Who we are: Playwright/Producer bios

BOB JUDE FERRANTE (Managing Director) is a playwright/producer whose work is produced and published all over the world. Bob’s play A New Theory of Vision (Sanctuary, w/critical raves from the Village Voice, Back Stage, nytheatre.com), Twinges (critical kudos from BackStage & OOBR & Finalist for Actor's Theatre of Louisville Heideman award). Tragedy, a Comedy (Show World). subCity (NY Play Development 4Play Festival). Hemlock, a Greek Diner Tragedy (Extra Virgin PC, w/critical raves from the Dallas Observer). Bob completed The New Life as a commission for Praxis Theatre Project NYC. Bob's next project will be YOU ARE [HERE], Fall 2011. Regularly anthologized in Smith and Kraus' Best Stage Scenes and Best Monologues series. Short plays Men's and Scene Analysis for Fun & Profit been much produced in theatre festivals in NYC, Boston, Nyack NY, Ann Arbor MI, New Jersey, Ontario Canada. Bob's plays have been translated into French, Romanian, and Kazakh and performed in their respective countries. See him at: http://jude.home.pipeline.com & On Facebook

PHILIP M. HOPKINS (Projects Director) is a playwright/producer and journalist in New York City. His full length plays include Love’s Dilemma, Sensation, Empire State, & Language of the Blood, which have been staged at Access Theater, 78th Street Theater Lab, Trilogy Theater in New York, and elsewhere. His writing has appeared in the Irish Voice, TheaterMania, and Ethical Corporation Magazine. He graduated from UCLA with a degree in Creative Writing, and has received numerous awards, including a grant to study the theater of Dario Fo in Italy.

SONYA SOBIESKI is a playwright/producer who earned her MFA in creative writing from Brooklyn College. She is an Affiliated Artist with the Obie Award-winning New Georges, who recently commissioned and produced her full-length play Commedia dell Smartass. She has been a three-time finalist for the Actors Theatre of Louisville Heideman Award, a finalist for the Weissberger Award, and the winner of a Best in Fringe award for from the New York International Fringe Festival. Her short musicals have been produced by Little Theatre @ Dixon Place, Clubbed Thumb, Vital Theatre, New Georges, Raw Impressions, and Prospect Theater. Screenwriting honors include Slamdance Finalist and Special Jury Prize at the Avignon/New York Film Festival. She teaches playwriting through the continuing education programs of New York University and Hunter College.

B.WALKER SAMPSON is a playwright/producer. Plays: Alceste (Theatre of NOTE; Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab); Slouch (Gorilla Tango Theatre); Puppet Kafka (Drama of Works); Silent Steps: A Play with MacGuffins (Outsider's Inn Collective); Absence of a House (Double Take Theatre); What Do You Think of the Moon? (Audacity Theatre Lab's Eye in the Sky radio theatre); There are shapes on the ceiling fan that look like bats (Source Theatre; Pace University); Roosevelt Island (BRIC Studio; HERE American Living Room). With Calla Videt & PegLeg Productions he co-wrote Hold Music (Culture Project/Living Theatre) & One Arm & a Leg (Theatre for the New City/HERE). His plays have been developed by: the Playwrights’ Center, Oracle Theatre, Conflict of Interest Theatre, Dixon Place, Chashama, & NyLon Fusion Theatre Collective. His writing has appeared in Midway Journal, Saint Ann's Review, Brooklyn Review, Stirring, & American Theatre. He received his MFA in playwriting from Brooklyn College.

ANGELA THURSTON is a playwright/producer and lyricist. The first act of her upcoming play The Ripening was recently presented at the Brecht Forum in New York City. Formerly based in Providence, RI, Angela co-directed her original work Park Play in 2007. Other plays include The Candlemakers of Kletsk, which debuted as part of Rites and Reason Theatre's Kaleidoscope Series, Rubbing Elbows: An American Courtship, which was staged at Production Workshop's 3 Chairs 2 Cubes Festival, and the site-specific Fleetwood After Hours, which Angela directed at the historic Nightingale-Brown House. Moon Mary, a musical with EllaRose Chary and Jonathan Russ, premiered in 2005. Angela is the recipient of the prestigious Weston Fine Arts award from Brown University, where she graduated with honors in Literary Arts. She has studied with Paula Vogel, Bonnie Metzgar, and Brighde Mullins. She works at Manhattan School of Music.