Hilary Bettis, Alligator

Scenes from Hilary Bettis' 2011 play Alligator, read by actors Kira Sternbach and Hanna Cheek.

Hilary Bettis’ first play, American Girls, was produced off-Broadway in 2008 and has just been published in Plays from New River 1 (McFarland). American Girls was anthologized in Best Monologues of 2009 and Best Stage Scenes of 2008, both published by Smith & Kraus. Recently, she was named the first recipient of a playwriting fellowship, sponsored by Tony-Award winning actress Cherry Jones and administered by the Abingdon Theatre, to celebrate the career of a female playwright under the age of thirty. Her first screenplay, B’Hurst, was filmed in 2008, and she is working on a feature-length version. She was the recipient of the 2011 James McLure Playwrighting Fellowship at New River Dramatists and of the 2009 John N. Wall Fellowship for playwriting at Sewanee Writer’s Conference. She was a 2010 semi-finalist for the Julliard Lila Acheson Wallace Playwright fellowship.

Kira Sternbach is an actress active in London as well as NY and LA. Her theatre credits include In A Dark Dark House (Almeida Theatre, London), Enjoy (59E59), How I Learned to Drive (Terry Schreiber Studio), American Girls (45th St. Theatre), The Shape Of Things (Edinburgh Fringe), Gerald’s Method (Center Stage), Beef (Crowne Point Festival), Raised By Lesbians (Barrow St. Theatre), Surgery (MITF, NY), The Interstate And On (South Street Seaport), Spoken Insects (Dixon Place), Understanding (The Theatre Project, NJ), One Night (East Coast Tour), and Pains Of Youth (Cal Rep Theatre). Her film and television credits include The Prisoner, My Normal, Three Windows, Anyone But Me, Lately, and Virgin. She is currently based in Los Angeles.

Hanna Cheek has been a part of the long running, critically acclaimed Pumpkin Pie Show since 2001, performing in Commencement (Under St. Marks), Hostage Song (The Kraine), Junta High (PS122), and Ringside Seats (Belt Theatre), among others. Hanna is also a member of the Drama Desk-nominated Waterwell theatre company with whom she has devised and performed in #9 (59e59), The/King/Operetta (Barrow St. Theatre), Marco Millions (based on lies) - (Theatre Row), and The Persians - a comedy about war with five songs (Perry Street Theatre). Other New York City credits include Artifacts of Consequence (The Wild Project), First You're Born (Playwrights Horizons), and Broken Boughs (Blue Heron Arts Center). TV credits include Titus, MTV’s Undressed, and The West Wing. Hanna is currently working on GOODBAR, a live, theatrical concept album with her rock band Bambï, created in collaboration with Waterwell.

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