Imani Perry is the Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and a faculty associate with the Programs in Law and Public Affairs, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Jazz Studies. She is the author of 6 books, including Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry, which received the Pen Bograd-Weld Award for Biography, The Phi Beta Kappa Christian Gauss Award for outstanding work in literary scholarship, the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Nonfiction and the Shilts-Grahn Award for nonfiction from the Publishing Triangle. Looking for Lorraine was also named a 2018 notable book by the New York Times, and a honor book by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. It was a finalist  for the African American Intellectual History Society Paul Murray Book Prize. Her book May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem, winner of the 2019 American Studies Association John Hope Franklin Book Award for the best book in American Studies, the Hurston Wright Award for Nonfiction, and finalist for an NAACP Image Award in Nonfiction. Her most recent book is: Breathe: A Letter to My Sons (Beacon Press, 2019) which was a finalist for the 2020 Chautauqua Prize and a finalist for the NAACP Image Award for Excellence in Nonfiction.

Perry is a scholar of law, literary and cultural studies, and an author of creative nonfiction. She earned her Ph.D. in American Studies from Harvard University, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, an LLM from Georgetown University Law Center and a BA from Yale College in Literature and American Studies. Her writing and scholarship primarily focuses on the history of Black thought, art, and imagination crafted in response to, and resistance against, the social, political and legal realities of domination in the West. She seeks to understand the processes of retrenchment after moments of social progress, and how freedom dreams are nevertheless sustained. Her book: Vexy Thing: On Gender and Liberation (Duke University Press 2018) is a work of critical theory that contends with the formation of modern patriarchy at the dawn of capitalism, the transatlantic slave trade, and the age of conquest, and traces it through to the contemporary hypermedia neoliberal age. Her book More Beautiful and More Terrible: The Embrace and Transcendence of Racial Inequality in the United States (NYU Press, 2011) is an examination of contemporary practices of racial inequality that are sustained and extended through a broad matrix of cultural habits despite formal declarations of racial equality. 

Perry’s forthcoming book under contract with ECCO Press is a narrative journey through the South, arguing that it is the nation’s heartland for better and worse. Future planned projects include an examination of African American theories of law and justice, and a meditation on the color blue in Black life. 

Tracy Heather Strain, based in Middletown, Connecticut, is drawn to individual stories that reveal the ways that race, gender, ethnicity, class and sexuality work to shape lives and reflect and challenge society’s historical, artistic, political and cultural narratives. Her films in the award-winning series Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?, Race: The Power of an Illusion and I’ll Make Me a World: A Century of African American Arts serve as early examples.

With Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart, the first feature film about Lorraine Hansberry, Strain incorporated her 36-year practice, rooted in discovering, researching and directing new and often unknown stories to advance social justice, build community and empower the marginalized into a documentary described by Robin D. G. Kelley as “a gorgeous visual love letter…in its brilliance, honesty, and vision.” After its premiere at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival, the documentary subsequently won several awards including a Peabody and NAACP Image Award for directing.

Strain makes her films through The Film Posse, the production company she co-founded with her partner and colleague Randall MacLowry. The pair is producing a film for American Experience about Zora Neale Hurston focused on her anthropology work for which Strain is directing and writing. Her next independent project is Survival Floating, a hybrid documentary investigating African-descended peoples’ relationships with swimming.

A faculty member at Wesleyan University, Strain is the Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, Associate Professor of Film Studies, Associate Director of the College of Film and the Moving Image and with MacLowry, Co-Director of the Wesleyan Documentary Project.

Garlia is a writer, producer, photographer and mother from Detroit, MI.  In 2008, Garlia founded Blackboard Plays, a monthly series devoted to Black Playwrights.  She is one of the founding producers of Harlem9, OBIE Award winners for, “48Hours in…™Harlem”.  Her Essays and articles have appeared in "The New York Times", "The Washington Post”, "Salon.com" and “American Theatre”.  Her work as a playwright has been supported by the cell, The Fire This Time Festival and #24viralmonologues.   She was a guest artist at Wayne State University 2020-2021, where she also taught a Playwrighting Workshop for MFA Actors.   She worked on an MA in African American and African Diaspora studies at Indiana University before coming to New York for her MFA in Playwrighting which she earned at The New School for Drama. Garlia is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.  She is the Producing Director of PAAL, where she also received one of their first childcare grants in 2019. Finally, Garlia was a Line Producer at The Public Theater, working on: “Socrates”, “Much Ado About Nothing”, (filmed for Great Performances on PBS), “Mojada”,  “for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enough, “Coal Country”, “The Visitor”.  She was also the Line Producer for Mobile Unit’s Summer of Joy, Shakespeare: Call and Response - August 2021.  Garlia was the Co-Creative Producer of #ToBeBlack, released on Juneteenth 2020 and Co-Producer of “Forward Together” a Virtual event, in support of The Public.  During the Fall of 2020, Garlia was the co-developer and Curator of the #Saytheirnames projection installation.  In April 2022, Garlia was promoted to the first ever Director of Innovation and New Media at The Public.  Outside of New York, Garlia is the Senior Creative Producer for the Obsidian Theatre Festival in Detroit, MI. Finally, she is the Executive Producer of the Black Motherhood and Parenting New Play Festival (#BMPFest), a festival focused on the stories of Black families from Black artists with families.  #BMPFest just completed its 2nd year!

is a Detroit based arts professional and community organizer.  Sloan is the lead organizer for Black Lives Matter Detroit, and Director of Operations, The Detroit Safety Team. BFA, Musical Theatre Performance, The University of Michigan. Sloan spent over fourteen years working in New York, LA, several regional theatres, and on the national tour of Disney’s The Lion King.  He is the Founding CEO/Artistic Director of GhostLight Creative Productions, and Producing Artistic Director of The Obsidian Theatre Festival, a Detroit based festival focusing on Black stories, now in its 3rd year. He serves as the Film Producer for the Black Motherhood and Parenting New Play Festival.  Recent Composer and Lyricist credits include Hastings Street and #24viralmonologues. Recent Director Credits: Gem of the Ocean, Detroit Repertory Theatre., Passing Strange, Detroit Public Theatre and Flint Rep, New Works Festival 2023.

(don't forget the K.) is a Brooklyn based Post Audio Mixer & Sound Designer with over a decade of experience in multiple formats.  Originally from Metro Detroit & with a background in music recording, video editing, and producing, he understands the full post-production process and works to create high quality mixes that enhance and guide the visual content.  Some recent work includes, The Obsidian Theatre Festival (2022), Turning Tables w/ Robin Roberts (S2, Disney+), Firebrand ('23 Short Film), PublicSquare2.0 Podcast ('23 The Public Theater NYC) www.JustinKSloan.com

is currently the Editorial Manager at New York City Center. New work dramaturgy: Coal Country (The Public Theater); Little Black Book; White Rose: the Musical; Poupelle of Chimney Town the Musical; Van Gogh; etc. Production dramaturgy: Pippin (Reagle Music Theatre), HAIR (New Rep); Kiss of the Spider Woman (Lyric Stage); In the Heights (Wheelock Family Theater); Cabaret, Barnum, The Wild Party (Moonbox Productions); The Roaring Girl (Theater Row); NOMI (Theater on Fire). Her writing is published on HowlRound Theatre Commons. Member, Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas. Awards: LMDA/KCACTF Dramaturgy Regional and Program Note Awards. BA, Emerson College.

Garlia is a writer, producer, photographer and mother from Detroit, MI.  In 2008, Garlia founded Blackboard Plays, a monthly series devoted to Black Playwrights.  She is one of the founding producers of Harlem9, OBIE Award winners for, “48Hours in…™Harlem”.  Her Essays and articles have appeared in "The New York Times", "The Washington Post”, "Salon.com" and “American Theatre”.  Her work as a playwright has been supported by the cell, The Fire This Time Festival and #24viralmonologues.   She was a guest artist at Wayne State University 2020-2021, where she also taught a Playwrighting Workshop for MFA Actors.   She worked on an MA in African American and African Diaspora studies at Indiana University before coming to New York for her MFA in Playwrighting which she earned at The New School for Drama. Garlia is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.  She is the Producing Director of PAAL, where she also received one of their first childcare grants in 2019. Finally, Garlia was a Line Producer at The Public Theater, working on: “Socrates”, “Much Ado About Nothing”, (filmed for Great Performances on PBS), “Mojada”,  “for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enough, “Coal Country”, “The Visitor”.  She was also the Line Producer for Mobile Unit’s Summer of Joy, Shakespeare: Call and Response - August 2021.  Garlia was the Co-Creative Producer of #ToBeBlack, released on Juneteenth 2020 and Co-Producer of “Forward Together” a Virtual event, in support of The Public.  During the Fall of 2020, Garlia was the co-developer and Curator of the #Saytheirnames projection installation.  In April 2022, Garlia was promoted to the first ever Director of Innovation and New Media at The Public.  Outside of New York, Garlia is the Senior Creative Producer for the Obsidian Theatre Festival in Detroit, MI. Finally, she is the Executive Producer of the Black Motherhood and Parenting New Play Festival (#BMPFest), a festival focused on the stories of Black families from Black artists with families.  #BMPFest just completed its 2nd year!

is a Detroit based arts professional and community organizer.  Sloan is the lead organizer for Black Lives Matter Detroit, and Director of Operations, The Detroit Safety Team. BFA, Musical Theatre Performance, The University of Michigan. Sloan spent over fourteen years working in New York, LA, several regional theatres, and on the national tour of Disney’s The Lion King.  He is the Founding CEO/Artistic Director of GhostLight Creative Productions, and Producing Artistic Director of The Obsidian Theatre Festival, a Detroit based festival focusing on Black stories, now in its 3rd year. He serves as the Film Producer for the Black Motherhood and Parenting New Play Festival.  Recent Composer and Lyricist credits include Hastings Street and #24viralmonologues. Recent Director Credits: Gem of the Ocean, Detroit Repertory Theatre., Passing Strange, Detroit Public Theatre and Flint Rep, New Works Festival 2023.

(don't forget the K.) is a Brooklyn based Post Audio Mixer & Sound Designer with over a decade of experience in multiple formats.  Originally from Metro Detroit & with a background in music recording, video editing, and producing, he understands the full post-production process and works to create high quality mixes that enhance and guide the visual content.  Some recent work includes, The Obsidian Theatre Festival (2022), Turning Tables w/ Robin Roberts (S2, Disney+), Firebrand ('23 Short Film), PublicSquare2.0 Podcast ('23 The Public Theater NYC) www.JustinKSloan.com

is currently the Editorial Manager at New York City Center. New work dramaturgy: Coal Country (The Public Theater); Little Black Book; White Rose: the Musical; Poupelle of Chimney Town the Musical; Van Gogh; etc. Production dramaturgy: Pippin (Reagle Music Theatre), HAIR (New Rep); Kiss of the Spider Woman (Lyric Stage); In the Heights (Wheelock Family Theater); Cabaret, Barnum, The Wild Party (Moonbox Productions); The Roaring Girl (Theater Row); NOMI (Theater on Fire). Her writing is published on HowlRound Theatre Commons. Member, Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas. Awards: LMDA/KCACTF Dramaturgy Regional and Program Note Awards. BA, Emerson College.