MARIA MANUELA GOYANES (Artistic Director, LCT3; Producer) is an artistic leader dedicated to creating courageous new work for the American theatre. She recently served as the Artistic Director of Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., only the second person to hold that position in 45 years. Woolly Mammoth holds a national reputation for producing theatre that is gutsy, catalytic, and boundary-breaking in form and content. Over Maria’s seven year tenure, Woolly won the 2022 Tony Award (Best Musical, A Strange Loop by Michael R. Jackson), 11 Helen Hayes Awards, toured multiple works nationally (Where We Belong, The Telephonic Literary Union’s Human Resources Hotline, Amm(i)gone), and created a dedicated commission program for writers connected to the Greater Washington, D.C. region. Maria deepened Woolly’s commitment to its community engagement program, Connectivity, elevating it to equal importance as the work onstage, collaborating with Connectivity Core Partners including artists D.C.’s rich spoken word community, a juvenile detention center in Ivy City, local Indigenous artists & artisans, and the Afrofuturist LGBTQ+ collective, Black in Space, among others. Through Maria, Woolly Mammoth has been a part of the Bold Women’s Leadership Circle, a visionary initiative of the Helen Gurley Brown Foundation to bridge the career gaps for women+ in the American theatre. A serious advocate for apprentice-type mentorship, Maria expanded Woolly’s learning programs with the Lin-Manuel Miranda Family Fellows, the Arts & Social Justice High School Fellowships, and strengthened its long-standing affiliation with Howard University. Maria was named one of the 150 Most Powerful Women in Washington, D.C. in both 2022 & 2023, and in 2020, co-founded the Professional Non-Profit Theatre Coalition to advocate unprecedented federal funding from the federal government. Prior to joining Woolly, she worked for over 14 years at The Public Theater in NYC where, as the Director of Producing and Artistic Planning, she oversaw the day-to-day execution of a full slate of plays and musicals at The Public’s five-theater venue at Astor Place and the Delacorte Theater for Shakespeare in the Park. There, Maria worked with countless leading theatre artists, including on acclaimed productions such as Hamilton, Fun Home, and Passing Strange; she also produced the 100-person Public Works pageants alongside Public Works Founding Director Lear deBessonet. While at The Public, Maria also held a position on the adjunct faculty of Juilliard and curated the junior year curriculum of the Playwrights Horizons Theater School at NYU. She has guest lectured at Bard College, Barnard College, Brown University, Columbia University, Juilliard, the National Theater Institute at The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, UCSD, the University of Texas-Austin, and Yale University, among others. She served as a member of the Board of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre. She co-chaired the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab for three seasons under Sarah Benson’s leadership, and from 2004 to 2012, Maria was the Executive Producer of Obie-winning 13P, a 13-member playwright collective that disrupted the endless cycle of new play development by mounting one play by each writer and then imploding. Working for 13P remains one of her proudest achievements. Maria is a first-generation Latina and native New Yorker, born and raised in Jamaica, Queens to parents who emigrated from the Dominican Republic and Spain. She is a graduate of the Bronx High School of Science and earned her Bachelor of Arts from Brown University. 

Helgard Haug is an author and director. From 1990 – 1995 she studies ‘Applied Theater Studies / Drama – Theater – Media’ at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen (Germany). Since 1995 Helgard Haug has worked as a freelance artist in the field of performance art, radio plays, film, installation and media. 2002 founding of Rimini Protokoll together with Stefan Kaegi and Daniel Wetzel. Since then and until now she works in different constellations under this label. The focus of her work is to enable multiple perspectives on our reality. She transposes rooms or social structures into theatrical formats and vice versa. Furthermore, many of her works feature interactivity and a playful use of technology. Recently, more and more immersive and interactive works have been created for museums. Productions are taking place in the independent scene as well as in state theatres, museums and festivals. Her works have been produced performed and exhibited at the most prestigious venues in the world, such as: Festival d’Avignon, Wiener Festwochen (Vienna), Théâtre de la Ville (Paris), Salzburger Festspiele, Under the radar (New York), Ruhrtriennale, International Arts Festival Perth, Onassis Cultural Centre Athens, Luminato Festival Toronto, Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam, Royal Academy of Arts London, Museum of Contemporary Art Busan and many more. In July 2023, ‘Rowohlt Verlag’ published her first novel. Since 1995 she is regularly active as a juror, mentor and lecturer. 

Drew Lichtenberg is Artistic Producer at Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., where he has worked on more than 60 productions. Freelance credits include the Roundabout Theatre Company, the Public Theater, BAM, La Mama, the Royal National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company, and regional theaters around the United States. Currently on the faculty at Johns Hopkins University and Catholic University of America, he has also taught at Eugene Lang College at the New School and David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University. He has been featured as a contributor to The New York Times and he has authored two books: The Piscatorbühne Century (2021, Routledge) and Shakespeare in the Theatre: Shakespeare Theatre Company (2024, Arden/Bloomsbury), co-authored with Deborah C. Payne. He holds a Master of Fine Arts and a Doctorate of Fine Arts in dramaturgy and dramatic criticism from Yale.