BESS WELDEN (www.besswelden.com) newest play with songs, Death Wings, recently won the 2020 Maine State prize of the Clauder Competition for New England Playwrights. The script was also a semi-finalist for the 2020 O’Neill New Play Conference and workshopped with Fresh Ink Theatre at Boston Center for the Arts. Her play Refuge Malja, winner of the Tel Aviv Jewish Plays Contest and a finalist in the 2020 National Jewish Playwriting Contest, was recently published by Smith Scripts, UK. Refuge Malja premiered on Portland Stage’s mainstage and was nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in 2018. The new full-length version of Madeleines was named a top 20 semi-finalist in the 2021 National Jewish Plays Contest and received workshop readings with Maine Playwrights Festival and North Shore Readers Theater this past year. In fall 2020 she co-produced and performed Hausfrau: The Webseries on YouTube. Mergirl Saves the Waves, Bess’ feminist, environmentalist adaptation of The Little Mermaid, is in development supported by a grant from the Maine Arts Commission. Her solo comedies The Passion of the Hausfrau (2009) and Big Mouth Thunder Thighs (2013) premiered in Portland Stage’s Studio Theater, and her collaborative play-project with live music and illustration, Legbala is a River, premiered at Mayo Street Arts (2017). Last spring she participated as an invited writer at the National Winter Playwrights Retreat (HBMG Foundation) in Grand Lake, CO and was a member of Company One Theatre (Boston) PlayLab Unit 2020 cohort. You can hear her 15-minute audio rom-coms “What I Miss Most” and “Under My Skin” on the Meet Cute Podcast (www.meetcute.com).