Rita Maricone-Dorsch

Rita has been teaching theatre and writing for more than 10 years, to students preschool-aged through adult. She is particularly interested in the role the dramatic and literary arts can play in community engagement, especially when it comes to issues of diversity (including neurodiversity) and representation. Rita works for Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museums and City Theatre where she creates and presents outreach programming and serves as a teaching artist and judge for EQT’s annual Young Playwrights competition. She previously taught Oral and Written Expressions at Thiel College and continues to teach in the English and Theatre departments at Kent State Trumbull. Her short stories have appeared in national and international anthologies.

In their spare time,  Rita and her husband, two children, and two dogs like to travel the country in their vintage motor home, visiting as many National Parks and historic sites as possible. So far, they’ve been to 43. She also thoroughly enjoys genre fiction and film and will happily talk Star Wars, Marvel, Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter with any takers.