XOXO
Mindi Dickstein
"Helena Zengel Gets Her Period"
MINDI DICKSTEIN’s work includes Broadway’s LITTLE WOMEN (lyrics), BENNY & JOON (lyrics), based on the MGM film, TRIP (book and lyrics) commissioned by Playwrights Horizons, and TOY STORY - THE MUSICAL (book) for Disney. Current projects include lyrics for BEYOND WHAT CAN BE SEEN, based on The Little Prince and the life of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, and MAIDEN VOYAGE, commissioned by New Works
Provincetown. She has received a Larson Foundation Award, Massachusetts Artists and New York Foundation for the Arts Playwriting Fellowships, and a PEN International New Playwright Award. She was an Oscar Hammerstein Fellow at NYU’s Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program, where she earned an MFA and now serves on the faculty.
Julianne Wick Davis
"Gray Green"
Julianne Wick Davis (composer/lyricist) Larson Award in 2012; 2018 recipient of the Ziegfeld Award: Broadway Woman’s Fund Fifty Women to Watch 2020; 2020 Lotte Lenya Competition Songbook Series Award from the Kurt Weill Foundation. TREVOR (music) with Dan Collins (book and lyrics) Writer’s Theatre, Chicago (Jefferson Award for Outstanding New Musical), Off-Broadway 2021. SOUTHERN COMFORT,
Public Theatre 2016, NAMT 2012, Barrington Stage, CAP21; THE WILLARD SUITCASES (book, music, & lyrics) American Shakespeare Center; LAUTREC AT THE ST. JAMES (music), John Dietrich (book and lyrics), NAMT 2019 Conference. THE PEN (music) Inner Voices; WHEN WE MET (music & lyrics), O’Neill MTF, CAP21. MFA, NYU’s Tisch Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program where she is currently faculty.
Sara Cooper
"Hearts"
Sara Cooper is a Playwright-Lyricist. Recent highlights: Perpetual Sunshine & the Ghost Girls, 5X15, Beck Center/Baldwin Wallace (2021), NAMT 15-Minute Musical Challenge winner (2020); Barrington Stage Company Spark Grant (2020); HoT, Johnny Mercer Foundation Writers Grove, Goodspeed Musicals (2020), New York Theatre Barn New Works (2020); Windows and Breakfast, Lowbrow Opera Collective (2021, 2020); Polyanna,TV pilot, Grand Jury Prize, BOLT, Barnstorm Media (2020); The Memory Show,
Benefit Reading, Alzheimer’s Association, The Mercury Theater Chicago (2019), New Bard, London (2016), Transport Group at The Duke on 42nd Street (2013), Water Gate Media, Seoul (2012-2013), Barrington Stage Company (2010), NAMT (2010); Elevator Heart, Moxie Arts (2019), University of San Francisco (2018), Tisch New Musicals (2016); Fault Lines, The Kennedy Center (2018), American Opera Initiative Fellowship, Washington National Opera (2017); NYSCA Commission (2015); Things I Left On Long Island, FringeNYC (2014), Overall Excellence Award: Playwriting (2014), Time Out NY Critics’ Pick (2014); Jonathan Larson Grant, American Theatre Wing (2014). MFA Graduate Musical Theatre Writing, Tisch NYU. Dramatists Guild, ASCAP. Sara is currently writing the lyrics for the commercial adaptation of a delightful movie (TBA).
Gabrielle Mirabella
"Rehearsal"
Gabrielle Mirabella is a musical theatre artist, writer, and classical vocalist. Graduate of the NYU Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, recent writing credits include: Finalist for the 2020 Theater Now’s 10-Minute Musical Festival at Merkin Hall for her musical RISE, and Co-Producing, Hosting and Writing the Musical Women’s History Podcast, “What Will She Do Next?”, with composer Ernie Bird. Past podcast guests include Matt Lucas (Great British Bake Off)
and Kara Lindsay (Wicked, Newsies, Beautiful B’way). Currently, Gabrielle is a part of the TNNY’s National Musical Writers Group with collaborators Bird and Field, workshopping their brand-new musical, Ren Faire. As an actor, Mamma Mia! and Elf, the musical (Broadway National Tours) You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up! (Second National Tour) Regional Premiere of First Date (Straz Center), Professional Premiere of Bubble Boy & World Premiere of Stranger Sings! A Musical Parody, written by Cinco Paul of Despicable Me (Wolfbane Productions). As a producer, “Anything You Can Do” Concert Series, NYC. New Works for Women! Laurie Beechman Theatre 18’ and Dixon Place ‘19. Graduate of the Manhattan School of Music and proud member of Actors Equity, and Dramatists Guild.
Sam Rosenblatt
"Two-Percent Important"
Sam Rosenblatt is a Jewish-Asian-American theatre artist based in New York. She has a BS from NYU Steinhardt in Educational Theatre and an MFA from NYU Tisch in Musical Theatre Writing. She is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and Maestra. Sam is a curator for Tin Pan Alley 2 and an Artistic Director for The Latest Draft podcast.
Jessie Field
"Circular Wounds"
Jessie Field is an award-winning queer NYC playwright and director. She has written book and lyrics for numerous projects, including La Maupin (WINNER 2018 International MUT Competition, WINNER Audience Favorite – 2017 Fresh Fruit Festival) and Rachel (2018 JDT Lab Selection, WINNER Outstanding Musical – 2015 Fresh Fruit Festival, 2013 Harold and Mimi Steinberg Prize for Best Original Play). Jessie has also written TYA straight play, To
The West, which was a finalist in the Growing Stage’s New Play Reading Festival and was presented as the school play at Randolph High School in 2018. Jessie served as the 2015-’16 Directing Apprentice at Capital Stage in Sacramento, California, and has directed numerous plays in the Boston and New York areas. Jessie is a co-creator of the YouTube musical webseries Is This Art Now? She is currently a lab member of Theatre Now's National Musical Writers Group and she earned her MFA at NYU Tisch’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program in May, 2020. Jessie is a co-founder of Root Beer Occasion Theatre Company, with fellow alum Brandy Hoang Collier.
Brandy Hoang Collier
"The Middle, or like... the Exact Opposite of That"
Brandy Hoang Collier is a playwright, poet and composer. She is co-founder of Root Beer Occasion Theatre Company, and the clearly-lost mind behind many of their deranged events. Collier earned her BA in both Music and English from Texas A&M, and her MFA in Musical Theatre Writing from NYU. Although a self-proclaimed "writer," this is the first new thing Collier has written in almost a year, and she's super nervous about you seeing it. However, she is
extremely confident in the talents of Michele O'Brien, Kira Player, and the entire production team, so she knows it's gonna be awesome. Another thing that's gonna be awesome is Collier's new sci-fi musical "The Blazing World" (written with composer Sean Eads), which is being performed in the 2021 Polyphone Festival of New and Emerging Musicals— also in April! Gonna be a busy month.
Michele O'Brien
Michele O'Brien is a director and writer based in Brooklyn. Virtual Directing: Wild and Precious Life by Patricia Cotter (Playing on Air - audio), RBO’s The Garbage Revue, Rule of 7x7 (plays by Chet Siegel and Bonnie Antosh), Three Sisters by Sarah Ruhl (TSquared). Real-life directing includes: Jessie & Jared Field’s La Maupin (The Tank, BVOB Festival), Queens Theatre’s Park Plays (Afternoon Prayers by Jenny Lyn Bader),
Stepping Through Blood by MJ Perrin (New Perspectives Theater), NY Madness (plays by Joshua Young, Jessica Moss, Matthew Barbot, Raine Grayson, and Aleesha Nash), 24 Hour Plays: Nationals, readings of Niki Hatsidis & Anastasia Rutkowski’s Steel Birds and CommonWealth. Assisting: off-Broadway (F#%king Up Everything, dir. Jen Wineman) and New York Theater Festival (Rachel, dir. Ari Laura Kreith). Michele is also a comedy writer who wrote on the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre’s Maude Night. B.A., Vassar College.