Whitney White, Director, is an Obie-Award and Lily Award winning director, writer and musician originally from Chicago. She is a believer of alternative forms of performance, multi-disciplinary work and collaborative processes. Recent directing: The Amen Corner (Shakespeare Theatre DC), Our Dear Dead Drug Lord (WP Theatre and Second Stage, NYT Critic’s Pick), Aleshea Harris’ What to Send Up When it Goes Down (The Movement Theatre Company, Woolly Mammoth, American Repertory Theatre, The Public, NYT Critic’s Pick), An Iliad (Long Wharf), Canyon by Jonathan Caren (LA Times Critic’s Choice and recipient of the CTG Block Party Grant, IAMA), Jump by Charly Evon Simpson (National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere, PlayMakers Rep). Digital projects include: Finish the Fight by Ming Peiffer (The New York Times, 24K+ viewers), Animals by Stacy Osei-Kuffour (Williamstown Theatre and Audible) and Soft Light by Aleshea Harris (The Movement Theatre). Her original musical Definition will debut at the Bushwick Starr in 2021 and her five-part cycle deconstructing Shakespeare’s women, music and female ambition is currently in development with American Repertory Theater (Boston, MA). Whitney is the current recipient of Vineyard Theatre’s Susan Stroman Directing Award, is part of the Rolex Protegé and Mentorship Arts Initiative and is an Associate Artist at The Roundabout. She is also an Associate Director at Shakespeare Theatre Company in DC. Past residencies and fellowships: Sundance Theatre Lab, Colt Coeur, The Drama League, the Roundabout and the 2050 Fellowship at the New York Theatre Workshop. MFA Acting: Brown University/Trinity Rep, BA: Northwestern University.

Tori Sampson, Playwright. A native of Boston, Tori’s plays include If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must be a Muhfucka (Playwrights Horizons, 2019), This Land Was Made (Vineyard Theatre, 2018), and Cadillac Crew (Yale Repertory Theater, 2019). She also wrote for Season 2 of “Hunters” on Amazon. Her plays have been developed at Great Plains Theatre Conference, Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s The Ground Floor residency program, Victory Garden’s IGNITION Festival of New Plays, Playwrights Foundation, and Ubuntu Festival. Tori is a 2017–18 Playwright’s Center Jerome Fellow and a 2018-19 McKnight Fellow. Two of her plays appeared on the 2017 Kilroys List. Her awards and honors include the 2016 Relentless Award, Honorable Mention; the 2016 Paula Vogel Award in Playwriting from The Kennedy Center; the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, Second Place; the Alliance Theater’s 2017 Kendeda Prize, Finalist; the 2018 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Finalist; the 2018 National Theater Conferences, Paul Green Award. Tori is currently working on commissions from Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre and Atlantic Theater Company. She holds a BS in sociology from Ball State University and an MFA in playwriting from Yale School of Drama.