THE WOMEN ARTISTS
WRITING GROUP
The Dorset Theatre Festival’s Women Artists Writing Group (dtfwaw) aims to develop and amplify the writing voices of mid-career women and non-binary theater artists. We are a member-driven group that facilitates the creation of written work across a variety of media, with a strong focus on playwriting. dtfwaw accepts members regardless of gender expression, sexual orientation, disability, race, ethnicity, country of origin, or religion.
Members participate in biweekly meetings utilizing the Liz Lerman Critical Response Process as well as in public sharing events, invited readings and workshops, and writing retreats.
The Women Artists Writing group has no formal application process, but welcomes inquiries from artists interested in joining. Current members may nominate prospective members as space allows, with the aim of cultivating a diverse and supportive environment.
END THE YEAR WITH #DTFWAW
Drop in on Dorset’s Women Artists Writing Group to see NEW short pieces and works-in-process in response to the word NOTORIOUS…PREMIERED WEDNESDAY 12/30
NOW STREAMING! Don’t miss the digital broadcast of GRACE
Spread the word! See the annual public presentation by members of #DTFWAW as they share short pieces and works-in-process written in response to the word GRACE.
Check out the EXQUISITE COLLABORATION series
See how these writers are using their art to meet the moment.
The best way to empower women is to celebrate their accomplishments and listen to what they have to say. By doing so, we are able to experience our shared humanity. That is the power of all great theatre for me, and gets at the heart of what we mean we say we produce ‘theatre that matters.’
HISTORY
Dorset Theatre Festival’s Women Artists Writing Group began with a writing retreat in August 2016. A group of six women spent three days writing, sharing pages at the end of each day, and holding a small final presentation of their selected pages in Dorset Theatre Festival’s Gallery Cafe for artistic staff and subscribers.
Heidi Armbruster and Mary Bacon wanted to start a writers group for actresses. Mary saw one of Heidi’s plays at Chautauqua Theater Company while she was performing in a Molly Smith Metzler play at CTC. The two were cast in a reading together the following spring, and they began discussing their mutual want to create support and space for their writing. The pair’s initial aim was to host a personal retreat, but as Mary has close ties to Dorset Theatre Festival and had seen the company blossom under Dina Janis’s artistic leadership, Mary approached Dina about lending the pair institutional support. After Mary’s initial email about establishing a women artists writing group retreat at Dorset, Dina and then-Managing Director Molly Hennighausen wrote back, “YES. This is what we should be supporting!” After the first retreat at Dorset Theatre Festival, Heidi and Mary wanted to continue the group and involve more women.
WAW in NYC
Currently, the group meets twice a month at Primary Stages in New York City and has expanded to include two annual retreats in Dorset, VT.
In 2018 the group had their first public presentation in NYC, Pages in Process, presented in conjunction with Primary Stages and the Einhorn School of Performing Arts.
A full house gathered in spring 2019 to see DTFWAW perform a public reading titled A Sense of Sanctuary, an evening of short plays written in response to the word “sanctuary.”
This year, members of the group will bring their annual public presentation online! GRACE premiered July 31, 2020. Click below to watch and learn more.
2020
2019
2018
MEET THE GROUP
Heidi Armbruster
(WAW CO-FOUNDER) is a New York based theater artist dedicated to creating new work and discovering new approaches to classical literature and theater. Heidi is a founding member and co-curator of Dorset Theater Festival’s Women Artists Writing, a group dedicated to supporting actresses who are writing and cultivating the emergence of diverse theatrical voices. Heidi developed her play Mrs. Christie at a workshop at Primary Stages in Spring of 2019, with DTFWAW, and at residencies at The Orchard Project in 2016 and 2018. Heidi’s play Murder Girl has been workshopped recently by Red Caravan and The Playwriting Collective. In 2015, Heidi was a member of Space on Ryder Farm’s resident writers group, The Working Farm. Every Good Girl Deserves Fun (and other misremembered things), a commission from Clutch Productions, was produced in New York in the fall of 2015 at Walker Space. Where the I Divides was recently read by San Francisco’s ReACT. Heidi’s play Dairyland has been read and workshopped at Playhouse on Park, Primary Stages ESPADrills, The Lark, Red Fern Theater, Luna Stage, and was selected as the New Play Workshop at The Chautauqua Theater Festival in 2014. Her short play Purgatory was read as part of Red Bull Theater’s First 2011 Short Play Festival and published by Smith and Kraus in their Best Ten Minute Plays of 2013 anthology and the recently released Red Bull Shorts Anthology. Miss Angela’s Legitimate Home for Women Living in Sin was performed as part of the ESPA short play series “Detention” at Jimmy’s 43 and is available on Indie Theater Now.
As an actress, Heidi has extensive New York and regional theater credits, including Time Stands Still on Broadway, Lincoln Center’s production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Disgraced, the New York premieres of Sam Hunter’s Lewiston/Clarkston at Rattlestick, Anna Ziegler’s Boy at Keen Company, Tracy Letts’ Man from Nebraska at Second Stage, and Theresa Rebeck’s Poor Behavior at Primary Stages. Heidi was awarded a Drama League Nomination for her work in the Keen Company’s revival of Tea and Sympathy. Heidi’s Film and TV credits include Poor Behavior, My Man Is A Loser, Michael Clayton, Revolutionary Road, The Northern Kingdom, Daredevil, Divorce, Louie, The Blacklist, Blue Bloods, 30 Rock, House of Cards, and Michelle on Darren Star’s TVLand hit Younger.
Heidi received her Master of Fine Arts in Acting from American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.
Mary Bacon
(WAW CO-FOUNDER) Mary Bacon co-founded dtf waw with Heidi Armbruster in August 2016, made possible by the institutional support of Dina Janis, Artistic Director of the Dorset Theatre Festival. They began with 6 mid-career female theatre artists at various stages of writing; the group has now grown to 18 active members. As co-chair with Heidi, and with Dina Janis’ counsel and encouragement, she has helped curate the group and explore avenues for further opportunities for dtf waw members, while maintaining its mission of supporting the development of female writers. As such, Mary has developed her own writing with dtf waw over its lifespan. She was a part of the Rattlestick Playwright’s Theatre’s Actor/Writer lab and her work was presented in their Playwright’s Theatre Jam.
As an actress, Mary has worked on and off Broadway, in world premieres of new plays both in and out of NY, and in television and film. She has had the immense pleasure of appearing in several seasons at the Dorset Theatre Festival.
Most recently, Mary appeared as Patti in in the world premiere of Erik Jensen and Jessica Blank’s “Coal Country” at the Public Theater in NY, developed with and including original music by Steve Earle; with whom she sang in the play. This past fall she played “Susan” in the premiere of Chad Beckim’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay” at Partial Comfort in NY, and in August played Agatha in the world premiere of Heidi Armbruster’s “Mrs. Christie” at The Dorset Theater Festival, after spending June as Marmie in Kate Hamill’s new adaptation of “Little Women” at Primary Stages in NY. Other favorites include: Horton Foote’s “Harrison, TX” with Hallie Foote and Jayne Houdyshell, and Horton Foote’s “The Roads To Home” with Hallie Foote and Harriet Harris, both at Primary Stages; on Broadway in Tom Stoppard's "Rock n Roll” and “Arcadia”; the Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel nominated "Women Without Men" at The Mint at NY City Center; working with Charles Busch and Julie Halston in his NY Times critic’s pick "The Tribute Artist", and NY Times critic's pick "Happy Now?" at Yale Rep and Primary Stages; Alma Winemiller in "Eccentricities of a Nightingale" at TACT, one of the NY Times top ten productions of the year; Gina Gionfriddo’s “Becky Shaw” at Second Stage, and The Public's production of Michael John LaChiusa and Sybille Pearson's musical "Giant" directed by Michael Greif, for which she was featured in The NY Times top ten moments of the year in theater. Regional theatre includes Hartford Stage, Hartford Theatre Works, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Williamstown Theater Festival, Westport Playhouse, The McCarter, Yale Rep, Seattle Rep, The Long Wharf, Old Globe, Dorset Theatre Festival, Denver Center, Cincinnati Playhouse, Chautauqua Theater Festival, The Ford’s Theatre and others. TV/Film: Recently released on Netflix, “Lost Girls” with Amy Ryan and Gabriel Byrne. Others include The Mist, Bluebloods, The Blacklist, recurring on Law and Order, SVU, and SVU Criminal Intent, Boardwalk Empire, Mildred Pierce, Elementary, Madame Secretary, the Good Wife, Donny! and varied commercials and voice overs, including Dear Evan Hansen on Broadway and wherever it goes. She is a member of the Actors Center Workshop Company. Carnegie Mellon Drama.
Jessica Bauman
is a director, teacher and occasional producer. Recent projects include "Arden/Everywhere," her re-imagining of Shakespeare's "As You Like It" as a refugee story, which she produced in New York City with an international cast of both professional actors and non-professionals from the refugee and immigrant communities in NYC. She has directed and developed new work with New Georges, Soho Rep, Portland Stage Company, Amphibian Stage Productions, Berkshire Playwrights Lab and many others. She is thrilled and grateful to be part of the DTF WAW community of fierce women artists.
Michelle Beck
Michelle is an actress, director, and writer based in Brooklyn, NY as well as proud member of DTF WAW. She wrote, directed, produced her short film THE SNAKES, where during a cold Brooklyn winter in a parallel future, an isolated, young black woman responds to a culture of fear with violent fantasies channeled through a neighborhood watch group. Her play OTHER THAN OTHER has had developmental readings with Dorset Theater Festival and Epic Theatre Ensemble. Beck also co-wrote/directed/produced the short film SAM & JULIA with Randy Harrison. She is currently working on a novel.
As an actress, she has worked on Broadway in A Raisin in the Sun, and off-Broadway in Hurricane Diane (New York Theater Workshop); Richard and Jane and Dick and Sally (Playwright’s Realm/Baltimore Center Stage); Richard III, Love’s Labour’s Lost (Public Theater); A Kid Like Jake at LCT3; As You Like It, The Tempest (BAM/Old Vic); Much Ado About Nothing (Theater for a New Audience); Measure for Measure (Epic Theatre Ensemble); Uncle Vanya (Pearl Theater). Regionally, she has performed in The Wanderers (The Old Globe); Top Girls (ACT); King Charles III (ACT, Seattle Rep, Shakespeare Theatre DC); Tartuffe (McCarter/ Yale Rep); Hamlet (Shakespeare Theater); Proof (TheatreWorks Palo Alto - BATCC nomination); Winter’s Tale, Cyrano de Bergerac (Oregon Shakespeare Festival). She has worked on Luke Cage; Manifest; Homeland; Madam Secretary as well as the films Ovum; Ambition’s Debt; Death of a Prince; Spinning Into Butter.
Purva Bedi
Theatre: Wives (Playwrights Horizons), India Pale Ale (Manhattan Theatre Club), Dance Nation (Playwrights Horizons, Drama Desk Award), An Ordinary Muslim (NYTW), Uncommon Sense (Tectonic), IDIOT! (HERE), Veil'd (WP), Rise of Dorothy Hale (St. Luke's). W/Target Margin as Associate Artist: Reread Another, Tempest, Second Language, Ten Blocks on the Camino Real, Old Comedy, 5 Hysterical Girls Theorem. Regional: Rice Boy (Mark Taper), My Wandering Boy (South Coast Rep).
Select Film: The Assistant, Gabriel’s Rapture, Sully, Equity, Kumare, Cosmopolitan, Green Card Fever, American Desi. TV: High Maintenance, Billions, The Code, She’s Gotta Have It Too, Person of Interest, Madame Secretary, Nurse Jackie.
Member The Actor's Center Workshop Company, Founding member Disha Theatre. Teacher Anthony Meindl Actors Workshop. She Co-Created the web series “Shrinkage” and the play Assembled Identity (HERE) which premiered off-Broadway in Spring 2018. Purva studied at Williams College, BADA and Public Theatre Shakespeare Lab. Purva is represented by Artists & Representatives and managed by Forte Artist Management. Purva lives in New York City with her husband, two small humans and two large cats. www.PurvaBedi.com
Michelle Bossy
Is a Mexican-American theater and film director. Films Michelle has directed include 18 (premiere, Austin Film Festival), She Grinds Her Own Coffee (St. Louis International Film Festival), and The New 35 (St. Louis International Film Festival, LA Comedy Festival, Atlanta Shorts Fest, Burbank International Festival, among others). She directed music videos for the band Yassou and singer/songwriter Brooke Josephson. Michelle directed the web series There’s a Special Place in Hell for Fashion Bloggers, and the pilot of TeleMamas. Recent films include Friendly Neighborhood Coven, Stag Party, The Crossing, Ladies Lounge, and Miracle Baby. Theater Michelle has directed in New York and internationally includes Lady MacBeth and Her Lover, There and Back, Sex with Strangers, Every Good Girl Deserves Fun, Sex of the Baby, Cloven Tongues, Un Plugged In, South Beach Rapture, and Sarajevo’s Child. She directed the world premiere of Little Monsters and co-created the musical High School Confidential for Primary Stages. Michelle was the Associate Artistic Director of Primary Stages, where she worked for thirteen years. She holds the first undergraduate directing degree from Webster University’s Conservatory of Theatre Arts. Michelle teaches for the Einhorn School of Performing Arts (ESPA), NYU, and Syracuse University's Tepper Semester. Member: Lincoln Center Director’s Lab and SDC. www.MichelleBossy.com
Maggie Diaz Bofill
Maggie Diaz Bofill is an actor/playwright. Founding member of LAByrinth Theater, Company member of Ensemble Studio Theater (EST), The Playwright Director's Unit at The Actor's Studio, and WAW, Women Artists Writers/DorsetTheaterFestival.
As a writer, (pen name Maggie Diaz Bofill) NYC Productions are: DEVIL OF CHOICE, LAByrinth Theater Co. Cherry Lane, WINNERS, Ensemble Studio Theater, (Special Drama Desk Award for season) , DRAWN AND QUARTERED, INTAR (New York Times Critics Pick), FACE CREAM, EST One Act Marathon. SWIPE, Musical commissioned by BMCC, Book, lyrics and Music written by Maggie. Internationally: DEVIL OF CHOICE at Edinburgh Fringe 2019, DRAWN AND QUARTERED, Edinburgh Fringe 2019, and King's Head Theater, London, 2019. She has also participated in various festivals of new work: Hear Her Call, One Minute Play Festival, New York Madness. As an actor: (acting name Maggie Bofill) Most has played Armida, in MOJADA; MEDEA IN LOS ANGELES, St. Louis Rep. Nora, in A DOLL'S HOUSE:PART TWO at The Longwharf Theater (Dir. Will Davis) Miriam in NYLON, (Dir. Knudd Adams) God in GOD SHOWS UP, (Dir. Christopher Scott) QUEEN LATINA (Capt. Maggie, LabyrinthTheaterCo @Cherry Lane) BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY (2ndStage), and several EST Asking4Troubles and Youngblood brunches.
Carolyn Baeumler Bost
is a New York based actress who can currently be seen in the web series Film U and in the upcoming independent film The Bride In The Box, written and directed by Doug Bost and co-starring their daughter Acadia. Carolyn is a co-founder of the theatre company Hourglass Group best known for its revival of Mae West’s play SEX, and adaptation of Ernst Lubitsch’s film Trouble In Paradise. On stage she has portrayed Mae West, Marilyn Monroe, Kay Francis and Courtney Love in various Off Broadway and Regional Theatre productions across the country. She also originated roles in the world premiers of Big Love and The Beebo Brinker Chronicles. She has understudied Cynthia Nixon, Lili Taylor, Elisabeth Marvel and Jessica Hecht, both Off Broadway and On. She is a Usual Suspect at NYTW, an affiliated artist with New Georges and co-founder of Bad Rep. DTF WAW marks her first foray into writing, with her new play Unconsummated, and theatre project Misses(.), which is a collaboration with fellow actress/writer Polly Lee and slated to be performed as part of Elevate Theatre’s HEAL Festival next year.
Mathilde Dratwa
Mathilde Dratwa's plays include Milk and Gall, which will be produced at Theatre503 in London in 2020, and A Play about David Mamet Writing a Play about Harvey Weinstein. Her work has been developed and presented by the Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep, Rattlestick, LAByrinth Theater Company, the Great Plains Theater Conference, the Playwrights' Center, and in London at the Young Vic. Mathilde is a member of Dorset Theater Festival's Women Artists Writing Group, a member of the Orchard Project's Greenhouse and a two-time Pulitzer Center grant recipient. Recently, she was a Dramatist Guild Foundation Playwriting Fellow, a member of New York Foundation for the Arts' Immigrant Artist Program and a co-leader of the FilmShop collective. A seasoned educator, Mathilde is a Master Teaching Artist for the New Victory and Roundabout Theatre Company. She is also the co-founder of Moms-in-Film, which, among other things, provided free childcare to filmmaker-parents at SXSW and Sundance.
Donna Eis
Donna Eis worked from age ten to thirty as a fair funnel cake-maker, ceramicist's assistant, babysitter, geometry tutor, waitress, usher, model, library periodicals assistant, cashier, actor (theater, film, TV, commercial, industrial), telemarketer, barista, office temp, receptionist, background performer, stand-in, retail salesperson, casting assistant, and administrative assistant (some of these for only a few hours or days, some for years). Originally from Ann Arbor, Michigan, Donna received a BFA in Drama (Acting) from Carnegie Mellon. Highlights of her performing career included being cut from a terrible film by a future convicted felon and being fired from an international tour by a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship grantee. Since moving from NYC to the Hudson Valley, she has intermittently earned tiny amounts of money as the director of a nonprofit and as a freelance writer and editor, and has labored unceasingly as the unpaid driver, caterer, and laundress to two children. She hates the question "What do you do?" She is working on a novel, which should be completed by the fall of 2040.
Laura Gómez
Laura Gómez is an actress and storyteller best known for her role as Blanca Flores on the Netflix hit series Orange Is the New Black. On television she has also been featured in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, the miniseries HBO Show Me a Hero (created by David Simon) and the Dutch TV show Anne Plus. On the film front, Gómez has been seen in Exposed, America Adrift, and Sambá, which had its world premiere at Tribeca in 2017. She has participated in critically acclaimed plays, like Doña Flor and her Two Husbands and The House of the Spirits, and has participated as director of one act plays at Pregones and Intar Theater. She is currently a member of Dorset Theater Festival’s “Women Artists Writing,” a creative collective giving voices to female artists in the theater. Gómez is also an established voiceover actor and has lent her voice for the audiobooks Of How the García Girls Lost Their Accent by Julia Alvarez and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Díaz.
In 2011, she was a recipient of the IX Screenwriting Developing Grant from the Carolina Foundation in Spain. An aspiring filmmaker, Gómez has studied film courses at the prestigious New York University and screenwriting at the Jacob Krueger Studio, and has starred in several short films including To Kill a Roach -winner of the NYU Fall 2012 Technisphere Award for Outstanding Achievement- and Hallelujah, both of which she also wrote, directed and produced. She also directed and co-produced the short film The Iron Warehouse, written by playwright and Juilliard alumni, Hilary Bettis and is currently writing the script for her first feature film.
Gómez currently lives in the Upper West Side of Manhattan and splits her time between New York City and Santo Domingo.
Elizabeth M. Kelly
Elizabeth is a writer living in New York City. Her film “klutz.” Is currently in post-production and her stage plays have been finalists and semi-finalists for: The Woodward/Newman Award, TheatreWorks New Works Festival, American Shakespeare Center, The O’Neill, Princess Grace Awards, Blue Ink Award and nominated for the Lark Venturous Playwright Fellowship. She is a member of The Actors Studio Playwright/Director’s Unit, José Rivera’s writers group, as well as Dorset Theatre Festival’s Women Artists Writing. Her work for the stage has been seen at LAByrinth Theater Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Lark, The Actors Studio, New Neighborhood, Primary Stages, The Abingdon Theatre and The Drama League. She has written for the screen and contributed as an essayist. *Member Dramatists Guild of America. www.elizabethmkelly.com
Katie Kreisler
KATIE KREISLER is an actor and writer based in New York. As a writer, Katie co-wrote and performed a two women show, “Stalled,” which ran at Uprights Citizens Brigade in both NYC and LA and was then bought by the Oxygen Network. She has also written and performed her one woman show, “Don’t Tell My Mother” at Emerging Artist’s Theater One Woman Show Festival: “Last Woman Standing” as well as at The Laurie Beechman Theater and, most recently, at Dixon Place. Katie is also a member of Dorset Theater Festival/Primary Stages‘ WAW” (WOMEN ARTIST WRITERS GROUP) Acting work includes: Broadway: Original Cast of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” "The House of Blue Leaves," "Noises Off" Off Bway: "Poor Behavior" (Primary Stages), "Nikolai and the Others" (Lincoln Center), "Our House" (Playwrights Horizons), "Psych" (Playwrights Horizons). Regional: Huntington Theater, Humana Fest, Berkeley Rep Film: The Experimenter, Children of Invention, Melinda and Melinda, The Heights, Approaching Union Square, The Disconnected (short) Television: Upcoming HBO’s Mare of Easttown, Prodigal Son, Blacklist, Elementary, Younger, The Good Wife, Law and Order, Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Without A Trace, Medium, Girlfriends Training: The Juilliard School
Sharahn LaRue
Sharahn is thrilled to be a member of DTF's Women Artists Writing Group. She is currently working "Torn in Between" a collection of stories chronicling her life in between countries, ethnicities, and identities facing her as an artist and mother in the 21st century. She is a regular at Shawn Randall's Symphonics Live at the Bowery Poetry club where she performs her work. Sharahn is also a core company member with GF & Co. a studio lab dedicated to creating projects for the stage through experimentation and application of One Thought One Action. Her Theatre & Dance Credits: James Scruggs' “MELT!” directed by Tamilla Woodard, Bo Wilson's “War Story” directed by Daniella Topol, Christopher Shinn's “Four”, Frank Basloe's “Linked”, Lanna Joffrey's “Valiant”; Denver Center Theatre, Mill Mountain Theatre, Unofficial New York Yale Cabaret, The FringeNYC, the Culture Project, Southwest Ballet and New Mexico Dance Umbrella. Readings & Workshops: New Dramatists ,NYTW, Barefoot Theatre Co., Williamstown, The Lark, New Georges, Urban Stages, Emerging Artists Theatre, THAW, and at the UN. Thank you to Mary & Heidi, Dina & DTF, every WAWrior for their incredible support.
Cheri Magid
Cheri Magid’s opera Penelope and the Geese, for which she wrote the libretto, will have two concert productions in September at UNAM’s El Aleph Festival in Mexico City. The opera, which is composed by Milica Paranosic, has been developed at artistic residencies at Sewanee University of the South and the University of Delaware, supported by NYU, and The Society of Classical Studies and just received a Discovery Grant from Opera America. It will also have a workshop production in August, co-produced by ShoutOut Saugerties and 11 Jane Street Gallery in Saugerties, NY. Cheri’s plays have been seen at Primary Stages, New Georges, The New Group, The Women’s Project, Rattlestick, South Coast Rep, People’s Light and Theatre Company, StudioTenn and Cincinnati Playhouse among others. She was the first Susan P. Stroman Playwright in Residence at The University of Delaware and the Tennessee Williams Playwright in Residence at Sewanee University of the South. Cheri was also a member of the Dorothy Strelsin Playwright Group at Primary Stages and The WP Lab, a 2014 Audrey Resident at New Georges, and a 2014 Walter E Dakin Fellow at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. The Ghost of Enoch Charlton was produced at The Keen Company, Manna at The University of Iowa, First Lady of Christmas at Sarah Lawrence College. Her play The Wide Yawning Infinity will have a reading at Delaware Rep in May and also had a reading in New York City with Joanna Gleason, Chris Sarandon, Jill Eikenberry and Michael Tucker. Cheri has been commissioned by Cincinnati Playhouse (Playing Dog), South Coast Rep (et al; and The Reluctant Dragon) The Keen Company (The Ghost of Enoch Charlton), director Jackson Gay (First Lady of Christmas) and the Southern Foodways Alliance (Hot Chicken). Manna and The Ghost of Enoch Charlton have been published by Playscripts and excerpts are included in Smith and Kraus’ The Best Stage Scenes of 2009. Camera Four is published in The Best Short Plays of 2012 and by Indie Theater Now and Post Mortem is in The Best Short Plays of 2015. Cheri’s erotic story She Grinds Her Own Coffee is published in Cleis Press’ anthology Hide and Seek and was shot as a short film starring Raul Castillo (Looking) and screened at the New York Shorts Festival and the St. Louis International Film Festival. Lydia, or the Girl at the Wheel, Cheri’s radio play about the earliest days of burlesque, aired on National Public Radio and her short story Yeah, We Got That, was featured on Playboy Radio. She wrote the screenplay Story of D, about the real story behind the writing of the famous sadomasochistic novel Story of O, for Nicole Kidman and adapted the book Heart of the Game for film producer Richard Wiener (Any Given Sunday). For many years, her alter ego Alexa wrote a blog about her sexploits as a high-end New York escort, a blog that had 20,000 monthly readers. She also wrote a column about sex and wine, The Sexy Vintner for the zine thepeeq.com. Cheri is working on a ten-part podcast for Sarah Jessica Parker’s company. She also wrote for the Emmy-award-winning children’s television show Arthur and is an Assistant Arts Professor in Dramatic Writing at New York University.
Mariana Newhard
Mariana Newhard is a writer/actor specializing in hybrid/devised new work. She has been a member of the DTF WAW since 2017. Last spring, an excerpt of her operetta, Queen of the Nile was presented as part of the DTF WAW’s Sanctuary benefit. Her first production, Assembled Identity (a co-creation with Kristin Marting and Purva Bedi) premiered at HERE Arts Center in Spring 2018, and received developmental support from DTF WAW, Drop Forge and Tool, NACL’s Deep Space Performance Resident Program, and as part of the 2017 Artist Residency Program of The Drama League of New York. The project also received support from the Axe-Houghton Foundation, Disha Theatre, Mental Insight Foundation and Puffin Foundation.
She premiered her shorts BIg Leap, Alone and Perfect in 50 Ways at the Capital Fringe in D.C. in July 2018. Apart from expanding Queen of the Nile, she is currently developing her full length play, Zenith and a one act, Andromache at the Edge of the World. Other plays include Da Food is Da Food, developed with Packawallop Productions.
Mariana has been an invited artist to Drop Forge & Tool’s Z Forge workshops in the summer and winter of 2018. Acting credits include: Theater: Assembled Identity (HERE) La Negra (Hi Arts), The Lie Jar (Leviathan Lab), La Paloma Prisoner (Signature). The Emperor and the Queen’s Parisian Weekend (Prototype), Trade Practices (HERE), Elegy for a Midshipman (Dixon Place), and Three Graces (The Ohio). Film: Something Else (Best Actress Paris Festival), The Wanderlust Room (SFC Cannes), and Thoughtscribe among others. She has a BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and studied writing at Sarah Lawrence College, Harvard University and the Asian American Writer’s Workshop.
Nandita Shenoy
(WAW Leadership Council Member) Nandita Shenoy is a New York-based writer-actor who loves hearing an audience laugh. Most recently, her Rage Play was named to the 2020 Kilroys List. Her Washer/Dryer has been produced multiple times nationally after its world premier at LA’s East West Players and an Off-Broadway production in which she also starred. Her first full-length, Lyme Park: An Austonian Romance of an Indian Nature, was produced by theHegira in Washington, DC, and Satisfaction had a developmental run at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. One-acts, Marrying Nandini, By Popular Demand, Rules of Engagement, You Are Here, and A More Perfect Date have been produced in New York City and regionally. Nandita has acted in world premiers of new plays by Richard Dresser, Madhuri Shekar, Chelsea Marcantel, Adam Szymkowicz, and Eric Pfeffinger as well as a season at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Nandita won the 2014 Father Hamblin Award in Playwriting and a 2018 Mellon Creative Research Fellowship at the University of Washington School of Drama in partnership with Ma-Yi Theater Company. She is a proud member of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, the Dorset Theatre Festival’s Women Artists Working group, and the Dramatists Guild. She also sits on the Steering Committee of the Asian American Performers Action Coalition (AAPAC) which won a 2020 Obie for their Advocacy in the Field of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. Nandita holds a BA in English literature from Yale University. www.nanditashenoy.com
Dale Soules
Broadway: Hair (debut), Dude, The Magic Show (co-starring with magician Doug Henning and introducing Stephen Schwartz’s songs “Lion Tamer and “West End Avenue”), The Crucible (Richard Eyre dir.), Whose Life Is It anyway, Grey Gardens (Michael Greif dir.), Hands On A Hardbody (Neil Pepe dir.) Her Off-Broadway, Regional and International credits are extensive. From critically acclaimed I Remember Mama (10 veteran actresses playing all the roles-Jack Cummings lll dir.), Shows For Days (LCT starring with Michael Urie and Patti LuPoneL Jerry Zaks dir.), Posterity (ATC Doug Wright Dir.), and Marsha Norman’s Getting Out (NY); to Candide (Guthrie Theatre); The Builders Association’s Jet Lag (NY, Barbican &International Tour) and National Tour of her one person informance Chameleons. Film: The Messenger, Aardvark, AWOL, ASH, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, TV: At Home with Amy Sedaris, Maurice Sendack’s “Really Rosie”,” Law&Order”/L&O CI, Unforgettable, Sesame Street, American Playhouse (Until She Talks, Grapes of Wrath), New Amsterdam, The Marvelous Mrs.Masiel, Orange is the New Black (Frieda) 6 seasons 3 SAG AWARDS), Ms. Soules is a teacher, writer, founding Director of The Community Stories Project, oral historian/ethnographic interviewer, and Usual Suspect with NYTW www.dalesoules.com