Danielle Bainbridge is an Assistant Professor of Theatre at Northwestern University. Her first book is titled Refinements of Cruelty: Enslavement, Enfreakment, and the Performance Archive. Refinements explores the lives and archives of disabled 19^th century freak show performers who were born into slavery. In addition to her work as a theatre historian Danielle is also a web series creator and host, creative writer, and playwright. 

Kate Bredeson is a theater historian, a director, and a dramaturg. She is the author of Occupying the Stage: The Theater of May ‘68 (Northwestern, 2018; finalist, George Freedley Award), and the forthcoming The Diaries of Judith Malina, 1958-1971 (Routledge, 2022). She is Associate Professor of Theatre at Reed College.  

Ken Cerniglia is a veteran dramaturg, writer, creative consultant, and organizational leader. His dramaturgy includes the Broadway hits Hadestown and Peter and the Starcatcher. During 16 years as dramaturg and literary manager at Disney Theatrical, he developed over 70 titles for Broadway, touring, international, and licensed productions, including The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Aladdin, Newsies, The Little Mermaid, High School Musical, and Tarzan. Ken is past president of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas and co-founder of the American Theatre Archive Project. He holds a Ph.D. in theatre history and criticism from the University of Washington.  

Eric Colleary is the Cline Curator of Theatre & Performing Arts at the Harry Ransom Center, an international humanities research library, archive, and museum. He serves on the boards for the American Theatre Archive Project (ATAP) and the Theatre Library Association (TLA) and is a lecturer in the Performance as Public Practice Program in the Department of Theatre & Dance at The University of Texas at Austin.

Kinsale Drake (Diné) is a writer and performer whose work has appeared in the Adroit Journal, Yale Literary Magazine, TIME, and elsewhere. She is a former First Peoples Fund Fellow and National Student Poet, a current In-Na-Po Fellow, and the winner of the J. Edgar Meeker Prize for Poetry, the YIPAP Award for Storytelling, and the Young Native Playwrights Contest (2022). Her work is published or forthcoming in New World Coming (Torrey House Press, 2021), The Languages of our Love (Abalone Mountain Press, 2022), and her zine Hummingbird Heart (Abalone Mountain Press, 2022). She is currently a senior at Yale studying Indigenous poetics, feminisms, and educational policy, and has appeared in numerous productions through Cornerstone Theater Company, Native Voices at the Autry, the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program, The Lenape Center, and more.

Tiffany Nixon is the archivist for Roundabout Theatre Company, a position held since 2008. Roundabout Theatre Company Archives contain extensive institutional and stage documentation chronicling the company’s history as an Off-Broadway and Broadway producer. Her focus lies in documenting the processes of live theatre so that future generations of scholars and practitioners can contextualize the work through open access to the archive. She is a board member of SIBMAS and an adjunct at NYU Tisch, Production & Design Studio, where she teaches a research and resources course to tomorrow’s theatre designers.

Randy Reinholz, founder and Producing Artistic Director Emeritus of Native Voices at the Autry is an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. A producer, director, actor and playwright, with over 100 productions in the United States, Australia, England, and Canada. He received ATHE’s Ellen Stewart Career Achievement in Professional Theatre Award and has also been recognized by Playwrights’ Arena, Los Angeles Drama Critics, MAP Grant, McKnight Fellowship, and received multiyear support from the NEA, Ford Foundation, Shubert Foundation, City of LA Cultural Affairs, Disney, Sony, and LA County Arts Commission. He was a professor at San Diego State University, where he served as Head of Acting, Director of the School of Theatre, Television, and Film, and Director of Community Engagement and Innovation.

Sarah Ruhl is an award-winning American playwright, author, essayist, and professor. Her plays include Dear Elizabeth, Stage Kiss, In the Next Room, or the vibrator play, The Clean House, winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Passion Play, winner of the Pen American Award and the Fourth Freedom Forum Playwriting Award from the Kennedy Center, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, winner of the Helen Hayes Award for Best New Play, Melancholy Play, Eurydice, Orlando, and Late: a cowboy song. Her plays have been produced on Broadway and across the country as well as internationally and translated into fourteen languages. Originally from Chicago, Ms. Ruhl received her M.F.A. from Brown University, where she studied with Paula Vogel. She is a member of 13P and New Dramatists and won the MacArthur Fellowship in 2006. She teaches at Yale School of Drama and lives in Brooklyn with her family. Her papers are in the Yale Collection of American Literature at Beinecke Library. (Official Headshot by Greg Constanzo)

Liza Posas is the Autry Museum’s Head of Research Services and Archives. She received her Masters in Library and Information Sciences (MLIS) in 2002 from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Library and Information Studies program. She joined the Autry in 2005 as a Reference Librarian and now oversees the management of the Autry’s manuscript collections and institutional archives as well as foster ways to dynamically connect researchers to collections. Last year, she led the Autry’s Revealing Women in the Archives Initiative, a year-long endeavor made possible with support from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. This initiative sought to showcase women’s stories and the archivists’ work that make these stories discoverable through special programming, a workshop series, a #ArchivingWomen social media campaign, and the exhibition, What’s Her Story: Women in the Archives.  Her previous projects at the Autry, include the development of interdepartmental procedures and practices related to proper and ethical stewardship for collections that contain culturally sensitive information or restricted tribal knowledge. She is currently the Vice President of the Society of California Archivists and holds a faculty position at the University of Southern California (USC) as the L.A. as Subject Coordinator. In 2018, the California Historical Records Advisory Board awarded Ms. Posas with the Archival Award of Excellence for her work with L.A. as Subject.

Jean Bruce Scott, founder and Producing Executive Director Emeritus of Native Voices at the Autry spent 25 years developing new plays, including more than 200 by Native American playwrights. For Native Voices, she produced 29 plays (including 23 world premieres) in 42 productions, 25 New Play Festivals, 8 Short Play Festivals, 16 Playwrights Retreats, numerous national and international tours, and over 275 play readings. Scott was instrumental in formalizing the Native Voices Artists Ensemble to mentor and support outstanding and promising Native American actors, writers, musicians, directors, designers, and producers. She is Chair of the Barrie and Bernice Stavis Playwright Award for the National Theatre Conference. Scott is a proud member of AEA and SAG/AFTRA.

DeLanna Studi is a proud citizen of the Cherokee Nation and is honored to be the new Artistic Director of Native Voices at the Autry. She has over 25 years of experience as a performer, storyteller, educator, facilitator, advocate, and activist.  Her theater credits include the First National Broadway Tour of Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winning play August: Osage County, Off-Broadway’s Gloria: A Life at the Daryl Roth Theatre, Informed Consent at the Duke Theater on 42nd Street, and Regional Theaters (Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Portland Center Stage, Cornerstone, and Indiana Repertory Theater). DeLanna originated roles in over eighteen World Premieres including fourteen Native productions. A pivotal moment in her career was writing and performing And So We Walked: An Artist’s Journey Along the Trail of Tears based on retracing her family’s footsteps along the Trail of Tears with her father. Since 2007, she has served as the chair of the SAG-AFTRA National Native Americans Committee.

Paula Vogel is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright whose works include Indecent, winner of the Tony Award for Best Play, How I Learned to Drive, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Lortel Prize, the OBIE award, the Drama Desk Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, and New York Drama Critics Circle Award, The Long Christmas Ride Home, The Mineola Twins, and The Baltimore Waltz, among other plays. Her work has been produced at major regional theaters throughout the United States as well as internationally. The winner of numerous awards, Vogel has also been honored with three awards bearing her name, including the Paula Vogel Award for Playwrights given by the Vineyard Theatre. She founded and ran the playwriting program at Brown University from 1984 to 2008 and was the O’Neill Chair of Playwriting at Yale School of Drama from 2008 to 2012. Her papers are in the Yale Collection of American Literature at Beinecke Library.