Jai Chakrabarti is a graduate of the Brooklyn College MFA Program, a 2015 A Public Space Emerging Writer’s Fellow, and recipient of the Ross Feld Award, the Himan Brown Award, and the Pushcart Prize for his short fiction. Chakrabarti’s work has appeared in Barrow Street, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Coffin Factory, Union Station, The Best American Short Stories, and The O. Henry Prize Stories, among others. His forthcoming novel, A Play for the End of the World, will be published in the fall 2021.
Jane Curtin has appeared on Broadway in Noises Off, Candida, and Our Town. Her off-Broadway work includes Love Letters and the musical revue Pretzels, which she co-wrote. She starred in the television series 3rd Rock from the Sun and won back-to-back Emmy Awards for her role on Kate & Allie. She is an original cast member of Saturday Night Live and also starred in the television film series The Librarian and its spin-off, The Librarians. Her film credits include Coneheads; Antz; I Love You, Man; I Don’t Know How She Does It; The Heat; The Spy Who Dumped Me; Can You Ever Forgive Me?; and Ode to Joy. She starred on the television series Unforgettable and has had guest appearances on The Good Wife, 48 Hours ’til Monday, The Good Fight, Broad City, and most recently United We Fall. Curtin will appear in the forthcoming films Welcome to Pine Grove!, Never Too Late, and Godmothered.
Viola Davis is an Tony, Emmy, and Academy Award-winning actress who has starred in the films Doubt; The Help; Fences; the film series The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him, Her, and Them; Get on Up; Suicide Squad; Blackhat; Widows; Troop Zero; and many more. From 2014 - 2020, she starred as Annalise Keating on the television series How to Get Away with Murder. Her extensive stage credits include award-winning performances in August Wilson’s Seven Guitars, King Hedley II, and Fences. Upcoming projects include the films Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, The Suicide Squad, The Woman King, and the role of Michelle Obama on the forthcoming television series First Ladies.
Bhavesh Patel’s recent theater credits include Present Laughter on Broadway and on the PBS series Great Performances, A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park, War Horse at Lincoln Center Theater, Hayden's Seven Last Words, The Tempest, and Twelfth Night. He has been featured on the television series Mysteries of Laura, The Good Wife, Elementary, Hostages, Blue Bloods, White Collar, Damages, Gossip Girl, The Blacklist, Bull, The Code, Instinct, New Amsterdam, and Little America. Upcoming projects include the films Frankie and Data Recovery.
Shay Youngblood is a novelist, playwright, painter, and author of short stories. She is author of the novels Black Girl in Paris and Soul Kiss and a collection of short fiction, The Big Mama Stories. Her published plays Amazing Grace, Shakin' the Mess Outta Misery and Talking Bones, have been widely produced. Additional plays include Square Blues, Black Power Barbie, and Communism Killed My Dog. She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards including a Pushcart Prize for fiction, a Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, an Edward Albee honoree, several NAACP Theater Awards, an Astraea Writers' Award for fiction and a 2004 New York Foundation for the Arts Sustained Achievement Award. She has taught Creative Writing at NYU and has been Visiting Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi and Texas A&M Universities. In 2020, Youngblood taught for VONA (Voices of Our Nations), a multi-genre workshop for writers of color.
