Dignity, Always Dignity

Zack Fine (he/him) (Creator/Director) is an actor, director, playwright, and teacher. Notable credits as an actor; Broadway: China Doll with Al Pacino, Off-Broadway: The Acting Company, Mint, Fiasco, Red Bull, TFANA, Pearl, Bedlam. Select Regional: Guthrie, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Folger (Helen Hayes Award Two Gentlemen of Verona), Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Playmakers Repertory Company. As a director, Zack helmed the world premiere production of the first ever Spanish translation of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good (El Bien Del Pais) which ran for two years in Mexico City (Premios Nomination: Best Director, Best Production). So Please You and Sea Maid’s Music (Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival), Bewilderness (Playmakers Repertory Company), Between The Moon and Me (Birdland), and as creative comedy consultant on Phantom Limb’s Puppet Cycle. Writing developed with The Lark, The Public, MCC, Long Wharf, Primary Stages, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, and many more. He teaches Clown and Games at NYU and for the Fiasco Conservatory.

Broadway: A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder (Tony, Drama Desk, Grammy Nominations), The Heidi Chronicles (Outer Critics Nomination, Drama League Nomination), Ghost, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Holiday Inn (no nominations, but people said they really liked them). TV: Julia, Mercy Street, Blacklist, Proven Innocent, Blindspot, Instinct, The Goodwife, Person of Interest. Countries visited: 22 and counting. Concert Venues: Caramoor, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Library of Congress, Chicago Lyric. Co-Founder of www.zaraaina.org BA: Boston College. MFA in Acting and Playbill bios: Yale School of Drama. Follow: @theBrycecapades

Rona Siddiqui is a composer/lyricist based in NYC. She is a recipient of the Jonathan Larson Grant and Billie Burke Ziegfeld award and was named one of Broadway Women’s Fund’s Women to Watch. Her show Salaam Medina: Tales of a Halfghan, an autobiographical comedy about growing up bi-ethnic in America, will be performed at 54Below this fall. Other musicals include One Good Day, Hip Hop Cinderella, and The Tin. She is the recipient of the ASCAP Harold Adamson Lyric Award, the ASCAP Foundation Mary Rodgers/Lorenz Hart Award and ASCAP Foundation/Max Dreyfus Scholarship. She has written pieces for Arena Stage, Wicked‘s 16th anniversary commemoration Flying Free, 24 Hour Musicals, Prospect Theater Company, The Civilians, and has performed concerts of her work at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Feinstein’s/54 Below. Rona is Music Director of the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, A Strange Loop.

Kirya Traber is a writer, performer, and cultural organizer. Originally from Northern California, she now resides in New York City. Her collaborative work with Ping Chong + Company, Undesirable Elements: Generation NYZ, premiered at the New Victory Theater and was a NYTimes Critics Pick in 2018. Her play-with-music, Both My Grandfathers, received a workshop production at Lincoln Center in 2015. Her other plays include Lucky (development workshop, NYSAF 2020), and the musical If This Be Sin (development workshops at Hi-ARTS and the Kennedy Center 2021). Her debut novel, based on the play Lucky, will be published by Dutton. She is the recipient of a NY Emmy Nomination (First Person, PBS), Robert Redford’s Sundance Foundation award for Activism in the Arts, a California Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, and an Astraea Lesbian Writers Fund award for Poetry. Throughout her ambitious artistic career, Kirya continuously advocates for social change.

Adrian Huq is a junior at Tufts University and New Haven Public Schools graduate. They serve as a co-founder of New Haven Climate Movement’s Youth Action Team (est. 2019), a group of young activists who mobilize community members and fight for bold policies and investments by the City of New Haven to address climate change. Adrian collaborates directly with New Haven school district staff to coordinate the group’s approved Climate Justice Schools program in New Haven Public Schools. Additionally, as Youth Coordinator at the Climate Health Education Project, they have been facilitating an internship since 2018 that empowers local high school students in advancing climate education in their school communities. Adrian has worked for various environmental organizations and also does work surrounding media and communications.

As Environmental Justice Specialist for Save the Sound, Alex Rodriguez is responsible for developing and implementing monthly grassroots stakeholder programs in Connecticut and New York; engaging stakeholders in policymaking; applying an environmental justice lens on public policy; collaborating with colleagues to advance legislative priorities; building relationships and educating policymakers; and providing communications support for environmental justice-related subject matter, particularly on organization of briefing papers, press events and educational webinars. Prior to joining Save the Sound, Alex served as Community Organizer to the CT League of Conservation Voters where he planned and executed campaigns relating to climate action, voting rights, and electric school bus advancement. He has also served in roles such as Chair of the Public Participation subcommittee of the Governor’s Council on Climate Change, and Vice Chair of Hartford’s Advisory Commission on the Environment.