Participants

May

Angela Santillo
The Unfelt Wonder

Angela Santillo is a New York based playwright and actress. Her plays have been workshopped and performed at Dixon Place, Pan Asian Rep, Abingdon Theater, The Nightborn, Communal Spaces, foolsFURY Theater, Play on Words Productions, Playwrights Center of San Francisco, Sarah Lawrence College and Saint Mary’s College.  Her play Sera (dir. Rebecca Engle, Saint Mary’s College) was a national finalist for the 2010 David Mark Cohen Award and was also given a Distinguished Achievement Award in Playwriting by the Kennedy Center’s American College Theater Festival.  A lover of devised and ensemble created work, writing collaborations include: Oh, the MOON! with choreographer CatherineMarie Davalos, Love in a Heat Death Universe with Benjamin Stuber, Aftermath, Maine co-created and performed with Jeanette Plourde.  Recent acting credits include:  Sheila Callaghan’s Port Out, Starboard Home (world premiere, foolsFURY Theater at ZSpace and LaMama), Know How (film, The Possibility Project) andUnfelt Wonder (solo show, Pan Asian Rep's New Works Festival).  BA: Saint Mary’s College.  MFA: Sarah Lawrence College, recipient of the Lipkin Playwriting Award.  www.angelasantillo.com

The Unfelt Wonder

The doctors are talking, the public is debating and The Unfelt Wonder still wears big black gloves.  A twisted dark comedy performed by one, The Unfelt Wonder follows one woman’s attempt to escape the lifelong scientific experiment that has denied her physical contact with objects, people and herself. 

June

Cecilia CopelandNew York Madness

Cecilia Copeland is a Midwestern, Latin-American, Israeli, Non-Princess and legal resident of Australia who chooses to live in her adopted home, New York.

She climbed Masada at five years old, studied classical ballet and martial arts, was a dancer for MTV and owned her own cafe.  She wrote her first short story in kindergarten about a snowflake, her first poem about hating vacuum cleaners, and in writing her first play she answered the nagging call of uncertainty over her life’s path.  She is still writing plays some 13 years later. 

As a Graduate of the Stella Adler Acting Conservatory Studio in New York, she is also an Alumna of the Writers Workshops at University of Iowa BA with Honors and a Minor in Dance and Ohio University MFA. 

Cecilia’s plays have been Produced or Presented at the Culture Project, Cherry Lane Theatre, Ensemble Studios Theatre, HERE Arts Center, INTAR Theatre, The Anarchist Theatre Festival of Montreal, Stage Left Productions, 13th Street Repertory, CAPS LOCK PRODUCTIONS, The Disreputables, The Glass Eye’s Fresh Produced, Metro Screen Australia, and soon to be IATI Theatre among others.  She’s been commissioned by The Drilling Co, Overturn Theatre Ensemble, The Pink Ribbon Project, The Private Theatre, and The Performing Arts High School. 

She is the recipient of the Lennis J. Holm Playwriting Scholarship from University of Iowa for her Honors Thesis, One Woman which was produced in SWAN Day 2008.  She is a Semi-Finalist for The O’Neill Playwrights Conference, The David Calicchio Emerging Playwright’s Prize at The Marin Theatre Co, Seven Devil’s Playwright’s Conference and a Finalist for Mabou Mines Artist Residency. 

Her Full Length, “The Wicked Son” was named one of the Top Three Best New Jewish Plays by the Jewish Plays Project.  Other full length works include Light of Night, BIOLIFE, COURTING, Tiene Duende (It Has Soul), Riptide, and Atlantis Unearthed.  She was awarded a Special Effects Grant from Metro Screen Australia for her One Act that she adapted into a Screenplay, Amusement Bomber.  Her works have been published by PM Press, The International Center for Women Playwrights, and NoPassport Press for The Gun Control Plays.  

Cecilia is the Founder and Artistic Director of New York Madness.  She is a Member of the Women’s New Works Playlab at New Perspectives, the Dramatists Guild of America, The Cimientos Playlab at IATI Theatre, and The League of Professional Theatre Women. 

David Cheng

Doctor

David Cheng is a recent NYU School of Medicine graduate and will be continuing his internal medicine residency at NYU.  His professional interests include primary care, working with the underserved and teaching medical students. In recognizing how precious life is, David aims to help his patients make the most of out of theirs. Although medicine remains his passion, David devotes his free time to handball, biking, food, music, and hanging out with family/friends. “Live. Laugh. Smile.” :)

July

Jess Worthington

Derby Player, ROCKS!

Roller derby is a fast paced, hard hitting sport on skates.  It is dominated by female athletes.  These athletes are the mothers, teachers, nurses, lawyers that you walk along side everyday.  After their daily duties are done, they come together to put on their gear and work hard to play hard.  They help each other learn, improve and become strong.  They meld together the perfect blend of business, entertainment and sport.  They are creative.  They are fun.  They are athletes.  They are roller derby girls.

ROCKS! became addicted to roller derby in the fall of 2010 when she attended the Gotham Girls championship bout.  The following spring, she bought a pair of skates and got to work.  Several bumps and bruises later, she tried out with a local league and earned a spot on the team.  She is currently playing her first season with the Garden State Rollergirls.  Her goal is to continually improve and be a driving force in earning her team a championship title.

Outside of the derby world, ROCKS! is known as Jessica Worthington.  She pays her bills by designing, fabricating and installing weird displays.  This line of work has allowed her many strange and unique opportunities including dangling 40ft in air for almost 2 weeks in London and climbing on top of the Apple cube on 5th ave.

When she's not playing working or playing roller derby, Jess likes to travel, talk about roller derby, watch roller derby, and drink whiskey.

Dana Young & Chuck Meyer

little,big

Dana Young is a Brooklyn based musician and designer. Born in Boston, Massachusetts in the early 80s, she grew up for the first decade of her life listening to a vast quantity of fabulous and horrendous '80s musicians. (thanks mom!)

By the time Dana was five years old, she had started an amazing performance ritual involving a lip-sync/dance all across her living room in the presence of every house guest. The record player would jump when she did and no one was allowed to talk.

These regular performances were only enhanced by the fact that Dana was essentially covered in marker for her entire childhood. She began to draw around age two and never stopped. 

After graduating with a degree in Industrial Design (what the crap is that??) from Pratt Institute of Art and Design, Dana flailed around for a few years interning and assisting in jewelry design companies. 

While building a professional job in jewelry, she was introduced to the Playstation game Karaoke Revolution. Due to some harsh criticism in middle school, Dana hadn't sung in public in eight years and was pretty terrified of doing so. She was coaxed, not gently, at a party with friends where the video came first came to their attention. 

Soon, Dana was destroying all other players and the game was no longer fun for anyone else. Her friends suggested that maybe, instead of tormenting them with hours of watching her sing in her apartment, she join a band. Actually... one friend just stuck an ad to Dana's front door with tape. And that was Dana's first band.

Dana has since been in three bands. Hello!Dots, Hidden People and Little,Big. She named all of them. 

Chuck Meyer is a Midwest nerd duct taped to a Brooklyn indie rocker.  His two favorite possessions in high school were his Atari computer and his Yamaha keyboard.  After dropping out of college he picked up the bass guitar; a dousing rod that led from playing REM covers in coffee shops in Kentucky, through opening for Christian Death as the bassist of Ohio art-rock darlings Borgia Popes, to playing in various pop and rock outfits across New York and New England .  He currently splits his time between the world's best pop/rock duo, Little,Big and the world's last 80s garage rock band, Sunset Guns, both based in Brooklyn.

His dirty secret is he also went back to college and got a degree in computer science.  This has taken him on a parallel journey through various tech companies, culminating in his protecting government websites from his couch while wearing matching plaid pajamas.