Artists

Associate Playwrights.

Amontaine Aurore

Amontaine Aurore is a Seattle-based writer, actor, director, performance artist, and author of numerous plays which have been presented on stages in Seattle, New York, and abroad. Her solo play, Free Desiree, was named by Indie Theater Now as one of the Best New Plays of the New York Fringe Festival. In 2017 her play, Don’t Call it a Riot! was a finalist in the Bay Area Playwrights’ Festival, and had its world premiere in 2018. Amontaine was commissioned by Mirror Stage to write the play, Memory Bus, as part of the series, Expand Upon: Gun Control, a series of staged readings taking place in the fall 2020. Amontaine’s play, Carried by Six, will be part of ACT Theater’s new local playwright reading series. Amontaine is the recipient of artist grants from Artist Trust, Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, 4Culture, and the Puffin Foundation. She has been a writer-in-residence at the Hedgebrook Writers’ Retreat, and was named a finalist for the 2019 Emerald Prize in playwriting from Seattle Public Theater.

Liz Baker

Liz is a writer of plays, films, and video games based in Seattle, WA. She holds a BA in Film Studies from Mount Holyoke College and an MFA in Dramatic Writing from Carnegie Mellon University, where she studied under Rob Handel. She has worked with Theater Masters, Hangar Theatre/Center for the Arts in Ithaca, Kitchen Theatre Company, Skyra Productions, and –– most recently –– Bungie, Inc. In 2018, her play The Death of Odysseus was published by Samuel French as a part of Theater Masters’ Take Ten Vol. 4.

Her awards include 2nd place in the Alfred P. Sloan Screenplay Competition (2019), Eugene O’Neill NPC Semi-Finalist (2019), and Theater Masters’ Take Ten Finalist (2018). Her residencies include Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Hangar Theatre A.I.R.S program, and Adams State University's Rare A.I.R.

Lenore Bensinger

Lenore Bensinger is the author of several prize-winning plays produced in Seattle, Tacoma, Vancouver, CA., LA and St. Louis. She has authored produced plays for local and US festivals. Her solo show, A GHOST STORY, is published by Broadway Play Publishing in FACING FORWARD. She co-authored the nationally touring show, DINOSAURUS, with Ed Mast. Her musical, BEHIND the VEIL, was produced at LATW. She authored the book for MEANWHILE, a musical with a time-traveling Einstein; workshopped in Seattle. Her playwrights’ radio show, NEW WAVES, ran on KUOW until the Iraq War. She produced the first U.S. Fringe Festival in Seattle. In the last year, she wrote and directed her first short narrative film and is currently at work on creating a documentary about Public Health Nurses. Other professional skills include journalism, free-lance editing and ghost-writing.

Greg Brisendine

Greg is a 25 year Seattle resident who believes this is where he belongs. He took an acting class some years ago, got to act in some plays, and then started thinking he should write some. In 2016 he co-produced his first full-length play, The Hat. That experience was so awesome that in 2017 he produced another of his plays, No Strings Attached. Both of those plays were developed at Parley and in 2018 Greg took a sabbatical from Parley to write a non-fiction book. In 2019 he self-published Measuring Success: A Practical Guide to KPIs. Greg’s non-fiction work and his years of writing poetry both influence his plays. He’s also a super-nerd for fantasy novels and has a corporate job that he actually kind of likes.

Drew David Combs

Drew is an actor and playwright based in Seattle. He graduated from Cornish College of the Arts in 2014, BFA Theatre, with a concentration in Original Works. His senior project, Book of Daniel, was selected for the Cornish New Works Festival and staged as a reading directed by Wayne Rawley. Favorite onstage credits include The Word in Ballard Underground's Battle of the Bards, Paul/Marita in Parley's Magpie and Marita, and Josh in John Baxter is a Switch Hitter at the Intiman. Drew loves to create and participate in new work, and is stoked to be a member of Parley.

Brian Dang

Brian is a graduating Senior at the University of Washington majoring in English Literature and Drama. At UW, Brian was the Creative Development Director for the past two and a half years, connecting fellow undergraduate peers with educational opportunities as well as curating, coordinating, and mentoring playwrights in the annual New Works Festival. While Brian primarily focuses on playwriting, they have experience in sound and light design, improv, directing, and dramaturgy. Recent productions that they have been a part of have been Anton (Parley) as the playwright, The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? (UTS) as a co-director, Sleep is for the Weak V (Theatre Battery) as a playwright, and Goldie, Max and Milk (UW School of Drama) as the sound designer. Brian currently interns for ACT Theatre as a Literary and Dramaturgy Intern with Samie Detzer. Last but not least, Brian is passionate about the power of stories and the intersection between creative and critical writing. On the side, Brian likes to read, write, watch movies, revel in hopeless romanticism, pet cats, and eat bread.

Ryan Fields

Ryan is a Seattle native and theatre artist. As an actor he has been on stage at Intiman, Book-it, Balagan, Theatre 9/12 and other various theatres in and around Seattle. He has done film work in various commercials, small independent films and NBC's Grimm. Ryan is proud to be a member of Parley. He admires Parley's commitment to make theatre accessible to all and to tell stories for people who otherwise may not have a voice.

Katherine Jett

Katherine is a Seattle-based performer and writer. Her interests include reimagined classical theatre, theatre for young audiences, little-known history, dramaturgy, and highly physical interdisciplinary performance work. She has performed with Book-It Repertory, Greenstage, Seattle Immersive, Thalia’s Umbrella, Rebel Kat, and Parley Productions (Rebecca Tourino Collinsworth’s cherubin). Her original musical about Bigfoot (in collaboration with composer Adam Quillian), Squatch! The Musical, received its inaugural production at Centerstage Theatre in the Spring of 2017 and won a 2017 People’s Choice Gregory for Best New Play. Katherine holds a BFA in Theatre: Original Works from Cornish College of the Arts (2011) and is a proud artistic associate of the DUENDE ensemble. www.duende-ensemble.com

Hannah Merrill

Hannah Merrill is a devoted Seattle resident, and a (sometimes exasperated) student of the city's faults and virtues. Her workshopped plays include Water Over My Head, Crooked Grace, Magpie and Marita, Crocodile Plays the Drum, The Orchid and the Skull, and Triceratops Love Song. In her work, she enjoys pondering questions of redemption, family, gender, and imagination. She is a proud student at Goddard College. She also loves meandering walks, feminist fantasy books, gender-bent Shakespeare, and her friends and family.

Susan McNally

Susan McNally is a filmmaker and a playwright. For her work in film and television, she received EMMY, CINE and TELLY Awards, as well as a development grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for an independent feature film. As a playwright, she is a founding member of Parley and five of her full-length plays have been performed in Parley workshop productions. Sue’s short plays have appeared at various local festivals, including Forward Flux and the Seattle Play Series.

Julieta Vitullo

Julieta is an Argentine born and raised bilingual writer who first came to the U.S. on a Fulbright. She received an MA in English and a PhD in Latin American literature from Rutgers, and taught culture and language for two decades. Her writing has beenpublished in the U.S., England, Ireland, Argentina, Brazil and Spain.She is the co-writer and protagonist of the award-winning film La forma exacta de las islas. Julieta started writing theater in 2017 under the guidance of Elizabeth Heffron and then with Rebecca Tourino Collinsworth. Since then, she’s written a handful of plays, short and long. Her most recent full length, Two Big Black Bags, received a first reading at the Multicultural Playwrights Festival REPRESENT and will have a workshop production at ACT in the summer of 2019, co-presented by Parley, eSe Teatro and ACTLab. She’s the Literary Manager of eSe Teatro, and a member of the Dramatist Guild and LMDA. She’s worked as a dramaturg with eSe, Thriving Artists and As If Theater.
Julieta lives in Shoreline with her husband and their three multilingual boys, the youngest of whom gets the award to the kid who’s spent the most hours in writing and rehearsal studios, and attending readings and plays with mamá. www.JulietaVitullo.com

Staff.

Rebecca Tourino Collinsworth
Creator/Artistic Director

Rebecca is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley (BA, English), the University of California, Irvine (MFA, Acting), and the Pacific Conservatory Theatre. At twenty, she made her professional acting debut at the rebuilt Globe Theatre in London, and she has since acted in regional theaters all over the United States. As a teaching artist, she’s worked with the Claire Trevor School of the Arts at UC Irvine; the Alliance Theater in Atlanta; the New York Film Academy in Soho; Seattle University; Meadows School of the Arts at SMU; Freehold Theatre Studio/Lab; Freehold’s Ensemble Training Intensive; and served for three years as Resident Playwright at the Washington Correctional Center for Women as part of the Engaged Theater Residency. Her plays have been produced in New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, and elsewhere at venues such as the American Theatre of Actors, Center Stage, and the Barrow Group. As a director, she has helmed over 50 world premieres in the last five years alone.

A Latinx homeschooling mama of two, Rebecca teaches playwriting, acting, and voice through her tiny home studio, Salvo.

Jaime Shure
Technical Director

Jaime is a Theatre Technician and Stage Manager. She had the immense pleasure of designing lights for Cherubin in early 2019, and has refused to leave ever since.