Playwright Discovery Award Teacher's Guide - The John F. Kennedy ...

Contributors
Lenora Inez Brown | Project Coordinator and Editor is the former Head of the Dramaturgy and
Dramatic Criticism program at The Theatre School at DePaul University. She has worked with writers at the
Sundance Theatre Lab, Pacific Playwright’s Festival, The Kennedy Center’s New Vision/New Voices, and
other development conferences. She has developed a number of award-winning and award-nominated
plays including It Ain’t Nothing But the Blues, which received a Tony ® nomination for Best Book. While
working with American Theatre magazine, she helped curate the magazine’s first-ever disability-focused
issue, which Kathleen Tolan guest edited. She is the author of The Art of Active Dramaturgy: Transforming
Critical Thought into Dramatic Action. She has a BA in Art History from Dartmouth College and an MFA
in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism from the Yale School of Drama.
Liz Brown | Graphic Designer is the founder of Lizzebizz Graphics and former Visual Director for
CakeLove, the award-winning gourmet bakery in Washington, DC. She has created innovative print and
web collateral materials for leading organizations for over a decade including DeutschLA, The Cleveland
Clinic Foundation, and The National Urban Alliance for Effective Education. Liz has a BFA in Illustration
and Graphics from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in Film from CalArts.
Jonathan Dorf | Contributor, Acts II & IV is best known for his plays for teens, which include:
4 A.M., After Math, Thank You for Flushing My Head in the Toilet and other rarely used expressions,
Rumors of Polar Bears, and High School (non) Musical. Over 400 productions of his work have taken
place throughout the United States and Canada, as well in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Africa, and
Asia. He is the co-founder of YouthPLAYS, an online publisher of plays for young people. He authored
Young Playwrights 101, a complete textbook for young playwrights and those who teach them, and
Playwriting101.com, Google’s top-ranked playwriting site. He holds a BA from Harvard University and an
MFA in Playwriting from UCLA.
Dr. Carrie Sandahl | Contributor, Act I is an Associate Professor in the Department of Disability
and Human Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is the head of the new Program on
Disability Art, Culture, and Humanities, which is devoted to research on and the creation of disability art.
This program also serves as the new administrative home for Chicago’s Bodies of Work, an organization
that supports city-wide disability arts festivals and that promotes disability arts and culture year-round.
Carrie has published numerous research articles and an anthology she co-edited with Philip Auslander,
entitled Bodies in Commotion: Disability and Performance, garnered the Association for Theatre in Higher
Education’s award for Outstanding Book in Theatre Practice and Pedagogy in 2006.
Christopher Simler | Contributor, Act I is the Chief Executive Officer and Disability Outreach
Consultant for Integrated Behavioral Systems, Inc., and is an Adjunct Professor at Elmhurst College. He
has written several articles, which have been published in the magazines for the Foster Care Support
Network and Adult Family Caregivers Network, among others. Christopher has designed new teaching
methodologies and restructured the environments in both public and private schools’ behavioral and
transition programs. •
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