Naveen Bahar Choudhury is a playwright, librettist, and lyricist whose work has been produced, commissioned, and/or developed by Ma-Yi Theater, Prospect Theater, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Second Stage Theatre, New Federal Theatre, Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater, The Lark Play Development Center, New Dramatists, Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse, and more. She has been a Dramatists Guild Fellow, a LaGuardia Performing Arts Center Playwriting Resident, and a Mellon Creative Research Fellow/Playwriting Resident at the University of Washington. Her play SKIN is published in Plays For Two, an anthology by Vintage Books/Random House, and was broadcast on Northeast Public Radio as part of the Playing On Air series. She teaches playwriting at Sarah Lawrence College and is the Communications & Advocacy Manager at New Dramatists. Her short musical on film, Lady Apsara, commissioned by Prospect Theater, and written with composer Kamala Sankaram, will be presented at the 44th Asian American International Film Festival this summer. MFA: New School.
Herman Daniel Farrell III is a University Research Professor and Professor in the Department of Theatre & Dance, College of Fine Arts, University of Kentucky. He received a B.A., cum laude, in Drama from Vassar College, a J.D. from New York University School of Law and an M.F.A. in Playwriting from Columbia University. He is an award-winning playwright/screenwriter and noted Eugene O’Neill scholar. He was co-writer of the award winning (Peabody Award, NAACP Image Award) HBO Film Boycott about Martin Luther King, Jr. His plays received world-premiers at The Flea Theater, Lincoln Center Director’s Lab, New York International Fringe Festival, Echo Theater and workshops at Manhattan Theater Club, Crossroads Theater, Working Theater and Primary Stages. Farrell’s work has been honored by national arts organizations: New Dramatists, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference and the MacDowell Colony. Farrell’s new book, A Playwright’s Journey, is slated to be published by McFarland & Company in 2021. The book is based on the life, work and legacy of Eugene O’Neill. In addition to offering up a playwright’s perspective on the life and work of one of the world’s great dramatists, the book will also weave into the story of O’Neill’s journey, the stories of contemporary American playwrights as they make their way through the ups and downs of a life in the theatre. The following playwrights will be interviewed for the book: Robert Schenkkan (Pulitzer Prize, Tony Award); Doug Wright (Pulitzer Prize, Tony Award); David Lindsay-Abaire (Pulitzer Prize); and Kia Corthron (Windham Campbell Prize). Farrell completed a Travis Bogard Fellowhip at Tao House, the Eugene O’Neill National Historic Site in Danville, California where he developed his new play, Journey. The first act of the play was published in The Eugene O’Neill Review. Farrell’s essay “The Ancient Mariner and O’Neill’s Intertextual Epiphany” was published in the book Intertextuality in American Drama: Critical Essays on Eugene O’Neill. And “A Clannish Pride” – Eugene O’Neill’s Eventual Embrace of His Irish Heritage was presented in 2017 at the 10th Eugene O’Neill International Conference at the National University of Ireland, Galway and was published in 2018 in The Eugene O’Neill Review. And recently, “New Discoveries: The Marriage Certificate of Eugene O’Neill and Carlotta Monterey (July 22, 1929) / Sean O’Casey, Letter to Eugene O’Neill (November 25, 1936)” published in The Eugene O’Neill Review in 2019. Play productions and awards: civilian, 2011 New York International Fringe Festival; Rome, 2004 New York International Fringe Festival; Portrait of a President, 2002 New York International Fringe Festival (Excellence in Playwriting Award); Solo Goya, Lincoln Center’s Director’s Lab at HERE (NY 1998), Bedfellows, The Flea Theater (NY 1997), The Echo Theater Company (LA 1996) (Drama-Logue Award & Critic’s Choice); Precipice, ALLOVERPOLLOCKOVERALL, Solo Goya, The Empty Space (NY 1995). Farrell is a member of the Eugene