J. Nicole Brooks (formerly known as De Anna N.J. Brooks) is a graduate of Northern Illinois University where she studied the Meisner Technique at the School of Theatre & Dance under the tutelage of Kathryn Gately. She is also a playwright and an Artistic Associate with the Lookingglass Theatre Company(ensemble members include Joey Slotnick, Mary Zimmerman and David Schwimmer) in Chicago. Her first play 'Black Diamond: The Years the Locusts Have Eaten' will be produced at Lookingglass in the spring of 2007. It is a political satire that follows civil unrest in Liberia, West Africa. She currently resides in Los Angeles.