The MAC-ONE ACTS

Tracie Evette Morrison resides in Newark, NJ. She earned her BA in English from Rutgers University, Douglass College and her MA in Counseling from Montclair State University. Tracie served 16 years as a School Counselor. She is currently in her first year as a high school Assistant Principal. Her inaugural stage play, The Prayer Dancer, was performed at the George Street Playhouse in 2004 and later published in 2015. In March 2022, Dunbar Repertory Company’s “Sweet Potato Pie Sessions” presented a Stage Reading of Tracie’s newest full length play, Preach, Preacher. Her new book: PRAY-ER: Talk, Listen, Obey Starting & Strengthening Conversations with God was released November 2021. For almost twenty years Tracie has provoked others to build their own capacity through her teaching, counseling and writing. 

Alexis Kozak studied Theatre Arts and English at Rutgers University. He spent his early twenties in Los Angeles, chasing the dream. Sometime after that, he got an MFA in Playwriting from Boston University and now teaches theatre at Middletown High School South, where he often writes the fall play. He has published The Diamond as Big as the Ritz, the only current dramatic adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s eponymous short story. He also has a scene book for high school actors called The Greatest of All Time, carried by Eldridge Publishing.  Last summer, his play Two Leopards Climbing a Fire Escape was read at the MAC and performed at NJ Rep.  He loves theatre, soccer, reading and his family…in no particular order.  Visit www.alexiskozak.com for on Alexis.

Danielle Umbs is a junior in high school from Monmouth Beach, NJ. In addition to playwriting, she is passionate about acting, singing, art and music composition. Her favorite on-stage credits include the likes of Gertrude in Seussical and Ladybug in James and the Giant Peach. Danielle is a 2021-22 Two River Theater Howard Aronson Metro Scholar. She plans on attending college in order pursue a BFA in acting.  

Eric Craft has written two full-length plays and a full-length musical, The Blank Page, for which he wrote the book and lyrics and self-produced out of college. His play, And Every Creeping Thing, is currently the subject of his residency with the New Jersey Play Lab. He has multiple one-act plays and monologues which he developed and directed while teaching at The Allegra School of Music and Arts in Hillsborough, New Jersey, including his plays, Finding the Root and The Struggle Bus. Other one-acts include The Edge of Infinity, which received a staged reading with the Chaotic Good Collective, and Whoa There, Grandma, which was a featured finalist of The Summit Playhouse’s Summer 2020 bake-off. He holds a B.A. in Theatre Studies from Montclair State University.   

TyLie Shider is the inaugural playwright in residence at ArtYard,  a 2022-23 McKnight Fellow in Playwriting at the Playwrights’ Center (PWC). He is a recipient of Premiere Stages’ Liberty Live commission, two consecutive Jerome Fellowships (PWC), and an “I Am Soul” playwright in residence at the National Black Theatre (NBT).

Upcoming projects include the fall 2022 NJ premiere of Certain Aspects of Conflict in the Negro Family at Premiere Stages, The Gospel Woman (NBT), Whittier (PWC), and his filmmaking debut Sign O’ the Times. Screenwriting credits include: Truant. He holds a BA in Journalism from Delaware State University and an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU. A proud member of the Dramatist Guild, he is currently a Professor of Playwriting at Augsburg University, and a staff writer for Minnesota Playlist.