Tom Lavagnino is a native of Indianapolis and a graduate of NYU (B.F.A.) and AFI (M.F.A.). His full-length plays include Winter Rules All Summer (First Prize, 2019 Writers Digest Playwriting Award), Eleanor Tuesday (2018 Marandy Award / Julie Harris Playwright Competition), and Negotiating Nathan (First Prize, 2006 Actors Theater (Santa Cruz) Full-length Play Contest). He has been a member of the Skylight Theatre’s PlayLAb (Los Angeles), under the aegis of Pulitzer-Prize-nominated playwright Lee Blessing, since June 2012. Tom worked as an editor at 5th Street International Poker Magazine, co-wrote the Darko/Sony feature film Home Sweet Hell, is the consulting producer on HBO’s upcoming mini-series The Time Traveller’s Wife, and his favorite sound is laughter. www.tomlavagnino.com

Natalina Lopez is a writer from West Covina, California. Though she cannot drive well, she is an above-average walker. She is currently a first-year Master of Fine Arts student at Columbia University, concentrating in dramaturgy. Natalina received her BA in architecture from Yale University, and she worked at HBO and Twitter as a copywriter prior to starting graduate school.

Christian Missonak is a NYC-based playwright originally from Chicago, where he was a graduate of Columbia College and The Second City Conservatory. He was an ensemble member at Under the Gun Theater where his Chicago Reader-recommended play, Save Ferris, was performed. In 2021, his new play Sheridan premiered at MadLab Theatre in Columbus, Ohio, his short play Nowhere to Go Nights was published in the most recent edition of High Plains Register, and an audio production of No One Looks Good at 4 in the Morning was released as part of the Garden of Voices podcast. www.christianmissonak.com

Bara Swain’s plays have been staged in 185+ venues in 28 states and abroad.  NYC theatres include Urban Stages, Abingdon, Barrow Group, Symphony Space, Primary Stages, Sam French, NY Madness, Westside Theatre, Artistic New Directions, Planet Connections and T.A.R.T.E.  Recent Live: Temporary, Pro.English Theatre, National Cinematheque (Kiev, Ukraine); The Wonder of You (Shawnee Playhouse 2021 International Playwriting Festival, PA); Seventy-Seven (a monologue, Quake Theatre Sparkfest, Bath, UK); and Folded (27^th Annual Nantucket Short Play Festival, MA & Warner Theatre Festival, CT).  Recent Pre-Pandemic Live:  Choose! (Artistic New Directions, NYC); Turn! Turn! Turn! (Tom Mann Theatre, Sydney); Responsible  (The Junction, Dubai); Pandemonium (Open Fist Theatre, L.A.), The Wonder of You (The Barrow Group, NYC); and Yearning for Peace (Articulate Theatre). Selective awards: First Place Winner, Shawnee Playhouse One-Act Play Festival 2020-21 for The Wonder of You, Standing Ovation Award for I Love Lucy and Can You Hear Me Now? (Smith & Kraus) and City Theatre National Award Finalist for Short Playwriting for Extraordinary and The Hotel Lobbyist (FL). Bara’s plays and monologues are anthologized by Smith & Kraus, Applause Books, Oxford U. Press, and Art Age Press.  Since the pandemic, her work has been selected for 40+ virtual  performances and productions.  Bara serves as the Creative Consultant at Urban Stages.   www.BaraSwain.com

Jonathon Ward is a playwright and a New Yorker who creates theatre to challenge preconceptions of who we are and where we’re going as a people with stories comedic and tragic.  He’s had the pleasure to create new theatre in USA and Canada at FringeNYC, Indie Theater Now, Chelsea Rep LAB, Secret Theatre, Theatre Conspiracy, Birdhouse Theatre, Manhattan Repertory, Itinerant Theatre, Plays and Pizza, Little Funky Theatre, William Inge Festival, Metropolitan Playhouse, Barter Theater, InspiraTO, Abrons Arts Center, Applause Books, Huntington Arts Council, Cooperstown Art Museum, Little Victory Players, Pulse Ensemble, Community Free Theatre, NYU Studio Tisch, Urban Youth Theatre, University of Chicago and others.  He has received four NYSCA commissions, as well as grants from New York University, and private foundations.  During his thirty years as an arts administrator, he was the Director of the Theater at the Abrons Arts Center and Department Administrator of the NYU Graduate Acting Program.  He has written and produced over 20 of his own plays and produced and presented over 200 shows of other artists.  Some of his plays can be found on the New Play Exchange at: https://newplayexchange.org/users/10146/jonathon-ward