Dael Orlandersmith (Playwright and Performer) first performed Stoop Stories in 2008 at The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival and Apollo Theater’s Salon Series; Washington, D.C.’s Studio Theatre produced its world premiere in 2009.

Her play Monster premiered at New York Theatre Workshop in 1996. The Gimmick, commissioned by McCarter Theatre, premiered in their Second Stage OnStage series in 1998 and went on to Long Wharf Theatre and New York Theatre Workshop.

Orlandersmith won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for The Gimmick in 1999. Yellowman was commissioned by and premiered at McCarter Theatre in a co-production with The Wilma Theater and Long Wharf Theatre. Orlandersmith was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and Drama Desk Award nominee for Outstanding Play and Outstanding Actress in a Play for Yellowman in 2002. The Blue Album, in collaboration with David Cale, premiered at Long Wharf Theatre in 2007. Bones was commissioned by the Mark Taper Forum, where it premiered in 2010. She wrote and performed the solo memoir play Forever at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, the Long Wharf, New York Theatre Workshop, Portland Center Stage in 2016 and the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. In 2016, Orlandersmith wrote and performed Until the Flood, commissioned by St. Louis Repertory Theatre. It was later produced at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, ACT Seattle and Goodman Theatre.

Orlandersmith has toured extensively with the Nuyorican Poets Café (Real Live Poetry) throughout the United States, Europe and  Australia. 

Yellowman and a collection of her earlier works have been published by Vintage Books and Dramatists Play Service.

She attended Sundance Institute Theatre Lab for four summers and is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant, The Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Playwrights, a Guggenheim and the 2005 PEN/Laura Pels Foundation Award for a playwright in mid-career. She is the recipient of a Lucille Lortel Foundation Playwrights Fellowship and an Obie Award for Beauty’s Daughter. 

James C. Nicola was the Artistic Director of New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) from 1988 to 2022.

Under his guidance, NYTW remained steadfast to its founding commitment of nurturing both established and emerging theatre artists, promoting collaboration and bold experimentation with theatrical forms.

Mr. Nicola initiated an extensive series of workshop opportunities including summer residencies and under-served theatre artist fellowships, and forged a unique community of theatre artists, the Usual Suspects, a group of writers, directors, designers and actors, who form the core of NYTW’s artist development activities.

As Artistic Director, Mr. Nicola has been instrumental in the development of many NYTW world premieres, including Once, Peter and the Starcatcher, Jonathan Larson’s Rent, Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen’s Aftermath, Claudia Shear’s Blown Sideways Through Life and Dirty Blonde, Will Power’s The Seven, Ivo van Hove’s productions of The Little Foxes, Hedda Gabler and A Streetcar Named Desire, and the American premieres of Caryl Churchill’s Mad Forest, Far Away and A Number, Doug Wright’s Quills and Tony Kushner’s Homebody/Kabul.

Mr. Nicola has mentored Elevator Repair Service (ERS) and Noor Theater as Companies-in-Residence, inviting these smaller theater companies to receive support and resources from NYTW in order to further their growth and development.

Before joining NYTW, Mr. Nicola spent nine years at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., first as a National Endowment for the Arts Directing Fellow and later as a Producing Associate where he directed productions including Marsha Norman’s ‘night Mother, Christopher Durang’s The Marriage of Bette and Boo and Emily Mann’s Still Life.

From 1975 to 1980, Mr. Nicola was a Casting Coordinator for the New York Shakespeare Festival where he developed his continuing, passionate commitment to new voices in the theatre.

Mr. Nicola’s other directing credits include Leonard Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti and Gilbert and Sullivan’s Trial by Jury at the WPA Theatre, John Guare’s Landscape of the Body at the Studio Theatre, and Ernest Joselovitz’s Flesh Eaters and Jessie’s Land at the New Playwrights Theatre.

Mr. Nicola fueled his love of theatre during the early 1970s when he was an Assistant Director at The Young Vic/National Theatre of Great Britain and an Assistant Stage Manager at London’s Royal Court Theatre, where he worked on Athol Fugard’s Boesman and Lena, the first time Fugard had been allowed out of South Africa. Mr. Nicola is a graduate of Tufts University.