Ricky Zipp (Lights in the Sky) is a journalist living in New York City. He first became involved in theatre as a student at Oregon State University, where he acted, wrote, and directed shows with the program. After graduating, he began 5 to 1 Theatre with his friends from the OSU theatre program. The group produced four original plays over about two years. His plays — On Again, Off Again and Paper is Dope — have also been featured as part of the NW 10 playwriting festival through Oregon Contemporary Theatre. Ricky currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Bryanna, and their “zoo” of two cats and a dog.
Sara Jean Accuardi (PULL) is an award-winning playwright whose works include The Storyteller (Artists Repertory Theatre), The Delays (Theatre Vertigo), < 3 (Company 157, Seven Devils Playwrights Conference), CHICK FIGHT! A Reckoning in 9 Movements (Shaking the Tree Theatre, Artemis Theatre Project ), BREAK (Valdez Theatre Conference), Grow Learn Play (Theatre 33) and Portrait of the Widow Kinski (Vivid Stage, JAW New Play Festival), among others. She has received the Oregon Book Award for Drama, the James F. and Marion L. Miller Spark Award for Oregon Artists, the Drammy Award for Outstanding Original Script, the Leslie Bradshaw Fellowship for Drama, and was the inaugural winner of the International Thomas Wolfe Playwriting Competition. Sara Jean is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and LineStorm Playwrights. She holds an MFA in Writing for the Screen and Stage from Northwestern University.
Rob Smith (Be Witch) is a writer of words, haver of tattoos, and lover of donuts. His words, usually written down in play form, include the full-length plays Sunnyview Elementary Art Show, Be Witch, Dust, and Underneath. Various one-act and ten-minute plays include Do Us Part, Strands, Night and Day, The Family Photographer, and The Packer. These shows and others have been produced/read/commissioned by theaters in Portland, Chicago, New York, and Washington, DC. For the screen, works include various screenplays and a pilot, including Park Rangers (named one of LaunchPad’s Top 100 Pilots of 2019), and a mocumentary about the world’s greatest avant-garde theatre company, The Closed Theatre (which he produced and directed). Rob received his BA from Catawba College and his MFA from Carnegie Mellon University, where he was twice the recipient of the Shubert Fellowship for Dramatic Writing. He is a proud member of the Dramatist Guild of America. When not writing he can be found cooking or baking, reading books about history, or watching his beloved Los Angeles Dodgers. Most of all he enjoys spending time with his wife Kelly, their son Bobby, and their two cats Molly and Bowie.
(Prodigies) is an emerging playwright and 2022 graduate of the MFA Dramatic Writing program at Tisch School of the Arts. She is a recipient of the Theatre Artist Award for Excellence from Lipscomb University, finalist for Southwest Theatre Productions Play Competition, finalist for the Playwrights Realm Writing Fellowship, and a finalist for the Goldberg Playwriting Award. Brooke is originally from rural Idaho, but now calls New York City home. She writes to understand the world around her and hopes that her work reaches audiences as strange as she is.
Layli Rohani (Majnun) is a playwright, actor, and director originally hailing from the Pacific Northwest. An Oregon native, she received her Bachelor's degree in Theatre Arts from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, CA and subsequently moved to New York City to pursue a career in theatre. Her work has been performed at colleges and universities across the U.S. and with Living Radio NYC, and has been featured at the Midwest Dramatists’ Conference and in Venus Theatre’s “Frozen Women Flowing Thoughts” anthology of female playwrights. She was a finalist for Art House INKubator New Plays series in Jersey City and for MOXIE Theatre’s Lamoise New Works Festival in San Diego. A full catalogue of her playwriting works can be found on New Play Exchange.
Rebecca Tourino Collingsworth (Crumbs/Migas) is a Seattle-based theater artist whose plays include Skint, Cowboys With Questions, Crumbs/Migas, cherubin, Stamina, Maiden Voyage, What She Means, and Quickening. She is the co-book writer (with Evynne Hollens) of the musical Mija (music & lyrics by Anna Gilbert & Gaby Moreno) and the co-writer (with Asha Dore) of the short films The Bleeds and House of Fun! Her work has been produced and/or developed by the Paramount Theatre in Aurora, Illinois, NAMT Festival of New Musicals, ACT Contemporary Theatre, Book-It Repertory Theatre, Washington Ensemble Theatre, Oregon Contemporary Theatre, Latiné Musical Theatre Lab, Trial and Error Productions, Coyote REP, Lungfish, Invisible, LLC, Lucid By Proxy, and Teatro de Cámara “Hugo Carillo” in Guatemala City. As a teaching theater artist, she’s worked with the Claire Trevor School of the Arts; the Alliance Theater; the New York Film Academy; Seattle University; Meadows School of the Arts at SMU; and Freehold’s Ensemble Training Intensive, among others. For three consecutive years, she also made weekly trips to Gig Harbor to work with incarcerated people at the Washington Correctional Center for Women as part of the Engaged Theater Residency. Rebecca is the creator and managing artistic director of Parley, a collaborative production company, where she has established the most robust new work developmental program in the Pacific Northwest, offering unprecedented support to its playwriting associates. Through Parley, Rebecca has developed, directed, and produced 100 world premieres of important new plays by underrepresented writers in the last decade. MFA (Acting), U.C. Irvine; BA (English), U.C. Berkeley; Pacific Conservatory Theater. rebeccatourinocollinsworth.com
