ARTIST BIOS

Olivia Ash (Stage Manager) is a Chicago-based theatre artist. She just completed earning her Master’s Degree in Leadership for Creative Enterprises at Northwestern University. Previously at the Wirtz Center, she was the assistant director for David’s Redhaired Death. Her most recent stage management credits include Arcadia, The Wolves, and Radium Girls (Stage Manager). She has also been seen onstage in Into the Woods (Witch) and Violet (Music Hall Singer). Olivia gives many thanks to this incredible team and hopes you have a stinkin’ good time!

Eliza Bent (Playwright/Performer) is the love-grandchild of Lily Tomlin, Pee Wee Herman, and Mr. Peanut, whose Bentertainments include solo works (KAREN, I SAID, which the New York Times described as a “wicked satire,” TOILET FIRE, a Time Out New York Critic’s Pick), plays (THE HOTEL COLORS, THE REGULARS forthcoming publication by Samuel French, Jeff-recommended BONNIE’S LAST FLIGHT), adaptations (THE BEYONCE, SHE OF THE VOICE), and hybrid affairs (REAL TALK / KIP TALK). Bent’s shows have been developed, workshopped, and produced at the Abrons Arts Center, JACK, the New Ohio, the Atlantic Theatre, the Bushwick Starr, and New York Theatre Workshop’s Next Door Series. Residencies: MacDowell Fellow, SPACE on Ryder Farm, New Georges, Target Margin Institute Fellow, Goodman Theatre Playwrights Unit, Casa Zia Lina, and Pilot Balloon. Bent’s short film SUMMER’S LAST SWIM was a Chicago Filmmakers Best LGBTQ+ and an official selection of the 2023 DTLA Film Festival. As an actor Bent has toured with the Obie-award winning ensemble Half Straddle, Big Dance Theater and with Penguin in Your Ear, an hour-long stand-up special. BA in philosophy, MFA in playwriting from Brooklyn College. Currently on faculty at Northwestern University’s Radio TV & Film department.

Ruth Margraff (Accompanist) has been called “audaciously original” (Moscow Times) for her “fierce folk” (Austin Chronicle), style of “richly textured emotion…and imminent danger” (Dallas Morning News). Acclaimed for writing six martial arts operas with Fred Ho for the Apollo, Guggenheim, LaMaMa, CAMI, Brooklyn Academy of Music, she toured with her Café Antarsia Ensemble all over the world. Chicago credits include MOTHER OF SMOKE (Walkabout); PREVIOUSLY BLUE (Links Hall with Dah Teater and 7Stages); WALK ACROSS AMERICA… directed by Bonnie at Steppenwolf Garage; ANGER/FLY and FANTASY ISLAND FOR DUMMIES (Trap Door). Lately she’s been writing BAHAYA (Overtone Industries), TORN LIKE A ROSE (Nišville Jazz Theatre Festival), MIRROR BUTTERFLY (New Hazlett, Kennedy Ctr), LOCKET ARIAS (Nautilus/Opera on Tap) and a recent guest of MASS MoCA studios, Roger Brown, Peale Museum, Mabou Mines “Rux Redux” fest; alum of New Dramatists, Chicago Dramatists; she’s a preacher’s-kid-turned-professor at SAIC.

Bonnie Metzgar (Director) is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter, director and producer who specializes in creating socially-provocative theater works.  She served as staff writer for GENIUS: ARETHA, a limited TV series on Hulu with showrunner and longtime collaborator Suzan-Lori Parks. Metzgar and Young as a directing duo have recently directed GRELLEY DUVAL V at the Chopin Theatre. Metzgar has won the national Edgerton New Play Award for her play YOU LOST ME which had its world premiere at the Denver Center Theatre in 2020. Metzgar was a member of the Goodman Theater’s resident Playwrights Unit and was awarded the Carl Djerassi Fellowship in Playwriting at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her plays have been finalists for the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Festival, and selected for the Great Plains Theater Conference in Omaha. She was commissioned by the NEA, the Goodman Theater, Sideshow Theatre and was formerly Artistic Director of About Face Theatre, one of the largest theaters in the US dedicated to producing LGBTQ artists and advancing the cultural dialogue on sexuality and gender identity. For ten years, Metzgar was the Associate Producer at the Public Theater in NYC where she founded the world renowned performance club Joe’s Pub.  She is on faculty at University of Illinois Chicago.

Jesse Morgan Young (Director) lives in Chicago and works in theatre, performance art, film, and music. Recent work includes The Leads (workshopped at LitLab), performance spectacles homaging David Bowie and Kate Bush, and the feature-length music-movie Andrew in Anotherland (streaming on Open Television). He’s a founding member of art pop band Baathhaus and co-creator of Revival, a vessel for performance art and astropoesy.