Cameron Noel, Third Year MFA Student
Cameron Noel (he/him) is originally from Richmond Virgina. He is an alum of Duke Ellington School of The Arts class of 2017. Cameron graduated from Sewanee University of The South in 2021 and was awarded the Tennesse Williams Creative writing award at commencement. He departed from the University of The South with a bachelor's in arts, minor in dance, and creative writing certificate with the focus being playwriting. He has an Op-ed detailing the struggle of PrEP access for college students in the south that was published in the Tennessean. Cameron is also a member of the dramatist Guild and was awarded membership after participating in the New South Young Playwrights Festival hosted by Horizons Theatre. His goal as a writer is to center Black people within their own narratives while producing high quality content for people of color.
e. k. doolin, Third Year MFA Student
E.K. Doolin (she/her) is an emerging writer from Southern Illinois. E.K.'s plays have been read and produced by the Slightly Askew Theatre Company, Tesseract Theatre, Q-collective, (all of St. Louis, MO), as well as The Geneva Theatre Guild (Geneva, NY), Theatre is the Cure (San Diego, CA), the CutlerBay Community Theatre (Cutler Bay, FL), and York College (York, PA). Her short play Running Uphill to Smooth Criminal will be featured in the Mike Dobbin's Festival of New Plays in July of 2022 at the Heartland Theatre in Bloomington, Illinois.
Aleksei J. Ellis, Second Year MFA Student
Aleksei (Lexi) Ellis (she/her) is from the New England area. She has earned her Bachelors of Arts in Theatre Arts Acting and Dramatic Writing and is currently pursuing her Master of Fine Arts in Playwriting at Southern Illinois University. Lexi has written a performative memoir titled "Hazed" which encompasses her experience from being hazed, which led to her play "Pledge Pawns" that tells her direct experience of hazing with a Greek chorus. Lexi is currently working on “Plastic Knife” a murder mystery among the plastics within the dollhouse walls! When Lexi is not writing for the stage she is writing poetry, traveling, and drowning in coffee!
Mikayla Delos-Santos, First Year MFA Student
Mikayla Delos-Santos (she/her) is a playwright and director born and raised in Colorado Springs. Throughout her eleven years in the theatre arts, Mikayla has started a theater company, directed three shows, taught youth acting classes, and performed in several on-stage productions. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Acting for the Stage and Screen with a Creative Writing minor from Azusa Pacific University. She now continues to pursue her many artistic passions as she works toward her Master of Fine Arts degree in Playwriting at Southern Illinois University.
Website: https://mikaylacreations.my.canva.site/mikayla-delos-santos
New Play Exchange: https://newplayexchange.org/users/85592/mikayla-delos-santos
Website: https://mikaylacreations.my.canva.site/mikayla-delos-santos
New Play Exchange: https://newplayexchange.org/users/85592/mikayla-delos-santos
M Kamara, First Year MFA Student
M Kamara (they/them) is a writer of the world, having lived in places like England, Georgia, and Virginia, and being a first-generation Sierra Leonean American. Each place has shaped them into the person they are today, opening their eyes to the multitude of stories that varying communities hold. M is currently an MFA Playwriting student at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, a reader for The Quarry, and the administrative assistant and creative writing workshop facilitator for The Warmth, a collective of young adult Black writers that hosts a week-long writing retreat each summer in Richmond, VA. As a budding playwright, M is interested in telling Black diasporic stories that engage history, afro-surrealism, speculative fiction, and various cultural myths. www.kamarawrites.weebly.com
Alicia Utecht, PhD Candidate Communication Studies
Alicia Utecht has always been a multi-fandom girlie regarding all of her interests, but she found her academic home in Performance Studies work. Originally from the Minneapolis area, she earned her AA in Liberal Arts from North Hennepin Community College, her BA in Creative Writing and BS in Communication Studies from Minnesota State University, Mankato, and her MA in Communication from Villanova University. Her MA thesis, “Big/Little Sister,” received the 2022 International Association of Autoethnography and Narrative Inquiry Outstanding Thesis Award. Now a PhD candidate in Communication Studies, much of her current work focuses on the intersection of fandom studies and family communication.