Philip Magdalany

Philip Magdalany was an American playwright. His plays have been produced on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in London. His works include Criss-Crossing, Watercolor, Boo Hoo, Section Nine, and Rich Girls. He passed away in 1985 at the age of 49.

Dennis Andersen

Dennis Andersen is an American playwright. His plays, Bistro on the CNR, Cafe Society, The Castaways, Crazy And A Half, Funny Valentines, The Girl Most Likely to Succeed, I Remember The House Where I Was Born, Jenny and the Revolution, Marry Me! Marry Me!, My Name Is Sybil Ludington, Raggedy Andy, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, and Unicorns At Two (Playwrights Horizons), have recieved New York and regional productions. In addition to being a playwright, Andersen is teacher and incorporates theatre into his lessons. He is a graduate of Amherst College.

Allan Knee

Allan Knee is the author of the New York hit play SCHMULNIK’S WALTZ, as well as SHOLOM ALEICHEM LIVES, LATE NITE COMIC, SECOND AVENUE RAG and the book to the Broadway musical, LITTLE WOMEN. SYNCOPATION has been produced by regional theatres around the USA and won an American Theatre Critics Best New Play award. His most recent play, THE JAZZ AGE, about Hemingway, Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald has been produced at 5 E. 55th Street Theatre in New York and at The Blank Theatre in LA to excellent reviews, with a Broadway production planned. His play, THE MAN WHO WAS PETER PAN, became the basis of the award-winning movie FINDING NEVERLAND. Allan is now writing the book for the upcoming Broadway musical of the movie for the The Weinstein Company.

A graduate of the Yale School of Drama, he won a Richard Rodgers Musical Theater Award as well as a Cine Eagle Award from the Washington Film Festival. His plays have been produced at Jewish Repertory Theatre, American Repertory Theatre, Milwaukee Rep, Long Wharf Theater, Manhattan Punchline, Theatreworks/USA among many others. (As of 1974)

David Epstein

David Epstein is an American playwright and screenwriter. His plays include New York! New York! , Exact Change, and Ways of Men. He has written the screenplays for several films and made-for-TV movies including "Murders In The Rue Morgue", and "Palookaville". He did script revisions on other films including "Home Fries". He has also written screenplays for studios including Warner Brothers, Disney, and 20th Century Fox.

Epstein lives in the Hamptons with his wife and three children.

Jeremiah Murray

Jeremiah Murray is an American composer and playwright. He is best known for his operas, The Marriage Proposal and The Beauty and the Beast, which are both produced often. Murray has also written several plays. New York! New York! a play which he co-wrote with several other artists, was produced at Playwrights Horizons.

Kenneth Pressman

Kenneth Pressman is an American playwright. His works include Girl In Green Stockings, Hunting the Jingo Bird, Insider's Price,New York! New York!, Lovesong, and Madonna and Child. In addition to being produced at Playwrights Horizons, Pressman's work has been produced at The Cherry Lane Theater, The Actors Theatre of Louisville, Top of the Gate, and Bank Street Theatre, among others.

Steven Shea

Steven Shea is an American playwright. His palys have been produced at theatres around the country including Playwrights Horizons, The Studio Theatre, the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center. His plays include Warren Harding, Jealousy, New York! New York!, Brain Damage, and Paradise.

Martin Sherman

Martin Gerald Sherman is an American dramatist and screenwriter best known for his 20 stage plays which have been produced in over 55 countries. He rose to fame in 1979 with the production of his Pulitzer Prize-nominated play Bent, which explores the persecution of homosexuals during the Holocaust. Bent was a Tony nominee for Best Play in 1980 and won the Dramatists Guild's Hull-Warriner Award. It has been produced in 35 countries and was adapted first by Sherman for a major motion picture in 1997 and later by independent sources as a ballet in Brazil.

Marsha Sheiness

Produced Off-Broadway, Off-Off Broadway, television, regional, community, university, and high school theatres across the US. Also produced in Japan, Canada and England.

The 2011 Midtown International Theatre Festival presented her one-act comedy-drama, LOST AND FOUND (nominated for Best Production and Best Director) at the Jewel Box Theatre in NYC and the 2011 Downtown Urban Theatre Festival also presented LOST AND FOUND. Mirror Repertory produced her 2009 stage adaptation of John Colton’s SHANGHAI GESTURE Off-Broadway at the Julia Miles Theatre, directed by Robert Kalfin, starring Tina Chen. As an original playwright-in-residence at Playwrights Horizons in NYC she participated in eleven productions of her work.

Sheiness has written plays about a 40-year old woman’s past selves; about the most extraordinary of twelfth century Europe; about a Jewish Texas couple in their 70s; about gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual teenagers; about mothers of mentally retarded children; about an eccentric college professor and his/her students; about characters with dementia; about spelling bee contestants, and many others.

As a director, Sheiness has been at the helm of more than thirty plays, guiding actors to their full potential in fulfilling their roles in a way that best enhances the playwright’s intent. Her background as a playwright and years of directorial experience gives her tremendous insights into all facets of production.

As a teacher, Sheiness currently mentors individual playwrights. She has taught playwriting at The New School and at Eccentric Circles Theatre in NYC, as well as at the Harbor Playhouse School of Dramatic Arts in Corpus Christi, Texas. She has served as Guest Lecturer in playwriting at Drake and Rutgers University among other educational institutions. In the words of Robert King, a playwright she has mentored, “Marsha is one of the few true experts on plot, character development, and motivation. And she provides a safe and nurturing space to grow as an artist, never judging, always encouraging.”

BEST ALL ‘ROUND (soon to be published by Baker’s Plays) was produced Off-Broadway at the Perry Street Theatre in NYC, PROFESSOR GEORGE and THE SPELLING BEE were first presented by the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, and her play, MONKEY, MONKEY BOTTLE OF BEER, HOW MANY MONKEYS HAVE WE HERE? (Available on DVD) aired on “Theater in America” produced by PBS Channel13/WNET following its premier production at Cincinnati Playhouse in the park directed by Harold Scott.

Her musical adaptation of GREAT EXPECTATIONS, music and lyrics by Robert Bendorff, was a 1997 finalist for the Richard Rodgers Award, and the Festival of Contemporary Musical Theatre. ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop presented forty-five minutes of GREAT EXPECTATIONS, and AMAS produced the entire musical as a staged reading directed by Gabriel Barre.

A VIRTUAL WOMAN/LIPSTICK POLITICS (conceived by Donna Trinkoff), a musical review dramatizing the plight of women around the world had two developmental staged readings at AMAS Musical Theatre and a developmental presentation at Theatre Building Chicago under the title HALF THE SKY.

BECOMING ELEANOR, comedy-drama about the early life of Eleanor of Aquitaine, opened to excellent reviews at its World Premier at Theatre Conspiracy in Fort Myers, Florida directed by Robert Kalfin. (Published 2010, Dramatic Publishing)

With a BA in Speech and Drama she began her professional career as an actress in Los Angeles performing both on stage and television. After moving to New York City she toured with the National Repertory Theatre Company under the direction of Margaret Webster, performing onstage with Eva Le Gallienne, Sylvia Sydney and Leora Dana. She was Artistic Director of THE YOUNG PEOPLE’S THEATRE at The Harbor Playhouse in Corpus Christi, Texas and Interim AD of The Harbor Playhouse. She has directed many productions of her own work as well as BUS STOP, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, and THE MIRACLE WORKER. Other directorial credits: New York’s HB STUDIO - ten-minute play festivals.