Visual Playwrights Retreat

Playwrights' Biographies

MONIQUE HOLT, author of “The Night Was so Hungry That it Ate the Moon”, created “The Night…” because she needed a simple story for her kindergarten students to perform when she was hired as Artist-In-Residence at Fanwood School for the Deaf several years ago. The story, a myth about the changing moon, was performed completely in action without any words. As a child, Monique’s favorite phrases were “Why”, and “What if…”; these helped her create answers to the Unknown. Monique is an actress and a member of the three actors unions: SAG, AFTRA and Actor’s Equity. She first caught the theatrical bug from watching a PBS production of Swan Lake when she was a young child. She finally got her chance to perform at Model Secondary School for the Deaf in her freshman year. She earned her BFA in Acting from Tisch School of the Arts- New York University. The theatrical bug has dug deeper. Recently, she wrote her first play The Dark Room, a detective story, which was produced in the Spring of 2004. She is working on a romantic comedy screenplay, and a cross-cultural friendship play. She is honored to be one of Visual Playwrights Retreat artists.

SHANNY MOW , born in Stockton, CA, became deaf at the age of five from meningitis.  He received his B.S. in education from Gallaudet College and M.A. in Educational Administration from California State University at Northridge, and has taught at schools for the deaf in Montana, New Mexico and Hawaii.  He has also worked as a printer, photographer and ASL researcher.  Since joining the National Theatre of the Deaf in 1978 as an actor in Volpone and Early One Morning, Mow has served as Resident Playwright, instructor in Professional Theatre School, and artistic director of the Deaf Playwright Conference.  He continued to perform in numerous productions, the most recent being Oh, Figaro.   Mow was Artistic Director of Cleveland Signstage where his play Counterfeits was nominated for the American Theatre Critics New Play awards.  He once directed ‘night, mother  in Swedish Sign Language in Stockholm.  Currently, he resides in Santa Fe, NM, free-lancing as a playwright/director.

MICHAEL P. RALPH, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, attended Gallaudet University for both his undergraduate and graduate degrees. He has worked at the South Dakota School for the Deaf, Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, the Lexington School for the Deaf, and is currently a school psychologist at the Governor Baxter School for the Deaf in Falmouth, Maine.   Michael’s theatre experiences include appearing as Orin in Children of a Lesser God, and as a soldier and poor peasant in Amadeus for the Player Club of Swarthmore in 1985 and 1986. He returned to the stage in Owl Be, Philadelphia Instant Theatre’s production OwlBe by Cleveland Signstage Theatre. He was an ensemble member in the Kindred Spirits Theater Company’s production of So Long and See You in the Mines, an adaptation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Michael debuted with the New York Deaf Theater in the Off- Off- Broadway production of Language of One in 1995. He went on to appear in several other productions with NYDT including Alumni Reunion, Profile of a DeafPeddler and an experimental adaptation of Hamlet by Village Reparatory Theater and New York Deaf Theater. Michael has also taken on other roles in his theatrical career including assistant director for Children of a Lesser God in Philadelphia and Assistant Stage Manager for NYDT’s production of The water falls. As for playwriting, Michael has participated in a playwriting workshop sponsored by NYDT and attended Willy Conley’s playwriting workshop at the National and Worldwide Deaf Theater Conference, hosted by the National Theater of the Deaf.   He resides in Portland, Maine and enjoys his work with Deaf children on Mackworth Island.