Diagnosed Autistic in her late-20s, Birdie grapples with the fear of sharing her disability and traumatic childhood with her new partner, Lin, who seems to be hiding something herself. With the guidance of her therapist, Sy, Birdie travels through the un/familiar forest of her subconscious mind, hounded by howling that’s growing closer as past and present reality blur with memory and dream. When she seeks the shelter of a Gingerbread House deep within the forest, Birdie must find a way to contend with the wolves at her door.

Jordan Bird (she/her) is a neurodivergent theatre artist creating work at the intersection of the spiritually weird and oddly embodied. Her work provokes conversations around disability and trauma, and challenges the way the Other (disabled/marginalized/vulnerable) is told to exist in a world built for the privileged/secure/abled. In addition to being a selection for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival 47, Howling: A Fairy Tale has been recognized by the O’Neill NPC (Finalist, 2023), Bay Street Theatre’s Title Wave New Works Festival (Finalist, 2023), Normal Avenue’s NAP Series (Finalist, 2023), The Blue Ink Award (Semifinalist, 2024), and the DGF’s Virtual Playwriting Fellowship (Semifinalist, 2023). Other plays have been recognized or developed by the O’Neill NPC (Down Cellar, 2025; Poison Tree, 2024), the Workshop Theatre (Down Cellar, 2023), the Digital Dramaturgy Project (Poison Tree, 2024), Inkwell Theatre’s LAB Series (A Witness, 2021), among others, and her play Resurrection is published through Next Stage Press. Jordan has also served as a dramaturg, script evaluator, and freelance educator for 2 decades and is a Board Member at Barking Legs Theater in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She has been a member of the Dramatists Guild since 2012, and you can find out more about her work on the New Play Exchange and at www.Jordan-Bird.com. Jordan lives on the land that was cared for and shared by the Tsalaguwetiyi (Eastern Band of Cherokee), S’atsoyaha (Yuchi), and Miccosukee peoples, land that continues to be honored and protected by the Indigenous presence that remains in East Tennessee.

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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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