MOLLY SMITH

Conceiver and Director

Molly Smith has served as artistic director since 1998. Her more than 30 directing credits at Arena Stage include large-scale musicals, like Catch Me If You Can, Anything Goes, Disney’s Newsies, Carousel, Fiddler on the Roof, Oklahoma!, My Fair Lady, The Music Man, Cabaret, South Pacific; new plays, like Celia and Fidel, Sovereignty, The Originalist, Camp David, Legacy of Light, The Women of Brewster Place, How I Learned to Drive; and classics like Mother Courage and Her Children, A Moon for the Misbegotten, The Great White Hope, and All My Sons. Her directorial work has also been seen Off-Broadway at 59E59 in New York, Portland Center Stage, Canada’s Shaw Festival, The Court Theatre, The Old Globe, Asolo Repertory, Berkeley Repertory, Trinity Repertory, Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre, Montreal’s Centaur Theatre and Perseverance Theater in Juneau, Alaska, which she founded and ran from 1979-1998. Molly has been a leader in new play development for over 40 years. She is a great believer in first, second and third productions of new work and has championed projects, including Dear Evan Hansen; Next to Normal; Passion Play, a cycle; and How I Learned to Drive. She led the re-invention of Arena Stage, focusing on the architecture and creation of the Mead Center for American Theater and positioning Arena Stage as a national center for American artists through its artistic programming. During her time with the company, Arena Stage has workshopped more than 100 productions, produced 39 world premieres, staged numerous second and third productions, and been an important part of nurturing nine projects that went on to have a life on Broadway. In 2014, Molly made her Broadway debut directing The Velocity of Autumn, following its critically acclaimed run at Arena Stage. She was awarded honorary doctorates from American University and Towson University. In 2018, she was honored as Person of the Year by the National Theatre Conference and inducted into the Washington DC Hall of Fame. In 2020, she was awarded the Director of Distinction in Cairo, Egypt, from the Academy of Arts. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, she developed the concept for two online films, May 22, 2020 and The 51^st State, overseeing the production direction as well as directing pieces within the films. She also spearheaded a variety of other new online content, including a weekly talk show Molly’s Salon, during the live performance hiatus.

LEE CATALUNA

Playwright

Lee Cataluna is hard at work on a piece for Arena Stage’s Power Plays series, writing about the bloody riot that followed the surprising results in the election of Hawaii’s last king. Her play Heart Strings, which tells a story about a chosen family using traditional Hawaiian string figures, is currently in production at Atlantic Theater. Lee’s other work includes Sons of Maui for San Francisco Playhouse, What the Stars See at Night for La Jolla Playhouse, and Home of the Brave for La Jolla Playhouse’s POP Tour. She was born on Maui, is part Native Hawaiian, and has an MFA in Creative Writing from UC Riverside. www.leecataluna.com

FATIMA DYFAN

Playwright

Fatima Dyfan (she/her/hers) graduated from Georgetown University with a BA in Government and African American Studies with a minor in Theater & Performance Studies in 2021. Fatima explores mixed medium writing that illuminates life. She served as the Executive Producer of GU’s Black Theatre Ensemble for two years. With them, she directed Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls... and ended her collegiate career with a performance art thesis exploring autobiographical notions of black womanhood. She was able to work the piece as a Playwright in the Playwright’s Arena at Arena Stage from 2020-2021. She is currently spending a year at Woolly Mammoth Theatre as the New Work Fellow through the Miranda Family Fellowship. She is a performer, poet, and creative spirit who believes in healing, community, care, and the immense power of imagination.

LISA LOOMER

Playwright

Lisa Loomer’s plays include Roe, Living Out, The Waiting Room, Distracted, Homefree, Café Vida, Expecting Isabel, Two Things You Don’t Talk About at Dinner, Birds, Bocón!, Maria! Maria Maria Maria, and Broken Hearts. Her work has been produced at Roundabout, Vineyard Theatre, Second Stage, INTAR, The Public, Mark Taper Forum, Arena Stage, South Coast Repertory, Kennedy Center, Seattle Repertory, Denver Center, La Jolla, Trinity Repertory, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Missouri Repertory, and in Mexico, Israel, Egypt, and Germany. Screenwriting credits include Girl, Interrupted and pilots for HBO, CBS, FOX, and Showtime. She has received awards from the American Theatre Critics (twice), Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, Lurie Foundation, Edgerton Foundation, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Jane Chambers Playwriting Award (twice), an Imagen Award, and an Ovation Award. She’s currently writing the books for the musicals Real Women Have Curves and Like Water for Chocolate.

DAEL ORLANDERSMITH

Playwright

Dael Orlandersmith’s plays include Stoop Stories, Black n’ Blue Boys/Broken Men, Horsedreams, Bones, The Blue Album, Yellowman, The Gimmick, Monster, and Forever. Ms. Orlandersmith was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and Drama Desk Award nominee for Yellowman and the winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for The Gimmick. Dael is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts grant, The Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Playwrights, a Guggenheim, along with several other awards and honors. Her play Forever was commissioned and performed at the Mark Taper Forum/Kirk Douglas Theatre, followed by performances at the Long Wharf Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, and Portland Center Stage. Her play Until the Flood was done at The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, followed by Rattlestick Theater, Milwaukee Rep, Portland Center Stage, ACT Seattle, Arcola Theatre in London, the Druid at the Galway Arts Festival, the Traverse at Edinburgh Festival, the Schaubruhner Theatre in Berlin, and at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC. Ms. Orlandersmith is working on a commission for Rattlestick Theater called Watching the Watcher. She recently opened New Age at Milwaukee Rep directed by Jade King Carroll and Antonio’s Song/I Was Dreaming of a Son co-written with Antonio Suarez Edwards and directed by Mark Clement. She is also working on a new work with writer/performer David Cale called You Don’t Know the Lonely One, and is working on a new piece called Spiritas. In 2020, Ms. Orlandersmith received the Doris Duke Award.

SARAH RUHL

Playwright

Sarah Ruhl is an award-winning American playwright, author, essayist, and professor. Her plays include The Oldest Boy; Dear Elizabeth; Stage Kiss; In the Next Room, or the vibrator play (Pulitzer Prize finalist, 2010); The Clean House (Pulitzer Prize finalist, 2005; Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, 2004); Passion Play (Pen American Award, Fourth Freedom Forum Playwriting Award from the Kennedy Center); Dead Man’s Cell Phone (Helen Hayes Award for Best New Play); Melancholy Play; Demeter in the City (nine NAACP Image Award nominations); Scenes From Court Life; How to Transcend a Happy Marriage; For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday; Eurydice; Orlando; and Late: a cowboy song. Her plays have been produced on Broadway and across the country as well as internationally, and translated into fourteen languages. Originally from Chicago, Ms. Ruhl received her M.F.A. from Brown University, where she studied with Paula Vogel. She is the recipient of a Helen Merrill Emerging Playwrights Award, a Whiting Writers’ Award, a PEN Center Award for mid-career playwrights, a Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, and a Lilly Award. She is a member of 13P and New Dramatists and won the MacArthur Fellowship in 2006. She teaches at Yale School of Drama and lives in Brooklyn with her family. sarahruhlplaywright.com

MARY HALL SURFACE

Playwright

Mary Hall Surface is a DC-based playwright, director, producer, and teaching artist. She was proud to be a playwright for both of Arena’s 2020 film projects, May 22, 2020 and The 51st State. A nine-time Helen Hayes Award nominee, including four for the Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play, she received the 2002 Outstanding Director of a Musical for her Perseus Bayou. Her plays have been produced across the US, Europe, Japan, Taiwan, and Canada, including eighteen Kennedy Center productions. Her 2018 direction of Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth (Constellation Theatre Company) was recognized by The Wall Street Journal as one of the outstanding regional theater productions of the year. She is the proud founding artistic director of DC's Atlas INTERSECTIONS Festival, where she curated over 600 all-arts performances and events from 2009–2015. She currently delights in presenting creative and reflective writing workshops inspired by art through the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian Associates, and museums nationwide, as well as through her own new Writers’ Studio on Italy’s Amalfi Coast. www.maryhallsurface.com

V (formerly Eve Ensler)

Playwright

V (formerly Eve Ensler) is the Tony Award-winning playwright and author of the Obie Award-winning theatrical phenomenon The Vagina Monologues (translated into 48 languages and performed in 140 countries), along with many other plays. She is the author of a number of books including her latest bestsellers The Apology (translated into more than 15 languages) and In the Body of the World, as well as the New York Times bestseller I am an Emotional Creature. She starred on Broadway in The Good Body, and most recently Off-Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club in the critically acclaimed In the Body of the World. During the COVID-19 pandemic she helped create That Kindness: Nurses in Their Own Words, a tribute to nurses presented by Brooklyn Academy of Music in accordance with theaters all across the country. Film credits include The Vagina Monologues (HBO), What I Want My Words to Do to You (Executive Producer, PBS), and Mad Max: Fury Road (Consultant). She is founder of V-Day— the 23-year-old global activist movement which has raised over 120 million dollars to end violence against all women (cisgender and transgender), those who hold fluid identities, nonbinary people, girls, and the planet—and founder of One Billion Rising, the largest global mass action to end gender-based violence in over 200 countries, as well as a co-founder of City of Joy. She writes regularly for The Guardian.

“ANONYMOUS”

Playwright

“Anonymous” is a D.C. Metro-based artist who is honored to have her work at Arena Stage, and honored to be in the company of extraordinary sister playwrights. She has chosen to remain anonymous to highlight how private and personal our choices are. She has chosen to have her voice heard to highlight the need for all women to speak their truths in their own ways at this critical juncture in human history. Pain is personal and powerful. Pain is both private and political.

FELICIA P. FIELDS

Dael Orlandersmith’s Monologue

Felicia P. Fields is an acclaimed actress, singer, performer, and creator whose career spans a plethora of credits from theaters around the globe, including the Goodman Theatre’s Crowns, Blues in the Night, Intimate Apparel, The Rose Tattoo, The Amen Corner, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, as well as A Christmas Carol at the first African American female to play The Ghost of Christmas Present. She has performed in Hairspray and the first cycle of the tour of Love, Loss, and What I Wore. Other credits include Nunsense, Sunset Boulevard, Swinging on a Star, Some Like It Hot, Richard II, It Ain’t Nothing But the Blues, Low Down Dirty Blues, A Civil War Christmas, Hot Mikado, Show Boat, Ain’t Misbehavin’, Dreamgirls, Little Shop of Horrors, Seven Guitars and Hello, Dolly!. Ms. Fields earned a Tony Award nomination for her portrayal of Sofia in The Color Purple on Broadway and the first national tour. Her performance also earned her a 2006 Theatre World Award, a Clarence Derwent Award, two Broadway.com awards, an NAACP nomination and a Denver Post Ovation Award. She has received a Black Theatre Alliance Award and nominations, many Jeff Award nominations, and the Jeff Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance in Sophisticated Ladies.

SHANARA GABRIELLE

Mary Hall Surface’s Monologue

Shanara Gabrielle is happy to be back working on this project that falls at the heart of her passion for art and activism. At Arena Stage, she has served as Artistic Associate, Associate Director on Enlightenment and Dear Jack, Dear Louise, and has appeared on stage in Junk, and numerous workshops. In DC, Shanara’s worked as an actor and director at Signature Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Olney Theatre, Imagination Stage, Solas Nua, Taffety Punk, and more, as well as produced Working In DC with AFL-CIO on BLM Plaza. Across the country, Shanara appeared at Guthrie Theater, Actors Theatre of Louisville, St. Louis Rep, and many more. Webster Conservatory B.F.A., proud recipient of Princess Grace Foundation Award, and union member of AEA, SDC, SAG-AFTRA. Instagram: @shanaragabrielle www.shanaragabrielle.com

TORI GOMEZ

Lisa Loomer’s Monologue

Tori Gomez is excited to be making her Arena Stage debut in My Body No Choice! She is a junior musical theatre major at The Catholic University of America. Most recent credits include Amy in Little Women (NextStop Theatre Company), Eve in Children of Eden (Catholic University), and Laertes in Hamlet (Catholic University). Tori would like to thank her friends, family, and teachers for all the love and support they’ve shown her in her life and career. She is honored to be a part of such an important project, and hopes you enjoy the show! Instagram: @tori.gom

JOY JONES

“Anonymous” Monologue

Joy Jones has previously been seen in Arena Stage’s Seven Guitars, Jubilee, A Raisin in the Sun, and Mary T & Lizzy K. Other DC-area credits include The Upstairs Department (Signature Theatre) and The Hard Problem, Cloud 9, Belleville, and Invisible Man (Studio Theatre). Off-Broadway, she appeared in workshops at The Public and Playwrights Horizons. Her selected regional credits include Disgraced (Virginia Stage), Invisible Man (Huntington Theatre), Ruined and Tantalus (Denver Center), The Champion (TheatreSquared), and Pericles (PlayMakers Repertory). Her recent TV appearances are We Own This City, Blue Bloods, and Monsterland. Joy has an Acting MFA from UNC-Chapel Hill and a Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Ensemble for Invisible Man (Studio Theatre). Her film Dream Flightis in pre-production.  Instagram: @joyjonesig thejoyjones.com

JENNIFER MENDENHALL

Sarah Ruhl’s Monologue

Jennifer Mendenhall is a long time DC theater artist and a Woolly Mammoth company member since 1987. She has appeared at Round House Theatre, Mosaic Theater, Scena Theatre, Forum Theatre, Theater J, Studio Theatre, Theater Alliance, Kennedy Center, Shakespeare Theatre, Arena Stage, Humana Festival, Florida Stage, among others. #poolparty, her play about the history of discrimination in swimming pools, and a family denied membership at a community pool, was produced by Ally Theatre in 2018. As audio book narrator Kate Reading, she has recorded hundreds of books of all genres. Her awards include Helen Hayes, Theatre Lobby, Audie, Earphone, Publishers Weekly, American Library Association. www.katereadingaudiobooks.com

TONI RAE SALMI

Lee Cataluna’s Monologue

Toni Rae Salmi is making her Arena Stage debut. DC credits include American Spies and Other Homegrown Fables (Hub Theatre), Perfect Arrangement (Source Theatre Festival), The Spitfire Grill (Theater Alliance), The Tempest (Taffety Punk Theatre Company), and Junie B. Jones and A Little Monkey Business (Imagination Stage, Helen Hayes Award nomination). Directing credits include David Henry Hwang’s Bondage and Use All Available Doors by Tristan Willis (Pinky Swear Productions), and Measure for Measure (Cincinnati Shakespeare Company). Toni Rae has also worked with The Kennedy Center, Baltimore Center Stage, and Avant Bard Theatre. For Marci who chose to give me life, and Nora who chose to give me love.

DEIDRE STAPLES

Fatima Dyfan’s Monologue

Deidre Staples is excited to make her Arena Stage debut. She last appeared as Nell Shaw in John Proctor is the Villain at Studio Theatre. Selected acting credits include: Daphne’s Dive at Signature Theatre (understudy); The Skin of Our Teeth at Everyman Theatre; Twelfth Night, The Crucible, and Around the World in 80 Days with the National Players, Tour 70; and The Wolves at Studio Theatre (understudy). She wrote and performed White-ish at the Atlas Intersections Festival, Nu Sass Productions, and the Aurora Theatre in Atlanta, GA. BFA, Howard University. deidrestaples.com

DANI STOLLER

V’s Monologue

Dani Stoller is a Brooklyn-born playwright and actor. My Body No Choice is her Arena Stage debut. Her previous DC acting credits include shows at the Folger Theatre, Studio Theatre, Olney Theatre Center, Keegan Theatre, Signature Theatre, 1st Stage, and The Kennedy Center. Her play Easy Women Smoking Loose Cigarettes received its world premiere at Signature Theatre in 2019 and The Joy That Carries You, which Dani co-wrote with Awa Sal Secka, had its world premiere at the Olney Theatre Center in 2022. Her play Girlhood will be premiering this fall at Round House Theatre as part of its TPC Commission. Her play Just Great (an adaptation of The Great Gatsby) was recently published and is available through Playscripts.