Meet the Playwrights

Our playwrights come to us with unique points of view, writing inventive challenging material that springs from the storytelling tradition ​fundamental to great theatre.


color photo of Dano MaddenDano Madden

Playwright, APE

3x33 Festival 2024

Dano Madden is a playwright, screenwriter, and director, originally from Boise, Idaho. He was recently invited to be an artist-in-residence at the James Stevenson Lost and Found Lab in Connecticut, USA in the Fall of 2024. He has been a fellow at the MacDowell and at the Djerassi Resident Artist Program. Dano’s plays have been produced and/or received development by Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Source Festival, The Artful Conspirators, World At Large Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, The National New Play Network, Mile Square Theatre, Burnt Studio Productions, Northwest Playwrights Alliance, Idaho Theatre for Youth, Kitchen Theatre Company, Rutgers University, The University of Tulsa, Bloomsburg University, Lark Play Development Center, Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, Boise Contemporary Theater, Fordham University, Fullerton College, and Boston Theatre Works, among others. He is a five-time Heideman Award finalist. He has won numerous Kennedy Center awards, including the Kennedy Center’s 2007 National Student Playwriting Award and the 2008 Quest for Peace Playwriting Award. He was a finalist for the National New Play Network’s 2010 Smith Prize. Published works include: In the Sawtooths and Drop (Samuel French, Inc.), Beautiful American Soldier and Ella (Best American Short Plays 2005-2006 & 2009-2010), The Save (Playscripts, Inc.), The Soft Sand, Survival, and Therm Gold (Northwest Playwrights Alliance), The Raccoon, Leaving IKEA and Third Ward Scandal (Indie Theater Now) and monologues in The Best Men’s Stage Monologues and Scenes 2010 (Smith & Kraus) and Exceptional Monologues 2 (Samuel French, Inc.) In 2007, Dano was named one of “50 Playwrights to Watch” by The Dramatist magazine.

Dano received his BA in Theatre Arts from Boise State University and his MFA in playwriting from Rutgers University. Dano has taught dramatic writing at Stockton University, Rutgers University, and at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in the Playwright’s Horizons Theatre School. He is member of the Board of Directors for the Seven Devils New Play Foundry. He currently teaches at the Marymount School of New York. Dano lives in New York with his wife Lauren and their son Otis. 


photo of sara jean Accuardi

Sara Jean Accuardi

Playwright, Grow Learn Play

3x33 Festival 2024

Sara Jean Accuardi is an award-winning playwright whose work has been seen at Shaking the Tree Theatre, Vivid Stage, Theatre Vertigo, PlayMakers Repertory Company, the Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, Spooky Action Theater, The Blank Theatre, and Victory Gardens, among others. She has received the Oregon Book Award for Drama, the Drammy Award for Outstanding Original Script, the Leslie Bradshaw Fellowship for Drama, and was the winner of the Inaugural International Thomas Wolfe Playwriting Competition. Sara Jean is a proud member of the Dramatist Guild and LineStorm Playwrights. She holds an MFA in Writing for the Screen and Stage from Northwestern University.


photo of lolly ward

Lolly Ward

Playwright, Gone

3x33 Festival 2024

Lolly Ward’s plays include Mate (The Actors’ Gang; California Institute of Technology), Do You Take This Woman? (Smith and Kraus, Best Ten-Minute Plays 2019), and Bonus (Smith and Kraus, Best Ten-Minute Plays 2023), She originated roles in Sarah Ruhl’s Orlando, served as a dramaturg and judge for Caltech’s Mach 33 Festival of New Science-Driven Plays, and received the Max K. Lerner Playwriting Fellowship. As a member of The Actors’ Gang, she toured nationally and internationally, and acted in both the stage and film versions of Embedded at the Public Theater. After several years in Los Angeles as a member of the Playwrights Union, she moved to Portland, Oregon, where she cofounded and directs LineStorm Playwrights. She recently edited a collection of outdoor plays for Applause Books titled Go Play Outside: Twenty-Five Short Plays Written for the Great Outdoors. Read her work on the New Play Exchange. Member: Actors’ Equity, Dramatists Guild, SAG-AFTRA, LineStorm Playwrights.  


photo of sofia molimbi

Sofia Molimbi

Playwright, Group; or Marlene is Dead

Summer pop-up reading, 2024

Sofia Molimbi (Dubrawsky) is a playwright, actor, and theater teacher. She is the recipient of the 2023 Oregon Literary Arts Fellowship for Drama. She has been published by Smith & Kraus, Applause Acting Series, Meriwether Publishing, Pioneer Drama Service, and The Pitkin Review. Plays include: Group; or Marlene is Dead, Remote, The Eclipse, The Heart of Gravesend, Bugs, Tiny Home, Mary Quirke, and The Purse. She has worked as a theatre artist in NYC, Dublin, Helsinki, and Portland, OR. Awards: The Finlandia Foundation, The Spirit of Goddard, and The Pearl Foundation. She holds an MFA in Playwriting/ Creative Writing from Goddard College. Memberships: The Dramatist Guild, SAG-AFTRA, AEA, and she is a proud member of LineStorm Playwrights in Portland, OR. When not writing, she can be found chasing after her three young children. Read her work on the New Play Exchange or on Sofia Molimbi's website.

 


 

black and white photo of barbara humeBarbara Hume

Playwright, Red Line

Summer pop-up reading, 2024

Barbara Hume is a Seattle-based freelance playwright, singer, actor/director whose two full length plays explore social issues set within a drama of disparate or strained relationships. Light through the Cellar Door focuses on the challenges facing women’s reproductive choice which will appear in the “untold stories” series at BIMA in the Bainbridge Island museum auditorium in August 2024. Red Line depicts the friendship of two young men, one White and one Black, challenged by the status quo of racism which will appear in Theatre 33’s Summer “Pop Up” Play Reading Festival in June 2024 in Salem, Oregon. On the House, a comedy about online dating for seniors, will be featured in PDX Playwrights’ April 2024 Ten Minute Play festival in Portland, Oregon.   


Yussef el guindi

Yussef El Guindi

Playwright, Wife of Headless Man Investigates Her Own Disappearance

Summer pop-up reading, 2024

Born in Egypt, raised in London and now based in Seattle, Yussef El Guindi’s work frequently examines the collision of ethnicities, cultures and politics that face Arab/ Middle Eastern Americans and Muslim Americans. His most recent production “Hotter Than Egypt” was staged at Marin Theatre Company, ACT in Seattle, and at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Bloomsbury/ Methuen Drama has published “The Selected Works of Yussef El Guindi”, and Broadway Play Publishing Inc. published a collection of short pieces entitled “In A Clear Concise Arabic Tongue.” He is the recipient of several honors, including the “Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award”, Colorado’s “Henry Award”, American Blues Theater’s “Blue Ink Playwriting Award”, Seattle’s “The Stranger’s Genius Award”, “L.A. Weekly's Excellence in Playwriting Award", Seattle's “Gregory Award” and the “Middle East America Distinguished Playwright Award”. In 2023, he was selected to be a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in the U.K.



Willamette University

Theatre 33

Salem Campus

Address
M. Lee Pelton Theatre
900 State Street
Salem Oregon 97301 U.S.A.

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