About the Authors

Steve Apostolina (Broken)

Steve Apostolina’s new play Killer was just awarded First Place in The Julie Harris 2022 Playwriting Competition. Additional full-length plays include: Derelict in Fairville, Broken, Forever Bound, The American Way, and Flight of the Penguin. His work has been seen in LA and NY as well as all over the US. Other playwriting awards include: Ovation Award Nomination (Forever Bound), Dramalogue Award (Flight of the Penguin), Labute New Theatre Festival (2-time finalist: 2015, Cold in Hand and 2022, T.N.T), New Jersey Rep Festival finalist (Embroiled). Forever Bound, after enjoying a critical run in LA, starring French Stewart, subsequently had a reading in NYC for Williamstown Theatre with Amanda Seyfried, Tommy Sadoski, Peter Friedman, and Howard Overshown.

Heather Beasley (The Gentle Life-Changing Magic of Burning It All Down to the Ground)

Heather Beasley is a playwright, director, and dramaturg. She is Director of Education at Miners Alley Playhouse in Golden, Colorado, and she teaches in the Creative Writing and Arts and Culture Management graduate programs at the University of Denver. Her play Bone Records was produced at Relative Theatrics in Laramie, WY. Her TYA musical Amelia’s Big Idea, co-written with Richie Cannaday and Edie Carey, toured on BETC’s Touring Theatre Truck across the Front Range of Colorado. She has worked with Butterfly Effect Theatre of Colorado (BETC), Naropa University, Imagination Makers Theatre Company, Seattle Public Theatre, and the Nebraska and Colorado Shakespeare Festivals.

Steven R. Boyett (Minutes of the Last Meeting at Chauvet Cave)

Steven R. Boyett (www.steveboy.com) has published fiction since 1983. His novels include the fantasy cult classic Ariel, Elegy Beach, Mortality Bridge, and (with director Ken Mitchroney) Fata Morgana. In 1997 he wrote a draft of Toy Story 2 for Pixar/Disney. In 2006 he created the groundbreaking online music series Podrunner and Groovelectric. Podrunner won an iTunes Best Podcast award six years in a row and remains one of the world’s most popular podcasts.

Boyett has been a professional martial arts instructor, paper marbler, advertising copywriter, proofreader, writing teacher, website designer & editor, chapbook publisher, and DJ who has played in major cities and at Burning Man. He lives in the San Francisco Bay area.

Tina Esper (Neighbor Jane)

Tina Esper (she/her) is a first-generation American playwright of Lebanese-Brazilian and Portuguese descent. Her multi-cultural background informs her storytelling and underscores themes of dislocation, assimilation and the pursuit of freedom. Her play, Neighbor Jane is the co-recipient of the 2023 National Partners of the American Theatre’s Julie Jensen Playwriting Award. Neighbor Jane was also selected for the 2022 Great Plains Theatre Conference. Tina will be attending the Sewanee Writers Conference as a Tennessee Williams Scholar this summer. She’s an MFA candidate in Playwriting at Boston University.
 

William Ivor Fowkes (Miss Peddy & Grace and The Next Move)

William Ivor Fowkes (he/him) is a playwright and author based in New York and a member of the Dramatists Guild. He is also the first graduate of the Dramatists Guild Institute for Dramatic Writing’s certificate program (2022). His plays have been presented in 30 states, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Austria. Many have been presented on the radio, on podcasts, and on Zoom. Many have been published. His fiction has been published in many journals. His full-length plays include All in the Faculty (Dramatists Play Service), Museum Lovers (Renegade Actors Innsbruck, University of Innsbruck, Austria 2022), Couple of the Century (UNLV Second Stage, Las Vegas 2021), Incident in Conference Room B (Cimientos at IATI Theater 2020), Private Property (Players’ Ring 2018), and others. A graduate of Yale (B.A.) and Northwestern (M.A., PhD), he was formerly a philosophy professor and a media & television executive. www.williamivorfowkes.com

Dana Leslie Goldstein (Eat Dessert First)

Dana Leslie Goldstein has won the New England New Play Competition, Harold and Mimi Steinberg Playwriting Prize, Different Voices New Play Award, ACTF New Play Award, Henry Hoyns Poetry Fellowship, AWP Intro Award, an Academy of American Poets Prize, and numerous development grants.

Next Stage Press has just published Dana’s full-length play Daughters of the Sexual Revolution, after previously publishing Birth, Death & Bourbon: 3 Short Plays by Dana Leslie Goldstein.  Dana’s play The God Part is published in Best Short Plays of 2021 (Smith & Kraus).  Monologues from several of Dana’s plays appear in the 2022 editions of Best Men’s Stage Monologues and Best Women’s Stage Monologues (Smith & Kraus), as well as in previous years’ editions.  Dana’s monologues also appear in the anthology She Persisted, published by Applause Books in 2021.

Dana is a librettist in the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop, a playwright member of PlayGround- NY, Brave New World Rep, and The Workshop Theater, as well as an alum of the Playwrights Lab at Women’s Project, NewShoe, and DVRF. Dana holds MFAs in Playwriting and Poetry, both funded by full writing fellowships. Dana is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild. For more information, visit www.danalesliegoldstein.com. Agent: Michael Moore, Michael@MichaelMooreAgency.com

Megan Gooden (Love and Pepperoni)

Megan Gooden (she/her) is a life-long creative who strives to see the possibilities in the mundane. A new playwright, Megan has thus far kept busy writing blogs, poems, and songs, and is eager to debut her script writing with an incredible group like Valley Players. Theater has played a large role in Megan’s life; she has been performing in plays, musicals, and doing improv since elementary school, and took to directing as an adult. There’s something downright spiritual about a mixed room of strangers experiencing live theater together – feeling in unison, choosing to live in the same moment together for a couple of hours, letting hurt sting and pride sing. Nothing prepares the heart for life more than art. Megan believes that life can truly be an adventure, as long as we write it that way! A huge “THANK YOU” to Valley Players for this opportunity. 

JS Jacklin (For The Love of a Good Man)

JS JACKLIN is the British husband and wife team of Jan and Steven Jacklin who have been collaborating on writing stories since they first met over 40 years ago. Writers of books, poems, stage and radio scripts, the couple ascribe inspiration from living on their 10 acre homestead in Muskoka, Canada and always, by their three children and growing tribe of grandkiddies.

 From Jan’s years as co-founder, producer and artistic director of The Huntsville Theatre Company and currently Dot The T Productions, with over 40 productions/events under her belt, she was inspired to write stage plays specifically for actors of advancing years: For The Love of a Good Man, Merry Birthday & Finding Your Self in Muskoka. When their first grandchild was expected in the summer of 2019, she reminisced the anxieties, intrusions, and expectations as a parent-to-be, in a full-out comedic look at pregnancy and the first few months of parenthood in her play Me, A Mamma.

Her most recent project was a response to the dismal conditions exposed during the pandemic lock-downs in retirement and nursing homes. Life Line is a one-act drama, ideal for radio or stage-reading events. She is currently working on a full-length period piece entitled– inspired by the life and times of her mother who would be turning 100 in November, 2023.

Susan Jackson (Taken)

Susan Jackson received the Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award for Best Original Play. Her plays have been staged- read/produced in New York City—Off-Broadway, Sedona, Bay Area, Eugene O’Neill Foundation, William Inge New Works Festival, Sydney, London, Mid-America and Last Frontier Theatre Conferences, Florida (Powerstories: Voices of Women Playwrights) and South Carolina.   Death Be Not Loud! won Best of Capital Fringe, a positive review in the Washington Post, and was a Theatre Bay Area recommended production. Her works have been published by Smith and Kraus, and Applause.  www.southernrailroadtheatrecompany.com  Finalist:  Henley Rose Competition for Female Playwrights

Jenna Jane (A Socially Distanced Farce in One Act)

Jenna Jane is a Floridian playwright and performer whose plays have been produced across the country. Her writing explores the topics of authenticity and gender expectations. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild. Jenna is also the playwright of one-act sci-fi drama Organic, one-act farce Cuckoo Clock, 10-minute comedy The Fairy Queen’s Campaign, 10-minute farce Pumpkin Spice MILFs, and 10-minute spoof Why Did You Bother Killing the Sea Witch? For script requests, production rights, commissions, and other inquiries: jennajanewrites.wordpress.com

Janet J. Lawler (Trending)

Janet J. Lawler is a playwright and screenwriter.  She hails from New York but has made California home for several years. Her one-act plays Biscuits & Bones, Netfits, Extreme Green, The Kiss, and Good Grief have received staged productions across the country.  Janet is currently at work writing a TV pilot about the inner-workings of the TV news business, as well as writing her first full-length play titled Bette Davis and The Hollywood Canteen. Janet is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.

John Mabey (C is for Cupid)

John Mabey (they/he) is a writer and storyteller whose plays have been produced on stage in 7 countries and throughout the United States. John lived internationally for a decade in London and Amsterdam before residing in Atlanta and continues to work with theatre companies around the globe both virtually and in-person. They are also a certified Mental Health Counselor and published author on the topics of sexual identity and spirituality in academic books (Routledge: SEXUAL ORIENTATION DISCRIMINATION, ADVANCES IN FEMINIST ECONOMICS) and journals (The Professional Counselor: COUNSELING OLDER ADULTS IN LGBT COMMUNITIES). Recent awards for full-length plays include the ‘2021 Panowski Playwriting Award,’ the ‘2022 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award,’ and the ‘2022 Getchell New Play Award.’ In 2021, 2022, and 2023 they had plays published in Smith & Kraus Best 10-Minute Plays, Best Women’s Monologues, and Best Men’s Monologues. In 2023, John will have multiple monologues published in a volume for gender minority characters as well. When not writing, they enjoy teaching and performing improvised comedy and true storytelling around the world.

Lisa Quoresimo (Discharge)

Lisa Quoresimo’s plays have been seen internationally (Siddahartha the Bright Path, Cloudy with a Chance of Contempt), in NYC (Not My Heart’s Desire, Endlessly Rocking, Antigone: a Fable Without Walls), the San Francisco Bay Area (Between Dirt and Sky, Ciribiribin) and in the Sacramento area (Charlie and Nell, Charlotte Charke/Mr. Brown).  Their work as performer and composer has been seen recently in the SF Bay Area at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Shotgun Players, Brava Theatre, and The Marsh. Lisa has served as the artistic director of the Kairos Theatre in NYC, and on the faculties of NYU and the Manhattan School of Music. She is currently assistant professor of musical theatre at Southern Utah University and is the co-founder/director of Catalyst: A Theatre Think Tank. A specialist in voice and gender, Lisa’s scholarly work has been published widely, including Theatre Topics, Global Performance Studies, and Voice and Speech Review.  Lisa holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from UC Davis and an M.A. from Carnegie Mellon University. Lisa is a proud member of Actor’s Equity Association and of the Dramatist’s Guild.

Marsha Roberts (The Way It Works)

Marsha is an escapee from corporate America. Her short plays have been produced in various US and international venues. Several e-zines and anthologies have featured Marsha’s fiction. The Agent, her multiple award-winning novel about an elegant con game, was published in 2019. Marsha is on the Board of Playwrights’ Center SF, an alumna of PlayGround SF’s Writers’ Company, and a member of The Dramatists Guild and Left Coast Writers. She is a Co-Founder of Welcoming Home, a non-profit that furnishes the homes of the formerly homeless. http://www.marsha-roberts.com

Lia Romeo (The Lucky Ones)

Lia Romeo is a playwriting fellow at Juilliard. Her plays have been developed at the O’Neill, La Jolla Playhouse, the Lark, and elsewhere, and have been produced off-Broadway at 59E59 and ART/NY as well as regionally at venues such as Dorset Theatre Festival, Laguna Playhouse, Unicorn Theatre, New Jersey Repertory Theatre, and others. Four of her plays have been recognized by the Kilroys List. Her plays are published by TRW, Broadway Licensing, and Broadway Play Publishing. She is the associate artistic director with Project Y Theatre Company and the co-founder of the Parent-Caregiver Playwrights Group, and she teaches playwriting at Primary Stages/ESPA and in the M.A. program in creative writing at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Samara Siskind (The Grandparents Are Alright)

Samara Siskind’s plays have been produced all across the US as well as internationally in eight countries. Her plays have been published in various anthologies including Shorter, Faster, Funnier: Comic Plays and Monologues (Viking), Great Short Comedies Volume 1 and Great Short Comedies Volume 2 (Playscripts), and soon to be published in The Best 10-Minute Plays of 2023 (Smith & Kraus). Recent Honors: Winner – Lakeshore Players Theatre’s 19th and 18th Annual 10-Minute Play Festivals, Winner – Stage It! 10-Minute Play Festival – Center for the Arts Bonita Springs, Finalist – 2023 LaBute New Theater Festival, Semi-Finalist – Gary Garrison Playwriting Award for 10-Minute Plays, Semi-Finalist – Little Fish Theatre’s 2023 Pick of the Vine. 

Michael Waterson (In the Cards)

Although retiring as a journalist, Michael Waterson’s varied career includes stints as a seasonal firefighter, San Francisco taxi driver, and wine educator. Along the way, he managed to get a BA from San Francisco State and an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College. His poetry has appeared in numerous online and print journals and his plays have been produced in California and Massachusetts.