diagnosed Autistic in her late-20s, birdie fears telling her new girlfriend about her disability, or the other… discomforts of her childhood. no need to trouble her; that’s what therapy’s for. in her sleep, birdie’s on a journey through a(n) (un)familiar forest; a hunted feeling follows, like the howls she swears she hears. when Dreamworld and Reality begin to bleed together, birdie stumbles on a cottage made of sweets and shelters there. but the howling’s getting closer, and birdie doesn’t know how to keep the wolves from blowing down the door.

Jordan Bird (she/her) is a queer/neurodivergent/Mad theatre artist creating work with and for her Mad/neurodivergent/queer siblings. At the intersection of the spiritually weird and the oddly embodied, her work provokes conversations about disability and trauma, and challenges the way the Other (disabled/marginalized/vulnerable) is meant to exist in a world built for the privileged/secure/abled. She’s grateful to have collaborated with Inkwell Theatre, Wordsmyth Theatre, Workshop Theatre, the Digital Dramaturgy Project, and The Other Side of Silence. Her work has been recognized by the O’Neill NPC, Bay Street Theatre’s Title Wave festival, Normal Avenue’s NAP Series, the Dramatist Guild’s Virtual Playwriting Fellowship, the Blue Ink Award, and others. She is honored to be a member of the Bay Area Playwrights Festival 47 cohort. Jordan has served as a script doctor, evaluator, and editor with students and professional theatres and is currently facilitating Introduction to Playwriting workshops through a community organization in Tennessee. She’s an active member of the DGA, and you can find her work on the New Play Exchange. Jordan lives on the land that was cared for and shared by the Tsalaguwetiyi (Eastern Band of Cherokee), S’atsoyaha (Yuchi), and Miccosukee peoples until 1838, when the Cherokee and Yuchi were forced out of the area along the Trail of Tears and the Miccosukee migrated to the Florida everglades to evade forced removal. https://www.jordan-bird.com/

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Welcome to the Edwards Estate, as presented by its Living History Interpreters – the group of Black twentysomethings who work there as plantation museum tour guides. As the work of giving costumed tours becomes too much, the Interpreters struggle to stay in character and remember their lines. That is, until they find evidence of a failed slave uprising that appears nowhere in the history of the estate and with it, the chance to make a different kind of Living History..

Maxine Dillon (she/her) is a playwright and stage manager who is doing her part to Keep Austin Weird. Her plays include THE NEGROES HAVE RISEN (O’Neill NPC Finalist, BAPF Finalist), unbury your gays, and Strange Flesh. Her work has been developed by Broad Theatre, Ground Floor Theatre, and The Road Theatre. She is a proud alumna of GFT Writes and 24 Hour Plays: Nationals. Maxine graduated with a B.A. in English from Yale University, and she is a first year M.F.A candidate in Playwriting at the University of Texas at Austin. https://newplayexchange.org/users/42249/maxine-dillon

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Two cowboys, the Wanderer and the Hunter, are locked in a perpetual duel in a desert graveyard. Lucky, a survivor of a suicide attempt, discovers Milo on a bridge, moments after Milo attempted to take his own life. As the Hunter and the Wanderer circle within Lucky’s mind, Lucky brings Milo into his apartment so that Milo can recover. As Lucky reveals more and more of his past in order to convince Milo to choose life, he wonders if he made the right decision all those years ago. The Desert and the New York apartment blur as high noon approaches and the cowboys duel over Lucky’s choice to live..

Greg T. Nanni (he/him) is a playwright, comic book writer, dramaturg, educator, solo show performer, and Philadelphian living in the NYC area. Most of Greg’s work focuses on the foreboding secrets that exist inside of us that we are innately afraid of sharing, and everything we do to hide and keep that secret out of fear. He  writes to tell heartfelt stories of the human experience, with the peaks of humor and valleys of humanistic ennui creating the roller coaster audiences find rewarding to go on. He was a member of Witherspoon Circle, Passage Play Lab, Cut/Edge Collective, a former Playwright in Residence at Plays & Players, and served as President of the Philadelphia Dramatists’ Center. As Dramaturg, he was the former Literary Manager of the Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium, and assisted Kristina Wong and Aaron Malkin on the inaugural production of KRISTINA WONG, SWEATSHOP OVERLORD (New York Theatre Workshop). He’s written over 20 full length plays, including: LONELINESS (Columbia University Workshop 2020), THE BEAR IS HERE (BAPF Semi-Finalist), RAGE (Emerson Stage NewFest Workshop 2022), LOVE (AMONG DREAMERS) (Broadway For All’s THE HOUSE Workshop 2023), and THE BODY FILTERS  (the cell theatre Residency 2025). He is a recipient of the MFA in Playwriting at Columbia University, where he was awarded the Dean’s Fellowship. gregnanni.com

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One hot June evening. Two semi-estranged sisters. An urn full of ashes. A circle of salt. Rory and Norah reunite on the banks of the Wabash River to fulfill their father’s last wishes. As night falls, memories surface, old scars rip open, and new truths surge out, conjuring Nature itself to intervene. Rory and Norah must grapple with the impact of choices made long ago if they wish to survive. What happens when reaching for freedom means leaving someone behind?

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christina michelle watkins (she/her) is a BlackQueer neuroexpansive writer, performer, tarot reader, and licensed clinical therapist. She was raised in Georgia, bounced to the Midwest for young adulthood, and has called California home for over a decade. Stories and relationships— listening to them, creating them, reconstructing them, performing them, connecting them— are a consistent thread in her life and work. She’s currently exploring the nonlinear nature of time, trauma/healing, mysticism, and how one survives the end of one world while creating the next. Artistic highlights include: kumrad’s won’t, (Overall Excellence in Playwriting Award, New York International Fringe Festival 2013); The New Harmony Project (selected writer, 2022; Community Care Facilitator 2023-present); By the Banks (Bay Area Playwrights Festival 2026; Finalist, Fault Line’s Irons in the Fire 2025).  Her favorite colors are honey yellow and oxblood red. Popsicles are her dessert of choice. Find her at christinamichellewatkins.com or on NPX.

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