Anne Cofell Saunders (MFA 2000) wrote and sold a spec script to the TV series, 24, and later worked as assistant to the producer on several more episodes of that show before joining Battlestar Gallactica in 2005. In 2007 she joined the team writing and producing NBC's Chuck. In an interview in May 2006, Saunders expressed admiration for her fellow BSG writers, Mark Verheiden, David Weddle, Bradley Thompson, Jeff Vlaming, and Carla Robinson, calling them "some of the strongest writers Hollywood can offer" and said that Executive Producer Ron Moore continues to surprise and challenge the writers to take risks, such as with the Season 2 finale's (Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II) shocking one-year leap forward in time, an episode Saunders is proud she wrote. Either by luck or design, Saunders has created or written some of the strongest women characters on BSG, including Admiral Cain, Starbuck and Laura Roslin. "I feel a strong affinity with Starbuck's character," Saunders said in the interview. "As a woman, wouldn't it be great to be a fighter pilot? To be that outrageously tough chick?" Having the chance to write for Laura Roslin, the teacher who becomes the colonies' president, is something Saunders said she really looked forward to because of her own background in teaching. "I taught at the university level, and I taught high school in Japan, and the one thing a teacher has to do is set parameters and have a strong presence," Saunders said. "You have to love Roslin when she said (to Adama), 'You have to kill her (Cain).' To me, she was drawing her line in the sand."Saunders and her husband are major science fiction fans, with the rooms in their house lined with books from authors like Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert and Orson Scott Card. She believes revealing how much of a sci-fi fan she is to Ron Moore is one the reasons she got hired. "It’s not every day that he meets women who are nuts for sci-fi," she said.  (Much of the above bio comes word for word from the Battlestar Gallactica Wiki.)

Jeni Mahoney (MFA 1991)  Jeni is a playwright, teacher, producer and the founding Artistic Director of Seven Devils Playwrights Conference which has developed more than 50 new plays since its inception in 2001 and is featured in Michael Wright’s 2005 book “Playwriting: At Work and Play.” Jeni’s plays including The Feast of the Flying Cow… and Other Stories of War, The Martyrdom of Washington Booth, Mercy Fall and Light have been presented at the National Playwrights Conference at the O’Neill Center, InterAct Theater (Philadelphia), L.A. Theater Center, MidWest New Play Festival (Chicago), Lark Theater’s Playwrights Week, Rattlestick Productions, NYU’s hotINK Festival, Village Rep and Chicago Womens Theater Alliance among others. Her one-acts Throw of the Moon and American Eyes were commissioned and produced by Gorilla Rep and can be found in "Plays and Playwrights 2001" edited by Martin Denton. She was commissioned by the OBIE-Award winning Mint Theater to adapt Margaret Ayer Barnes’ dramatization of The Age of Innocence. Jeni is the recipient of an Independent Artists Challenge Grant from Field and a Woolrich Postgraduate Fellowship from Columbia University. Excerpts from her plays can be found in numerous monologue and scene books. Jeni teaches playwriting in New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts BFA program through Playwrights Horizons Theater School. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.

Qui Nguyen (MFA 2002): Originating from Southern Arkansas, Qui Nguyen is a Brooklyn based Playwright/Fight Director and serves as the Artistic Director of Vampire Cowboys Theatre Company. Qui’s plays include the VCTC productions of Vampire Cowboy Trilogy (FringeNYC; Common Basis Theatre; published in PLAYS & PLAYWRIGHTS 2005); Stained Glass Ugly (Midtown International Theatre Festival; Noho Studios in Los Angeles; Center Stage, NY; Louisiana Tech University); A Beginner's Guide to Deicide (Center Stage, NY); and Drowning in Denmark (Center Stage, NY). Other plays include Bike Wreck (Metropolitan Playhouse); Stand-up Absurdity (Wing & Groove Theatre of Chicago); That’s All Mime (Vital Theatre; The Lady Cavaliers); Slicing Andre (Ensemble Studio Theatre); Pavilions (Ma-Yi Theater); the short films, Anonymous Korean Assassin and Take Back directed by John Eung Soo Kim (Asian American International Film Festival); and the upcoming Off-Broadway Production of Trial By Water: A Gook Story Part One directed by John Gould Rubin (Ma-Yi Theater/Queens Theatre in the Park). His scripts have also been workshopped and part of staged readings series at Mark Taper Forum, The Goodman, New Dramatists, The New Group, Pan Asian Rep, Pantaglieze Theatre, DueEast Theatre, and The Immigrant's Theatre Project. Honors include the The Gilman/New Dramatists Playwriting Fellowship; recognition as one of New York Theatre Experience’s 2004 Artists of the Year; Ohio University’s Scott McPherson Playwriting Award; nominated for Best Choreographer by the New York Innovative Theatre Awards; honorable mention for screenwriting from the MTV/Asian Cinevision 72 Hour Film Shoot; winner of Kennedy Center’s ACTF Five Alive Onstage playwriting contest; and a commission from Ma-Yi Theater Company and the Jerome Foundation. Qui is a co-director of Ma-Yi Theater’s Writers Lab, a member playwright of Ensemble Studio Theatre's Youngblood, and a recognized advanced actor/combatant with the Society of American Fight Directors.

Aaron Carter (MFA 2005) is a Chicago playwright, and as of September 2007, the new literary manager of the Tony Award-winning Victory Gardens theater there. His paternal grandfather was a black Baptist preacher, his maternal grandparents were white vaudeville performers. The influence of his ancestors is seen Aaron's work which focuses on race, faith, and obscure performance skills... His play Panther Burn was produced in October 2006 by MPAACT at Victory Gardens Greenhouse, and was nominated for the Black Theater Alliance's "Best Writing of a Play" Award.  His Raw Material will be produced by EP Theater in September 2007. His latest play, Iowa Akhbar, will be presented in a workshop as part of the KNF Series in New York; the play was originally read at Chicago Dramatists, and further developed at Grinnell College. Recently, his short play Kegger was part of Collaboraction's Sketchbook 2006; First Words was presented at Around the Coyote reading series; Swamp Baby was read in the Side Project's Harvest Series in Chicago, as well as the Soho Think Tank Sixth Floor Reading Series in New York; and his play If Condition was produced as part of Manhattan Rep's Winterfest, also in New York. Aaron's work has also been read at Victory Garden's Theater and Chicago Dramatists, where he is a resident playwright... Aaron was a Minority Scholar in Residence at Grinnell College in the Spring of 2007, and his teaching work includes theater and writing courses at Grinnell College, Roosevelt University, and Indiana University NW, as well as outreach work with Steppenwolf Theater, Congo Square, American Theater Company and After School Matters. Aaron is also the creator of the blog New Terminology For Dramaturgy (NTFD) at http://ntfd.blogspot.com/.

Merri Biechler (MFA 2007) lives in Ohio. Her plays include Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver (2007 Jane Chambers Student Playwriting Award winner, 2007 Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition finalist; 2007 Princess Grace Award finalist, 2007 WordBRIDGE Playwrights Laboratory participant; and the recipient of over $30,000 in grant awards for developing the play as a teaching tool for medical students); Real Girls Can't Win! (nominated by Victory Gardens Theater for the 2007 Stavis Playwriting Award; scheduled for workshop at VG in December); Dolley and the Secret History Club (2007 Kennedy Center/White House Historical Association commission); Bombs, Babes and Bingo (Clubbed Thumb Biennial Commission finalist, 2007);The Bathtub Play (2005 Jane Chambers Student Playwriting Award); Brace for Impact (Cleveland Public Theatre); The Celery Conspiracy (Foundry TheatreWorks, Los Angeles); and her one-woman show Ain't I A White Woman (Foundry TheatreWorks, Los Angeles).  A monologue from The Celery Conspiracy appears in "Audition Arsenal for Women in Their 30's" by Smith and Kraus Publishers, Inc.  She is the recipient of the 2005 Scott McPherson Award for Playwriting. As a professional actor, Merri studied acting with Stanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse in NYC and at his home on the island of Bequia, West Indies.  She was a founding member the Edge Theater with fellow North Carolina School of the Arts classmates Peter Hedges, Mary-Louise Parker and Joe Mantello, and acted in more than a dozen new plays with the company.   She appeared Off-Broadway in Tony 'n Tina's Wedding, has been seen in the films He Said, She Said, Man of the Year and The Thing Called Love, and in guest starring parts on TV in E.R., Judging Amy, Murphy Brown and Love and War.  She worked at ABC Television for three years writing scripts and treatments for its Movie-of-the-Week division.   Merri is a member of the Writers Guild of America, Actors Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild, and a member of the once glorious, and now defunct, Circle Rep Lab.   

Laura Jacqmin (MFA 2007) is a Resident Playwright at Chicago Dramatists, the co-founder of the Yale Playwrights Festival, and was nominated for the inaugural Wasserstein Prize. Her plays have been staged and developed at Victory Gardens Theater, Steppenwolf Theatre Company (THE REVISIONISTS), Perishable Theatre (GOTHAM IS SAFE AGAIN!), Collaboraction (UN ROBOT, POOL OF), the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (LUCKY, YANG REN [FOREIGNER]), Kitchen Dog Theater, the Contemporary American Theater Festival, Clubbed Thumb (OHIO), Guerilla Cabaret at Collective: Unconscious (ADVISOR) and the inaugural NNPN/University Playwrights Workshop at the National Center for New Plays at Stanford University (BUTT NEKKID). Her play HAPPYSLAP was a winner of Aurora Theatre Company's 2007 Global Age Project and was produced by the Ohio University School of Theater in their 2006-2007 season. She is the recipient of a 2006 Ohio University SEA research and development grant for 10 VIRGINS, which will receive its world premiere in Chicago Dramatists' 2007-2008 season. Also premiering in Chicago this season is Jacqmin's BUTT NEKKID, which will be produced by the side project theatre company. She was recently commissioned by Collaboraction to write OM in THE SIDDHARTHA PROJECT: A DOWN-HOME, APOCALYPTIC, AVALANCHE OF BEAUTY, which will premiere in Chicago this fall. LUCKY will be published in a forthcoming volume by Smith & Kraus, and several of Jacqmin's monologues will be published in S & K's 221 ONE-MINUTE MONOLOGUES FROM LITERATURE. Jacqmin was one of six writers selected to take part in The 24 Hour Plays: Old Vic/New Voices at the Atlantic Theater in New York City, where her play THIS IS HOW premiered this past July. She is currently a semifinalist for the P73 Playwriting Fellowship. Jacqmin currently teaches playwriting at Chicago Dramatists.

Chantal Bilodeau (MFA 2001) is a playwright and translator originally from Montreal, Canada. Her plays have been presented by Alleyway Theatre, Brass Tacks Theatre, Centro Cultural Helenico (Mexico), City Theatre Company, The Lark Play Development Center, Magic Theatre, The Met Theater, New Dramatists, Ohio University, the University of Miami, Philadelphia Dramatists, Raw Impressions, ScriptLab (Canada), and Women’s Project & Productions. She has been supported by Etant donnes: The French-American Fund for the Performing Arts and Association Beaumarchais. Her translations include JAZ, BIG SHOOT, and MISTERIOSO-119 by French-African playwright Koffi Kwahulé, and plays by Congolese playwright Pierre Mumbere Mujomba, and Jean Cocteau. She is an alumn of Women’s Project & Productions Playwrights Lab, The Lark Playwrights Workshop and the Dramatists Guild Fellowship. Her most recent play PLEASURE & PAIN will be presented at the Magic Theatre in February 2007 and in a Spanish translation in Mexico City in May 2007. She lives in New York City.

Ian Mairs (MFA 2003) opened his own drama studio (Oasis Theater Studio) in July 2004 in his hometown of Jacksonville, Florida. He now has over 30 students in acting, playwriting, voice and movement. The playwright's unit at the Oasis will present their first festival of readings (Voices from the River) in June. Ian is also teaching theater courses at Florida Community College and Coastal Georgia Community College. His two person play, Our David, will receive a production at the Full CircleTheater in Kansas City this summer. His play, Bay at the Moon, received successful productions this year in New Mexico, North Carolina and Kentucky.

Darcey Mesaris (MFA 2003) moved to Greenville, South Carolina in September to take the Director of Marketing position at Greenville Little Theatre, the oldest and largest performing arts organization in Upstate South Carolina. She is still working on her writing, having collaborated on Lexington Children's Theatre original script of "Why Mosquitoes Buzz" last spring.

Karl Ulfsson This past year has been crazy like all the previous ones. I just renewed my contract with The Icelandic Broadcasting Service TV to write, direct and act in one more series of my comedy show, The Laff-Ice, which also happens to be the name of the ensemble involved in the show. We received the Edda Awards last winter as "Outstanding Television Comedy" and our ratings are still fantastic.  I just finished a new radio play for the Radio Theatre. It's called "Unmarked Opus in C minor" and it is written for two grand dames of the Icelandic theatre who are celebrating their 40th anniversaries next season. Currently I'm working on an Icelandic translation of Ibsen's Peer Gynt for the National Theatre.

Melissa Gawlowski (MFA '05)  is the Literary and Education Coordinator for Premiere Stages, an Equity theatre in Union, New Jersey.  Her most recent plays include "On the Line" and "Mimi Meets Her Match", which was produced in New York by the 52nd Street Project.  Her play "The True Story of Harold Tubbsman" was presented at the 2002 Region III American College Theatre Festival.  Her work can be seen in New Monologues for Women, By Women (Heinemann) and in two upcoming collections by Smith and Kraus.  She is the resident playwright of Visual Fields Collaborative in New York City.  VFC has commissioned her new play "Reflections", which will be produced next fall.

John Ray (MFA '04): "After leaving Athens I entered the doctoral program in Theater at Southern Illinois University - Carbondale. I'm currently on leave of absence from SIU and living in Cincinnati, where I'm an adjunct instructor at Brown Mackie College, teaching English Lit and Composition. Beginning in January, I'll also be teaching at Southern State Community College in Hillsboro, Ohio. My one-act play A Gift for Simple Melody was produced in April '05 at Southern Illinois U., while another one-act, Pearl, had a staged reading at the Mid-America Theatre Conference in Kansas City in March. Right now I'm working on a one-man show for three women, to go up this Spring, and also on a full-length play about the Louisiana Purchase, the First Law of Thermodynamics and a can of chili-mac."

Christopher De Paola (MFA '06)  is a Cuban playwright originally from Hollywood, Florida. He is currently a head writer on WCIU-TV’s Green Screen Adventures.  His two plays Morning Traffic and DreamWater were commissioned and published by Pearson Education/Scott Foresman.  His plays Streets Come Knocking and Recovered were finalists in Chicago Dramatists’ ’06 and ’07 Many Voices Project.  Productions include: What I Knew Then (Doppelgang Productions, NYC); The Dialogue Between Men and Women (Intar Theater & The Theater Studio, NYC).  Workshop Productions include: Streets Come Knocking (Ohio University); Watchdog (Otterbein College, OH).  Readings include: Streets Come Knocking (Victory Gardens); Elements of Form (Seabury Quinn Jr. Playwrights' Festival, OH); The In-Betweener (Manhattan Theater Club, NYC).  Christopher is an Emmy Award nominated actor for his role on the television show Green Screen Adventures.  Acting Credits include: Eye of the Storm (Vittum Theater); Autobiography (Collaboraction: Sketchbook 7); Cynical Weathers (Victory Gardens); Hortensia and the Museum of Dreams (Victory Gardens); NYC premiere of A.R. Gurney’s The Guest Lecturer; Butterflies Are Free; King John; Don Juan In Hell; A Chorus Line; Charley’s Aunt; A Few Good Men; Ten Little Indians with Gordon Jump; Once Upon a Mattress; Wait Until Dark; Harvey; Romeo and Juliet; and the world premiere of Kia Corthron’s Catnap Allegiance.  Chris is a founding member of the NYC improv troupe Devil’s Dancebelt.  Christopher also produces a monthly evening of new work called Instant Theatre at Chicago Dramatists.  He has a BFA in Acting from Otterbein College, and an MFA in Playwriting from Ohio University.

Dean Corrin: Dean Corrin is the Associate Dean and Head of the playwriting program at The Theatre School, DePaul University and a member of the Playwrights Ensemble at Victory Gardens Theatre.  His most recent play, Battle of the Bands, is scheduled for publication by Northwestern University Press in Victory Gardens Theater Presents: Seven New Plays from the Playwrights Ensemble.  Another play, Expectations, is scheduled for production this fall at the Wichita Center for the Arts.  He is a member of the First Look Council, a part of Steppenwolf Theatre Company's First Look Repertory of New Work.

Mark Witteveen (MFA '06): Mark's plays have been seen in Seattle, Olympia, Chicago, and in New York at The Trilogy Theatre, Theatre Row Theatre, HomeGrown Theatre, and elsewhere. Several short plays have been honored in festivals and contests, including Actors Theater of Louisville's National Ten-Minute Play Contest, Kennedy Center ACTF Region III, Moving Arts 2005 Premiere One-Act Competition and FirstStageLA One Act Contest, among others. He is the recipient of OU's Trisolini Fellowship, and several arts grants. He recently moved to Rochester, New York where his work has been well received by the local theatres such as GEVA.

Justin Boyd (MFA 2003): Justin Boyd grew up in the shadow of Ohio University and currently lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. Most recently, his play Crusade was produced in New York City by the Drilling Co., and another play, Copy Man, won the 2007 Trustus Theatre Playwrights’ Festival (production, August 2007). Copy Man was also selected as a semifinalist for the 2006 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. Other honors and productions include Luster & Suckers (production, 2005 Philly Fringe), Ultravision (semifinalist, 2005 Princess Grace Award) and The Nice Price (finalist for both the 2003 Heidemann Award and 2005 Three Genres Drama Contest). Justin is also a freelance journalist and was selected as a finalist for the 2005-2006 American Theater Affiliated Writers Program. Since moving to New York, he has written articles for the Brooklyn Rail, including “Do It to It Rita, You’re On: A Conversation with Quincy Long” and “We Are All Gooks: Qui Nguyen’s Trial by Water: Part One,” about OU alum Nguyen’s (see above) 2006 off-Broadway production with Ma-Yi Theater/Queens Theatre in the Park (brooklynrail.org). Justin’s other plays include Foreign Object, Sleeper, Lemonade, Swim, The Weight of Heir, Game Day, After the Prom, and Maestro. He has recently been named a 2007-2008 Affiliated Writer with American Theater magazine and will receive a $3,000 fellowship to write 3-4 articles between July 2007 and July 2008.