Lynn Nottage (Playwright) is a playwright and a screenwriter, and the first woman in history to win two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama. Her plays have been produced widely in the United States and throughout the world. Chicago credits include Ruined, Sweat, and By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (Goodman Theatre); Crumbs from the Table of Joy (Goodman Theatre; Steppenwolf) and Intimate Apparel (Steppenwolf). Broadway credits include her plays Clyde’s (2ST) and Sweat, and the libretto for the musical MJ. Other work includes the libretto for the opera Intimate Apparel (Lincoln Center Theater); co-curating the performance installation The Watering Hole (Signature Theater); the libretto for the musical adaptation of The Secret Life of Bees; as well as her plays Mlima’s Tale; Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine; Crumbs from the Table of Joy; Las Meninas; Mud, River, Stone; Por’knockers and POOF!. She has also developed This is Reading, a performance installation in Reading, Pennsylvania. Ms. Nottage is the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship, among other awards, is an associate professor at Columbia University School of the Arts and is a member of the Dramatists Guild.

Nataki Garrett (Director) was the first Executive Artistic Director and the sixth Artistic Director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) and the first Black woman in this role. Garrett was the co-Associate Dean and Associate Artistic Director at CalArts Center for New Performance. Additionally, she was the co-head of the undergraduate acting program at CalArts School of Theater. Nataki Garrett received her MFA in Directing from California Institute of the Arts, School of Theater and her B.S. in English with a minor in Theatre from Virginia Union University.Washington, D.C. born and raised Oakland, CA her family of artists, educators and civil rights organizers instilled with a deep appreciation for collaboration, coalition building, and for centering access and cultural justice through performance. Garrett’s vision is to support artists; to manifest innovation; to inspire creativity and to ensure the future of performing arts by centering artists as thought leaders and change makers who transform culture.