Benjamin Benne (he/him) is a playwright and puppeteer. Born and raised in Los Angeles County, he has lived in the Pacific Northwest and Midwest but now resides on the East Coast, where he is an M.F.A. Playwriting candidate at Yale School of Drama. Like Benne himself, his work has been seen coast to coast (and in a few points in the middle), at Boston Court Pasadena (California), Milagro (Oregon), Seattle Repertory Theatre (Washington), A Contemporary Theatre (Washington), Theatre Battery (Washington), Texas Tech University (Texas), Playwrights’ Center (Minnesota), Pillsbury House Theatre (Minnesota), Two River Theater (New Jersey), Eugene O’Neill Theater Center (Connecticut), The Playwrights Realm (New York), Lark Play Development Center (New York), and Roundabout Theatre Company (New York), among others. His gently poetic and quietly explosive plays—including at the very bottom of a body of water, q u e r e n c i a: an imagined autobiography about forbidden fruits, and Alma—feature vivid images that take on deep symbolic resonance; these works center on movement and sensory experiences of the human body to ask existential questions with wit and an expressionistic dramaturgy. He has been the recipient of American Blues Theater’s Blue Ink Playwriting Award, The Kennedy Center’s KCACTF Latinx Playwriting Award, the Robert Chesley/Victor Bumbalo Playwriting Award, Playwrights’ Center’s Jerome Many Voices Fellowship, and the McKnight Fellowship in Playwriting. Benne is represented by Paradigm Talent Agency. benjaminbenne.com.

Catherine María Rodríguez is a story shaper, performance maker, and culture shaker who serves collaboration, community, and lqqks wherever the art takes her and whatever stage it is in. Her craft entails bringing discernment to decision-making and joy to the process. She works from a structural analysis and draws on her skills as a trained facilitator to do so. Black/Latinx feminisms as well as collectivist organizing methods fundamentally inform her arts practice and pathways through the world. A bilingual artist, she has worked with Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Public Theater, Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference, Next Door at NYTW, Ars Nova’s ANT Fest, Yale Repertory Theatre, Baltimore Center Stage, El Círculo Teatral in Mexico, Borderlands Theater, and Steppenwolf Theatre Company, among others. She has organized alongside Unidad Latina en Acción in New Haven, New Sanctuary Coalition in New York City, and Education Based Latino Outreach in Baltimore. A freelance artist, she considers herself a nomad but always names New Orleans and Nicaragua home. catlikemeow.com, @latinadramaturg on Twitter.