Playwright | LEVY LEE SIMON

Multiple award winning writer, actor, director, and producer, Levy Lee Simon is originally from Harlem, USA, and a graduate of the University of Iowa Playwright’s Workshop, MFA. His award winning plays include: For the Love of Freedom - Trilogy (Two NAACP Nominations for Best Playwright and an Ovation Nomination for Best Full Length Play,) The Bow Wow Club (Lorraine Hansberry Award – Best Full Length Play – National Black Theatre Festival selection), Same Train (OOBR Award – Best Play), Smell the Power (New Voices Playwriting Award Best Play), and The Guest at Central Park West (Audelco Award – Best Playwright and Dramatic Production of the Year). Other plays include: The Stuttering Preacher, Caseload, God the Crackhouse and the Devil, The Last Revolutionary, The Magnificent Dunbar Hotel, and Gentrified – Metaphor of the Drums. As an actor, he has appeared performed in over sixty productions On Broadway, Off-Broadway, Regional Theatres, England, and the Caribbean. LL has optioned film scripts to studios in Hollywood and New York. His first feature film, The Last Revolutionary, written by and starring Levy Lee, premiered at the Pan African Film Festival 2017, and can now be seen on Amazonprime.com. Levy Lee, as he prefers to be called, is a proud artist and thespian always seeking to create work that entertains while inspiring and motivating change.

Director | MARY BETH EASLEY

Mary Beth Easley is the DEO of the Department of Theatre Arts. Focusing on new play development, intercultural theatre expression, and outreach to under-represented urban and rural communities where she utilizes devised theatre as a means to deepen awareness and foment change, Ms. Easley has been directing plays, coaching, and teaching acting in New York City for many years. She has directed Off-Broadway and in regional theatres throughout the Midwest. Her work has been featured at The Bushwick Starr, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Circle Rep, The Women’s Project, The New Federal Theater, and LaMama ETC, among others. At Theater de la Jeune Lune, MN, she directed Krasang Tree, an intercultural chamber-opera, developed with Cambodian poet, U Sam Oeur. She directed NYC premieres of Levy Lee Simon’s God, the Crackhouse and the Devil (LaMama), and Caseload (The Workshop Theatre). With Mr. Simon and composer-lyricist, Mark Bruckner, she created Same Train, a spoken-word musical, produced at Algonquin Theater in NYC, and featured as a main-stage production at the 2011 National Black Theater Festival. In March 2012, she directed the NYC premiere of Jeffrey Sweet’s Court-Martial at Fort Devens for Woodie King’s New Federal Theatre, earning an Audelco Award for Best Direction of a Dramatic Production. In the Spring of 2014, she directed the premiere of William Burke’s the food was terrible for the Bushwick Starr, which received a critic’s pick from Time Out New York. She worked with Randy Noojin on the development of his one-person show Seeger, which played at the 2016 New York Fringe Festival and is currently touring. A guest director and responder at the Great Plains Theater Conference since 2013, Ms. Easley is currently working with composer Mark Bruckner and author Diane Glancy (an alum of the UI Writer’s Workshop) on adapting Ms. Glancy’s novel Pushing the Bear into a multi-media musical.

Actor | OCTAVIUS LANIER

Octavius Lanier is a class of 2021 MFA acting candidate at the University of Iowa. His acting credits include Three Sisters, Sweat, and Seven Spots on the Sun. Octavius is also directing The Honey War by Micah Ariel James.

Musician | MARK BRUCKNER

Mark Bruckner is a New York Innovative Theater and Audelco Award-winning composer, musician, sound artist ,and a Henry Hewes American Theatre Wing design nominee. Known for his work in new play development, musical theatre adaptations and revivals, and the development of wearable sound technology for production, he has received commissions from off-Broadway, regional theaters, colleges, and producing organizations across the US. At the 2019 International Saison de Theatre Insolite in Trois Rivieres, Quebec, sponsored by Les Sage Fous Theatre, he recently presented the world premiere performance of Body Concert, featuring an electro-acoustic scoreand ambisonic sound design for the work of master puppeteer, Kevin Augustine of the Lone Wolf Tribe. Now a Visiting Professor of Theatre Arts, Mark is honored to be collaborating with the artists who are bringing these vital stories to life. For further listening,visit www.markbruckner.net.