Kim Peter Kovac (USA) commissioned & produced 100+ new plays as Artistic Director of the Kennedy Center's 'Theater for Young Audiences' programme, and is Co-Founding Director of the Center's award-winning 'New Visions/New Voices' programme which assisted in the development of 125+ new plays from the US and 10 other countries. He was on the ASSITEJ International EC for 12 years, 6 of those as Vice President. He is an ASSITEJ Honorary Member and a Lifetime Fellow of the College of Fellows of the American Theatre. Kovac introduced the idea of a playwright slam (not a competition, but readings from playwrights of their work ) at the Montreal Congress in 2005. As US representative to the ASSITEJ International EC, he coordinated slams at the Adelaide Congress (2008) and the Copenhagen/Malmoe Congress (2011). Under the aegis of Write Local. Play Global. (WLPG), which became an official network in late 2011, he coordinated slams at festivals in Okinawa (2012), Warsaw (2014), Birmingham (2016), Cape Town's Cradle of Creativity (2017) and Tokyo (2021). Each was created in coordination with festival organisers. As mentioned above, the most important contributors to this event will be the 15-20 playwrights from southeastern Europe reading original monologues in their home language.

Ginni Manning (England/UK) is a playwright, writer, theatre maker, and creative facilitator from Liverpool. She began her career as a participant in the 'Everyman Playwright Development Programme'. Her work has since been performed at national and international venues. She coordinated collaborative events between the networks at the ASSITEJ Festival in Denmark and at the AAG in Sweden in 2022; she performed at the ASSITEJ 2017 Cradle of Creativity Festival and the 2021 Mirai Festival. She co-wrote Dipalo, the ASSITEJ SA award-winning play, with Lalu Mokoku, and is a member of the Leadership Team of Write Local. Play Global. (WLPG).