Marisa Smith (Playwright) is an award-winning American playwright. Full-length plays include: Saving Kitty (Eliot Norton award for Jennifer Coolidge Best Actress), and Mad Love (Northern Stage, New Jersey Repertory) which is also an audio drama produced by Wondery called The Defenestrator. Marisa’s 10-Minute plays have been produced in the Boston Marathon of 10- Minute Plays, Barrington Stage and in many other theaters around the country. Screenplays: Second Wind and Surprise Engagement for producer/director Andrew Silver starring English actors June Brown, Harriet Walter and Tamzin Merchant, and Tamzin Outhwaite. A graduate of Wesleyan University, Marisa is also the co-Publisher and owner of Smith and Kraus Publishers.

Eleanor Burgess‘ (Playwright) plays include The Niceties, Start Down, Chill, and These Dying Generations. Her work has been developed or produced at Manhattan Theatre Club, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Alliance Theatre, Huntington Theatre Company, the Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Portland Stage Company, Centenary Stage Company, the Lark Play Development Center, the Kennedy Center/NNPN MFA Playwrights Workshop, Everyday Inferno, Ryder Farm and Luna Stage. She’s been the recipient of the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Award, an EST/Sloan commission, a Keen Teens Commission, and the Susan Glaspell Award for Women Playwrights. She grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts, studied history at Yale College, and recently completed the M.F.A in Dramatic Writing at NYU/Tisch.

Michael Hollinger (Playwright) is the author of Ghost-Writer, Opus, Tooth and Claw, Red Herring, Incorruptible, An Empty Plate in the Café 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, in New York City, and abroad. His musical A Wonderful Noise (co-authored with Vance Lehmkuhl) has received the Frederick Loewe Award for Musical Theatre, the “In the Spirit of America” Award from the Barbara Barondess MacLean Foundation, and a developmental production at Creede Repertory Theatre. His translation/co-adaptation (with Aaron Posner) of Cyrano de Bergerac premiered in 2011 at the Folger Theatre in Washington, D.C. Other awards include a Harold & Mimi 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, an Edgerton Foundation New American Plays Award, the F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Theatre Artist, three Barrymore Awards for Outstanding New Play, a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award, nominations for Lucille Lortel and John Gassner Awards, and fellowships from the Independence Foundation, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Michael is an Associate Professor of Theatre at Villanova University, and a proud alumnus of New Dramatists.