Mike Batistick

MIKE BATISTICK’s plays include CHICKEN (Studio Dante, Spring 2007), PORT AUTHORITY THROW DOWN (Culture Project, Fall 2006), FLAG (Hangar Theatre, Summer 2006), PONIES (Studio Dante, Fall 2004), and BODEGA LUNG FAT (Public Theater’s 2003 New Work Now! Festival). Member: Ars Nova Play Group, MCC Playwright’s Coalition. Recipient: 2007 NYSCA grant. Two-year Juilliard Playwriting Fellow. Currently under commission by the Atlantic Theater Company. Screenplay: THE WINDMILL. Graduate of Fordham University in the Bronx.

Evan Cabnet

Recent writing credits include: I SEE LONDON I SEE FRANCE (Obstruction Plays/Slant Theater Co.), PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (Couchworks/ The Tank). Recent directing: Elizabeth Meriwether’s THE MISTAKES MADELINE MADE (Naked Angels/Culture Project), Molly Smith Metzler’s TRAINING WISTERIA (Summer Play Festival), Mat Smart’s KEEP ISHMAEL (White Horse Theater, Chicago), Five seasons at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, including the 2003 Bill Foeller and 2004 Boris Sagal Fellowships. Currently in development with his first screenplay, based on his play MY RENAISSANCE FAIR LADY, which has been optioned and is slated to shoot next fall. Upcoming: Kyle Jarrow’s HYPOCHONDRIA.

Liz Flahive

LIZ FLAHIVE is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts Department of Dramatic Writing. Her plays have been read at Williamstown Theater Festival’s Friday’s @ 3 series as well as Ars Nova’s Out Loud Reading Series and Next Step Workshop. Her first full length play, FROM UP HERE, will be produced by Ars Nova in 2007. She was a finalist in last years Naked Angels/Fox TV Naked TV competition. She is a former full-time beauty editor (Lucky, Seventeen, Teen People) and continues to write about things like shampoo and wrinkles to pay her rent.

Etan Frankel

ETAN FRANKEL’S play CREATE FATE was produced last summer at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, directed by Christopher Ashley. His most recent play, THE FEARLESS, was produced in New York at the Summer Play Festival, with Scott Schwartz directing. Other plays, including TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION, PARALYZED and THE TREEHOUSE, have been developed at the Huntington Theatre Company, New York Stage and Film, Cape Cod Theatre Project, Pittsburgh’s City Theatre, Primary Stages, Ars Nova, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Rattlestick, and Juilliard. Etan is a graduate of Duke University and The Juilliard School’s Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program. He is the recipient of The Weissberger Award from Williamstown Theatre Festival, the Dasha Epstein Playwriting Award, and he has twice been honored with Lincoln Center’s Le comte du Nouy Award.

Kyle Jarrow

KYLE JARROW is a Brooklyn-based writer and musician. He writes for film and for television as well as for the stage, and he plays in the glam rock band The Fabulous Entourage.

KYLE JARROW is a Brooklyn-based writer and musician. He writes for film and for television as well as for the stage, and he plays in the glam rock band The Fabulous Entourage. He won an OBIE Award at age 24 for his Off-Broadway hit A VERY MERRY UNAUTHORIZED CHILDREN’S SCIENTOLOGY PAGEANT, which also had a successful run in Los Angeles in fall 2004 and was revived in NYC, Boston, and Atlanta in winter 2006. Kyle’s play ARMLESS won the Overall Excellence Award at the New York International Fringe Festival, and productions of his plays PRESIDENT HARDING IS A ROCK STAR and GORILLA MAN (now available from Samuel French) played in NYC to critical acclaim. Kyle’s playwriting work has been presented at Performance Space 122, New York Theatre Workshop, The John Houseman Theatre, HERE Arts Center, Boston Theatre Works, New Dramatists, The Flea, The Hangar Theatre, and Dad’s Garage in Atlanta among others. Kyle was a 2005-2006 Dramatists Guild Fellow. He was nominated for a 2004 Los Angeles Drama Critics’ Circle Award and a 2004 Backstage West Garland Award for A VERY MERRY…, and was runner-up for the 2002 Princess Grace Playwriting Award for his play Hypochondria. He was winner of the 2001 John Golden Prize. Kyle has guest-lectured at Juilliard and Pratt and done art design for the hip hop company Full Circle. He produced the cast album of A VERY MERRY…, released on Sh-K-Boom Records. THE FABULOUS ENTOURAGE has appeared as part of the 2006 Whitney Biennial, on the Knitting Factory Mainstage, at Joe’s Pub, Viper Room, Bowery Ballroom, and with bands such as Hot Chip and We Are Scientists. They recently released their debut full-length album “Play Nice Now.”

Nick Jones

NICK JONES is a playwright, director, puppet designer, and performer. He is a founding member and artistic director of Jollyship the Whiz-Bang, which is (alternately or simultaneously) a puppet troupe, band, and theater production company.

NICK JONES is a playwright, director, puppet designer, and performer. His work has been performed at chashama (CANADA’S MID-RIFF) the Bowery Poetry Club (SLEEPLESS FISHES AND CRABQUISTADOR: SCAVENGER OF GOD) as well as the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art’s TBA Festival, the Dublin Fringe Festival (first runner up, “Most Entertaining”), Ars Nova, the Brick Theater, The Kitchen, P.S. 122, NYMF, The Public, The Edinburgh Fringe, Galapagos Art Space (Little Building) and at the O’Neil Puppetry Conference. He is a founding member and artistic director of Jollyship the Whiz-Bang, which is (alternately or simultaneously) a puppet troupe, band, and theater production company. He has been an artist-in-residence at Galapagos, the Bowery Poetry Club, and at the Hoontown Puppet Festival in Bangkok. As a puppet designer, he has created work for the All Stars Youth Project, The Castillo Theater, the 2004 Dream Parade in Taiwan, and is the recipient of a 2007 grant from the Jim Henson Foundation. He graduated in 2001 from Bard College, and was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska.

Barry Levey

BARRY LEVEY’S play ALL THE WAY FROM CHINA, developed in Ars Nova’s Out Loud series last spring, receives a workshop production by Cleveland’s Fourth Wall in March. In 2005 his play CRITICAL DARLING was produced by The New Group, following development by the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Arena Stage, and the Baldwin New Play Festival at the University of California, San Diego, where Barry received his MFA. Other plays include 2006 O’Neill finalist CITIZENS OF ROME, 2005 Hangar Lab finalist LUNCHMEAT and TWO HANDS, VERY TIRED.

Carly Mensch

CARLY MENSCH’S plays include THE DELICATE BUSINESS OF BOY AND MISS GIRL (2006 New York International Fringe Festival), THE WASH CYCLE, PAINT THE TOWN BLACK, SALLY and BRADSHAW (Lorring Dodd Drama Prize). She is currently a fellow at The Juilliard School’s Lila Acheson Wallace Playwrights Program.

Elizabeth Meriwether

Liz Meriwether’s play The Mistakes Madeline Made was originally produced by Naked Angels Theater in New York City, and was subsequently done at Yale Rep and published by Dramatists Play Service.

Liz Meriwether’s play The Mistakes Madeline Made was originally produced by Naked Angels Theater in New York City, and was subsequently done at Yale Rep and published by Dramatists Play Service. Her other plays include Heddatron, a loose adaptation of Hedda Gabler featuring live robots which was produced by Les Freres Corbusier, Nicky Goes Goth which was first produced in 2004 in the NY Fringe Festival, and The True Love Story My Parents, winner of the Samuel French Short Play Competition. Her latest play, Oliver, has been optioned by Scott Rudin and will have a workshop at the Vineyard Theatre in December. Liz has been a Playwright-in-Residence at Ars Nova Theatre and is an associate artist of Les Freres Corbusier. She is an executive producer on her original pilot currently in development with Fox Television, and is working on play commissions for Manhattan Theatre Club and Yale Repertory Theatre. Liz is also writing a film adaptation of the novel Maynard and Jennica for Scott Rudin and Miramax, as well as an untitled film for Montecito Pictures.

Lin-Manuel Miranda

LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA is currently starring Off-Broadway in IN THE HEIGHTS, a new musical for which he also wrote the music and lyrics. Lin wrote the first incarnation of IN THE HEIGHTS his sophomore year at Wesleyan University, CT. He received the Georgia Holof Lyricist Award for IN THE HEIGHTS at the 2005 O’Neill Music Theater Conference and has composed commercial music for Fernando Ferrer and Eliot Spitzer. Lin is also a co-founding member of Freestyle Love Supreme, a hip-hop comedy group that tours comedy festivals all over the world.

Rachel Shukert

RACHEL SHUKERT is a playwright and author based in New York City. Her plays include BLOODY MARY (NYIT Award nominee), THE RED BEARD OF ESAU, SEQUINS FOR SATAN, THE BLACKSTONE HOTEL, and SOILED LINENS. Her work has been developed and produced at Ars Nova, the Williamstown Theater Festival, the Culture Project, the Ontological/Hysteric, and the EVOLVE series at Galapagos. In 2003, she was the Playwright-in-Residence at e74 productions in Amsterdam, and her work was performed extensively throughout the Netherlands. As a performer, she has appeared with Richard Foreman’s Ontological/Hysteric Theater, in New York and internationally; Les Freres Courbusier, the T.E.A.M., Salt Theater, e74, and with her own company, the Bushwick Hotel, which she co-founded in 2002. Her upcoming collection of essays, Have You No Shame? will be published by Random House/Villard.

Mat Smart

Recently, he wrote the book and lyrics for KEEP ISHMAEL, a new rock musical based on Moby-Dick with music by Ethan Deppe (dir. by Evan Cabnet) that was produced in 2006 at White Horse Theatre Company in Chicago. Last season, THE HOPPER COLLECTION received productions at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco (dir. by Chris Smith) and Huntington Theatre Company in Boston (dir. by Daniel Aukin). He is currently working on THE 13TH OF PARIS a commission from South Coast Rep, and THOMAS REPAIR, a commission from Huntington. He is a founding member Slant Theatre Project and a member of the Board of Directors for the New Harmony Project. Originally from Naperville, IL, he now lives in Brooklyn. Undergrad: University of Evansville. MFA: UCSD.

Aurin Squire

AURIN SQUIRE is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter from Opa Locka, Florida. His plays have been produced over 30 times in the last few years and won numerous awards in Florida, New York, and Illinois. He graduated with honors from Northwestern University and completed his MFA at the Actors Studio Drama School. In the past he’s worked as a radio journalist, magazine editor and crime reporter for publications like Chicago Tribune and Miami Herald. His cartoon series, BodegaAve.com, is based around the Brooklyn neighborhood where he currently lives.

Adam Szymkowicz

ADAM SZYMKOWICZ (playwright) is currently studying with Marsha Norman and Christopher Durang at The Juilliard School in the Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program.

ADAM SZYMKOWICZ (playwright) is currently studying with Marsha Norman and Christopher Durang at The Juilliard School in the Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program. In 2004, he received his playwriting MFA from Columbia University where he was the Dean’s Fellow. His work has been produced throughout the U.S., and in Canada, England and Lithuania. Plays include DEFLOWERING WALDO, THE RELATIONSHIP GAME, ONE WEDNESDAY AT WEST HADDAM HIGH, SOMEONE I DON’T KNOW, OPEN MINDS, ANNE, THE ART MACHINE, PRETTY THEFT, FOOD FOR FISH, HERBIE, INCENDIARY, BEE EATER and NERVE. Several of his plays have been published by Dramatists Play Service. Szymkowicz is a two-time Lecomte du Nouy Prize winner, a member of the Dramatists Guild, and of the Ars Nova Play Group.

Beau Willimon

Beau Willimon has written seven full-length plays, as well as numerous one-acts. His plays have been developed or performed at Ars Nova, MCC, HERE Arts Center, New Dramatists, Daryl Roth 2 Theatre, Makor Arts Center, Arthur Seelen Theatre, Kraine Theatre (all in New York), the Dayton Playhouse in Ohio, The Phoenix Theatre in Arizona, and the Battersea Arts Center in London

Beau Willimon has written seven full-length plays, as well as numerous one-acts. His plays have been developed or performed at Ars Nova, MCC, HERE Arts Center, New Dramatists, Daryl Roth 2 Theatre, Makor Arts Center, Arthur Seelen Theatre, Kraine Theatre (all in New York), the Dayton Playhouse in Ohio, The Phoenix Theatre in Arizona, and the Battersea Arts Center in London. Willimon is a recipient of the Juilliard Lila Acheson Wallace Juilliard Playwriting Fellowship, two time recipient of the Lincoln Center Le Compte du Nuoy Award, winner of the Seymour Brick Memorial Playwriting Prize, winner of the 2005 Dayton Playhouse FutureFest and winner of the 2006 Kernodle One Act Competition. His play Lower Ninth will soon premiere at the Flea Theater. The producer Jeffrey Richards has optioned his play Farragut North for Broadway. In addition to his work in theatre, Willimon is currently working on two feature films for Warner Brothers (one of which will be a film adaptation of Farragut North), as well as a feature for Fox 2000. Willimon graduated with a B.A. from Columbia University in 1999 and an M.F.A. in playwriting from Columbia’s Graduate School of the Arts in 2003. He lives in Brooklyn.