Post-Show Discussion Guests

TRACY THORNE (Playwright/Performer). Tracy Thorne’s play, We Are Here, received its world premiere at New York Stage and Film and was also produced at the Contemporary American Theater Festival. We Are Here was nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and is published by Dramatists Play Service. Tracy's play, Good Children, was developed and workshopped at Page 73 and New Georges, then subsequently produced at Connecticut Repertory Theatre. The Nature of Things, was developed and workshopped at SohoRep and nominated for the Kilroys list. Another play, True Love, was a finalist for both Leah Ryan’s FEWW and the Susan Glaspell Award and also a nominee for the Kilroys list. Other plays include Will and Testament, A Ridiculous Trade, Quick Bright Things and Do I Ever Cross Your Mind?, which had an awesome workshop at Rattlestick recently. Tracy’s plays have received workshops and/or readings at various American theatres–Manhattan Class Company, The Cherry Lane, New York Stage & Film, Florida Stage, The Lark, The Dramatists Guild and WP Theater–to name a few. Tracy is a recipient of the Elizabeth George commission from South Coast Rep and has been a member of the SohoRep Writer/Director Lab, Page 73's Interstate 73 writers group and, also, a playwriting fellow at The Lark. She’s written a screenplay called Natural History and two TV pilots, "Lucy Lives Uptown" and "Iris." Tracy worked as an actor in New York and London, collaborating with directors such as Matthew Warchus, Phyllida Lloyd, Anna Deavere Smith and Tony Kushner. So too, she’s appeared in some movies and on TV. Tracy studied History at Smith College and is a graduate of The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. She lives in Harlem USA with her family. 

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NICHOLAS A. COTZ (Director) has produced and directed in New York, Los Angeles, and Europe. Favorite directing projects include Gideon Irving's My Name is Gideon at The Brick in Williamsburg, and the NY Times Critic’s Pick rogerandtom at HERE with Personal Space Theatrics. Recent producing credits with AFO include: Irving's Songs, Space Travel, and Everything in Between at the 2016 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, winning ThreeWeeks Editors’ Award; Irving’s I’m Probably Going to Die Eventually at Rattlestick; the NY Times Critic's Pick The Brobot Johnson Experience, by Darian Dauchan (co-produced with The Bushwick Starr); the NY Times Critic's Pick Open, by Crystal Skillman; and Lizzie Vieh's Monsoon Season both at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe and in NYC at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. Cotz holds an MFA in directing from Brooklyn College and was a Manhattan Theatre Club Directing Fellow.  nicholascotz.com

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JAMI FLOYD (Consulting Producer) is the Senior Editor of WNYC’s new Race & Justice Unit, the former host of WNYC’s “All Things Considered,” and the Legal Editor in the WNYC Newsroom. In a journalism career that spans two decades, Jami has worked on everything from breaking news, to exclusive interviews, to long-form investigations. She spent nearly a decade at ABC News, serving in various capacities, including Law & Justice Correspondent. Over the years, Jami has appeared as an analyst on many news outlets including CNN, Fox News, NBC, MSNBC, and PBS. She has won numerous awards and, in 2015, she was named a Public Scholar by the New York Council for the Humanities, for a two-year term. Jami has had countless in-depth conversations with news makers, most memorably Hillary Rodham Clinton, Donald J. Trump, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, and Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers.