Dominique Cieri - Branchville, NJ for Blighted

Dominique Cieri is a playwright, master teaching artist and member of the Dramatists Guild. She was the recipient of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation and New Jersey State Council on the Arts Individual Playwriting Fellowship in 2003 and 2009. A graduate of Rose Bruford College in Kent, England, she is the recipient of the State University of New York Chancellor’s Medal of Excellence for Scholarship and Creative Activities. Ms. Cieri holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College, Vermont. Ms. Cieri’s plays have been produced and developed in New Jersey, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Baltimore.

Lynda Crawford - New York, NY for The Wonderer

Lynda Crawford lives in New York City. Her plays include “Night Shadows — or, One Hundred Million Voices Shouting” (On Women Festival, Irondale, March 2020); “KP 1968” with Peter Reich (Fenimore Arts Museum, Cooperstown, NY, 2020); “The Rewrite” (Emerging Artists Theatre, NYC, 2019, and The Hive, Provo, Utah, 2019); “Rojo Verde” (Planet Connections Festivity, NYC, 2017 — winner Greener Planet Award); “The Audit” (HB Playwrights Theatre, 2017); “Pillow of Tears” (University of Cape Town, South Africa, 2015); “Strange Rain” (FringeNYC-awarded Overall Excellence in Playwriting); “Consumer Behavior” with Gary Kupper (FringeNYC, 2002). Lynda received an MFA in Playwriting in 2001 from Brooklyn College.

Sherry Friedman - Brooklyn, NY for Beware the Kraken

Sherry Friedman is a playwright, journalist, educator and Fulbright scholar. She studied at NYU Tisch, AADA, Primary Stages ESPA, and Dramatists Guild with Tina Howe. Her plays have been developed/workshopped/performed at Polaris North, Primary Stages ESPA, Garrison Institute, the Cherry Lane, EstroGenius Festival, OutCast Productions Pandemonium Festival, New Perspective Theatre Company Women’s Work Festival and Boog City Poets Theater Festival. Sherry’s articles have been published in The New York Times, Newsday, New York Magazine, TimeOut New York, Writer’s Digest and regional newspapers. She founded the Mark Twain Wonder Writers Workshop for aspiring NYC student writers. A proud member of the Dramatists Guild, League of Professional Theatre Women, Honor Roll! and Polaris North, Sherry is thrilled to be a selected winner in the Emerging Playwright Competition!

Nancy Vander Zwan - Perkasie, Pa. for Northern Lights

Nancy, who has performed in both one-act and full-length plays at Phillips’ Mill and at other area theaters, appeared in a Zoom performance of Lynn Nottage’s “Sweat” for the incoming freshman class of The College of New Jersey. Twice, she has performed at Manhattan Repertory Theatre in one-act play festivals. She has had the pleasure of performing in numerous radio productions for R5 Productions here in Bucks County and in live and Zoom performances for The Playwrights Bridge. This month she is part of an ensemble who will be reading original one-acts written by playwrights in the New Feathers playwriting company, to be held live at Bucks County Community College’s Zlock Theater. Nancy is owner of StagingCraft home staging company and considers her daughter, Jillian, to be her finest production.

Nancy is thrilled that her own work will now be performed on the Phillips’ Mill stage.

Kate Thomas - Brooklyn, NY for The Advocate

Kate Thomas is a Brooklyn-based writer. She is a Kleban Prize Finalist, Jonathan Larson Grant Finalist, and the book writer and lyricist for her musicals with Joey Contreras, “All the Kids Are Doing It” (Provincetown Playhouse, O’Neill National Music Theater Conference Finalist, NAMT Semifinalist, IWU, Tisch) and “Forget Me Not” (New York Theatre Barn New Works Series, The Dare Tactic, Open Jar Institute, O’Neill National Music Theater Conference Semifinalist, NAMT Semifinalist, Tisch).

She was a 2018-2019 Athena Theatre Company Playwriting Fellow & Resident Dramaturge, and her plays include “Dirty July” (Monsterpiece Theater Collective Winner “Best Play,” New York Theater Festival, Athena Reads), “Genuinely Here” (Edge Fest Semifinalist, Athena Theatre Company at Symphony Space) and “Shooting Janine” (Athena Theatre Company at Symphony Space). She is part of the Playground-NY Writers Pool, and received her MFA in Musical Theatre Writing from Tisch School of the Arts.

Jeff Stolzer - New York, NY for The Eulogy

Jeff Stolzer’s full-length plays include “Survivors” (Arts Club of Washington Playwriting Award), “Unsportsmanlike Conduct” (Woodward/Newman Drama Award finalist), “Storage Locker” (IATI Theater Mainstage) and “Paralyzed” (Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference semifinalist). In addition, his short play, “Miss Irrelevant,” inspired by the #MeToo movement, was produced at the Pleasance Theatre in London in November 2018. “Miss Irrelevant” is included in “The Best Ten-Minute Plays of 2012” (Smith & Kraus).

His latest full-length play, “Sam and Rick,” explores the unlikely friendship between Samuel Beckett and Rick Cluchey, a prisoner in San Quentin serving a life sentence without parole. www.jeffstolzer.com