Creativity in Captivity

Seth is a director, actor, teacher, and the co-founder & co-artistic director of The Barrow Group in New York City. In his storied career as a director he was involved with the award-winning shows My Girlfriend's Boyfriend (Lucille Lortel Award for Best Solo Show, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations for Best Solo Show), Sleepwalk With Me (Nightlife Award for Outstanding Comedian in a M...

An artist, cartoonist, and the author of the book Skip to the Fun Parts: Cartoons and Complaints About Creativity.  Dana has been a contributor to the New Yorker Daily Shouts since 2018. Her online cartoon series The Worried Well was syndicated by Andrews McMeel Universal in 2016 and can be seen online on GoComics.com.  She has illustrated for The Phillips Collection, the DC Public Library, Politi...

Tom Dudzick is one of the few playwrights who makes a living at it. His first play, a Christmas tale called Greetings!, opened at New York’s John Houseman Theatre and starred Darren McGavin and Greg Edelman. It is now a holiday favorite across the country and has had well over one hundred productions. His next play, Over the Tavern, the first in a semi- autobiographical trilogy, has over three hun...

An award-winning storyteller, comedian, motivational speaker, Huffington Post Contributor, and cast member of The Fashion Hero television show on Amazon Prime. She is the author of Who Hijacked My Fairy Tale, The Land of If Only, The Story Formula, and The Gutsy Girls Pocket Guide to Public Speaking. Kelly was a featured entertainer for Holland America Cruise Lines and the keynote speaker for the...

Beowulf Boritt is currently represented on Broadway by the Tony Award® winning set for Susan Stroman's production of New York, New York. He designed the Tony Award® winning set for James Lapine's Act One. He has received four additional Tony Award® nominations for his designs of The Scottsboro Boys, POTUS, Therese Raquin, and Flying Over Sunset, for which he won a Drama Desk award. His book about...

Marja Harmon plays Angelica Schuyler on the "And Peggy" tour of Hamilton. Her Broadway credits include Book of Mormon, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and New York City Center’s Merrily We Roll Along. She starred as Nala in the national tour of The Lion King, as well as regional productions of Aida, Ragtime, Hairspray, Dreamgirls, Grease, and more. Her TV appearances include God Friended Me, Murphy Brown,...

Simone Giertz is a Swedish inventor, maker, robotics enthusiast, TV host and professional content creator on YouTube. Simone’s creations include an alarm clock that slaps the user to wake them up, a lipstick applier, and an invention that shampoos the user’s hair. Giertz showcased several of these robots on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. In 2016, Simone joined Tested.com, collaborating with A...

Doug McIntyre spent twenty-years as a television/screen writer and producer including the hit series Married… With Children, WKRP in Cincinnati, Mike Hammer – Private Eye, and the critically-acclaimed PBS series, Liberty’s Kids, which earned Doug a Humanitas Prize nomination for excellence in television writing. Together with his wife Penny Peyser, Doug wrote, produced, directed the award winning...

Kira is an animation supervisor who joined Walt Disney Animation Studios in 2007 as an animation trainee in the talent development program. She’s contributed to a host of Disney Animation titles, including Oscar® winners Zootopia, Paperman and Frozen, plus Bolt, Tangled, Prep & Landing: Naughty vs. Nice, Tangled Ever After and Wreck-It Ralph, as well as Ralph Breaks the Internet and Encanto, on wh...

A New York Times bestselling author of a dozen critically acclaimed picture books, which have sold more than five million copies combined. They include Dragons Love Tacos, Dragons Love Tacos 2: The Sequel, High Five, Gladys the Magic Chicken, Secret Pizza Party, Robo-Sauce, the Those Darn Squirrels trilogy, and El Chupacabras, which won the Texas Bluebonnet Award. Publishers Weekly called his #1 N...

Lia Chang is an actor, a multi-media content producer, activist, documentarian, corporate photographer and an award-winning filmmaker and co-founder of Bev’s Girl Films, making films that foster inclusion and diversity on both sides of the camera. Bev’s Girl Films’ debut short film, Hide and Seek was a top ten film in the Asian American Film Lab’s 2015 72 Hour Shootout Filmmaking Competition, and...

One of the jazz world's most acclaimed performers, possessing a potent combination of dynamic vocal abilities, impeccable phrasing, and powerful emotional resonance. Nicole's passionate, soulful voice and heartfelt charisma have earned her a Soul Train Award for “Best Traditional Jazz Performance," and four Top-10 jazz albums on U.S. Billboard, JazzWeek, HMV Japan and UK Sweet Rhythms charts. Hera...

A DGA-winning and Emmy-nominated filmmaker, writer, producer, and author, known for his signature style and discerning eye for talent. He is the founder of the production company Feigco Entertainment, as well as the content company Powderkeg Media, which aims to champion new voices with a commitment to female, LGBTQIA+ creators, and filmmakers of color. Feig is a visionary filmmaker with a proven...

An award-winning humor writer whose work has appeared in The New Yorker Daily Shouts, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, US Weekly Fashion Police, Scary Mommy, Buzzfeed, The Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal and various other outlets. Wendi is the author of the middle-grade book Ginger Mancino, Kid Comedian and the humorous memoir I’m Wearing Tunics Now, and a contributor to many anthologies. H...

A widely accomplished musical director, conductor, pianist, composer, and arranger, working primarily in the realm of musical theatre. His experience on Broadway includes both conducting and playing keyboards for Cinderella, How to Succeed in Business…, The Drowsy Chaperone, The Producers, Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Phantom of the Opera and Carousel. Larry has also served as Musical Director fo...

A skilled variety artist in the Los Angeles art scene who made history being the only non-magician ever to be nominated for the Magic Castle Awards. Lindsay mixes classic vaudeville tricks with a theatrical, seductive spin that gives her audience a uniquely memorable experience, like the greats of a bygone era. She started out as an actor, training heavily in the very physical Suzuki acting techni...

The Executive Director of New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players and the veteran principal bass in the comic operas H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado. David produced the all-new critically-acclaimed production of The Mikado, and co-produced I’ve Got a Little Twist, NYGASP’s original cabaret. His other roles for NYGASP include fundraising, marketing, board development and strateg...

Tracy Brigden is the Senior Artistic Producer at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. She has over 20 years of experience in off-Broadway and regional theater as a dynamic artistic leader with an extensive knowledge of the new play development and production process, as well as strong, long term relationships with major American and international playwrights, composers, actors, directors, designers...

Adam Savage has spent his life gathering skills that allow him to take what's in his brain and make it real, working with every material and in every medium he could fathom — metal, paper, glass, plastic, rubber, foam, plaster, pneumatics, hydraulics, animatronics, neon, glassblowing, mold-making and injection molding to name just a few. In 1993, Adam began concentrating his career on the special-...

Gael Chandler began her career at a drive-in theatre in Santa Rosa, CA as a cashier at the Star-Vue Motor Movies, where she became interested in the projection booth. There she learned base and emulsion, cement and tape splicing and other 35mm basics. Eventually, her union brothers and the town's theatre managers were persuaded to let her in the booth and the union. This meant she got to run Rocky...

A self-taught filmmaker who has directed four feature films, three documentaries and over 1300 national & regional commercials, as well as Maria Bamford’s acclaimed Netflix Comedy Special. Jordan directs advertising campaigns for brands and agencies from all over the world. He has directed comedy giants Will Ferrell, Kevin Hart, Keegan-Michael Key, Rory Scovel and other notable celebrities like Ar...

Maria Brito is an award-winning New York-based contemporary art advisor, entrepreneur, author and curator. Her bestselling book How Creativity Rules The World was released in March of 2022. In 2015 Brito was selected by Complex magazine as one of the 20 Power Players in the Art World and in 2020 she was named by ARTnews as one of the visionaries who gets to shape the art world. A Harvard graduate,...

Matt Goldman is a New York Times bestselling author and Emmy Award-winning television writer and producer. He has been nominated for a Writer’s Guild Award, the Shamus Award and the Nero Award. Matt's television writing credits include Seinfeld, Ellen, Love & War, Working, Three Sisters, Level Up, Just Add Magic, The New Adventures of Old Christine and Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. He s...

The Tony Award winning writing team of the musicals: Ragtime, Anastasia, Seussical, Once on This Island, My Favorite Year, Rocky, Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life, Lucky Stiff, Dessa Rose, The Glorious Ones, A Man of No Importance, Knoxville and Little Dancer. These renowned collaborators have received theater, film and music’s highest honors – the Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Olivier...

Asi Wind is a recipient of the Close-up Magician of the Year Award from the prestigious Academy of Magical Arts at Los Angeles’s Magic Castle. For the last decade, Wind has served as the chief consultant to magician David Blaine, working on Blaine’s ABC television specials and his first live tour. Asi’s off-Broadway show, Concert of the Mind, received rave reviews, sold out and extended its run. H...