JAKE BRASCH (Playwright) (he/they) is a writer, performer, composer, clown, and a recent graduate of The Juilliard School. The Reservoir marks their Off-Broadway debut. Jake recently received both national awards named for hero Paula Vogel—one from The Kennedy Center and the other from the Vineyard Theatre. He’s a proud alum of Youngblood at the Ensemble Studio Theatre and the Page 73 Writers Group, and is currently developing work with Manhattan Theatre Club, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Alliance Theatre, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, South Coast Repertory, The Acting Company, The Farm Theater, and the EST/Sloan Project. With playwright Nadja Leonhard-Hooper, Jake is a co-founder of American Sing-Song, a duo that writes and performs filthy epic musicals. Jake has long worked as a birthday party clown in the tri-state area. He has three brothers, 26 pairs of glasses, and lives in Brooklyn with his brilliant husband, Tyler. This one is for Grandma B and for those on their way to a joyous life in recovery. www.jakebrasch.com

SHELLEY BUTLER (Director) has worked extensively with writers on new plays and musicals and has directed over two-dozen new works including the world premieres of Lucas Hnath’s A Doll’s House, Part 2 (South Coast Repertory) and Kate Hamill’s The Scarlet Letter (Two River Theater). Shelley spent two seasons as artistic associate in charge of new play development for Hartford Stage, three seasons as artistic associate for Great Lakes Theater Festival, and currently serves as Artistic Director for the newly created South Carolina New Play Festival. Shelley has directed and developed work nationwide for companies including: Ars Nova, Primary Stages, Ensemble Studio Theatre, WP Theater, Alliance Theatre, Geffen Playhouse, La Jolla Playhouse, Asolo Repertory Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, The Old Globe, Milwaukee Rep, Hartford Stage, South Coast Repertory, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Geva Theatre Center, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Pioneer Theatre Company, Contemporary American Theater Festival, New York Stage and Film, Partial Comfort Productions, New Georges, The Playwright’s Center, The Playwrights Realm, Keen Company, and New Dramatists. Shelley is the recipient of a Drama League Fall Directing Fellowship, a 2018 Drama League Directing Resident, a 2005 Director’s Guild of America Trainee, and a proud member of SDC. www.shelleybutler.com

ENSEMBLE STUDIO THEATRE (Co-producer) (Estefanía Fadul and Graeme Gillis, Co-Artistic Directors) is a Hell’s Kitchen-based, Off-Broadway theatre focused on the development of new work and voices since its founding by Curt Dempster in 1968. For over 55 years, EST has developed thousands of new American plays and has grown into a company of over 600 actors, directors, playwrights, designers, and stage managers. EST’s mission is to develop and produce original, provocative, and authentic new work. A dynamic community committed to a collaborative process, EST is dedicated to inclusion across all aspects of identity and perspective, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, sexuality, physical or mental ability, physical or mental health, and recovery, while acknowledging and working to end systemic marginalization and oppression at all levels of its organization. EST discovers and nurtures new voices and supports artists throughout their creative lives. This extraordinary support and commitment to inclusivity are essential to yield extraordinary work. 

THE ALFRED P. SLOAN FOUNDATION (Doron Weber, Vice President and Program Director) is a New York-based, philanthropic, not-for-profit institution that makes grants for research in science, technology, and economics; quality and diversity of scientific institutions; and public engagement with science. Sloan’s program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology, directed by Doron Weber, supports books, radio, film, television, theater, and new media to reach a wide, non-specialized audience  and to bridge the two cultures of science and the humanities. The Foundation has an active theater program and commissions about 20 science plays each year from the Ensemble Studio Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, and the National Theatre in London, while supporting select productions across the country and abroad. The Foundation’s pioneering theater program began with a 1997 grant to Ensemble Studio Theatre for Arthur Giron’s play about the Wright Brothers, Flight, and has helped usher in the science play as a regular part of the theater canon, making Sloan a coveted commission for any playwright engaging with a science and technology theme or character. Beginning with such renowned science plays as David Auburn’s Proof, Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen, and Alan Alda’s QED, recent grants from Sloan’s Theater Program have supported Michael Walek’s Have You Met Jane Goodall and Her Mother?, Lloyd Suh’s Franklinland, Nelson Diaz-Marcano’s Las Borinqueñas, Mary Elizabeth Hamilton’s Smart, Mark Rylance’s Dr. Semmelweis, Anchuli Felicia King’s Golden Shield, Sam Chanse’s what you are now, Charly Evon Simpson’s Behind the Sheet, Lucy Kirkwood’s Mosquitoes, Chiara Atik’s Bump, Nick Payne’s Constellations, Lucas Hnath’s Isaac’s Eye, Anna Ziegler’s Photograph 51, Leigh Fondakowski’s Spill, and Bess Wohl’s Continuity. The Foundation has also supported a 32-play radio series  through L.A. Theatre Works. For more information about the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, please visit www.sloan.org or follow the Foundation at @SloanPublic on Twitter and Facebook.

THE EST/SLOAN PROJECT (Linsay Firman, Program Director), a pioneering collaboration between the Ensemble  Studio Theatre and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, is designed to stimulate artists to create credible and compelling new theatrical works that explore the worlds of science, technology, and economics and to challenge existing stereotypes of scientists and engineers in popular culture. Since its inception in 1998, the EST/Sloan Project has commissioned, developed, and produced over 300 staged plays involving over 1,000 playwrights, actors, choreographers, composers, and theatre companies nationwide. Recent notable plays include Have You Met Jane Goodall and Her Mother? by Michael Walek, Franklinland by Lloyd Suh, Las Borinqueñas by Nelson Diaz-Marcano, Smart by Mary Elizabeth Hamilton, what you are now by Sam Chanse, Behind the Sheet by Charly Evon Simpson, Isaac’s Eye by Lucas Hnath, Fast Company by Carla Ching, and Photograph 51 by Anna Ziegler.