Ryan Amador

Ryan Amador is a singer/songwriter & theatre-maker, based in Los Angeles, CA. 

As a singer/songwriter he has released 2 ALBUMS and 5 EP's, all available online. His most recent project is "The Lost Tapes EP", produced by Daniel Weidlein and entirely recorded on an iPhone. The EP was released on December 14, 2017.

Ryan is best known for his songs "Instead" & "Define Me".  The "Define Me" video has garnered over 780,000 views on Youtube and led to live performances at Pride Events in New York, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Brisbane, Australia.  Following the release of his video "Spectrum", Ryan was asked to perform at TEDx in Santa Cruz, CA and spoke on the topic of diversified sexuality.  In April 2016, Mather Dance Company in California performed to  Ryan's song "Instead" which was then featured by DancingWithYT on Youtube, and has since surpassed 1.5 million listens on Spotify.  He has written songs for singers Luke Edgemon, Blake McGrath, Mario Jose, Will Makar, & Ben Yahr.

In early 2017, he completed work on "(In) Body Vol. 1: Becom(In)g", a co-collaboration with producer/instrumentalist Daniel Weidlein, which acts as both an album as well as a film.  The film is a series of music videos and dance videos strung together by a central character played by Ryan who deserts his life in Hollywood for a walk across the globe.  The entire film is available now on YouTube.

Later that year, Ryan created his fourth EP, "Seattle Songs" which featured four songs Ryan wrote while living in Seattle in 2015.  

As a theatre artist, Ryan has written and directed educational pieces for New York University Abu Dhabi and Seattle University which incorporate health-related topics into live musical performances.  Select other pieces include: his own adaptation of William Golding's Lord of the Flies performed on a roof in Manhattan; the premiere of "Mouthy Bitch" at the Cincinnati Fringe Festival; and a new vision of Brecht/Weill's "7 Deadly Sins" produced by Jukebox Castle in collaboration with 14 New Orleans-based chefs.

Vichet Chum

Vichet Chum is a writer, actor, director & theater maker, originally from Dallas, Texas and now living in New York City. Regionally, he's worked at Trinity Repertory Company, Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Guthrie Theater, Shakespeare Festival St. Louis, the Huntington Theatre Company, Everyman Theatre and New Harmony Theatre. In NYC, he's worked at the Cherry Lane Theater, Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, the Clurman Theatre at Theatre Row, Project Y Theatre, Woodshed Collective, Slant Theatre Project and the Incubator Arts Project. His plays have been workshopped at Second Generation Productions, Weston Playhouse, Cleveland Public Theatre, All For One Theater and Amios. Most recently, the world premiere of his play KNYUM had its world premiere at Merrimack Repertory Theatre at the beginning of 2018. He's also a co-founder and resident member of the arts company The Group Lab (thegrouplab.com). Last, but certainly not least, he is a proud graduate of the University of Evansville (BFA) and Brown University/Trinity Repertory Company (MFA). vichetchum.com

Emily Feldman

Emily Feldman’s work has been developed by The Playwrights’ Center, Colt Coeur, Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Magic Theatre, The Alliance Theatre, Roundabout Theatre Company, and The Playwrights Realm. She has been an Alliance/Kendeda finalist, Ashland New Play Festival Winner, a member of The Working Farm at SPACE on Ryder Farm, Interstate 73 at Page73, and The Orchard Project NYC Greenhouse. Emily is a recent Jerome Fellow at The Playwrights’ Center and is currently the Shank Playwright in Residence at Playwrights Horizons. Emily earned her MFA in playwriting from UC San Diego and her BA from Middlebury College. 

José Cruz González

José Cruz González's plays have premiered at Denver Center Theatre Company, Old Globe Theatre, South Coast Repertory, La Jolla Playhouse, The Kennedy Center, Geva Theatre, Cornerstone Theater Company, PCPA, Childsplay.  Mr. González has written for PAZ, the Emmy Award nominated television series produced by Discovery Kids for The Learning Channel.  He was a 2016 PEN Center USA Literary Award Finalist.  He is a professor at California State University Los Angeles and a member of The Dramatists Guild of America and TYA/USA.

Arlene Hutton

Arlene Hutton is best known as the author of The Nibroc Trilogy, which includes Last Train to Nibroc (NY Drama League Best Play nomination), See Rock City (Spirit of America Award) and Gulf View Drive (LA Weekly and Ovation Award Best Play nominations). Her plays have been presented at FringeNYC, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Off- and Off-Off-Broadway and at theatres across the US, in London and throughout the world. Works include Letters to Sala, I Dream Before I Take the Stand, As It Is In Heaven, The Three Sisters Brontë and Happy Worst Day Ever, commissioned by Cincinnati Playhouse and winner of the Macy’s New Play Prize. A member of Ensemble Studio Theatre, an alumna of New Dramatists and a resident playwright at Access Theatre, Hutton is a three-time winner of the Samuel French Short Play Festival, an eight-time finalist for the Heideman Award, finalist for the Francesca Primus Prize and recipient of the Lippman and Calloway Awards, along with a recent NYFA grant and current commissions from the Sloan Foundation and the Big Bridge Theatre Consortium. Residencies include the Australian National Playwrights Conference, Blue Mountain Center, MacDowell Colony and Yaddo. Hutton’s scripts are published by Dramatists Play Service, Samuel French, Playscripts and Overlook Press. She is on the faculty of the Sewanee School of Letters and teaches playwriting at The Barrow Group in New York City. Her play Gulf View Drive, written and developed at The New Harmony Project, won the 2018 LA Stage Alliance Ovation Award for Best Production.

James Lecesne

James Lecesne has been ranked by the NYTimes as "among of the most talented solo performers of his (or any) generation," and he's been at it for over 25 years.  His solo play, THE ABSOLUTE BRIGHTNESS OF LEONARD PELKEY opened Off Broadway at The Westside Theater and received rave reviews. James wrote the screenplay for the Academy Award Winning short film, TREVOR, which went on to inspire the founding of The Trevor Project, the only nationwide 24-hour suicide prevention helpline for LGBT and, Questioning youth.  He is also the founder of The After The Storm Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to offering support to community centers in New Orleans that are working with youth and the arts.  Following Hurricane Katrina, he organized a group of artists to travel to New Orleans, and he produced the feature length documentary directed by Hilla Medalia, After The Storm, which spotlights the lives and struggles of twelve young adults who are living in the storm-ravaged city.
 
An actor as well as a writer, James' solo show WORD OF MOUTH was presented Off Broadway by Mike Nichols and Elaine May and directed by Eve Ensler; he was awarded the NY Drama Desk Award and the Outer Critics Circle Award for best solo performance as well as the LA Theater Weekly Award. He also wrote the book for the musical ONE MAN BAND, with music and lyrics by Larry Hochman and Marc Eliot. His play THE MOTHER OF INVENTION premiered Off Broadway at The Abgingdon Theater in NYC.  
 
James adapted Armistead Maupin’s FURTHER TALES OF THE CITY as a mini series for SHOWTIME (Emmy nomination) and wrote one of the final episodes of the TV series, WILL & GRACE. He created the stage play, THE ROAD HOME: Stories of the Children of War, a play based on interviews with survivors of wars in Tibet, Bosnia and Cambodia and presented at the International Peace Conference at The Hague.  His play THE MOTHER OF INVENTION, premiered at The Abingdon Theater in February 2017.  James has taught at The NYU School of Continuing Education, The New School, The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and The New York Film Academy.  He was a Distinguished Guest Speaker at The Heller Graduate School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University, where his Pro-Seminar “Sharing the Truth: Effective Storytelling for Social Justice Activists” included 30 participants from 11 countries.

He has been a featured speaker about issues related to LGBT Youth at organizations and corporations such as Nike, Johnson & Johnson, Twitter and many others.
 
His young adult novel, ABSOLUTE BRIGHTNESS, was published by Harper Collins and was awarded The William Morris Award by the American Librarian Association and was nominated for a The Lambda Literary Award. His novella TREVOR was published by Seven Stores Press in 2012. Also available - THE LETTER Q: Queer Writer's Notes to Their Younger Selves, edited with Sarah Moon and published by Scholastic in 2012.

Acting credits include the original NYC production of CLOUD 9 by Caryl Churchill; EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES, written and directed by Eve Ensler; the 30th anniversary production of BOYS IN THE BAND by Mart Crowley; the 2013 Broadway production of THE BEST MAN; and the Pulitzer Prize winning play, I AM MY OWN WIFE at Hartford Stage Company. Other productions at Hartford Stage include THE MYSTERY OF IRMA VEP with Varla Jean Merman, directed by Michael Wilson and the world premiere of MOTHERHOOD OUT LOUD, which went on to be presented at Primary Stages, directed by Lisa Peterson. 

Daria Miyeko Marinelli

Daria’s plays include 105 (2017 Cohen New Works Selection), Untameable (2016 NYIT Award Nominee), We Are Samurai (2014 Best Play from DC Metro Arts), The One You Feed, A Departure, Excipio and 893 | Ya-ku-za. In New York City, her work has been seen, heard, and/or developed at Ensemble Theatre Company, The Flea, Jimmy’s No 43, Access Theatre, WOW Café Theatre, Standard Toy Kraft, and The 133rd Street Art Center. Regionally, she has been produced at Boston Center for the Arts, Venus Theatre (DC), The Arts Center (Carborro, NC), Rites and Reason Theatre (PVD), and The VORTEX (ATX). Internationally, her work has been developed at Espacio Arévalo in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Her accolades include being a recipient of The Weston Award in Playwriting and an Arnold Fellow. She has been published in various literary magazines including Fourth Wall Review, Bare Fiction, The Round, and Clerestory. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and with honors from Brown University, where she received an BA in Theatre Arts and Literary Arts. A New York native, Ms. Marinelli is currently pursuing her MFA in Playwriting as a Michener Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin.

David McFadzean

David McFadzean is a founder and principal of Wind Dancer Films and has written and/or produced seven TV shows and eight feature films.  Starting his career in theatre, McFadzean had plays produced Off-Broadway, in several colleges and universities and at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC.  His first job in television was on the pilot and premiere season of Roseanne as Executive Story Editor. Then in 1989, McFadzean formed Wind Dancer Films with Carmen Finestra and Matt Williams.

Under the Wind Dancer banner, McFadzean co-created and executive produced several TV shows including: Home Improvement one of the most successful half hours of the 1990’s, Carol & Company starring Carol Burnett, Buddies with Dave Chappelle, Thunder Alley with Ed Asner, Soul Man with Dan Aykroyd, and Saint George with George Lopez. Several of the shows received Emmy nominations and Home Improvement won multiple People's Choice Awards.  McFadzean is currently Executive Producer of an animated children’s series developed by Wind Dancer for PBS called Ready, Jet, Go! 

McFadzean's film producer credits include Bernie starring Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey and Shirley MacLaine,  What Women Want starring Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt, Where The Heart Is starring Natalie Portman and Ashley Judd, Firelight starring Sophie Marceau, Walker Payne with Jason Patric and Sam Shepherd, As Cool As I Am with Claire Danes and James Marsden and The Keeping Room starring Brit Marling, Sam Worthington and Hailee Steinfeld.

With Daryl Roth Productions, McFadzean and his Wind Dancer partners co-produced the Off Broadway premiere of Mark St. Germain’s Camping With Henry And Tom at the Lucille Lortel Theatre.   And at Playwrights Horizons they co-produced the premiere of Kirsten Child’s The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin.

McFadzean is a graduate of the University of Evansville and has a master’s degree in theatre from Illinois State University.  He is a Founding Board Member of the New Harmony Writers’ Conference and sits on advisory boards of several arts organizations.  He has spoken on producing and writing for film and television at many colleges, universities and conferences around the country. 

Dan O'Brien

Dan O’Brien is a playwright, poet, and librettist whose recognition includes a Guggenheim Fellowship in Drama & Performance Art, the inaugural Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History, the Horton Foote Prize for Best New American Play, the PEN Center USA Award for Drama, the L. Arnold Weissberger Award, and, for poetry, the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. His most recent play, The House in Scarsdale: a Memoir for the Stage, premiered at The Theatre @ Boston Court in 2017, directed by Michael Michetti, and has been nominated for five Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards, including Best Play. His docu-drama about the haunting of war reporter Paul Watson, The Body of an American (New Harmony Project 2011), has been produced in recent years off-Broadway at Primary Stages, in a co-production with Hartford Stage directed by Jo Bonney, at the Gate Theatre in London (shortlisted for an Evening Standard Theatre Award), and regionally in Chicago, Washington DC, Denver, Portland, and elsewhere. O’Brien wrote the libretto for Visitations: Theotokia & The War Reporter, an opera by composer Jonathan Berger, that premiered at Stanford University and the Prototype Festival in New York City, directed by Rinde Eckert. Fellowships and residencies include the Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, the Djerassi Fellowship from University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the Rockefeller Center in Bellagio, Italy. O’Brien’s poetry collections are published in the UK and the US: War Reporter (2013), Scarsdale (2014), and New Life (2015). Dan O’Brien: Plays One was published in 2017 by Oberon Books in London. O’Brien teaches frequently at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, actor and writer Jessica St. Clair, and their daughter Bebe. More information at www.danobrien.org. 

James Still

James Still's plays have been produced throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia, South Africa, China and Japan.  His new plays include (A) NEW WORLD and BLACK BEAUTY (Seattle Children’s Theatre)  Recent work includes a trilogy of linked-plays: THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT (Indiana Repertory Theatre), APPOGGIATURA (Denver Center Theatre), and MIRANDA (Illusion Theater, Minneapolis).  Also: APRIL 4, 1968: BEFORE WE FORGOT HOW TO DREAM (Indiana Repertory Theatre); two plays about the Lincolns: THE WIDOW LINCOLN and THE HEAVENS ARE HUNG IN BLACK ( both premiering at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C.); a play for one actor about culinary icon James Beard called I LOVE TO EAT (Portland Center Stage); a play for 57 actors called A LONG BRIDGE OVER DEEP WATERS (Cornerstone Theater Company in Los Angeles); LOOKING OVER THE PRESIDENT’S SHOULDER at theaters across the country; and AND THEN THEY CAME FOR ME at theaters around the world.  His short play WHEN MISS LYDIA HINKLEY GIVES A BIRD THE BIRD was a winner of Red Bull Theater’s Short New Play Festival and performed at many festivals.  Still is an elected member of both the National Theatre Conference in New York and the College of Fellows of the American Theatre at the Kennedy Center.  He received the Otis Guernsey New Voices Award from the William Inge Festival and the Todd McNerney New Play Prize from Spoleto.  His plays have been developed at the New Harmony Project, the O’Neill Conference, Sundance, the Colorado New Play Summit, Launch Pad, and many others.  He is a four-time Pulitzer nominee for his work in the theater, and a five-time nominee for his work in television.  He is the Playwright in Residence at Indiana Repertory Theatre, Artistic Affiliate at American Blues in Chicago, and lives in Los Angeles.