Willy Conley is a professor of Theatre Arts in the Department of Art, Communication, and Theatre at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. Conley is an award-winning playwright whose work has appeared in American Theatre, Theatre for Young Audiences Today, and several anthologies. He has two books of plays, Vignettes of the Deaf Character and Other Plays and Broken Spokes. His plays have had professional productions both nationally and internationally at venues that include the Kennedy Center, the Boston Center for the Arts, ARBOS, CenterStage, and the National Theatre of the Deaf. He has garnered awards from the VSA Playwrights Discovery Competition, The American Deaf Drama Festival, the Laurent Clerc Cultural Fund, and is the recipient of a PEW/National Theatre Artist Residency grant.