges that face emerging writers of color. I work to institute industry-wide standards of treatment, and push for new, innovative strategies to include the theatre writer in more aspects related to production. Marketing, outreach, and ticketing initiatives, for example, particularly around shows created by and for BIPOC communities. With our new works institutions vanishing during the pandemic, I look to create more resources and support initiatives that help theatre writers find pathways to sustainable careers through a steady flow of fellowships, residencies, grants, and other development opportunities that offer compensation.

I look forward to advocating for the rights of all theatre writers, while ensuring our region feels heard and as connected to New York as it can be.

Seattle Regional Ambassador

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Bio

Franky D. Gonzalez (Nominee) is a playwright and TV writer of Colombian descent, based in the Dallas area. He holds a BA in Theatre from the University of North Texas and has had his work featured throughout the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex where he served proudly as the Dramatists Guild Regional Representative in 2018. Nationally, his work has appeared with The Lark, the Sundance Institute, the Ojai Playwrights Conference, Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Ground Floor, the NNPN National Showcase of New Plays, the Latinx Playwrights Circle, The Sol Project (SolFest 2022), the Great Plains Theatre Conference, the Goodman Theatre (Live @ Five Series), Launch Pad at UC Santa Barbara, The New Harmony Project, Bishop Arts Theatre Center, Repertorio Español, LAByrinth Theater Company, Ars Nova (ANT Fest 2021), Dallas Theater Center, the William Inge Theatre Festival, Austin Latinx New Play Festival, Stages Repertory Theatre’s Sin Muros Latinx Theatre Festival, the Latino Theatre Company’s RE:Encuentro 2021: National Virtual Latina/o/x Theatre Festival, the Latinx Theatre Commons 2022 Comedy Carnaval, Seven Devils New Play Foundry, the HBMG Foundation National Winter Playwrights Retreat, Tofte Lake Center, Ignition Arts, Play4Keeps Podcast, the Antaeus Playwrights Lab, Clamour Theatre Company, Ammunition Theater Company, Greenway Court Theatre, the Cloud Factory, The Mid-America Theatre Conference, The Midwest Dramatists Conference, and the One-Minute Play Festival. Franky was a recipient of the Charles Rowan Beye New Play Commission, an MTC/Sloan Commission, the Risk Theatre Modern Tragedy Prize, co-recipient of the MetLife Nuestras Voces Latino Playwriting Award, won the Crossroads Project Diverse Voices Playwriting Initiative Award, the Judith Royer Award for Excellence in Playwriting, the Short+Sweet Theatre Festival Manila Best Overall Production Prize, and was a staff writer for the fourth season of 13 Reasons Why. He has also been a finalist for the New Dramatists residency, the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, San Diego REP Latinx New Play Festival, the Civilians R&D Group, The DVRF Playwriting Program, the Ashland New Play Festival, the Playwrights Realm Scratchpad Series, the Orchard Project Adaptation Lab, BETC Generations, the American Blues Theater Blue Ink Playwriting Award, the ScreenCraft Stage Play Competition, and a semi-finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, the Headwaters New Play Festival, the Dubai Short+Sweet Theatre Festival, and runner-up for the Alpine Fellowship. Most recently Franky was named the 4 Seasons Resident Playwright, a Sony Pictures Television Diverse Writers Program Fellow, the Bishop Arts Theatre Center Playwright-in-Residence, and a Core Writer with the Playwrights Center.

Statement

To say that I am an enthusiastic member of the Dramatists Guild may be underselling my deep feelings for this institution. When I first began my journey as a playwright, the Dramatists Guild was there to guide me through the world of submissions, offer advice whenever I needed help with the business of playwriting, and gave me mentorships and friendships that I cherish to this day. Put simply, the Guild allowed me to feel empowered in a time when I had no clear way forward as an emerging playwright.

I credit the Guild with being one of the most instrumental forces in granting me the career I have today. I owe a debt that cannot be repaid, but I have endeavored to do just that over the years. I have served first as an ambassador for the Guild to the Dallas-Fort Worth region where I would moderate our Facebook group, distribute leaflets to theatres and colleges in the region, and provided information to other members wanting to maximize their use of the Guild’s resources.

I was then able to rise up to the level of Regional Representative where I continued many of the same duties I held as an ambassador, but also helped to coordinate many of the DG Footlights readings held at the Bishop Arts Theatre Center and the Core Theatre, while also becoming a mentor to young and early-career dramatists seeking to grow in their craft.

I often tell my fellow playwrights that I want to be a resource to them. I have striven to be just that in everything I do. Whether I am able to have the great honor of serving on the Council will not change my view. I want to be a resource. A resource who wants to continue to give and help more playwrights reach their highest ambitions. I want to be for others what the Guild was to me in those earliest and most unsure days of my playwriting journey. Being on the Council will allow me to become, to my mind, the best possible resource to playwrights in my region and across the country.

I hope that I can be given the opportunity to serve and give back a small fraction of what the Guild has given to me through working on the Council.

Dallas/Fort Worth Regional Rep

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Midwestern/Mid-Atlantic Region

Bio

Cheryl Coons (Incumbent) has served for the past three years as the Regional Council member for the Dramatists Guild’s Midwest/MidAtlantic Region. Previously, she served for six years as the Dramatists Guild’s Chicago Regional Rep. She’s a mentor in the Dramatists Guild Institute’s Plays in Progress Program and teaches musical theatre courses for the DGI. Her work as a bookwriter/lyricist includes River’s End, which was developed at the National Music Theatre Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, the ASCAP Workshop, and the NAMT Festival, and honored with the Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards for Original Script and Original Score, the ASCAP Foundation Harold Arlen Musical Theatre Award, and the Theatre for the American Musical Award from the New York Music Theatre Festival. Other works include At Wit’s End (Carbonell Award for Best New Work), Sylvia’s Real Good Advice (Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work), Female Problems (After Dark Award for Best Music and Lyrics), and Phantom of the Country Opera (published by Music Theatre International). Her most recent work, The Woman in Question, was a featured selection of the American Music Theatre Project. She has taught courses in musical theatre writing at Northwestern University, Columbia College, and Chicago Dramatists. She has served on the board of directors of three theatre companies, including two terms on the board of the playwright service organization, Chicago Dramatists. She was a Resident Playwright at Chicago Dramatists from 2009- 2017. For eight years, she was Program Manager for Storycatchers Theatre’s Temporary Lockdown Ensemble, creating original theatre works with the young people at the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center.

Statement

Thank you for electing me to serve as your Regional Council member for the past three years. It has been a joy and an astonishing journey. When the current cohort of five Regional Council members was elected in February 2020, we had no idea what was just around the corner. Excited about our new roles, we’d already discussed forming the National Affairs Committee when…well, you know what happened in March 2020. Just as so many of you found creative ways of continuing to make theatre during the harrowing early months of the lockdown, our cohort sprang into action. Forming the National Affairs Committee gives us a place on the agenda in every Council meeting to report what’s happening across the country. (This was never formalized before!) In 2021, we created a series of Regional Town Hall events. Each of us hosted a meeting in our Region and attended all five events, listened to creative ideas and concerns from members, and gathered information to share with Council. We didn’t just listen and report. We took action to address requests and concerns that emerged from members across the country. (One example: I taught a two-part Zoom workshop for the Western Region, who requested more musical theatre programming.) In 2022, we redefined the Town Halls as Community Conversations. After listening to members in the 2022 Conversations, Larry Dean Harris and I, with input from the entire National Affairs Committee, created a survey, open to all DG members, about their experiences in finding productions of their work. (You’ll hear the results of that survey at the Annual Meeting.) Besides the National Affairs Committee, I also serve on the Education Committee. For Education Week programming last fall, I organized and moderated a panel of DG members who create theatre with incarcerated and other marginalized groups. Service to our national community of writers is what animates me. Connecting with our members inspires me. Collaboration with our National Affairs and Education Committees feels joyful, purposeful, creative, and impactful. Working on the National Council has been both a meaningful extension of my six years as Chicago’s Regional Rep, and the teaching I’ve done with the DG Institute since 2018. Speaking to student groups on behalf of the DG, I’m reminded of our responsibility to nurture the next generation of theatre artists. I would be honored and grateful to continue to serve as your Regional Council member.

Committees

Education, National Affairs

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Bio

Laurie Flanigan Hegge (Nominee) is a playwright, lyricist, and theatre artist from Minneapolis. She served for seven years as the Twin Cities Regional Rep, and currently serves as a member of the New Media Committee. She graduated from University of IL with a BFA in acting and came to writing as a company member at Northern Sky Theater in Door County, Wisconsin where she also studied intensively with Paul Sills. She calls Nautilus Music-Theater and History Theatre artistic homes. Her work includes: Dirty Business, Sweet Land, the musical, Boxcar, Twenty Days to Find a Wife, Hormel Girls, See Jane Vote, and Loose Lips Sink Ships. She is currently working on Prick, a new play for the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe on the Scottish witch trials in collaboration with MFA students from Edinburgh Napier University. She lives in the Twin Cities with her actor-husband and aerialist-daughter and gardens for kicks.

Statement

I served as Regional Rep for Minneapolis/St. Paul for seven years, and in that time, I came to fully appreciate how vast the American theatre’s ecosystem is and how each local community is a unique ecosystem unto itself. My fellow reps taught me that while we have common concerns and values, the American theatre writ large is not a monolith. The issues facing regional artists are deeply rooted in the smaller regions in which we live and work. My cohort’s commitment to serving their constituencies was grounded in the specific needs of their local members. Over the years, I’ve been continually grateful to the Guild for its commitment to making regional playwrights more visible and welcoming regional perspectives into broader conversations. In being nominated to run for this Council seat, I see the opportunity to continue the work I did as a rep, and while I live in Minneapolis, I see you—wherever you live in the Central region—and I welcome the opportunity to get to know you better.

I came to the Twin Cities via Chicago and Wisconsin, and identify as a Midwestern playwright. I’m a multi-hyphenate theatre artist: playwright, lyricist, actor, educator. I’ve been on both sides of commissioning work, all sides of developing work, on both sides of the audition table, and was on staff of a theatre when the COVID crisis hit, and our playing field shifted in an instant. I accepted the nomination to run for Council because my experience in the last few years has shown me that I have many useful tools in my toolbox, and I’ve found that my practical experience across multiple fronts has been helpful in the larger conversations I’ve been part of, including as a member of the New Media Committee at the Guild. I’d be honored to represent you on Council, should you choose to send someone to represent the Central Region from the Twin Cities—for the first time!

Committees

New Media

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Bio

Anita Gonzalez (Nominee) is a producer/director/librettist who directs, devises, and writes theatrical works focused on telling under-represented stories and histories, most recently for Gala Hispanic Theater, Boston Opera Collaborative, Chicago Dramatists, The Vagrancy, Brooklyn Tavern Theatre, and Houston Grand Opera’s Songs of Houston series. Her innovative stagings of cross-cultural experiences have appeared on PBS national television and at Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, the Working Theatre, Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre, New York Live Arts, Tribeca Performing Arts Center, and other national and international venues. Current projects include Kumanana about Afro-Peruvian activists Victoria and Nicomedes Santa Cruz, Finding the Light, an opera libretto about African American singers, Zora on My Mind about Black women’s empowerment, and Ybor City the Musical about Afro-Cuban cigar rollers in Tampa, Fl. Her devised works include The Living Lakes about Black and Latino migrations in the Mid-West, and The Snark about humanities’ fears of one another. Gonzalez believes the art of storytelling connects people to their cultures. Over 50,000 students have taken her massive open online courses Storytelling for Social Change and Black Performance as Social Protest on the Future Learn platform. Immersion in diverse experiences drives her teaching as much as it informs her theatrical writing. Gonzalez is a Professor of Performing Arts and African American Studies at Georgetown University and a co-Founder/co-Director of their Racial Justice Institute. She was previously an Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and a Professor of Theatre at the University of Michigan where she promoted interdisciplinary and intercultural performance initiatives. Her articles about performance histories and cultures have been published in the Radical History Review, Modern Drama, Theatre Research International, and Dance Research Journal. She has edited and authored four books: Performance, Dance and Political Economy (Bloomsbury), Black Performance Theory (Duke), Afro-Mexico: Dancing Between Myth and Reality (U-Texas Press), and Jarocho’s Soul (Rowan Littlefield). Additional essays about intercultural performance appear in the edited collections African Performance Arts and Political Acts, Black Acting Methods, Narratives in Black British Dance, The Community Performance Reade, and the Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theatre.

Anita is a member of the National Theatre Conference and the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab and sits on the Board of Directors of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation. She advocates for beautiful art crafted for social activism and consciousness raising.

Statement

Playwrights tell stories to change human understandings and the Dramatists Guild eases that path. Thank you for considering my nomination. The Dramatists Guild has nurtured my writing and professional development for over fifteen years, and I am deeply appreciative of the support the organization provides. Serving playwrights has become one of my passions because of the Guild. I have been a Regional Rep for Michigan, written articles for The Dramatist, and served on the Regional Affairs Committee. Effectively representing the diversity of voices – urban and rural - that comprise our region is important to me. Rich stories of communities emerge from multiple types of playwrights, and I would like to see production and training opportunities be easily available to youth, seniors, suburbanites, metropoles, and everything in between. I witness how regional and community theatres support the work of many of our storytellers, while others develop projects which reach commercial stages, digital platforms, and network industries. The Dramatists Guild has stake in protecting and advocating for writers in all of these areas.

Diversity is in my bones and my plays are grounded in African American, Caribbean, and Latinx experiences. I write for opera, dance theatre, the dramatic stage, and musical theatre. I’m interested in new forms, and I would like to work on committees developing protocols for advocacy in new genres of storytelling. The Guild can lead in supporting playwrights working both on and away from the two coasts. Serving on the Council would allow me to work more closely with other council members in advocating for the professional needs of a cross-section of members.

I am also an educator who has worked in performing arts education for two decades. I currently work as a co-Founding Director of the Racial Justice Institute at Georgetown University where I have come to appreciate even more how stories and narratives impact policy, law, health, and governmental decision making. Educating the public about the impact of the arts, while supporting those entering the field continues, to be important work. I am ready to do it.

Committees

Education, National Affairs

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Southern California/Hawaii Region

Bio

Diana Burbano (Nominee) was named as part of the Los Angeles Times “La Vanguardia” 2022. She is a Colombian immigrant, a playwright, an Equity actor, and a teaching artist. Diana’s play Ghosts of Bogotá premiered at Alter Theatre in 2020, just before the pandemic shutdown. Ghosts was produced at the Actors Theatre of Charlotte in 2022. Sapience opened at Moxie Theatre in San Diego in 2022. Fabulous Monsters, a Latinx Punk Rock play, will premiere at The Public Theatre of San Antonio, featuring the music of FEA, in 2023.

She was in the Geffen’s Writers Lab in 20-21 and has commissions with Center Theatre Group, Artists Repertory Theatre, Breath of Fire Latina Theatre Ensemble, HERO Theatre, and Livermore Shakespeare Festival. Residencies include Marfa Live Arts, Milagro Ingenio, Workshop Theatre Lab at Echo Theatre, and the Mercury Company for Artists Repertory.

As an actor, Diana played Amalia in Jose Cruz Gonzales' American Mariachi at South Coast Repertory and Arizona Theatre Company, Marisela in Isaac Gomez’s La Ruta at Artists Repertory, and Izzy in the world premiere of Julie Hébert’s Drunk at the Base of the Bohdi Tree for Mile High Theatre. You can also see her as Viv the Punk in the cult musical Isle of Lesbos.

Diana has been awarded the Advance Gender Equity in the Arts grant 2022, the Bay Area Rella Lossy Award, the Long Beach Arts Council Professional Artist Grant 2019, 2020, and was a 2021 Jane Chambers Awardee for excellence in Feminist Playwriting

Statement

Thank you for considering me for DG Council.

I am an immigrant. I was born in Colombia, but I don’t feel Colombian, I was brought up in America, but I don’t feel American. I struggled in school. I don’t hold any degrees, and for the longest time being a writer felt completely out of reach

I have been a theatre practitioner since I was 12 and have grown up during a time of major upheaval in our industry. Even so, I can list on one hand the parts in the traditional canon available to femme Latinx actors, and if I remove musical theatre, I only need a couple of digits. As an actor, I was most often cast in new play readings, because new plays were the place where I saw people like me come to life on the page, even if those pages didn’t often make the jump to the main stages.

Being a new play actor inspired me to become a playwright, and I strive to write plays about Latine people that explore our wholeness. I try to center stories not primarily on trauma, but on the search for joy.

I am the current Regional Rep for Southern California. We are a diverse and lively group in Southern California. Our talent pool is vast, but our opportunities for production in our own region are small and diminishing.

I have been a part of many developmental programs, reading festivals, and conferences, and I take very seriously the idea that we need to be generous with knowledge and opportunities and be more open to new voices. Giving opportunities to marginalized writers, listening with an open heart to the needs of individuals, and then using those ideas to create a stronger collective. We are stronger together and promoting equity and inclusion in the membership and in the wider theatre community will only make us more powerful, not less.

The Guild is here to protect the rights of the playwrights, and that means being able to stand up for one another. To be generous with new, previously unheard stories. To listen to the anger and the frustration and understand that the need to tell your OWN story is in all of us, and it is everyone’s duty to make sure no voice is silenced.

Committees

Political Engagement

Southern California Regional Rep

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Bio

Roger Q. Mason (Nominee) (they/them) was dubbed by TheaterMania as “a major voice in the theatrical vanguard.” Their playwriting has been seen on Broadway (Circle in the Square Reading Series); Off and Off-Off-Broadway; and regionally. Mason's critically-acclaimed world premiere of Lavender Men was recently lauded by the LA Times as “a daring theatrical talent on display...evoking the mingled visions of Suzan-Lori Parks, Jeremy O. Harris and Michael R. Jackson.”

As a filmmaker, Mason has been recognized by the British Film Institute, Lonely Wolf International Film Festival, SCAD Film Festival, AT&T Film Award, and Atlanta International Film Festival. Their films have screened in the US, UK, Poland, Brazil, and Asia. Mason holds degrees from Princeton University, Middlebury College, and Northwestern University. They are a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, Page 73’s Interstate 73 Writers Group, and Primary Stages Writing Cohort; the co-host of Sister Roger’s Gayborhood podcast; the host of This Way Out Radio's Queerly Yours: Portraits in Courage; and lead mentor of the Shay Foundation Fellowship, the New Visions Fellowship, and the Marsha P. Johnson Institute's Starship Fellowship.

Statement

Many years ago, playwright Tom Jacobson opined that Southern California was one of the most fertile artistic incubators for new theatrical work in the country. I believe he was absolutely right!

Our wealth of adventuresome writers, generous-spirited actors, and imaginative directors make for an ideal place to take risks on the page and then test out those blueprints within rooms where respect, courage, and creativity guide a play from script to stage. We benefit in Southern California from an abundant intimate theatre scene which places dramaturgical daring at the forefront of its mission statement; and I have seen first-hand the closeness between intimate and large theatrical formats grow in support, amplification, and collaboration over the years.

I am a native Angeleno, so the story of Southern California is the tale that inspired my work - it is a story of staunch entrepreneurship, powerful historical memory, and a sincere investment in community. I’ve worked not only as a produced and developed playwright in Southern California, but also as a mentor to emerging writers and on literary management teams in intimate and large theatres alike. These experiences have granted me both a boots-on-the-ground and a catbird-seat view of what we - the mighty playwrights of Southern California - need from each other, from our theatres, and from the American theatre at large.

When I first graduated from undergrad and returned to LA in the height of the Great Recession, I looked far and wide for artistic homes. One of the first places that took me under its wing was the Dramatists Guild. Our Southern California regional programming, including readings of new work, outings to support local playwrights work, and professional development workshops provided me with possibility models for the career I would eventually build for myself in our business. As a writer, community is paramount to our development as individual artists.

If granted the honor to represent our region within the DG Council, I would make sure that our needs are heard on a national level and that, locally, we maintain the sense of community that cultivates our strongest work as chroniclers of the human spirit.

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Bio

Randolph Reinholz (Nominee) is an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, is founding and Producing Artistic Director Emeritus of Native Voices at the Autry, the nation’s premier Equity theatre company dedicated exclusively to the development and production of new plays by Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and First Nations playwrights. Founded in 1994, NVA continues developing, producing, and touring critically acclaimed theatre to advance the Native narrative for social change. He is an accomplished producer, director, actor, playwright, and activist. Off The Rails, his bawdy and irreverent adaptation of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure had its world premiere and a sold out run at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival with Bill Rauch directing in 2017. His current play, Under A Big Sky, was developed at Seven Devils Playwrights Conference. Reinholz has produced and directed over 100 plays in the United States, Australia, Mexico, England, and Canada. He has received the Playwrights’ Arena’s Lee Melville Award, ATHE’s Ellen Stewart Award for Career Achievement in Professional Theatre, a MAP Grant, a McKnight Fellowship, the LA Drama Critics Circle Gordon Davidson Award, and numerous grants from the NEA, Ford Foundation, Shubert Foundation, City of LA Cultural Affairs, Disney, Sony, and LA County Arts Commission. Reinholz is President of the National Theater Conference, corporate secretary of the College of Fellows of the American Theatre, on the National Advisory Board for the Valdez Last Frontier Theatre Conference, and the La Jolla Playhouse Leadership Council. He served on the Los Angeles County, Cultural Equity and Inclusion Initiative Advisory Committee, and ATHE’s (Association of Higher Education) National Leadership Institute, Leadership Transition Team where he continues to serve as a faculty mentor. He is a founding member of the Fund for an Equitable Theatre Ecology (FETE) a Think Tank facilitated by the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Institute (a partnership of TCG and artEquity), the National Cultural Navigation Theater Project, and is a Core Partner of ArtChangeUS: Arts in a Changing America a five-year initiative based out of the California Institute of the Arts. Reinholz is a tenured Professor at San Diego State University, where he served as Head of Acting from 1997-2007, Director of the School of Theatre, Television, and Film from 2007-2012, and Director of Community Engagement and Innovation for the College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts from 2012-2015. He holds an MFA, Cornell University; BA, William Jewell College.

Statement

Thank you for considering me to rejoin the DG Council. I was honored to serve a brief term as a council member from 2019-2020.

Throughout my career, I've advocated for the inclusion of underrepresented artists on the American stage. Much of my work has focused on creating opportunities for Native and BIPOC theatre artists. I have a history of communicating across systematic barriers that once prevented underrepresented artists from being included. I have approached the work as a negotiation, aiming to keep all parties moving forward.

Collectively we are changing the face of American theatre and media by standing together and raising our voices, telling critical new stories, and producing work worthy of national attention.

The Guild has stood beside us. All playwrights benefit by being at the table. Access to the Guild's information and services has been vital. I know Native American writers have benefited by accessing the services the Guild offers. I would very much like to serve on the DG Council to continue to advocate for the inclusion of underrepresented artists on the American stage. Thank you for your consideration.

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Dramatists Guild

The Season in Review Issue 2022-2023

The 2023 Council Election

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