CATHERINE FILLOUX is an award-winning French American playwright who has been writing about human rights and social justice for over thirty years. Her plays have been produced around the U.S. and internationally. Catherine has been honored with the 2019 Barry Lopez Visiting Writer in Ethics and Community Fellowship; the 2017 Otto René Castillo Award for Political Theatre; and the 2015 Planet Activist Award. Filloux is the librettist for four operas, produced nationally and internationally; her most recent “Orlando” is the winner of the 2022 Grawemeyer award. Recent plays include: “Under the Skin” commissioned by INTAR in New York City, her livestream web drama about deportation and children “turning your body into a compass”, and “whatdoesfreemean?” produced in New York City by Nora’s Playhouse. Filloux’s more than thirty plays have been widely published, anthologized, and written about. Her new musical “Welcome to the Big Dipper” with composer Jimmy Roberts (I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change) is a National Alliance for Musical Theatre finalist. Catherine has traveled the world for her plays, including to Bosnia, Cambodia, Guatemala, Haiti, Morocco, Northern Ireland, and South Sudan. And in Iraq she collaborated with ArtRole’s production of her play The Beauty Inside and in ArtRole’s Women in Action conferences. She is the Board President of CultureHub, a global art and technology community, and has served as a screenwriting mentor for Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) Reentry program for incarcerated people. She received her M.F.A.at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts’ Dramatic Writing Program and her French Baccalaureate in Philosophy, with Honors, in Toulon, France. She is a co-founder of Theatre Without Borders, a Fulbright Senior Specialist, and an alumna of New Dramatists. www.catherinefilloux.com