Nikki Brake-Sillá, a Black playwright/filmmaker with an invisible disability, tried to check out of the hospital with her infant, A.M.A. During the day, she works in a research lab and merges science and art to expose people to inherent bias in the medical system. She weaves stories that give urgency to folx who birth (AGAINST MEDICAL ADVICE), COVID frontline workers (SILOS), and exposes the challenges of uterine transplant research trials (REWOMBED). She has been commissioned by EST/Sloan, Revolution Shakespeare, Elevate Theatre, and Black Music City. But what gives her the most joy is giving someone their likeness on screen and stage. ginifilms.com

Dave Ebersole (he/him) has been a playwright, theater director, and teaching artist in the
greater Philadelphia area for over fifteen years. He co-runs a monthly new play reading series at
The Media Arts Center. As a comic book writer he’s best known for co-creating the series
DASH, which has now been adapted into an ongoing audio drama. He teaches theater and
writing at Community College of Philadelphia. He holds an MFA in Writing for the Stage and
Screen from Point Park University. He lives in the Philadelphia area with his Yorkie, Ernie.
daveebersole.com

AZ Espinoza is an afro-futurist- trans-masculine-feminist making magic through theatre.  Their play All My Mothers Dream in Spanish premiered at Azuka Theatre in 2023, and their play Homeridae has been developed nationally and was an Honorable Mention finalist for the Terrence McNally Award. Their adaptation of Anne Carson’s The Bakkai took place in a BIPOC mutual aid zoom room in 2020; and their adaptation of Shakespeare’s Pericles, Peril’s Island was performed outdoors while observing social distancing in 2021. Directing credits include classics and new plays, always with a radical bent and an arc towards empathetic community practice, and their performance praxis centers queer embodiments of joy. Recent work has been supported by Black Spatial Relics, Genderfunk Philly, and the Leeway Art and Social Change Grant. They are a theater educator for all ages, most recently at Temple University, and they are a student of liberation everywhere, and for everyone.

Emma Gibson is a British theatre-maker, now living in Philadelphia. She was the founding artistic director of Tiny
Dynamite for whom she produced over 20 productions. Emma also works as a playwright, director, actor and
educator. Her plays have been produced around the world and received recognition at several national and
international conferences including finalist for the O’Neill, Seven Devils, Princess Grace, and Blue Ink
Playwriting Award. Recently, she was a runner up for the Ambassador Theatre Group prize with Platform
Presents, and a finalist for The Women’s Prize for Playwriting. She was also the winner of The Pittsburgh
Public Theater’s new play competition. More at www.britishemma.com

Dan Kitrosser is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter and performer. He cowrote the screenplay for WE THE ANIMALS which premiered at Sundance Film Festival, winning the NEXT: Innovator Award, Best Narrative at OutFest and was nominated for 5 Independent Spirit Awards and a GLAAD Award. His plays have been performed all over the world, including TAR BABY (Amnesty International Citation of Excellence) and for his show HOMOS! A Solo Disaster Musical, bitch Dan just received the Fringie Award at the 2023 Philadelphia Fringe Festival. You can hear Dan as the host of the acclaimed iHeartRadio podcast SVETLANA! SVETLANA!, a ten-episode podcast about Dan’s obsessions with Josef Stalin’s daughter. Dan lives in South Philadelphia with his fabulous husband Jordan and his narcissistic dog, Gemma.

Zac Kline is a playwright, librettist and poet. His work has been staged, read and developed in Philadelphia, New York, London and Austin, Texas in both traditional and site-specific spaces, including Theatre Royal Stratford East, Finborough Theatre, Bristol Riverside Theater, Philadelphia Theatre Company, a 100-year old squash court, an apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and a field on Governors Island. He was the lead producer of After Orlando: an international theatre action in response to the shooting at Pulse Nightclub. He wrote the libretto to james (book of ruth) music by Steven Sérpa, recorded by Inversion Ensemble and is the co-author of Bob Dylan: Music, Lyrics and Justice with his father Tom Kline. www.zackline.net

Genne Murphy (she/they) is a playwright from Philadelphia. Genne’s work has been developed with Page 73, Azuka Theatre, Yale Cabaret/Yale School of Drama, The American Playwriting Foundation, Great Plains Theater Conference, PlayPenn, Philly Fringe, SF PlayGround and Theater Masters. She is a winner of the Leah Ryan Fund for Emerging Women Playwrights and a past finalist for the Relentless Award. Genne is an alum of Philadelphia Young Playwrights.

Savannah Reich is a playwright based in West Philadelphia. Her plays have been produced at theaters and universities across the country, commissioned by Walking Shadow Theater Company, the University of Minnesota, and SuperGroup, developed at the Playwrights Center and Seven Devils New Play Foundry, and supported by residencies at Tofte Lake Art Center and MassMoCA. She was a 2020/21 McKnight Fellow at the Playwrights Center, and her play “Oedipus in Seattle” won a Fringie at the 2022 Philadelphia Fringe. She holds an MFA from Carnegie Mellon University, and currently teaches at the University of the Arts and Swarthmore College.

Sharese Salters is incredibly honored to be a 2024 Terrance McNally semi-finalist! She is a southern-bred, multi-hyphenate artist whose main artistry lies in performance, theatre education, and playwriting. Art is the place where Sharese feels the most at home and the most powerful—the place where she can wield her voice how she sees fit, free of constraint and free of judgment. Sharese uses storytelling to connect to people by beginning with a laugh and ideally ending with reflections of the heart. She is a creative, a collaborator, a crier, and a friend.

Scott R. Sheppard is an Obie award-winning theater artist and a Founding Co-Artistic Director of theater company Lightning Rod Special. He was a co-creator/performer of “Underground Railroad Game,” (Ars Nova). Recent credits include: Lead Writer on “The Appointment” (Best of 2023 -New Yorker) Lead Writer of “SPEECH” with Lightning Rod Special; Writer of the digital works “Blood Meal” (NY Times Critics’ Pick) and “Topside” with Theater in Quarantine. Scott graduated from the Pig Iron School and has collaborated on several works with Pig Iron Theatre Co.

Born and raised in New York City, Brooke Shilling is a Philadelphia-based theatre artist and educator. She holds a BFA in Acting from Ithaca College and an MFA in Devised Performance from The University of the Arts/Pig Iron School. She has worked with groups such as One Year Lease Theater Company, The Drama League, Theatre Ariel, Theatre Unspeakable, inFLUX Theatre Collective, and more. She has facilitated workshops and taught as a visiting artist at the University of the Arts, Theatre Horizon, One Year Lease Theater Company’s Apprentice Program in Greece, Japan and India, performing arts high schools, and others, working with both theatre makers and non-theatre makers, the elderly, autistic youth and young adults, and incarcerated young people. Brooke’s solo show Ladies of the Land has been presented at The Drama League, Dixon Place, and the Shoe Box Short Theatre Festival. She has shared numerous original works as a part of the Philadelphia FringeArts Festival, including Threnody and Sinky The Pirate. Brooke is a two-time Illuminate the Arts Individual Artist Grant recipient, awarded by the City of Philadelphia Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy. She co-wrote the play WAKE with Leon Ingulsrud and One Year Lease Theater Company, which will be produced in New York in 2025.

brooke-shilling.com / @brooke.shilling

Marisol Soledad is a cultural worker, theater artist, educator, and facilitator. Her acting, directing, writing, and devising work have appeared in NYC, Philadelphia, Seattle, Boston, Miami, Maine, Colorado, Alaska, Texas, and Tijuana.  She is a tenured member of the teaching artist ensemble at the New Victory Theater in NYC, where she has also developed original work for young audiences as a lead artist in the LabWorks program and made her Off-Broadway directorial debut with Spellbound Theater’s Wink.  Marisol is a graduate of Princeton University and of Helikos International School of Theatre Creation in Florence, Italy.   Recent original works include Junk/Baby, Auntieland, The Most Important Place in The World, and The Seven Ravens Project.

R. Eric Thomas (he/him/his) is the winner of the Barrymore Award for Best New Play, the Dramatists Guild Lanford Wilson Award, and the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Drama. He has been produced by Philadelphia’s Arden Theatre, Azuka Theatre, Simpatico Theatre, Baltimore Center Stage, Everyman Theatre, Indianapolis Repertory Theatre, and more. A proud member of the WGA, Eric was on the writing staff for Dickinson (AppleTV+) and Better Things (FX). His books include the national bestsellers Here for It and Congratulations, the Best Is Over!. He is the co-lead mentor of PlayPenn’s playwriting cohort The Foundry.

MK Tuomanen (they/them) is a current Jerome Fellow at the Playwright’s Center. Named “Best Theater Artist” in Philadelphia Magazine in 2015, they are the 2017 recipient of the F. Otto Haas Emerging Artist Award. Their solo work includes Consider the Cow (subCircle, Playwright’s Center), Hello! Sadness! (Kimmel Center Independence Studio, FringeArts) and Saint Joan, Betrayed (Annenberg Center). Other work includes: Marcus/Emma (premiered InterAct, nominated for several Barrymores including Best New Play) and Peaceable Kingdom (Orbiter 3, winner of the Virginia Brown-Martin Philadelphia Award). They are a member of Applied Mechanics, and an associated artist with Bearded Ladies Cabaret.

Haygen-Brice Walker (he/him/his) is a half-Puerto Rican, half-white trash playwright-creative producer raised by professional bodybuilders in a southern swamp and living in South Philadelphia. Haygen-Brice was one of the inaugural fellows of the Terrence McNally New Works Incubator with Rattlestick Productions, has been a Jerome Many Voices Fellow with the Playwrights’ Center, a member of Page 73’s I-73 Writers’ Group, a Virtual Mentee with Playwrights’ Realm, and had a Creative Residency with SPACE on Ryder Farm.  Haygen-Brice is the Co-Founder of ON THE ROCKS, a production company devoted to the late-night, theatrical dumpster-fires that Haygen-Brice makes with Director-Producer, Elaina Di Monaco.  Each day, Haygen-Brice is one step closer to becoming Jennifer Lopez, which is trite for a gay boricua, but he’s embracing the cliché and living in his truth.  He is repped by WME and Writ Large.