Rajiv Joseph is a 1996 graduate of Miami University.  His play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo was a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist for Drama and also awarded a grant for Outstanding New American Play by the National Endowment for the Arts. He has twice won the Obie Award for Best New American Play, first in 2016 for Guards at the Taj (also a 2016 Lortel Winner for Best Play) and then, in 2018, for Describe the Night.   Other plays include Gruesome Playground Injuries, Animals Out of Paper, The North Pool, The Lake Effect, Archduke and Mr. Wolf.His plays have been translated into several languages, with productions around the globe. Upcoming productions include King James at Steppenwolf Theatre and Center Theatre Group and Letters of Suresh at Second Stage.

He is the book writer and co-lyricist for the upcoming musical Fly based on Peter Pan and directed by Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller.  He also wrote the libretto for the opera Shalimar the Clown, based on the novel by Salman Rushdie, with a score by Jack Perla.  He is the book writer for the upcoming stage adaptation of Walt Disney’s The Jungle Book.

In television, Rajiv has written for Nurse Jackie on Showtime; Little America on AppleTV, and has staffed on several other shows. In film, Rajiv has co-written with Scott Rothman the films Draft Day (starring Kevin Costner and Chadwick Boseman; directed by Ivan Reitman), which topped the Black List in 2012 and Army of One (starring Nicolas Cage; directed by Larry Charles).

He is a graduate of Cleveland Heights High School, and in 2016 was elected into his high school’s Hall of Fame.  He received his MFA from New York Universty’s Tisch School for the Arts.
Rajiv is board member of the Lark Play Development Center in Chicago, and he is a company member of the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago. He served for three years in the Peace Corps in Senegal, West Africa. 

A produced playwright, member of the Dramatist’s Guild, and AEA Actor, Maggie Lou Rader (she/her/hers) tells epic stories of epic women. She’s obtained degrees from William Jewell College in Kansas City and the Birmingham School of Acting in the UK and has called Cincinnati home for nearly 10 years. She has been a semi-finalist for the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, the Notre Dame College New Play festival, the Full Circle Theatre’s New Works Play Festival, and UP Theater’s Renewal Reading Series, a finalist for Central Florida Community Arts TYA New Play and Musical Festival and was selected for Miami University’s inaugural Digital Play Reading Series. She’s has had the privilege of having her work developed at DePaul University, the Theatre School, and the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company. Her plays have been produced at Know Theatre of Cincinnati, InBocca Performance, and The Marsh, MarshStream International Solo Fest, as well as staged readings with Theatre Pro Rata and Green Buffalo Productions. She’s also been published with Smith and Kraus as well as Madwomen in the Attic. Keep an eye out for her work at Eclectic Full Contact Theatre, Skeleton Rep, and Dean Productions in 2021. As a performer, she has performed in over 60 productions with Know Theatre of Cincinnati, StageOne, The Human Race Theatre, Kentucky Shakespeare, Oklahoma Shakespeare in the Park, and has been a resident actor with the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company for 10 seasons. In Cincinnati, she lives happily on her homestead with husband Justin, and three fur babies with four eyes between them.

Nandita Shenoy is a New York-based writer-actor who loves hearing an audience laugh.  Most recently, her Rage Play was named to the 2020 Kilroys List.  Her Washer/Dryer has been produced multiple times nationally after its world premier at LA’s East West Players and an Off-Broadway production in which she also starred.  Her first full-length, Lyme Park: An Austonian Romance of an Indian Nature, was produced by theHegira in Washington, DC, and Satisfaction had a developmental run at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.  One-acts, Marrying Nandini, By Popular Demand, Rules of Engagement, You Are Here, and A More Perfect Date have been produced in New York City and regionally.  Nandita has acted in world premiers of new plays by Richard Dresser, Madhuri Shekar, Chelsea Marcantel, Adam Szymkowicz, and Eric Pfeffinger as well as a season at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival.  Nandita won the 2014 Father Hamblin Award in Playwritingand a 2018 Mellon Creative Research Fellowship at the University of Washington School of Drama in partnership with Ma-Yi Theater Company.  She is a proud member of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, the Dorset Theatre Festival’s Women Artists Working group, and the Dramatists Guild.  She also sits on the Steering Committee of the Asian American Performers Action Coalition (AAPAC) which won a 2020 Obie for their Advocacy in the Field of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. Nandita holds a BA in English literature from Yale University.  www.nanditashenoy.com

Derek J. Snow has been an active participant in the Cincinnati theatre community as an actor, writer and director for over 35 years. A graduate of the School for Creative and Performing Arts, Derek then continued his education in NYC before returning after graduation to teach dramatic arts to inner-city youth in the public school system. He has been with the popular physical theatre group Performance Gallery for the past 18 years, which has produced an entry in every Cincinnati Fringe Festival since its inception. His written work has been produced in Atlanta, New Jersey, Cincinnati and Sydney, Australia. Derek is the founder of Missing Front Plate Productions, a company dedicated to producing works of BIPOC artists that are then used to teach the youth cultural history through playwriting, and an understanding of their basic human rights. His latest work, “Silas, The Uninvited”, was recently read at Memorial Hall In Cincinnati in October, 2020.