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In this panel designed to support for undergrads and recent graduates, playwrights from a range of MFA programs will discuss their experiences of grad school and advice for writers early in their careers.

PANELISTS

Alayna Jacqueline Barnes is an instigator for new plays with the Twin Cities Playwright Cabal and the Membership and Development Coordinator at the Playwrights’ Center. In her absurd experimental writing, she loves to turn figurative into the literal, finding new ways to bend, reshape, and deconstruct stories for the stage. Alayna’s plays include The Amethyst, Drapetomania, Get Broken Like Me, Persephone’s Spring, and It’s Too Cold for You Here.  Her work has been performed and/or developed at Phoenix Theater (MN), Market Garden Theatre (MN), Rennasaince Theaterworks (WI), Playwrights’ Center (MN), MadLab Theater (OH), Lincoln Theater (OH), and Pythian Theater (OH). Her play All of the Everything was recently produced at the Samuel French OOB Short Play Festival. She earned her BA in theater from Otterbein University and her MFA in creative writing from Goddard College. alaynajacqueline.com

Benjamin Benne's plays include Alma, In His Hands; or the gay christian play, and at the very bottom of a body of water. He's a PWC Affiliated Writer (Many Voices & McKnight Fellowships) and the winner of the National Latinx Playwriting Award, KCACTF Latinx Playwriting Award, and Blue Ink Playwriting Award. His plays have been developed at the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, The Lark, Playwrights Realm, Roundabout, Denver Center, Two River, The Old Globe, Seattle Rep, Boston Court, and SPACE on Ryder Farm, among others. MFA Playwriting Candidate: Yale School of Drama '21, Representation: Paradigm. 
www.benjaminbenne.com
 

Cristina Luzárraga is a playwright from New Jersey whose dark comedies tend to feature unruly women and an exploration of the grotesque and uncanny. Her plays include Critical Distance, Millennialville, Havana Syndrome, and La Mujer Barbuda (2018 Screencraft Stage Play Winner and Princess Grace Award Finalist). An alum of The Second City Conservatory in Chicago and Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Youngblood collective, she is a 2019-2020 Jerome Fellow at the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis where she currently resides. Her work has been developed with Playmakers Repertory Company, Teatro LATEA, Tantrum Theater, IATI Theater, The New Colony, and Chicago Dramatists, and her short plays are published in anthologies by Smith and Kraus. She holds a BA from Princeton and an MFA from Ohio University.