Masi Asare is a composer, lyricist, and playwright. Shows include: The Family Resemblance (book/music/lyrics; Theatre Royal Stratford East commission, developed Eugene O’Neill Center); Rishvor (book/music/lyrics), a new musical about racial passing commissioned by Barbara Whitman/Grove Entertainment; and Monsoon Wedding (lyrics), the Broadway bound new adaptation of Mira Nair’s film. A past Dramatists Guild Fellow, Masi has received the Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award for a woman composer of musicals; both the Georgia Bogardus Holof Lyricist Award and the Paulette Haupt Composition Prize from the Eugene O’Neill Center; and a 2019 Emerging Artist Grant from the Theater Hall of Fame. She holds degrees from Harvard and NYU Tisch and teaches in the Theatre department at Northwestern University. www.masiasare.com

Troy Anthony is a composer, actor, and director based in NYC. He has presented work at Joe’s Pub, 54 Below, Prospect Theater Company and the Musical Theater Factory (MTF). Commissions include the Atlantic Theater Company, The Civilians and The Shed. Troy has been seen in the Public Theater’s Twelfth Night and As You Like It, as well as Prospect Theater Company’s Tamar of the River. He leads the Public Theater’s Public Works Community Choir and focuses on the intersection between art and social justice at the DreamYard Art Center. He’s also a 2019-2020 MTF Maker.

Andrew R. Butler is a composer, writer, and performer based in Brooklyn, NY and hailing from the Florida Panhandle. His sci-fi folk musical Rags Parkland Sings The Songs Of The Future (Ars Nova) won the 2019 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding New Musical, made the New York Times' Best Theater of 2018, and was nominated for 9 Drama Desk Awards including Outstanding Musical, Book, Lyrics, and Music. The show's cast album is out now from Broadway Records. In 2018, Andrew (and his frequent collaborator Andrew Famer) received The Jonathan Larson Grant. Andrew is one-tenth of the composer/lyricist team for Jacklyn Backhaus's Folk Wandering (Pipeline Theatre Co.), and he's currently creating at least one musical each with writers Paige Campbell, Andrew Farmer, and Anna Kerrigan. Andrew's work has been developed at Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Yale Institute for Music Theatre, The Civilians, Ars Nova, Dixon Place, Fresh Ground Pepper, American Music Theatre Project, and the Polyphone Festival. andrewrbutler.com

Julian Hornik is a Brooklyn-based composer/lyricist and librettist whose work has been performed at, amongst others, the Kennedy Center, New York City Center, Ars Nova, Carnegie Hall, and Walt Disney Hall. His song-cycle commissioned by the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus was set to premiere at Davies Symphony Hall in March 2020 (now postponed due to Corona). He has developed shows at the ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop and the Johnny Mercer Songwriter’s Project, and is a member of the Orchard Project Greenhouse. Julian is the recipient of the 2017 Lucille and Jack Yellen Award and the 2018 Sammy Cahn Award from the ASCAP Foundation, Yale’s Norman Holmes Pearson Prize, and is a 2020 Jonathan Larson Grant finalist.

Jillian Walker writes and performs sacred texts for the theatre. Her work has taken the form of plays, musicals, lecture-sermon-concert gatherings, and self-reflective space for remembrance and liberation. She draws deeply on her training as a dramaturg (MFA Columbia), Black Spiritual wisdom, and the ongoing work of Black feminist thinkers to bring process-driven performance to life. Some of her work(ings) include SKiNFoLK: An American Show, co-presented by The Bushwick Starr and National Black Theatre (NY Times Critics’ Pick, Kilroys List), Sarah’s Salt., and Songs of Speculation. Jillian is currently co-conspiring with The TEAM as a writer/performer on Reconstruction, and Soho Rep., where she is the 2020-21 Tow Playwright-in-Residence. She is a 2020 Lilly Award recipient who also enjoys co-conspiring with the readers of her monthly newsletter, The Free List.

Ellen Winter is a performer / composer / theatre-maker based in Brooklyn who makes work inspired by radical empathy, failure, and collective joy through traditional and boundary-pushing mediums. Composer: 36 Questions (co-writer/director), Every Feeling I've Ever Felt. Residencies: Ars Nova’s Makers Lab, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, BARN ARTS. ellenwintermakesthings.com