Rachel Dubose
Mentor: Aaron Carter
Steppenwolf Theatre

Rachel DuBose is a Chicago-based playwright returning to the area by way of Atlanta, GA. After finishing her undergraduate degree at Spelman College, Rachel went on to work with NinaHoliday Productions and BET. Some of her work, ​Eve Within and Alkie’s Anonymous have received stage readings at Spelman with the latter being showcased at The Alliance Theatre during Spelman Salon. Rachel holds a Master of Fine Arts in Writing for the Screen and Stage from Northwestern University.  Rachel is a resident playwright at Mercy Street Theatre Company. Her work has been produced by, Mercy Street Theatre Company, Living Room Playmakers, Pegasus Theatre Chicago, and Fade to Black. This spring Rachel will have a workshop production at Mercy Street Theatre Company. Rachel is an artistic associate at Pegasus Theatre Chicago. 

Osiris Khepera
Mentor: Bianca Sams
Producer & Screenwriter

Osiris Khepera is a well-traveled, self described Renaissance artist whose focus is mostly in the performing arts. He attended Northern Illinois University where he studied theatre under the tutelage of the incomparable Kathryn Gately. Khepera is currently coaching the Louder Than A Bomb Poetry Squad for YouMedia at the Harold Washington Library, where he was honorably asked to Mentor in the stead of Brother Mike after he transitioned. Recent works include: Rutherford’s Travels, Pegasus Players Theatre; Bars & Measures, PROP THTR (BTAA Best Actor Nomination), This Great Nation, Much Enduring, Chicago Slamworks; R.E.A.C.H, Second City; The American Revolution, Theater Unspeakable and Lincoln Center; Softly Blue (Singer) & The Fag-Tionary, MPAACT; The Tennessee Williams Project, the Hypocrites; Harry & The Thief, Pavement Group; A Few Good Men, Peninsula Players, Passing Strange, Bailiwick Chicago (Best Supporting Actor BTAA Win); Relevant Hearsay: Stories from 57, MPAACT (Best Supporting BTAA Win).

Caroline Macon
Mentor: Nambi E. Kelley
Resident Playwright Emerita

Caroline Macon is a playwright and poet from Dallas. She is the New Works Associate at Lookingglass Theatre Company. Currently, she is co-adapting The Year I Didn’t Go To School with Heidi Stillman, to premiere at Chicago Children’s Theatre in March. She is also workshopping her new play, Linda and Suella’s Urban Safari, with help and thanks to the Lawrence Bundschu and Warren Snoddy Endowed Playwriting Prize, as well as Shattered Globe Theatre. Her play, The Women Eat Chocolate, was produced in DePaul’s New Playwrights’ Series last year. Besides theatre, Caroline has a heart for independent press. She has served for Curbside Splendor Publishing and is a member of Poems While You Wait, a team of poets and their typewriters who raise money to support the non-profit publisher, Rose Metal Press. She graduated from DePaul in 2016 with degrees in Playwriting and English.

Derek Lee McPhatter
Mentor: Andrew Hinderaker
Resident Playwright Emeritus

Derek’s plays have been presented by The Lyric Opera of Chicago, The Institute of Contemporary Arts (London), Horse Trade Theater Group, and Harlem9, among others. His work has been recognized with awards from the Jerome Foundation, the Puffin Foundation, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, and the United States Embassy in the U.K., with three plays published by Indie Theater Now. He is a 2016-2018 I Am Soul Resident Playwright with Dr. Barbara Ann Teer’s National Black Theatre in Harlem, NYC where he is developing a new play as part of their season of black joy. Derek wrote and co-produced an indie web series, She’s Out of Order, which was an official selection for Los Angeles Webfest 2015, receiving an award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series. Derek’s commercial writing portfolio – three sitcom specs and an original half-hour pilot – led to semifinalist placement in the 2015 Disney Writing Program (top 50 out of 4,000), a nomination for the 2014 Fox Writing Program, a slot in the 2013 Disney-ABC Diversity Impact Workshop, and a 2012 Fellowship in the Guy Hanks and Marvin Miller Screenwriting Program at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Derek holds a B.A. in English from Morehouse College and an M.A. in Humanities from New York University. He is an associate board member with two arts organizations: Links Hall and The Fire This Time Festival, which enters its 8th season in 2017.  He is originally from Pickerington, Ohio and splits his time between Chicago, New York and Los Angeles.

Cassandra Rose
Mentor: Laura Jacquim
Resident Playwright Emerita

Cassandra has had over 300 of her plays performed in Chicago and beyond. That includes the hundreds of micro plays that make up all five years of The Dictionary Project, a self-produced project in which each play is created for and inspired by a very specific audience member. A person buys a play, picks a page number that corresponds to a page in Cassandra’s dictionary, and within the year Cassandra writes them a play (one page, three pages, or ten minutes long) about one of the words found on that dictionary page. Her other short work has been produced by Broken Nose Theatre, City Theatre, Cold Basement Dramatics, Jackalope Theatre Company, Nothing Special Productions, The One Minute Play Festival, and The Whiskey Radio Hour. Her longer plays include The Amen Trilogy, At His Best, Children of Troy, and The Volunteer. She has dramaturged shows at Jackalope Theatre Company, Redtwist Theatre, Raven Theatre, and Strawdog Theatre Company. And Cassandra sometimes starts theatre companies; she is the artistic director of the Chicago Theatre Marathon and was a founding member of the now-defunct Cold Basement Dramatics. Girl gets around. Cassandra earned her BA in playwriting from Columbia College Chicago.

Loy A. Webb
Mentor: Lydia R. Diamond
Resident Playwright Emerita

Loy A. Webb is a Chicago born playwright. Her work has been featured at Black Ensemble Theatre as a part of their Black Playwrights Initiative Program,  American Theater Company (Big Shoulders Festival 2014), 20 Percent Theatre Company Chicago (Snapshots Festival 2014 and 2015), University of North Dakota, GI60 International One Minute Play Festival (2015), Modern-Day Griot Theatre Company New York and the Black Lives, Black Words International Project. Additionally, she was a member of New Colony Theatre’s Writers Room 4.0. As a theatre journalist she is a member of the Association of Women of Journalist-Chicago, a mentor with the AWJ-Chicago/Goodman Theatre’s Cindy Bandle Young Critics Program, and a contributing theater critic for Newcity, an independent Chicago arts paper. Her short play, I AM a Woman is featured in the hip-hop anthology Wish to Live: The Hip-hop Feminism Pedagogy Reader. Loy holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and J.D. from The John Marshall Law School.