Marlies Yearby is the Tony Award-nominated and Drama League Award-winning choreographer of Rent. Her work was licensed for the film adaptation and also seen in “Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway.” Ms. Yearby received a Helen Hayes Award nomination for her choreography for Oedipus Plays at Washington Shakespeare Theatre in DC and a Bessie Award for her collaboration on Stained written by Lisa Jones and Alva Rogers. Ms Yearby is the founder and director of Movin' Spirits Dance Theater, with commissions from Harlem Stages, The Exit Festival France, PS 122, Lincoln Center Out Of Doors, and Jacob's Pillow. Currently she is developing a web platform for the creative exchange of dance, music, theatre, and art streamed live globally. Writers Carl Hancock Rux, Laurie Carlos and composer Cooper Moore further develop Ms. Yearby’s The Beautiful, a performance reality libretto on the impact of media on the identity of an American family.