American Next Wave ― Four Contemporary Plays from the Hightide Festival

A collection of four new American plays, addressing race, economic hardship, heritage and identity.

Stella Fawn Ragsdale was born and raised in East Tennessee. Her most recent play Perish, part of a trilogy inspired by her Appalachian heritage, will be produced as part of the HighTide Festival in theUK. Stella recently has an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU. Mona Mansour began her theater careeras an actress and now teaches improv and writing classes to adults over 60 in NYC. Her plays include Me and the SLA (Groundling Theater, Seattle Fringe Fest - Best of the Fest), Girl Scouts of America (co-written with Andrea Berloff) was part of the Public Theater's New Work Now!, and had a successful outing at NYC Fringe 2006. Mona was recently chosen as "One of 50 to Watch" by the Dramatists Guild. Laura Marks is a current playwriting fellow at the Juilliard School. Her play Bethany won the Leah Ryan Prize for Emerging Women Writers, Synchronicity Theatre's SheWrites award, and was chosen by John Guare as runner-up for Yale's David C. Horn Prize. A native Kentuckian, she studied at Boston University and Indiana University. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is a Brooklyn-based playwright and performer from Washington, D.C., whose plays include: Neighbors, Face #1-3 and Content. He is a former NYTW Playwriting fellow and is currently a member of the Soho Rep Writers/Directors Lab. He also holds an M.A. in Performance Studies from NYU.