Myrel Chernick is an artist and writer living in New York. Beginning in the late 1970s she created text-based multimedia installations and videotapes that have been shown nationally and internationally, at venues such as Artists Space, PS I, and the Whitney Museum at Equitable Center in New York, the List Gallery at MIT, Plug-In and Videopool galleries in Winnipeg, Canada and the International Cultural Center in Antwerp, Belgium. She developed and curated the exhibit Maternal Metaphors, presented at the Rochester Contemporary Art Center in 2004. An expanded Maternal Metaphors II, co-curated with Jennie Klein, was shown at Ohio University in 2006. Their comprehensive anthology The M Word: Real Mothers in Contemporary Art was published in 2011 by Demeter Press. Chernick has been the recipient of National Endowment and New York State Artist Fellowships and has lectured widely on her work as artist, writer and curator. She is currently developing a site-specific multimedia installation as well as writing and illustrating a hybrid novel set in Paris.

Myrel will be reading and presenting images from her novel in progress about the life and adventures of a young American artist who moves to Paris in the mid 1980s.

Donnetta Lavinia Grays – raised in Columbia, South Carolina – is a Brooklyn based actor and playwright. Her plays include SAM (2015 Todd McNerney National Playwriting Contest Winner. 2014 Eugene O’Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference Semifinalist), THE REVIEW OR HOW TO EAT YOUR OPPOSITION (2013 Eugene O’Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference Finalist) THE NEW NORMAL, THE COWBOY IS DYING, THE B FACTOR and ABSENCE OF FAITH and a short story entitled PEACHES WITH KING. She is the inaugural recipient of the Doric Wilson Independent Playwright Award, a member of the 2014-15 Civilians R&D Group, Actors Studio Playwright/Directors Unit. She is a 2013-14 Women’s Project Playwrights Lab Semifinalist and is a terraNova Collective Groundbreakers Playwright group alum. Her work has been developed by Portland Stage Company, Pure Theatre Company, [the claque], Naked Angels, Classical Theater of Harlem, Slant Theater Project, terraNova Collective, Theatre 4 the People, TOSOS, The Group Lab and Coyote REP. Acting credits include Broadway’s IN THE NEXT ROOM OR THE VIBRATOR PLAY and WELL. NY performance credits with Clubbed Thumb, Primary Stages, Ars Nova and The Civilians as an Associate Artist. Regionally she is a 2-time Connecticut Critics Circle Award recipient and Helen Hayes Award nominee. Performing at American Conservatory Theater, Portland Stage Company, Westport Country Playhouse, Arena Stage, Hartford Theaterworks, Centerstage, The Huntington Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival and The Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company. Film/TV credits include WILD CANARIES, THE ENGLISH TEACHER, THE WRESTLER, BLUE BLOODS, THE BLACKLIST, all LAW & ORDERS, MERCY, RUBICON, THE SOPRANOS and A GIFTED MAN. Proud member of The Actors Center Workshop Company, SAG-AFTRA, AEA and The Dramatist Guild of America.