Makeda M. Declet is a Guyanese-American playwright, TV writer, and actor. Her play FKA GOLD IS DEEP is a semi-finalist for the 2026 O’Neill Playwrights’ Conference. DARLINGS was a finalist for the 2025 Ojai Playwrights Conference, a semi-finalist for the 2025 O’Neill Playwrights’ Conference, and an Honorable Mention for the 2024 Leah Playwriting Prize. Makeda served in the mini-room for FX’s Suckhole. Her stage plays include SERVICE/PLAY (EST/LA, Los Angeles; The Understudy, Chicago), Issa Was Here (Perceptions Theatre, Chicago), Hammer (The Belfry Stage, Los Angeles), Camp (MeetCute, Los Angeles), and FKA Gold is Deep (Ethel M. Barber Theater, Northwestern University).

She has participated in Rogue Machine’s Playwrights Roundtable, EST/LA’s New West Playwrights Under 30, Moving Arts’ MadLab, and Mara Brock Akil’s Story 27 Writers’ Colony. She holds a BFA in Experimental Theater from NYU and an MFA in Writing for the Screen and Stage from Northwestern University.

Makeda grew up in Brooklyn and now splits her time between Chicago and Los Angeles.

Born and raised in China, Xiaoyan Kang started writing plays in English while studying under Philip Gotanda at Berkeley. She is a current member of Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Youngblood Group and a recent MFA graduate of the Iowa Playwrights Workshop. Her plays have been developed with The Playwrights Realm, Great Plains Theatre Commons, Et Alia Theater, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. She has been recognized as a runner-up for the Jane Chambers Award, a finalist for the Alliance Theatre/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Award, and a regional winner (The Americas) of the BBC International Radio Playwriting Competition. Some of her short plays have been developed at The Samuel French Off Off Broadway Festival and 24 Hour Plays: Nationals.

Deepak Kumar is a playwright, lyricist, composer and professor of Computer Science & Engineering at UC San Diego. He writes about the questions that keep him up at night, whether they be about Asianness, technology, youth, board games, or soul-eating demons. His shows have been developed and produced all over, with some highlights including The Old Globe, Ojai Playwrights Conference, and The Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center. He is a MacDowell Colony fellow and is currently on commission from Arena Stage.