Erin Courtney is an award-winning, New York-based playwright. Her play, A Map of Virtue, produced by 13P and directed by Ken Rus Schmoll, was awarded an Obie and described as "one of the most terrifying plays of the past decade” by Alexis Soloski in The New York Times. A Map of Virtue was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding New York Theater, and has had numerous productions across the country. Her play I Will Be Gone, directed by Kip Fagan, premiered at the Humana Festival, Actors Theater of Louisville in 2015. Her play Ann, Fran, Mary Ann was commissioned by Playwrights Horizons.
She has written two operas with Elizabeth Swados: The Nomad and Kaspar Hauser. Both were commissioned and produced by The Flea Theater. The musical, The Tattooed Lady, which she is writing with composer and lyricist, Max Vernon, has been developed with support from The Rhinebeck Writer’s Retreat, The Kimmel Center, and Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater. Her other plays, produced by Clubbed Thumb, include Alice The Magnet, directed by Pam MacKinnon, and Demon Baby, directed by Ken Rus Schmoll. She is an affiliated artist with Clubbed Thumb, a member of the Obie Award winning playwright's collective, 13P, as well as the co-founder of the Brooklyn Writers Space. Courtney teaches playwriting at the MFA program at Brooklyn College. She earned her MFA in playwriting at Brooklyn College under the tutelage of Mac Wellman, and she earned her BA from Brown University where she studied with Paula Vogel. She has been a member of New Dramatists since 2012, a MacDowell Colony Fellow, a Core Writer at the Playwrights’ Center, and a member of The Working Farm at Space on Ryder Farm. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2013.
Taylor Mac (who uses “judy”—lowercase [sic]—as a gender pronoun) is the author of Joy and Pandemic; The Hang (composed by Matt Ray); Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus; A 24-Decade History of Popular Music; Prosperous Fools; The Fre; Hir; The Walk Across America for Mother Earth; The Lily’s Revenge; The Young Ladies Of; Red Tide Blooming; The Be(A)st of Taylor Mac; and the revues Comparison Is Violence; Holiday Sauce; and The Last Two People on Earth: An Apocalyptic Vaudeville (created with Mandy Patinkin, Susan Stroman, and Paul Ford). Mac is the first American to receive the International Ibsen Award; is a MacArthur Fellow, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a Tony nominee for Best Play; and is the recipient of the Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History (with Matt Ray), the Doris Duke Artist Award, a Guggenheim, the Herb Alpert Award, a Drama League Award, the Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting, the Edwin Booth Award, two Helpmann Awards, a New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, two Obies, two Bessies, and an Ethyl Eichelberger.
Matt Ray is a New York-based pianist, singer, songwriter, arranger, and music director. His arrangements have been called “wizardly” (Time Out New York) and “ingenious” (New York Times), and his piano playing “classic” (New York Times). For his work on Taylor Mac’s show A 24-Decade History of Popular Music he won the 2017 Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History. Notable live performances include playing at Carnegie Hall with Kat Edmonson, the Hollywood Bowl with reggae legend Burning Spear, Lincoln Center with Joey Arias, and shows in Paris and the UK with Justin Vivian Bond. He co-wrote songs for and performed in Bridget Everett’s one-hour Comedy Central special Gynecological Wonder as well as Everett’s hit show Rock Bottom. He also music directed Taylor Mac’s Obie award-winning play The Lily’s Revenge. Ray has released three albums as a leader: We Got It! (2001), Lost In New York (2006); and Songs For the Anonymous (2013).