Kate Hawley (Playwright, lyricist) received her theatrical training at UC Berkeley, The American Conservatory Theatre, UCLA and UCSC. Her original plays, Messages, Simply the Thing She Is, and Diva Days have all won or placed in playwriting competitions in Michigan, North Carolina, Virginia, and California and have been performed in theaters throughout California. In 1997 her adaptation of Ostrovsky’s The Forest was premiered at Shakespeare Santa Cruz. Her screenplay Who Would You Rather Sleep With? won first prize at the Austin Film Festival in 1998. In 2001, her second screenplay, Fall Back, was a finalist. In 1999 she wrote the book and lyrics for Cinderella which premiered at Shakespeare Santa Cruz and went on to be produced by Sacramento Theatre Company, Stages Theatre (Houston), The Penobscot Opera House, Peninsula Youth Theatre, as well as theatres in NY, NJ, and Maryland. Other SSC holiday plays include The Wind in the Willows, Gretel & Hansel, The Princess and the Pea, and Sleeping Beauty all in collaboration with former SSC artistic director Paul Whitworth. Her latest play, Complications from a Fall was produced by the Jewel Theatre in 2015. Coming oh Age will be produced by the Jewel Theatre in 2018.

Fran Charnas (Playwright) has worked as a producer, director, choreographer, writer, and teacher. Her award-winning musical, THE ALL NIGHT STRUT!, has toured extensively, performed with the Boston Pops and the Glenn Miller Orchestra and was nationally broadcast on PBS-TV. She has just recently completed a sequel, IN THE GROOVE and is co-author and director of SHEBOPPIN, a coming of age in the 60s musical about four girls who work in a beauty shop. Currently, Fran is at work on a musical based on the life of the legendary singer and actress, Ethel Waters. A professor at the Boston Conservatory, she teaches Musical Theatre Performance and leads workshops in song interpretation and popular American vocal and dance styles of the twentieth-century. Fran also works with NOMTI (New Opera and Musical Theatre Initiative) as a director and adjudicator.

Jason Robert Brown (Playwright) wrote the music and lyrics for The Last Five Years, Parade (book by Alfred Uhry, dir. Hal Prince) and Songs for a New World (dir. Daisy Prince), and contributed songs to Urban Cowboy the Musical. Winner: Tony Award for Best Score, three Drama Desk Awards, Kleban Award, and Gilman & Gonzalez-Falla Foundation Award. As a conductor and arranger, Mr. Brown’s credits include Dina Was, A New Brain, john and jen, and Yoko Ono’s New York Rock. His songs, including the cabaret standard “Stars and the Moon,” have been performed and recorded by Audra McDonald, Betty Buckley, Karen Akers, Renée Fleming, Jon Hendricks, and many others. Lauren Kennedy’s album Songs of Jason Robert Brownis available on PS Classics. Mr. Brown lives with his wife and daughter in NYC. He is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and the American Federation of Musicians Local 802 and 47. www.jasonrobertbrown.com—

Dominique Morisseau (Playwright) is the author of The Detroit Project (A 3-Play Cycle) which includes the following plays: Skeleton Crew (Atlantic Theater Company), Paradise Blue (Signature Theatre), and Detroit ’67 (Public Theater, Classical Theatre of Harlem and NBT). Additional plays include: Pipeline (Lincoln Center Theatre), Sunset Baby (LAByrinth Theatre); Blood at the Root (National Black Theatre) and Follow Me To Nellie’s (Premiere Stages). She is also the book writer on the new musical Ain’t Too Proud – The Life and Times of the Temptations (Berkeley Repertory Theatre). Dominique is an alumna of The Public Theater Emerging Writer’s Group, Women’s Project Lab, and Lark Playwrights Workshop and has developed work at Sundance Lab, Williamstown Theatre Festival and Eugene O’Neil Playwrights Conference. Her work has been commissioned by Steppenwolf Theater, Women’s Project, South Coast Rep, People’s Light and Theatre, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival/Penumbra Theatre. She most recently served as Co-Producer on the Showtime series “Shameless”. Awards include: Spirit of Detroit Award, PoNY Fellowship, Sky-Cooper Prize, TEER Trailblazer Award, Steinberg Playwright Award, Audelco Awards, NBFT August Wilson Playwriting Award, Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama, OBIE Award, Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellowship, and being named one of Variety’s Women of Impact for 2017-18.

Oscar Wilde (Playwright) was an Anglo-Irish poet, author, and playwright. He contributed to publications such as Pall Mall Gazette and he wrote the novel The Portrait of Dorian Gray. Perhaps most recognized for his work as a playwright, Wilde wrote plays such as Lady Windermere’s Fan, An Ideal Husband, Salome, and The Importance of Being Earnest. Shortly after The Importance of Being Earnest premiered, Wilde was imprisoned for two years. He was arrested after losing a libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry. Wilde had had an ongoing affair with Marquess’ son and was charged with gross indecency. While in prison, he wrote a well-known 55,000-word letter to his love called De Profundis. After his release from prison, he published portions of the letter, including The Ballad of Reading Gaol. He died shortly after he was freed at the age of 46. He lived his life extravagantly, but he suffered greatly.

Kareem Fahmy (Director) is a Canadian-born director and playwright of Egyptian descent. He is a 2017-2018 National Directors Fellow with The O’Neill Theater Center and the National New Play Network. He has directed and co-conceived a number of world premiere productions including James Scruggs’s 3/Fifths (3LD, New York Times Top 5 Must-See Shows), Sevan K. Greene’s This Time (Sheen Center, New York Times Critics’ Pick), and Victor Lesniewski’s Couriers and Contrabands (TBG Theatre). Other: Adam Kraar’s Alternating Currents (world premiere, Working Theater), Rohina Malik’s The Mecca Tales (NY premiere, Voyage Theater Company), Nikkole Salter’s Indian Head (world premiere, Luna Stage). Kareem’s work as a playwright has been developed and produced at Noor Theatre, Rising Circle Theater Collective, The Lark, Fault Line Theatre, and The Atlantic Theater Company. He is currently adapting the seminal Egyptian novel The Yacoubian Building for the stage. Kareem has developed plays with New York Theatre Workshop (where he is a Usual Suspect), MCC, Second Stage, Soho Rep, New Dramatists, The Lark, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Sundance, The Civilians, Noor Theatre, Silk Road Rising, and Berkeley Rep. He is a founder of Maia Directors, a consulting group for organizations and artists engaging with Middle Eastern stories. MFA: Columbia University. www.KareemFahmy.com

Bess Welden (Playwright) has been making theater as a writer, performer, and educator for nearly 25 years, and in her adopted home state of Maine since 2001. Refuge * Malja * ملجأ marks her playwriting debut on Portland Stage’s mainstage after developing the script in the 2017 Little Festival of the Unexpected and a week-long residency at Hewnoaks Artist Colony. Her one-act play Madelines(2015) premiered in PS’s Studio Series, and her two solo comedies Big Mouth Thunder Thighs (2013) and The Passion of the Hausfrau (2009) were also workshopped through Little Festival and premiered in the Studio Theater. In 2017, her original multi-disciplinary performance project, Legbala is a River, premiered at Mayo Street Arts, and her play Death Wings received at staged reading with Real Live Theatre in Northampton, MA and was workshopped with professional and student actors at Colby College. In addition, she helped develop the script for and directed Not Always Happy, written and performed by Portland blogger/memoirist/social justice storyteller Kari Wagner-Peck. Her children’s theater piece, Magic in the Attic, premiered at Theater LJCC in Birmingham, AL (2015) and her latest script for young actors/audiences, Mergirl Saves the Waves, will be workshopped in July 2018 through PS’s Theater for Kids summer program. Bess is the librettist of two musical works, A Little Miracle (Lincoln Center premiere) and Eagle Girl, composed by David Stock, and has co-written and performed four other solo plays. As a performer (MFA, National Theater Conservatory) she has appeared with the Denver Center Theater Company, Williamstown Theater Festival, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Hangar Theater, Montana Shakespeare in the Parks, Portland Stage, Dramatic Repertory Company, the Opera House at Boothbay, Mad Horse Theatre, Portland Symphony Orchestra, Southwest Michigan Symphony, White Plains Performing Arts Center, Commonweal Theater, among many others. Bess is a Teaching Artist in Colby College’s Department of Theater and Dance where she has directed mainstage productions of Tartuffe and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well as facilitated/directed the Activist Storytelling Workshop/The Passion Project. She is a long-time and proud PS Affiliate Artist and Teaching Artist. www.besswelden.com.