Broadway and London's West End: A Walk in the Woods--nominated for Tony and Olivier Awards, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Off-Broadway: A Body of Water and Going to St. Ives (Primary Stages); Fortinbras, Lake Street Extension, Two Roomsand the world premieres of Thief River and Patient A (Signature Theatre); Eleemosynary (Manhattan Theatre Club); Chesapeake (New York Stage and Film); Cobb (Lucille Lortel Theatre); Down the Road (Weissberger Group).  Recent world and regional premieres: When We Go Upon the Sea (InterAct Theatre, Philadelphia); Heaven's My Destination (Cleveland Play House);Great Falls (Humana New Play Festival, Actors Theatre of Louisville); Lonesome Hollow, Flag Day and Whores (Contemporary American Theatre Festival); The Scottish Play (La Jolla Playhouse); Black Sheep (Florida Stage).  Profile Theatre of Portland, Oregon will devote its 2010-2011 season to Blessing's work.  Awards include the Outer Critics' Circle, OBIE, Drama Desk, Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association, L.A. Drama Critics and Drama-Logue among numerous others.  Blessing's TNT movie "Cooperstown" won the Humanitas Award.  He is married to playwright and TV writer Melanie Marnich. Since 2001 he has been head of the graduate playwriting program at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University.

Walter Dallas, one of the theater world's most respected artists, is considered a major figure in the American theatre, a legend in African American theatre, and an icon of the Philadelphia theater scene. He has worked on and off-Broadway, in England, Africa, France (with James Baldwin), Russia, and at numerous major American theatres including Baltimore’s Center Stage, where he was a Director Fellow for the National Endowment for the Arts, and Chicago’s Goodman Theatre where he directed the critically acclaimed world premiere of Pulitzer Prize winner August Wilson’s Seven Guitars, named one of the Top Ten Best Theatre Events of 1995 by Time Magazine. A frequent collaborator with Wilson, Dallas was one of 25 people invited to speak at Wilson’s memorial tribute on Broadway in 2006 at the Virginia Theatre, now renamed The August Wilson Theatre. In 1983 Dallas created the University of the Arts’ School of Theatre Arts and served as its Director for ten years. From 1992 to 2008, he served as Artistic Director of Philadelphia’s Freedom Theatre. In 2008 he began a five-year guest-artist residency in the Theatre Department of the University of Maryland, College Park. Honors include a San Francisco local Emmy Award for KQED-TV, New York’s prestigious AUDELCO National Achievement Awards for Excellence in Black Theatre, several Bronze Jubilee Awards for Outstanding Direction, and an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts degree from Philadelphia’s University of the Arts. He received a Proclamation, “Walter Dallas Day” from Atlanta’s Mayor Maynard Jackson, and two Creative Genius Awards from the Atlanta Circle of Drama Critics. For his production of Having Our Say at Los Angeles’ Mark Taper Forum he received an NAACP Theatre Award nomination for Best Director. His San Francisco production of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye was named one of that city’s Top Ten Theatre Events of 2007. In 2008 he was named Man of the Year by the Institute for the Preservation of African-American Music. Dallas was lead-writer for Standing in the Shadows of Motown featuring Chaka Khan, Hill Harper, and Gerald Levert which won several major awards including Best Non-Fiction Film from the New York Film Critics Circle and four Grammy Awards. He is a graduate of Morehouse College and the Yale School of Drama, with additional studies at Harvard Divinity School and the University of Ghana.

Russell Davis' plays include Appointment with a High Wire Lady, The Last Good Moment of Lily Baker, The Day of the Picnic, Mahida's Extra Key to Heaven, and Sally's Gone, She Left Her Name.  They have been produced at various theatres throughout the country, including People's Light & Theatre, Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, Epic Theatre Ensemble, Long Wharf Theatre, Yale Repertory, and Actors Theatre of Louisville.  They have also been presented at the Sundance Playwrights Lab., National Playwrights Conference, New Harmony Project, and Mark Taper's New Work Festival.  He is currently a recipient of a 2008-10 Pew Fellowship in the Arts.  He was resident playwright at People's Light for the Theatre Residency Program of the National Endowment for the Arts/Theatre Communi­cations Group.  He received two earlier fellowships the National Endowment for the Arts, and grants from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, New York Founda­tion for the Arts, McKnight Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, and Tennessee Arts Commission.  He is a past member of New Dramatists.  He worked as the consulting writer with the juggler Michael Moschen in Michael Moschen in Motion at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival and at the Lincoln Center's SERIOUS FUN! Festival.  He and Paul Meshejian collaborated with Jon Held, a juggler and former member of Airjazz, to develop Tales of Lunacy, which was presented at the 3 Legged Race New Theater Conference in Minneapolis and subsequently produced by Touchstone Theatre.

Steven Dietz’s thirty-plus plays have been widely produced at regional theatres in the United States, as well as off-Broadway. International productions have been seen in England, Japan, Germany, France, Australia, Sweden, Austria, Russia, Slovenia, Luxembourg, Greece, Argentina, Peru, Singapore and South Africa.  Mr. Dietz is a two-time recipient of the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award — for Fiction (produced Off-Broadway by the Roundabout Theatre Company), and Still Life with Iris.  Other awards include the 2007 Edgar Award for Best Mystery Play for Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure; the PEN USA West Award in Drama for Lonely Planet; and the 1995 Yomuiri Shimbun Award (the Japanese "Tony") for his adaptation of Shusaku Endo's novel, Silence.  Recent work includes three plays that will be seen at over 25 regional theatres this season and next:  Becky’s New Car(Steinberg Award finalist), Yankee Tavern(NNPN featured play), and Shooting Star.  Other works include the Pulitzer-nominated Last of the Boys, Inventing van Gogh, The Nina Variations, God’s Country, Rocket Man, Halcyon Days — and several award-winning adaptations:  Dracula(from Bram Stoker), Honus and Me(from Dan Gutman), Force of Nature(from Goethe), Paragon Springs(from Ibsen), and Over the Moon(from P.G. Wodehouse).  Mr. Dietz is currently at work on new play commissions for Steppenwolf Theatre (The Dahner Party) and the Guthrie Theater (A Year Without Summer), as well as another Dan Gutman adaptation (Jackie and Me) for Chicago Children’s Theatre.  Mr. Dietz’s work as a director has been seen at many of America’s leading regional theatres.  His articles on new play development have appeared regularly in American Theatre magazine.  He divides his time between Seattle and Austin, where he teaches playwriting at the University of Texas.

Liz Engelman is a freelance dramaturg who lives in Minneapolis. Liz has served as the Literary Director of the McCarter Theatre, the Director of New Play Development at ACT Theatre in Seattle, Washington, Literary Manager/Dramaturg at Seattle’s Intiman Theatre, and as Assistant Literary Manager at Actors Theatre of Louisville. She has worked on the development of new plays at The Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, ASK Theatre Projects, New York Theatre Workshop, the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, South Coast Rep, and Florida Stage. She has directed new plays at The Illusion Theatre (with Michael Dixon), Mixed Blood Theatre, The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis, and Carleton College. Liz has been a guest at Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Puget Sound, Cornish College of the Arts, and has taught playwriting at Freehold Studio Theatre Lab and The Playwrights' Center. She studied dramaturgy and new play development at Brown and Columbia universities, where she received her BA and MFA in theatre and dramaturgy, respectively. Liz is the co-editor with Michael Bigelow Dixon of several collections of plays, and of two volumes of monologues with Tori Haring-Smith. She has written articles published in Theatre Topics and Theatre Forum. She serves on the Advisory Board of the National New Play Network and Emigrant Theatre, is a Consultant for The Playwrights' Center (where she helped initiate their New Plays on Campus Program), and Dramaturg at Mixed Blood Theatre. Liz most recently served as President and Board Chair of, LMDA, Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas. She is the founder and co-director of Tofte Lake Center at Norm’s Fish Camp, a creative retreat up in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota.

FRANK GAGLIANO (Playwright, Book Writer/lyricist, Educator, Artistic Director) Off-Broadway Credits: Conerico was Here to Stay, Night of the Dunce (both produced by Edward Albee’s Theatre 1967 at The Cherry Lane Theatre) , Father Uxbridge Wants to Marry, The City Scene, In the VooDoo Parlour of the Marie Leveau. Musical Theatre pieces include CONGO SQUARE (Finalist in the 2005 Cardiff International Musical Theatre Search) , From the Bodoni County Songbook Anthology (both with composer Claibe Richardson); and The Resurrection of Jackie Cramer (with composer Raymond Benson; recent writer of ther James Bond novels). Frank was a founding member of The O’Neill Theatre Center and helped found The Showcase of New Plays at Carnegie Mellon University, serving there as Artistic Director for twelve years, and developing plays by Doug Wright, Christopher Shinn, Willy Holtzman, Nilo Cruz, and many others. He also served as the Artistic Director for the Festival of New Works at The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he established the Arthur Miller Award for Dramatic Writing, with Mr. Miller in attendance. Frank's article, The Timebends World of Arthur Miller, has recently been published in the volume, "Arthur Miller's America: Theatre and Culture in a Time of Change”. Frank is a member of The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP); The Dramatists Guild, Epic Rep Theatre, The New Dramatists (Alum). He has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship in Playwriting, two Rockefeller Foundation Grants and a Pennsylvania Council On The Arts Playwrights Fellowship. Playwright Gagliano was awarded the grand prize in the International Ernest Hemingway Playwriting Competition for his play, The Total Immersion of Madeleine Favorini. Frank’s recent one-man reading/performances of his play, My Chekhov Light, were at the 2004 Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference (where he also served as a Playwright’s Mentor), and at New York’s Cherry Lane Theatre in Sept of ‘04; he will read/perform My Chekhov Light in Ukraine, on March 13, 2005. Frank continues to hold the Benedum Chair in Theatre at West Virginia University -- which he has occupied since 1976.

Sara Garonzik (Producing Artistic Director) has directed and produced for Philadelphia Theatre Company (PTC) since 1982.  Now in its 33rd season, PTC is a nationally-respected, producing theater organization, the only producer in the region dedicated to new American plays and musicals.  She has introduced more than 130 world and regional premieres, including new work by Terrence McNally, Jeffrey Hatcher, Christopher Durang, and Bill Irwin.   In 2007, PTC opened the Suzanne Roberts Theatre, a universally-designed, $25 million, fully accessible state-of-the-art facility.  PTC serves a diverse annual audience of more than 60,000, including thousands of Philadelphia Public High School students.  PTC’s productions are supported by award-wining adult education, community outreach, and accessibility initiatives, as they enrich Philadelphia’s artistic landscape and contribute to the continuing economic development of the City’s premier arts district.

Sara has served on theater panels for the Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Ohio State Arts Councils, The Philadelphia Theatre Initiative, the McKnight Foundation and the O'Neill Playwrights Conference, and as a jurist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.  She has received the Award of Honor from the Alumnae Association of the Philadelphia High School for Girls, the 2006 President's Award from the Philadelphia Young Playwrights, the 2007 Achievement Award from the American Association of University Women, an honor she proudly shared with Dawn Staley and Terry D'Alessandro.  In June 2008, she received the first Arts Pioneer Award created by Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown. She currently serves as President of the Board of the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, as a Board Member of the Arts & Business Council of Greater Philadelphia, is on the Mayor’s Advisory Council, and serves on the Advisory Board of PlayPenn, a new play project. 

BRUCE GRAHAM (AUTHOR) PLAYS: Burkie, Early One Evening at the Rainbow Bar & Grille,Moon Over the Brewery, Minor Demons, Belmont Avenue Social Club, The Champagne Charlie Stakes, Desperate Affection, Coyote on a Fence (Winner of The Rosenthal Prize, Two Drama Desk Nominations – the West End production starred Ben Cross) According to Goldman, Dex and Julie Sittin’ in a Tree.  Graham recently returned to acting, playing Lenny in his play Any Given Monday. His one man show, The Philly Fan, plays semi-continuously throughout the Philadelphia area and the recent production of Something Intangible won seven Barrymore Awards including Best New Play. His newest play, The Outgoing Tide, was commissioned by Northlight and opens in spring of ’11 starring John Mahoney.  FILM CREDITS: Dunston Checks In, Anastasia, Steal This Movie.  T.V. MOVIES: Hunt for the Unicorn Killer, The Christmas Secret, Ring of Endless Light (Humanitas Award Winner – Best Children’s Screenplay) Right on Track, Tiger Cruise, The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.  TELEVISION: Roseanne, Leg Work and various soap operas. Graham has received grants from the Pew Foundation, the Princess Grace Foundation (Statuette Award Winner) the Philadelphia Theatre Initiative, and the Edgerton Foundation.  Along with Michele Volansky he is the author of the book, The Collaborative Playwright. Graham is a graduate of Indiana University of Pennsylvania.  He teaches film and theatre courses at Drexel University and lives in Philadelphia with Stephanie, Kendall and Truman.

LILLIAN GROAG (Director): works in the theatre as an actress, writer and director.  Her acting credits include Broadway, Off Broadway, Mark Taper Forum, and regional theatres throughout the country.  She has directed at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Old Globe Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Mark Taper Forum’s Taper Too, New York City Opera, Chicago Opera Theatre, Center Stage, Boston Lyric Opera, The People’s Light and Theatre Company, Berkeley Repertory, Milwaukee Repertory, Missouri Repertory, Seattle Repertory, Glimmerglass Opera, San Jose Repertory,  the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, The Juilliard School of Music, Florentine Opera, the Sundance Institute Playwrights Lab, the Virginia Opera, Opera San Jose and the Company of Angels.  Her plays The Ladies of the Camellias, The White Rose (AT&T award for New American Plays), The Magic Fire (Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays), Menocchio and Midons have been produced variously by the Old Globe Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Kennedy Center, The Guthrie Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Yale Repertory, Denver Center, The Shaw Festival, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, the Northlight Theatre, the WPA Theatre, Seattle Repertory, the Asolo Theatre, The Wilma Theatre, The People’s Light and Theatre Company, and The Shaw Festival.   Abroad:  Mexico City, Junges Theatre in Bonn, Landesbuhne Sachsen-Anhalt in Eisleben, Shauspielhaus in Wuppertal, Hessisches Landestheater in Marburg, and Tokyo.  She has done translations and adaptations of Lorca, Feydeau, Musset, Marivaux and Molnar, produced at the Guthrie, the Mark Taper Forum Taper II, and Missouri Rep.  She is an Associate Artist of the Old Globe Theatre. The Ladies of the Camellias, Blood Wedding, The White Rose and The Magic Fire have been published by Dramatists Play Service.

Mr. Hedley is best known for his work in developing new plays. He has served as Director of the Iowa Playwrights Workshop; mentored playwrights at the Mark Taper Forum; co founded the Philadelphia Theatre Company and West Coast Playwrights Workshop; directed a national Playwriting Conference in collaboration with The Playwrights Center, Minn; was producer of The Iowa Playwrights Festival; was Chairperson of the Playwrights Awards Committee, ACTF, region 5; was a panel Moderator for Literary Managers and Dramaturgs conference, Serving New Writing; and was a radio Interviewer of over 30 programs on playwriting. A Chapter on his work appears in Play Development, Pub. Southern Illinois Press. Among playwrights he has mentored are David Rabe, Leslie Lee, Naomi Wallace, Dorothy Louise, Heather McCutchen, Steve Feffer, Tom Gibbons, Clay Goss, David Hancock, Peter Mattaliano, Rebecca Gilman, Michael Friel, Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon, Arden Kass, Ken Prestininzi and Shem Bitterman. Among other directing assignments, he directed at The Public Theatre, New York, and at La Mama. He was Artistic Director of the Iowa Shakespeare Festival and has served as chairperson at Temple, Villanova and the University of Iowa. He was a founding member and program Director of the Avenue of the arts, Phila.; President of the Conference of Big Ten Chairpersons; Advisor, International Center for Theatre Studies, Liege, Belgium; a facilitator/panelist/moderator for the Pew Charitable Trusts’ theater initiatives; honored at the Univ. of Iowa for distinguished service to the Theatre Department; Consultant to the City of Philadelphia, Historic Philadelphia Commission; Workshop leader in Acting and Directing for The Actors and Directors Conservatory, Ljubljana, Yugoslavia; Creator and director of Theatre in the Court; and sponsor of Center City Soap. He has served as the Provost's Arts Fellow for Temple, and recently received the Alumni Award of Excellence from the University of Alberta and the Theatre Alliance's Barrymore Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Michael Hollinger is the author of  Opus, Tooth and Claw, Red Herring, Incorruptible, An Empty Plate in the Cafe 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 (including Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Old Globe, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Northlight Theatre, Laguna Playhouse, Florida Stage, People’s Light and Theatre Company, City Theatre, Berkshire Theatre Festival, and many others), in New York City (Primary Stages and Ensemble Studio Theatre), and abroad (London, Paris, Athens, etc.).  Michael’s musical A Wonderful Noise (co-authored with Vance Lehmkuhl) received a developmental production at Creede Repertory Theatre in 2009.  In 2010-2011, the Arden will premiere his new play Ghost-Writer (workshopped at the 2009 PlayPenn new play conference), and Folger Shakespeare Theatre will premiere his new translation of Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac (co-adapted with Aaron Posner). 
Michael has written seven touring plays for young audiences, as well as several short plays; for PBS, he has written three short films as well as the feature-length Philadelphia Diary.  Awards include a 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, the Frederick Loewe Award for Musical Theatre, the F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Theatre Artist, two Barrymore Awards for Outstanding New Play, nominations for Lucille Lortel and John Gassner Awards, a commission from the Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Science and Technology Project, an Independence Foundation Fellowship in the Arts, a Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation Fellowship, and multiple fellowships from Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.  Michael served for eight years as resident dramaturg at the Wilma Theater and at Philadelphia Festival Theatre for New Plays, where he assisted in the production of twenty world premieres (including new works by Tina Howe, Chaim Potok, Joyce Carol Oates, Bruce Graham, and Murphy Guyer) and the development of dozens of other plays through commissions, readings and workshops.  As a free-lance dramaturg, he has consulted with Arden Theatre Company, 1812 Productions, InterAct Theatre Company, Delaware Theatre Company/Roundhouse Theatre, and Philadelphia Young Playwrights/Philadelphia Theatre Company.  Michael is Associate Professor of Theatre at Villanova University, Associate Artistic Director of Villanova Theatre, and a proud alumnus of New Dramatists.

Plays include: The Morini Strad (this fall City Theatre, first developed at PlayPenn 2009), The Real McGonagall (September Portland Stage Company) Something You Did (People’s Light and Theatre), Sabina (Primary Stages), Hearts (Barrymore Award, Arthur Miller Award, Smith and Kraus Best New Plays; People's Light and Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre, Northlight Theatre, Alliance Theatre, Asolo Theatre, New Jewish Theatre of St. Louis), Bovver Boys (Primary Stages, Cleveland Play House, Berkshire Theatre Festival), The Closer (Davie Award; Working Theatre, GeVa Theatre), Inside Out (New Federal Theatre/Theatre for a New Audience, Portland Stage, Nebraska Rep) San Antonio Sunset (New York, Los Angeles, London, Dublin, Bombay; Best Short Plays). For film and television: Edge of America ( Peabody Award, Humanitas Prize, Writers Guild Award, Sundance Film Festival Opening Night 2004), Blood Brothers (HBO, Cine Golden Eagle Award), Willy received the HBO Award at the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. He taught as a visiting artist at Bronx Regional High School in the South Bronx, and was Resident Playwright at Juilliard from 1990-92. He has worked with the 52d Street Project in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen and on the Navajo Reservation. He is a proud board member of New Dramatists and Harlem Stage Company.

Oscar™ and Golden Globe nominee for his work in Good Night and Good Luck, David Strathairn traveled with Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus and subsequently co-founded a traveling theatre troupe performing tales and fables in schools throughout New England. It was a collaboration with John Sayles and his first film, The Return of the Secaucus 7, that started things off in the movies, a collaboration that included six more: Matewan, The Brother From Another Planet, City of Hope, Passion Fish, Eight Men Out, and Limbo. Since then, over 50 films, some of them more readily known such as, Good Night and Good Luck, The River Wild, Dolores Claiborne, Sneakers, League of Their Own, Memphis Belle, and The Firm, but more often 'independants'. His theatre credits include numerous productions of Shakespeare, Pinter, Shepard, Chekhov, and Stoppard, Strindberg, and Wilde, though most of his work has again been with the 'new' play and 'developing' writer. He is an advisory member of: the Epic Theatre Center, a company of artist/educators and The Vineyard Theatre's Community of Artists.

Tazewell Thompson is the Artistic Director of Westport Country Playhouse. He directed his critically acclaimed Glimmerglass Opera production of Les Dialogues des Carmelites last season for New York City Opera. His production of Porgy and Bess, also for New York City Opera, was televised for “Live from Lincoln Center” and received EMMY nominations for Best Classical Production and Best Director. Next season for New York City Opera he will direct Patience and The Most Happy Fella and in 2007, Benjamin Britten’s Death in Venice following his new production of this work this summer at Glimmerglass Opera. Mr. Thompson directed world premiere operas of Stefan, Luyala, Vanqui and As of a Dream. In the fall he will direct a new production of Dialogues for Vancouver Opera. Other opera highlights include productions at La Scala, Paris Opera, Opera Bastille, Teatro Real in Madrid, Tokyo, Osaka, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Michigan, Orange County, New Jersey, and Portland. His New York production of Aaron Copland’s opera The Second Hurricane was the “hit and heart” of the Copland 1985 Festival celebration. As a playwright, Mr. Thompson has been commissioned to write plays for Lincoln Center Theater, Arena Stage, South Coast Repertory, and People’s Light and Theatre Co. His award winning first play, Constant Star, has had more than a dozen major productions across the U.S. His adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, which includes over a dozen songs from the period, was produced at People’s Light and Theatre Company for three record breaking Holiday seasons. He has adapted Aristophanes’ The Birds for young people for productions at St. Ann’s School and Columbia Grammar and Prep. His adaptation of Bill Gunn’s Forbidden City is currently in workshop at Lincoln Center Theater. For theatre, Mr. Thompson has produced and/or directed more than sixty plays including the works of Shakespeare, Moliere, Euripides, Brecht, Shaw, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Thornton Wilder, Clifford Odets, Ibsen, Chekhov, Athol Fugard, Terrence McNally, William Gibson, Feydeau, Alan Ayckbourn, as well as numerous world and American premieres. He is the former artistic associate of Arena Stage and the Acting Company. During his tenure as artistic director of Syracuse Stage, he was instrumental in expanding financing from local and national funding organizations for the theatre; total audience attendance increased by 15 per cent; student audience attendance rose from 3000 to 15,000; he initiated an annual essay and poster contest for the schools whose winning entries were used for marketing, community outreach, development and public relations; designed and edited StageView, a newsletter cited by Wilsonia Cherry of the National Endowment for the Humanities as “the finest theatre newsletter published in America” (its format has been copied by dozens of theatres across the country); he visited and addressed over 150 different business, civic, educational, and cultural organizations. Tazewell Thompson is a board member of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas, the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, the Society for New Music and the Thornton Wilder Society.

Michele Volansky is Associate Professor of Drama at Washington College. In addition to her role as the Conference Dramaturg and Associate Artist for the annual PlayPenn New Play Development Conference, she has worked at the Atlantic Theatre Company, the Arden Theater, Azuka Theatre Collective, 1812 Productions, Theatre Exile/Act 2 Playhouse, Victory Gardens, and Next Theatre.  Volansky also served on the artistic staffs at Actors Theatre of Louisville (1992-95), Steppenwolf Theatre Company (1995-2000) and Philadelphia Theatre Company (2000-2004). In her career, she has worked on over 150 new and established plays, including the Broadway productions of Buried Child and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest as well as plays that have been produced in theaters across the United States and Europe. She is the 1999 inaugural recipient of the Elliot Hayes Award for Dramaturgy and is a past President of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas.  Her book on playwriting and collaboration, co-written with Bruce Graham and entitled The Collaborative Playwright, was published by Heinemann Press in March 2007.  She is also a doctoral student at the University of Hull (England), writing about the critics Kenneth Tynan and Frank Rich.