BOY by Cris Eli Blak

Cris Eli Blak is a playwright, screenwriter, producer, performer, poet and theatre practitioner. He wrote the script to the short film The Brother’s Survivor won an award at the Worldfest Houston International Film and Video Festival. He is a two time poetry slam champion who has had work published by the International Human Rights Arts Festival. He has had his plays performed, published and/or produced by Urban Stages (Off-Broadway), The Quean’s Theatre (London), Flaw State (London), Melting Pot Theatre (Australia), Illuminate Theatre, Earworm Audio Theatre Podcast, Roaming Theatre Collaborative, Cleveland Public Theatre, among others.

covenant by Kristiana Rae Colón

Kristiana Rae Colón is a poet, playwright, actor, educator, Cave Canem Fellow, creator of #BlackSexMatters and co-director of the #LetUsBreathe Collective. She was awarded 2017 Best Black Playwright by The Black Mall. Past works include good friday (world premiere Oracle Productions, 2016), Octagon (world premiere Arcola Theatre, London, 2015; American premiere Jackalope Theatre, 2016), but i cd only whisper (world premiere Arcola Theatre, London, 2012; American premiere The Flea, New York, 2016). In 2013, she toured the UK for two months with her collection of poems promised instruments, winner of the inaugural Drinking Gourd Poetry Prize and published by Northwestern University Press. Kristiana is an alum of the Goodman Theatre’s Playwrights Unit where she developed her play florissant & canfield, which debuted at University of Illinois-Chicago in February 2018. Her play Tilikum opened in June 2018 with Sideshow Theater and was the winner of Outstanding New Play at the ALTA Awards. She is a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists and one half of the brother/sister hip-hop duo April Fools. She appeared on the fifth season of HBO’s Def Poetry Jam. Kristiana’s writing, producing, and organizing work to radically reimagine power structures, our complicity in them, and visions for liberation.

Maude by Andra Hunter

Andra Laine Hunter resides in Dallas. She has a BFA in Theatre Studies from Southern Methodist University with a double concentration in Playwriting and Directing and is currently a MFA in Playwriting candidate at Spalding University. Her play Star Bright: Even God is Tired of the Patriarchy was recently read by City Theatre of Miami. Maude was also chosen for the Stage Writers Dallas Festival. She has written, produced and directed several plays for youth including Frankenstein/Monster, Legends of Sleepy Hollow, The Popsicle Monsters, Holly Abel & the Missing Mothers, Holly & Opal Nosh with Nosferatu, and Nutrcracker:Krakatuk at The Linden Grove Theatre Co., at which she serves as Founder and Artistic Director. Andra’s acting credits include roles at Fort Worth’s Circle Theatre, Dallas’s Echo Theatre, Classical Acting Co., Teatro Dallas, Pocket Sandwich Theatre, Nouveau 47, and Shakespeare Dallas, among others. She recently directed her first pandemic play, Ageless, by Bridgette Dutta Portman for Four Walls Theatre in Brooklyn, NY. Some of her plays can be found on newplayexchange.org.

Flat Hens Don’t Lay Eggs Or How the Chicken Crossed the Road by Katie Svatek

Katie Svatek holds a BFA in Performance and Production with a focus in Dramatic Writing from Texas State University. She’s worked with The Guinea Pig in Dallas and Fronterafest in Austin. Her play Dear, Home received the National Partners of American Theatre award through the Kennedy Center, and was further developed through their 2019 Undergraduate Playwriting Workshop. She’s currently developing a virtual, interactive theatrical experience- Conspiracy Play- with Less Than Three.

Minifest Artist Workshops

Literary Committee Members: Simone Alexander, Faith Anderson, Emma Galbraith, Eva McQuade, Kevin Pellicone, and Payton Russell