Barra Grant

 

Barra studied acting at the Drama Centre, London and starred in the BBC series “Take Three Girls”.  She appeared in several plays at the Mark Taper Forum Theater and was a featured actress in both comedic and dramatic television.  As a screenwriter Barra wrote Slow Dancing in the Big City and Misunderstood, starring Gene Hackman.  She produced the Dirty Dancing television series and wrote various daytime television shows including the Emmy-winning The Tap Dance Kid.  Her play, A Mother, A Daughter, and a Gun has been produced in L.A., Chicago, and New York, starring Olympia Dukakis.  She wrote and directed her play Spa at the Coast Theater in Los Angeles. Barra also wrote and directed the features Life of the Party and Love Hurts, with Carrie-Anne Moss, Janine Garafalo and Jenna Elfman.  She is a story teller who has told her stories throughout the city.  Grant has received Director’s Guild and Humanitas nominations as well as winning The Writer’s Guild award. 

 

Eve Brandstein

 

Eve Brandstein has been an entertainment industry executive, producer, director, writer/creator and casting director.  Credits include the This is Spinal Tap, Diff’rent Strokes, One Day At A Time, Facts of Life, Who’s The Boss, Square Pegs, Beastmaster, Fast Track and Total Recall. Among her many television production credits: series producer E/R for CBS, series producer/director John Waters Presents Movies That Will Corrupt You.   She has also collaborated with Norman Lear and Anne Beatts for over 3 decades.  She has directed over 75 theatrical productions in Los Angles and New York.  Most recent credits; the long running hit production of Monica Piper’s, Not That Jewish and Rain Pyror’s Fried Chicken & Latkes which Eve will executive produce as a television series. Off-Broadway NY  2 year hit -  Shut Up Sit Down & Eat, the NY &  LA premieres of Revisiting Wildfire, the NY premiere of Voices Of Swords, Ronnie Spector’s Beyond The Beehive, Waiting For Jack – A Beat Poetry Reunion, and Suzanne Wang’s Cracked Open.  Eve directed 8 original productions for Jewish Women’s Theater salons show.   She also produces the bi-coastal spoken-word event Poetry In Motion since 1988.  

 

 

Susie Dietz

 

Suzi Dietz has been producing theater in Los Angeles since 1979.  In addition to presenting shows in a variety of venues over the years, Dietz also ran a number of theaters.  She was the artistic director of the LA Stage Company, where she produced the long-running Nuts and Christopher Durang's Sister Mary Explains it All for You; the producing artistic director of the Pasadena Playhouse, where she produced Mail; and The Canon Theater, where she produced Caryl Churchill's award-winning Cloud Nine and the long-running Love Letters, among many others.  In 2006, after the Canon was torn down, she turned her attention to the east, where she now produces both on and off-Broadway.  She is the recipient of numerous awards such as a Drama-Logue Lifetime Achievement Award and five Tony nominations, including one for Suzan-Lori Parks' Pulitzer Prize-winning TopDog Underdog and another for Fela!, conceived and directed by Bill T. Jones.  She is the Executive Producer of Every Act of Life, a documentary about Terrence McNally, which recently premiered at the TriBeCa film festival and can be seen this summer at Outfest.

 

 

Monica Piper

 

Monica Piper has performed on some of America’s most prominent stages, landing her own Ace Award-winning Showtime Special “No, Monica…Just You,” and being chosen as one of that Network’s “Comedy All Stars.” Nominated for an American Comedy Award as one of the top five female comedians in the country, she was recruited by Rosanne Barr, to write on the series Roseanne. Thus began her television career. She went on to write for Mad about You and Veronica’s Closet. After a job with the adult cult favorite, Duckman, she became the head writer of the #1 children’s animated series, Rugrats, for which she won an Emmy Award. Monica has developed and written on series for Nickelodeon, Disney and the Cartoon Network. She returned to her first love, performing, and is proud to be an artist-in-residence with the Jewish Women’s Theatre of Los Angeles. Her critically acclaimed one-woman play, Not That Jewish, ran to sell-out crowds in LA, before playing over 200 performances Off Broadway, and for which she received a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle nomination for Best Solo Performance. She currently headlines fundraising events across the country.