SHERIF ALABEDE is a first-generation, award-winning Nigerian-American filmmaker and writer. Born in New York and currently based in Los Angeles, Sherif's acclaimed music videos have screened at SXSW, HollyShorts, and Camerimage. His work has amassed millions of views on YouTube. Sherif’s music videos often explore pitch-black studies of misanthropes that are made lively through dance. In TV, Sherif has worked as a staff writer on the HBO series PERRY MASON and the upcoming Darren Aronofsky-produced Netflix series THE CRAVING. He is currently serving as a co-producer on AMC's MAYFAIR WITCHES. In film, Sherif is attached to adapt and direct Arthur Browne’s ONE RIGHTEOUS MAN with David Permut producing.

JENNA EBERSBERGER is a bicoastal writer and performer hailing from Los Angeles, California. She received an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU and currently works at Saturday Night Live as the researcher for Weekend Update's graphics department. There, she helps bring to life the visual punchlines of UPDATE and is known to contribute a dumb joke or two. Jenna has trained at The Second City Chicago Conservatory, The Groundlings Theater, and recently showcased for the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival for their New Faces of Characters. Off stage, Jenna has worked in television production as a showrunner/writer’s assistant for various networks. Jenna’s own written work consists of half-hour comedies that always include a messy, scrappy female struggling to evolve. She focuses on the cocoon phase, believing that comedy is most successful when intertwined with a little tragedy!

DAN GILES (he/him) is a playwright from Massachusetts and a recent graduate of the Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program at Juilliard. His plays have been produced and developed at Ensemble Studio Theatre, Next Door at New York Theatre Workshop, New Light Theater Project, First Floor Theater, Haven Theatre, The Great Plains Theatre Commons, and others. Awards include the Clifford Odets Ensemble Commission from Lee Strasberg/NYU, the New Light New Voices Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Screenwriting Award, and the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize for Comic Playwrighting. He has been a finalist for Ingram New Works at Nashville Rep, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Pipeline, The Lark, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and Playwrights Center; a semifinalist for the Terrence McNally New Works Incubator at Rattlestick, O’Neill, and Princess Grace; and received an honorable mention for the Relentless Award. He is an alum of Harvard College, Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, and Youngblood at EST. Upcoming: Playwrights’ Workshop with TOGETHER, Resident Artist at the Cell Theatre. dangilesplaywright.weebly.com

JALISSA ARIE JACKSON is a writer, director, and costume designer from Los Angeles, California. She earned her B.A. in Theater–Design/Production from UCLA and has designed for short films, digital series, and other independent projects. As an undergraduate, she served as Executive Director of Diverso, a non-profit dedicated to creating pathways into the film and television industry for student screenwriters from underrepresented backgrounds. Jalissa was also selected as a costume designer in Issa Rae’s ColorCreative: Find Your People Program, where she collaborated with a cohort to produce a fully funded short film. As a filmmaker, she strives to create work that centers underrepresented voices and believes deeply in storytelling’s power to shape culture. Her goal is to develop stories that highlight the complexity and beauty of marginalized communities.

RJ LIAW is a Chinese American writer-producer from Los Angeles. In their writing, RJ strives to explore the murky depths of human relationships through both the tension of everyday life and paranormal forces unseen. RJ has worked creatively with CBS Studios, Paramount Animation, Imagine Entertainment, and more. RJ also serves as the co-president of Off the Page, a volunteer-supported organization that strives to provide professional and community-building opportunities for women and nonbinary screenwriters. RJ’s work has earned accolades with The Script Lab, Filmmatic, HorrOrigins Film Festival, and more. They are a graduate of the Loyola Marymount University School of Film and Television.

NATALYA SAMEE is a writer, actor, and comedian based in New York. She is currently developing her new one-woman show, UNKNOWN UNKNOWNS. She was previously a CAMP Resident at Ars Nova in 2023, where her first one-woman show, SATURN RETURN, debuted Off-Broadway to a sold-out audience and was presented internationally at Edinburgh Fringe Festival to critical acclaim. She was also an SFFILM Filmhouse Resident in 2022 for her project, DOHA GIRLS, an original TV series based on her adolescence in the Middle East. She currently performs improv, stand-up, and sketch around New York City.

BENJY STEINBERG was raised by academics in Northern California’s Santa Cruz Mountains, where he attended a STEM public high school in the heart of Silicon Valley. His work approaches character-driven thrillers from unconventional angles, such as science, sexuality, and religion. Benjy is a 2020 graduate of the USC MFA in Writing for Screen & Television program. He received the 2023 Sundance-Sloan Episodic Fellowship for his spy thriller pilot, THE PROFESSOR & THE SPY. Most recently, he was a staff writer on Season 3 of ABC’s BIG SKY.

HABIB YAZDI is an Iranian-American playwright and filmmaker. He produced and directed the PBS series UNITED STATES OF COMEDY and is a recipient of South Coast Repertory's Elizabeth George Commission. A Sundance x ISF Building Bridges Fellow, Habib has participated in Gotham Week, the Warner Bros. Discovery Access Directors Program, and the Mentorship Matters writing lab. His short films have screened at festivals worldwide—including St. Louis, Brisbane, Brooklyn, Vail, and Pan African—and at venues like the Barbican Centre, de Young Museum, and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Habib earned his MFA from NYU Tisch, where he received the Oliver Stone Screenwriting Award and the Goldberg Play Prize. His comedic play about the 1953 American coup in Iran, AJAX, premieres in spring 2026.