Heather Arnet, Playwright & Director:
Heather Arnet was honored in May 2003 with an award for "Art and Activism" from the Thomas Merton Center. Recently, she directed the world premiere of Yo' Mama! at the Three Rivers Arts Festival in June 2003, for which she was awarded a PA Partners grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts to direct it again at the Center for Creative Play. Arnet also received support for this production from a Seed Award from the Sprout Fund. Other Pittsburgh credits include her direction of Beth Amsbary's Priestess of Plenty at the Frick Historical Museum, and the writing and direction of her play Superheroes, Artists, and Other Fly Things which she performed at Ground Zero's Making A Scene, UnBlurred 2002, and at the Gist Street Reading Series. She has directed for the NYC International Fringe Festival, New York New Playwrights Festival, NYC Shakespeare Festival and MOMA Stage to Screen Festival. Most recently in NYC, Arnet collaborated with Joyce Carol Oates, on a new stage adaptation by Arnet of Oates' I Stand Before You Naked, titled I Stand Before You Naked, II produced by WET productions at the Harold Clurman Theatre on 42nd Street. Heather is currently preparing to direct a reading of a new play by Sallie Patrick, Twelve, about population restrictions and resulting gender discrimination in China, for the Carnegie Mellon University New Works Festival in July 2004. Arnet is a member of the executive staff of City Theatre and has a Bachelor's degree from Carnegie Mellon University in English and Drama.

Melissa Gilpin, Stage Manager: Mel recently graduated Point Park University with a BA in stage management. At the Pittsburgh Playhouse Mel has stage managed the 2004 AIDS Benefit, Three Sisters, and Bambi: a life in the woods. She also was the props designer for Saints and Poets production of The Late Henry Moss. She would like to thank her parents along with Mindi, Elizabeth and Joseph for their constant love and support.

Mary Miller, Choreographer:   A professional dancer and choreographer since 1968, Ms. Miller is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Mary Miller Dance Company which is in its 19th season in Pittsburgh. Renowned and appreciated for her sense of humor and directness in her dance, Ms. Miller's audiences eagerly await her perspective on the issue at hand. She has dealt with serious topics, such as grief in In the Silence, Veiling; with esoteric subjects, such as in Clouds, Angels and Constellations; and with imaginative subjects, as in Love Duet, in which the man gets pregnant and the woman subsequently leaves him. Ms. Miller's creativity has brought audiences to flush at the Fulton, a performance sponsored by the Kohler Co. which sported five toilets on wheels, and has dealt very pointedly with violence in a way accessible to all audiences with Cows With Guns, a part of the five-year Peace 2001: A Journey into the Millennium series. No stranger to collaboration, Mary Miller has worked with a wide variety of artists, including poets, composers, fiber artists, writers, sculptors, students and schools and a robotics expert. She has collaborated with other dancers, including the year 2000 installation of the Peace 2001 series, Our World: One People, Many Faces, in which she collaborated with UMOJA, an African dance company, and Sriashi Dey, an Odissi dancer.

Scott Nelson, Lighting Designer: Originally from Atlanta, Scott came to Pittsburgh in 1999 to study at Point Park University, where he earned two Bachelors degrees in theatre last December. In 2003-04, Scott served as resident lighting designer for South Park Theater and Prime Stage, recently designing the lighting system in their new performance space in the Cultural District. He has collaborated with the Pittsburgh Public Theater, City Theater, Quantum Theatre, Jewish Theatre of Pittsburgh, Starlight Productions, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh Musical Theatre, Playhouse Repertory, Conservatory, and Dance companies, and the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera. Scott is recently represented with The Sisters Rosensweig and The Chosen (Jewish Theater), Lord of the Flies and HOLES (Prime Stage/Byham), The Servant of Two Masters (Pittsburgh Public), and 'The Animal Club Sketch Comedy Collective' at the San Francisco Sketchfest, AMP Pittsburgh, and Saint Louis City Improv.

Mara Rago, Yo' Mama! Image & Production Photographer: I've always taken pictures - friends and family - since I was very young. I took one class in black & white developing, but did not pursue photography seriously or as a way to make a living, until I was caring for my father who told me that life was too short to waste on something I didn't love or enjoy. I quit my day job that year, and have been enjoying life since. www.maradaphoto.com

Kara & Hawk Jones, Website Team:
Pacific NW artists and founders of KotaPress . KotaPress was started as an outreach to other bereaved parents after their son Dakota died at birth in 1999. Their mission is to explore the grief & healing process through expressive and commercial arts, giving voice to parents, artists, and anyone who is on a healing path, regardless of the tragedy that put them on it in the first place.