Roulette 2022 Playwright Bios

tHEATRE rOULETTE 2022 Playwright BIOS

Kendra Augustin

Cris Eli Blak is an award winning and internationally produced writer for the page, stage and screen. His work has been produced, performed and/or published around the world, from Off-Broadway, London, Canada and Ireland. He is developing new work with American Stage, Permafrost Theatre Collective, The Workshop Theater, Imaginarium Theatre Company, and Et Alia Theater. He was the resident playwright at Fosters Theatrical Artists Residency and Paterson Performing Arts Development Council, and was shortlisted for the Alpine Fellowship Theatre Prize. He continues to strive to create work that reflects the world that we live in, with all of its different and diverse colors, creeds and cultures.

Colin Brooks is a playwright, novelist, and educator living in Orlando, Florida. He graduated from the University of Central Florida in 2019 with two Bachelors of Arts Degrees in Theatre Studies and English. In 2021, he published his first novel, Paint, an LGBT Coming of Age novel. In his free time, Colin also works as a freelance writer, with articles posted in various publications such as Out Front Magazine, and as a freelance editor for other novelists. You can find him on all social media @colinbrooksauthor.

John Busser is an actor/writer/graphic artist from the Cleveland area. He is the co-runner of Cleveland Public Theatre’s writer's workshop, The Dark Room which helps new and seasoned playwrights test drive new work for a friendly audience of other writers and actors. His work has been produced all over the US, Canada and the UK. His play Annnd Scene (of the Crime) won the Best in “Snow” at the Snowdance Comedy Festival in 2021 and will be published in Dec 2022 in the Smith & Kraus Best Short Plays Anthology 2022. His short play Under a Watchful Eye was made into a film that was selected for the 2019 Greater Cleveland Urban Film Festival and the 2020 Cleveland International Film Festival. Children's Letters to Satan (and Other Horrible Scribblings), a collection of 7 of his original plays, played at Cleveland’s Blank Canvas Theatre in 2017 and was also John’s directorial debut. Onstage John has been seen on various Cleveland stages, and has been a member of the long-running show Flanagan’s Wake at Playhouse Square from 2010 - 2021 (currently on a COVID hiatus). A good portion of his 80+ short plays can be found on New Play Exchange at https://newplayexchange.org/users/34757/john-busser

PAULA CIZMAR is an award-winning playwright/librettist whose plays include: Antigone X (Cal Rep), The Last Nights of Scheherazade, winner of the Israel Baran Award, and Strawberry, under development at Boston Court Theatre. Her audio play, The Vig (Inglewood-90303), is currently airing on The Zip Code Plays, Season 2, the Ambie-nominated fiction audio series produced by Antaeus Theatre Company. She is one of the writers of the documentary play Seven (produced in over 30+ countries and translated into 22 languages); Seven was also produced as an audio play by LA Theatre Works, which also toured the play around the United States. She wrote the libretto for Invisible, music by Guang Yang (LA Opera Eurydice Found Festival and West Edge Opera’s Snapshot), The Night Flight of Minerva’s Owl, winner of the Pittsburgh Festival Opera Fight for the Right competition; and Firecrackers (composer Guang Yang), which will premiere at White Snake Opera in Boston in 2022. www.paulacizmar.com

Debra A. Cole is a Kansas playwright. Cole’s adult works have been performed at Short + Sweet Perth and Illawara, and Sydney, Australia, The Talisman Theatre Group, Midlands, United Kingdom Whiskey Theatre Factory, Orlando, Florida, The Midwest Dramatist Conference in Kansas City, Kansas, Heralds of Hope in Washington, D.C., The Playground Experiment Voices of America Monologues Volume #1 in New York City, Voice of America in New York City, and numerous readings at Potluck Productions in Kansas City, Missouri. Cole currently has over 80 children’s titles available on DramaNotebook.com. Her pieces offer actors of all ages wonderful opportunities for engaging and smart dialogue.

Liz Coley writes novels, short stories, and plays. She is author of the international best-selling psychological thriller, Pretty Girl-13; her short stories can be found in published anthologies. A lifelong devotee of theatre, Liz blind-dated playwriting and fell in love. Her early work has been read and produced in Cincinnati (Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati, UC College Conservatory, Cincinnati Playwrights Initiative, One-Minute Play Festival, Tongue in Groove literary salon), California (La Jolla Theatre Ensemble, Trinity Theatre, North Park Playwright Festival), Massachusetts (Enter Stage Left Theater), New York (Rome Community Theatre), and cyberspace (online Fragmented Festival, Viral Monologue Festival). Liz founded and manages Next Stage Cincinnati Playwrights, a support and critique group aiming to advance their work to the stage. She can be found virtually as LizColeyBooks on social media and at LizColey.com.

Monica Cross has written plays including: Cyrano on the Moon, Wonder of Our Stage, and The Aria of Julie d’Aubigny, the cross-dressing, sword-fighting, opera singer, wherein she seduces men and women alike, wins numerous duels, must be twice pardoned by the King, and eventually finds true love which was an O’Neill Semifinalist and a Semifinalist for Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries in 2021. Her 10-minute play On Robots and Raindrops, which was an Edgefest semifinalist in 2021, will be published by Theatre Odyssey as part of their fourth anthology in 2022. She has a B.A. in English from New College of Florida and an M.Litt and MFA from Mary Baldwin University (formerly Mary Baldwin College). Her works can be found on the New Play Exchange, and she is a proud member of the Dramatist Guild of America.

Deirdre Girard

Christine Foster’s plays have been produced in the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Denmark,
Mexico, Korea and the US, along with many scripts for CTV, CBC and CBS. In 2018 she won the Marion Thauer Brown New Audio Drama Award and her full-length black comedy Four Thieves Vinegar had a successful run in London before being remounted at the Brighton Fringe in 2019. Her monologue, Cousins, was the winner of the Soundworks.co.uk Contest in 2020. Recent short work has been performed on BBC Radio and WBRH Scotland and two new full-length plays are scheduled to premiere in the UK in 2022 and 2023.

Ava Love Hanna is a professional writer, published playwright, and award-winning speaker and storyteller living in Austin, Texas. She is continually amazed by how often she is mistaken for a real grown-up.

Ross Tedford Kendall is a graduate of USC’s Cinema-Television school (now School of Cinema Arts), and USC’s Master of Professional Writing Program. His full-length play, Still Born, has received staged readings in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, and was produced by the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York City. His full-length plays, Whirlpool and Pleasure and Pain, both won honorable mention in the Ohio State Newark New Play Contest. Whirlpool was also a finalist for the 2012-13 Woodward/Newman Drama Award. His short play, Singular of Dice, won the Drury University One Act Festival, 2011, the 4th Annual Frostburg State University One Act Competition, and has been produced in Rhode Island, Missouri, Connecticut and Maryland. When not writing, Ross works at Cal State Northridge’s University Library, helping professors and students with course specific academic materials.

Mark Harvey Levine has had 12 plays in previous editions of Theatre Roulette, dating all the way back to 2005. An evening of his short plays, "Cabfare For The Common Man", was produced by Madlab in 2010. He's also had several plays in "3 in 30", and has appeared in a bunch of O.G. Productions' festivals. Worldwide, he has had over 1900 productions of his short plays everywhere from Bangalore to Bucharest and from Lima to London. His plays have won over 45 awards and been produced in more than ten languages. His work has been published in over two dozen anthologies by Applause, Smith & Kraus, Routledge and Vintage. He lives in Indianapolis – and nobody is more surprised by that than he is.

Steven G. Martin is a playwright based out of Lafayette, Indiana. His plays have been performed in Arkansas, Arizona, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and the U.K. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America and the virtual group Playwrights Thriving. No, he isn't that Steve Martin, but he does O.K.

Alaina Messineo (she/her) is a New York City-based emerging Playwright, Poet, Lyricist, Director, and Dramaturg originally from Rochester New York. Recent Playwriting Credits include Yolk (Spooky Action Theatre) Water Doesn’t Kill (American Lives Theatre) (Spooky Action Theatre), Peachtea (Artists Exchange), Banana Bread Tastes Better When It’s Ripe (Obvious Child) (Quarantine Bakeoff), and The Wheel (Marymount Manhattan College). Additional Playwriting credits include Two Hearts (Manhattan Repertory Theatre) and Bad Beans (Geva Theatre). Directing Credits include Posers at (Manhattan Repertory Theatre) and Carrier Pigeon (Theatre for the New City). Her plays, poems, and monologues have been published in five Red Penguin Books; "the flower shop around the corner", "The Beauty Within Stories of Spirituality, Faith, and Love", "An Empty Stage", “the ocean waves”, and “the leaves fall”. Alaina is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild. She is a recent graduate of Marymount Manhattan’s BA Theatre program with a double concentration in Writing for the Stage and Directing and was the recipient of the Golden Key for Writing for the Stage.

JAMIE PACHINO is an award winning playwright, screenwriter and television writer. As a PLAYWRIGHT, Jamie is the author of over a dozen plays that have been seen in four countries, awarded, commissioned, and published. Jamie's plays have been produced, developed and read by Steppenwolf, Long Wharf, Hartford Stage, LCT3 (Lincoln Center), ACT, Roundabout, Geva, San Jose Rep, Pasadena Playhouse, Northlight, Florida Stage, A Contemporary Theatre, and the Women’s Playwright Conference in Athens, Greece. On TELEVISION, Jamie is currently writing on the series ELEVEN O’CLOCK NUMBER for FX, with pilots for NBC, Netflix and Bad Robot. Jamie has written on the series Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win (Amazon), Sneaky Pete (Amazon), The Brave (NBC), Chicago PD (NBC), Halt and Catch Fire (AMC), Franklin & Bash (TNT) and Fairly Legal (USA). Jamie has also written teleplays for Amazon, Hallmark, Lifetime, and UP networks. As a SCREENWRITER, Jamie has written features for DreamWorks, Disney, Lionsgate, Vanguard Films, Walden Media, and Smith/Hemion. Jamie has served on the faculties of Northwestern University (her alma mater), University of California Irvine, Columbia College and The Chicago Academy of the Arts. She is a proud member of the WGA, The Playwrights Center, and the International Center for Women Playwrights and makes her home in Los Angeles. More at www.jamiepachino.com.

Elisabeth Giffin Speckman

Katie Thayer is an actor, improviser, and playwright living in Orlando. She has her BFA in Theatre Performance with a minor in Creative Writing from the University of Central Florida. She is one of the founding members of Whiskey Theatre Factory, and has had many of her works produced by Playwrights Round Table. Her play, Graceland, can be found in The Best Ten-Minute Plays 2014, and you can catch her award winning show "Beneath the Bikini" on the Fringe Festival circuit. She is thrilled to a part of Theatre Roulette this year!

Madison Wetzell is a playwright based in the Bay Area. Her full-length work includes Mediocre Heterosexual Sex (Staged reading: Problematic Play Festival, Z-Space; Finalist, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Semi-Finalist, National Playwrights Conference), and The Lost Ballad of Our Mechanical Ancestor (Staged reading: Shotgun Players; Winner, Risk Theater Modern Tragedy Competition). She is a member of the San Francisco PlayGround writer's pool and 3Girls Theatre's LezWrites cohort. She has developed new work with 3Girls Theatre, Shotgun Players, FaultLine Theater, Soundwave, The Bechdel Group, and The Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep.