New York Intensives

	SUSAN MERSON - FOUNDING PROGRAM DIRECTOR The idea of a New Play Summer Intensive emerged from Susan’s desire to honor the legacy of the artists of the Ensemble Studio Theatre in both New York and Los Angeles. She began researching and developing the idea in early 2008 and spoke with theatre professionals across North America in developing curriculum and focus for this unique theatre training program. In honoring the process of new play development, we honor the value of collaboration, talking and listening, process and product. These values and skills easily translate to skill sets necessary for a functional society and Susan is delighted that the curriculum functions as both an arts and general education model.
Susan has a long history of supporting and developing new plays and playwrights as the Founder/Producing Artistic Director of New York Theatre Intensives (NYTI) and through her work at such theatres as New Dramatists, Manhattan Theatre Club, Lion Theatre (which she co founded) and the O’Neill Theatre Center. Her mentoring skills have been polished through significant time on Broadway, in regional theatre and in the Off-Off Broadway developmental world. Appearing as an actress in the Broadway productions of Zefirelli’s SATURDAY SUNDAY MONDAY and CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD, she also co created and appeared in the original production of VANITIES, Off Broadway, in which she performed over 800 times. Recent television appearances on SCANDAL and in the upcoming Ellen Page/Julianne Moore film, FREEHELD. She is often seen on the stage of the Ensemble Studio Theatre in the Youngblood brunches and ASKING FOR TROUBLE series. Her first play REFLECTIONS OF A CHINA DOLL was produced Off Broadway at the Ensemble Studio Theatre which seeded her ongoing relationship as an active artist and board member of EST on both coasts. In Los Angeles, Susan co-founded and served as moderator for the Los Angeles Writers Bloc with colleague Jane Anderson, which has supported the work of such writers as Donald Margulies,(Pulitzer), Noni White and Bob Tzudiker(Tony for Newsies), Irene Mecchi (Lion King), Janet Fitch (White Oleanders) and countless others since the 1980’s. She has served as Artistic Director of the Streisand Festival for New Plays, Associate Producer at the Fountain and Mark Taper Forum, Resident Playwright for the Jewish Women’s Theatre Project, Literary Manager of the Ensemble Studio Theatre/ LA and has worked as a reader for Fogwood Films, TNT, and Polygram and many others. She is currently Managing Artistic Director of the 13th Street Repertory Theatre in NYC. Her many plays have been seen at theatres across the US and Canada. ,In the last couple of years:DAMN EVERYTHING BUT THE CIRCUS: 2 short plays About the Circus at the FOUNTAIN THEATRE in Los Angeles and Ensemble Studio Theatre/NYC in readings and a selection of the Sam French New Play festival 2014. BETWEEN PRETTY PLACES, a play with music written by Shellen Lubin, premiered at the Pacific Resident Theatre in Los Angeles and as part of the HERE ARTS Sublet Series in Manhattan in 2013. NYC has also seen WHITE BIRCHES at the Avant Garde Arts Festival, CARLA TELLS US WHAT HAPPENED IN THE BLUE BEDROOM at Berkshire Playwrights Lab, I BELIEVE IN MARRIAGE at the League of Professional Theatre Women’s One Act Festival and WHEN THEY GO AND YOU DO NOT at both the EstroGenius Festival and EST/6th Floor/NY and the Fountain Theatre in LA. HAIR: A REMINISCENCE a Heideman Award finalist at Louisville; and BOUNTY OF LACE, a 2008 Religion and Theatre Award recipient — will be included in a published collection in 2013. Screenplay nods have gone to SWIMMING UPSTREAM and DEATH IN VIENNA, both developed with Jimola Productions. As a fiction writer, her work has appeared in various journals and anthologies. Her novel DREAMING IN DAYLIGHT and a recent collection of plays and memoir WHEN THEY GO AND YOU DO NOT: Writing on Transition are available on Amazon along with her book on solo performance, YOUR NAME HERE: An Actor Writers Guide to Solo Performance. She currently leads the programs of New York Theatre Intensives in association with the artists of Ensemble Studio Theatre, of which she is a member and the13th Street Repertory Theatre ( Managing Artistic Director). She is an active member of the League of Professional Theatre Women , Actors Equity and Screen Actors Guild. Check out the website at www.susanmerson.com

	Elizabeth Hess Ms. Hess’ acclaimed solo trilogy LIVING OPENLY & NOTORIOUSLY has been performed around the globe: Berlin, Bath, Barcelona, Edinburgh, Toronto and Yerevan, as well as Off-Broadway in New York. Her subsequent solo piece, DUST TO DUST was performed in the LPTW New Play Festival and Stage Left Studio, both in New York and internationally in Bucharest, Kiel, Stockholm, and upcoming in, Prishtina.
Other New York credits include work with The New Group, Women’s Project, Irish Rep, MTC and NYTW. She has also worked extensively in regional theaters.TV credits include: 5 seasons starring on Clarissa Explains It All; Law & Order; Guiding Light; All My Children and Another World. Film credits include: Handsome Harry; A Bedtime Story; Italian Lessons; Buddy & Grace and Soldier’s Heart. Elizabeth is currently developing several plays: NOMADS a full-length dramatic work; NO EVIL, a triptych of fabulist tales and A DECALOGUE, ten performative prose/poems. She is also writing a book, THE ACTOR’S INSTRUMENT, based on her methodology culled from teaching acting at NYU, NTI (The O’Neill) and Fordham. Elizabeth is the recipient of a Madolin Cervantes Grant; ITI Armmono Festival Director’s Award; ITI Thespis Mono Festival Organizers and Audience Awards. She was also an ACULSPEC (American Cultural Specialist) in Yerevan, Armenia where she taught master classes in playwriting and performance; she participated in the ITI / UNESCO Conference in Manila, The Philippines and she sat on the jury of the ITI Thespis Mono Festival in Germany. She will conduct a playwriting / acting workshop in Prishtina with ‘forum ZFD’ in addition to her performance at MonoAKT.