Mark Valdez is an artist, cultural organizer, and consultant who partners with communities, organizations, civic institutions, and others, using theater and creative tools to address community needs and to lift up community voices and stories.
In 2022, became the Artistic Director of Mixed Blood Theater in Minneapolis. For Mixed Blood he conceived and produced 12x12, a community-based project that brought 12 artists in collaboration with 12 neighborhoods to create new, short performances. Mist recently, he directed Itamar Moses' play, The Ally, named one of the best productions of 2024 by the Star Tribune.
Mark is the recipient of various awards including the Johnson Award for Artists Transforming Communities, an inaugural Legacy Artist fellowship from the California Arts Council, and the Zelda Fichandler Award.
Ashley Sparks
ashley sparks is an itinerant theater maker, facilitator, and convening curator. sparks co-directs the theater ensemble Mark-n-Sparks alongside Mark Valdez. Their work is a constellation of ensemble theater practice, cross-sector collaborations, and arts-based facilitation that rehearses the creation of new worlds, builds civic imagination, and deepens our collective capacity for engaging in democracy.
Ensemble practice is core to their work and they have collaborated with Cornerstone Theater Company, Touchstone Theatre, Artspot Productions, PearlDamour, and Mondo Bizarro.
sparks co-curated the Network of Ensemble Theaters MicroFest USA, the Highlander Center’s 90th Homecoming Celebration, and over a dozen national convenings for housing/energy/environmental justice advocates. sparks curates convenings using a director’s eye to create immersive durational movement-building events that weave arts into traditional policy spaces.
Michael Shayan
Michael Shayan is an Emmy Award-nominated, Harvard trained writer, performer and illusionist. Recognized by NBC as a “rising star in comedy,” Shayan was recently honored in Out Magazine’s prestigious OUT100 list of the “most impactful and influential LGBTQ+ visionaries.” Following sold out, record-breaking runs, his acclaimed solo play Avaaz is currently on national tour, directed by Tony-nominee Moritz von Stuelpnagel. The play is nominated for three Helen Hayes Awards, including Outstanding Lead Performer and Outstanding Production.
A Fellow with the Sundance Institute and Lambda Literary, Shayan’s plays have been produced and developed at Audible, South Coast Repertory, Denver Center, Geffen Playhouse, The Olney Theatre, New York Stage and Film, Ojai Playwrights Conference, SPACE on Ryder Farm, La MaMa, and Rattlestick, among others. He was a writer and Consulting Producer on the Emmy-winning Book of Queer, and got his start in TV on the Emmy-winning We’re Here, both on MAX. At thirteen, he was the youngest performer in the history of the Hollywood Magic Castle. @michaelshayan
Madeline Sayet
Madeline Sayet is a Mohegan writer, director, and performer, who has been honored as a MacDowell Fellow, Hermitage Fellow, Forbes 30Under30, TED Fellow, National Directing Fellow, Native American 40 Under 40, and a recipient of The White House Champion of Change Award from President Obama. Her plays include: Where We Belong, The Fish, Up and Down the River, Antigone Or And Still She Must Rise Up, Daughters of Leda, and The Neverland. Where We Belong recently completed a national tour produced by Woolly Mammoth Theatre Co in association with the Folger Shakespeare Library. She is a resident artist at Centre Theatre Group and a member of Long Wharf Theatre’s artistic ensemble. She serves as Clinical Associate Professor with the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (ACMRS) at ASU and the Executive Director of the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program (YIPAP). www.madelinesayet.com
Amalia Ovila Rojas
Amalia Oliva Rojas is a Mexican immigrant poet, performer, and theatre artivist raised in Nueva York. Her work centers and archives the stories, myths, and legends told by her family and the New York immigrant community. Her plays include A Step-by-Step Guide on How to Succeed in the Myth-Making Business (Lehman College, JCAL), How to Melt ICE (or How the Coyote Fell in Love with the Lizard Who Was Really a Butterfly) (New York Women’s Fund Grant, New Perspectives Theatre Company and Boundless Theater Company, Latin American Theater Award for Outstanding Playwriting), and In The Bronx Brown Girls Can See Stars Too (Egg & Spoon Incubate NYC, KCACTF Paula Vogel Playwriting Award and the Darrell Ayers National Playwriting Award). She was recently named one of six Culture and Narrative Fellows for The Opportunity Agenda, Amalia is proud to be an Inaugural The Lily’s Lorraine Hansberry Fellow and CUNY Mexican Studies Institute Lydia Mendoza Fellow. MFA, Columbia University.
Phanésia Laure Pharel
Phanésia Laure Pharel is a Haitian-American playwright from a dragon fruit farm in Miami. The daughter of an immigrant teacher and farmer, she writes to honor people.
Her honors include Kilroys, O’neill Finalist, five awards from the Kennedy Center, two time Bay Area Playwrights Festival Finalist/Honorable Mention, Jane Chambers Finalist, A is For Playwriting award recipient, and the Frank Moffett Mosier Fellowship for Works in Heightened Finalist Prize. She has received commissions from the Atlantic Theater, Miranda Family Fund, Hero Theatre, City Theatre Miami, and Latinx Playwrights Circle.
Phanésia is a member of the Obie-winning EST/Youngblood group and The Wish Collective, whose play the wish has been performed in over 20 states since the fall of Roe v. Wade. Her work has been developed by the Old Globe, the Playwrights' Center, New York Stage and Film, SolFest, Thrown Stone, Shattered Globe, and Echo Theater Company.
Abigail C. Onwunali
Abigail C. Onwunali is a multi-faceted Nigerian American storyteller whose works have been produced by Red Bull Theater, Ensemble Studio Theater, Liberation Theater Company, and Yale Cabaret. She has been a finalist for the Fire This Time Festival and a semi-finalist for the Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship, La Mama’s Experiments in Playwriting Fellowship, and Rattlestick’s Terrence McNally New Work Incubator. Currently, she is a member of the Ensemble Studio Theater’s Obie-winning Youngblood program and the Liberation Theater Company. Abigail is a Princess Grace Award winner and one of the Red Bull Theater’s Short New Play Festival winners.
Also a talented poet, Abigail’s slam poetry has been viewed worldwide. She holds a degree in Acting from the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale and was an inaugural member of Lena Waithe’s Hillman Grad Mentorship Program. Drawing from her Nigerian heritage, Abigail creates theater that centers her people and brings her ancestry alive on stage.
Vaibu Mohan
VAIBU MOHAN is a writer, musician, dancer, director, and producer specializing in bringing South Asian forms of storytelling and theater making into the Western sphere. She is the winner of Atlanta Opera’s 96 Hour Opera Competition and her full length opera, Jala Smriti, will premiere at Atlanta Opera in 2026. Selected works: Life of a Lemon (NYU/AOP Opera Labs), Keep It Cheery (Brooklyn Children’s Theater), and the concert presentation of Sati: Goddess Incarnate at 54 Below in July 2023. Upcoming: Sati: Goddess Incarnate developmental workshop (August 2025).
As a Bharatanatyam performer and creator, Mohan creates pieces that stretch the genre and explore connections between disparate artforms and is the Associate Artistic Director of Silambam Phoenix. Mohan has performed at 54 Below, Greenroom 42, La Mama Theater, Lincoln Center, and Midnight Theater. She is a graduate of the NYU Tisch Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program.
Gloria Majule
Gloria Majule is a storyteller born and raised in Dodoma, Tanzania. She seeks to tell stories that bring multiple Black voices together from across the world and are accessible to Black audiences no matter where they are. She writes for and about Africans and the African diaspora. Gloria has been awarded a MacDowell fellowship and commissions by Audible and Atlantic Theater Company. Her work includes My Father Was Shot in the Back of the Head (Relentless Award Finalist), Culture Shock (Leah Ryan Prize Winner), Uhuru (Blue Ink Award Featured Finalist), and Fifteen Hundred (Seven Devils Finalist). She was a finalist for the Cultural Impact Residency at Sundance. Gloria’s work has been supported by numerous institutions, including the American Playwriting Foundation, The New Harmony Project, Art Omi, Abingdon Theatre Company, the Alley Theatre, Vassar’s Powerhouse Theater, and The New Group. BA: Cornell University, MFA: Yale School of Drama. www.gloriamajule.com
Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj
Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj has twice been a New York Times Critics Pick for playwriting. He is an Afro-Indo-Caribbean, multi-disciplinary, artist who investigates the complexities of narrative, perception, and identity. Selected playwriting residencies: New Orleans Writer’s Residency, Alliance Theater, Arkansas Repertory, Crossroads, DUAF, The Orchard Project, Classics In Color, Candela, Negro Ensemble Company. Board member of: National Queer Theatre, Met/AGMA DEI Council, and Geva Community Engagement Committee
Rajendra is currently the Assistant Professor of Stage Direction (Theatre & Musical Theatre) at SUNY Geneseo, New York’s Public Honors College. Awards and Grants: Time Warner Diverse Voices Grant, Woodie King Jr. Award, four AUDELCO Awards, Barrymore Award, NY Fringe Overall Excellence Award, TCG Directors Grant / Playwriting Grant, 2020 NAMT Fifteen-Minute Musical Theater Challenge Award, three-time semi-finalist Blue Ink Playwriting Award, semi-finalist Austin Film Festival.
Christopher Lysik
Christopher Lysik is a New England boy who writes plays, music, and plays w/ music. He is a recipient of the National Student Playwriting Award (American Rusałki) and Jean Kennedy Smith Award (Pierogi Play) from the Kennedy Center, and is a current Dee Silver M.D. Postgraduate Fellow at the University of Iowa, under commission by Cygnet Theatre. Chris is a former Marcus Bach Fellow, a finalist for SPACE on Ryder Farm, and semifinalist for the O’Neill National Music Theater Conference and Inkslinger Playwriting Contest. Additionally, he has developed work in residence with Fresh Ground Pepper and WildAcres. As an environmental writer, Christopher is a regular contributor to Bluedot Living, a sustainability publication. He is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild, and an even prouder cancer survivor. MFA: Iowa Playwrights Workshop. BFA: Rutgers/Mason Gross (Acting).
Nehemiah Luckett
Nehemiah Luckett is a composer working at the intersection of sacred and secular music, creating works that range from pop/rock songs to choral/orchestral pieces. His original musicals and operas include Hamlet: Prince of Funk, Brick by Brick, jazz singer, A Burning Church, Triple Threats, LIFTED, Love Out of Time and Adia and Clora Snatch Joy. He is deeply grateful for the support of his family and the thriving arts community in Jackson, Mississippi where he was born and raised. Nehemiah is the Founder/Chief Dreaming Officer of Dreaming The Future Together and a member of ASMAC, ASCAP, and The Dramatists Guild. He currently lives in the Bronx with his husband and a variety of plants. Visit NehemiahLuckett.com for more info.
Alex Lin
Alex Lin is just a girl from Jersey. Plays developed at Roundabout, Second Stage, NYTW, MTC, the O'Neill, South Coast Rep, New Harmony, Two River, Playwrights Realm, Central Square Theatre, Amphibian Stage, and Theater Mu. Guest lectures at CMU, Rutgers, and Union College. Commissions with MTC, SCR, Two River, and the Lucille Lortel. As an actor, NYTW (I've Got a Sinking Feeling...), Actors Theatre of Louisville (The Wolves), New Victory (In the Land of Mauve & Gold), HVSF (Julius Caesar), Ma-Yi (The House of Billy Paul), Jewish Plays Project (Zionista Rising), and Commonwealth Shakespeare (Henry VI Part III, Richard III). Susan Smith Blackburn Prize finalist and Weissberger Award nominee. Fellowships and Residencies: Colt Coeur, Rattlestick, Playwrights Realm, Working Theater, and BMI. Juilliard.
Monet Hurst-Mendoza
Monet Hurst-Mendoza is a playwright and television writer from Los Angeles based in New York City. Her plays have been developed with The Alley Theater, Rising Circle Theater Collective, The Flea, Astoria Performing Arts Center, WP Theater, The Public Theater, the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Westport Country Playhouse, and Long Wharf Theatre. She is an alumna of the Emerging Writers Group at The Public Theater, the R&D Group at The Civilians, Fresh Ground Pepper's Playground Playgroup, WP Theater Playwrights Lab, and the Van Lier Fellowship at New Dramatists. She has been in residency at MacDowell, Ucross, Stillwright, La Mama Umbria, Millay Arts, The MITTEN Lab, SPACE on Ryder Farm, and The Watermill Center. Monet was a writer/producer for seasons 21 to 24 of "Law and Order: SVU", is a 2025 NYSCA Artist Grantee, and a proud member of The Kilroys, The Dramatists Guild, and WGAE.
Jessica Huang
Jessica Huang is a playwright and librettist whose award winning work includes: The Paper Dreams of Harry Chin, Mother of Exiles, Blended 和 (Harmony): The Kim Loo Sisters (with composer Jacinth Greywoode), and Transmissions in Advance of the Second Great Dying. Her popular audioplay Song of the Northwoods is available on Audible. Jessica is a Venturous Playwright Fellow at the Playwrights’ Center, a MacDowell Fellow, Hermitage Fellow and four-time Playwrights' Center fellow, and has been a member of Ars Nova Play Group, Civilians R&D Group and Page 73's Interstate 73. She is a graduate of the Playwrights Program at Juilliard. More: www.jessica-huang.com
Franky Duval Gonzalez
Franky D. Gonzalez is a playwright of Colombian descent based in Dallas and Los Angeles. His work has been presented nationally with The Lark, Sundance Institute, Ojai Playwrights Conference, Berkeley Rep, NNPN, Latinx Playwrights Circle, Sol Project, Urbanite Theatre, Visión Latino, Orchard Project, Goodman Theatre, UC Santa Barbara, New Harmony Project, Repertorio Español, LAByrinth, Ars Nova, Dallas Theater Center, William Inge Festival, Teatro Vivo, Latino Theatre Company, and more. Awards include the Charles Rowan Beye Commission, MTC/Sloan Commission, Risk Theatre Prize, MetLife Nuestras Voces Award, Crossroads Project Award, Judith Royer Award, and Short+Sweet Manila Best Overall Production Prize. His work earned two 2024 Non-Equity Jeff Awards. Recently, he was named an Orchard Project Writer-in-Residence and Sewanee Playwriting Fellow. He is a Playwrights’ Center Affiliated Writer and Bishop Arts Theatre Center Playwright-in-Residence.
Miriam Gonzales
Miriam Gonzales, playwright: The Smartest Girl in the World, Selena Maria Sings, Sunny and Licorice, Óyeme, the beautiful, 10 Seconds, Girl Power!, Oh Mighty Mollie, The South Overlook Oaks (adaptation), Linda y Libre, Bertie and the Magic Zero. Productions: Childsplay Theater, Imagination Stage, Magik Theater, University of Texas, Lexington Children’s Theatre, Storybook Theater, Arts on the Horizon, Austin Playhouse, Columbus Children’s Theatre, Kennedy Center (NSO). Co-founder, Óyeme Theater Program, Imagination Stage. Advisory Council Member, ReImagine: New Plays for TYA. Board Member, Childrens Theatre Foundation of America (CTFA). Awards: Bonderman/Write Now Award, Aurand Harris Memorial Award, AATE Distinguished Play, Imagination Award (Imagination Stage Theater). Miriam is a graduate of Brown University and received her PhD in Education and MA in Sociology from Stanford University. She currently resides in Washington, DC.
Zachariah Ezer
Zachariah Ezer is a playwright & an Assistant Professor of Performing Arts at WashU in St. Louis whose work animates theoretical quandaries through theatrical forms.
He is a Dramatists Guild Foundation Catalyst Fellow, winner of Kumu Kahua Theatre’s Hawai’i Prize, and a member of The Liberation Theatre Company’s Writing Residency. He is an alumnus of UT Austin’s James A. Michener Fellowship, Playwrights Horizon’s New Works Lab, Theater J’s Expanding the Canon Commission, The Civilians’ R&D Group, The Playwrights Center’s Core Apprenticeship, A.C.T.’s Make-A-Thing Commission, and Hi-ARTS’ Critical Breaks Residency. His work has been published by Concord Theatricals/Samuel French, and he is currently under commission from MTC/The Sloan Foundation.
Zachariah is also a dramaturg (who has worked with The National Black Theatre, Breaking the Binary, and WP Theater), an essayist (published by the UT’s E3W, Gizmodo/io9, & HuffPost), and a performer (in alt-rock band Harper’s Landing).
Maddie Easley
Madeline (Maddie) Easley is an NYC-based Wyandotte playwright, performer, and dramaturg. Her work tells epic stories to provide a framework for living in decolonial futures. Madeline's plays and films have been presented at the La Jolla Playhouse, Kansas City Repertory Theater (KCREP), Native Voices at the Autry, Rattlestick Theater, the American Indian Community House (AICH), REACH at the Kennedy Center, the TCL Chinese Theatre, and more. She is a 2025 First Peoples Performing Arts Fellow, a 2023 Four Directions Playwright in 2023, a 2022 Resident at SPACE on Ryder Farm, and a 2021 First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellow. Born in Kansas City, Madeline is a citizen of the Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma.
Ty Defoe
Ty Defoe (giizhig), him, we, ty is a proud citizen of the Oneida Nation and Anishinaabe Tribe, as well as a writer and interdisciplinary artist. As a sovereign storyteller and trickster, Ty has been honored with fellowships and awards, including the Robert Rauschenberg, MacDowell, Sundance, First People’s Fund, and Kennedy Center’s Next 50 fellowships, as well as recognition for Jonathan Larson, Grammy, and Helen Merrill Playwriting Awards. Ty is the author of Firebird Tattoo, featured in the Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays for the Stage, published by Bloomsbury. Ty’s work spans rural communities, Broadway productions, and the metaverse, all while cultivating relationships for Indigenous and decolonial futures. He co-founder of Indigenous Direction, member of All My Relations Collective, a professor of practice at Arizona State University, and a writer-in-residence at PACE. Ty loves space and mood rings.
