Meet the 'Female Festival' Teams
(in alphabetical order)
Eliza Bent
Playwright
The Regulars
Eliza is a playwright and performer based in Brooklyn, NY. Bent’s plays have been developed and presented in productions, readings, and workshops at Clubbed Thumb, the Abrons Arts Center, JACK, the Atlantic, and the Bushwick Starr. Residencies: Berkeley Rep's Ground Floor, SPACE on Ryder Farm, New Georges Audrey Residency, Target Margin Institute Fellow, MacDowell Colony Fellow, currently artist-in-residence at the Abingdon Theatre. Awards/Citations: LMCC procress grant, Critics Pick for Toilet Fire, 2014 Payne Award for Outstanding Theatrical Event. Bent is a former senior editor at American Theatre magazine, a frequent guest artist at the Great Plains Theatre Conference, and an adjunct lecturer in creative writing at Brooklyn College where she received an MFA in playwriting. Her next play BONNIE'S LAST FLIGHT will premiere in February as part of New York Theatre Workshop's Next Door Series directed by Annie Tippe.
Rebecca Cunningham
Director
HASHTAGMETOO...
Rebecca is a theatre director in New York City. Her work has been seen at Signature Theatre, HERE Arts Center, Dixon Place, IRT, Robert Moss Theatre, Paradise Factory, Theatre 54, and The Children’s Museum of Winston-Salem, NC. She attended Pace University where she received her BA in Directing. She is an alum of Directors Lab West and Directors Lab North and a proud Associate Member of SDC. rebeccascunningham.com
Sarah Hughes
Director
The Regulars
Sarah is a director and producer of theater and new media. She’s developed new plays, VR & AR pieces, and immersive installations with a wide range of artists including Eliza Bent, Julia May Jonas, MJ Kaufman, Sibyl Kempson, McFeely Sam Goodman, Graham Sack and Geoff Sobelle. With Elevator Repair Service Sarah worked on Gatz, The Select, Arguendo, Shuffle, and Fondly, Collette Richland. She was Co-Artistic Producer of Target Margin Theater from 2015-17, teaches at Dartmouth College and works as an artistic planning consultant for NYC performance venues. 2016-17 Civilians R&D Lab, Clubbed Thumb 2017-18 Directing Fellow, 2018 New Georges Audrey Resident, 2018-2020 WP Theater Directors Lab. www.sarahcameronhughes.com
Lea McKenna-Garcia
Playwright
HASHTAGMETOO...
Lea is an actor, writer, and singer, based in New York. She trained at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London, England, and has performed at regional theaters across the US, and all around NYC. She studied playwrighting with Arlene Hutton at the prestigious Barrow Group. Hashtag... will be her first full length play. She is also an NLTP resident artist. leamgacts.com
Ren Dara Santiago
Playwright
Eve Angel
Ren is a Fila-Rican playwright from Harlem. Eve Angel was written in 2018 with the support found in Gingold Theatrical Groups’ The Speaker’s Corner, Clubbed Thumb’s Early-Career Writer’s Group; paired with mentor-playwright Erin Courtney and the Playwriting Mentorship Residency at SPACE on Ryder Farm mentored by Adam Bock. The Siblings Play has had development at The Cherry Lane Theatre (Mentor Project), Labyrinth Theater, MCC Theater, Ojai Playwrights Conference, and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. She is a guest teaching artist at The National Theater Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. Ren is a former Artistic Producer and founding member of Middle Voice at Rattlestick and an eternal member of The Baldwin Project by Lucy Thurber, who has mentored her since adolescence.
Jenna Worsham
Director
Eve Angel
Stage Director, Activist. Broadway: The Parisian Woman, Picnic, The Heidi Chronicles (Associate Director). Off-Broadway/Regional: AGNES by Catya McMullen (59E59, NY Times Critic’s Pick); Belleville (Pasadena Playhouse); Wonder Boi (NYMF); Dear (MCC, PlayLabs); Blue Ridge by Abby Rosebrock (Williamstown); The Siblings Play by Ren Dara Santiago (Cherry Lane); Street Children by Pia Scala-Zankel (New Ohio, NY Times Critics’ Pick); Gun Country (A.R.T/New York); The First Immigrant by Martyna Majok (Williamstown); East Coast Curriculum by Lucy Thurber (Lee Strasberg Institute); Here to Be Seen (commission from the Brooklyn DA), and The Vagina Monologues for Taconic Correctional Facility. Jena has developed work at MCC, Playwrights Horizons, The Public, Labyrinth, EST/Youngblood, Primary Stages, among others. She is a 2018 National Directing Fellow at The O’Neill Theater Center, as well as the recipient of a Drama League Directing Fellowship, a Jonathan Alper Award (MTC) and two SDCF Observerships.