About the Playwrights

Barbara Anderson (Fugitive Colors, The Tree) is a long-distance walker and writer of books, short stories, and plays. Her plays have been performed throughout Europe, Britain, and the US. Her full-length play Fugitive Colors was a finalist in the Ashland New Plays Festival, read in NYC and SF, and accepted for the Sewanee Writers Conference. She created her YouTube channel, barbaraanderson.org, during the pandemic. Currently, she is working on a set of plays and short stories about American and Italian Fascism. Fugitive Colors needs another reading, as the issue of abortion has changed so much in the last few years and can no longer be presented as is.

William Brasse (Little Cat Feet) writes plays, novels, short stories, and the occasional essay.

Seth Freeman (The Tea Test) began writing plays in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he was co-founder of the Chamber Theatre in Berkeley. In addition to writing for the stage, he is a journalist, a writer of fiction, and a writer/producer of television. He created the series Lincoln Heights, and his work in television has received multiple Emmys, Golden Globes, Writers Guild, Peabody, First Amendment and other honors. His plays have been presented at over two hundred ninety theaters and festivals around the world, garnering more than 60 awards. He writes for The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Stars and Stripes, Southern Theatre Magazine, the Huffington Post, The Hill, YaleGlobal and other periodicals. In 2019, he earned a Master’s degree in Public Health, and he contributes time to initiatives involving education, healthcare, the empowerment of women, and human rights.

Oded Gross (Annelies) is an award-winning playwright whose been produced throughout the United States, most notably at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, The Great Lakes Theater, and The Theatre at Boston Court. His work has garnered numerous Critics Picks and nominations, including Best Adaptation by LA Weekly, Backstage West, and LA Stage Times for The Government Inspector and LA Weekly’s Critics “Pick Of The Week” for his one-act The Comedy of Romeo and Juliet. His original play Stain won at Scripp’s Ranch Theatre’s Out on a Limb Festival, voted BEST PLAY at the St. Paul’s Arts Council’s Festival of New Plays, and selected as an AUDIENCE FAVORITE for the Center for Performing Arts Stage It 10-Minute Play Festival. His play GhostWriter won first place at the WordWave Festival of Story. He received his degree in drama from Brandeis University and his master’s in playwriting from Columbia University.

Arnold Margolin (The Other Wife) has written three plays that have been presented in professional (AEA, WGA) productions. LEAP (The Elephant Asylum Theatre, Los Angeles, CA; The Garry Marshall Theatre, Burbank, CA; CINDERELLISH (book and lyrics; The Greenbrier Valley Theatre, Lewisburg, WVA); THE LAST LAUGH (co-writer; Interact Theatre Company, Los Angeles, CA).

Lorraine Midanik (Final Cut) is a playwright, born in Toronto, raised in Los Angeles, and living in the Bay Area. Productions include: Double Plotz (Valley Players, 2021); Stay with Me (Fuse/Dragon Theater; PCSF Playoffs; Taphouse, 2020); Ordinary Day (Valley Players, 2018); Call Forwarding (PCSF, 2018); Recalculating (Grateful Deadly, Playland Productions, 2018); Shock Value (PCSF Playoffs, 2017, nominated for TBA’s 2017 Best Anthology); Cycled (ReproRights, 3Girls Theatre, 2017), Up The Wall (SF Fringe Festival, Swampland Productions, 2017); Reciprocity (Unknown Players, 2017); Boy Imagined (ReproRights, 3Girls Theatre, 2016); Benched (PCSF Playoffs, 2016, nominated for TBA’s 2016 Best Anthology); Freedom of Speech (PianoFight’s Short-Lived Festival, 2016); and, Sparse Pubic Hair (PCSF’s Sheherezade’s Last Tales, 2015, winner of TBA’s 2015 award for Best Anthology). Lorraine is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Playwrights’ Center, Minneapolis, MN, Theatre Bay Area (2015 ATLAS Playwright), The International Centre for Women Playwrights, and the New Play Exchange. (LorraineMidanik.com)

Kate Neuman (A Second Language) is a New York-based actor and writer. Her artistic home these days is The Barrow Group Theater Company, where she teaches acting classes – and an occasional playwriting class – in addition to performing in productions. She also teaches creative writing at Hunter College. She is a founding member of FAB Women, a company within The Barrow Group that is dedicated to helping generate and produce work by women. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Iowa Review, and elsewhere. This is her first play.

Cassandra Powers (Resident Poet) Cassie’s writing explores our perennial quest for connection and meaning; the fallout of failed relationships and dreams; and the murky territory of self-deception. Her short plays have been selected as semi-finalists for the Maine Playwrights Festival and others. Her short story “Tiny Yellow Moon” was nominated for a Pushcart, and she received her MFA from the University of Oregon. When not writing, she works as a nurse in community mental health in Portland, Maine.

Joy Sedjro-Gnang (She Leaves Behind…) is currently a student in her second year of college studying theatre, hoping to become a playwright after graduation.

Dan Takacs (An Institution) is an award-winning playwright, director, and mentor from Oberlin, Ohio. His original plays have been developed or produced by The Riant Theatre, Cleveland Public Theatre, and Boston Playwright’s Theatre, and he has taught and directed theatre in Cleveland, Chicago, Denver, and in Boston, where he received his MFA in Theatre Studies from Boston University, with a focus on playwriting and directing. Dan is a Frank Moffett Mosier Fellow for Works in Heightened Language, a winner of the New Play Festival at the Firehouse Center for the Arts, and a winner of the OANO Award for directing Know Abuse. Dan lives with his wife, Linda, his peanut Greta, and the twins in Cambridge, Massachusetts.