The following artists are planned for 2026. Others will be added as they are confirmed.

Frank Collison and his wife Laura Gardner have attended VTC since 2006 and are excited to once again teach the Monologue Workshop. They are eternally grateful to Dawson Moore and his merry band who have worked so hard to make VTC such a rich experience. They were honored to receive the Jerry Harper Service Award in 2022. Frank was born into the theatre, appearing at age four months in the role of a baby at a tent theatre in Granville, Ohio. He earned his BA at San Francisco State University where he performed anti-war street theatre and helped establish Pinecrest Theatre in the Sierra Nevada. He trained at the American Conservatory Theatre and then went on to earn an MFA in acting at UC San Diego. Appearing in over 170 stage productions, Frank has worked Off-Broadway, with the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival, Denver Center Theatre Company and Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts. He once toured 39,000 miles in nine months with Chamber Repertory Theatre of Boston. In Los Angeles, Frank has acted in productions at the Bilingual Foundation of the Arts, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Los Angeles Theatre Company, Rogue Machine, Ojai Playwrights Conference and Pacific Resident Theatre where he is a founding member. Frank is a member of The Road Theatre where he co-produced their Summer Playwrights Festival. Frank funds his theatre habit by working in film, television, and voice-over. He is sometimes approached by people who ask, “What have I seen you in?” It’s usually O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Twin Peaks, Silicon Valley or Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. He also enjoys volunteering with Teachers for Ukraine and reading to students at a local elementary school. Frank is finally writing a play and hopes it will one day be read at VTC. He is a father to three amazing humans. Please ask him about his children.

Ben Corbett is a Designated Linklater Voice teacher, filmmaker, actor, and now, emerging playwright. His one-man show, Fat Men in Yoga Pants, developed both in the Conference Fringe (2023) and the Play Lab (2024), had its debut in July 2025 at Ronin Theatre Company in Phoenix, Arizona. It will return to Phoenix at the Main St Creative Arts Center in March 2026. The play will also run at the Bunbury Theatre in Louisville, Kentucky, in April 2026. His ten-minute play, Apple, workshopped at the Midwest Dramatist Center in October 2025 and will be produced in December 2026 as an audio play by the Theater Shenanigans podcast in the UK. Two monologues inspired by the world of Apple were part of Monologue Workshop in 2025. He has been a Featured Artist at the Conference since 2015. At the Conference, he serves as voice faculty for the Monologue Workshop, workshop leader, actor in both the Play Lab and the Fringe Festival, and playwright. His documentary, The Arkansas Accent Project, won a Mid-America Emmy in 2024, as well as several awards in the regional film festival circuit. He is currently editing his second film about Arkansas artist Zeek Taylor. He has taught at the University of Arkansas, Independence Community College, Oklahoma City University, and Appalachian State University. His professional vocal coaching credits include Ronin Theatre Company, Valdez Theatre Conference, TheatreSquared, City Rep, the William Inge Theatre Festival, the Hollywood Fringe Festival, Nashville Shakespeare Festival, Barter Theatre, Burning Coal Theatre Company, Bare Theatre, Shakespeare Dallas, and Shakespeare Santa Cruz. He is a Senior Editor for the International Dialects of English Archive.

Laura Gardner appeared on Broadway in SMILE, Off Broadway in THE COCKTAIL HOUR, OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY and WELDED directed by Jose’ Quintero. She toured nationally in SHOWBOAT, DOONESBURY, OLIVER and MY FAIR LADY. Her extensive regional credits include the Arena Stage(DC), Huntington Theatre (Boston), Cleveland Playhouse, McCarter Theatre, and the NC Shakespeare Festival in roles that ranged from Lady Macbeth to Miss Hannigan. L.A. credits include 6 plays for the Pasadena Playhouse, Will Geer Botanicum, Westwood Playhouse, Tiffany Theatre, Fountain Theatre, Deaf West and the Celtic Arts Centre. She is a member of the ROAD THEATRE and ROGUE MACHINE.Some of her TV and film credits include Guest Star appearances on CHICAGO MED, LAW AND ORDER, SVU, SEAL TEAM, ANIMAL KINGDOM, OUTCAST, THE ROMANOFFS, and CRIMINAL MINDS You may have seen Laura and her actor husband, Frank Collison recurring on the NBC hit, MY NAME IS EARL. She was a lead in MARRIAGE MATERIAL, a short film OSCAR finalist in 2019. Laura kept busy during the pandemic doing 3 Zoom benefits for the Actors Fund: Two performances of MARILYN, MOM, AND ME by Luke Yankee, playing his mother, Oscar and Tony Winner, Eileen Heckart, (which she performed at The International City Theatre in Long Beach), and SITTING AND TALKING by Lia Romeo, with Frank Collison and directed by Dawson Moore, a radio version of Janice Goldberg’s stage play, ROSE COLORED GLASS, and much more. Laura was on the faculty of the Howard Fine Acting Studio in Hollywood for over 19 years and then at the satellite school in Australia. She has taught actors with disability in Los Angeles and Berkeley. Ms. Gardner has taught in NYC at HB Studio, Stella Adler Institute, and the American Academy of Art. She teaches workshops all over the country as well as in Great Britain. She was the drama consultant for the Compton School District. She has been a Featured Artist at the Conference for the last 20 years where she created the Monologue Workshop:  http://www.theatreconference.org/other-programs/monologue-workshop/. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband Frank Collison and their adorable rescue dog, Dolly. www.lauragardner.org

Arthur M. Jolly (he/him) is thrilled to be back in Valdez for a twelfth time – and his sixth time as a respondent. As a playwright, Jolly has penned over 75 produced plays, drawing from his typical playwright background of starting in the NY film industry as a stunt performer, snake wrangler, and special effects artist, then becoming a helicopter pilot, training pilots for the US Army in Alabama, and later flying tourists from Las Vegas into the Grand Canyon. Given such a predictable trajectory, his decision to quit flying and move to Los Angeles to write is all too familiar. As a screenwriter, Jolly was recognized by the Academy with a Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. Produced screenplays include Where We Disappear on Amazon Prime, based on his play A Gulag Mouse; and the short films Still Waters, Childish Things, and Eight Ball. Valdez productions include A Very Modern Marriage (2017) and A Gulag Mouse (2013); previous Play Lab readings include The Lady Demands Satisfaction (2018), Straw, Sticks, Bricks (2015), Mission: Colusa (2014), A Very Modern Marriage (2013), and Trash (2012). Jolly is a proud member of The Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights and the Dramatists Guild. Repped by Brant Rose Agency. More at www.arthurjolly.com

2024 headshot

Shawna Mefferd Kelty advocates for and works predominantly as a director and dramaturg in new play development. Her heart absolutely sings when she gets to collaborate in bringing new worlds and stories into being. Her recent collaborations include the world premiere of Tracy Vicory-Rosenquest’s Mama: Survival Guide Required (dramaturg) with Adirondack Regional Theatre, staged reading of Alicia K. Garcia’s Las Chicas Alvarez (director) at the Mid-America Theatre Conference in Pittsburgh, PA, and Michaela Jeffery’s WROL (director/dramaturg) at SUNY Plattsburgh, where they are a professor and chair of Theatre. She is a loud and proud union member, yoga instructor, and distance runner. She loves teaching, discovering, and collaborating with her students in the classroom and in productions. Shawna is currently the senior National Playwriting Program co-chair for ACTF Region 1 and the drama editor of The Saranac Review. She has two cat companions: Dr. Beatrice Waffles and Phoebe Beans and is one amazing auntie.

Rob Lecrone began acting and improvising in the 1990s in Anchorage, Alaska, where he received a Best Thespian award from the Anchorage Press. This marks his seventeenth year at the Conference and his eleventh as a coach in the Monologue Workshop and as a host and co-producer of the nightly Valdez Theatre Fringe. For almost four years, Rob has taught a weekly acting class on Zoom focused on monologues, scenes, and Hagen exercises. He also teaches all levels of improv at Rise Comedy in downtown Denver. In addition to extensive study of Uta Hagen’s techniques, his training includes stage combat, classical acting, Viewpoints, Fitzmaurice Voicework, Lecoq Technique, Alexander Technique, Barrantes’ Voice System, and devised theatre. Among his credits, Rob co-produced and appeared in the world premiere of Conference playwright Nicholas Walker Herbert’s Bloodless (2020) and in the Conference mainstage production of Julia Lederer’s With Love and a Major Organ (2017). He has had some film and TV work, and in 2025 the feature film, The Unexpecteds released with Rob in a small but funny role. He holds a BA in Creative Writing from the University of Alaska Anchorage and an MFA in Acting in Television, Film, and Theatre from California State University, Los Angeles. In LA, he studied at the Howard Fine Acting Studio and completed the improv program at Upright Citizens Brigade. In New York, he trained in HB Studio’s Hagen Teacher’s Lab. He continued his improv studies at The Box Performance Space in Albuquerque before moving to Denver. Rob ate the bear that almost ate him and worked on the cleanup of the Valdez oil spill. www.roblecrone.com

Gregory Pulver is a retired professor of costume design, makeup and choreography at the University of Portland Performing and Fine Arts Department and remains a Resident Artists at Artists Repertory Theatre in Portland, Oregon. Gregory was the inaugural director for The Center for Gender and Sexuality which offers programing, support and resources for students, staff and faculty across campus. Gregory holds an MFA in costume design and choreography from Humboldt State University. He is the 1993 Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival National Costume Design Winner for his work on Three Penny Opera. Among designing both sets and costumes for Bag and Baggage Theatre, and costumes for Broadway Rose Theatre and Corrib Irish Theatre, and designs for Artists Repertory Theatre which include The Hombres, Small Mouth Sounds, The Humans, Tribes, Broomstick, Cuba Libre, Foxfinder.

Seth McNeill is a playwright, screenwriter, and actor from Mississippi and other red states, where he was homeschooled until college in a family that moved every two years and once unsuccessfully tried raising emus. He currently lives with his wife Lori and hound Maximus in a very old house in the Hudson Valley. Seth’s plays include Natchetochez, Sad Lonely People, Bastard, Red Pill White Rabbit, we’re all athletes, and Bullet, which have been presented and developed at the Ancram Center for the Arts, Valdez Theatre Conference, Samuel French OOB Festival, Fresh Ground Pepper, Exquisite Corpse, The Tank, Gingold Theatrical Group, Middlebury Acting Company, Dixon Place, Fault Line Theatre, Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival, Up Theater, SCAD, and the Hambidge Center. He has been named a quarterfinalist for the Big Apple Film Festival, and a semi-finalist for the O’Neill, the Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries Prize at American Shakespeare Center, and Primary Stages ESPA Drills, and has had plays published in Smith & Kraus’ Best 10-Minute Plays and the Clockhouse Journal. Seth has also worked as a script reader and dramaturg with Theatre for a New Audience and as an educator at Barrington Stage and Hunter College, where he received a Masters in Theatre. He was a frequent playwright, literary manager, and director for Amios NYC’s monthly play festival Shotz, is a member of Howl Playwrights, and is pursuing an MFA in TV Writing at Stony Brook University.

Kalli Randall is an Alaskan actor and director whose journey in theatre began as a casual engagement with her college community, ultimately blossoming into a lifelong passion, particularly after discovering her love for directing during her senior year at UAA. Following her graduation, Kalli relocated to Chicago, where she spent six years honing her craft. It was during this time that she founded Midnight Summit Ensemble, a theatre collective dedicated to both reviving classical works and showcasing new pieces from emerging playwrights. Kalli’s directing credits are a series of plays by Ashley Rose Wellman, including Shrines and You Are The Blood; Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit, Don Zolidis’ The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon; Joanna Castle Miller’s Around and Around and Around The Static Sun, Karen Zacarías’s Book Club, Gary Steven’s Uncle Ted, and Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Jesus Christ Superstar. This is Kalli’s 13th Conference and she could’t be more excited to be here with all you fine folks…and Potato Head!!

Greg Romero originates from the swamps of Louisiana, Cajun blood on both sides. His plays, site-specific projects, and sound-art collaborations have been experienced in performance spaces, found spaces, and through the airwaves of the United States, Switzerland, Canada, The United Kingdom, and Jamaica. Romero was selected as the first-ever ArtsEdge Resident, was one of three playwrights to inaugurate the Philadelphia Dramatists Center/Plays & Players Playwriting Residency, was a pilot member of Hyde Park Theatre’s Playwright’s Group, and a member of the Rec Room Arts Playwrights Group. He may be the only playwright to stage a play in the bathrooms of Actors Theatre of Louisville during the Humana Festival of New Plays. He is an alum of the WordBRIDGE Playwrights Laboratory, the Valdez Theater Conference, The William Inge Theater Festival, Mid-America Theatre Conference, Midwest Dramatists Conference, and his works are published by Concord Theatricals, Next Stage Press, and YouthPLAYS. Romero received a BA in Liberal Arts from the Louisiana Scholars’ College and an MFA in Playwriting from The University of Texas at Austin where he held the James A. Michener Fellowship. He has taught at the University of Texas-Austin, the University of the Arts, St. Joseph’s University, Drexel University, the National Theater Institute, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Northern Colorado, Austin Community College, the University of Louisiana-Lafayette, and also in a yurt on a permaculture farm in the Bitterroot Mountains. He most recently served as Head of the BFA Playwriting and Dramaturgy program at the University of Houston. He is a member of The Dramatists Guild of America, loves wildlife, and being outside. He would love for you to read his plays here: https://newplayexchange.org/users/5432/greg-romero

Stephen Rothman is a Tenured Full Professor in the Department of Theatre at California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA), having joined the faculty in 2001. He is best known by West Coast Theatre audiences for his work as founder and artistic leader of the revitalized Pasadena Playhouse. He also served as artistic director of the Sacramento Theatre Company. His directing career has taken him across the country and around the world, including a 2008 production of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal in Florence, Italy, for the Florence International Theatre Company. His American Resident/Regional Theatre credits include more than 100 plays in 16 different States for 40 different theatre companies. He is especially proud of his work on numerous world premieres including Sparky and the Fitz starring Academy Award winner Eli Wallach at the George Street Playhouse in New Jersey, Learn to Fall starring France’s award-winning clown/artist Buffo at The Attic Theatre in Detroit, Gilligan’s Island, the Musical for Chicago’s Organic Theatre and Father, Son, and Holy Coach for the Santa Monica Playhouse to name just a few. Included among his most recent directorial work is the 30 minute SAG/DGA short film EFFORTLESS PERFECTION which was shot in Queen’s New York and just completed post production and is as of early 2026 starting its journey on the film festival circuit. In December 2024 he directed the World Premiere play MY CODA HEART starring Academy Award nominee Paul Raci (SOUND OF METAL). Prior to that was his 2024 production of MACBETH as well as his two Pandemic World Premiere Zoom productions of Old Blood in 2022 and War of the Worlds in 2020. He directed Valdez Conference mainstay Nicholas Walker Herbert’s Bloodless in 2020 starring Rob Lecrone at CSULA, opening just days before the pandemic closed live theatre down for more than a year. Rothman has had the privilege to collaborate with Deaf West Theatre directing numerous American Sign Language (ASL) productions for the renowned company. His most recent directorial work for Deaf West was their production of American Buffalo that starred 2022 Academy Award winning actor Troy Kotsur (Coda) and 2021 Academy Award nominated actor Paul Raci (Sound of Metal). The play was named Critics Choice by the LA Times, LA Weekly, and Backstage. He has been collaborating with Deaf West Theatre since 1994 and his other American Sign Language (ASL) productions with the company include: Of Mice and Men, Orphans, What Are You… Deaf?, and Pinocchio. His theatre awards include winning Florida’s Carbonell Award for Best Director for God’s Man in Texas at Florida Stage as well as a Los Angeles Drama-Logue win for his direction of an American Sign Language production of Orphans for Deaf West Theatre. And most recently (November 2017) he won the 2016-2017 STAGE SCENE LA award for Outstanding Direction, Drama/Intimate Theatre for his work on Cat’s Paw at Actor’s Co-op. For American television, he spent two seasons directing episodes of The New WKRP in Cincinnati. At CSULA, he served as the two term Chair of the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance, and he received the 2012/2013 University Award as Outstanding Professor of the Year. In spring 2015 he was granted a sabbatical award and both taught classes and created an original 8-episode sitcom at The Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts in Sweden. Mr. Rothman is a proud 40-year member of The Society of Director’s and Choreographers (SDC) where he served for 8 years on their Executive Board. He has been a member of the Director’s Guild of America (DGA) for 30 years. Additionally, Mr. Rothman is an invited member of the National Theatre Conference (NTC), a former 8-year Tony Award voter, a member of the Association of Theatrical Press Agents and Managers (ATPAM), a 23 year Trustee of the Pension and Health Fund for the Society of Stage Director’s and Choreographers and serves on the Advisory Board for the British Academic Journal Comedy Studies. His alumni awards include being named a university Grad Made Good at Florida State University as well as having the honor in November 2018 of being named to the Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame at Riverview High School in his hometown of Sarasota, Florida. He is very happy and excited to be back at the Valdez Theatre Conference for the fourth time and looks forward to seeing lots of stimulating and energized new work, while working with past friends and new artistic acquaintances as well.

Schatzie Schaefers first came to the VTC in its second year in 1994 as a UAA Theatre student and slept on the floor in the gym. Playwright, director, actor, and producer. Vocalist for Alaska’s Agents of Karma and Karmic Reduction. Development Director for Anchorage Concert Association. Proud member of Blue Roses Theatre Company. Schatzie will direct Eric Coble’s dark comedy Bright Ideas for Anchorage Community Theatre in 2025. Schatzie is a single mother to Lionel Richie, Chandler Bing, and Knox. You will see Schatzie every night of the conference at Magpie’s on the Fly where she co-hosts the Valdez Fringe.

Carrie Yanagawa has been painting old plywood to look like rich mahogany to the delight of audiences around the world since the late 1900s. Described as a “theatrical Swiss Army knife,” Carrie is a director, set designer, and scenic artist whose work has been hailed as “marvelous” by Anchorage Daily News and “no less than perfect” by F Magazine. Whether working in a black box or on a grand opera, Carrie is passionate about honoring text and is uniquely skilled at creating high-quality, imaginative productions in a vibrant and practical fashion. Favorite directing credits for the VTC main stage include serving as the Ten-Minute Play Slam’s longest tenured director (2014-2019) and Kevin Armento’s Good Men Wanted (TossPot Productions). Notable scenic painting residencies include Anchorage Opera, Bermuda’s Earl Cameron Theatre, and London’s National Theatre. In search of new adventures, Carrie and her wife, Stacy, have recently relocated to Portland, Oregon. They belong to the trees now.