About the Initiative

Programming & Communications

Chiara Montalto-Giannini is the Director of Programming & Communications for the Writers Guild Initiative.  She holds a degree from Eugene Lang College of the New School for Social Research. A Brooklyn native,  she is the author of a one-woman play, “A Brooklyn Love Story: Emergency Used Candles,”  which was based on the decade she spent living with her maternal grandfather in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. It was produced Off-Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York, and at Theatre 68 in Los Angeles.  She adapted the play into a screenplay and has won several awards for it on the national level. Chiara has appeared in many plays and is a member of SAG-AFTRA and the Dramatists Guild.

Contact: cmontaltogiannini@wgaeast.org

Zariana Gonzalez is the Program Associate for the Writers Guild Initiative. She recently received her degree in English Literature from Baruch College, and has a deep passion and love for writing. Through her experience peer mentoring, instructing other students, and in student government, she is dedicated to supporting others and working closely with those who share her drive. Her dream is to have her own novel one day, when she finds the perfect story to tell.

Contact: zgonzalez@wgaeast.org

Richard Dresser

Richard Dresser is a Founder and President of the WGI. His many plays
have been produced in New York, regional theater, and Europe, including
the widely produced Rounding Third and Below the Belt. He wrote the book
for the musical Johnny Baseball and the Beach Boys Broadway musical
Good Vibrations. His novel It Happened Here appeared before the 2020
election and predicted everything that has happened up until Tuesday.
With Willie Reale he produced the documentary Devout and Dangerous
about the anti-war priests Daniel and Philip Berrigan. In television he’s
written and produced on many series. He teaches screenwriting in the
graduate film school at Columbia University.

Lulie Haddad

Lulie Haddad is the first Vice-President of the WGI. She is an award-winning documentary producer, director, and writer. She has worked mostly on American History films for PBS. Earlier in her career she worked for ABC News, Wall Street Journal Television and VH1 as well as produced films in India and Mexico. She helped launch the Veterans Writing Program for the Writers Guild Initiative and helped run the workshops during its first years.

Willie Reale

Willie Reale is the second Vice-President of the WGI and writes for the stage and screen. He was nominated for two Tony Awards for A Year With Frog and Toad, which he wrote with his brother, composer Robert Reale. With his brother (and Richard Dresser) he has written (and is still writing) Johnny Baseball, which was produced at the American Repertory Theater. He has an Academy Award nomination in the best song category for his work as a lyricist on the movie Dreamgirls and has won 3 Emmy awards for as the writer/producer behind the recent reinvention of 1970’s literacy classic, The Electric Company, on PBS.

Susanna Styron

Susanna Styron is the Secretary of the WGI, screenwriter, director and documentary filmmaker. Styron’s work has received accolades and awards in film festivals around the world, in theatrical release, and on such outlets as HBO, Netflix and Amazon, among others. Her creative non-fiction has appeared in The Yale Revue, Spin Magazine, Real Simple Magazine, and the New York Times. Susanna teaches Writing for Television in Columbia University’s graduate film program.

Christopher Kyle

Christopher Kyle serves as Treasurer of the WGI. His film credits include Serena, starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence; Oliver Stone’s Alexander; and two films directed by Kathryn Bigelow, K-19: The Widowmaker and The Weight of Water. His plays include Plunge and The Monogamist, both of which premiered at Playwrights Horizons; The Safety Net, which premiered at Broken Watch Theatre in New York; and Boca, which premiered at Charlotte Repertory Theatre.

He is a former Guggenheim Fellow in drama and a graduate of the MFA program in playwriting at Columbia University.

Fred Graver

Fred Graver’s career spans comedy writing and producing (Late Night With David Letterman, Cheers, In Living Color, Jon Stewart), interactive producing (The MY Vh1 Awards, ZoogDisney), and creating shows that span the web and television (Best Week Ever). He worked as the Head of TV at Twitter and currently works as a “Conversation Designer” at Microsoft. He has 7 Emmy Nominations (including one for the post-9/11 Concert for New York City) and 4 Emmys, as well as a NAACP award and a Webby.

Ann Toback

Ann Toback is the CEO of the Workers Circle. She led the organization through a reboot process, resulting in today’s Workers Circle, a social justice organization that is the leading Jewish organization on the frontlines fighting widespread voter suppression and working for a multi-racial, multi-cultural United States Democracy. Ann previously served as the Assistant Executive Director of the Writers Guild of America, East. A highlight of Ann’s career was staffing the 2007-2008 Writers Guild strike on the East Coast. Previously, Ann served as an attorney at Rosenberg and Shapiro. She attended Boston University School of Law and SUNY Buffalo.

Tom Fontana

Tom Fontana (President Emeritus) has written and produced such series as St. Elsewhere, Homicide: Life On The Street, Oz and Netflix’s Borgia. He wrote the HBO film Strip Search, directed by Sidney Lumet. His current projects are: Monsieur Spade for AMC and the drama series Sugarland for Audible. He has received three Emmys, four Peabodys, three WGA Awards, four TCA Awards, the Humanitas Prize and a Special Edgar. He was given the first prize at Geneva’s Cinema Tout Ecran Festival and, from the Writers Guild of America, East, three special career achievement awards. If you’re buying, he drinks bourbon.

Michael Weller

Michael Weller is president ex-officio Of the W.G.I. The best known of his 40 + produced plays are Moonchildren, Loose Ends, Spoils of War and his trilogy including What the Night Is For, 50 Words (MCC) and Side Effects (MCC).

He wrote the Book for the musical Dr. Zhivago, from the novel by Boris Pasternak (Broadway, 2015), and designed/developed the Mentor Project for the Cherry Lane Theatre, serving as its Supervising Mentor for ten years.

His most recent work, Loving, Longing, Leaving, is scheduled for production in the 2023 season of the Contemporary American Theatre Festival. He wrote screenplays for the films Hair and Ragtime (for Milos Forman) and Lost Angels (for Hugh Hudson).