Speakers for this event

• Cassie Chapados

  Cassie Chapados

  Cassie Chapados, (she/her) is a production manager, director, intimacy choreographer, educator, and designer from Wisconsin, who has lived in the Boston area for the past ten years. In addition to her work with Central Square Theater she has worked locally with Hub Theater Company, Watertown Children’s Theater, Flat Earth Theater, Fresh Ink Theater and others. She is passionate about new work, particularly work that centers young, queer folks who are coming into their own and exploring who they can be. She is a graduate of Boston College with a B.A. in Theater Arts and served as the Director of Production at CST prior to becoming the Technical Director at Harvard University.

• Laura Maria Censabella

  Laura Maria Censabella

  Laura Maria Censabella (playwright) is happy to be back at Central Square Theater where her IRNE Award winning Best New Play (Small Stage Category) Paradise made its world premiere as part of CST’s Catalyst Collaborative@MIT program. Paradise has been produced by numerous theatres since then, most notably in Los Angeles at the Odyssey Theatre with Viola Davis and Julius Tennon as producers. She then wrote the screenplay for Vicangelo Films and JuVee Productions and an audio version of the play opened L.A. Theatre Works’ 2021/2022 season (available on Audible). Ms. Censabella is the recipient of the $10,000 Saroyan/Paul Human Rights Playwriting Prize for her play Carla Cooks The War, three grants in Playwriting and Screenwriting from the New York Foundation for the Arts, and two Daytime Emmy Awards. Other plays and musicals have been developed or produced at the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Philadelphia Festival Theatre for New Plays, WP Theater, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Portland Stage, the New Harmony Project, Gulfshore Playhouse, Lyric Stage Company of Boston, The Playwright’s Laboratory in London, Northlight Theatre, The Working Theatre, Luna Stage, Passage Theatre, Mendocino Theatre Company and Urban Stages, among others. She directs the Ensemble Studio Theatre Playwrights Unit and teaches at the New School for Drama where she received the Distinguished University Wide Teaching Award. A graduate of Yale College with a B.A. in Philosophy, she is a proud member of Honor Roll! an action and advocacy group of women+ playwrights over 40. Ms. Censabella was a writer-in-residence at Hedgebrook in 2023.