Sanaz Toossi (she/her) is an Iranian-American playwright from Orange County, California. Her plays include the critically acclaimed, Pulitzer Prize-winning English (co-production, Atlantic Theater Company/Roundabout Theatre Company) and Wish You Were Here (Playwrights Horizons; Williamstown/Audible, released 2020). She is currently under commission at Atlantic Theater Company (Launch commission; Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation grant), Roundabout Theatre Company, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Manhattan Theatre Club, South Coast Repertory and Oregon Shakespeare Festival (American Revolutions Cycle).

In television, Sanaz recently staffed on Invitation to a Bonfire (AMC), A League of Their Own (Amazon), and Five Women (Marielle Heller/ Big Beach), and sold an original idea, The Persians, to FX with Joe Weisberg & Joel Fields attached as Executive Producers. Sanaz is a member of Youngblood and the Middle Eastern American Writers Lab at the Lark, and an alum of Clubbed Thumb’s Early Career Writers’ Group. She was the 2019 P73 Playwriting Fellow, a recipient of the 2020 Steinberg Playwright Award, the 2022 recipient of The Horton Foote Award and, most recently, the 2023 recipient of the Best New American Play Obie Award. MFA: NYU Tisch

Marti Lyons most recently directed ‘ART’ by Yasmina Reza, Love Song by John Kolvenbach and Galileo’s Daughter by Jessica Dickey at Remy Bumppo Theatre Company. Lyons also directed Georgiana and Kitty: Christmas at Pemberley at Northlight Theatre, Wife of a Salesman by Eleanor Burgess at Milwaukee Rep, Sense and Sensibility adapted by Jessica Swale at American Players Theatre and the world-premiere of John Proctor is the Villain by Kimberly Belflower at Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C. Selected other credits include: The Niceties by Eleanor Burgess at Writers Theatre; Cymbeline at American Players Theatre; The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe and Kings by Sarah Burgess at Studio Theatre; the world-premiere of How to Defend Yourself by Liliana Padilla, a Victory Gardens and Actors Theatre of Louisville co-production; Cambodian Rock Band by Lauren Yee at Victory Gardens and City Theatre; Witch by Jen Silverman at Geffen Playhouse and Writers Theatre (LA Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Direction); Native Gardens by Karen Zacarías at Victory Gardens; Botticelli in the Fire by Jordan Tannahill at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company; I, Banquo at Chicago Shakespeare Theater; Title and Deed by Will Eno at Lookingglass Theatre Company and Laura Marks’ Bethany and Mine at The Gift Theatre. Lyons is also an ensemble member at The Gift Theatre and a member of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.

Christopher Shinn (he/him) is a playwright who lives in New York. Several of his plays have premiered at the Royal Court: Four, Other People, Where Do We Live (2005 Obie Award for Playwriting), Dying City (2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama finalist), and Now or Later (shortlisted for the Evening Standard Theatre Award, Best Play). Other plays include The Narcissist (Chichester Festival Theatre), Against (Almeida Theatre), Teddy Ferrara (Goodman Theatre and Donmar Warehouse), An Opening in Time (Hartford Stage), Picked(Vineyard Theatre), On the Mountain (South Coast Rep), What Didn’t Happen (Playwrights Horizons), and The Coming World (Soho Theatre).

His adaptation of Hedda Gabler premiered on Broadway in 2009 and his adaptation of Judgment Day premiered at Park Avenue Armory in 2019 and was nominated for a 2020 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Adaptation. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2005, a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard in 2019-2020, a Cullman Fellow at New York Public Library in 2020-2021, a MacDowell Fellow in 2023, and a Hawthornden Fellow in 2024. www.christophershinn.com