Eleanor Burgess‘ (Playwright) plays include The Niceties, Start Down, Chill, and These Dying Generations. Her work has been developed or produced at Manhattan Theatre Club, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Alliance Theatre, Huntington Theatre Company, the Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Portland Stage Company, Centenary Stage Company, the Lark Play Development Center, the Kennedy Center/NNPN MFA Playwrights Workshop, Everyday Inferno, Ryder Farm and Luna Stage. She’s been the recipient of the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Award, an EST/Sloan commission, a Keen Teens Commission, and the Susan Glaspell Award for Women Playwrights. She grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts, studied history at Yale College, and recently completed the M.F.A in Dramatic Writing at NYU/Tisch.

Michael Hollinger (Playwright) is the author of Ghost-Writer, Opus, Tooth and Claw, Red Herring, Incorruptible, An Empty Plate in the Café du Grand Boeuf, and Tiny Island, all of which premiered at Philadelphia’s Arden Theatre Company. These plays have enjoyed numerous productions around the country, in New York City, and abroad. His musical A Wonderful Noise (co-authored with Vance Lehmkuhl) has received the Frederick Loewe Award for Musical Theatre, the “In the Spirit of America” Award from the Barbara Barondess MacLean Foundation, and a developmental production at Creede Repertory Theatre. His translation/co-adaptation (with Aaron Posner) of Cyrano de Bergerac premiered in 2011 at the Folger Theatre in Washington, D.C. Other awards include a Harold & Mimi Steinberg New Play Citation from the American Theatre Critics Association, a Roger L. Stevens Award from the Kennedy Center’s Fund for New American Plays, a Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award, an Edgerton Foundation New American Plays Award, the F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Theatre Artist, three Barrymore Awards for Outstanding New Play, a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award, nominations for Lucille Lortel and John Gassner Awards, and fellowships from the Independence Foundation, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Michael is an Associate Professor of Theatre at Villanova University, and a proud alumnus of New Dramatists.

Joe Landry’s (Playwright) plays have been produced across the country and internationally, and include It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, Reefer Madness, Vintage Hitchcock: A Live Radio Play, Eve & Co., Beautiful, Hollywood Babylon, and Numb. Mr. Landry attended Playwright’s Horizons/NYU, founded Second Guess Theatre Company in Connecticut and is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America. He is currently developing new projects for the stage and screen.

Kate Hawley (Playwright, lyricist) received her theatrical training at UC Berkeley, The American Conservatory Theatre, UCLA and UCSC. Her original plays, Messages, Simply the Thing She Is, and Diva Days have all won or placed in playwriting competitions in Michigan, North Carolina, Virginia, and California and have been performed in theaters throughout California. In 1997 her adaptation of Ostrovsky’s The Forest was premiered at Shakespeare Santa Cruz. Her screenplay Who Would You Rather Sleep With? won first prize at the Austin Film Festival in 1998. In 2001, her second screenplay, Fall Back, was a finalist. In 1999 she wrote the book and lyrics for Cinderella which premiered at Shakespeare Santa Cruz and went on to be produced by Sacramento Theatre Company, Stages Theatre (Houston), The Penobscot Opera House, Peninsula Youth Theatre, as well as theatres in NY, NJ, and Maryland. Other SSC holiday plays include The Wind in the Willows, Gretel & Hansel, The Princess and the Pea, and Sleeping Beauty all in collaboration with former SSC artistic director Paul Whitworth. Her latest play, Complications from a Fall was produced by the Jewel Theatre in 2015. Coming oh Age will be produced by the Jewel Theatre in 2018.

Fran Charnas (Playwright) has worked as a producer, director, choreographer, writer, and teacher. Her award-winning musical, THE ALL NIGHT STRUT!, has toured extensively, performed with the Boston Pops and the Glenn Miller Orchestra and was nationally broadcast on PBS-TV. She has just recently completed a sequel, IN THE GROOVE and is co-author and director of SHEBOPPIN, a coming of age in the 60s musical about four girls who work in a beauty shop. Currently, Fran is at work on a musical based on the life of the legendary singer and actress, Ethel Waters. A professor at the Boston Conservatory, she teaches Musical Theatre Performance and leads workshops in song interpretation and popular American vocal and dance styles of the twentieth-century. Fran also works with NOMTI (New Opera and Musical Theatre Initiative) as a director and adjudicator.