Donald Margulies is an American playwright and academic. In 2000, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Dinner with Friends.
Rita Frances Dove is an American poet and essayist. From 1993 to 1995, she served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. She is the first African American to have been appointed since the position was created by an act of Congress in 1986 from the previous "consultant in poetry" position (1937–86). Dove also received an appointment as "special consultant in poetry" for the Library of Congress's bicentennial year from 1999 to 2000. Dove is the second African American to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, in 1987, and she served as the Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2004 to 2006. Since 1989, she has been teaching at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where she held the chair of Commonwealth Professor of English from 1993 to 2020; as of 2020, she holds the chair of Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing.
Paula Vogel is an American playwright. She is known for her provocative explorations of complex social and political issues. Much of her work delves into themes of psychological trauma, abuse, and the complexities of human relationships. She has received the Pulitzer Prize as well as nominations for two Tony Awards. In 2013 she was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.
Suzan-Lori Parks is an American playwright, screenwriter, musician and novelist. Her play Topdog/Underdog won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2002; Parks was the first African-American woman to receive the award for drama. She was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2023.
The Finborough Theatre is a fifty-seat theatre in the West Brompton area of London under artistic director Neil McPherson. The theatre presents new British writing, as well as UK and world premieres of new plays primarily from the English speaking world including North America, Canada, Ireland, and Scotland including work in the Scots language, alongside rarely seen rediscovered 19th and 20th century plays. The venue also presents new and rediscovered music theatre.
One Flea Spare, by Naomi Wallace, is a play set in plague-ravaged 17th Century London.
Naomi Iizuka is a Japanese-born American playwright. Iizuka's works often have a non-linear storyline and are influenced by her multicultural background.
Nathalie Handal is a Palestinian-American poet, writer and professor, described as a “contemporary Orpheus.” A New Yorker and a quintessential global citizen, she has published 10 prize-winning books, including Life in a Country Album. She is praised for her “diverse, and innovative body of work.”
Joy Harjo is an American poet, musician, playwright, and author. She served as the 23rd United States Poet Laureate, the first Native American to hold that honor. She was also only the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to have served three terms. Harjo is a citizen of the Muscogee Nation and belongs to Oce Vpofv. She is an important figure in the second wave of the literary Native American Renaissance of the late 20th century. She studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts, completed her undergraduate degree at University of New Mexico in 1976, and earned an MFA degree at the University of Iowa in its creative writing program.
Broadway Play Publishing Inc (BPPI) was established in New York City in 1982 to publish and license the stage performance rights of contemporary American plays. The Broadway Play Publishing Inc catalog consists of over 1,200 plays and over 400 authors, such as: Constance Congdon, María Irene Fornés, A. R. Gurney, Tony Kushner, Neil LaBute, Richard Nelson, Eric Overmyer, José Rivera, Naomi Wallace, and many others. Its authors have been produced on Broadway and Off, in London's West End, and in theaters across the United States and around the world. They have won Nobel Prizes, Pulitzer Prizes, Tony Awards, Obie Awards, the MacArthur Genius Grant, Guggenheim Fellowships, and National Endowment for the Arts grants. Christopher W.D. Gould is the current publisher, and Michael Q. Fellmeth is the current executive director.
Tarell Alvin McCraney is an American playwright. He is the chair of playwriting at the Yale School of Drama and a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Ensemble.
Kia Corthron is an American playwright, activist, television writer, and novelist. She received the 2014 Windham–Campbell Literature Prize in Drama which is one of the largest prizes in the world of its kind. In 2022, her hometown newspaper named Corthron one of the region's 30 most influential people of color.
Ismail Khalidi is a Palestinian/Lebanese American playwright, screenwriter and theater director whose work tackles the history of Palestine and the modern Middle East, as well as wider themes of race, colonialism, displacement and war. He is best known for the plays Tennis in Nablus (2010) and Truth Serum Blues (2005) and the critically-acclaimedReturning to Haifa, which premiered in London in 2018. Tennis in Nablus received two graduate student Kennedy Center Honors in 2008 while he was still at NYU, the Mark Twain Comedy Playwriting Award and the Quest for Peace Playwriting Award. Since then his plays have been produced and presented internationally and published in half a dozen anthologies.
Cathy Park Hong is an American poet, writer, and professor who has published three volumes of poetry. Much of her work includes mixed language and serialized narrative. She was named on the 2021 Time 100 list for her writings and advocacy for Asian American women.
Jackie Sibblies Drury is an American playwright. The New York Times called Drury's 2012 play We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884–1915 "her breakout work". Her subsequent works include Social Creatures (2013) and Fairview (2018); for the latter, Drury received the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Laura Jacqmin is a Los Angeles–based television writer, playwright, and video game writer from Shaker Heights, Ohio. She was the winner of the 2008 Wasserstein Prize, a $25,000 award given to recognize an emerging female playwright.
Dominique Morisseau is an American playwright and actress from Detroit, Michigan. She has written more than nine plays, three of which are part of a cycle titled The Detroit Project. She received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2018.
Sarah Grochala is a British playwright. Her plays have been performed at the Finborough Theatre, Theatre503, Hampstead Theatre, Arcola Theatre and Soho Theatre in London. Her plays have been produced internationally by the Griffin Theatre, Sydney, Tiyatro Yan Etki Istanbul, Turkey and on the Toronto Fringe Toronto Fringe Festival, Canada. Her book on playwriting, The Contemporary Political Play, was published in 2017.
Aleshea Harris is an American playwright, spoken word artist, author, educator, actor, performer, and screenwriter. Her play Is God Is won the American Playwriting Foundation's Relentless Award in 2016. In 2023, her play On Sugarland was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Returning to Haifa is a novella by Palestinian author and journalist Ghassan Kanafani depicting the Israeli occupation of formerly British-controlled Palestinian land during and after the 1948 Battle of Haifa.
