2026 Digital Symposium:
Dramaturgy As…

Stephen Drover

Stephen Drover is a dramaturg and director based in Vancouver. He holds an MFA in Directing from the University of British Columbia and an MA in Theatre Theory and Dramaturgy from the University of Ottawa and presently works at the Arts Club where he develops new plays. He is a four-time recipient of a Jessie Richardson Award for directing, has worked as a director or dramaturg on over 60 professional theatre productions across Canada, and has published writing on Shakespeare adaptation & production in Shakespeare Bulletin and Review. He is the President of LMDA Canada.

Maddie Easley

Madeline (Maddie) Easley is a New York–based Wyandotte writer and playwright. Her work tells epic stories to offer frameworks for living in decolonial futures. She is a 2025–2027 Venturous Playwriting Fellow at the Playwrights Center, in partnership with the Venturous Theater Fund and Soho Rep. Her play Feast for the Dead will world-premiere Off-Broadway at Soho Rep in the 2026-2027 season. Madeline is a Co-Initiator of the Native Theatre Movement, a collective that aims to represent and build a future where Native theatrical artistry is treated as vital and integral on our ancestral lands. She/Her. maddieeasley.com

Nakissa Etemad

Nakissa Etemad is an Iranian American dramaturg, producer, director, and French translator specializing in new BIPOC plays and musicals for over 30 years. She serves as Treasurer and Resident Artist for Golden Thread Productions, and was formerly Associate Artistic Director at Marin Theatre Company and Literary Manager at The Wilma, San Jose Rep, and San Diego Rep. Her career spans world premieres nationwide at Arena Stage, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and La Jolla Playhouse with writers like Lynn Nottage, Marcus Gardley, and Lauren Gunderson. Nakissa received the 2015 Elliott Hayes Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dramaturgy and holds an M.F.A. from UCSD.

Martine Kei Green-Rogers

Martine Kei Green-Rogers is the Dean of the Theatre School at DePaul University

She obtained her PhD from the Department of Theatre and Drama at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior to studying at UW-Madison, she received her B.A. in Theatre from Virginia Wesleyan College and her M.A. in Theatre History and Criticism from The Catholic University of America.

Her dramaturgical productions include: The Greatest with the Louisville Orchestra, Toni Stone and Sweat at the Goodman; Silent Dancer at Salt Lake Acting Company, productions of King Hedley II, Radio Golf, Five Guys Named Moe, Blues for an Alabama Sky, Gem of the Ocean, Waiting for Godot, Iphigenia in Aulis, Seven Guitars, The Mountaintop, Home and Porgy and Bess at the Court Theatre (Chicago, IL); productions of Fences and One Man, Two Guvnors for the Pioneer Memorial Theatre; It’s Christmas, Carol!, Hairspray, The Book of Will, Shakespeare in Love, Hannah and the Dread Gazebo (Research Dramaturg), UniSon (Asst. Dramaturg), The Comedy of Errors, To Kill A Mockingbird, The African Company Presents Richard III, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Fences and the Play on! project translations of Comedy of Errors and The Two Noble Kinsmen for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (Ashland, OR); 10 Perfect and The Curious Walk of the Salamander as part of the Madison Repertory Theatre’s New Play Festival, and A Thousand Words as part of the WI Wrights New Play Festival. She was also the dramaturgical team for the remount of Jagged Little Pill on Broadway.

She has directed a staged reading of Adopting Aunt Tabitha for the Alley Theatre’s HYPE program and Venus and Adonis for the Classical Theatre Company, and productions of Much Ado About Nothing for Kenyon College, The Brothers Size for Ancram Opera House, and Sender for Denizen Theatre Company.

She is the stage adaptor of Jason Reynolds’ book Long Way Down which premiered at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in October of 2018.

Her publications include the article "Talkbacks for ‘Sensitive Subject Matter’ Productions: The Theory and Practice" in the Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy, Co-Author on “A New Noble Kinsmen: The Play On! Project and Making New Plays Out of Old” in Theatre History Studies, Co-Author on “Visual Dramaturgy: Problem Solver or Problem Maker in Contemporary Performance Creation” in Theatre/Practice, and Co-author on “Continuing the Conversation: Responses to Gabriela Serena Sanchez and Quiara Alegría Hudes” in Theatre Topics. Her most recent publication is the book Contemporary Black Theatre and Performance:Acts of Rebellion, Activism, and Solidarity alongside co-editors Dr. DeRon S. Willams and Dr. Khalid Y. Long and published in May of 2023 by Bloomsbury.

She has previously taught at SUNY New Paltz, the University of Utah, Sam Houston State University, and Kenyon College. Her research interests include violence in African American Theatre, African diaspora theatre, gender and race in American theatre, dramaturgy, devising, and issues of sustainability in the theatre.

She is a proud member of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA) and President of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE).

Lauren Halvorsen

Lauren Halvorsen is a dramaturg and writer based in Washington, DC. She has dramaturged over 45 new, contemporary, and classic plays. Recent credits include John Proctor is the Villain on Broadway, The Royal Court, and at The Huntington; What the Constitution Means to Me (Round House); and the world premiere of Jennifer Who is Leaving (Round House). She has held artistic and literary positions at the Alley Theatre, City Theatre Company, WordBRIDGE, The O'Neill, and Studio Theatre, where she was the Associate Literary Director for nine years. Lauren writes Nothing for the Group, a weekly newsletter about the American theatre.

Martha Herrera-Lasso

Martha Herrera-Lasso holds a BA in Playwriting (UNAM, Mexico City, 2009), an MA in Theatre Studies (University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 2012) and a PhD in Performance Studies (University of California, Berkeley, 2019). She is based in Mexico City, where she has worked as a translator, dramaturg and writer. She specializes in research and storytelling design across different media – film, podcasts, theatre, immersive experiences, television – as well as linguistic and cultural translation. She is LMDA VP for Mexico Regional Activities and recently joined Mexican production company Lemon Studios as Head of Development.

Leanna Keyes

Leanna Keyes is a multidisciplinary creator and co-founder of Transcend Streaming, her theater-focused media production company. Selected Off-Broadway: Director of Photography for The Orchard, starring Mikhail Baryshnikov and Jessica Hecht. Video Associate for Our Class @ Brooklyn Academy of Music. Other design work: Room, Room, Room… for Friend of Friend @ The Brick. Baby Foot @ Soho Rep. Through Transcend, she has created archival recordings for hundreds of non-profit and indie plays. Her personal creative practice centers queer and trans people past, present, and future. In audio: producer of 17+ Play On Podcasts, fully designed audio versions of Shakespeare's works through Next Chapter Podcasts. In print: co-editor of The Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays, volumes 1, 2, and 3.

Lindsey Mantoan

Lindsey Mantoan is the Ronni Lacroute Chair in Theatre Arts and an Associate Professor at Linfield University. She is the author of It's all Happening: How Musical Theatre does High School (Oxford UP) and War as Performance: Conflict in Iraq and Political Theatricality (Palgrave 2018), and co-editor of six books, including three volumes of The Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays, Troubling Traditions: Canonicity, Theatre, and Performance in the US (Routledge 2022, winner of the ATHE Award for Excellence in Editing), and Performance in a Militarized Culture (Routledge 2017). At Linfield, she has directed Macbeth, The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical, The Wolves, Firebringer, Heathers the Musical, She Kills Monsters, and an original adaptation of Trojan Women.

Alexandra Meda

Alexandra Meda is a transformation architect working at the intersection of ensemble-based praxis, systemic change, and collective restoration. As Artistic Director of Studio Luna (fka Teato Luna), founder of Culture Change Lab, and Network Director for The Network of Ensemble Theaters, she guides institutions through moments of reckoning and radical reimagining. With over two decades of experience stewarding collaborative leadership models, she combines devised theater expertise with strategic facilitation to help institutions and communities move from fragmentation to coherence. She is a founder and Managing Partner for Twenty43 Ventures, a board member of the Andre Cailloux Center for Performing Arts and Cultural Justice, and is the Co-President of the Theater Communications Group Board of Directors.

Angela Farr Schiller

Angela Farr Schiller is an Emmy Award–winning director and executive producer, dramaturg, editor, and educator whose work bridges theatre, musical theatre, performance studies, publishing, and public humanities. She is Associate Professor of Musical Theatre and Africana Studies at Boston Conservatory at Berklee and serves as Dramaturg-in-Residence for Working Title Playwrights in Atlanta, GA. Angela is co-editor of The Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays trilogy, recipient of the 2026 Elliott Hayes Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dramaturgy, and co-editor of the award-winning collection Troubling Traditions: Canonicity, Theatre, and Performance in the United States. Her work spans new play development, publishing, exhibitions, and public humanities initiatives, including collaborations with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Harvard University, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Aika Tsuda

Aika Tsuda (she/her) is a translator, an interpreter, and a dramaturg who was born and raised in Japan. Aika earned her Bachelor of Arts in English with an emphasis in Translation from Kobe College in Japan, and a Master of Arts in Theatre Arts from San Diego State University. Her key areas of focus include dramaturgy, musical theatre, and theatrical translation. Currently based in Japan, she works primarily as an interpreter and also serves as a translator, dramaturg, and coordinator, using her dramaturgical skills to bridge cultural and linguistic gaps in translated plays and in international or bilingual productions.

Alexis Williams

Alexis Williams is a former literary agent and the current Associate Artistic Director of The Playwrights Realm in NYC. In her time in the industry, she has worked as a director, a producer, a dramaturg, a teaching artist, and more. In Fall of 2017 Alexis was named one of the Interval's "Women To Watch". She is on the advisory board of the Bret n' Paul Foundation, is an alumnus of the Lincoln Center Director's Lab and is a graduate of Northwestern University.