CREATIVE TEAM

Wendy Kesselman's new adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank was produced on Broadway and received a Tony Award Nomination. Her plays include My Sister in This House; The Executioner’s Daughter; The Notebook; The Foggy Foggy Dew; The Last Bridge; I Love You, I Love You Not; The Juniper Tree, A Tragic Household Tale (Book, Music and Lyrics); Maggie Magalita; Merry-Go-Round; Becca (Book, Music and Lyrics) and A Tale of Two Cities (Book, Music and Lyrics). A member of the Dramatists Guild, she is the recipient of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the AT&T Onstage Award, The New England Major Award for Outstanding Creative Achievement in the American Theatre, the first annual Playbill Award, the Roger L. Stevens Award, the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award, the Lecomte du Noüy Annual Award, a Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant, and Guggenheim, McKnight, and National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. Ms. Kesselman's screenplays include Sister My Sister (adapted from My Sister In This House), directed by Nancy Meckler, with Joely Richardson, Julie Walters and Jodhi May; I Love You, I Love You Not (adapted from her play of the same name), directed by Billy Hopkins, with Jeanne Moreau, Claire Danes and Jude Law and Mad Or In Love for Fox 2000. She won a Writers Guild of America award for her screen adaptation of John Knowles' A Separate Peace, directed by Peter Yates. She has recently completed a re-imagined version of My Sister in This House for Deaf West Theatre. The CD of her chamber musical, The Black Monk (Book, Music and Lyrics) will be released fall 2011.

Madge Kaplan, Director of Communications, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), is responsible for developing new and innovative means for IHI to communicate the stories, leading examples of change, and policy implications emerging from the world of quality improvement ― both in the U.S. and internationally. Since May 2009, she’s been the host and producer of WIHI, a free 60-minute audio “talk show” from IHI, devoted to the cutting edge of quality improvement and patient safety. Prior to joining IHI in July 2004, Ms. Kaplan spent 20 years as a broadcast journalist for public radio – most recently working as a health correspondent for National Public Radio. Ms. Kaplan was the creator and Senior Editor of Marketplace Radio's Health Desk at WGBH in Boston, and was a 1989/99 Kaiser Media Fellow in Health. She has produced numerous documentaries, and her reporting has been recognized with awards by American Women in Radio and Television, Pew Charitable Trusts, American Academy of Nursing and Massachusetts Broadcasters Association.

Maureen Hourihan, writer, teacher, and tutor lives in Brewster. She wrote “Slow Train Coming” in 2004 in response to her dear father’s devastating diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. What began as a trilogy of ten-minute plays has now been staged over a dozen times on the Cape & Islands, including at The Vineyard Playhouse. This past July, she earned an MFA in Writing at Vermont College.

Alexandra Bullen is an author, playwright and graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she received an MFA in Dramatic Writing. Her first full-length play, Wordsworth, was produced at The Cherry Lane Theatre as part of the 2004 Mentor Program Fellowship, and was mentored by playwright and poet Ed Bullins. Her short plays, including 10-minute plays Maker’s Mark and Escape Route, have been developed and produced by NYU, the Lincoln Center Theatre Lab and The Boston Theatre Marathon. Ms. Bullen is also the author of two novels for Young Adults, Wish and Wishful Thinking, published by Scholastic, Inc. She lives on Martha’s Vineyard.

Marisa Michelson received a 2011 Jonathan Larson Award and was the only women to receive a 2009 "American Musical Voices: The Next Generation" Award from the Shen Family Foundation. Her music-theatre work includes book and music for Tamar and the River (Signature Theatre, workshop 2010, production upcoming 2012); Still Life with Toe Shoes (Old Deerfield Productions; Musical Theatre Society of Emerson College); Hotel Sarajevo (CAP 21, hotInk Festival, Smith College); and commissioned one-acts for NYC’s Prospect Theatre Company. In May, 2010, Marisa was commissioned with playwright Jason Grote by Montclair University’s New Works Institute to write Scheherezade - a musical adaptation of Grote’s play,1001. Her work has been featured at the Kennedy Center in D.C. and in the 2010 NAMT songwriter’s showcase at New World Stages. Marisa was a proud participant in the New Dramatists Composer-Librettist Studio, Theatreworks Palo Alto’s 2011 writers residency, and Earthdance’s 2011 “eMerge” interdisciplinary artists residency in Western Massachusetts. She is the winner of the 2006 St. Botolph Award for Composition and a Global Arts Village grant to study Indian Hindustani Singing in India. Collaborators include Joshua H. Cohen, Jason Grote, Rinne Groff and Frank Terry. Marisa sang with Meredith Monk in Songs of Ascension at BAM and just returned from Switzerland where she was invited to perform her new two-person experimental vocal piece. Marisa has the most wonderful job teaching singing and leading workshops for adults and young people. www.marisamichelson.com.

Joshua H. Cohen's honors include a 2011 Jonathan Larson Grant, finalist for the 2010 John Wallowitch Award, and a 2010 MAC Award nomination. His plays include full-lengths Fun and Games (workshop, Little Hibiscus; readings, Studio 42 and Oberon Theatre Ensemble) and The Thirteenth Commandment (Judson Church/Magic Time, Jewish Ensemble Theatre) and one-act "Odysseus Swims For It" (publication, Smith & Kraus). His lyrics (and sometimes music or book) include Maggie the Pirate (Winner, Chameleon Theatre Circle New Play Competition; workshops WKU Before Broadway, Momentum Rep), The Mole (Emerging Artists Theatre), Tamar and the River (Signature Theatre), Keep On Walkin' (Amas/Actors' Harbor), Still Life With Toe Shoes (workshop, Old Deerfield Productions; production, Musical Theatre Society of Emerson College), The Entropy Songs (Abingdon Theatre; revival, Libra Theatre), and The Day the World Went QUEER! (NY Fringe). Collections of his songs have been presented at the Duplex by New York Theatre Barn, at the Laurie Beechman by Libra, and at Space on White by Momentum Rep. One-acts: American Globe, Turtle Shell, Prospect, others. Collaborators include composers Marisa Michelson and Lavell Blackwell, playwrights James Armstrong and Jonathan Matthew Gilbert, and singer/essayist/raconteur Brooke Ferris. Managing Director, Blue Room Arts Collective; member of the Dramatists Guild; 2008-10 Fellow, American Lyric Theatre's Composer-Librettist Development Program. BA: Amherst College, MFA: NYU-GMTWP. www.joshuahcohen.com