PLAYWRIGHTS
(Click the photo to see their MeetCute show, click their names to see their personal website!)
Kate Bailey is a playwright originally from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She received her BA in Theatre Performance from Louisiana State University and her MFA in Playwriting from the University of New Orleans. New Orleans full-length credits include STRAYS and Pleading 894. Los Angeles credits include A Surplus Of. She is the founder of Jolly Pig Project, a collective of writers in Los Angeles, and the Creator/Executive producer of the upcoming web series To and From.
Makeda Declet is an LA-based playwright, producer and actress. She attended New York University where she received her BFA in theater, studying at The Experimental Theater Wing, ITW Amsterdam, and The Classical Studio. Makeda's focus is on the truthful examination of black family dynamics, confronting the nuances of queerness and sexuality and exploring how to use myth and magical realism as channels for healing. Her most recent plays include Service/Play, HAMMER, and Judith. She is a 2019 HBO All-Access finalist. Makeda is also a member of SAG/AFTRA, AEA, EST/LA's New West Playwright's group, a MADlab development program playwright and an Echo Theater Company member.
Daniel Hirsch is a playwright, screenwriter, and journalist based in Los Angeles who has also called Massachusetts, the Bay Area, and Pittsburgh home. His theatrical work has appeared at City Theatre, Custom Made Theatre, the Asylum Theater of Las Vegas, Bay One Acts Festival, Playground LA, and has been a semi-finalist in the San Francisco Playwright's Foundation Bay Area Playwrights Festival. He is a two-time recipient of a screenwriting prize from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. He wrote the libretto for a new opera called ID, Please with composer Soosan Lolavar which was performed at Tête à Tête Opera Festival. His journalism has appeared in Slate, San Francisco Magazine, SFGate, and The Bold Italic and he has been a recipient of a Society for Professional Journalism award. He has an MFA in dramatic writing from Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama and a BA from Stanford University. danielhirsch.net
Maya Macdonald is a current playwriting fellow at The Playwrights Realm. Her plays include: Brunch (Honorable Mention, The Relentless Award, Semi-Finalist, Theatre503’s Playwriting Award in London), Three Anne Franks (Finalist, Rattlestick Playwrights Commission), Raw Pasta (Semi-Finalist, The O’Neill and Seven Devils Playwrights Conference), Leave the Balcony Open (Finalist, Princess Grace Award). Maya is a member of the 2020 Project Y Theatre Company’s Playwrights Group. She received her BA from Bennington College, and an MFA from Hunter College under the guidance of Annie Baker, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and Brighde Mullins where she received the Irv Zarkowr Award for Excellence.
Rosie Narasaki is a Los Angeles-based playwright and actor. As an actor, recent highlights include Little Women with Playwright's Arena, and Two Mile Hollow and In Love and Warcraft with Artists at Play. She has also appeared on SHAMELESS, WISDOM OF THE CROWD and FOR THE PEOPLE. As a writer, her work has been developed and produced by Becky and Baldwin, the David Henry Hwang Writers Institute, hereandnow theatre company and more. She is a member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre/LA's New West Playwrights and holds a BA in Creative Writing from Scripps College. In her spare time, she is the managing editor for TotalBeauty.com.
CELINE SONG's play ENDLINGS received its world premiere in 2019 at American Repertory Theater. It was selected for the 2018 O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, and it was placed on the 2017 Kilroys list. Celine is a member of the Public Theater’s 2016-2017 Emerging Writers Group, Ars Nova’s 2014-2015 Play Group, and The Orchard Project's inaugural NYC Greenhouse 2018. She was a Playwrights Realm Writing Fellow from 2017-2018, a 2014 & 2016 Great Plains Theatre Conference Playlab Playwright, and she was a 2017 semifinalist for the P73 Playwriting Fellowship. Her play TOM & ELIZA was a semifinalist for the American Playwriting Foundation's 2016 Relentless Award. Celine has been awarded residencies, fellowships, and commissions from MTC/Sloan, Sundance, the Millay Colony for the arts, the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the Edward F. Albee Foundation. She holds an M.F.A. from Columbia. Celine is currently a staff writer on Amazon's The Wheel of Time, and she is developing a project for television with Diablo Cody and Beth Behrs.
Amanda Black is a southern playwright originally from New Orleans Louisiana. She has
a B.A. in Theatre from Columbus State University. Where her focus was playwriting and
Creative Writing. Her one-act play Aunt Katrina was workshopped in Atlanta at the Horizon
Theatre’s Young Playwrights Festival. It then went on to be a third place contender in the
Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival for playwriting. Aunt Katrina also became
the first original play produced in Columbus State University’s One-Act Theatre Festival. Her
full-length plays often explore the humor, and violence that exists with in the black woman’s
identity in America, while playing with the myth and magic of her southern roots. Amanda is
currently pursuing a MFA in Dramatic Writing at the University of Southern California.
Amanda Black
Anna Fox is an alliterative amalgamation of performer/playwright and aspiring astrologer. Her work has been seen at The Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Sam French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival, The Last Frontier Theater Conference, Fusion Theater Company, Live Girls! Theatre, Theater Masters National MFA Playwriting Competition and more. Her plays have been recorded for soundplay.media’s Bare Wire Theater Podcast, and are published by Samuel French, The Dionysian and Bare Fiction Literary Magazine. She is a member of EST LA’s New West Playwriting Group, has been a MacDowell Fellow, A Women in the Creative Arts Scholar at The Cabins, a Monson Arts Fellow, and a Tennessee Williams Scholar at the Sewanee Writers Conference. She was a 2019 Ingram New Works Lab semi-finalist at Nashville Rep and is in the process of publishing an anthology of astrologically-themed plays entitled Retrograde. BS Skidmore College. MFA UCLA, where she currently teaches playwriting. www.annapfox.com.
Aja Houston hails from the Bay Area and currently resides in Los Angeles. She received her Bachelor of Theatre Arts Degree from Pitzer College and her MFA in Dramatic Writing Degree from the USC School of Dramatic Arts. Aja creates with passion, politics, and magic to build off-kilter, whimsical worlds that humanize the Black diaspora. Some notable works: Journey to Alice (Eugene O’Neill Theatre Conference Semi-Finalist 2019, Inkwell Theatre’s Max K. Lerner Fellowship Winner 2018), Waiting (4,380,000 Hours and Counting, Inkwell Theatre’s Max K. Lerner Fellowship Winner 2019, Workshop Production, USC New Works Festival, 2018), The Flight of Emina and Zubaida, commissioned by Playwright’s Arena and The Adam Mickiewicz Institute (Iron Tongues Staged Reading Festival 2017), Floating On Credit (Published by The Dionysian Issue 02), Acirfa (Podcast Recording for Play x Play 2015) Aja is a proud member of The Dramatist Guild.
Roger Q. Mason is a Black, Irish, Filipino, plus-sized, queer, gender non-conformist writer/performer of color. To him, playwriting is a catalyst for visibility and inclusion. Mason's work has played at Access Theatre, Flea Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, New Group Theatre, McCarter Theatre Center, Ensemble Studio Theatre/LA, Son of Semele Theatre, Chicago Dramatists, Kraine Theatre, and American Theatre of Actors. He's been commissioned by Hook and Eye Theatre, Company of Angels, Steep Theatre, The Fire This Time Festival and Serenbe Playhouse. Mason was a finalist for the ScreenCraft Stage Play Contest and Lark Playwright's Week. He was a semi-finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights' Festival and Shonda Rhimes' Unsung Voices Fellowship. Mason holds an MFA in Writing from Northwestern University, an MA in English from Middlebury College, and a BA in English and Theatre from Princeton University. He is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild of America. For more info: www.rogerqmason.com
Brian Otaño is a bi-coastal playwright and screenwriter. He is currently developing new plays with Geffen Playhouse Writers Room, CTG Writers Workshop and IAMA Theater Company. Most recently, he co-wrote You Across From Me, the 42nd Annual Humana Festival PTC show. Full-length plays include The Dust, Dolores Slayborne, Tara, Zero Feet Away and The Dooley Street Trilogy. In New York, his plays have been performed, developed and workshopped with NYTW, Roundabout Theatre Company, Page 73, Ars Nova, Atlantic Theater Company, New Dramatists, INTAR, LAByrinth, LARK Play Development Center, The Amoralists, Judson Memorial Church and SPACE on Ryder Farm. His first short film Call Me Daddy (directed by Amanda DeSouza) is a two-time award winner (Best Narrative Short, The Women's Film Festival and Best Comedy at The Official Latino Film Festival). Residencies/Fellowships: NHMC TV Writers Fellowship, Page 73’s Interstate 73 Writers Group, New York Theater Workshop 2050 Fellowship, New Dramatists Van Lier Fellowship, ArsNova’s Playgroup. Education: BFA, Dramatic Writing (SUNY Purchase).
Ryan Stevens is an emerging playwright currently pursuing their MFA in Playwriting from UCLA and hailing originally from Belton, South Carolina. Ryan’s play Player King was published by StageScripts, Ltd. They have previously worked with Great Plains Theatre Conference, South Carolina Lab Theatre, Silver Spring Stage, Whiskey Radio Hour, Hollywood Fringe Festival, Shakespeare Company at UCLA, and Green Room Productions.
Megan Breen is a playwright/poet in Los Angeles. She has a BFA in Dramaturgy
from The Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago, and an MFA in
Dramatic Writing from USC’s School of the Dramatic Arts. Her plays explore
visceral, lyrical worlds and have been produced in Los Angeles, Orange County,
Chicago, Miami, Virginia and D.C. Her screenplay for Ron Hanks’ short film Dirt
Eaters premiered at Cannes’ 2015 Court Métrage, and her short play Sexy Popcorn was selected for and published in The Best of Playground 2015 – Los Angeles. She most recently wrote the libretto for a primitive opera ripped from the Hecuba myth –
Cynosemma: A Dirge from the Dog’s Tomb – for her company with three other USC
SDA alumni, By the Souls of Our Feet, in collaboration with O-Lan Jones’ Overtone
Industries. She teaches dramatic literature and playwriting at The New York Film
Academy in Los Angeles.
Lucy Gillespie is an Anglo-American playwright, screenwriter and essayist. Her digital series UNICORNLAND featured in Glamour Magazine, Rolling Stone, NPR’s All Things Considered, and Last Call with Carson Daly. As a playwright, Lucy’s award-winning play KEEPING UP WITH THE PROZOROVS sold out at the Hollywood Fringe in 2018. Her plays have been developed in NYC by Ensemble Studio Theater, Naked Angels, Caps Lock, [the claque], PS.122, 3rd Kulture Kids, Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, FullStop Collective. Full-length productions include: THE FORUM ([the claque], 2015), ONE OF US (EST Bloodworks, 2014), OUTFOXED (FullStop Collective, 2012). Lucy also writes essays for Together.Guide. An alum of Obie-award winning Youngblood Playwrights Group, Lucy has held residencies at MacDowell and Byrdcliffe. She currently has several TV and film projects in development, and her new play SON OF A BITCH premieres in HFF19!
Tova Katz is a queer, genre-bending lyricist-composer, writer and performer. She’s performed across NYC with her musical work featured at La Mama, Ars Nova, 54 Below and Joe’s Pub. Select LA credits include the west coast premiere of her original award-winning solo dark musical comedy See You at the Funeral! (Broadwater Main Stage, 2019); she composed and music directed a reading of Menstruation: A Period Piece by Miranda Rose Hall (Center Theatre Group, We the Women Collective, 2020), with a full production set for 2022 with Big Little Theater Company. Last year, Tova wrote an irrevevrent, queer contemporary Western short musical film called Dina (The Barn, Jer Adrianne Lelliott), gearing up to film this fall. Tova is currently developing the new musical Beneath the Bowtie with collaborators Alexandra Kalinowski and Katie Lindsay in the Geffen Writers’ Room. Imagination saves her life every day. ig: @_tovakatz_ | tovakatzartist.com | SAG•AFTRA | AEA | ASCAP
Carene is an actress, writer, singer, educator, and proud Angelena. Selected stage: Pericles, Twelfth Night (Independent Shakespeare Co.), Troy (Hero Theatre), The Three Musketeers (PVPA), Señor Plummer's Final Fiesta (Rogue Artists Ensemble), American Asylum (Edinburgh Fringe), Macbeth (Northern Stage). Film: Ceci, Boys About Town, The Girl in the Red Dress. She is a Hero Theatre Company Member and Associate Member of Sacred Fools, where she has written and performed with We the People Theater Action. She wrote and starred in her play Number 12 Looks Just Like the Sunken Place, which was produced at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Season one of her Amazon Prime exclusive web series Just Roommates is now available to stream. She received her training from Dartmouth College and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA).
Aidaa Peerzada (she/her) is a writer and theatre-maker who grew up between Baltimore, Maryland, and Lahore, Pakistan. Workshops of her original work include Children of the Wise (Prop Theatre), SHINING (The New Roots Theater Festival; SFBATCO), One Googol, and One (SFBATCO). She co-wrote the book and story for the original musical Sunflowered, which will premiere in Northern Sky Theatre’s 2022 season. She was a semi-finalist for the 2020 Bay Area Playwrights Festival and the Jerome Fellowship with The Playwrights Center. Aidaa’s performance credits as an actor include Marin Theater Company, The Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Illinois Shakespeare Festival, Utah Shakespeare Festival, Steppenwolf Theatre, American Players Theatre, the HBO series Girls, and the web series Blank My Life. Aidaa is a graduate of the Baltimore School for The Arts, and she holds a BFA in Acting from the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama.
Nathan Striefel is an LA based actor and writer. He created and acted in the web series East Hollywood Psychic, and has written and produced dozens of comedy shorts. His original content can be found on his YouTube Channel - @NathanStreifel. He also co-hosts the weekly entertainment podcast 'This Is Happening!’. Recent acting credits include LA —> Vegas (Fox) and Glow (Netflix). He has a BA in Theatre and Psychology from Western Washington University, and an MFA in Acting from DePaul University.
Meghan Brown is an Ovation Award-winning playwright, librettist, and screenwriter based in Los Angeles. Full-length plays include The Tasters (Rivendell Theater, JAW at Portland Center Stage, IGNITION at Victory Gardens, Kilroy’s List honorable mention), and The Pliant Girls (winner of the 2014 Ovation Award for Playwriting for an Original Play). Meghan wrote the lyrics for the song cycle Untuned Ears Hear Nothing but Discord which premiered at Lincoln Center as part of In Need of Music: The Songs of Ben Toth with Tony Award-winner Lindsay Mendez (Carousel, Dogfight) as Emma Goldman. Current projects include rock musical These Girls Have Demons with Pittsburgh CLO (music by Sarah Taylor Ellis), and wild west musical Cowboy Elektra with Rogue Artists Ensemble (music by Z. Lupetin). Film work includes the screenplays for romcom Ambrazilica and the film adaptation of The Kill-or-Dies.
Sigrid Gilmer makes black comedies that are historically bent, totally perverse, joyfully irreverent and concerned with issues of identity, pop culture and contemporary American society. Sigrid burst onto the national theater scene with her play Harry and the Thief, an action film/historical/time travel play about a thief who is blackmailed into traveling back in time to deliver a cache of arms to Harriet Tubman. It has since been produced across the country, including runs at the Pavement Group (Chicago), the Know Theatre (Cincinnati), and the Skylight Theatre (LA). Additional select works include Slavey (Clubbed Thumb), Seed: A Weird Act of Faith, It’s All Bueno (Cornerstone Theater Company), Frilly, and White 3: Manifestdestinyland. Sigrid is also on the writing team of the acclaimed Black Women: State of the Union. Sigrid is a winner of the Map Fund Creative Exploration Grant, the James Irving Foundation Fellowship and is a USA Ford Fellow in Theatre. Sigrid has an MFA in Writing for Performance from Cal Arts, where she was mentored by Suzan-Lori Parks. She resides in Los Angeles.
Henry Alexander Kelly is a Nicaraguan-American playwright who is ecstatic to be making his playwright MeetCute LA debut! His one-act Burn Her, a comedic take on the Salem Witch trails and the full length play have been produced/read at Q Youth Foundation and Ensemble Studio Theatre Los Angeles (ESTLA) He is company member of Hero Theatre and ESTLA where he is also a part of the New West Playwrights Group who have helped him develop his newest play Bingo?! He is currently in development of a new musical and a T.V. series with his amazing team at ATN Entertainment!
Kate Mickere is a playwright, screenwriter, and essayist originally from Scranton, Pennsylvania. Her plays include: Nurse Cadden (comissioned by The Vagrancy), A Banshee Killed My Boyfriend (The Last Frontier Theatre Conference) and Mod Party (Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, KCATCF Region II Ten-Minute Play Award). Her screenplay, Capturing the Stars, won the Alfred P. Sloan Student Screenwriting Award and received an Honorable Mention for the Sloan/Tribeca Grand Jury Prize. As an essayist, Kate has been published in The Los Angeles Times, XO Jane, and The Awl. She wrote two monologues for the collection “Teen Girls’ Comedic Monologues That Are Actually Funny,” published by Applause Books. She holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from Carnegie Mellon University, where she was the recipient of the Steven Bochco Fellowship. She was a member of The Vagrancy’s 2018-2019 Playwright’s Group.
Christina Quintana (CQ) is a writer with Cuban and Louisiana roots. This year, her play CITIZEN SCIENTIST garnered second prize for Barrington Stage Company’s inaugural Burman New Play Award and was shortlisted for the Neukom Institute Literary Arts Award in Playwriting. Other plays include: AZUL (Southern Rep), SCISSORING (INTAR, now available from Dramatists Play Service), EVENSONG (APAC), and ENTER YOUR SLEEP (Yale Cabaret). The recipient of fellowships from MacDowell, Queer/Art, Playwrights Realm, and Van Lier New Voices at the Lark, CQ is a current member of the WP Lab and a staff writer on the new ABC series, THE BAKER AND THE BEAUTY, premiering in 2020. For more, visit cquintana.com or follow her at @cquintanatown
Christopher Sullivan is a playwright, screenwriter, director, and producer. His work has been seen Off Broadway at the Ensemble Studio Theatre, where he is a former member of the Obie-Award winning Youngblood group, as well as The Flea Theatre, The Tank, Theatre Row, NYU, Death by Audio, Cake Shop, Silent Barn, and elsewhere. He is a recipient of the Hudson Memorial Award and holds an MFA from USC’s John Wells Writing for Screen and Television Division, as well as a BFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. His play BEST FRIEND recently won an Encore Producers Award at the Hollywood Fringe Festival. His web series Guess I'm a Ghost has been featured at DC Web Fest, SeriesFest, and is now streaming on Vimeo.
Long time actor first time playwright César has put his knowledge of pop culture and theater education from East Los Angeles College to good use by writing a playful story about finding romance in person when the digital hookup culture is prevalent. He’s always either auditioning, working or writing. César also uses his skills to give back to his community by bringing theater education to the kids in his neighborhood with the hopes of instilling a sense of confidence and pride with kids who might not have the most opportunities.. He loves art in all its forms and is grateful for the support of his family, friends and his partner Manee.
Christine Hamilton-Schmidt's other plays include Charlotte Stay Close (will receive its world premiere at EST/LA this fall), Trust Me, Possible Deranged Lunatic, and Line. She runs the New West Playwrights program out of Ensemble Studio Theatre/Los Angeles and is a company member. She received her BFA in Dramatic Writing from SUNY Purchase. She also makes coffee part-time and will probably be a barista until she is 50. Follow her on Instagram: @christinehamiltonschmidt.
Penelope Lowder is a playwright, screen writer and novelist. Her play, West Adams, was the L.A. Times Critic’s Pick for 2020. Her other works include Water, The Follicle Prison War, 15 Minutes, Reaching Autonomy, The Third Day, Unit Hope Wants to Vote, Show Me To Shondas and Benton Way. Her commissioned monologue for Pathway To The Ballot Box at Historic Huguenot Street debuted in the spring of 2020. Her films, “15 Minutes” and “4Closure” have been screened at the Women of African Descent Film Festival in New York as well as Indie Film Festivals. Her novel, Three Seconds of Hell, about her father’s days in a African-American motorcyle club in the 1950’s south was released in 2017 by World Stage Press. Ms. Lowder is a University of Southern California alumni, a current member of Center Theatre Group Writer’s Workshop and Skylight Playwrights Lab, SkyLAB.
Charlotte Miller’s plays include: Thieves (Rattlestick), Barn (Rising Phoenix Rep), Worst Year Ever (NY fringe), Ugly Little Sister (NYU Odets Commission), Raising Jo (Theater Row), and Sherry and Vince (Echo) among others. Her plays have been workshopped by IAMA, PlayPenn, Hudson Stages, Peoples Light, Inkwell, Labyrinth, and Rattlestick.
Kait Schuster is native of Los Angeles and graduated from the Conservatory at the Atlantic Theater Company. Her webseries, OH, LIZA, which she co-wrote, produced, and starred in, has been praised by platforms such as IndieWire and the New Media Film Festival. Additionally, she’s written and directed two short films, MA’AM and The Last Time She Slept Over, and has starred in a selection of short and feature films. As a live performer, she’s a regular at the hot queer series “Sorority” in Silverlake, has appeared in the popular show, “Thank You For Coming Out”, and her performance art has been seen at the Hammer Museum. She’s also performed alongside the famed Martha Rosler at the MoMa (NYC.) Her stand-up comedy career has led her to venues such as The Comedy Store, Flappers, and the Riot Grrl Comedy Festival. For Scooter. @kaitschuster
Julie Taiwo Oni is a Nigerian-American playwright and English professor. She sees her journeys as a storyteller and educator as interconnected, for the plays that she crafts are inspired by areas of focus in her courses, from American pop culture to African diaspora to mixed-race identity. Recent productions include Tether for Doorway Arts Ensemble in Washington, D.C., 2011; Day’s Pay with Moveable Piece, 2011; nat&EM for Company of Angels, 2013; BUNK and Demin for Son of Semele’s Company Creation Festival, 2014 and 2015; Ethiop-ica and Corked for The Robey Theatre’s Paul Robeson Theatre Festival, 2014 and 2018; and The Hotel Play, a collaborative project for Playwrights' Arena, 2017. Oni is Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Pepperdine and also a member of the inaugural Semele Scribes workshop for Son of Semele Theatre. Her current research and writing focus on global Black albinism and African-American horticulture. MFA, USC School of Dramatic Arts. www.julietaiwooni.com
Jesús Daniel Cruz is a Mexican artist, writer, and poet living in Los Ángeles who identifies as LGBTQ. As a Daca recipient, the immigrant and gay experience can be discerned in his works. He has worked with the Q-Youth foundation as an Eastside Queer Stories Festival writer, as part of their playwriting program and poetry program. He has been a Pride Poet for the city of West Hollywood during Pride month and has worked for Houses On The Moon theater company as a live storyteller in a cohort with story tellers from Mumbai. He has been a performer in Artistas En Acción, a show dedicated to raise funds for migrant children in the San Fernando Valley. His work has been featured on InQluded magazine and Acentos Review and deals with themes of love, loss, and injustice within the queer and Hispanic community. More of his work and short stories are also available on Amazon Kindle.
DJ Hills is a writer and theatre artist from the Appalachian Mountains. Their plays have been produced and/or developed at Single Carrot Theatre (we broke up.), The Kennedy Center (Juniper Jones and the Rocket She Built), Carnegie Mellon University (Adult Things), and the University of California Los Angeles (A Driving Play). Their poetry chapbook, Leaving Earth, will be published by Split Rock Press in Fall 2022. Other writing appears most recently in FreezeRay Poetry, wigleaf, and SmokeLong Quarterly. Find them online at www.dj-hills.com.
Santi MacLean is a Peruvian-American playwright and actor from Riverside, CT. He is very excited to be working with MeetCute LA for the first time! He graduated from Emerson College, where he had two of his full length plays produced (Surprise Party & I Hate You). Last summer he taught a playwriting course at Middlebury College's Bread Loaf School of English. Most recently he was in the short film, UGGO by Sean Bannon. Check out more of his writing and acting work at santimaclean.com
Scott Mullen is a playwright and screenwriter, a two-time winner of Amazon Studios' screenwriting contest, whose thrillers THE SUMMONING and IN BROAD DAYLIGHT aired on TV One. His short plays have been produced hundreds of times around the world. An evening of his comic plays, A NIGHT OF S.M., had a two-week run in Hollywood.
Haley Schwartz is a playwright, actor, and teaching artist drawn to work that celebrates queerness, grapples with climate crisis, and/or investigates loss in its absurd and unpredictable forms. She holds an MFA in Acting from Brown/Trinity Rep (’20) where she received the Antonio Cirino Memorial Scholarship, a Shubert Foundation Award, and the David Wickham Prize in Playwriting. Her play Moonbox and her solo show Bindings both had workshop performances at Brown/Trinity Rep. Bindings holds a Popular Choice Award and a Curator’s Pick Award from Irondale’s On Women Festival. Haley has acted with regional theaters across the country and starred in films appearing at NewFilmmakers Los Angeles, Los Angeles Short Film Festival, Cinema Los Angeles, and Oregon Short Film Festival. She taught Acting and Directing at Brown University and is Program Associate and Lead Faculty Artist at Beyond the Page, an initiative that brings actors into undergraduate classrooms across disciplines to facilitate embodied, personalized, and inclusive learning. She holds a B.A. in Political Theory from Brown University (’17).
Daysha Veronica is a playwright, spoken word poet, social media influencer, and digital media producer. Her plays have been workshopped at UC San Diego and UCLA, and her digital work has appeared on Hulu, Amazon Prime, BuzzFeed, Refinery29, and The Huffington Post. She has won the Dr. Floyd Gaffney National Award in Playwriting from UC San Diego (2014), The New York Screenplay Contest Grand Prize for Stage Plays (2014), The Las Vegas Screenplay Contest Grand Prize for Stage Plays (2015), The Office of Black Student Affairs of the Claremont College’s Dr. Samella Lewis Artist Award (2014), the Stage Spirit: Dini Ostrov Award in Playwriting from UCLA (2019), the Judith and Milton R. Stark Scholarship for playwriting from UCLA (2019), and was a finalist for the Kentucky Women Writers Conference Prize for Women Writers (2015), and the Beverly Hills Screenplay Contest for Stage Plays (2015). She currently attends the UCLA MFA playwriting program, and is a writing fellow for Playground LA’s Monday Night Reading series for the 2019-2020 season.