MARY DONNET JOHNSON is the 2026 Bradford Gromelski Jury Award winning playwright. Bradford was a past juror of THE SEVEN, a past FUSION main stage director, and a Professor Emeritus/playwright at Iona College in New York. Now deceased, he was the father of company co-founder Dennis Gromelski.

MARY DONNET JOHNSON (she/her) grew up in a tiny town in Vermont, earned her BA at Sarah Lawrence College, and spent a decade as a professional actor in New York City. She now makes her home in Tennessee and writes plays. Recent world premieres are: SHANKTOWN, at Playhouse on the Square in Memphis (2022), PARTY OF TWELVE, in Murfreesboro, TN (2022), and TO KNOW YOU, in Maryville, TN (2019). Mary wrote the screenplay for Nashville Rep’s 2020 online holiday show ‘TWAS THE NIGHT, and the documentary film GIVE ME A WORK about a nearly forgotten Black hero from the 1700s. In the last couple of years, five of Mary’s short plays were produced in California, Texas, Mississippi, Michigan, and now, New Mexico. She has just completed work on her answer to eco grief, a full-length play called THE CORD, supported in part by the Puffin Foundation and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. She will be an invited participant of the prestigious Sewanee Writers’ Conference in July 2026. Her plays have been published in the HuMed Journal (2024), Ponder Review (2020 and 2024), Smith and Kraus’ Best Women’s Stage Monologues of 2023, and Qu Literary Magazine (2025). Please visit www.marydonnetjohnson.com for more information.

RON DAVIES is a Canadian emerging playwright based in Ottawa. He learned his stagecraft working for five years as a stage manager with many of Canada's leading directors and actors at major theatres in Toronto and the Stratford Festival. His plays KISSING A STRANGER and WEDNESDAY’S CHILDREN both won Canada's National One-Act Playwriting Competition; the latter also won Theatre in the Raw's Biennial One-Act Competition. A finalist in the same national competition, TRANSITIONS won the Hamilton Fringe New Play Contest and was runner-up and workshop recipient in Canada’s National Playwriting Competition. His 10-minute play MORE THAN KIN was one of six winners in Theatre inspiraTO's international 10-minute audio play competition. He has participated twice in the Sage Hill Playwriting Retreat and was the recipient of a Playwrights' Guild of Canada Mentorship. His plays have been produced on stage or in audio format in the US and the UK as well as Canada.

LAURIE THOMAS is co-founder and co-artistic chair of FUSION. She is a director, actor, educator, and writer. Her professional credits for acting and directing include work at Berkeley Shakespeare Festival, Theater Rhinoceros, Alice B. Theatre, Book-It Repertory Theatre, Samuel  French Off Off Broadway Festival, Northwest Asian American Theatre, On the Boards, A Contemporary Theatre, Southwest Repertory Theatre, The Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival, Berkeley Stage Company, The Empty Space, and Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Her most recent work at FUSION includes directing EUREKA DAY, ONE FLEA SPARE, and NATIVE GARDENS; playing “Hazel” in THE CHILDREN and “Mom” in TRUE WEST; and conceiving & directing not LOST but FOUND in TRANSLATION for the Albuquerque Museum.

ANDREA TROTENBERG, a member of The Dramatists Guild, is a Chicago-based playwright whose work has been showcased numerous times at Chicago Dramatists where she is a network member.  Andrea is also a member of the boutique new play development lab called Cradle.  Her play, THE JULY EFFECT, was published in 2021 and her play, TELL ME ABOUT IT, was a semi-finalist in The Road Theatre Company’s summer play fest in 2024 and The Jewish Plays Project in 2025.  She is currently working on a new play about the under-recognized crime of destroying trees on someone else’s property called TIMBER.

MIKE BYHAM’s plays have been produced world-wide and have won multiple awards. Recently, SOUTHLAKE was named winner of 2024 Theatre Network of Texas POPS! national competition and was produced at The Core Theatre in 2025. Mike is a Pittsburgh native (a true yinzer) currently living in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Mike is a member of the Dramatists Guild and the American Association of Community Theatre.

JAMES W. PERRY was born and raised in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. He joined the military when he was nineteen years old and has been traveling the world ever since. After retiring honorably from the United States Army in 2020, he began passionately pursuing an education in theatre arts—first earning an AA from Las Positas College and then a BA in Theatre Arts from San Jose State University in 2024. He has since performed in a number of film and theatre productions throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. He began playwriting in 2022, and his plays have since been performed at theatres across the United States. James is a disabled veteran and a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community. He believes deeply in the power of theatre to reflect, question, and reshape the world, and he advocates for diversity, equity, and inclusion both on stage and off. More of his work can be found online at The New Play Exchange.

DAN PERRY is an LA-based writer who works across multiple content platforms. His long list of TV credits includes shows for Netflix, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, Disney+, MTV, and AMC (The Emmy nominated series INTERVENTION: THE HEROIN TRIANGLE). His plays have been produced across the U.S. They include BEHIND THE SIX (Loft Ensemble); HOW’D WE GET HERE? (Celebration Theatre); A BATTLE OF INCHES (Pages in Paris); LIES WE TELL TO SLEEP AT NIGHT (Newport Performing Arts Center); THE GATEKEEPERS (The Secret Theatre, The Strongbox Theater, and the Snowdance Comedy Festival); DYING WITH LAUGHTER (Fierce Backbone); and IF IT GOES THERE, which was a Pick of Fringe and Encore Producer’s award-winner at the 2019 Hollywood Fringe Festival and was awarded a special citation from the City of Los Angeles for “… further adding to the diversity, creativity, and artistic value of the Hollywood neighborhood and City of Los Angeles.”