In Schedule Order

Rachel Zake :: “In The News Today” :: is an award-winning writer, actor, and director. Most recently, Rachel wrote a commissioned piece about the unparalleled Ruth Bader Ginsburg for Ensemble Theatre (The Prospect of Equality, May-June 2024). Next up, her newest full- length work will receive a workshop in NYC (April 2025) and her full-length play, Nine Dinners in October, will premiere at Outside Circle Theatre Project (April 2025). Rachel has been acting for over 30 years (Playhouse Square, Dobama Theatre, Ensemble Theatre, Cain Park, Playwrights Local, and Halle Theatre among others). She is President of the Board for Dobama Theatre, and a member of SAG-AFTRA, The Dramatists Guild of America and Dobama Theatre’s Playwrights’ GYM. She also served as Artistic Director of Playmakers Youth Theatre in Beachwood, OH. Rachel has published four books: Two People are Coming out of a Building (2014, fiction), The Nomad Diaries (2017, nonfiction), Pants Off/Dance Off: A Gentleman's Guide (2019, nonfiction) and The Actuality of Us: Leiland & Emmeline (2021, fiction). A huge thank you to Celeste and Ensemble Theatre for supporting new work by local playwrights! 

Rannigan Walsh :: “Abue” :: has been a member of Stagewrights, the playwright workshop at Ensemble Theatre since 2012. Her full-length play, A Kind of Courage, was part of the Colombi New Plays Festival in 2016. She currently serves on the board of Ensemble Theatre. Her love of theater began at an early age when she acted out the tv soap operas in the back yard for the neighbor kids. After retiring from teaching as a Reading Specialist and then later retiring from corporate life, she decided to try playwriting. Thanks to Ensemble Theatre she is enjoying all that theater has to offer.

John Busser :: Lent Me Your Ears” :: is an actor/writer/graphic artist from Avon, Ohio. He is the co-runner of Cleveland Public Theatre’s writer's workshop, The Dark Room, which helps playwrights test drive new work. He has written over 120 short plays, some of which have been produced throughout the US, Canada, the UK, India, and Australia. Some of his more well-known works include: Children's Letters to Satan (and Other Horrible Scribblings), a collection of 7 of his original plays which is available from Next Stage Press. An award-winning short play of his, Obstacle was made into a film that has played festivals across the globe. His sci-fi dramedy Taylor-Made premiered on Broken Arts Entertainment audio series The Future and garnered over 4000 views. He writes this nonsense in lieu of having to perform community service. 

S. Joshua Mendel :: “Respect” :: Now in his fourth year of playwriting, Josh has written 24 plays to date. He is an avid reader, theater buff, and movie watcher/goer. While he has done some traveling, his most compelling and important journeys have been within himself and for my community. Those travels include counseling; Al-Anon, and The Mankind Project. For 12 years, he served as a volunteer hotline worker, assisting thousands of callers in crisis, including those actively considering suicide. These have given him a unique, often firsthand experience with the panoply of human desires, human frailties, and human tragedy— as well as the amazing healing and possibilities for growth and new life that occur when people come together with Spirit.

Eileen Burns :: “Miss Interpretation” :: This is Eileen’s first foray into having one of her pieces presented in a public reading. She was involved in a couple short plays as a reader in last year’s Colombi New Plays Festival and is a frequent participant in the monthly Dark Room at Cleveland Public Theatre. She can also be seen and heard around town with her band, Red Light Roxy and performing in a variety of local theatrical productions. She would like to thank Ensemble Theatre for hosting this festival and giving her the opportunity to share this extremely silly play.

Agnes Herrmann :: Limbo :: A member of Ensemble Theatre’s Stagewrights Workshop, Agnes Herrmann has written many 10-minute plays, and a full-length comedy, “Makin’ Sawce," all of which had readings at Ensemble Theatre. “Makin’ Sawce” was also read at Kent State Trumbull’s Sips & Scripts Play series. Her short play, “Nudity Required,” was chosen as part of the 4th Annual Cleveland Playwrights Festival at Playwrights Local in Cleveland. Her 10-minute play, “No Returns,” was produced as part of Playwrights Local’s Short Play Festival in May 2022. A graduate of the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, she has worked in summer stock, dinner theater, and Off-Off Broadway venues. She spent more than twenty years as a voice actress in New York and her credits range from national commercials to industrials, broadcast TV, radio drama, cartoons, and audio books. Since moving to Cleveland, she has performed at Ensemble Theater, Cleveland Public Theater, Theatre in the Circle, Dobama, and Playwrights Local and has been active in film. Her most recent film was “The Pale Blue Eye” on Netflix. Her next film, which will be released in November 2025, was shot entirely in Cleveland with a star-studded cast. Please look for “Lost and Found in Cleveland.”

Kitty Dubin :: “Mimi & Me” :: is an award-winning playwright whose work has been performed across the country. Her most recent production, “Rights of Passage”, was her sixth world premiere and seventh play to be produced at the Jewish Ensemble Theatre in suburban Detroit where she was playwright in Residence from 2004 until the theater’s closing two years ago. Kitty has also received productions at The Purple Rose Theatre in Chelsea, MI, the BoarsHead Theatre in Lansing, MI., and the Live Oak Theatre in Austin, Texas. Her one acts have been performed in numerous festivals and competitions including The American Globe Festival, (NYC) Heartlande Theatre’s Play-by-Play, (Detroit) Tipping Point’s Sandbox Festival, (Northville MI) StageIt, (Bonita Springs, Fla) Vitality Festival, (Chicago) and the Samuel French Play Competition. (NYC) She has received two individual artist grants from the Michigan Council for the Arts as well as a Jewish Woman in the Arts Award for her body of work. Her most recent play, “The Marriage Spectrum”, received a virtual staged reading sponsored by Oakland University's School of Music, Theatre and Dance.  In addition, she has been a Lecturer in Playwriting for the past twenty-seven years at Oakland University where she teaches classes in beginning and advanced playwriting. 

Michael Oatman :: “Not a Uterus in Sight” :: is the former Playwright-In-Residence at Karamu Theater, the oldest African American theater in the country.  He is only the second person to hold this honor in the storied history of Karamu; the first being Langston Hughes.  He currently serves as a playwrighting mentor at University of Nebraska at Omaha and also is an playwrighting/script analysis instructor at Kent State University.  In 2011, he won the CPAC Workforce Fellowship and the Cleveland Art Prize in 2010 for Best Emerging Artist and the 2010 Lantern Award for Best Play.  In 2011, three of his full length plays where produced: Breaking the Chains, You Got Nerve and Sometime Hope Is Enough.  In 2010, seven of his plays were produced in various venues:  Black Nativity (Adaption), War paint, Eclipse: The War Between Pac and B.I.G., Course of Action, My Africa, A Solitary Voice, Not a Uterus in Sight, Hitler and Gandhi.  He earned an English Degree from Cleveland State University in 2004 and completed his MFA in theater, from the Northeastern Ohio Master of Fine arts Consortium (Cleveland State, Akron University, Youngstown University and Kent State) in 2008.  “For me the beauty of theater is that it lives.  It is not an artifact.  It wrestles with us and forces us to wrestle with it.  Plays live in real time; actors can reach out and touch you.  Good drama is not a spectators sport.  It’s a subtle give and take, a delicate dance between actor and audience; playwright and the world.  I have often mused that playwrights are the special forces of the creative writing world.  They parachute in; give truth and watch as the walls tumble.”

Alan Federman :: “Rules of The Game” :: Alan Federman is a psychotherapist in private practice in Cleveland Heights, Oh. He has written one previous play, Side Effects, which had several staged readings produced by Ensemble Theatre Company in Cleveland. His interest is in writing plays in which the protagonists face the consequences of some of the less savory aspects of our culture and have to decide whether to passively accept this or go against the cultural norms in non-forming ways. His current play, Rules of the Game, is set in the near future in which life-like companion robots are being released into the public with unexpected and disturbing results.

Cindy Dettelbach :: “After” :: After a brief stint as a high school English teacher and a seeming “lifetime” as editor of The Cleveland Jewish News, Cindy began writing plays in her retirement. She signed up for Ensemble’s first writing workshop, then held at the Lee Road Public Library in Cleveland Heights, and has been an active participant in Stagewrights ever since. Several of her plays have  enjoyed productions as part of Ensemble’s Colombi New Plays Festival. She also serves on Ensemble’s Board of Trustees.

Jeanne Madison :: She Walks In Beauty ::, is a member of the Dramatist Guild, and the Playwrights’ Center. Her  play, “Showin’ Up Black”, was awarded a prestigious National Endowment for the Arts grant for  production at Cleveland Public Theatre (CPT). Her plays, “Showin’ Up Black” and “Eyes of the Bridge”  were selected for the distinguished Test Flight New Play Development Series at (CPT). Jeanne was  named the 2021-22 Catapult Nord Family Foundation Fellow at CPT which earned her a mentorship with  prolific playwright, Eric Coble whose work has been produced on Broadway. She is the recipient of the Room-in-the-House Fellowship at Karamu House, where her play “Black  Coffee” is performed for diversity training for The Greater Cleveland Partnership, and select private  firms. Jeanne’s plays have been featured at Station Hope Cleveland, the National Black Theatre Festival,  Winston-Salem N.C.; and the Ensemble Theatre of Cleveland where she is a member of the Stagewrights  Unit. Jeanne holds a BA, and an MBA from Case Western Reserve University. She recently completed the  Directing Creation Master Class at CPT; and Scene Study and Playwrighting Master Classes at The  Cleveland Playhouse. After many years in corporate America, during which she lived in Chicago, New  York City, and Washington, D.C., Jeanne returned home to Cleveland, Ohio where she finds inspiration  for her writing. Visit her at www.jeannemadison.com

Berenice Kleiman :: “To Hell & Back” :: Her muse is chocolate. A big bag of M&Ms or chocolate kisses will go a long way toward inspiring my creativity, especially when bolstered by her very talented actor and playwright friends in Ensemble Theatre’s Stagewrights’ Group. Berenice has been a member for ten years and loves the camaraderie. As a professional writer over the span of a long career, she has spun high tech and business marketing strategies and never consider playwriting until after her master’s thesis when she struggled with a story she felt compelled to share (GRIM VERDICT). She knew nothing about play or book writing but chose the former, thinking it might be easier. But what a struggle that was! Now that she’s done both, she feel free to move back and forth. Playwriting has given her an opportunity to embellish, yet still tell real stories in full length plays, including a murder in Shaker Heights (MURDER ON THE INTERNET), a facial transplant resulting from a terrorist bombing (ABOUT FACE), criticism of healthcare today (FROM HELL AND BACK), and much more. And as she has grown closer to creative writing, she has learned that she can have fun with current issues (HEAVEN’S GATE, POWERBALL, and REUNITED AGAIN). Somehow, she doesn’t get into as much political trouble when she writes about heaven and hell. Both are comfortable places to hide. And yes, she learned how to write books, too and am working on her fifth one. She is a graduate of Syracuse University (political science and education), attended the Maryland School of Law, and hold a masters degree (history) from The Ohio State University. There’s a lot more she looks forward to writing about.

Kierstan Kathleen Conway :: “Six Lover in Search or A Killer” :: is a multi-hyphenate Cleveland artist (born and raised).  She holds a BA from Cleveland State University in Theatre and French. She has performed, dialect coached, or photographed productions at CSU, Ensemble Theatre, Cain Park, French Creek, Clague Playhouse, Micro Theatre Cle, and Borderlight Fringe. Kierstan is a teaching artist at Beck Center for the Arts and Dobama Theatre. Six Lovers in Search of a Killer is her first full length piece. She was inspired to write while teaching with the Young Playwrights Program at Dobama, the creativity she saw in the young writers inspired her to write something of her own. She wrote this piece to combine her love for murder mysteries with a dramatized story of historical queer socialites in turn of the century in France. The LGBT community represented by these characters, were major players or benefactors to the art, music, literature, and theatrical community. Queer folks have been around for millennia, and we aren’t going anywhere. Kierstan would like to thank all of the artists who have participated in earlier readings and provided the feedback needed to grow this story. She would like to especially thank Dylan and Noah for pushing her to write Six Lovers in the first place. She dedicates this piece to queer people everywhere, the world is a much more beautiful place with you in it. 

Ife-Gail Young :: “Please Remember Me” :: is pleased to present her work for the second time at Colombi New Works Festival.  She was born, raised, and educated in Cleveland, OH and is a novelist, playwright, illustrator, actress and vocalist.  While on her way to earning her B.A. in Dramatic Arts, she was presented with an Outstanding Writer’s Award. She has been busy writing since then.  Recently, an original play, ’The Garveyites’ was selected by the Garland Lee Thompson New Readers Theatre along with 29 others out of approximately 1200 submittals.  It won a prestigious presentation at the International Black Theater Festival in North Carolina, August 2024. Ife’s works often highlight social issues but are not limited to them, as she also reflects on the human condition, triumph, and loss. She also writes comedy, absurdity, and advant-garde.  Many of her works have been credited with leading audiences to a deeper sense of self. Her plays have been presented locally at Karamu House, Cleveland State University, Tri-C, Cain Park, Cleveland Public Theater, Playwrights Local/Waterloo Arts, Dunham Tavern, Larchmere Arts, Cleveland Museum of Arts, Severance Hall, Akron Civic Theater, Cleveland Municipal Schools, Cleveland Public Libraries, and community venues, including churches and social agencies. Her works have also appeared at theaters, colleges, and venues in NYC, PA, NOLA, TN, NC, FL, LA and LV.  Ife has a mission to help uplift youths in Urban communities with skits, poetry, stories, songs, self authored books, and workshops. She has one daughter and several grandchildren that she utterly adores and feels very fortunate to be able to inspire them artistically just as she had been. She presents a one-woman show, ‘This Woman Can,’ an ongoing presentation (with original songs) that depicts the life and times of Maggie Lena Walker,  an African American pioneer banker and entrepreneur. 

Renee Reid :: “I Thought We Had More Time” :: is a playwright, blogger, podcaster, and wellness coach dedicated to empowering women in midlife to embrace their worth and create a life they love. A proud lifelong Clevelander, Renee attended Cleveland Public Schools, graduated from East High School, and earned two master’s degrees from Cleveland State University—one in History and the other in Adult Learning and Development. As a storyteller, Renee is passionate about exploring themes of resilience, transformation, and the complexities of human relationships. Her play, I Thought We Had More Time, has been selected for the prestigious 2025 Colombi New Plays Festival, a milestone that underscores her commitment to crafting compelling narratives that resonate with audiences. Beyond the stage, Renee hosts The Diabetic Toolbox podcast and blog, where she blends her expertise as a diabetes lifestyle coach with personal insights to help others navigate emotional eating, wellness, and self-care. Through her work, she seeks to inspire and support individuals—particularly those managing chronic conditions—to take control of their health and well-being. A devoted mother of five and proud “Nana” to her two energetic grandsons, Jrue and Jaxon, Renee finds joy in family, creativity, and uplifting those around her. She resides in Garfield Heights, Ohio, where she continues writing, coaching, and sharing her passion for storytelling and wellness.