John Clancy is the founding Executive Director of the League of Independent Theater. He is an OBIE award winning director and Executive Artistic Director of Clancy Productions, Inc. He is the founding Artistic Director of The Present Company, a leading Off-Off Broadway theatre company, and a founding Artistic Director of The New York International Fringe Festival, North America’s largest theater and performance festival. His plays have won The American Shorts Contest and The San Francisco Playwrights Center Dramarama, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe First and have been short-listed for the Julie Harris Playwrighting Award and the Actors Theatre of Louisville Heideman Award. Directing credits include Americana Absurdum, winner of an Edinburgh Festival Fringe First 2000, Cincinnati, winner of an Edinburgh Festival Fringe First 2002 and Adelaide Best of Fringe 2004, Horse Country, winner of an Edinburgh Festival Fringe First 2002, Scotsman Best of the Firsts 2002 and Adelaide Best of Fringe 2004 and Fatboy, Edinburgh Festival Fringe First 2004. He directed C.J. Hopkins’ screwmachine/ eyecandy: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Big Bob at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2005, garning him his 5th Fringe First in 4 years.   In 2007, Clancy Productions was awarded the inaugural Edinburgh Festival Award by the Edinburgh International Festival and will present a new work at the arts festival in August of 08. John serves on the Advisory Council of The New York Theatre Experience, Inc., the city’s preeminent advocacy and resource center for downtown theater, and the Advisory Board of the 24:7 Theatre Festival in Manchester, England. He is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect and his writing has been published in Off, Edge, Village Voice, The Sunday Herald and The New York Times. He was awarded The New York Magazine Award in 1997 for 'creativity, enterprise and vision'. In 2002 he was awarded a Glasgow Herald Angel for excellence in direction at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. He lives on the Lower East Side with his wife, Nancy Walsh.

Jennifer Conley Darling is proud to be the Managing Director of Operations for the League of Independent Theater. She has served as the Artistic Director of the terraNOVA Collective since 1999. Producing credits with terraNOVA include: Blue Before Morning by Kate McGovern (DR2 Theatre); Subterranean 2009, a performance party series (D-Lounge); terraNOVA Goes: Unconscious (New Works Series at Collective: Unconscious), An Evening with Linton Kwesi Johnson (The Zipper Theater), Masquerade: calypso and home by Roger Bonair-Agard (Barrow Street Theatre, Center Stage, NY, BRIClab, US tour); Buck Fever by Juan C. Sanchez (Blue Heron Arts Center); Baby Steps by James Carter  (Theatre Row); The Cuchulain Cycle by W.B. Yeats (Lovinger Theater at Lehman College); Our Bar by Charles O’Hara (Chelsea Playhouse, as well as a midwestern tour); soloNOVA Arts Festival 2005, 2006, 2008 (Center Stage, NY, The PIT, PS122); Groundbreakers Bi-Annual Reading Series 2006-2008 (Center Stage, NY, PS122, The Culture Project). Jennifer has also worked with esteemed companies such as 651 Arts, Ping Chong & Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Synapse Productions, Naked Angels, Second Generation, Collective:Unconscious, East River Commedia. She served as Human Resources Manager for The Araca Group, Senior Executive Associate for American Express marketing and sponsorships, and Managing Director of Rattlestick Productions.  She is also a proud member of Women’s Project’s Producer’s Lab 2008-2010.

Paul Bargetto is the Founder and Artistic Director of East River Commedia, an international theater company headquartered in New York City, and the curator of the undergroundzero festival. He holds an MFA from Columbia University in Directing and a BA in Drama from San Francisco State University.

Tom Berger is a director, producer, musician, and performer. His work has been seen all over the country in around 250 productions. He is the founding Artistic Director of (re:)Directions Theatre Company, a critically acclaimed independent theatre that focuses on reinvention of classics, new works, not often-produced musicals and championing successful regional playwrights who rarely have their voices heard in New York. His work in independent theatre has encompassed Untitled Theater Company #61, Hypothetical Theatre Company, Just ASK, Lovecreek, Ripetime and many others. RTC is a charter member of LIT and a member of the Independent Producers Alliance, and an avid fundraiser for BC/EFA.

Martin Denton is the founder, editor, and chief reviewer of nytheatre.com.  He is also Executive Director of nytheatre.com's nonprofit parent organization, The New York Theatre Experience, Inc. (NYTE); the editor of NYTE's annual Plays and Playwrights anthologies (nine volumes so far since 2000), along with the collections Playing with Canons and Unpredictable Plays; and the founding producer of nytheatrecast, NYC's first original, regularly scheduled theatre podcast. Martin blogs at the nytheatre I.

Amanda Feldman is currently the Secretary of the Community Dish, Company Manager of the Lark Play Development Center, a Producer in the Women's Project Lab, and a Judge-at-Large with the NYIT Awards. She also sits on the board of the award-winning indie theeatre company Collaborationtown, where she was the Founding Managing Director. Other past credits include: Line Producer, Neighborhood 3 and Unfold me (SPF '08 and '07); Producer, Dressing Miss Julie (Fringe Festival 2007); Company Manager, The J.A.P. Chronicles (Perry Street); Assistant GM Broadway On Broadway 2005 (with Richards/Climan, Inc.); Facilities Assistant (The Shubert Organization); Production Manager, Finance (Williamstown Theatre Festival, '03).

Shay Gines graduated from the Actors Training Program at the University of Utah with a dual degree in theatre and marketing. Since then she has done everything from spackling walls at the Pasadena Playhouse and running follow-spot for the Pioneer Theatre Company to serving as the Artist in Residence for Touchstone Theatre. She has performed in theatres of all sizes from 30 seats to 1,000 across the country, from L.A. to NYC. She is an award winning producer whose Off and Off-Off-Broadway shows include: Home Again Home Again Jiggity Jig, Ritual of Faith, What the F**k?!, Hamlet and Muse of Fire. Shay was a Founding Member and the Producing Director for Esperance Theatre Company, served for 5 years as an Associate Director for Emerging Artists Theatre Company and is a Founding Director for the New York Innovative Theatre Foundation.

Chris Harcum is an actor and playwright. He received a BFA in acting from UNC-Greensboro and an MFA in acting from the University of Virginia. His teaching artist work includes the Neighborhood Playhouse Junior School and the University of Virginia. He is the Artistic Director of Virgodog Theatre and a member of Transport Group, NJ Rep, SAG, AFTRA, AEA, and Dramatists Guild. His play, American Badass, was recently published in Plays and Playwrights 2009.

Christopher Heath is a playwright whose work was shown at the 2008 MITF with Truth Is, the NY Fringe with Four Quarters, and EATFest with Wally and Jesus. Other plays include Big Boy Two Scoop; Delays on the Weekend; ...digressions...; In Stereotype, Where Available; Out and About; and Who Art In. He's currently working on a series of 175 short plays, Over the Table and Under the Bar. Screenplays include Consistent Inconsistencies and The Ice Cream Papi. As Artistic Director and Co-Founder of Agony Productions, he produced Crash Comedy I and II, several short screenplay competitions, roundtable discussions on filmmaking, and the Writers in Agony Workshop Series. He is currently head of the Communications Committee for LIT.

Robert Honeywell is the Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of The Brick Theater.  He is a playwright, composer, actor and director.  New York works include Every Play Ever Written: a distillation of the essence of theatre ("a must-see for anyone who has been onstage" - New York Times), Greed: a Musical Love $tory, Ich Liebe Jesus!, Francoise Changes Her Mind, and World War III shall be a lovely daydream.  He recently appeared in the revival of Notes From Underground at The Brick (Michael Gardner, dir.), and has also appeared at The Brick in Mountain Hotel, Memoirs of My Nervous Illness, and In a Strange Room.

Leonard Jacobs is the national theatre editor of Back Stage and first-string critic for Back Stage and the New York Press. While he's the author of the new book Historic Photos of Broadway: New York Theatre 1850-1970, as a playwright, director and dramaturg he has been a committed member of the indie theatre universe since escaping NYU in 1991.

Erez Ziv has joyfully dedicated the last ten years of his life to creating Horse Trade Theater Group, an entirely self sustaining off-off-Broadway theater company in New York City. His three stage performances include a bomb shelter performance of Hit the Road Jack at the age of 10 and speaking roles in two Yiddish productions (the last of which had him singing a Yiddish version of "the Age of Aquarius"). He has learned that he hates being on stage. His educational history includes a BA in Jewish and Religious studies with a minor in comparative religion from the University of Minnesota, a semester at Oxford, and a never to be quite completed Masters Degree in Talmud and Rabbinics from JTS. He is a licensed fireguard, Handsom Cab Driver, sprinkler systems inspector, flame proofing Supervisor and wedding ceremony officiate. He is very happy to have helped to firmly establish Horse Trade's reputation in the downtown theater scene and to create a well respected, self sufficient organization that has created and continues to create a home for some the New York City's most innovative, talented and hard working theater artists. Thankfully the World keeps providing him with both fresh and refined talent to let loose on NYC.