About Joshua Ritter (Writer / Performer) :

Joshua Ritter is an actor and writer who works extensively in film, television, and commercials. He is a proud member of Actors Equity Association. He has had the privilege of collaborating with many venerated directors, including Harmony Korine, Louis Letterier, Renny Harlin, and John Leguizamo. He can be seen on screen as Matthew McConaughey and Isla Fisher’s son-in-law in The Beach Bum and in a recurring role as Carl “Roy” Hutmacher in National Geographic’s exclusive Disney+ series, The Right Stuff. Other principal credits include roles in films Critical Thinking, Across the Rails, and Love Map. Television credits include Burn Notice, Graceland, Tycoon, and Life’s Rewards, among others. In addition to film and television, Mr. Ritter is a principal performer in dozens of national and regional commercials for Autonation, Florida Lottery, Wawa, Hanes, Taylormade, and OrangeTheory Fitness. His voice-over credits include ads for Coca-Cola, Canon, Wyndham Hotels, AutoNation, and more. 

In 2012, Mr. Ritter’s sons, Noah and Aidan, were born eleven weeks premature— marking the start of his journey as a father of special needs twins. Under the mentorship of author Mayra David, Mr. Ritter started writing humorous stories and essays about the challenges of fulfilling his role as an inexperienced primary caregiver to children with multiple diagnoses. His essay Falling Down was a finalist for the Perkoff Prize from The Missouri Review and his story You Must Let Go of the Trapeze was awarded First Prize in the Soul-Making Keats Humor Competition and Third Place in the Seven Hills Literary Non-Fiction Contest. His other works earned an Honorable Mention for The Deanna Tulley Multimedia Competition (audio version), two Finalist positions for the Third Wednesday Flash Fiction Contest, and the short list for The Letter Review Prize for Flash Fiction. He is currently assembling these and other pieces into a full-length book, a project which was a Finalist for the coveted Kenyon Review Developmental Editing Fellowship.

About Mayra David  (Director) :

Mayra is a writer and director based in Harlem, New York City. She earned a Bachelor of Arts from Ramapo College with a double major in Theater Arts and Writing and also holds a Master of Letters in Creative Writing (with Distinction) from the University of Glasgow. She is a mentor in the PEN America Prison and Justice Writing program. Ms. David has worked as a freelance writer since 2011, contributing content to various websites and online magazines like Domino (published by Condé Nast).

Mayra has been working with Joshua Ritter since their undergrad years at Ramapo College of New Jersey. They formed a writing workshop and collaborated to get Ritter’s first creative nonfiction essay, Falling Down, published in the prestigious Missouri Review. Following that success, they decided to bring Ritter’s stories from his acting career and parenthood to life on stage with this boundary-pushing, heartbreaking one-man show, now making its way through various theater festivals in Florida.

Mayra is currently shopping around her manuscript, a collection of short stories that have been variously received and honored in competitions such as the Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Competition (Literary Short Fiction) and the Ploughshares’ Emerging Writers Contest. She considers her collaboration with Joshua Ritter on his work-in-progress writing project and one-man-show to be some of her most exciting, rewarding, important work to date.