JULIE FEI-FAN BALZER is the Artistic Director of The Milk Can Theatre Company, now in its eighth season.  Milk Can is dedicated to creating and developing new work and new concepts for classics.  This year Milk Can was nominated for five Innovative Theatre Awards, four of which were for playwriting.  For Milk Can's 2010-2011 season Julie is directing the world premiere of Bethany Larsen's Malfi Inc. and a contemporary version of Julius Caesar. She is a graduate of Brown University.  www.milkcantheatre.org

"Founded in the summer of 2003, the Milk Can Theatre Company is a collective of playwrights and directors.   The name of the company reflects our belief that there is power and elegance in simplicity.  Our work combines four of the basic building blocks of theatre (language, emotion, story, and audience) with a highly theatrical sensibility and the clean, clear results of an extensive developmental process. We produce new plays and classics through our workshops, mainstage productions and annual ten-minute play festivals. Our plays find humor in the unexpected, excite the audience’s imagination and explore the complexity of the human experience, transforming everyday moments into theatrical journeys. We respond to plays that utilize heightened language and are interested in playwrights who are committed to developing their work through readings and workshops."

GLORY KADIGAN has served as the Planet Connections Executive Director for two seasons. She is an alum of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab and of The Labyrinth Theater Company's Master Class. Ms. Kadigan is an associate member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.

Outside of theater, Ms. Kadigan has been an active supporter of her community. She works in a soup kitchen, leads a Girl Scout Troop in Harlem and has raised thousands of dollars for Breast Cancer research and other causes. Ms. Kadigan is also part of The New Orleans Initiative and has traveled to New Orleans to work with Katrina survivors.

"I would say I look for well crafted plotlines and characters. However, I'm also interested in experimental theater - so the characters and plotlines to not necessarily always have to be linear. Really, I'm interested in all genres be it musicals, plays, one-acts, comedy, drama, period pieces, adaptations, political, etc..  

When looking for artists in Planet Fest, I'm not only looking for quality productions - but am also interested in the artists themselves - who they are as people, often has just as much of an effect on their acceptance into our festivity as the work itself."

CHAD KESSLER is an associate producer at IRT located in the iconic Archive Building tucked away in the West Village.  IRT’s 3B Development Series mission is to provide radically affordable space rental for the development of new theater and performance works. 3B’s aim is to help fill the gap in New York’s theater ecology between readings and full productions, offering time and space to explore, experiment and nurture new works from the seed stage. Curated on a rolling basis, 3B welcomes project proposals of all shapes and sizes. Chad is also an independent tv/theater producer.

PAMELA KOSLOW co-produced YANK! the musical at the York Theatre (nominated as best musical of the year by the Outer Critics Circle and the Lucille Loertal Award); and JANE EYRE THE MUSICAL at the Brooks Atkinson Theater in NY, having shepherded the project from a workshop in Wichita, Kansas, to a production in Toronto, Canada to one at The La Jolla Playhouse in California and finally to Broadway.  Her additional Broadway credits include the Tony® Award-winning musical JELLY'S LAST JAM written by George C. Wolfe and starring Gregory Hines.  Ms. Koslow produced FLOATING RHODA AND THE GLUEMAN written by Eve Ensler, author of the long-running and internationally–acclaimed VAGINA MONOLOGUES. She served as executive producer for HANDSHAKE, a new American play premiered off Broadway in  Manhattan and was a producing consultant for THE HENRY PROJECT, based on the music of Henry Mancini, conceived and directed by Otis Sallid.  Other producing credits include SMART ALECK, MONA ROGERS, and HOW I GOT THAT STORY. Her most recent production was CAPTAIN LOUIE, based on the children’s book by Ezra Jack Keats, music by Stephen Schwartz, presented at The York Theater in Manhattan.

Ms. Koslow was a member of The Tony Management Committee, which considers the eligibility of Broadway shows for Tony Award nominations.  She has served on the Board of Directors of the Manhattan Class Company and The Second Stage Theater; both highly regarded not-for-profit theater companies. She now serves on the board of The American Tap Dance Foundation. She also served as the executive producer for the 2001 FIFI Awards, a gala awards ceremony and dinner for The American Fragrance Foundation presented at Radio City Music Hall.

AARON LOUIS is the Producing Director at 3LD Art & Technology Center.  Recent credits include 3LD’s video design and installation in The Modern Woman gallery at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the off-Broadway run of Marielle Heller’s The Diary Of A Teenage GirL, with associate producers New Georges and The Essentials. Current shows include a co-production with The Public Theater of The Human Scale, by Pulitzer Prize winning Lawrence Wright, directed by Oskar Eustis, which opens in the 2010 New Yorker Festival.  Other 2010 shows include a co-production with Intersections International of No Place Called Home, by Kim Schultz, directed by Sarah Cameron Sunde. Aaron is also the author of a number of books including the 2003 novel, Things That Hang From Trees and the screenplay adaptation.  The feature film premiered at the MoMA/Lincoln Center in New Directors/New Films. (2007 Radio London Films).

"At 3LD we look for new, original works in theatre, performance, media and hybrid forms.  Our mission is to explore the narrative possibilities created by digital technology, and to provide an environment for curated resident artists to create new tools and modes of expression so that they can excel across a range of disciplines."

MICHAEL RODERICK is part of R2D2 Porudcitons, part of the team producing Scottsboro Boys on Broadway this fall; he worked off-Broadway as associate producer of the rock romance Rooms. He recently produced The Gospel According to Joshua at the Midtown International Theatre Festival, The Cure at NYMF, and Scared Skinny, winner of The 2010 New York International Fringe Festival Overall Excellence Award for Outstanding Solo Show.

He started Small Pond Entertainment five years ago when he found that it was virtually impossible for an artist to be at their best when they also had to produce. He developed a system for the advancement of a producing organization to be the umbrella for shows that lacked producers. Over the years Small Pond has become a major name in the NYC Theatre Community having presented shows in numerous venues and with hundreds of different artists. As Artistic Director, Michael has produced over 30 shows since his arrival in NY in September 2002. He has also been the organizer of networking events that have included representatives from The New York Musical Theatre Festival, Fractured Atlas, and RWS casting and Associates. He holds a BA in Secondary Ed English and Theatre performance from Rhode Island College and an MA from NYU in Educational Theatre Colleges and Communities. Michael also teaches English at LaSalle Academy where he is the head of the drama program. He has written 15 plays and his play "I'll do it Tomorrow" will be published in the 2004- 2005 Best American Short Plays published by Applause Books. www.smallpondentertainment.com

"I'm interested in work that is off the beaten path. I'm excited by theatre that is experiential, but am not opposed to reading a solid well written script that is more traditional. I often resonate with really great stories that have some fantasy elements to them. I have always been a fan of comic books."

KEN WAISSMAN is a Tony Award-winning theatre producer. Waissman's first Broadway credit was the 1971 Paul Zindel play And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little with Estelle Parsons and Julie Harris. The following year, while he and partner Maxine Fox were in Chicago, they attended Grease, a popular local play about high school life in the 1950s being performed at the Kingston Mines Theater in the Old Town section of the city. The two thought it would work better as a musical and encouraged its writers, Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, to relocate to New York City and embellish it with a score. The result was Grease, which Waissman and Fox mounted off-Broadway before transferring it uptown. It garnered him his first Tony nomination. He was nominated again for Over Here!; the third time proved to be the charm when he won not only a Tony but a Drama Desk Award as well for Torch Song Trilogy. Other credits include Agnes of God, The Octette Bridge Club. Asinamali!, Carrie - The Musical and Street Corner Symphony.

"Regarding what I'm looking for or what is my taste, it's very 'seat of the pants' and not something I can necessarily put into words.   Basically, I respond to material that's original, has wit and humor and has a potential that can be developed and realized.  I look for a story structure (or arc as they say) - 'Whose play is this?' - who is the central character who grows and experiences a change in his character or behavior by the final curtain.  When I say I look for a story, I don't mean a narrative action plot (unless it's a screenplay.)  If it's for the stage, the characters created and their potential for development and interaction are key."

EMILY JOY WEINER is Founder, Co-Artistic Director of Houses on the Moon Theatre Company. Emily has worked for the past ten years in a leadership role at ENACT, a drama-in-education organization serving New York City public schools. She has served both as a Senior Teaching Artist and as the Associate Director of Performance and Training. In these capacities she has been designing curriculum and conducting workshops for a diverse population of students ranging from grades K-12, oftentimes working with children with special needs as well as being a key facilitator of both teacher and parent workshops. For the past several years Emily also has served as an actor/trainer at the Morchand Center for Clinical Competence at Mount Sinai hospital. Here she has worked with medical students coming from medical schools throughout New York State for training in sensitivity and communication skills. New York theater credits include Othello at the West End Theater, Coming Through at the American Place Theater, Tara’s Crossing at the Lower East Side Tenement Theater and the Lucille Lortel, DE NOVO at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Finding The Words at the Lucille Lortel, Henry V at the Bank Street Theater, and An Epidog with Mabou Mines. She is the co-founder of Houses on the Moon Theater Company and was awarded Best Actress for her performance in the company’s pilot play, Building Houses on the Moon, at the 2004 National Gay and Lesbian Theater Festival in Columbus, OH.

"Houses on the Moon Theater Co. exists to dispel ignorance and isolation through the theatrical amplification of unheard voices.We help communities come together and make meaningful connections through the public sharing of their untold stories. Seeking new artists and writers to join us in this mission."

MELANIE MOYER WILLIAMS, Executive Artistic Director, The Red Fern Theatre Company. Melanie, a cum laude graduate of Duke University, is also Co-founder and Executive Artistic Director of the Red Fern Theatre Company. Her credits for the company include Miss Evers Boys, An Ideal Husband, A Piece of My Heart, Who Will Carry the Word?, The Exonerated, The Long Christmas Ride Home, Found a Peanut, Two Rooms, and Patient A. This past summer, Melanie worked with Shirley Lauro on a reading of her new play, The Radiant at the Actors’ Studio and Ensemble Studio Theatre. For Woodframe Productions, Melanie directed a reading of Memorial Days by John Attanas and the World Premiere of Henry Kissinger in FringeNYC where they received rave reviews. She has also directed A Tribute to Andrew Lloyd Webber with the Youth Symphony Orchestra of El Salvador in El Salvador with Wanderlust Theatre Company. She directed That Is the Question in the Philadelphia Fringe Festival which was named one of the Best in the Festival. Other New York credits include Medea excerpts for Cypreco and the New York Public Library; Five Women Wearing the Same Dress, When the World Was Green and Icarus’s Mother for the Michael Chekhov Theatre Company. Prior to moving to New York, Melanie was also a founder and Managing Director of the Camden Shakespeare Company in Camden, Maine.

"We are looking for plays that are production-ready (or very minimal work-shopping necessary). We produce issue based plays so playwrights interested in pitching a play to Red Fern should know that we are a non-profit company whose mission is to produce socially conscious plays. We only consider plays that have a clearly defined social issue at the heart of the play; the issue cannot be ancillary to the plot."

SHARON ALBERT, Ph.D., is an award-winning marketing and business development professional who has worked with Fortune 100 companies assisting them in the branding and marketing of global new products and services. She has taught for-profit and not-for-profit organizations the art of strategic development, and how to write and develop business and marketing plans which included traditional and electronic/digital marketing tactics. Sharon has travelled globally and trained sales teams in the development of sales pitches and presentations. Her knowledge and love of theatre spans two decades and she believes that the artistic community can benefit from using targeted business philosophies and tools in order to promote and gain funding for their work.