James Jackson
President
James most recent work includes lighting the Harrison Stengle Fringe Festival production of GATZ!; directing and producing the world premiere of Lynn Nottage’s exploration of the history of slavery in America One More River To Cross; Tech Directing the Barrymore award winning productions of The Seagull by EgoPo Classic Theatre and the Barrymore award winning 11th Hour production of LIZZIE!. 
​James is also engaged in creating brand imagery as a freelance photographer (raveneyes.com); directing and producing independent films under his production brand, Light Thief Productions; and designing, directing, and producing many other Philadelphia area theatrical productions.
James Jackson has also been communicating his message through photography since 1995 in a professional and artistic manner

Asa Oded Pace
Treasurer
Asa is actually a New Yorker who used to live in Philadelphia and misses it greatly.They have been involved in theater since they were 15 and bushy-tailed in New Orleans. They’ve lived in a few countries and well, yeah, they’re a vagabond. A vagabond for theatre and a missionary of love. Asa likes dating theater techies and is a pretty good stage designer. Asa is gender-fluid and can be called any pronoun. They directed a short play with PDC in August of 2021. They’re theatre education comes from New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, City College of San Francisco and Long Island University. When Asa isn’t working to save the lives of LGBTQ youth with The Trevor Project, they’re thinking of script ideas, lip synching to eclectic choices of music, obsessing over Timothee’ Chalamet, mildly fretting or they’re cooking something divine.

Anna Langman
Interim Secretary
Anna Langman is a recent graduate of Brooklyn College’s Playwriting MFA program, having graduated from Connecticut College with a BA in English and Theatre with a concentration in playwriting in 2018. She is a queer, ace theatre artist with invisible disabilities. Her work seeks to break the way we think about theatre and about life, while always remaining inclusive to the asexual community. Her plays have had staged readings and productions regionally and internationally, most recently at the International Award for Improper Dramaturgy, honoring impossible, unstageable plays. During quarantine, she has created short plays in formats such as Zoom, Twitch, Instagram, and Minecraft. Anna is also a prolific sonneteer and an avid Bardolator, who attended the 2018 Summer Training Institute at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA. Her love sonnet cycle can be found at @shakespeareslilsis on Instagram, and her plays can be read on the New Play Exchange.

Rosemary Parrillo
Interim Secretary
A playwright and veteran journalist, Rosemary Parrillo joined the Philadelphia Dramatists Center in 2019.. Her 10-minute play, Walking the Dog After Midnight, was performed in PDC’s 2020 showcase, “A Thin Line Between Love and Hate.” Among Parrillo’s other plays, The New Normal Trilogy was selected as a semi-finalist in the 2017 Eugene O’Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference. Grind City won first place in the 2017 Dubuque One-Act Contest and Festival. The Oasis Café and Lou’s 24/7 have been finalists in the Tennessee Williams One Act Festival.
Parrillo also has had a long career in journalism, including Managing Editor and Features Editor,  the Newark Star-Ledger. She also has written and edited the Courier-Post. 
A resident of Marlton, N.J, Parrillo holds a B.A. degree in English from Rowan University. She is a member of the Dramatist Guild, New Play Exchange, International Centre for Women Playwrights, Philadelphia Dramatists Center, Fly Eyes Playwrights, and New York Women in Film and Television.

Caitlin Cieri
At-large
Caitlin is a lifelong enthusiast of theatre, audio drama, library music, and a damn good cup of tea. Her most recent PDC-based projects include the audio drama podcast Philly DramaCast, the 2020 Philly Theatre Week show A Thin Line Between Love and Hate, and the Witching Hour. Her work has been performed by Wings of Paper Theatre Company (Rejected Transplant, 2020) The Shoe Box Theatre Festival (The Most Important Meal, 2019), Barefoot Theatre Company (St. Joseph’s Day, 2020, the Risk! podcast, 2017), Project Y Theatre Company (Scene 6 of The COVIDs of March, 2020), the Walnut Street Theatre (The Concessions Conspiracy, 2007) and Maladjusted’s Going Viral Festival (I Can’t Remember My Legs, 2020.)
When she’s not writing, Caitlin likes to spend her shelter-in-place going for walks, listening to British comedy podcasts, reading and cooking from vintage cookbooks, and playing surgery simulators.

Gene Terruso
At-large
Playwright and for 30 years a professional director, Gene has headed up two American legacy institutions: as artistic director of off-Broadway’s historic Provincetown Playhouse (where he created their New Play Series) and as president of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He served for nine years as Director of the School of Theatre at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts and is a two-time Fulbright awardee.

Lewis Trauffer
At-Large
Lewis joined the PDC in late fall 2019. A playwright from Philadelphia whose first effort, ‘Merry Molech Day,’ has yet to be performed. The play, set in the present, exploring the real costs and questionable benefits of child sacrifice, was stifled preemptively by Christmas pageant directors at his church. From this Lewis went on to write several treatments and plays which were presented at the bi-monthly Writers’ Circle. Since then his work has received appreciative nods and unforced laughs among his peers, which he construes as some indicia of improvement.
Lewis is the writer in residence at his home in Wynnewoood where he also performs light-housekeeping (though less than desired by his wife).
He is recognized for his ability to shelter-in-place and is the recent recipient of many wellness calls from his friends and family.

David Hodges
Host, PDC Happy Hour
An English professor at Rowan University, David also teaches ESL classes at Community College of Philadelphia. PDC  roles include Newsletter Editor, moderator of the Happy Hour & Long Table Read development programs & he also makes sure the PDC graphics, branding & words are just right.
He studied Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University graduating in 1977. He is a playwright, a performer, a poet, a novelist, an educator, and among his favorite works are:
As an advocate for local sustainable food & farms, he also works as the Director at Collingswood Farmers Market.

ED SHOCKLEY
Founder
Ed Shockley is the author of more than fifty plays, which have enjoyed both commercial and critical success. 
He is best known for the record-setting musicals Bessie Smith: Empress of the Blues and Bobos (co-authored with James McBride).  Other notable works include The Liars’ Contest (winner of the HBO New Writers Competition) and the stage adaptation of
Mildred D. Taylor’s Newbery Award-winning novel Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry.
 He is the recipient of the Stephen Sondheim Award for Outstanding Contributions to American Musical Theatre, the $25,000 Richard Rodgers Award (presented by the American Academy of Arts and Letters), the New Professional Theatre Writers Festival prize, the American Minority Playwrights contest prize, two Pennsylvania State Arts Council fellowships, the Lila Wallace/Reader’s Digest Production Fellowship,
and the Lifetime Achievement Award from Theatre Philadelphia’s Barrymore Awards.
 He attended high school at the prestigious St. Paul’s School, followed by Columbia University and MFA studies as a Future Faculty Fellow at Temple University.  Mr. Shockley has taught at many universities and schools, including New York University, Nassau Community College, St. Paul’s School, and Temple University and he has coached thousands of authors through the Philadelphia Young Playwrights Festival and Young Writers Day lecture tours.
Currently, he is a senior lecturer at both University of the Arts and Rutgers University (Camden Campus). 

          “In my long arts career I have witnessed the crushing weight of poverty upon many artists.      
          Ability and stability are often unrelated. My hope has been to create a vehicle to maximize opportunities
          for substantive impart the lives of  my peers .”

Former Board Members
Marjorie Bicknell,  president emeritus
David Hodges
Mark Knight
Michelle Pauls
Bill Arrowood
Shelli Pentimall Bookler
Ardencie Hall-Karambe
Robert Ruelan
R. N. Sandberg
David Usner
Gil Sokolow
Jonathan C Dorf
Kate McGrath
Walt Vail
Bill Burrison
Elliot Sturmer