Grace is a theatre artist from North Texas, double majoring in Theatre Arts and History. Previous credits at The Theatre School include Las Wavys (Assistant Director), One More for the Road: Hit and Run (Stage Manager), Straight White Men (Assistant Director), and Welcome to the Fruit Basket (Ensemble). She is also the Director of Publicity for Prototypes, where she follows her passion of developing new work. This is their first piece through Wrights of Spring! She would like to thank her friends, family, and advisors for their continued support.

Isaiah Zavion Boozer is a 2022 TEDx Speaker, A 2023 Cody Renard Richard x Broadway Advocacy Coalition Scholar, A 2021 YoungArts Winner (As An Actor), A 2021 U.S. Presidential Scholar Semi-Finalalist, A Kennedy Center Playwriting & Directing Intensive Graduate, and amongst other things, an award winning Screenwriter, A Director, An Actor/ Dancer/ Performer, and an all around visionary, evolving disruptor, and healing artist.

His mission is to expose, and reveal underlying truths at the core of our humanity.

Willa Colleary is the recipient of the second annual #Enough - Plays to End Gun Violence Award, as well as the California Arts Scholar Award for her work with the California Summer School for the Arts (CSSSA). Colleary is currently earning her BFA in Playwriting at The Theatre School at DePaul University. She was born and raised in Los Angeles.

Lila Engelhardt is finishing up a degree in Playwriting with a minor in Animation. In 2019 she was chosen for the Write On! at Hartford Stage, where she workshopped her play Poundcake; a play about a 14 year old girl and her Great Aunt trapped in a bathroom at a cousin's Bat Mitzvah, the time is spent with the two lamenting about their self worth and body image. Poundcake was put on as an academic performance at Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts in their student directed plays in June of 2019. Her plays, Safety Blanket, The Super Duper Adventures of Supernova, and Work in Progress were given staged readings at The Theatre School’s new works festival. Her play Work In Progress was produced by The Theatre School at DePaul University In February of 2023. Work In Progress is a queer coming of age story about the awkward faze between adulthood and childhood.

Emily Haslam is a freshman playwright this year. She is originally from Salt Lake City Utah before moving to Chicago. Although she has written a few novels prior, this year is her first time writing plays. She is grateful to share her work with this community and continuing to do what she loves.

Alice is a trans Korean American writer from Jeju Island. She enjoys coding, spelunking down Wikipedia rabbit holes, and the occasional sojourn into immersive experience design.

Iona McGregor is a third year playwright. She loves boy bands, Taylor Swift and female protagonists. Iona believes that some the best writing has a mixture of comedy, drama and heartfelt moments and tries her best to implement that in her own writing. Her biggest goal in life is to play the song 22 by Taylor Swift on her 22nd birthday.

Helaina is a playwright from Lehigh Valley, PA where one of her plays, “A Boy Called Mary” premiered at the New Playwrights Festival. In Chicago, Helaina currently has her show running in the Watts Theatre at TTS. She is a fourth year playwright, with minors in Film Production & Screenwriting. She is always exploring ways her passion for theatre can intersect with her ventures in film and television.

Dustin was born in Vermont and grew up in Minnesota. As a traveling yoga teacher, he spent four years living all over the world from Australia to Italy. Since he was little Dustin has loved playing pretend, and believes that doing so is vital to maintaining childlike wonder, understanding himself and others, and seeing the beauty and magic in the world. He is a graduate of The School at Steppenwolf and the Stella Adler Physical Theatre training program and is the 2019 USA Yoga National Champion. 
Dustin is represented by the great team at DDO Artists Agency. KaCee@ddoagency.com.

Connor Yokley is a second-year BFA Playwright at DePaul's Theater School. Outside of writing, he enjoys video games, film, and immersive theater design, which he practices with The Benefactors. He is very grateful and excited for the upcoming festival, and hopes that you can successfully find all 8 hidden puzzle pieces to access the bonus level.

Murri is an actor and theatre maker from Northern California. He has lived in Portland, OR for the past 10 years. He enjoys breakfast, baseball, going to the movies, and petting cats. You may have seen him last year at TTS as Leonato in Much Ado About Nothing.

Emma is excited to be part of Wrights of Spring! 

Holly Dodd is a playwright, screenwriter, and graphic designer who grew up between rural Texas and Nashville Tennessee. She finds inspiration in her southern upbringing and feminist history. She is politically active and is passionate about the future of Texas. She hopes to write for television one day with more shows focusing on women’s stories.

Grace Everett (she/her) is a first-year playwright from Dallas, TX. She is proudly autistic and passionate about telling queer, female, and disability-centric stories. Grace is also an actress, and the winner of the 2019 Texas Thespian Festival PLAYWORKS competition for New Plays. Most recently, her short play, Letters for Adelaide, was produced at Point Park University in December 2021. Thanks to Mom, Dad, Gabi, family, and friends.

Caylah is a BFA 3 Playwright major who is simply happy to still be here.

Leo Wescott Larson is a BFA 1 Playwriting student at DePaul University. Prior to moving to Chicago Leo was an actor, director, producer and writer in his hometown of Wichita, KS.

Morris McLennan is a writer from Chicago, IL. He holds a BFA in Playwriting from DePaul University, where he read a few books & learned how to tell different types of grapes apart from one another. You can look at his work at www.morrismclennan.net.

Addison (They/She) is a 20 year old first-year playwright from Columbus, Ohio. Addison loves to explore storytelling beyond playwriting through poetry, short stories, self-portrait photography, and studying psychology. Addison’s writing aims to dissect the overlap between neurodivergence, queerness, childhood, mental health, music, and nature. She is so ecstatic to make her playwriting debut!!!

Ethan Venzon is an INFJ from Jacksonville Florida. He is also a BFA-3 Playwright. :)r

Grace Anne Lowry is a dual citizen of the United States and Great Britain currently based in

Chicago, and a recent graduate of The Theatre School at DePaul University’s playwriting

program. Grace is currently working with Interrobang Theatre Project as their Season Thirteen

Playwriting Fellow.

Jeffrey Luke Baker is from Mission Viejo, California. He’s a playwriting and German language and literature double major with a minor in philosophy. He thinks socialism is cool.

Lily Kate Cobb (She/her) is a first year playwriting major from Charleston, South Carolina. She is passionate about all aspects of storytelling but her current focus is bringing some of her favorite stories to life through humor. She is very excited to be here!

Daniel Driessen (Any pronouns) BFA 2/Playwriting. Daniel is a writer from Fairfax, Virginia. They are very excited to have the chance to put their voice out on a stage. Daniel has recently closed out stage managing the studio show "Survived By" here at The Theatre School, and prior to that has had their main focus on simply telling stories that they think are worth telling. And they can't wait to keep doing exactly that.

Perse is a second year playwright from Los Angeles, California who enjoys writing absurd comedies with dark twists. They have directed their original plays at both high school and community theatre levels in Los Angeles. When they aren’t writing plays that inevitably end up death-themed, Perse can be found delighting/torturing people with puns and talking too much about D&D.

Hello, my name is RYEN and I am a BFA 1 Playwriting major. I was introduced to theater at a young age while growing up in New York City, and as time went on, my passion for it only grew. I went on to study at Professional Performing Art High School as a drama major to enhance my theater education. I realized soon after that I was drawn more to the written work we performed rather than the art of performance itself. I was enrolled in a writing program in the city when I made the decision to try my hand at playwriting. I was fortunate to be chosen twice as one of a select few featured playwrights for the Writopia Labs International Off-Broadway Plays Festival, and I later received Honorable Mention in the poetry category after entering the Scholastics Awards. I am so grateful to be able to further my skill and broaden my theater knowledge at The Theatre School at DePaul University.

Chris is a 2nd year Playwrighting Major at The Theatre School at DePaul University.

Ian is a BFA 1 Playwriting major from St. Louis, Missouri. His work has been produced as part of the Page to Stage festival at the Missouri Thespian Conference in 2022, and he's excited to finally have something of his be put to the stage again.

Gena is a BFA3 playwright from Brooklyn. Her plays include Strawberries at the Datcha and Operation #23: Steal the Mona Lisa, which received workshops and readings at the 2019 & 2021 FreshPlay Festivals at MCC Theater. Strawberries at the Datcha was also a finalist for the Jewish Plays Project’s 11th Annual Contest, and she is featured in their first-ever podcast series. Her recent work includes assistant directing The Seagull and devising/acting in Swear on My Mother’s Grave.

Madison is an MFA 2 Actor from Portland, Oregon. She trained at The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, and earned degrees in Psychology and Vocal Performance from Whitman College. In Portland, Madison was privileged to work with Portland Center Stage, Portland Opera, Anonymous Theater Company, Broadway Rose, and Oregon Children's Theater, among others, and in television and film. This Spring, Madison wrote and performed in Unhinged: a darkly funny solo show about a mother-daughter relationship in multiple dimensions and a life-changing diagnosis. Other TTS credits include Vinegar Tom (Ellen/Sprenger), The Drunken City (Linda), and Top Girls (Shona/Kit). Madison has an unbelievably small dog named Mr. Chicken, who she thinks is perfect in every way.