Paula Ali is a Persian American performer, director, and storyteller from Nashville, Tennessee. A BFA Musical Theatre graduate of Auburn University and CAP21 conservatory alum, she creates bold, movement-driven work that centers Femme-identifying people of color, body inclusivity, joy, and radical honesty.

Her directing credits include *he last time I saw caleigh Tour, The Jason Williams Experience (Alvin Ailey), The Bad in Each Other by Alexander Perez (The Tank), 7 Actors 1 Room by Matthew Keaton, and her self-produced dance film What If?, which she also created and starred in. As a performer, her credits include Randy’s Dandy Coaster Castle (IRT), Q2 (New Harmony Project), Cabaret (Helga), God Learns of the Death of Harambe (God), Cry-Baby, and Once Upon a Mattress (Winifred). She has also been in many readings and presentations for new upcoming plays and musicals all around the city. She has also worked as an associate and assistant director on projects including Chicken & Biscuits (Broadway), CATS: The Jellicle Ball (PAC NYC), and Patience (Second Stage Uptown).

Ali is a member of the SWANA Writing Co-op and an artist working with the collective WILDEHAUS. She is currently developing her one-woman show, Passport to Paula, an evolving exploration of identity, heritage, womanhood, and the stories that shape us.

Deeply rooted in her Persian-Iranian, and Southern identities, her work amplifies voices too often unheard and approaches storytelling as an act of connection, liberation, and visibility. @notpaulaabdulnyc www.paulaali.com

Cathleen Dean is an Emmy Award–winning filmmaker, visual artist, photographer, and cultural storyteller whose work explores history, memory, identity, and the experiences of communities across Florida and the African diaspora. Her interdisciplinary practice spans documentary film, photography, public art, and community-engaged storytelling. Her acclaimed documentary Wade in the Water: Drowning in Racism received an Emmy Award, and her films have screened at festivals in the United States and Caribbean and aired on public television. A graduate of Columbia University and the University of Miami’s cinematic arts program, Dean creates work that brings overlooked histories into conversation with the present.

Nathan Kelly is a professor of music and composer working across the recording industry, motion pictures, and the concert stage. Having studied at the Juilliard School, the University of Southern California, and the University of Oxford, he holds a Ph.D. in Music Composition and an M.B.A. in Entertainment Business. He has also attended festivals and academies including Aspen, Tanglewood, and the American Academy in Rome; received honors from the NY Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Fulbright; and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Grammy® Voting Member.

He has worked for 16-time Grammy winner David Foster at Verve Records (Universal Music Group) and Warner Music Group; as Executive Director of non-profit music festivals in New York City; as Music Coordinator for Hollywood films, including West Side Story, directed by Steven Spielberg; and as a composer assistant to André Previn, Marc Shaiman, and Stephen Schwartz.

His musical arrangements and orchestrations have appeared on the Billboard Top 10 with artists including Andrea Bocelli, Rod Stewart, AJR, Jennifer Lopez, Bryan Adams, Jessye Norman, Sparks, Audra McDonald, Michael Bublé, and more. His concert works have been performed by nearly 100 ensembles worldwide, including the Boston Pops, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the Chicago Philharmonic. A passionate advocate for arts education, he has taught music and music business at several universities, summer festivals, and conservatories across the United States, Canada, and Europe.

Nell Breyer is an artist working at the intersection of media, movement and the public domain. She enlists approaches from neuroscience, art and engineering to understand contemporary practices in media and performance shaping our public spaces. Her research explores how we perceive and understand human movement and its impact on our surroundings.

Her work has been shown internationally in art institutes (MART / Museum of Modern Art, Trento/Rovereto, Sadler’s Wells Peacock Theatre, Cankarjev Dom, The Bangladesh National Museum, National Academy of Sciences, Contemporary Art Museum St Louis, MASS MoCA, The Philadelphia Art Alliance, Carroll and Sons) and urban settings (Boston City Hall, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, The World Financial Center, The Big Screen Project etc). Her work has received support from New York City’s Artists Corps Grants and the Garment District Alliance, The Boston Foundation, The Trust For Mutual Understanding, Impulstanz Vienna, Kaleidoscope/ UNESCO, Sadler’s Wells Peacock Theatre, LEF New England, Massachusetts Cultural Council, New England Foundation for the Art’s (NDP), Baryshnikov Arts Center, Dance Theater Workshop and the Council for the Arts at MIT.

Nell was a Research Affiliate at MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies and the Program in Art, Culture and Technology from 2002-2010; a Digital Fellow at Dance Theater Workshop (2004) and Baryshnikov Arts Center (2009). She was an artist fellow at the Bogliasco Foundation (2026, 2022), Cycladic Arts (2025), Keshet Art Center (2025) and Trestle Gallery (2019/20).

Nell studied painting at Yale University (BA, 1994), and Cognitive Neuroscience at Oxford University (MSc, 1997). She completed a Masters in Media, Arts and Sciences from MIT in 2002 and a doctorate at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design in 2011. She has taught at Massachusetts College of Art and Design and at RISD’s Digital + Media department and has served as an invited guest lecturer and critic for graduate level students at Columbia University, Visual Arts Department, Tufts and Boston Conservatory at Berklee College, Dance Division. Her articles and publications can be found in the Brooklyn Rail (2023-25), Journal for Artistic Research (2011), Movement Research Journal (2011), and ISMAR 2010 Art, Media and Humanities (2010).

Justin LaRocca Hansen is a watercolor painter based in Cataumet, MA specializing in landscapes and marine life. Justin received his BFA from Ringling College of Art and Design where he majored in Illustration. Shortly after college, Justin moved to New York City where he pursued his dreams of writing and illustrating. In 2012, he published his first picture book, Monster Hunter, published by Sky Pony Press and soon after signed a three book deal from Dial Books for his graphic novel trilogy Secondhand Heroes. After the release of the final book of the trilogy, Justin began exploring storytelling in the paintings of one of his greatest loves, the land, sea and animals of his home, Cape Cod. After working in the kid lit space for over a decade, Justin became invigorated and enamored with developing his watercolor skills with deeper precision. Justin works full time as a watercolor painter, showing his work in shows and galleries in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Cape Cod and is represented by the Greg Salvatori Gallery in Provincetown. He resides in Cataumet, MA with his wife and collection of Springsteen records.

Anne Krinsky works across paint, print, photography and video, informed by archival and geographical research. Her solo shows include The Worthing Art Museum, Worthing, England; The Brunel Museum, London; The Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, Massachusetts; Andrea Marquit Fine Arts, Boston; Soprafina Gallery, Boston; and her 10-year retrospective at the Trustman Gallery at Simmons College, Boston.

Fascinated by the passage of time and the ephemeral nature of the physical world, she has been working on a project about vulnerable wetlands and climate change that began in the Thames Estuary in 2018. She has since expanded her research through grants, residencies and exhibitions in the US, UK and Germany.

Krinsky is drawn to habitat edges – where land meets water, where freshwater meets the sea, and where nature collides with human activity. Her water-themed public projects include Wavelengths, a video installation shown atop San Francisco’s Salesforce Tower (2026); Wetlands Shifting Shorelines, a print installation on the seafront in Worthing, England (2022); and Tropical Thames, an installation in Crossrail Place Roof Garden, London, commissioned by Canary Wharf Arts (2017).

Awarded grants include an Artists International Development Fund Grant; a California Quick Grant (Center for Cultural Innovation); three Arts Council England Grants; and two Bursaries from a-n The Artists Information Company. The British Museum, Boston Public Library, collector Graham Gund, and Paintings in Hospitals England have acquired her work.

Gretchen Somerfeld attended Cornell University as an English Literature major and graduated from NYU Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in Film and Television. She received Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grants for her screenplay FACE VALUE on actress/inventor Hedy Lamarr, and the script was one of twelve chosen for The Writers Lab, supported by Meryl Streep & Nicole Kidman. FACE VALUE was rewritten and retitled SECRET WEAPON, and went on to receive the Zoetrope honor from Francis Ford Coppola and financing from Goldcrest Films with Oscar-winning actor Rachel Weisz attached.

Somerfeld has also written, directed and produced a feature and five award-winning short films, several of which were sold to U.S. and European television. While working on other original screenplays, as well as commissions, she has been an invited resident at Yaddo, MacDowell and Hawthornden Castle in Scotland.

She has recently produced a web series, MY MOVE TO CANADA, in conjunction with writing her first novel, STRADDLER.

Bonnie Chau is the author of the short story collection All Roads Lead to Blood, and a contributor to the translation anthology Nineteen Ways of Looking at Awono, among other writings. Previously an editor at 4Columns, she currently works on the Evergreen Review and Public Books, and serves on the boards of the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) and Art Farm Nebraska.

Julia Izumi’s works include Regretfully, So the Birds Are (Playwrights Horizons/WP Theater), Akira Kurosawa Explains His Movies and Yogurt… (Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company/New Georges), miku, and the gods. (ArtsWest), Sometimes the Rain, Sometimes the Sea (Rorschach Theatre, Helen Hayes Award Nomination), and others. Her work has been developed at MTC, Clubbed Thumb, Berkeley Rep, Portland Center Stage, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Ojai Playwrights Conference, and more. Honors include the Kerry English Award and KCACTF’s Darrell Ayers Playwriting Award. Former Civilians R&D Group, Clubbed Thumb ECWG Member, and Four Seasons Resident. Current New Dramatists Resident. Current commissions: True Love Productions, MTC/Sloan, Seattle Rep. MFA: Brown University. www.juliaizumi.com

Rich Orloff is a playwright, poet and storyteller. Rich has presented his one-person show IT’S A BEAUTIFUL WOUND around the country and Europe, performing at theaters and for holistic health groups. Author of 18 full-length plays (mostly comedies and mostly award-winning) and over 80 short plays, which have had over 2400 productions on six continents – and a staged reading on Antarctica. The New York Times named his comedy FUNNY AS A CRUTCH a Critic’s Pick, and his comedy ROMANTIC FOOLS (which premiered at the Key West Theatre Festival) has had over 120 productions around the world, including two in Madrid, where apparently they have more romantic problems than the rest of us. His musical comedy ESTHER IN THE SPOTLIGHT has been performed in New York, Miami, Toronto and Tel Aviv, and his educational children’s play SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS FIGHT TUBERCULOSIS TOGETHER was a big hit in Kosovo. His spiritually infused poems have a weekly readership of over 2000 ministers, rabbis and friends, and they’ve been presented at churches and synagogues, performed in theaters and schools, read at meditation and yoga groups, and spoken at events both lofty and intimate. He has no idea what he’s going to do next. richorloff.com

Quimetta Perle is an American artist of Spanish and Jewish descent. Born in Washington, DC, she maintains a studio in Delray Beach, FL and Brooklyn, NY. She earned a BFA from Minneapolis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Digital Arts from the School of Visual Arts. She has been a feminist artist and activist since the 1970’s, and was a member of WARM Gallery, a women’s collective in Minneapolis in the 70’s/80’s. She has had numerous solo exhibitions, including at the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County, Arts Warehouse in Delray, Stand4 Gallery in Brooklyn, Carter Burden Gallery, Soho 20, Brooklyn Polytechnic and Lesley University’s Marron Gallery, and numerous group exhibitions in museums and galleries nationally and in the UK. In 2026, the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County awarded her an Innovation Fellowship. The City of West Palm Beach commissioned her to create a series of 17 textile hangings for the Mandel Library. In addition to her studio work, she is the former Director of the HAI Art Studio and Gallery in New York, which served artists with mental illness; and led YAI Arts, another inclusive studio, for which she now serves as an artist mentor.

Igor Golyak is an internationally recognized theater director who transforms classical and contemporary works into groundbreaking productions that reach audiences in 55+ countries. Golyak has been called “among the most inventive directors working in the United States” (New York Times, 2 Critics’ Picks) and “genius” (Boston Globe). Winner of 4 Lucille Lortel Awards and 5 Elliot Norton Awards, Golyak has been featured on Good Morning America and profiled by The New York Times for directing Mikhail Baryshnikov and collaborating with Jessica Hecht and Bill Irwin at Lincoln Center, BAM, and the Baryshnikov Arts Center.

Golyak is a Ukrainian-American with an MFA in directing from the Russian Institute of Theatre Arts in Moscow. He and his family immigrated to the U.S. as refugees when he was a child. He founded Arlekin Players Theatre in a Boston suburb in 2009 (30+ productions), now a beloved fixture in the Boston theater scene, with productions traveling to New York, San Francisco and beyond. A former Boston Conservatory professor, during the pandemic Golyak attracted critical acclaim and A-list attention for his pioneering virtual theater that reached 50,000+ viewers globally.

Golyak now brings together top talent in prestigious venues to create theater that beautifully builds empathy and belonging through what he calls “the most practical magic we possess.” Having only discovered his Jewish heritage at age 7, he now frequently explores Jewish themes in his work, such as in two of his signature pieces: Our Class and The Dybbuk. He was also invited in 2025 to direct Anna Ziegler’s The Wanderers at the Marylebone Theatre in London. Displacement, alienation, love and survival are the raw material from which Golyak creates what Tony-nominee Jessica Hecht calls a “universal language that deeply moves people.”

Most recently, Golyak directed Delirium – his adaptation of Ionesco’s Délire à deux – to high critical acclaim at the Boston Center for the Arts, starring Russian A-list actors Chulpan Khamatova and Andrey Burkovskiy. The production is transferring to Brooklyn where it will open for an 11-week run at The Space at Irondale in September. Producers and artistic directors seek Golyak to transform their stages into spaces where, as Baryshnikov states, “even during the dark days there is artistic possibility.”

Tori Karpenko is a visual artist from the town of Twisp, Washington, located in the North Cascades mountain range. He studied art at Drake University and the San Lorenzo de Medici Institute of Italian Studies in Florence, Italy. Karpenko is represented by Traver Gallery in Seattle, Washington, and was recently commissioned to create a large installation for the Seattle Art Fair. In addition to his studio practice of almost thirty years, he works part time as the Director of Campus Operations at TwispWorks, a non-profit repurposing a 6.4 acre complex into a hub for the creative economy.

Dan McCabe is a graduate of the Lila Acheson Wallace Playwriting Fellowship at The Juilliard School. His play, The Purists, premiered at The Huntington Theater Company in 2019, directed by Billy Porter. It won The Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Production and the M. Elizabeth Osborn Award for New Play. The Purists had its UK premiere in the fall of 2024 at The Kiln Theatre in London directed by artistic director Amit Sharma. It is published by Bloomsbury. His plays have been produced and developed at Steppenwolf, New York Stage and Film, The New Group, The LAByrinth Theatre Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Huntington Theatre, The Flea Theater, The Juilliard School, Stella Adler, Laguardia College and more. He has developed TV and Film projects for Warner Bros, Peacock and Allen Media Group. Other plays include Mom’s Best Friend, An Old Love Story and Blame The Parents. He is currently working on his first novel, The Grandma Projects.

Joe Gulla is a New York City-based playwright, actor, and author. His award-winning plays including The Bronx Queen, Garbo, Sleeping with the Fish, Members Only, and My Darling Love have been produced nationally and internationally. He regularly performs at legendary NYC venues including 54 Below, Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater, and Theatre Row.

In April 2026, Gulla published his memoir, Last August: Love in the Time of Alzheimer’s, through Archway Publishing from Simon & Schuster. The book has resonated deeply with caregivers nationwide and ranks in the top 50 ebooks on Amazon. As an actor, his film work includes Guns Up! with Kevin James and Poker Face. Gulla is a member of SAG-AFTRA, Actors’ Equity Association, and The Dramatists Guild.

Massiel Mafes is a Cuban-American artist based in New York City, originally from Miami, FL. Her work centers on storytelling through painting and textiles, delving into themes of home, longing, and connection. Mafes earned her MFA from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. She is the recipient of the 2025 AIM Fellowship at The Bronx Museum, the Bronx Council on the Arts BRIO Award, and the LMCC Creative Engagement Grant, and has exhibited her work in New York, San Francisco, and Philadelphia. Mafes has also participated in residencies at ChaNorth Artist Residency, The Sam and Adele Golden Foundation for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center, and JOYA: arte + ecología.

Giovanni Mercatelli is a figurative painter based in Bologna, Italy, working in oil, acrylic, pastels, and collage on canvas. His paintings unfold through rich, physical layers, where an image is created, disrupted, and lovingly rebuilt, allowing earlier gestures and ideas to remain visible beneath the surface.

Mercatelli works intuitively, following the painting as it develops rather than beginning with a fixed plan. Each canvas becomes a process of discovery, with unexpected forms and connections emerging along the way. His path to painting has been equally open and unconventional, shaped by studies in Industrial Design in the Netherlands and a master’s degree in Industrial Ecology at Leiden University. Mercatelli first visited and lived in Key West in 2020, and the experience left a lasting impression. The island continues to be an important source of inspiration and a formative reference point in his work, connecting his intuitive approach to painting with the distinctive tropical light, and free spirit that make Key West so unique.

His recent solo exhibitions include Dal Mondo Piccolo at Galleria Forni, Bologna, and Drifting in the Keys at Gallery on Greene, Key West, both in 2025, and his work was presented at ArteFiera Bologna in 2026.

ARTIST SERGIO BARADAT DESIGNS TRAVEL THE WORLD

By Barbara Nessim

Sergio Baradat is a Cuban-born, New York–based multidisciplinary artist, and designer renowned for his distinctive blend of classical aesthetics with modern sensibilities. He served as an Art Director for the United Nations Postal Administration (UNPA) within the Office of Global Graphics and Communications.

Raised in Miami after immigrating from Havana, Baradat’s early exposure to the city’s iconic Art Deco architecture deeply influenced his artistic style. He draws inspiration from early 20th-century artists like Brancusi, Arp, Gris, Dupas, and Erté. He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design in New York City.

Baradat’s prolific career includes designing over 100 postage stamps for both the United Nations and the United States Postal Service. His work often addresses global themes such as human rights, mental health, biodiversity, and cultural heritage. Notable projects include the UN’s “Free & Equal” campaign promoting LGBTQ+ equality and commemorative stamps for the 150th anniversary of the Universal Postal Union.

His art has been featured in prestigious publications like Vogue and GQ and has been exhibited at institutions including the Cooper Hewitt Museum of Design in New York, the Smithsonian’s Postal Museum in Washington, D.C., and The White House. Baradat’s work is also included in the permanent collections of the Cooper Hewitt Museum, the Smithsonian Postal Museum, and the Cuban Heritage Collection in Miami.

Baradat’s diverse portfolio encompasses illustration, printmaking, collage, and photography. His creations are characterized by bold forms, rich colors, and a fusion of historical and contemporary design elements. He describes his approach as combining the roles of anthropologist, futurist, strategist, and designer to produce layered, thought-provoking work.

Today you can find Sergio at the helm of his busy design studio. He and his designers are working on many high profile projects.

or more information or to view his portfolio, visit his official website at baradat.com.

Jim Ostlund followed his interest in art at the age of 14, when he enrolled in the correspondence course, Art Instruction School. He later attended and graduated from the American Academy of Art in Chicago followed by a four year apprenticeship in the Atelier of Richard Lack. It was in Lack’s atelier that Jim studied techniques of the Old Masters as well as the art of seeing, as implemented and practiced by the 19th century impressionists.

He later had the opportunity to move to Florence, Italy were he was to teach at the Florence Academy of Art. Jim has spent close to 40 years painting both watercolors and oil. He currently works in oils, painting from life, in the form of still lifes, landscapes and portraits. Throughout the years he has taught many workshops, exhibited works in galleries while also painting corporate as well as private individual and family portraits.
He maintains a studio, along with his wife Michele, also an artist, in the small town of Marshall, North Carolina. When not in the studio, they may be seen on the road, in search of new subject matter to paint landscapes, en plein air.

Melissa Chan is an Emmy-nominated journalist based in Berlin. She has reported everywhere from Cuba to Canada, Mongolia to Moscow, North and South Korea. These days she focuses on transnational issues, often involving China’s influence beyond its borders, as well as the rise of global authoritarianism and ebb of democracies. She is co-author of a debut graphic novel, YOU MUST TAKE PART IN REVOLUTION, in collaboration with Chinese Australian artist Badiucao. The work of speculative fiction imagines a fascist US at war with a techno-authoritarian China. MS NOW calls it “a salient warning and a welcome addition to the increasingly popular dystopian literary canon in America.” Melissa has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Time, and more. As a television journalist, she was Al Jazeera’s China correspondent before her expulsion from the country. Subsequently, she has reported from three continents as a correspondent for VICE News Tonight, and is a contributing anchor for European broadcaster DW News. Her work has received numerous awards, including two Human Rights Press Awards from Amnesty and a citation from the Overseas Press Club. She was listed in Foreign Policy’s Pacific Power Index, a list of 25 people shaping the future of US-China relations.

Meredith MacLeod Davidson is a Glasgow-based poet and writer, originally from Virginia. They are the author of Transpiration (ignitionpress, 2025), a pamphlet of poetry which considers the possibilities for intimacy with the natural world around us and with each other. Meredith’s most recent work appears in journals which include The Poetry Review, Foglifter, Perverse, Channel, and Wet Grain.

Brittany Spanos is a pop music journalist who writes the best-selling newsletter BRIT POP on Substack. She most recently worked as a senior writer at Rolling Stone, where she wrote 15+ cover stories on stars like Harry Styles, Adele, Cardi B and more. Spanos has most recently written for Vogue, Pitchfork, The Cut, ELLE, NYLON and The Guardian US. She’s based in Brooklyn.

Wayne White is a painter and installation based in LA. He has had over 40 one man shows of his paintings internationally and 10 installations in museums and art spaces. He worked as a designer in Hollywood prior to the art world and won 4 Emmys for his set design. He was the subject it the award winning documentary “Beauty is Embarrassing” in 2012. Wayne lives in LA with his wife, cartoonist Mimi Pond.

Celine Fitzpatrick is a Chicago-based writer. She earned her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 2023.

Ladee Hubbard is the author of the novels The Talented Ribkins and The Rib King as well as the short story collection The Last Suspicious Holdout. She is a recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, a Berlin Prize, a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award and an Award in Literature from the Academy of Arts and Letter, among other honors. She currently lives in New Orleans, LA

Sandra Jackson-Opoku is the award-winning author of four novels: The River Where Blood is Born, Hot Johnny and the Women Who Loved Him, Savvy Summers and the Sweet Potato, and Savvy Summers and the Po’Boy Perils. Her fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and dramatic works are widely published and produced, appearing most recently in Prairie Schooner, Solstice Literary Magazine, Red Line: Chicago Horror Stories, the overturning: writers respond to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, New Daughters of Africa, Adi Magazine, Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction, the Chicago Humanities Festival, Lifeline Theatre, and others. She also coedited the anthology Revise the Psalm: Work Celebrating the Writing of Gwendolyn Brooks.

Professional recognition includes a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, an American Library Association Black Caucus Award, the Chicago Esteemed Artist Award, the Hearst Foundation James Baldwin Fellowship at MacDowell Arts, the Malice Minotaur Award for First Mystery Novel, and more.

Slyly intense and disarmingly earnest, Trick Locket (Bryn Battani) loves to say the opposite of what she means. With influences ranging from Broadway to David Byrne, she presents her “persona pop” songs with playful deception and theatrical swagger. Props and costumes heighten her stage presence while her songs oscillate between tongue-in-cheek melodrama and raw vulnerability, examining social politics, power dynamics, and other absurdities.

Growing up in Austin, Texas, Bryn immersed herself in the area’s dynamic theater and music scenes, co-producing her debut EP All I Have to Offer You Is Anything You Want with Curtis McMurtry and Diana Burgess (of Austin’s Mother Falcon) in 2020. Her 2023 EP Guest Room ruminates on distance and desire, serving up a strong dose of wit and self-awareness. The juxtaposition of satire and authenticity has always been core to Bryn’s practice—she often utilizes transitions and candid banter in her performances, shifting tone between sympathetic and unsavory as her identity (and jackets) change in tandem.

At the 2026 Cedar Commissions in Minneapolis, Bryn debuted Just For You, a rock opera exploring social media, labor, and the “attention economy.” As the audience interacts with the “Algorithm,” Bryn morphs between unreliable narrators influenced by hidden agendas, blatant biases, and genuine intentions. While continuing to workshop the script, she is currently producing a glitchy, digitally-driven album version of the show set to release in late 2027. Her goal is to expand the possibilities of musical theater by developing scalable, adaptable concept shows that invite audiences to question where they get their information and who they trust.

Hannah Keats received her BFA from the University of North Florida and her MFA in Studio Art from Florida State University. Her interdisciplinary art practice centers on biomorphic sculptural paintings and installations inspired by marine ecosystems and science fiction. Keats received the 2026 Miami University Young Painters Award, juried by Saya Woolfalk, The Puffin Foundation Art and Environmental Activism Award, and has been recognized by the Nature Conservatory for her work addressing shark conservation. Her work has been exhibited in a number of venues including: The Studios of Key West (Key West, FL), The Painting Center (NYC), The Bradbury Art Museum at Arkansas State University (Jonesboro, AR), Fried Fruit Art Space (Wilmington, NC), and the Swan Coach House Gallery (Atlanta, GA). She has also done residencies at Mudhouse (Crete, Greece), On::View (Savannah, GA), and Institut für Alles Mögliche (Berlin, Germany).

Laurie Gwen Shapiro is an award-winning journalist, documentary filmmaker, and author whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, New York, and Slate. She is the author of the bestsellers The Stowaway: A Young Man’s Extraordinary Adventure to Antarctica and The Aviator and the Showman: Amelia Earhart, George Putnam, and the Marriage That Made an American Icon, named one of the best books of the year by NPR, Amazon, The New Yorker, Smithsonian Magazine, The New York Post, and HISTORY.com. She is currently working on a new narrative nonfiction book about Albert Einstein for Viking. Her documentary work earned an Independent Spirit Award for Best Director and an Emmy nomination. She an adjunct professor in the graduate journalism program at NYU.

Find her at lauriegwenshapiro.com.

Hilary Flower is professor of environmental studies at Eckerd College, in St Petersburg, Florida, where she teaches about wetlands and global environmental change and researches how climate change and sea level rise affect the Everglades. Her first book debuted in 2026: The Kite and the Snail: An Endangered Bird, Its Unlikely Prey, and a Story of Hope in a Changing World, published by the University Press of Florida. She writes columns on Florida nature for the Tampa Bay Times, Miami Herald, and Sun Sentinel, and she is a frequent keynote speaker at wildlife and birding festivals. She is currently working on a book about the history–and the future!–of flamingos in Florida.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, Vickie Pierre is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores themes of femininity, mythological and cultural identity, transformation, and historical memory through mixed media artworks including paintings, works on paper, sculpture, and installation. A graduate of the School of Visual Arts, NY, Pierre’s works have been displayed in solo and group exhibitions throughout South Florida, including the Little Haiti Cultural Complex, Miami, Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, Miami, Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, and Boca Raton Museum of Art, among others. Additional venues include the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C., the Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico, Habitation Clément, Martinique, the International Museum of Modest Arts, France, and the Oriente Gallery and the Center for the Development of Arts in Cuba. In 2025, Pierre’s first large-scale solo exhibition was on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, Florida. Pierre was a recipient of the 2017 South Florida Cultural Consortium award. In 2019, the artist was a finalist in the sixth annual Orlando Museum of Art, Florida Prize in Contemporary Art. In 2023, the artist was selected by the Art in Embassies Program to have her artworks displayed in the U.S. Embassy in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Her artworks can be found in private and public collections, including a recent acquisition by the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami.

Pamela Anne Quiroz is the UH CLASS Distinguished Professor of Sociology. In 2019, Professor Quiroz organized the Latino Art Now! in Houston, a four-month citywide Latino art event. With 70 participating organizations, Houston experienced a special opportunity to embrace and empower its Latino arts community and ignite enthusiasm among audiences in Houston and nationally. LAN! Houston culminated in a national forum for Latino artists and art professionals to explore Latino art and its future directions.

Professor Quiroz is also the creative visionary and designer of the Latino cARTographies. Latino cARTographies is a visual digital archive and public knowledge tool created to preserve art, promote Latino artists by driving the visitor directly to the artist (through QR Codes), and educate the public about Latino art and culture. This fully bilingual and user-oriented digital board features more than 5000 images, 365+ artists, video, text, art production and art animated, music, virtual galleries, avatars, virtual reality and digital arts activities. Latino cARTographies is currently located at the Houston’s Children’s Museum, Heritage History Museum, Art Texas Museum, both of Houston’s International airports (their award winning Public Art Program), and Catapult Gallery.

Ghost of a Dream is the collaborative project of Lauren Was and Adam Eckstrom founded in 2008. Ghost of a Dream’s work has been shown in solo exhibitions at the MassArt Art Museum (Boston, MA), Ackland Art Museum (Chapel Hill, NC), Hunterdon Art Museum (Clinton, NJ), and at the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center (Colorado Springs, CO) and in group exhibitions at Crystal Bridges Museum (Bentonville, AR), Courtauld Museum (London, UK), Minneapolis Institute of Art, Frist Center for Visual Arts (Nashville, TN), The Mint Museum (Charlotte, NC), Museum of Craft and Design (San Francisco), and The Textile Museum of Canada (Toronto, CA) among other venues.

Ghost of a Dream has received support from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, Joan Mitchell Foundation, Artist Resource Trust, and the Jerome Foundation. They received the first annual Young Masters Art Prize in London and have participated in artist residencies in Berlin, Basel, Beijing, France, and at venues throughout the US, including Bemis Center, ISCP, Smack Mellon, Wassaic Project, the Joan Mitchell Foundation AIR in New Orleans, Elsewhere Museum, and are alumni of the Rauschenberg Foundation. Ghost of a Dream’s work has been featured in publications including The New York Times, Vogue Magazine, Hyperallergic, BlouinArtinfo, ArtFCity, W Magazine, Interview Magazine, and World of Interiors.”

Connor Greer is a writer originally from Rochester, NY. He is 31 years old, about 73 inches tall, and weighs around 183 pounds. His work has appeared in Bennington Review, Boulevard, and Michigan Quarterly Review, and has been supported by year-long fellowships from the Mitchell Center for the Arts at the University of Houston and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. He has been in residence at Tenjinyama Art Studio in Sapporo, Japan, Dar Meso in Tunis, Tunisia, and NES Listamiðstöð in Skagaströnd, Iceland. He holds an MFA in Fiction from the University of Michigan.

Anthony Thomas Lombardi is a writer, educator, organizer, & romantic in revolt. He is the author of murmurations (YesYes Books, 2025); runs Verses & Voltas, a poetry service specializing in mentorship programming, manuscript consulting & feedback, & more; & has taught or continues to teach with Borough of Manhattan Community College, Paris College of Art, Brooklyn Poets, Poetry Society of America, & community programming throughout New York City. He has received support from the Poetry Project, Jentel Artist Residency, Napa Valley Writer’s Conference, & the Peyton Evans Artist Residency. His work has appeared or will soon in Best New Poets, the Poetry Foundation, Ploughshares, AGNI, Missouri Review, Black Warrior Review, Nashville Review, Narrative Magazine, & elsewhere. From Brooklyn, he is based in Philadelphia with his partner & their myriad critters. He believes in a Free Palestine & thinks you should too.

Sharon Shapiro is an artist whose paintings serve as sites of emotional excavation. She is a painter of women, wildness and spaces where control starts to fray. Through vivid color, gesture, and carefully constructed environments, she explores themes of fragility, agency, and personal reckoning. Rooted in the cultural landscape of the American South, her work centers the female experience, examining the tension between societal expectation and private interiority.

Shapiro has presented solo and two-person exhibitions at Spectrum Fine Art (Seattle, WA), SPRING/BREAK Art Show (New York, NY), Pollinator Art Space (Atlanta, GA), Second Street Gallery (Charlottesville, VA), the Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington (Arlington, VA), Garvey|Simon Projects (New York, NY), and the Gadsden Museum of Art (Gadsden, AL). Her work has also been featured in group exhibitions at Pen + Brush (New York, NY), Tracey Morgan Gallery (Asheville, NC), Ferrara Showman Gallery (New Orleans, LA), The Painting Center (New York, NY), the Center for Maine Contemporary Art (Rockland, ME), the Mint Museum and the McColl Center for the Arts (Charlotte, NC). Her practice has been recognized with numerous awards and grants, including two fellowships from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. She was recently selected for the PEAR residency at The Studios of Key West and has participated in residencies at Ucross Foundation and Jentel. Shapiro’s work has been featured in New American Paintings, Whitewall, Art Spiel, Studio Visit, The Washington Post, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Kolaj Magazine. Her paintings are held in numerous private collections and the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia (MOCA GA), the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), and the American Pavilion Library at Art-Villa Garikula in Kaspi, Georgia. Based in Charlottesville, Virginia, Shapiro was recently selected for the 2026–2027 Made in VA Biennial at Virginia MOCA.