Galileo’s Daughter

Jessica Dickey is an award-winning playwright and actor. Playwriting: Jessica’s most recent play, The Convent, a dark comedy about a group of women who try to live like nuns in the middle ages, premiered Off-Broadway this year in a sold-out co-production with Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Rising Phoenix and WeatherVane, and is now being developed into a series for Sarah Jessica Parker’s company Pretty Matches. Jessie’s play The Rembrandt (about a museum guard who decides to deliberately touch a Rembrandt painting) had a sold out run at Steppenwolf starring John Mahoney. Other plays have been premiered Off-Broadway in New York and produced around the country — The Amish Project, about the 2006 Nickel Mines school shooting in an Amish community; then Charles Ives Take Me Home, about a violinist father and his basketball star daughter; and Row After Row, a dark comedy about Civil War reenactors. Her next world premiere is coming up this season on the west coast: Nan and the Lower Body is a dark comedy about the creation of the Pap Smear and her maternal grandmother (commissioned by Manhattan Theater Club and the Sloan Foundation). Acting Credits include: Cry It Out (Humana Festival), Pocatello (Playwrights Horizons) and performances at Manhattan Theater Club, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Barrow Street, Cherry Lane, Keen Company, the Guthrie, McCarter, the Huntington, Denver Center, and George Street. TV Credits include: Homeland, Shades of Blue, The Big C, Law & Order, and the Lifetime movie Amish Grace. Memberships & Awards: Jessica is a member of the exclusive New Dramatists and a recipient of the prestigious Stavis Award.

Reena Dutt is dedicated to new and reimagined texts that catapult polarizing conversations through unexpected stories with the bodies, voices and life experiences of the underheard. Theatre Credits: Her Broadway debut was on The Collaboration at MTC as Assistant Director to Kwame Kwei-Armah of the Young Vic in London, and she most recently assisted Leigh Silverman on Merry Me at NYTW. New York: Columbia University, Playwrights Realm, A.R.T. West Coast: UC Riverside, Artists At Play, Coeurage Ensemble, UC Riverside, Greenway Court Theatre, East West Players, Sacred Fools. Upcoming: An Experiment with an Airpump (CalArts), Pang Spa (World Premiere, Chalk Rep). Film: Reena is also a film director and producer having screened films at over 80 festivals worldwide including Sundance, LAFF, Outfest, Frameline, Cucalorus, NBCUniversal, BET, PBS/Latino and HBO. Her most recent short film, FOUND, brings voice to transracial adoption through fictional storytelling from the adoptee’s point of view, and is currently touring the festival circuit in conjunction with private events with adoption organizations across the country. Dutt directed TOO MANY BODIES, a socially driven music and dance piece advocating for gun reform, which was picked up by NoRAnow.org and Survivors Empowered and received numerous awards in music video and social justice categories. She directed 3 PUFFS OF GOLD, a magical realism piece about domestic violence, and was a finalist for New Filmmakers Los Angeles: On Location competition with her film “SNAPSHOT!” (2011) which explored Angelinos and their diverse roots. Community Activism: Reena was the first South Asian Community Liaison at the Ford Amphitheatre in Los Angeles and served on the board of Theatre of NOTE. She produced panel discussion connecting 99-seat theater to large theatre houses in the LA area at the Hollywood Fringe Festival and acted as an Associate Producer for Directors Lab West/Connects during the pandemic. Fellowships: Drama League NY Directing Fellow, LCT Directors Lab, Directors Lab West, Project Involve at Film Independent, SFFilm, and Trans Atlantic Partners with the Goethe Institut (Berlin).