Echo Los Angeles Young Playwrights
Echo Los Angeles Young Playwrights, a group of Los Angeles-based playwrights in the early stages of their careers dedicated to developing new work for the stage, takes the virtual Echo stage on
Amanda Andrei
With roots in the Philippines and Romania, Amanda L. Andrei hails from Virginia/Washington D.C. and currently resides in Los Angeles. Her plays include Black Sky, Lena Passes By, Crocodile (The Last Escape), and Every Night I Die. Her work has been read and/or developed by Playwrights Arena, La MaMa, Son of Semele, Madison New Works Lab, Relative Theatrics, Bucharest Inside the Beltway, La-Ti-Do, and others. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, Playground LA’s Writers Pool (2018 – present), and a proud alum of VONA and Atlantic Center for the Arts. She has taught playwriting and creative writing to students, artists, and engineers across the country and online. College of William & Mary (BA), Georgetown University (MA), University of Southern California (MFA). www.amandalandrei.com
Chandra Thomas
chandra thomas is an award-winning writer-actor-producer with a passion for character-driven stories centering marginalized voices. Her work has been presented at Primary Stages, Barrow Group, Naked Angels Theatre Company, Uprights Citizen Brigade Theatre, Downtown Urban Theatre Festival, HERE Arts Center, Passage Theatre, among others. As an actor, she has performed across the country at theatres including the Public Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, SoHo Rep, Guthrie Theater and Centerstage. chandra’s television and film credits include LABOR DAY, 9-1-1, LAW & ORDER: SVU, BLUE BLOODS. She’s also a producer of theatre, film and digital content, including her comedy short COMPLETE SENTENCES? which played at over a dozen film festivals. chandra earned dual BA degrees from Vanderbilt University and holds an MFA from Columbia University. She is the sole comedy writer in the 2020 CBS Writers’ Mentoring Program. Originally from New York, she is the proud child of immigrants, has gleefully lived all over the world, and absolutely loves baseball.
Eliza Frakes
Eliza Frakes is a writer and performer based in Los Angeles. She makes plays, screenplays, poetry, and fiction. Her work is often interested in the presence of absurdity in the mundane, the role of humor in drama, and the socio-political climate. Eliza received a BA in English from Lewis and Clark College in 2019, and has been published and recognized by The Portland Review, Albion Review, the Wildsound Film Festival, Santa Monica Film Festival, and the Young Arts Foundation. She is thrilled to be a part of Echo Young Playwrights 2020.
Gabriela Ortega
Gabriela Ortega is an actor, writer, voice-over artist, and filmmaker from the Dominican Republic and a USC graduate. She is an Alum of the Sundance Institute Playwrights Intensive with her first full-length play OUT HERE and the HBO/Hola Mexico Film Festival program: Tomorrow’s Filmmakers Today. Her first solo show, Las Garcia about the women in her family amidst a civil war in the Dominican Republic started with a sold-out run at the 2016 Hollywood Fringe and won the first-ever fringe scholarship. Since then, the show has toured across Los Angeles. Her poetry has been featured in NPR’s Latino USA and she was the official poet for the first Latinx Audible Original (co-created by Teatro Luna West): Talking While Female and Other Dangerous Acts, which is available now. She is currently in post-production for MORENITA her first feature film supported by Women Make Movies in NYC. www.gabrielaortega.com
Jaime Jaget
Jaime Jaget is a Los Angeles-based Playwright. Growing up in a small Long Island town with blue collar roots, she is interested in the weight of generations. She is the former Managing Director of the Middle Voice at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. Full Length Credits: Soup Chickens (Great Plains Theater Conference 2020), Mrs. Swenson (Warren Miller Performing Arts Center, dir. Eddie Prunoske), SonnyBoy (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater), Shift (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, dir. Jenna Worsham), The Villagers (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Jenna Worsham). Shorts Credits: Fire In Our Eyes (The Sherry Theater), ’94 Letters to Your Father (Theater Jam V, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, dir. Jenna Worsham).
