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Cusi Cram is a playwright, professor, director, screenwriter and women’s advocate. Cusi’s work is studied in The Fornes Frame: Contemporary Latina Playwrights and the Legacy of Maria Irene Fornes. Her work has been supported by The Fornes Institute, a division of the Latinx Theatre Commons. Her plays have been produced by: Primary Stages, LAByrinth Theater Company, The Denver Theater Center, Princeton’s Lewis Center for the Arts, The Williamstown Theater Festival, South Coast Repertory, The Atlantic Theater, Cornerstone Theater Company, New Georges, and on stages large and small all over the country. Cusi was a long-time writer on WGBH’s children’s program, Arthur for which she has received three Emmy nominations. She's written on television shows for both kids and adults which have aired on, Amazon, PBS, and the BBC. Cusi sits on the board of the Leah Ryan Fund for Emerging Women Writers and is a member of New Georges’ Kitchen Cabinet and Labyrinth Theater Company. She is the former Director of Outreach for the Lilly Awards Foundation, which honors notable women in theater and seeks to shine a light on issues surrounding female theater makers. Cusi is a graduate of Brown University and the Lila Acheson American Playwright’s Program at Juilliard.

Quiara Algería Hudes, a Philadelphia native, is Pulitzer Prize -winning playwright of Water By the Spoonful; author of a memoir, My Broken Language; and screenwriter for the major motion picture In the Heights. Previously, she wrote the book (aka script) for the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical In the Heights along with other plays and musicals that have been produced around the world. Her notable essays include High Tide of Heartbreak in American Theater Magazine and Corey Couldn’t Take It Anymore in The Cut. In opposition of the carceral state, Hudes and her cousin founded Emancipated Stories, a platform where people behind bars can share one page of their life story with the world. As a barrio feminist and joyous mischief maker, Quiara y su hermana created the Latinx Casting Manifesto.

Erlina Oritz is a Dominican-American playwright, performer, and theatre maker from Reading, PA. She graduated with a BA in Theatre from Temple University. Her heartfelt and timely plays on gentrification, domestic violence, and cultural preservation have been produced with Power Street Theatre where she is proud to be Co-Artistic Director and Resident Playwright. She has performed for WHYY’s First Person Arts series, and in 2019 she gave the Keynote Address at the Delaware Writer’s Conference. Erlina has received the Amtrak Writer’s residency, the Signal Fire Outpost Residency, and her play She Wore Those Shoes had a developmental reading at Theatre Exile’s Studio X-hibition Series. In 2018 Erlina’s play Las Mujeres premiered with Power Street to sold out houses and rave reviews picking up a Bonaly Award for Creation of Community Joy, and in Spring 2019 her play Morir Sonyando was nominated for six Barrymore Awards at Theatre Philadelphia including Outstanding New Play. Erlina is a 2020 recipient of the Leeway Art and Change Grant. She has taught playwriting with the University of the Arts, Power Street Theatre, and Blue Stoop phl. Erlina believes being an artist is a superpower, she believes in using her powers for good.

Gabriela Sanchez inspires and supports creative innovations among art and culture organizations, artists, youth, and community members while centering the magic of collaboration and collective power. A Philadelphia native, she received a Bachelor of Arts in Theater from Temple University. Her former leadership roles include Director of Education at Norris Square Neighborhood Project, Cultural Enrichment and Facility Manager at Taller Puertorriqueño, and six years in residence at the Department of Recreation with Conflict Resolution Theater. As a teaching artist currently working for the Arden Theatre Company and Philadelphia Young Playwrights, Gabriela has used theatre to activate imaginations within diverse classrooms for over a decade. Gabriela is a proud recipient of the Leeway Art and Change Grant (2016, 2019), GALAEI David Acosta Revolutionary Leadership Award (2017), the Knight Foundation’s Emerging City Champions Fellowship (2018), and was a keynote speaker alongside Quiara Alegría Hudes at the 2018 Association for Theatre in Higher Education Conference: Theatres of Revolution: Performance, Pedagogy, and Protest, in addition, to the plenary speaker for the 2019 Theatre Communications Group National Conference.