Adrienne Mackey

– University Of Washington –

Adrienne Mackey (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist who blends game design with interactive live performance. She makes artworks that are living and time-based, exploring issues of critical impact that invite audiences to become curious, critical thinkers in the world.

Kellian Pletcher

– FableVision –

Kellian (she/her) is FableVision Studio’s Director of G.L.A.M. Innovation (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) . A game designer, educator, multimedia producer, and G.L.A.M. enthusiast, Kellian has been building games and immersive experiences in physical spaces for over 10 years as the Mastermind of Green Door Labs.

William Lewis

– Purdue University –

Will Lewis (he/him) is an Assistant Professor of Theatre History, Literature, and Criticism at Purdue University. His research focuses on spectatorship, politics, digital cultures, and experiential performance. Through practice-based-research he also utilizes interactive technologies to better understand the relationships between contemporary audiences and mediatized cultures. 

Patrick Jagoda

– University of Chicago –

Patrick Jagoda (any) is Professor of Cinema & Media Studies, English, and Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Chicago. Patrick designs transmedia, digital, and analog games, including the climate change alternate reality game Terrarium, which received the 2020 IndieCade award for the best Location Based and Live Play Design.

Lee Foxworthy

Lee (he/they) is a student, baker, writer, husband and cat dad. They wrote for a variety of different LARP types, and also created a number of my own short-form and festival-style LARPs. Lee enjoys creating curated educational LARPSs based on historical events or literature that are designed to broaden player understanding and empathy. They are currently studying environmental science while also working as a pastry chef.

Garett Kopczynski

– Reverie Studios, LLC –

Garett (he/him) is a writer and participatory experience designer, deeply invested in the concepts of collaborative and immersive techniques. He has written a number of different kinds of games and LARPs, with the subject of examining story structure and narrative at the core of his writing.

Athena Peters

– Incantrix Productions –

Half of the co-founding team of Incantrix Productions, Athena’s (she/they) passions lie in telling stories that step outside of the proscenium and physically pull the audience in. Utilizing a combo of her BFA in Theatre with 20 years of working in video games, Athena’s works explore how we can engage an audience to a greater depth by mixing in gameplay components, the physical with the digital or by translating a game or play from its original media format to an entirely different one.

Gian Carlo de Jesus

– Balaiwari Immersive and Gamified Experiences (BINGE XP) –

Gian Carlo U. de Jesus is a professor, theater director, playwright, LARPwright, and experience designer, and playmaker of Balaiwari Immersive and Gamified Experiences (BINGE XP) a creative studio that designs playable experiences for education, training, theater, tourism, and historical events, among others.

Lauren Ludwig

– Capital W –

Lauren Ludwig (she/they) is an immersive writer/director and founding member of the Los Angeles radical theater collaboration Capital W. Their interactive experience Hamlet-Mobile won “Best Game Design” at IndieCade 2016.

Sam Roberts

Sam (he/him) is a founder of IndieCade, educator, designer and director with a passion for interdisciplinary creative collaboration and exploration. Sam’s focus is innovating the field of play through developing communities of thought and practice.

Sean Bartley

– Northwestern State University –

Dr. Sean Bartley (he/him) is an Assistant Professor of Theatre History at Northwestern State University and the Co-Editor of Experiential Theatres: Praxis-Based Approaches to Training 21st Century Theatre Artists. His work has also been featured in Theatre Journal, Theatre History Studies, and TDR: The Drama Review.

Jamie Harper

– University of Plymouth –

Jamie (he/him) is a performance researcher, game designer and theatre director based in the UK. . He is a previous winner of the JMK Directors’ Award and the National Theatre Cohen Bursary for which he was Resident Director at the National Theatre Studio. 

Ashlyn Sparrow

– University of Chicago –

Ashlyn (she/her) is Assistant Director of the Weston Game Lab at the University of Chicago and an independent game designer. She has worked on scholarly board, card, and digital games, public health apps, serious games development, interactive learning experiences, and digital media art with youth and for youth.

Iris Xie

– University of California, Davis –

Iris Xie (they/them) is a queer trans nonbinary 2nd generation Chinese American from the San Francisco Bay Area, currently residing in Davis, California. They are a writer, game designer, installation artist/designer whose work engages with questions around rest, disability justice through experimental and cross-genre approaches.

Samantha Gorman

– Tender Claws –

Samantha Gorman (she/her) is an Assistant Professor at Northeastern CAMD Art+Design where she specializes in writing for interactive media and theater/performance in cinema, games and virtual reality. She is also the co-director/founder of Tender Claws: a game, art and tech studio.

Lizzie Stark

– Six of Hounds –

Lizzie Stark (she/her) is a participation designer and the author of three nonfiction books, Egg: A Dozen Ovatures, Pandora’s DNA, about breast cancer and Leaving Mundania, about larp. Her writing has been featured in the Washington Post, the Daily Beast, io9, and the Philadelphia Inquirer, among other publications. Her award-winning game design has appeared at the Future of Storytelling Festival, Indiecade, Fastaval, GenCon, Knutepunkt, and elsewhere.