KAREN FIX CURRY

Karen Fix Curry's work has been seen across the United States and internationally. Crazy Quilts, her new full length play, was workshopped in Washington, received its premiere at LABTheatre in Tampa, Florida in November 2024, and will soon be published by Ghost Light Publications, part of the Broadway Play Network.

Her award winning ten-minute dark comedy Crazy Quilts was published in "Best Plays of 2021" and was produced in many theaters including Los Angeles 2024, Spokane Civic Theatre New Play Festival, WA in 2023, finalist in the Hive Collective Play to Film Festival, Utah 2021, finalist in the City Theater National Short Play Contest, Miami, Fl 2020, Theatre Three Offstage/Online Virtual Production, NY November 2020, semi-finalist in Punching LaBute New Play Festival Chicago, IL in 2020, and semi-finalist in Mildred's Umbrella Theater of Dysfunction XII, Houston, TX 2020. It has had over 25 productions since 2019.

Other full-length works include: A Perfect Arrangement, her newest work, a finalist for the OC-centric New Play Festival in Orange, CA 2024; The Rowan Knight, Crafton Hills College, Yucaipa, CA 2022; Siblings, published by Next Stage Press in 2021;  The Wendy Chronicles, Zoom production by Bema Productions in Victoria, BC, 2021; Celtic Knot,  OC-centric New Play Festival 2017.

Ms. Curry is a member of The Dramatists Guild of America, Honor Roll!, ASCAP, the New Play Exchange, Plays on Purpose, Orange County Playwrights Alliance, and leads the Page to Stage Playwriting Group, A longtime resident of Southern California, she currently resides on Camano Island in Washington.

NPX Page | KarenFixCurry@gmail.com

ERIC EBERWEIN

Productions & Awards: Great Western Wanderlust (Las Vegas Little Theatre, Hunger Artists Theatre Company; winner, Las Vegas Little Theatre New Works Competition), Peace Be With You (The Wayward Artist, Erica Bennett Playwriting Prize, Garry Marshall Theatre New Works Festival), Tallahassee (WNEP Theater),The Return Engagement (finalist, Actors Theatre of Louisville’s National Ten-Minute Play Contest).

One-Act Productions/Stagings: The Wayward Artist, Santa Cruz Actors Theatre, Hunger Artists Theatre Company, Vanguard Theatre Ensemble (CA), Mildred's Umbrella (TX), FUSION Theatre Company (NM), Coastal Empire New Plays Festival (GA), Arvada Center for the Arts (CO). Selected works in print via Original Works Publishing, Smith & Kraus.

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SCARLETT V. FINNEY

Scarlett’s first play, The Dream Chest, was among the top five submissions for Long Beach Playhouse’s New Works Festival in 2020; in 2021, it was invited to LBP's curated Studio Collaborative Series season. The play won the Negro Ensemble Company’s Emerging Playwrights Competition in 2022 and was selected for a workshop production at Urban Stages in New York City. In 2024, it was a finalist for the OC-centric New Play Festival in Orange County and also the finalist for the National Playwriting Competition at Theatre Rocks! in Texas. She recently completed her second play, What Would the Coroner Say?, and is working on her third.

Scarlett is a member of the Dramatists Guild, OCPA, and the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights. She earned a B.A. degree from California State University Long Beach, and lives with her husband in Long Beach, California.

LYNN WELLS NELSON

Writer/director/actor and professor, Lynn Wells Nelson has directed over a hundred productions from musicals to Shakespeare. She has adapted dozens of scripts in cooperation with such authors as Winston Weathers, Jack Matthews, Ray Bradbury, and others, and has written over a dozen original plays. As an actor, she has played such roles as Hedda in Hedda Gabler and Birdie in The Little Foxes. 

www.lynnwellsnelson.com 

NIKKI PEARSON

Nikki is a new playwright with a lifelong passion for the theater, having participated in community and college productions. Her work explores themes of identity, belonging, and the complexities of modern relationships. Nikki has studied under Janet Nepris, an award-winning playwright and Professor of Dramatic Writing at NYU's Tisch of Arts. In addition to her work in the theater, Nikki has been a professional photographer and has taught journalism and photography to elementary students in Orange County. 

Learn about Nikki's play In Their Shoes, a contemporary drama about finding your tribe and the quest to become comfortable being your authentic self. The main character is a transgender teenager who receives guidance from an apparition of Matthew Shepard. 

LINDA GODDARD SCHMENK

Born in Osaka, Japan, Linda Goddard Schmenk considers herself a Southern California native. An emerging playwright, she has written several short plays and a few full-length ones. Her play Chapel of Love recently had a reading at JANM in Little Tokyo.  E.I , a short play about emotional intelligence and A.I., was given a reading at Newport Theatre Arts Center through OCPA's Discoveries program. She is currently developing her play The Martian Cat Chronicles.

Linda aspires to be a voice for women -- mature women, Asian women, and sisters of all forms and persuasions in dynamic and shifting socio/political contexts. She is grateful for the female artists who have reflected her own experiences back to her, inspiring her to take her own journey as an artist.

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BAYLEE SHLICHTMAN

Baylee Shlichtman writes weird and magical plays about navigating relationships and autonomy. She has had her work produced or developed with AlterTheatre Ensemble, Breath of Fire Latina Theatre Ensemble, Curtis Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre/ LA, The Larking House, Long Beach Shakespeare Company, New Relic Theatre, Playground-LA, Secondary Location Productions, South Texas College Latinx New Play Festival, UC Irvine, Urbanite Theatre, The Vagrancy Theatre, The Wayward Artist, and The Workshop Theatre among others. She graduated from USC with a B.A. in Journalism. 

LAUREN SWEET

Lauren Sweet is an Orange County-based playwright and director. Originally from San Jose, California, she got her AA-T in Acting from West Valley College in Saratoga. She then transferred to Cal State Fullerton, where she’ll be graduating this semester with a BA in Theatre.

She specializes in creating queer and feminist horror stories as well as reimagining classic tales with more inclusive perspectives. In May, her full-length play The Black Cat, a detective noir adaptation of the gothic novella Carmilla, will be premiered via a heightened reading through CSUF. Her plays Blank Canvas and A Woman’s Weapon have been workshopped with CSUF, as well as the latter with OCPA. Aside from writing, she is also a member of Addicted to the Knife, SoCal's longest-running shadow cast for the cult film Repo! The Genetic Opera.

NICHOLAS THURKETTLE

Nicholas Thurkettle is a writer, actor, and filmmaker based in Orange County. His one-act play The Rothko is represented for licensing by publisher Heartland Plays and is his first play to be produced internationally, at a festival in Taipei, Taiwan. Other plays of his have been produced on regional stages in Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, West Virginia, Maryland, and throughout California, including at the OC-Centric New Play Festival and the Hollywood Fringe Festival. Room 9 Entertainment (Thank You For Smoking) purchased his comedy screenplay Queen Lara, which earned him membership in the Writers Guild of America; and he was hired to write the Crunchyroll anime pilot Children of Ether, which premiered on over 300 U.S. movie screens as part of Anime Movie Night. Short films he has directed have played in over 60 worldwide film festivals.

NPX Page | www.nicholasthurkettle.com 

MARK WHICKER

Mark Whicker has had staged readings of six of his plays and had another one produced and performed - Ted Turner And The Last Roundup - at Long Beach Playhouse in January of 2025.

He is a regular student in Diana Burbano's playwriting class at South Coast Repertory, beginning in 2020. Two years later he retired, ending a 49-year career in newspapers. He was a sports columnist at the Orange County Register from 1987 through 2022.

He is a member of the U.S. Basketball Writers Hall of Fame and received the Nat Fleischer Award for writing about boxing. He also has written a biography of Don Drysdale, the Dodgers' Hall of Fame pitcher, entitled Don Drysdale: Up And In.

He lives in Long Beach with his wife Robyn, son Philip and cat Sylvio.

JORDAN R. YOUNG

Jordan recently received the Erica Bennett Playwriting Prize for his play Kvetcher in the Wry, presented at the OC-centric New Play Festival. His plays have been seen Off-Off-Broadway, at Kauai Shorts Festival, Bloomington Playwrights Project, Minnesota Fringe, and Melbourne Fringe, and throughout SoCal at Hollywood Fringe, California Artists Radio Theatre, Chance Theater, Costa Mesa Playhouse, Newport Theater Arts Center, Laguna Beach New Play Festival, Towne Street Theatre, Vanguard Theatre Ensemble, and STAGEStheatre. He is an author and show biz historian whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, The Best Men's Stage Monologues of 2021 (Smith & Kraus), and other publications. Jordan’s books include Spike Jones Off the Record, Acting Solo,The Beckett Actor, and Roman Polanski: Behind the Scenes of His Classic Early Films. He has written special material for the Grammy Awards and served as a consultant for BBC Radio.