Zhang Xian  (China)

·Playwright, theatre and cinema director, and prominent figure in the Shanghai artistic and cultural scene.

· Took part as performer in a lot of theater works such as Mother Tongue and 38th Parallel Forum.

· Directed a number of works performances; amongst them are: Sunday Morning and Tongue’s Memory of Home.

·Wrote numerous plays like Fashion Street, Owls in the House, Children of the Bus, Margin, Upstairs, His Wife from USA, Crowd, Hands in the Hair, Female/Waiting for Godot, and The Raped A-N-T-I.

·Writer of so many screenplays for films, many of which have been selected to compete in various international film festivals and have won awards. For instance, Those Left Behind won the Golden Pyramid Award for Best Film in the 16th Cairo international Film Festivals.

· Work mainly as an independent artist outside the supporting structure of the government. Because of this quality, he was a fellowship form the Asian Cultural Council to further his studies on drama in New York.

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Hassan al-Minai  (Morocco)

·Writer, critic, translator, and professor Modern Arab Literature.

·Studied at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities in Rabat form which he received a degree in Comparative Literature in 1963. In 1980, he obtained a PhD from Le Sorbonne University in 1983.

·Former member of the Morcoccan writers Federation and the Morcoccan Society for International Exchange.

·Took part in a lot of conferences and seminars in Morocco and abroad.

·Supervised numerous MA and PhD theses.

·Obtained a number of awards and orders such as the Morocco Writers Award in 1996, and Belkaheyya’s Award for Theater Criticism in 1998, and the Royal Order (Knight’s Rank).

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Rüdiger Schaper (Germany)

· Journalist and writer.

·Studied German History and History in the University of GÖttingen..

·Freelance theater critic for Berlin magazines and radio stations (1982-1990)

·Member of the State Jury for Experimental theater Funding.

·Cultural Correspondent of Süddeutsche Zeitung in Berlin.

·Chief Theater Critic in Der Tagesspiegel Berlin (1999-2005).

·Editor of the cultural section in Der Tagesspiegel (2005-    ).

·Has written a number of book on theater and culture.

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Santiago Martin Bermudez   (Spain)

·Playwright, theater critic and researcher.

·Secretary-General of the Association of Playwrights in Spain.

·Contributor to numerous journals, magazines and newspapers with studies on literature, theater and musical criticism.

·Founding member of several associations of theater criticism in Europe.

·Has written many plays, most of which have been successfully staged. Among these plays are Carmencira revisited (1992), Penas de amor prohibido (1994), Pasion-papel (1999), and Solimany la reina de los pequenos (2003).

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Vladimir Ovsyannilov    (Russia)

·Producer and professor of theater in St. Petersburg University.

·Has produced the international tours of different artistic group such as the Kazan Symphonic Orchestra that toured Germany and France in 1997 and the international tour of a symphonic Orchestra of the Ural Philarmonic Society in Spain.

·Producer of the Love Drink presented by the Moscow Mayakovsky Theater in 1997.

·Producer of a Russian tour of the American Experimental Theater River Repertory theater in Moscow in 2001.

·Founding Chair of the Experimental Theater Festival held in January.

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Fiona Winning  (Australia)

 Director, producer and writer, she has mode occasional appearances as dramaturg, performer and curator over the years.

·As director of Performance Space since 1999, she’s been responsible for programming and producing a range of hybrid performance works, installations, international exchanges and training and development projects.

·Was artistic director of Play works, the women performance writers network and of Death Defying Theater.

· Received a fellowship from the Australia Council’s Community affiliated to the Cultural Development Fund.

·Member of the Asialink  Performing Arts Management Program Committees and the Performing Lines Artistic Advisory Group.

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Luis Mario Moncada (Mexico)

·Playwrigh, researcher and theater critic.

·Director of Centro Helénico in Mexico City.

·Graduated with an honoray mention in theater and drama from the Universidad Autonoma de México.

· His creative skills are dedicated not only to play wrighting, but also to disciplines of acting, writing critical essays, and research.

·Has written and adapted more than twenty plays, most of which have been successfully produced; among them are James Joyce Carta al artista adolescente and Alicia detras de la pantalla.

Member of Arena Theater group since 1993. He had tourd with it such countries as the USA, Canada, El Salvador, Columbia, Portugal

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Liz Engleman   (USA)

· Freelance dramaturg and professor of theater.

·Literay Director of the McCarter Theater.

·Has served as the Director of New Play Development at ACT Theater in Seattle, Washington, Literary Mnager/Dramaturg at Seattle’s Intiman Theater, and as Assistant Literary Manager at Actors Theater of Louisville.

·Has worked on the development of new plays at the playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, ASK Theater Projects, and New York Theater Workshop, the O’Neil Playwrights Conference and South Coast Rep.

·Has been a guest at Washington University in St, Louis, the University of Puget Sound, Cornish College of the Arts, and has taught playwrighting at Freehold Studio Theater Lab.

·Co-editor with Michael Bigelow Dixon of several collections of plays and is currently co-editing two volumes of monologues by women with Tori Haring-Smith.

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William Galinsky   (UK)

· Theater director and researcher.

·Received his BA (honors) in Russian and Czech (with Slovak) from St. Anne’s College, Oxford.

·Visiting acting student at the Moscow Arts Theater (1993-194).

·Got bursaries at the Drama Center from Gatsby and Artistic Endeavors trusts (1996-1997)

·Worked for the Rolyal Shakespeare Company as an  assistant director, and for Arcola Theater as an associate director.

·Has been developing artistic liaisons with Africa, the Middle East and Japan. This has appeared in staging an adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale with Ya-Houza Theater Tokyo three years ago for the audience of Si. Petersburg and in the proceedings of The International /Shakaspeare Festival in Craiova, Romania.

·Currently, he is working on adapting Tayyib Saleh’s masterpiece Season of Migration to the North for staging it with RSC.

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Hany Mottawa    (Egypt)

·playwright and theater director,

·Received his BA from the Acting and Directing Department at the Academy of Arts, Egypt, his MFA in theater directing from lowa University in 1978, and his PhD in Dramatic Criticism from Florida University in 1985.

·Professor of theater directing at the Egyptian Academy of Arts since 1991. He has also taught at the departments of theater in the Egyptian Arab universities and institutes such as in Oman and Kuwait and at the Theater College in Florida University.

·Ex-Chairman of the Folk Art Sector, the Drama House, the Academy of Arts.

·Took part in numerous Arab and Egyptian theater festivals. He was the Chair of the Programs and Technical Equipment Committee affiliated with the CIFET for three years.

·Wrote for the stage and cinema a number of works in addition to his studies on criticism.

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