2022 Writers Grove
ALIEN OF EXTRAORDINARY ABILITY
Book by Rotana
Tarabzouni
Music & Lyrics by
Rotana Tarabzouni & Hayley Gene
Penner
ROTANA TARABZOUNI (she/her) Rotana is a Saudi
Arabian performance artist, singer and songwriter. Born and raised in Saudi
Arabia, she moved to Los Angeles five years ago to pursue music after quitting
her job at Saudi Aramco, the largest oil company in the world. She is currently
working on her one woman show/musical, Alien
of Extraordinary Ability (named after her immigration status), and her
debut album which just released her latest singles “Sin Again” and “Stuck in
America.” Rotana describes herself as an initiator, an erotic being, and a
liberator. As an artist that reckons daily with the experience of “other,” she
is determined to give movement, sound, beauty and witness to that experience.
After premiering her one woman show at FORM, a world-renowned festival
featuring artists and poets like Aja Monet and Florence and The Machine, she
received the attention of publications like GQ
noting that Rotana “delivered one of the most spine-tingling performances of
the entire FORM festival.” She has also collaborated with brands including
Fendi, Miu Miu, Lucky Brand, and more. Rotana has been named one of BBC’s 100
most powerful women and covered by GQ,
LA Weekly, Huffington Post, Vice Arabia,
Vogue Arabia, NPR, and AJ+. Her
performances have spanned cities globally including Paris, Abu Dhabi, Los
Angeles, New York, and at the Sundance Music Festival. Straddling a profound
love for her home and the determination to be free, Rotana’s music speaks to
the journey of self-realization in the face of Saudi tradition, God, sexuality,
family and the immigrant experience.
IG: @iamrotana
AT BUFFALO: A NEW MUSICAL
Book, Music & Lyrics by Dr. Amma Y. Ghartey-Tagoe Kootin, Khalil Sullivan & Joshua Williams
DR. AMMA Y. GHARTEY-TAGOE KOOTIN (she/her) Born to Ghanaian
immigrants in Tuskegee, Alabama and raised in Kansas, “Dr. Amma” is a
scholartist*, writer, performer, and producer who transforms historical
material about black identity into performances for the stage and screen. Named
a 2019 TED Fellow, she bridges the worlds of academia and
arts/entertainment—having worked for A&E® Networks/The History Channel, National
History Day, Inc., and as a professor. Her current projects are an historical
musical about black performers in the 1901 World’s Fair entitled At Buffalo and a book about the relation
between laughter and the American slave experience entitled Laughing After
Slavery: The Performances and Times of Laughing Ben Ellington. Her
hyper-collaborative creative research projects have garnered numerous
fellowships and awards including a 2019 MAP Fund Grant, an Innovative Seed
Grant (CU-Boulder), a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship, a Ford Foundation
Fellowship, etc. She is also a co-recipient of a 2020 Honorable Mention for the
National Council on Public History’s Outstanding Public History Project Award
for her co-direction of [the Georgia Incarceration Performance Project]. Her
educational work for the History Channel's Peabody award-winning documentary Save Our History: Voices of Civil Rights
received a 2006 Beacon Award. The History Channel also selected Dr. Amma to
join the ranks of Ang Lee and Gloria Estefan as one of 37 extraordinary
immigrants/children of immigrants whose stories are currently featured at Ellis
Island’s Museum of Immigration. Dr. Amma holds an A.B. in Afro-American Studies
from Harvard University and an M.A./Ph.D. in Performance Studies from NYU’s
Tisch School of the Arts.
www.drammaworks.com | IG: @realdramma | Twitter: @realdramma
KHALIL SULLIVAN (he/him) Inspired by the
expressive freedom and creativity birthed in the Harlem Renaissance, the blues
and folk traditions of the African American working class, and the vocal and
songwriting stylings of Tracy Chapman, Michael Jackson, and Bobby McFerrin,
Maryland native Khalil Sullivan Muhammad is a musician and scholar of popular
music and popular performance. He is also the Band Leader, Composer, and Lead
Vocalist for the six-piece ensemble Mad Noise, which received the distinction
of being selected by the U.S. State Department's American Music Abroad (AMA)
program to take part in a diplomatic music tour to Senegal, Gambia,
Guinea-Bissau, and Equatorial Guinea in December 2015. The ensemble has won
several awards in the SF Bay Area, including Best Band in the Bay (SF Bay Guardian, 2011, 2012, &
2013), Best Hyperliterate Busking Outfit (SF
Weekly, 2011), Best Local Band (Daily
Californian, 2011); and have performed at a variety of local music clubs,
venues and alternative spaces including Yoshi’s (SF), Great American Music Hall
(SF), Hotel Utah (SF) The Uptown (Oakland). In his spare time, he also plays
guitars for San Francisco, CA-based punk band, The Truants. Sullivan Muhammad
holds an A.B. in English (Theatre minor) from Princeton University.
Madnoisemusic.com | IG: @khalilsullivan | Twitter @khalilsullivan
JOSHUA WILLIAMS (he/him) is a writer, theatre
director, teacher, translator and scholar. In 2007, New York Magazine named him “a star of tomorrow” on the basis of
his forthcoming novel, Bird in Blue. His plays have been produced or
developed at Theatre Intime, Princeton University, the Capital Fringe Festival,
UC Berkeley, CU Boulder, the New York Musical Theatre Festival, CAP 21, Ars
Nova's ANT Fest, SUNY Buffalo, the Rhinebeck Writers' Retreat and Play Ground
San Francisco/Thick House. His play Ornithology
was recently commissioned by EST/Sloan. He was a 2012-2013, 2014-2015 and
2015-2016 member of the PlayGround San Francisco Writing Pool and had three of
his short plays read at Berkeley Repertory Theatre and one published in The
Best of PlayGround. In 2011, he directed the North American premiere of
Ebrahim Hussein's Kinjeketile at UC
Berkeley. Currently a visiting professor of English at Brandeis University,
Williams’ academic research concerns the political figure of the animal in East
African theatre and performance. His articles, essays and reviews have appeared
in ASTR Online, Theatre Journal, The
Johannesburg Salon, Theatre Survey,
African Theatre, Performance Research, Africa
is a Country, HowlRound, Brittle Paper and The Los Angeles Review of Books. Williams holds an A.B. from
Princeton University in Comparative Literature with certificates in African
Studies and Creative Writing, an M.A. from the School of Oriental and African
Studies at the University of London, also in Comparative Literature, and a
Ph.D. in Performance Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
www.jdmwilliams.com | IG: @jdmwilliams | Twitter: @jdmwilliams
A BURNING CHURCH
Book
by Alex Hare and Zhailon Levingston
Music by Nehemiah Luckett
Zhailon LevingstonALEX HARE (he/him) Alex
Hare is a theatre and video creator focused on music-driven storytelling. In
2021 he directed and co-wrote, with playwright Julia Izumi, the internet movie Capricorn 29 for The Tank and Post
Theatrical (“actually brilliant” - Helen Shaw, Vulture/NY Magazine).
With Zhailon Levingston and Nehemiah Luckett, he is developing A Burning Church through Musical Theatre
Factory’s MAKERS cohort, New Ohio/IRT’s Archive Residency, and a fellowship
with A Blade of Grass. He received the SDC Foundation’s 2020 Charles Abbott
Fellowship for early-career musical theatre directors. Assistant credits: School of Rock, Side Show (Broadway). Alex studied American Studies at Columbia
University.
http://alexhare.nycZHAILON LEVINGSTON (he/him) A
Louisiana-raised director and storyteller, Zhailon specializes in the
development of new plays and musicals. He made his Broadway debut in fall 2021
with Chicken & Biscuits as the
youngest Black director in Broadway history. With Tony-winner Rachel Chavkin,
Zhailon is the co-director of Reconstruction,
a devised play in development for The TEAM; also with Chavkin, he co-directed
the audio series Live From Mt. Olympus
(NYT Critic’s Pick). He's the
director of industry initiatives for the Broadway Advocacy Coalition (Special
Tony Award, 2021), the resident director at Tina: the Tina Turner Musical on Broadway and the associate
director of Hadestown in South Korea.
THE CAROL OF THE BELLS

Nevada has also assisted on many exciting shows-in-development, including A Face in the Crowd (music and lyrics by Elvis Costello, book by Sarah Ruhl, directed by Des McAnuff), Joy (music and lyrics by AnnMarie Milazzo, book by Ken Davenport) and The Seat of Our Pants (by Ethan Lipton, directed by Leigh Silverman), among many others.
As a composer, Nevada has written an album of solo piano music to be used in ballet classes. Performed by Wesley Ducote and directed by Erica Johnston, Music for Ballet Class is now available to purchase and stream on all major platforms.
As an orchestrator, Nevada’s work is featured on the podcast [insert movie here]: The Musical! He orchestrated the songs heard in the No Country for Old Men, Blair Witch Project, and Space Jam episodes, as well as the theme song. Additionally, Nevada is the arranger/orchestrator for Dolo Publications, an educational company that uses songs and stories to teach languages to students of all ages and skill levels.
His musical, Ramona:
An American Epic (based on the classic novel by Helen Hunt Jackson),
received a “pre-premiere” at NY Theatre Barn in February 2019 and was featured
as part of the organization’s live-streamed New Works Series in November 2020.
He is also developing an animated Christmas musical — one with the heart of
holiday classics like Rudolph the
Red-Nosed Reindeer and A Charlie
Brown Christmas, but the irreverent humor of contemporary musicals like Avenue Q and The Book of Mormon.
Nevada is a member of
the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop (Advanced) and received their
Jerry Harrington Award for Outstanding Creative Achievement in 2018. He was a
finalist for the Jonathan Larson Grant in 2019 and 2020 and has participated in
residencies at Yaddo, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, the Brush Creek
Foundation for the Arts, and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program (upcoming).
He studied composition with Lisa Bielawa, David Liptak, Carlos
Sanchez-Gutierrez, and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon at the Eastman School of Music, and
later with Arthur Gottschalk and Pierre Jalbert at Rice University.
THE DEATH OF DESERT ROSE
Book by Jessica Kahkoska
ELLLIAH HEIFETZ (he/him) is a first-generation American composer, pop songwriter, and
country-folk singer. Theatrical works include The Death Of Desert Rose (SBR Productions Option, Dramatist Guild
Fellows); Dust Can’t Kill Me (NYC
Fringe – Best Music & Lyrics, NYMF – Best Music); We Are Pilgrims (ASTIR Lab Series, Barn Arts Collective); Baba Yaga (ISU); Untitled
Beale Ciphers Musical (Signature
Theatre in D.C.), among others. Published by The Brain Music, Elliah has also
collaborated with hit pop songwriters and producers like Freddy Wexler (Kanye
West, Selena Gomez), Dave Kuncio (Dierks Bentley, Steve Aoki), and Neff-U (Dr.
Dre, Justin Bieber), and has had placements on major label projects and network
TV soundtracks. Additionally, Elliah performs his original Americana songs,
which have been streamed over 800k times online and heard live from New York to
Nashville (TIDAL’s Best Of: Rising Folk/Country). Johnny Mercer Songwriters
Project, SPACE on Ryder Farm, DGF Fellows, Rhinebeck Writers. The son of political
refugees from the Soviet Union, Elliah was born and raised in Philadelphia
before studying English at Yale.

EPIC
Book, Music, & Lyrics by Jorge Miguel Rivera-Herrans
JORGE MIGUEL
RIVERA-HERRANS (he/him) Jorge “Jay”
Rivera-Herrans is a class of 2020 graduate of the University of Notre Dame from
Dorado, Puerto Rico. After spending his high school years preparing to study
medicine in college, Jay switched from his Pre-Med major to a major in Film,
Television, and Theatre to pursue his dreams of becoming a playwright. After
receiving pushback for his sudden change, Jay teamed up with Professor Matt
Hawkins to write and develop a musical titled My Heart Says Go about a med school dropout who runs away to
California to chase his dream of being a singer/songwriter. The musical debuted
to a sold out run at the University of Notre Dame. My Heart Says Go is now in development with Apples and Oranges
Arts, as well as The Goodman Theatre. On top of playwriting, Jay also enjoys
acting. He played Usnavi in the South Bend Civic Theatre’s production of In The Heights, Melchior in the
University of Notre Dame’s production of Spring
Awakening, and Indigo in Notre Dame’s production of My Heart Says Go (at the time titled Stupid Humans). He also received a callback for the role of John
Laurens/Phillip Hamilton in Hamilton
and was brought by Hamilton Casting
to New York City, where he attended two days of dress rehearsals and met the
touring cast. Some notable accolades include the 2018 BroadwayWorld Award for
Best Actor in a musical in South Bend for his role as Usnavi in In The Heights, as well as another
nomination for the same award for his role as Melchior in Spring Awakening. Jay is currently in the process of writing his
second major project, Epic, a musical
adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey. He
recently received the first ever Career Launch Fellowship with Show Shepherd, a
New York-based musical theatre consulting firm that specializes in the
development of new pieces.
https://jorgeherrans.wixsite.com/jr-h | IG: @jayherrans | Twitter: @jayherrans
HUNDRED FEET TALL
Book by Melis Aker
Adapted from the book by Benjamin Scheuer and Jemima Williams

BENJAMIN SCHEUER (he/him) is a songwriter and
performer. His solo-show The Lion
opened off-Broadway in 2014 (Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Solo Performance)
then played in London (Off-West End Award, Best New Musical). Directed by Sean
Daniels, the show is streaming on BroadwayHD.com. In May 2022, a new production
of The Lion will open in London,
starring by Max Alexander Taylor. Scheuer wrote and performed the music for
ballet dancer Carlos Acosta’s Empty Stage,
the “magical…best dance film of the 2021” (The Guardian). Scheuer’s music videos have won Annecy Film
Festival’s Best Commissioned Film, and the British Animation Awards’ Best Music
Video (twice). He’s the author of two
songs-turned-into-children’s books: Hibernate With Me and Hundred
Feet Tall, which he’s adapting for the stage with Melis Aker. With Rick
Elice, Scheuer is writing a musical about Peter Roget, creator of Roget’s
Thesaurus. He is working on a new solo show called Elodie’s Mountain and an accompanying album. A Kleban Award winner,
“Scheuer plays guitar as if he invented the instrument (LA Times) and his songwriting “gets to the heart of the matter” (NY Times). Originally from New York,
Scheuer lives in London.
THE LESSON
Book by Ty Defoe
Music by Avi Amon
(& Nolan Doran)
Lyrics by Nolan Doran
(& Avi Amon)
AVI AMON (he/they) is a Turkish-American
composer, sound artist, and educator. Recent credits include: The Copper Children with Shariffa Ali
(Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Stew
with Zora Howard and Colette Robert (Soho REP), The Fisherman (dir. Zoey Martinson, HBO Films), The Black History Museum (HERE Arts), Salonika (Berkeley REP) and The White City with Julia Gytri (Yale
Institute, O’Neill NMTC), and several sound installations in a 100-year-old
grain silo in Buffalo, New York (w/ Torn Space Theater, featured at the Prague
Quadrennial). Avi’s work has also been developed or presented by Actors Theatre
of Louisville, Ars Nova, Atlantic Theater, BAM, The Civilians, Edinburgh
Fringe, JACK, Juilliard, Lincoln Center, La Mama, Playwrights Center, Prospect
Theater, and Spoleto Festival USA, among others. In development: Heroine’s Guide with Claire Kiechel
(Spotify/Gimlet), Rated Black with
Kareem Lucas (Woolly Mammoth), Inshallah/Mashallah:
a 3-D-audio opera re-imagining of the 1,001 Nights (Target Margin
Theater), and scores for several films. He is a Jonathan Larson Grant and New
Music USA Grant winner, a Dramatists Guild Fellow, and has been an Artist
in-residence with Princeton, Exploring the Metropolis at JCAL, Hi-ARTS, Judson,
New Dramatists, and Weston Playhouse, among others. Avi is the resident
composer at the 52nd Street Project and teaches a variety of collaborative
art-making courses at NYU Tisch.
www.aviamon.com | IG: @aviamon | Twitter: @amonavi
NOLAN DORAN (he/him)is a Collaborative
Theatre Artist (writer, director, and producer) who creates new works across
theatre and film and is a 2019-2020 Dramatist Guild Foundation Musical Theatre
Writing Fellow. In addition to The Lesson,
his recent works include, My Eclectic
Life (HERE), Woody – A New Fairy Tale
(Main Street Musicals winner), The
Spectrum (Azalea Film Festival winner), The
King (L.A. Indie Film Festival winner) and music for Ayodele Casel’s, While I Have the Floor (Spoleto
Festival). Broadway and Off-Broadway credits: Co-Producer and Assistant
Director for Head Over Heels with
songs of the Go-Go’s, Associate Director for Michael Moore’s The Terms of My Surrender, Assistant
Director of the star studded one-night concert Stronger Together: Hillary on Broadway and Assistant Director of Jamboree, starring Sutton Foster and
Jonathan Groff at City Center. Recently, Doran was Executive Producer alongside
Liesl Tommy, Halle Morse, Julie Boardman and Jennifer Mudge for Broadway For Biden’s In Our America Concert starring Glenn
Close, Jennifer Hudson, Samuel Jackson John Water and over 150 Broadway stars;
Executive Producer of Artists For Change
for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee; Producer for #Arts4America in collaboration with Arts
For Biden-Harris; Co-Producer of The
Secret Life of Bees; Executive Producer of The Golden Girls Musical Parody – Pride Edition for World Pride at
HERE and is the Co-Producer of The Museum
of Broadway coming in 2021. Doran holds an M.F.A. from The Graduate Musical
Theatre Writing Program at NYU Tisch. Check out his channel on Broadway on
Demand, or visit nolandoran.com.
www.noaldoran.com | IG: @nolandoran.nyc | Twitter: @nolandoran
TY DEFOE (Giizhig) (he/we) is from the Oneida
and Ojibwe Nations and is an interdisciplinary artist, actor/writer, and Grammy
Award winner. Ty aspires to an interweaving approach to artistic projects with
social justice, indigeneity, indiqueering, and environmentalism. Ty’s global
cultural arts highlights: the Millennium celebration in Cairo, Egypt; Ankara,
Turkey, International Music Festival; and Festival of World Cultures in Dubai.
Awards: Global Indigenous Heritage Festival Award, a Robert Rauschenberg Artist
in Residence, Jonathan Larson Award, TransLab Fellow, Cordillera International
Film Festival Finalist. Works authored & created: Red Pine, The Way They Lived,
Ajijaak on Turtle Island, Hear Me Say My Name, Trial and Tears, River of Stone, Wind Changes
Direction (Crystal Bridges at The Momentary). Ty is co-founder of
Indigenous Direction (with Larissa FastHorse), core member of All My Relations
Collective, showing Gizhibaa Giizhig |
Revolving Sky at Under the Radar's Incoming at the Public Theater. Degrees
from CalArts, Goddard College, + NYU Tisch. Movement Direction: Mother Road, Dir. Bill Rauch (OSF), Manahatta, Dir. Laurie Woolery (OSF +
Yale Rep), and Choreographer for Tracy Lett’s The Minutes (Broadway). Netflix: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and made his Broadway debut in Young Jean
Lee’s Straight White Men, Dir. Anna
Shapiro. Lives in NYC + loves the color clear. He|We
www.tydefoe.com | IG: @tydefoe | Twitter: @tydefoe
MISSING PEACE
Book, Music, & Lyrics by Kalani Queypo & Kyle Puccia
KYLE PUCCIA (he/him) is a Platinum-selling
songwriter, composer and musician. His co-write, Kids In Love, debuted at #1 on Billboard's
Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart. Kyle earned a Swedish Grammy nomination in
2018 and his songs have charted on Billboard's
Top 40 Hot Dance Club Play & Top 10 UK Commercial Pop Charts. Kyle has
composed dozens of scores for Microsoft and T-Mobile commercials and he's
garnered song placements on such TV shows/films/brands as HBO, World Of Dance, Pretty Little Liars, Legacies,
The Titan Games, Love Island, Siesta Key, The Vineyard and Naomi & Ely's No Kiss List. He's music-directed and/or created
vocal arrangements for TV's Lucifer
(Netflix), LA workshop productions for Rock
of Ages and Romy & Michele's High
School Reunion, The Musical.
www.kylepuccia.com | IG: @kylepuccia | Twitter: @kylepuccia
KALANI QUEYPO (he/him) Before moving to Los
Angeles, Kalani trained in New York City, and was featured on stages all over
the country, such as the Goodspeed Opera House, Arena Stage, Trinity Repertory
Company, Mark Taper Forum, The Wilma, and The Ordway. He can be seen in the Oscar-nominated
Terrence Malick film, The New World,
Steven Spielberg’s Emmy-winning Into the
West and Slow West (Sundance
GRAND JURY PRIZE). Television credits include Jamestown (three seasons series regular), Saints & Strangers, Fear
the Walking Dead, Mad Men, Nurse Jackie, Bones, and Hawaii Five-0.
Kalani is currently filming the new CBC series, Trickster. A short film written and directed by Kalani, Ancestor Eyes, screened at nearly 40
festivals and won 14 awards including the Rhode Island International Film
Festival’s Directorial Discovery Award.
www.kalaniqueypo.com | IG: @KalaniQueypo | Twitter: @KalaniQueypo
OKNUI
Music by Paul Hodge
Lyrics by Naomi Iizuka & Paul Hodge
PAUL HODGE (he/him) is an
award-winning writer-composer from Australia. Paul’s work has been produced
Off-Broadway, in London, Edinburgh and Australia. Paul is currently developing
the musical adaptation of the iconic children’s TV show Round The Twist, which premiered on the BBC and has aired in over
70 countries over 30 years, including on the Disney Channel in Europe and Fox
Kids in the US. Paul received his PhD in Music Composition from the University
of Queensland and received a Brisbane Young and Emerging Artist Fellowship and
the Dame Joan Sutherland Fund Award to undertake a mentorship with Alain
Boublil, the Academy Award-nominated, Tony Award-winning writer of Les Misérables and Miss Saigon. Residencies include the inaugural Vanguard Arts
Project at Olney Theatre Center, Maryland, and the Ground Floor Residency at
the Tony Award-winning Berkeley Rep in California, with Naomi Izuka to develop
their new musical Okuni. Paul was
commissioned to write the five-time Matilda Award-nominated musical comedy Joh For P.M., starring Lano and
Woodley’s Colin Lane, and is currently commissioned by Opera Queensland and La
Boite Theatre to compose the opera Riot
with award-winning playwright and screenwriter Michelle Law. His musical
comedy, Clinton, received a New York Times Critics’ Pick,
nominations for Best Musical from the Off-Broadway Alliance and Edinburgh
Festival Fringe and won Best Off-Broadway Cast Album in the Broadway World
Awards and Best Production in the Performing Arts WA Awards. He is currently developing
Black Box, a musical based on the
life of the Australian inventor of the “Black Box” flight recorder.
NAOMI IIZUKA's (she/her) plays include 36 Views, Polaroid Stories, Anon(Ymous),
Language Of Angels, Aloha, Say The Pretty Girls, Tattoo
Girl, Skin, At The Vanishing Point, Concerning Strange Devices From The Distant
West, Last Firefly, Citizen 13559, and War Of The Worlds (a collaboration with Anne Bogart and SITI
Company.) Her plays have been produced at theatres across the country including
Berkeley Rep, the Goodman Theatre, Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, the Guthrie
Theater, Cornerstone Theater Company, Children’s Theater Company, Seattle
Children’s Theatre Company, the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, the
Huntington Theatre Company, Portland Center Stage, the Public Theater, Dallas
Theater Center, and Soho Rep. Iizuka’s plays have been published by Overlook
Press, Playscripts, Smith and Kraus, Dramatic Publishing, and TCG. Iizuka is an
alumna of New Dramatists and the recipient of a PEN/Laura Pels Award, an Alpert
Award, a Joyce Foundation Award, a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Stavis Award from
the National Theatre Conference, a Rockefeller Foundation MAP grant, an NEA/TCG
Artist in Residence grant, a McKnight Fellowship, a PEN Center USA West Award
for Drama, a Hodder Fellowship, and a Jerome Fellowship. Her play Good Kids was commissioned by the Big
Ten Consortium’s New Play Initiative and has been produced at universities
nationwide. Recent projects include an adaptation of Sleep by Haruki Murakami which premiered at the 2017 BAM Next Wave
Festival and was a New York Times
Critics Pick, and What Happens Next,
a play written in collaboration with US Marine Corps combat veterans and their
families, and produced by La Jolla Playhouse and Cornerstone Theater Company.
Iizuka was the 2017 Berlind Playwright-in-Residence at Princeton University.
She worked as a writer and story editor for Season 2 of The Terror on the AMC network and as a writer and executive story
editor for Tokyo Vice which will air
on HBOMAX. She currently heads the MFA Playwriting program at UC-San Diego.
THE OSCAR MICHEAUX PROJECT
Jesse L.
Kearney, Jr. & Cara Reichel
Music by Alphonso Horne
Lyrics by Jesse L.
Kearney, Jr. & Peter Mills
ALPHONSO HORNE (he/him) Alphonso Horne is a
composer, performer, and educator. He is a two-time Grammy-nominated trumpeter,
named by Wynton Marsalis as one of the rising stars of the next generation.
Horne has performed with many renowned jazz artists including Marcus Roberts,
Michael Feinstein, Rhiannon Giddens, Marilyn Maye and Rihanna. On Broadway, he
has performed in the orchestras for After
Midnight and Shuffle Along, and
he was the Music Director for Ziegfeld’s
Midnight Frolic. Horne leads an active career as a sideman, performing at
world-class venues and jazz festivals. Horne is involved with many projects,
including playing with Sammy Miller and the Congregation (2017 Ars Nova
residency) and the annual Savannah Swing Central & Music Festival. He is
the bandleader of an early jazz band, Gotham Kings, which performs regularly at
Jazz at Lincoln Center and Ginny’s Supper Club in Harlem. He is producing his
original show Mother Kofi: The Tale of an
African Princess, inspired by his family history. Education: Florida State
University (BM), The Juilliard School (MM).
https://www.alphonsohorne.com/about | IG: @horneswag | Twitter: @horneswag
JESSE L. KEARNEY, JR. (he/him) is an award-winning
playwright, and composer/lyricist. Honors include the ASCAP Musical Theater
Workshop, and the Jonathan Larson Musical Theater Fellowship through the
Dramatist Guild. His musical The Little
Playhouse received a workshop production at Lincoln Center Theater
Director’s Lab / American Living Room Series. His songs have been featured at
cabaret venues around NYC, including Joe’s Pub. MFA: NYU Musical Theater
Writing Program.
https://about.me/jesselkearneyjr | IG: @daytonville | Twitter: @jessekearneylaw
PETER MILLS (he/him) Lyricist, composer,
and bookwriter Peter Mills received the Kleban Prize for lyrics and the Fred
Ebb Award, and received 2019 Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations
for his original score for the recent Off-Broadway hit The Hello Girls. He has written music & lyrics for over a dozen
shows, including Illyria and The Underclassman, and wrote lyrics for The Honeymooners, which premiered at
Paper Mill Playhouse in 2017. MFA: NYU Musical Theater Writing Program.
www.petemillsmusic.com | IG: @petemills2 | Twitter: @tweetermills
CARA REICHEL (she/her) is a bookwriter, director and producer of new musical theater, and the founding Producing Artistic Director of NYC's acclaimed Prospect Theater Company, dedicated to the development and production of new musical theater. Most recently she was the co-bookwriter on The Hello Girls, and crafted the book for the original jukebox musical The Olympians for Theatrical Rights Worldwide. She is serving as a creative producer and co-bookwriter for The Oscar Micheaux Project.
RISE OF THE PHOENIX
Book by Cheeyang Ng
& Eric Sorrels
Music by Cheeyang Ng
Lyrics by Eric Sorrels
CHEEYANG NG (they/he)
Born and raised in Singapore, Cheeyang Ng is an award-winning singer-songwriter who writes at the intersection of queer, Asian and immigrant stories. They have performed around the world, including Lincoln Center with Carole King and Carnegie Hall with a cappella group Vocalosity and hold an MFA from New York University and a BMus from Berklee College of Music. They are the first Singaporean to headline a concert at Joe's Pub and Millennium Stage at Kennedy Center showcasing their original music and their songs have been performed around New York, including The Duplex and Feinstein's/54 Below. Creator of podcast East Side Story and vocal group The Lunar Collective, they have won multiple vocal awards all across Asia, including Singapore, Taiwan and China. Musicals in development include Eastbound (2020 NAMT, Village Theatre Festival of New Musicals, NYTB IMPACT Award) with Khiyon Hursey, M?y? (2021 NAMT, Live & In Color, Hypokrit) and Only Us (Drama League Residency) with Eric Sorrels. Select credits include: 2021 Princess Grace Award, 2020 Eric H. Weinberger Librettist Award, 2020 Eugene O’Neill National Musical Theatre Conference Finalist, 2019 ASCAP Foundation Lucille & Jack Yellen Award, 2019 New York Musical Festival Commission, 2019 Johnny Mercer Songwriters Project.
cheeyang.com | IG: @cheeyangmusic
ERIC SORRELS (he/him) Originally from Tennessee, Eric Sorrels is an award-winning
writer who juggles a dual career of professional choral singing and musical
theatre in New York City. He is a member of the esteemed choirs of St. John the
Divine and Temple E-Manuel, and he has sung at the Kennedy Center, Carnegie
Hall and internationally at some of the world's most famous sacred spaces. His
songs have been heard throughout New York City's spaces, including The Duplex,
Joe's Pub, and Feinstein's/54 Below. Musicals in development include M?y? (Live & In Color, Hypokrit),
and Only Us (Drama League Residency)
with Cheeyang Ng. Eric plans to release his debut solo EP Indecent Proposal in 2022. Select credits include: 2020 Eric H Weinberger
Librettist Award, 2020 Eugene O’Neill National Musical Theatre Conference
Finalist, 2019 ASCAP Foundation Lucille & Jack Yellen Award, 2019 Johnny
Mercer Songwriters Project. MFA: NYU.
ericsorrels.com | IG: @eric_sorrels
SALAAM MEDINA: TALES OF A HALFGHAN
Book, Music & Lyrics by Rona SiddiquiRONA SIDDIQUI (she/her) is an
award-winning composer/lyricist, orchestrator and music director based in NYC.
She is the recipient of the 2020 Jonathan Larson Grant and the 2019 Billie
Burke Ziegfeld Award, and was named one of Broadway Women's Fund's Women to
Watch. Her show Salaam Medina: Tales of a
Halfghan, an autobiographical comedy about growing up bi-ethnic in America,
had a developmental workshop at Playwrights Horizons November 2019. She has
also received the ASCAP Harold Adamson Lyric Award, the ASCAP Foundation Mary
Rodgers/Lorenz Hart Award, and the ASCAP Foundation/Max Dreyfus Scholarship.
She performed her concert Rona Siddiqui:
Halfghan on a Mission at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing
Arts. Her musical One Good Day (book
& lyrics by Liz Suggs) was selected for the ASCAP/Dreamworks Musical
Theatre Workshop with Stephen Schwartz in L.A. and was named one of the Best New
Musicals of 2014 by the Festival of New American Musicals. Rona composed the
music for an original 20-minute musical about Afghanistan, The Tin, which was selected to be part of the Samuel French OOB
Short Play Festival in 2012. Her musical Treasure
in NYC (book & lyrics by Laura Kleinbaum), an immersive musical
adventure for autistic children, has been produced at The Cell. She is honored
to be part of the 2020/21 MTF Maker and Ars Nova Vision Residencies. She has
been commissioned to write songs for Wicked's
16th Anniversary Commemoration Flying
Free, Broadway Inspirational Voices, The Civilians, Pittsburgh CLO, the NYC
Gay Men's Chorus, MuseMatch, 52nd St. Project, and the web series Amateur Dicks. She has been a featured
songwriter in concert venues such as 54 Below, Joe's Pub, and New York City
Center. Original scores she has written for plays include Middletown, The Vagina
Monologues, The Good Person of
Szechuan, The Clean House, and Love Song of J Robert Oppenheimer. Rona
music directed the Off-Broadway Pulitzer Prize-winning A Strange Loop for which she received an Obie along with the cast
and creative team (Playwrights Horizons), Bella:
An American Tall Tale (Playwrights Horizons), and Who's Your Baghdaddy: Or How I Started the Iraq War (St. Lukes Theatre).
She has orchestrated for Broadway Records, Broadway Backwards, NAMT and
Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera. She received her Masters from NYU’s Graduate
Musical Theatre Writing Program.
Ronasiddiqui.com | IG: @crazyfingers10 | Twitter: @RonaSiddiqui
UNTITLED NEW MUSICAL
Book by Jake Bernstein
Music & Lyrics by Jonathan
Brielle
JAKE
BERNSTEIN (he/him) is a
two-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author. He was a senior reporter
on the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists team, which broke
the Panama Papers story. In 2017, the project won the Pulitzer Prize for
Explanatory Reporting. Bernstein was an executive producer on the The
Laundromat, a Netflix film based on his book, Secrecy World: Inside
the Panama Papers, Illicit Money Networks, and the Global Elite (Henry
Holt, 2017). He earned his first Pulitzer Prize in 2011 for National Reporting,
for coverage of the financial crisis. He has done radio, television, and
podcasting, including three highly-rated This American Life episodes. Bernstein
has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post,
Bloomberg, The Guardian, The New York Review of Books,
and Vice, and has appeared on the BBC, NBC, CNN, PBS, and NPR. He was the
editor of The Texas Observer and is the coauthor of Vice:
Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency (Random
House, 2006).
JONATHAN
BRIELLE
(he/him) on Broadway: wrote
the music and lyrics for Foxfire with Jessica Tandy (Tony
Award) Hume Cronyn, and Keith Carradine; Off-Broadway: Himself and Nora (book, music,
lyrics); Outer Critics Best Musical Nomination, Minetta Lane Theatre 2016;
Circle Repertory Company, NY: dozens of scores as Composer in Residence; Regional: Himself and
Nora: American Theater Group, James Joyce Center, Ireland and The Old
Globe; Nightmare Alley (book, music, lyrics): Geffen
Playhouse; 40 Naked Women, A Monkey and Me (book, music,
lyrics) The Eugene O’Neill Cabaret Conference. Las Vegas: Enter The Night (book, music,
lyrics) Stardust Hotel 12 years; MadHattan (book, music, lyrics)
New York, New York Hotel; US
Tours: Rugrats, Live! (Executive Music
Supervisor); Goosebumps, Live! (Producer, Music) TV: Wonderama (music,
lyrics); Charitable
Organizations: Executive Vice President of the Johnny Mercer
Foundation (JMF), creating programs in New York, Newark, Los Angeles, Miami and
Atlanta. Writer/Producer in Residence of the Johnny Mercer Writers’ Grove at
Goodspeed Musicals and oversees the JMF Songwriting Project at Northwestern
University. Jonathan is the former National Projects Director of the
Songwriters Guild of America and is the founder of a new platform featuring new
Broadway bound musicals with Forever Free musical theater
education for grades K-12: www.valamusicals.com.
UNTITLED NEW MUSICAL
Book, Music, & Lyrics by Zack Zadek
Project Created/Conceived with Sammi Cannold
ZACK ZADEK (he/him) is a
Brooklyn based composer/lyricist and songwriter with Warner/Chappell. He is a
two time MacDowell Fellow, UCross Fellow, VCCA Fellow, Dramatist Guild
Foundation Fellow, and was named by Playbill
as “a contemporary musical theatre writer you should know”. Zack won the Weston
New Musical Award for his book, music, and lyrics to Deathless (dir. Tina Landau) which was produced at Goodspeed
Musicals in 2017. His work has been developed and presented at The Eugene
O’Neill Theatre Center, The Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Signature Theatre,
Roundabout, The 5th Avenue Theatre, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, The
Playwright’s Center, The Lark, Vineyard Arts Project, Finger Lakes Musical
Theatre Festival, Mitten Lab, Johnny Mercer Writers Colony, NYMF, and in the UK
at The London Theatre Workshop and Edinburgh Fringe. Zack received the
inaugural New Voices award from Disney/NMI and is a two time Kleban Prize
finalist, three time Jonathan Larson Grant finalist, and is a founding member
of Musical Theatre Factory. As a songwriter he has co-written and released
records with artists on every major label group. He currently holds commissions
from Mike Bosner, Arena Stage, and Ars Nova/Jill Furman and is a
writer-in-residence at SPACE on Ryder Farm, The Orchard Project Greenhouse, The
Civilians, and Ars Nova.
www.zackzadek.com | IG: @zackzadek | Twitter: @zackzadek