Lisa Yaszek is Regents’ Professor of Science Fiction Studies at Georgia Tech, where she explores science fiction as a global language crossing centuries, continents, and cultures. Her most books include Galactic Suburbia: Recovering Women’s Science Fiction; Sisters of Tomorrow: The First Women of Science Fiction; and The Future is Female! Classic Science Fiction Stories by Women series. Professor Yaszek’s ideas about science fiction as a window to cultural history have been featured in venues including The Washington Post, Food and Wine Magazine, and USA Today, and she has been an expert commentator for CBS Sunday Morning, the BBC4, Turner Classic Movies, and the AMC miniseries James Cameron’s Story of Science Fiction. A past president of the Science Fiction Research Association, Professor Yaszek currently serves as a juror for the Eugie Foster and Philip K. Dick Speculative Fiction Awards.

Greg S. Carr is an instructor of Speech and Theatre at Harris-Stowe State University in St. Louis, MO. His essays have appeared in the Routledge Companion to African American Theatre, Theatre Symposium Volume 21: Ritual, Religion and Theatre, and Theatre Symposium 26. At the 2022 Institute he hosted a conversation about Tennessee Williams & Race, providing context for the Festival's performances of Williams' short play "The Peaceable Kingdom or Good Luck God” and “peripheral” characters of “Streetcar.” At the 2023 Institute he’ll be talking about Afro-Futurism.

Tom Mitchell is emeritus professor of Theatre at the University of Illinois and scholar-in-residence for the Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis. He has directed all of Tennessee Williams’s early full-length plays including 21st century premieres of Candles to the Sun and Stairs to the Roof. Mitchell has edited the previously unpublished stories “The Lost Girl” and “Why Did Desdemona Love the Moor?” for the Tennessee Williams Annual Review. The latter was adapted for performance at the 2021 Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival. Most recently, he edited The Caterpillar Dogs: Early Stories by Tennessee Williams, published by New Directions in April 2023, and anticipates publication of a larger, critical collection of stories from the University of Iowa Press in 2024. He has adapted materials from the Williams Collections at the University of Texas to create “The Men from the Polar Star” for the 2023 Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival. While at the University of Illinois, Mitchell was Associate Head of Theatre and Chair of Acting, he also chaired the Summer Theatre Program at the Interlochen Center for the Arts and served on the national committee of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival.

Mark Charney, Director of the School of Theatre and Dance at Texas Tech University, previously served as Director of Theatre for the Department of Performing Arts and Chair of English at Clemson University for many years before retiring as a Professor Emeritus. Professor Charney is a past Chair for Region IV, a past member of the National Selection Team, and for 19 years, National Coordinator of Institute for Theatre Journalism and Advocacy/Dramaturgy for KCACTF. He recently finished a 19-year job as Associate Director of the National Critics Institute for the O’Neill Theatre Center. He is also the Chair of Ethics for NAST (the National Association of Schools of Theatre) and Artistic Director of the International Association of Schools of Southeast Asia. His play about Dr. Kevorkian is being considered by major theatres in London to be directed by James Kerr. Professor Charney, along with University of Nebraska professor Charlene Donaghy and Festival Literary Manager Thomas Keith, co-founded TWI eleven years ago.

Carrie Chapter will moderate TWI discussions. She is a freelance dramaturg whose focus includes both new play and musical development. In recent years, she has been the Head Dramaturg for the National Music Theater Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center and visiting dramaturg for its National Playwrights Conference. For seven years, Carrie was the Literary Manager and Dramaturg at Philadelphia Theatre Company, during which she served over 30 regional and world premieres as a production dramaturg. In addition to her freelance work, she also teaches a writing-intensive class for Theatre majors at Temple University. Carrie is a proud graduate of Washington College (B.A.) and Villanova University (M.A.), as well as a member of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA).