Emergence III: Director and Playwright Bios Directors: Amy Lynn Gray is the Director of ShakesProv, applying Commedia and contemporary improv techniques to fully improvised and engaging period comedy. She most recently directed The Wooden Boy in April 2004 for the Oregon Symphony. A longtime company member of Tears of Joy Theatre, she has contributed by performing, designing, writing and directing. Amy is a founding member of ComedySportz Portland, performing improv professionally for the past eleven years. In September, 2003, Amy directed a fun and controversial Waiting for Godot for Radiant Theatre. Amy self-produces 'educomedy' shows under her company Zing Productions, and is currently working on a Lewis and Clark mockumentary puppet show. Amy teaches workshops for all levels in improv and mask technique, and is known for her innovative work with kids, clowns and ballerinas. Anna Soderberg has most recently directed Jesus Christ Superstar for Radiant Theatre after directing HAiR, Everyman & (at past Emergence Festivals): Burning Up, My Alamo & Overcoming Art. Other credits in Portland include: Witch! at Stark Raving Theatre’s New Rave Festival, Pal Joey for The Hillsboro Artists Repertory Theater, the children’s chorus for The 2002 Christmas Revels and Janea Rae Boyle‘s Fleeing Grace. Anna is a founding member of The Open Circle Theatre Ensemble which was recently nominated for a Helen Hayes Award in Washington, DC. With Radiant, Anna has also produced Waiting for Godot, Zompei, A Clown’s Birthday (her one-woman show), all three Emergence Festivals and the Drammy Award winning Scapin. Debera Lund is a 20 year vetran of the Portland Theatre Scene. Although she is primarily known as an actor, she has directed Roshomon for Theatre Vertigo, The Curate Shakespeare's As You Like It, St. George and the Dragon, The 15 Minute Hamlet, and Twelfth Night for Portland Actors Ensemble, Animal Crackers, Blithe Spirit, and Picnic for Mt Hood Rep's Staged Reading Series, The Holiday Klutz for Carousel Company and Dracula, the Conqueror for Sandy Community Players. She has also enjoyed the opportunity to direct Antigone, Pullman Car Hiawatha and The Long Christmas Dinner for Wilsonville High School's Theatre Department. Ret Beadnall is a Portland director/performer. Locally she has directed several projects with The Young People's Theatre Project including Zara Spook and Other Lures by Joan Ackerman. She also directed Suzan Zeder's Step on a Crack for the Portland Actor's Conservatory Summer on Stage program. Ret has performed original story/movement/sound pieces as part of Performance Works NW's Holy Goats series as well as at the former Dreams Well Studio. She did her academic training at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL where she earned a Bachelors Degree in Performance Studies. Playwrights: Judith Pratt has worked as an actor, director, theatre professor, and reviewer. Her first play, Chimera, was presented by 3rd Floor Productions in February 1996. Other works have been produced by the Kitchen Theatre in Ithaca NY, Potluck Productions in Kansas City, Tri-State Actor's Theatre in New Jersey, and Elmira College, Elmira NY. Judith is a founding member of 3rd Floor Productions, a women's playwriting group that does workshops, readings and performances of member works. Judith is a member of the Dramatists Guild and the International Center for Women Playwrights. She also works as a free-lance writer for business and higher education. Kaycheri Rappaport hails from Portland, Oregon and is a renown local playwright, having also written plays including Angela and God, Awaiting, Cosmic Conversations and Four Biblical Women. Roxanne Ray is a playwright, dramaturg, and scholar, whose plays have been produced in Seattle, Boston, New York, and Scotland. Her writing has been published in Hawai’i Review, Onion River Review, and Wings, and she spent a wonderful month at the Hedgebrook writer’s colony in 1994. She just completed her Ph.D. in Performance Studies at New York University, and serves on the Literary Committee of Playscripts, Inc., and as the Publications Director for the Mae West Fest (an annual festival of original theater written and directed by women). She invites further inquiries to her website at www.RoxanneRay.net. Robert Kerr’s plays include The Potato Creek Chair of Death, produced by Ensemble Studio Theatre and published by Playscripts Inc., and (with composer Mat Eisenstein) The Sticky-Fingered Fiancee, a ten-minute musical produced by Raw Impressions Musical Theatre and Bedlam Theatre. Other plays, including The End of the Road, The Living Section, Meet Uncle Casper and Kingdom Gone, have been read and workshopped at the Lark Theatre, the Actors Studio, Playwrights Horizons, Seven Devils Playwrights Conference and the O’Neill Playwrights Conference. Francesca Goes to Pluto was developed at the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis. He lives in Brooklyn. Sandra Hosking's work has appeared in InSight for Playwrights, Literary Salt, Midwest Book Review and anthologies by Smith & Kraus and Meriwether Publishing Ltd. Her plays have been performed in New York City, Los Angeles, Canada, and elsewhere. She is a Spokane, Washington-based journalist who has interviewed such established playwrights as Horton and Daisy Foote, Steven Dietz, and Jeffrey Sweet. Hosking is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America and the International Centre for Women Playwrights.