Pollyanna Select Plays
Check out our amazing Playwrights!
Jonathan Graham
Jonathan Graham is author of more than 30 plays for kids and adults. His work is produced across North America and has been published by Dramatic Publishing, Playscripts, and Heartland Plays. Three of his plays for young audiences premiered at Pollyanna: The Boy Who Loved Monsters and the Girl Who Loved Peas (2014, winner of a Dorothy Webb Playwright Award and widely produced), The Thing in Grandma’s Closet (2017), and The Secret of the Soap & Spin (2018). His adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen has been produced across the U.S., including a successful run in 2018 at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. His plays have been produced by American Globe Theatre, Bloomington Playwrights Project, Childsplay Theatre Company, Generic Theatre, Love Creek Productions, Metro Theatre Company, Oregon Contemporary Theatre, Phoenix Theatre, and many others. Jonathan’s plays have received readings at Chicago Dramatists (where he was a resident playwright), Great Plains Theatre Festival, Mill Mountain Theatre, Theatre 33, Theater J, and Utah Shakespearean Festival, among others. Jonathan's awards include an Individual Artist Award from the Maryland State Arts Council and the Peace Play Prize from Goshen College. He earned a BA from Beloit College and an MFA from Southern Illinois University. Jonathan lives in Richmond, Indiana with his family.
Kathleen Fletcher relishes in writing scripts that focus on identity, history and encourage critical thought in theatre-goers of all ages. Her plays have been seen by audiences across the United States. In addition to her work as a playwright, she's also penned several short stories, podcast scripts and a novel. In 2021 Kathleen was named Broadway World's playwright of the decade in Austin, where she currently resides with her very sweet partner.
Kathleen Fletcher
Judy Matetzschk-Campbell
Judy Matetzschk-Campbell has directed and produced over 60 productions for young audiences since completing her Ph.D. in 1996. Matetzschk-Campbell holds an M.F.A. in Directing for Young Audiences as well as a Ph.D. in Dramatic Text Criticism from the University of Texas at Austin. While at UT Austin, Matetzschk-Campbell taught undergraduate classes in Dramatic Activities for the Elementary Classroom, a course designed to help pre-service teachers learn to use theatre as a teaching tool in their future classrooms. Her work with teachers also includes serving as a Primary Instructor for The Southeast Center for Education in Theatre at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where for ten summers she worked with teachers returning to school for advanced degrees and professional development credit. While at UT Austin Judy also served for four years as the Youth Season Coordinator where she coordinated communication between the Theatre Department and area teachers, organizing large groups of students to see UT’s extensive theatre for young audience productions in the B. Iden Payne Theatre on campus.
Matetzschk-Campbell’s research specialization for her dissertation focused on New Play Development for Young Audiences and featured as her case study the three-year development of the award-winning play, The Yellow Boat by David Saar. Her work with Saar led to many other professional opportunities such as work on new plays with Metro Theatre Company, ChildsPlay, and the Children's Theatre of Sioux Falls among others. Her specialization in new play dramaturgy also resulted in her service as a dramaturg for the IUPUI Bonderman New Play Symposium for over 20 years.
Before founding Pollyanna Theatre in 2000, Matetzschk-Campbell served as Director of Project InterAct at Zachary Scott Theatre Center for seven seasons where she directed ZACH’s outreach efforts to the schools and directed plays specifically written and designed to tour into Central Texas schools. Plays directed and produced by Matetzschk-Campbell for Project InterAct were performed for an average of 54,000 children each school year. Most of those days found her in the van with her cast and on an elementary school campus. Since founding Pollyanna Theatre Company, Matetzschk-Campbell has been responsible for both the artistic leadership of the company and all administrative oversight which includes Board Recruiting, Fundraising, Grant writing and reporting, contracting, accounts payable and accounts receivable. Campbell coordinates the work of the company’s Resident Designers, Resident Actors, and a team of administrators and interns totaling approx. 30 individuals per season. With a mission that includes the commissioning, developing, and producing of new plays for young audiences, Matetzschk-Campbell is responsible for developing each script that Pollyanna produces. Her work includes commissions by Sandy Asher, Lou Clark, Nick Kryah, Bethany Lynn Corey, Jonathan Graham, Holly Hepp-Galvan and many others.
Andrew Perry has been the Company Stage Manager for Pollyanna Theatre since 2007 and has been a part of well over 50 full productions. He holds a Bachelors Degree in Stage Management from TX State University San Marcos and has worked professionally in Austin for over fifteen years. He is also a sound designer, playwright, singer/songwriter, and plays ukulele along with lead vocals for the band Last Visible Dog.
Andrew Perry
Holly holds an M.F.A. in Playwriting from Hunter College. Her work for young audiences includes eight plays with Pollyanna Theatre Company, a resident of the Long Center in Austin, TX, as well as commissioned work in New York City from 52nd Street Project, Gallery Players, and the Long Island Children’s Museum. She is a runner-up for the 2021 Jackie White Memorial National Playwriting Award, a 2019 NYSCA/NYFA Fellow in Playwriting/Screenwriting and a two-time winner of the Irv Zarkower Award and the Rita and Burton Goldberg Playwriting Prize. She currently serves on the faculty of Baruch College and Fordham University where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Playwriting, Creative Dramatics, and Theatre for Youth. www.hollyhepp-galvan.com
Holly Hepp-Galván
Gregory Perrin is a creative who shares his talents in many different arenas. He has been involve in theater for more than 30 years as producer, director, playwright and actor. He earned both undergraduate and graduate degrees in theatre from the Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts at the University of Houston, where he studied with Jose Quintero, Denise Chavez and Edward Albee. Gregory has been awarded five commissions to write plays for family audiences. In addition to playwriting, he has an extensive career in higher education and nonprofit fundraising. He is married to Lamonica Guillory Perrin and they have one adult son, Oliver Smith-Perrin.
Gregory Perrin
Katherine Gee Perrone
Katherine Gee Perrone is an award-winning playwright and storyteller who grew up in Austin, TX and now makes her home in the Pacific Northwest. She earned a BA in English and Theatre from Brigham Young University and an MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen from Lesley University. Five of her plays for children have been produced with the Pollyanna Theatre Company. She has also received commissions from Brigham Young University, New Play Project, Carrol College, Stone Soup Theatre, and Millibo Art Theatre. Her plays have been produced around the country, including at the Kennedy Center and as a part of the prestigious Boston Theatre Marathon. She was one of the youngest recipients of the VSA Arts Discovery award at the age of fourteen, and several of her ten-minute and one-act plays have been published in “Best of” anthologies. In addition to writing, Katherine works as a touring storyteller, songwriter, and teaching artist for young children throughout the Puget Sound region. She is the co-founder of K2 Backyard Camps, which hosts Theatre, Film, and Hero Adventure Camps for children and youth of all ages in her backyard. She is a mother of four, and when she isn’t telling her daughters stories, she spends her time searching for them in people, the mountains, and old books.
Emily Ball Cicchini
Emily is a published and award-winning playwright with an interest in historical, literary, and imaginative subjects. Her plays Edward, the Owl, and the Calico Cat and Like a Metaphor are published by Dramatic and YouthPlays, respectively. Her play Becoming Brontë won several local and national awards. She edited the Mother/Daughter Monologues for the International Centre for Women Playwrights (ICWP) Press, and appears in Scenes from a Diverse World. The Pollyanna Theatre Company, where she is playwright in residence, has commissioned and produced over a dozen plays for youth audiences, including A Christmas Rose, A Dragon’s Happy Day, Just Bee, and the Pattern Nation series. She taught creative writing, acting, directing, voice, movement, and arts integration from pre-school to post-graduate levels in both formal and community based settings across the country. She was a radio commentator on Public Radio International’s “Primary Sources" and a two-time Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting finalist. She holds a MFA from the University of Texas at Austin where she was a Michener Fellow, and a BFA in Acting from Goodman School of Drama in Chicago. She also holds a PhD in organizational communication and technology from Moody College of Communication and serves as executive director for BookSpring in Austin, Texas.
Sandra Fenichel Asher
Sandra Fenichel Asher's plays have been produced nationally and abroad. A Woman Called Truth, In the Garden of the Selfish Giant, and Jesse and Grace: A Best Friends Story have all been honored with the American Alliance for Theatre and Education's Distinguished Play Award. Across the Plains was selected for the Kennedy Center's New Visions/New Voices Symposium. Walking Toward America and Mariposa/Butterfly were chosen for development at NYU's New Plays for Young Audiences workshop and symposium. Theatre groups commissioning Sandy's plays include The Coterie (Kansas City, MO), Youth Theatre at the U (Salt Lake City, UT), Laguna Playhouse (Laguna Beach, CA), and Pollyanna Theatre (Austin, TX), among others. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship grant in playwriting, AATE's Charlotte Chorpenning Award for a distinguished body of work in children's theatre, AATE's Sara Spencer Artistic Achievement Award for lifetime contributions to the field, and an Aurand Harris Fellowship and other grants from the Children's Theatre Foundation of America, Sandy is also the author of more than two dozen books for young readers and the editor of seven anthologies, most recently American Heartbeat: True Stories Told in Scenes and Monologues. Six of Asher's plays are anthologized in Tell Your Story: The Plays and Playwriting of Sandra Fenichel Asher, edited by Judy Matetzschk-Campbell, Ph.D. and John Newman, Ph.D. Sandy is a member of the Dramatists Guild, Authors Guild, TYA/USA, and the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. Visit Sandy at http://sandyasher.com.