Lisa Farrington is an award-winning scholar and author in the field of African American art history and culture. She is Distinguished Professor Emerita and Founding Chair of fine arts at the City University of New York; and she served as Associate Dean of Fine Arts at Howard University.

kb saine is a director, author, educator, and theatre historian with over two decades of experience. kb served for six years as the producing artistic director of sycamore rouge in petersburg, va; and has worked with greenbriar valley theatre, vintage theatre company, and buckhannon community theatre in west virginia; her professional service includes extensive work with the black theatre network, where she is honored to serve as a past president. 

Kathy A. Perkins is the editor/co-editor of seven anthologies focusing on plays by women of color. She is a senior editor for the Routledge Companion to African American Theatre and Performance. Professor Emerita at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

Abdul Ali  is a nonprofit leader who lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland. Mr. Ali has held distinguished teaching appointments at Johns Hopkins University, Howard University, and Goucher College.  He is the recipient of the 2019 Ruby Grant, from the Robert Deutsch Foundation. His debut collection of poems, Trouble Sleeping, won the 2014 New Issues Poetry Book Prize. When Mr. Ali isn’t teaching writing, he’s working with community-based arts nonprofits through his consultancy.  abdulali.net

Elizabeth Bruce’s debut story collection, Universally Adored & Other One Dollar Stories, is forthcoming in January 2024 from the Athens, Greece-based Vine Leaves Press. Her debut novel, And Silent Left the Place, won Washington Writers’ Publishing House’s Fiction Award, ForeWord Magazine’s Bronze Fiction Prize, and was one of two finalists for the Texas Institute of Letters’ Steven Turner Award for Best Work of First Fiction. https://www.elizabethbrucedc.com/about 

The Canady Foundation for the Arts (CFA) is a Washington, DC cultural arts 501(c) 3  non-profit organization that uses the power of story to connect professional artists to youth of color through arts education, community, live theater, and professional development.  By intersecting theatre, media, cultural activism, mentorship and entrepreneurship, CFA uses storytelling to positively impact youth as they develop into adulthood.