ONE BY TENN PLUS EIGHT

ELAINE SMITH (playwright) is a playwright, actor, director. Plays include: Angels And Ministers Of Grace (2014 production, New Jersey Rep — Broadway World Regional Awards: Best Drama, Best New Work), The Looking Glass — adapted from Edith Wharton’s short story (2013 production, The Wharton Salon), Passing The Baton (multiple productions, 2017-2019), and short plays (Miss) Mary Edwards (2017 production Theatre Brut, published: anthology, All About Eve, Smith & Klaus, 2017), Liars’ Poker (Finalist—2010 Heideman Award), Picture Perfect, She Hung Up, Carapace, Strange Flowers Of Reason, and Ten Minute Life (2014 production, The Arts Center). Works-in-progress include another Wharton adaptation, After Holbein, and short pieces Handiwork, Darkness, Agit-Prop 8, Walls, Fishing, and Quis Custodiet. Elaine is a proud member of AEA, SAG-AFTRA, and the Dramatists Guild as well as a former member of the League of Professional Theatre Women and of the producing mentorship program at Theatre Resources Unlimited (TRU). She is the founder and artistic director of the Clamour Theatre Company in Clay County, Florida.

ADAM NATHANIEL DAVIS (playwright) is a playwright, poet, painter, and programmer. He’s written two full-length plays, a science fiction novel, a novel-length serial for the web, and gobs of poetry.

BROOKS ANNE MEIERDIERKS (actor) has appeared onstage with almost every theatre in Jacksonville. A few of her favorites are ‘Night Mother at The 5 & Dime, Steele Magnolias at Theatre Jacksonville, Full Monty at Players by the Sea, Mass with Phase Eight, and Dixie Swim Club at Alhambra Dinner Theatre.

JASON COLLINS (actor, playwright) was born and raised in Sarasota, Florida. He received his bachelor’s degree in Theatre and Dramatic Arts from Ferrum College in Ferrum, Virginia. Jason has worked as a director and performer here in Jacksonville for the past twelve years.  He teaches theatre at Lake Forest and Brentwood Elementary schools. He also is a member of the sketch comedy troupe Awkward Silence Jax, as well as, being a member of the Jacksonville playwrighting group, The Groundling Scribes.

KAREN KONZEN (playwright) was most recently seen as Artie in Eleemosynary (ABET) and Rosalind Franklin in Photograph 51 (Actors Collective / MOSH). Other stage credits include A Picasso (The 5 & Dime), On the Verge and Macbeth (ABET), The Fox on the Fairway and Conversations After a Burial (Players by the Sea), Tea and Sympathy (Theatre Jacksonville), and House of Blue Leaves (Limelight Theatre). Film credits include the lead role of Maya “Thunder” Brown in Thunder (official selection of the Sunscreen Film Festival), the principal role of Helen in Cry for the Bad Man (starring Camille Keaton), and the lead role in two of filmmaker Kendall Brunson’s most recent shorts Grab This! and Box (featured in the Loft Film Festival).

KELBY SIDDONS (playwright)’ plays have been performed in New York (Manhattan Theatre Club), Milwaukee (the Rep), Houston (Express Children’s Theatre), Gainesville (Y-Not), and Jacksonville, where she won Theatre Jacksonville’s 24-hour playwriting competition for two consecutive years; was selected by Players by the Sea to develop a new work in the inaugural year of their New Voices program; has designed immersive, interactive experiences for the Cummer Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art (Phase Eight); and most recently blended food and theatre with chef Amanda Henninger at Cafe NOLA for Food of Love, a play in five courses based on Cyrano de Bergerac (Phase Eight). Special thanks on this one to the Groundling Scribes, Caryl, and Jason for constant inspiration and support. More credits at kelbysiddons.com

MILAN ALLEY (actor) most recently appeared in the Clay and Water writers’ showcase for Clamour Theatre, played Harry Roat Jr. in Wait Until Dark (ABET) and Wanda Jordan in Venus in Fur with Self-Produced Theatre, and just finished directing Self-Produced Theatre’s production of reasons to be pretty.

OLIVIA GOWAN (playwright) is a playwright from Macon Georgia, who currently resides in Jacksonville, FL. She graduated from Valdosta State University with a BFA in theatre, where her emphasis was in Playwriting.  This is where she produced her first full-length play, Dream Jar. It was judged by the Kennedy Performing Arts Center.  While living in Los Angeles, she produced multiple one acts; Roots In The Wind, The Donut Hole, A Christmas In The South and another production of Dream Jar.  In January 2016 she produced her second full length, Cotton Alley at Players by the Sea, which pinned her as a southern gothic writer compared to a female Tennessee Williams. She was featured on the local arts magazine The Folio Weekly. She participates in ten-minute playwright festivals, Fringe festivals, and submissions in the Jacksonville, FL area. She is excited to feature Roots In Wind in another production with Actors Collective. She also founded The Groundling Scribes, a group that supports playwrights and original works.

RICH PINTELLO (actor) is an actor you may remember from 2019 productions such as Photograph 51 with Actors Collective and MOSH, and I Hate Hamlet at Theatre Jacksonville. You may also remember him from 2018 productions such as Noises Off, Mamma Mia, Venus in Fur, Arsenic and Old Lace, The Crucible, and Mass.