Women
Playwrights Festival

This is sponsored by Museum of Jersey City History, The Jersey City Office of Cultural Affairs, and is part of the New Jersey Theatre Alliance 2022 Stages Festival, made possible by support from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts; Bank of America; The Horizon Foundation for New Jersey; OceanFirst Foundation; New Jersey Historical Commission.

www.njtheatrealliance.org/stages.

Dani Nelson

Dani Nelson is a NYC-based actor and playwright. Her most recent play The Wine Vignettes was a 2022 National Playwrights Conference semifinalist. It was also a semifinalist in the 2022 Wild Imaginings Epiphanies Festival. Her previous play April is Over received 5 stars at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (C Venues, 2017), and was a Curious Creators Semifinalist in 2022. Dani is an alumna of Fresh Ground Pepper’s BRB Retreat. BA: St. John’s College; MA: Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. www.daninelson.me

Gabrielle Perez

Gabrielle Perez is a New York City based playwright, by way of Upstate New York. Her play Something More Than God was recently a part of Entertainment Community Fund’s (formerly The Actor’s Fund) New Works Lab: Cross-Gen Workshop. She was an Ensemble Member at Kervigo Ensemble Theatre from 2020-2022. Gabrielle was a Semi-Finalist with her play This
Will Be Our Year for Against the Grain’s Playwriting Competition. Besides playwriting, she has also been an Executive Producer and Featured Writer on GB’s Productions virtual show The Juke
Joint Live.

Toby Inoue

Toby Inoue has had a workshop and staged reading of her play Bring Him Home at Hedgerow Theatre in Rose Valley before production was interrupted by the pandemic. Her play Ben was selected as a finalist in the 2020 New Play Festival at the Players Club of Swarthmore. Her short radio play The Audition was produced by the Media Arts Council in July 2022.

Libby Hiley

Libby is a playwright and author based in New York. She is a two-time semi-finalist for the Eugene O’Neill Playwriting Conference and a former participant of the Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensive. Her play, Midnight Showing, was shortlisted for the 2022 Yale Drama Series Prize. Her fiction has been published in Daily Science Fiction, The Baltimore Review, Kaaterskill Basin Literary Journal, and Theaker’s Quarterly among others. Her short story, "Grow Your Own Dad" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is the author of a YA series.

Kimi Ramirez

Kimi Ramírez (aka Kimberly del Busto Ramírez) is an interdisciplinary dramatist with an M.F.A. in Playwriting and a Ph.D. in Theatre & Performance. Their original plays explore persistent social and intergenerational conflicts associated with Latinx heritage, veganism, gender, sexuality, and education. Kimi’s dramatic writing has been presented at Breath of Fire Latina Theatre, Teatro Luna, Repertorio Español, San Diego Repertory Theatre, Teatro del Pueblo, WOW Café Theatre, Nuyorican Poets Café, Primary Stages, Drama Book Shop’s Arthur Saleen Theatre, Hippodrome State Theatre, Latin American Theatre Today Festival, Edward Albee’s Great Plains Theatre Conference, Maieutic Theatre/MT Works, Southeastern Theatre Conference, 21st Century Playwrights Festival, Morris-Jumel Mansion with People’s Theatre Project, Tribeca Performing Arts Center with America-in-Play, Martin E. Segal Theatre, the Spoon Theatre, Hudson Opera House, and Lower East Side Tenement Museum. Published versions of Kimi’s plays and monologues can be found in Label Me Latina/o: Journal of Twentieth & Twenty-first Century Literary Production, Basta!: Latinas Write on Gender Violence (University of Nevada-Reno Latino Research Center), Collages & Bricolages Journal of International Writing, Mother/Daughter Monologues (International Centre of Women Playwrights Press) and We-Us: Monologues for Gender Minority Characters (Smith & Kraus). They are an active member of The Dramatists Guild, Dos Alas Theatre, The Players founded by Edwin Booth (including its Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion committee), and currently serve on the official Lucille Lortel Awards Nominating Committee in recognition of excellence in Off-Broadway theatre. An incurably homesick Miami native, Kimi can also be found simulating subtropical environments on their unusual New York City patio in midtown Manhattan.

Chelyn Cousar

Chelyn Cousar is an emerging playwright currently living in New City. Originally from Poughkeepsie, New York, she discovered a passion for theater back in high school and was involved backstage and performed in four theatre productions there. Her one act play ‘Two Weeks’ was among the top 50 in the NEWvember New Plays Festival in Tivoli, NY in 2015 and was read at Playwright's Playground at the Classical Theatre of Harlem in 2017. She enjoys gaining as much knowledge as possible when it comes to writing plays, continuously finding ways to shape her craft as a storyteller.

Kate Brennan

Kate Brennan is an artist, educator and creator. She has penned 6 musicals including The Infinity Trilogy, the recipient of a 2021 MAP Grant. Her debut poetry collection, elevated thoughts, was released with Literati Press and her Brennan & White musical ALiEN8 is available with YouthPlays. Her second Brennan & White collaboration, Clean Slate, will premiere with Rider University and Passage Theatre Company in 2023. Her play What’s in Store was a semi-finalist for The O’Neill and a finalist for the Princess Grace/New Dramatist Fellowship. She has been a guest artist at the HBMG National Winter Playwrights Retreat, Tofte Lake Center, and on faculty with Oklahoma City University and numerous others. Her writing has appeared in McSweeney’s (“21 best of ’21”), Dramatist, Howlround, The Offing, and The New York Times. She is a member of The Dramatist Guild, AEA, VASTA and is a Designated Linklater Teacher. Kate holds an MFA from The University of Virginia and is Artistic Director of Ignition Arts.

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Application

WelcomE
PANDORA
SCOOTER

Speranza is thrilled to be working on this project with playwright and teacher, Pandora Scooter,

the Founder/Director of the Women's Playwright's Circle.

Pandora Scooter is an award-winning biracial (Japanese/Jewish), queer, middle-aged, Gen X playwright, script analyst, instructor, performer, spoken word artist and activist. She has worked in the literary departments of Arena Stage, the Goodman Theatre, Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, Delaware Theatre Company, George Street Playhouse and New York Theatre Workshop as a script reader, literary associate and dramaturg. In 1999, she and Rosemary McLaughlin founded The Hallie Flanagan Women's Play Reading Series at Wings Theatre Company, which ran for three years. A life long script analyst, Pandora has created a practical guide to script analysis called The Bunseki Method and has written a text book on the subject of the same name.

THEATRE BY AND ABOUT WOMEN

Women Playwrights Festival

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WelcomE PANDORA SCOOTER

Women
Playwrights Festival

WelcomE
PANDORA
SCOOTER