First Online With Fran

What I hope to do with this show is to talk about my life...about always trying to belong, but then the ultimate challenge of belonging which is becoming a wheelchair user because you're going to stand out in any kind of way. I hope with audiences what comes out is a partnership which is the theme. Let me tell you what I'm talking about, what you won't know unless you're a wheelchair user. I want people not to feel like I'm preaching at them. I'm coming to tell you what it's like and that's my goal --to have humor in it, to have advocacy in it, but to have people in the end feel like they're a team with me or like their allies...not to feel ashamed or embarrassed. This is not a victim story by any means. ~ Diana RomeroDiana Romero Writer - Producer - Performer - Activist. I’m an award-winning writer/producer based in Los Angeles, specializing in detective procedurals, true crime, and family dramas. As a former social worker, I supported at-risk youth, which sparked my passion for social justice. My experiences led to Niña Quebrada, an award-winning film on sex trafficking, which screened at festivals and conferences internationally.

We are making sure that the arts remain independent, well-funded, and accessible for all. Anytime anything rears its ugly head to challenge that, we will be there fighting for you. ~Erica Lauren OrtizErica Lauren Ortiz (she/her) is a seasoned non-profit leader, arts advocate, and creative producer with deep roots in theatre, media, and cultural strategy. She currently serves as the Lead of Advocacy & Governance Programs at Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization at the forefront of building a just and thriving theatre ecology.

Our nuclear security has been compromised and that really is a dangerous situation because all of our nuclear sites are nuclear power plants, or they are a theoretically defunct site like where nuclear Hanford doesn't occur anymore, but it represents three super-fund sites that need to be cleaned up because of the amount of nuclear waste. What has been a really good outcome of [writing this book] is this being in the news again, people are starting to understand what a threat the amount of nuclear waste that's already been created can be to the public at large, because nuclear waste is volatile. Kay Smith-Blum, a former fashionista and Seattle School Board President, spends her days debunking the tropes of the mid-20th-century history. An odd dream and the recent upheaval over leaking radioactive waste tanks at the Hanford Nuclear site compelled her to write, TANGLES, named 2024 Book of the Year by the Literary Global Book Awards and Best Debut Fiction by the American Writing Awards 2024.

Whether it's about immigrants, Iranians, Lebanese people or Jews in Warsaw or transgender characters or whatever those characters may be, I feel that, especially theatre, is like a mirror that you hold up to society either to its past, its possible future, its darknesses, its lightness -- things that we don't want to engage with every day in life because it actually has real-day consequences, but as actors we get to share that with people to have that experience with us, and I think it changes people. Pooya Mohseni is a multi-award-winning Iranian American actor, writer, filmmaker and transgender activist. She is making her Broadway debut in Sanaz Toossi's Pulitzer winning play "English" at the Roundabout Theater.

I love writing about women because this is how women are, and we're so diverse, right? We show our power in so many different ways, and sometimes it's not a lot of lines in the play; sometimes, it's just the way they show up. Cynthia Grace Robinson playwright/screenwriter/lyricist was born and raised in The Bronx, New York. "I use my platform as a Writer to amplify the voices of characters and narratives rarely portrayed on stage and screen. I believe as storytellers we have a unique opportunity to broaden the spectrum and deepen the complexity of the stories we choose to tell."

What is central to my work is comedy. For me, there is a desperation in comedy that's very theatrical. And that you can ultimately get a play to a place where everybody wants to just kill themselves or they can tell a joke. So, to me, that's often where they often land. These are your choices: you can kill yourself or die or tell a joke. ~Theresa Rebeck Theresa Rebeck is a prolific and widely produced playwright, whose work can be seen and read throughout the United States and abroad. Last season, her fifth Broadway play premiered on Broadway, making Rebeck the most Broadway-produced female playwright of our time.

In BLANK, I wanted to open readers' eyes a little bit more to the inner workings of the publishing world. I started as an aspiring author then became an author ... I was immediately surprised and discouraged by how hard it is for ANY book to find its audience amid all the other books out there in the market. Zibby Owens is the bestselling author of Blank: A Novel, Bookends: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Literature, Princess Charming, and the forthcoming novel Overheard. She is the editor of three anthologies: On Being Jewish Now, Moms Don’t Have Time To Have Kids, and Moms Don’t Have Time To: A Quarantine Anthology. Zibby has regularly contributed to “Good Morning America,” Vogue, Oprah Daily, and many other outlets.

I came to New York to meet people I read about in college like Joe Chaiken and Judith Malina, and I met them! I took workshops with Joe Chaiken, and he was very encouraging, and so how could I NOT stick with it if Joe Chaiken thinks I'm doing okay? It was a dream come true. ~Alyssa SimonAlyssa Simon is an award-winning theatre and film actor, who has performed modern works, classics, cabarets and musicals in the U.S., U.K., Argentina and the Caribbean. She was selected as A Person Of The Year by Martin Denton of nytheatre.com for her acting work and she was also a Master Mason at the Caffe Cino award winning Brick Theatre.