The Barbara Walton Playwrights' Arena

Veronica Carr

Howard University

Veronica Ray Carr is a junior at Howard University from Atlanta, Georgia. She is currently studying TV and Film production with a minor in playwriting. She hopes to write and direct her own films and plays in the future. In addition to this, Veronica enjoys reviewing films, reading, and listening to music in her free time. 

Rose Dallimore

Georgetown University

Rose Dallimore is a member of the Georgetown School of Foreign Service’s Class of 2022, studying International Politics and Theology. Rose is originally from New York City, but she has since lived in North Georgia and Chattanooga, Tennessee. She is now happy to call Washington, D.C. home. She has worked as a teacher, researcher, and writer. In her free time, she is involved in satire, opinion, and poetry writing, campus international relations and pride organizations, and enjoying DC’s restaurant scene. Her love for the absurdity and joy of spaces of human convergence–like gas stations, dating apps, places of worship, and Waffle Houses–informs much of her work.

Fatima Dyfan

Georgetown University

Fatima Dyfan is a Senior at Georgetown University majoring in Government and African-American Studies with a minor in Theater & Performance Studies. A black radical feminist in the making, Fatima hopes to pursue mixed medium writing that illuminates the nuisance of the Black experience. She is the Executive Producer to GU’s Black Theatre Ensemble, for whom she directed for coloured girls... She is currently working on a senior thesis creative project for the TPST and BTE Home Seasons, tentatively titled Sunbath, that remixes memoir, prayer, music and community while engaging black girlhood. Fatima expands her notions of performance by being a cheerleader for Georgetown and resident of Black House.  

Aiyaisha Peoples

Howard University

I am a 4th year Biology major and playwriting minor at the illustrious Howard University

Born in Tallahassee, Florida and raised in Stone Mountain, Georgia; my passions stem from my southern roots to always portray the beauty of storytelling. I double minor in Chemistry & Playwriting, bridging together my love for science and examination to the art of theatrically displaying modern experiences. Wining a regional award with Scholastic & having the opportunity to write, direct, and act in my own play has gifted me with a great dedication to detail and sincerity. Coming from a big, animated family, an energetic & warming personality is what I display not only in my day to day reality, but I make sure it reflects in anything I am writing. At Howard University, I have learned an even greater love for theatre and community with every event I attend, and I intend to continue that. Aside from my usual writing & science, I pour my creativity into several personal projects such as: clothing design, crocheting, & videography. As I enter the final phase of my undergraduate career, I prepare for a graduate school career studying Forensic Pathology. Along with that, I plan to continue my talents in playwriting. I will utilize those skills to give back to my community in whichever way I can, starting with assisting the former theater club I was a part of that further sparked my love for the arts.

Jade Scott

Howard University

Jade Scott is a senior Theatre Technology major, Playwriting minor from Tampa, Florida. She is a writer and producer who received her formal training at the illustrious Howard University (BFA '21).  She is the founder of WGC Productions and she hosts the podcast On Their Way. She enjoys short walks on the beach, long walks through the mountains, and she is trying to learn how to knit, despite the fact that every day it looks more unlikely that she will.

Timmy Sutton

Georgetown University

Timmy Sutton is a 2020 Georgetown graduate (Government & English) and writer of theatre and poetry. A three-time finalist in the Donn B. Murphy One Acts Festival, his work holds it's center of gravity in youth, class, and place. You can find some of his pieces in The Voice, Taco Bell Quarterly, Bossier, and in video form on the Button Poetry YouTube channel. He founded a Spoken Word Group while at Georgetown which catalyzed cross-disciplinary community. You can find him in Mokena, Illinois with his parents and two brothers, whom he loves more than anyone on Earth, searching for the best gas station ICEE and sunsets behind old Taco Bells.

Jocelyn Clarke

Arena Stage Dramaturg and Program Facilitator

JOCELYN CLARKE (Dramaturg) is currently Dramaturg at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. He was Theatre Adviser to the Arts Council of Ireland for ten years. He has taught dramaturgy at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Columbia University and Trinity College Dublin. He was the Commissioning and Literary Manager of the Abbey Theatre for four years, and lead theater critic with The Sunday Tribune for nine years. He is an associate artist with The Civilians and Theatre Mitu in New York. He has written six plays for Anne Bogart and the SITI Company — Bob, Alice’s Adventures Underground, Room, Score, Antigone, Trojan Women (After Euripides), and Chess Game No. 5.  As a dramaturg, he has worked with writers such as Katori Hall, Lydia Diamond, Ayad Akhtar, Lynn Nottage, Taylor Mac, Lisa Kron, Kenneth Lin, Sarah Gancher, Amahl Khouri, Carl Hancock Rux, Aaron Posner, Abhishek Majumdar, Mary Kathryn Nagle, Craig Lucas, Rachel Chavkin, Qui Nguyen, Craig Lucas, Jacqueline Lawton, Samuel D. Hunter, Tanya Saracho, Karen Zacarias, and Marcus Gardley.   He has just finished  working on The Young Offenders television series for the BBC, and with Katori Hall on P-Valley, her new TV series for Starz.

Denise J. Hart

Full Professor, Howard University Department of Theatre Arts

Denise J. Hart is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter. She is a former semi-finalist in the Eugene O'Neil National Playwright's Conference and the Lark Play Development Competition. In 2018, her play, Nothing to Lose, was a semi-finalist in the Bay Area Playwrights Festival and also was a 2012 finalist in the Black and Latino Playwrights' Competition. Her play, The Race Card, has been commissioned by Plowshares Theatre Company for development in 2020/21. Hart is also honored to serve as the featured playwright for the 2020 African American Read-In hosted by Penn State Altoona.

 

Maya E. Roth, Ph.D.

Artistic Director, Davis Performing Arts Center and Della Rosa Associate Professor, Georgetown University

Maya E. Roth serves as Artistic Director of the Davis Performing Arts Center, which she opened at Georgetown University in 2005. An award-winning director, dramaturge, professor and scholar, she specializes in feminist plays and playwrights, cross-cultural adaptations of classics, theater of exile, and new work development. These strands converge in her sustained expertise in the plays of Timberlake Wertenbaker. Maya’s recent major research includes her adaptation of Aphra Behn’s The Rover (2020) and multi-year developmental dramaturgy for Iraqi-American Playwright Heather Raffo on Noura (Shakespeare Theatre and Playwrights Horizon co-premieres, 2018). From 2007-16, she stewarded the Jane Chambers Prize for Feminist Playwriting—whose recent recipients include Martyna Majok (Queens), Claire Chafee (Full/Self), Jen Silverman (Still) and Christine Evans (Trojan Barbie), among others. Her Lesbian & Queer Plays from the Jane Chambers Prize (2019) and Cross-Cultural Plays from the Jane Chambers Prize (2020), coedited with Jen-Scott Mobley, curate a decade of these winners, striving to diversify the field.