Lalit Sritara, a Bangkok-born writer and composer whose musical theatre work blends humor, spirituality, and deeply personal storytelling. A graduate of the NYU Tisch Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program and the first Thai writer to complete the program, Sritara creates works that transform everyday life into emotionally resonant theatrical experiences. Their projects have been presented on stages in New York City, Texas, and Bangkok, and featured by outlets including Musical Theatre Radio and Earmilk. Sritara has received support from the Horace W. Goldsmith Fellowship, Asian American Arts Alliance, and Summer Song Theater Festival, and was named a finalist for the Folger Shakespeare Library’s Artistic Research Fellowship.

Website: https://museonline.org/profile/lalit-sritara/

Affiliation: NYU

Laura Melnicoff is a classically-trained cellist based in Albany, New York. This is her first stay at Catwalk. She will be here together with her collaborator, flutist Melanie Chirignan. We have a flute and cello duo, Duo Envol, and will be working together on compositions we are developing, including a work that we will record at a Looking Glass Arts Neighborhood Recording Residency. They will also use this time to work toward becoming their own official nonprofit, read up on scholarship about the New Jewish School of Music, and practice for cello performances at the Berkshire High Peaks Festival..

Affiliation: Mannes

Emily Hollander is a poet and author of the chapbook Successive Approximations (Bottlecap Press). Her work appears in Mudfish, GARLAND, Kestrel, and anthologies from Nightboat Books and Wesleyan University Press. They hold an MFA from Columbia University.

Website: https://bottlecap.press/products/succeh

Affiliation: Columbia

Julia Solomonoff, a filmmaker from Argentina and professor at NYU Grad Film. I directed three feature films (Hermanas, The Last Summer of la Boyita, Nobody’s Watching) two documentary series (Parana, biography of a river and Aerocene Pacha, a sustainable utopia) and a TV series for Paramount +. This will be my first time at Catwalk and I am excited to focus on a rewrite of my new film. ”Off Peak” is a story about gentrification of the Hudson River Valley, of love and belonging, about the housing crisis and about the dangers of good intentions without political awareness.

Affiliation: NYU

Janet Grillo is an Emmy Award-winning producer, acclaimed independent film writer/director, former New Line Cinema studio executive, and Professor of Film & Television at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Trained as a playwright with an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU, she began her career in theater before transitioning to film. During her residency, Grillo will develop RETURN/REIMAGINED, a multimedia play with music and projections that reimagines Odysseus’s return through Persephone’s perspective. Set in a Woodstock, New York music club in 2009, the work explores fame, sacrifice, family, and redemption as a legendary protest musician confronts the consequences of his long-ago choices.

Affiliation: NYU