Azure D. Osborne-Lee (he/they) is an award-winning Black queer theatre maker from south of the Mason-Dixon Line. He holds an MA in Advanced Theatre Practice (2011) from Royal Central School of Speech & Drama as well as an MA in Women's & Gender Studies (2008) and a BA in English & Spanish from The University of Texas at Austin (2005). Azure is the recipient/winner of Parity Productions' 2018 Annual Commission, Downtown Urban Arts Festival's 2018 Best Play Award, and the 2015 Mario Fratti-Fred Newman Political Play Contest. Find out more at: azureosbornelee.com
Ty Defoe (Giizhig) (he/him/they/we) is from the Oneida and Ojibwe Nations of Wisconsin and resides in NYC. Writer, lyricist, scorpio, two-spirit IndigiQueer interdisciplinary shape-shifting artist. Writing publications can be viewed in the Routledge Press, Pitkin Review, Thorny Locust Magazine, and Howl Round, and Ty is a TransLab Fellow. Tydefoe.com or AllMyRelations.Earth
MJ Kaufman (he/they) is a writer from Oregon currently living in Brooklyn. A few years ago they founded Trans Lab, a fellowship for TGNC Theater Artists with Kit Yan. Their plays have been seen at the Public Theater, WP Theater, InterAct, Colt Coeur, National Asian American Theater Company and in Russia and Australia among others. They have received residencies from the MacDowell Colony, The New Museum and SPACE on Ryder Farm. They are a graduate of Yale School of Drama and they have also written for Netflix. They like to bike, cook, and play with their dog Milkshake.
Raphaël Amahl Khouri (he/they) a queer transgender Jordanian documentary playwright and theatremaker living in Berlin. Khouri is the author of several plays, including She He Me (Kosmos Theatre, Vienna 2019), Ich Brauche Meine Ruhe (Politik im Freien Theater Festival, Munich 2018) and No Matter Where I Go (Beirut 2014). Khouri is also a part of the Climate Change Theater Action and their play Oh, How We Loved Our Tuna! was read internationally as part of the initiative. Khouri's work has been published in several U.S. journals, as well as Global Queer Plays (Oberon Books 2018), Skrivena Ljubav (Samizdat 2018) and Queer Dramaturgies: International Perspectives on Where Performance Leads Queer (Palgrave 2016). Khouri's work will also appear in the upcoming International Queer Drama anthology published by Neofelis Verlag in 2020.
j. chavez (they/them) is a recent graduate from Western Washington University with a BA in Theatre. They are an award winning playwright from the Pacific Northwest. They are the Founder and Artistic Director of Haus of Hazard Theatre Productions in Bellingham, Washington. When they aren't making theatre, j.chavez can be found drinking coffee, hanging out with friends, and performing as drag queen Sue Nami-Meadows. Check them out at: jchaveztheatre.weebly.com
Sharifa Yazmeen (she/her) is a trans Arab-American director, actor and playwright. Sharifa focuses on work that speaks to the heartbeat of humanity, often uplifting the voices of those most marginalized.
Yazmeen's playwriting focuses on the intersection of Queer and Arab identities. Her plays have been produced with Playwrights Foundation, Amphibian Stage, Women's Theatre Festival, American Blues Theatre, taught at DePaul, Susquehanna, and Kansas Universities, and published in The Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays. Her play Close to Home was distinguished by the American Theatre Wing when recognized and recommended at the annual Antoinette Gala.
Mashuq Mushtaq Deen (he/they) is a resident playwright at New Dramatists, a Playwrights Center CORE Writer, and a 2019 Lambda Literary Award Winner. His full-length plays include Flood (upcoming: Kansas City Rep, 2021), The Empty Place (NYU/New Dramatists joint commission), The Betterment Society, The Shaking Earth (postponed production, National Queer Theater, 2021), and Draw the Circle (productions: PlayMakers Rep Theatre, Mosaic Theatre, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater; published: Dramatists Play Service; winner of the Lammy). Deen's work has been presented/developed/supported by a number of institutions including Sundance Institute/Ucross, Blue Mountain Center, The Public Theater, NYTW, MacDowell Colony, Bogliasco Foundation, Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, Target Margin Theatre, among others. He is represented by the Gurman Agency.
Leanna Keyes (she/her) is a multi-hyphenate theater artist with a primary focus on queer and trans people, aiming to authentically portray the full complexities of queer life (past, present, and future). She was a playwright in residence at Crosstown Arts in Memphis and has been commissioned by Valiant Theatre in Chicago. Her plays have been performed and studied at universities around the United States, including at Carnegie Mellon in the curriculum of "American Women Playwrights of the 20th and 21st Centuries." Get in touch: leannakeyes.com
Lindsey Mantoan (she/her) is Assistant Professor of Theatre and Resident Dramaturg at Linfield College. She researches contemporary US character, both on the national and individual level. She is the author of War as Performance: Conflict in Iraq and Political Theatricality (Palgrave 2018) and co-editor with Sara Brady of Vying for the Iron Throne: Essays on Power, Gender, Death, and Performance in HBO's Game of Thrones (McFarland 2018) and Performance in a Militarized Culture (Routledge 2017). In 2019, she won Linfield's Allen and Pat Kelley Faculty Scholar Award, and in 2020, she won the Mid-America Theatre Conference's Robert A. Shanke Award for Theatre Research. She is an occasional contributor to CNN.com.
Angela Farr Schiller (she/her) is the Director of Arts Education at the two time Southeastern Emmy Award winning ArtsBridge Foundation for the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, in Atlanta, GA. She researches the intersections between race and performance. Formerly serving as an Assistant Professor, the Resident Dramaturg, and the Coordinator of Undergraduate Research for the Department of Theatre & Performance Studies at Kennesaw State University. Angela also works as a Dramaturg-In-Residence with Atlanta-based Working Title Playwrights (WTP), the leading new play development organization in the Southeast, with a focus on new play development. https: //www.angelaschiller.com
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