The 2010/2011 Writers' Workshop participants include Julie Hébert, Lila Rose Kaplan, Ronald McCants, Carly Mensch, Dan O'Brien, and Marco Ramirez.

Julie Hébert

Julie Hébert is an award-winning writer/director of theater, film, and television. She began her creative life as a nationally recognized playwright and director working with well-known theaters including the Magic, Steppenwolf, Victory Gardens, San Diego Rep, Seven Stages, the Women’s Project, and many others. Her plays have twice been honored with the PEN Award for Drama. Hébert adapted her play Ruby’s Bucket of Blood for Showtime with Angela Bassett, and her film Female Perversions with Tilda Swinton, was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. Her 9/11 documentary In Their Own Words, co-directed with John Wells, was honored with the George Foster Peabody Award. Hébert has written and directed for several highly regarded television series including The West Wing, ER, Numb3rs, and American Crime. Currently, she is in development with Universal Television and working on a commission for a new play for San Francisco Playhouse. She is also the creative force and Executive Director of the non-profit Look What SHE Did!

Nathan Louis Jackson

Nathan Louis Jackson is an alum of Kansas City Kansas Community College and Kansas State University. He received the Lila Acheson Wallace fellowship and did his graduate work at The Juilliard School. His plays include Broke-ology (Williamstown Theatre Festival and Lincoln Center), When I Come to Die (Lincoln Center), Stick Traps (Kansas City Rep), The Mancerhios, and The Last Black Play. He has received commissions from Lincoln Center, The Roundabout Theater Company, and Manhattan Theatre Club. At K-State, he was actively involved with the Ebony Theatre (as a director and as president) and participated in The Kennedy Center Summer Playwriting Intensive. He has twice won the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, is the recipient of the Mark Twain Comedy Playwriting Award, and was awarded the Kennedy Center's Gold Medallion. He is currently working on his second three-year playwriting residency at the KC Repertory Theater. He has written for television as well, with credits for Southland (NBC), Shameless (Showtime), and Luke Cage (Netflix).

Lila Rose Kaplan

Lila Rose Kaplan's plays shine light on the stories we don't tell about women. She writes heartfelt comedies, bittersweet dramas, and musicals for young people. Her plays include Home of the Brave, Jesus Girls, The Magician's Daughter, 1 2 3—a play about abandonment and ballroom dancing, We All Fall Down, Wildflower, Bureau of Missing Persons, and Biography of a Constellation. Her musicals for young people include: The Light Princess, The Pirate Princess, and The Magic Fish. Productions include: A.R.T., South Coast Rep, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, New Victory Theatre, Second Stage, San Francisco Playhouse, Neighborhood Productions, Know Theatre, and Perishable Theatre. Development includes: Huntington Theatre, Arena Stage, Kennedy Center, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Theatreworks, PlayPenn, and The Lark. Awards: M.R.T. Artistic Achievement Award, National Science Award in Playwriting and The International Women's Playwriting Award. Fellowships include: Huntington Playwriting Fellowship, Playwrights’ Realm Writing Fellow, Old Vic/New Voices Exchange, and the Shank Fellowship. Residencies include: New Rep Next Voices, Harvard Business School, and the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics. BA with Honors: Brown University. MFA in Playwriting: UC San Diego. Lila Rose currently lives in Cambridge with her marine biologist and her curious daughter. LilaRose.org

Ronald McCants

Ronald McCants focuses on writing comedy dramas that explore the human experience at the junction of crime and family, often fueled by dark secrets and deep shames. A multiple award-winning playwright, Ron has had works developed and produced at La Jolla Playhouse, Company of Angels in Los Angeles, SoHo Theatre in London, Theater Masters in Aspen, and many others.

Carly Mensch

Carly Mensch's plays include Oblivion, Now Circa Then (Ars Nova, TheatreWorks), All Hail Hurricane Gordo (Humana Festival, Cleveland Play House) and Len, Asleep in Vinyl (2nd Stage/Uptown Series). Carly has developed work at The Kennedy Center, Marin Theatre Company, New York Stage & Film, Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan Theatre Club, Center Theatre Group and Ars Nova, where she was the 2008 Playwright-in-Residence as well as a founding member of Play Group. She is currently a story editor on Showtime's Weeds. Carly is a graduate of Dartmouth College and The Juilliard School's Lila Acheson Wallace Playwrights Program.

Dan O'Brien

Dan O'Brien is an internationally produced and published playwright and poet, whose awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship in Drama & Performance Art, the inaugural Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History, the Horton Foote Prize for Best New American Play, then PEN Center USA Award for Drama, and, for poetry, the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. His most recent play The House in Scarsdale: a Memoir for the Stage premiered at The Theatre @ Boston Court in 2017. His docu-drama about the haunting of war reporter Paul Watson, The Body of an American, has been produced in recent years off-Broadway, in London, and regionally in Chicago, Washington DC, Denver, Hartford, Portland, and elsewhere. O'Brien’s poetry collections are War Reporter (CB Editions 2013, Hanging Loose Press 2013), Scarsdale (CB Editions 2014, Measure Press 2015), and New Life (CB Editions 2015, Hanging Loose Press 2016). Dan O'Brien: Plays One was published in 2017 by Oberon Books in London.

Marco Ramirez

Marco Ramirez has had plays produced at Lincoln Center Theater, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (DC), The Humana Festival (Louisville), The Old Globe (San Diego), The Bush Theatre (London), American Theater Company (Chicago), and Center Theatre Group (LA). Honors include the Outer Critics Circle's John Gassner Playwriting Award, Juilliard's Lila Acheson Wallace Playwriting Fellowship, Lincoln Center's Le Comte du Nouy Award, and TCG's Edgerton Foundation New Play Award. A WGA and Emmy Award^®-nominated TV writer, he is currently an executive producer and showrunner of the high profile reboot of The Twilight Zone for CBS All Access alongside Jordan Peele and Simon Kinberg. Previously, he was the showrunner on Marvel's The Defenders (Netflix), and was an executive producer on Marvel’s Daredevil (Netflix). Other TV credits include: Sons of Anarchy (FX), Orange is the New Black (Netflix), Da Vinci's Demons (Starz), and Fear the Walking Dead (AMC).