Kayla Amani is a director and storyteller from and based in NYC. Kayla is passionate about creating and uplifting work involving the intricacies of Black and Queer experiences, while also finding delight in seeking out the humanity and complexities within morally compromised characters. They are a company member and frequent director with PlayGround-NY, winning the season’s “People’s Choice Award” for their direction of @rudymocha has entered the chatroom. In addition, they’re a member of TAG, an artist-led collaboration cohort run through The Tank. Kayla has proudly assisted directors such as Lileana Blain-Cruz (Flex, White Girl in Danger), Caitlin Sullivan (The Keep Going Songs), and Tamilla Woodard (Weightless) among others. They have loved working with companies such as Second Stage, Lincoln Center and WP Theater.
Britt Berke is a director whose work interrogates love, power, and how these entities are intertwined and revolutionized. She directed the world premiere of Betty Smith’s Becomes a Woman (Mint Theater Company), which received an Outer Critics Circle Nomination for Outstanding Off-Broadway Play. Recently: watch me (NYTW at Adelphi); Springtime (Chautauqua Theater Company); DOGS (Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep); Anne Carson’s Antigonick (Torn Out Theater); Promenade in concert (The Public Theater’s Fornes Marathon); I Don’t Trust Adults (Joe’s Pub); Scenes with Girls (TheaterLab); All My Sons (NYU Grad); workshops with Mabou Mines and La MaMa; and short films SHIPS and The Skin of the Water. Select assisting: The Skin of Our Teeth (dir. Lileana Blain-Cruz); Mud / Drowning (dir. JoAnne Akalaitis). Britt is an alumna of the Drama League Directors Project, Roundabout Directors Group, MTC Directing Fellowship, and Mercury Store Directing Intensive. BA, Barnard College of Columbia University. brittberke.com
Penzi Hill-Vasserman (she/her) is a New York based theatre artist/producer/dramaturg. Penzi started her career at Williamstown Theater Festival where she was a part of the inaugural class of Black Theatre United’s Early BIPOC Theatre-Makers. Subsequently, Penzi was the Associate Producer of WP Pipeline Festival (2022), an intern for the Movement Theatre Company in Harlem, the Producing Intern at Tom Kirdahy Productions, and the Assistant for the Theatrical Literary Department at IAG. Currently, Penzi is the Artistic Assistant at MCC Theater. NYU Tisch (2023).
Susanna Jaramillo is a Queens-based director and stage manager hailing from Cranford, New Jersey. Artistically, Susanna believes in radical inclusion. She aims to create work that subverts our expectations of identity and uplifts voices that are often left out of the theatrical canon. Her work lives in a world of sensorial extremes and seeks to interrogate the ways that we do and don’t engage with the intersectional nature of identity and what that means for each of us. Recent credits include: The Memory Brigade (The Motor Company) the doctor will see you shortly (Keen Company), azn sad grl (Mercury Store) Myth of the Mountain (Open Jar), Jesus 2.0 (Workshop Theatre), Fucking A (PPAS), Best Life (JACK). Assisting credits include: Yellow Face (Broadway, Roundabout) The Ants (Geffen Playhouse), Wolf Play (MCC) Dom Juan (Bard SummerScape). Susanna is an alum of the Roundabout Director’s Group and the Drama League Directing Assistantship Program.
Alex Keegan is a director of new work, adaptations, and devised pieces. She’s a 2023 Drama League FutureNOW Directing Fellow, 2022/2023 Directing Fellow at Rattlestick Theater, New Georges Affiliated Artist, and on faculty at Wesleyan University. Recent directing: MANNING by Benjamin Benne (World Premiere, Portland Stage), MAIDEN VOYAGE by Cayenne Douglass (The Flea), WOLFCRUSH by Haygen-Brice Walker (Wesleyan), CHARLOTTE’S WEB (National Tour, TheaterWorksUSA), BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA by Anna Ouyang Moench (Chester Theatre Co.), AFFINITY co-adapted with Ryan Adelsheim from Sarah Waters’ novel and UHURU by Gloria Majule (Yale Drama), AUNTIE VANYA by Reed Northrup (Ars Nova ANT Fest), and new work in development with Primary Stages, Ensemble Studio Theatre, and NYTW Adelphi Residency. Alum: Roundabout Directors Group, The Civilians R&D Group, Lincoln Center Directors Lab, Williamstown Directing Corps. MFA: Yale School of Drama, where she received the Julian Milton Kaufman Memorial Prize for Directing. alex-keegan.com
Roshni Lavelle (she/her) is an arts administrator, curator, and creative producer currently working as a Line Producer at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, where she primarily focuses on the annual free and choose-what-you-pay summer festival, Summer for the City. She proudly supported the reopening of David Geffen Hall, and has led collaborations with organizations such as GlobalFEST, the Bushwick Starr, and Deaf Broadway. She is passionate about cultivating and presenting works that reveal new ideas, generate empathy and joy, and encourage audiences to reflect on their roles within the worlds they inhabit. In her current role, she strives to create community-driven spaces where people can gather, believing that we find our purpose through conversation with others. A proud Chicago native, she holds a BFA in Drama and English from New York University and an MFA in Performing Arts Management from Brooklyn College.
Mikhaela Mahony is a Brooklyn-based director working at the intersection of theatre, film, and opera. She is a frequent collaborator with Ensemble Studio Theatre and the Obie-Award winning EST/Youngblood, and has developed work with New York City Opera, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Boston Lyric Opera, The Syndicate, The Lobbyists, City Lyric Opera, the Chautauqua Institution, Bard College, and Rutgers’ Mason Gross School of the Arts. Summer, Mikhaela’s debut as a film director, was an official selection at the Buffalo International Film Festival, Flathead Lake International Cinemafest, and FilmColumbia. She is the Director of Opera at Rutgers University, and serves on the faculty of Mannes School of Music at The New School. As an associate, Mikhaela regularly works alongside artists such as Lileana Blain-Cruz, Daniel Fish, and Anne Bogart. Mikhaela is a proud volunteer artist with The 52nd Street Project. MFA from Columbia University School of the Arts, BA from Barnard College. Mikhaela is a proud volunteer artist with The 52nd Street Project.
Skye Pagon (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based producer, director, performer, and arts administrator. She received her BFA in Drama from New York University, where she first fell in love with classical theater and telling epically theatrical stories in curious and intimate spaces. She is a resident producer for the actor-lead company, Atomi Theatre Collective, and has produced shows and events at Lincoln Center, the Tada! Youth Theater, and Hedgepig Ensemble. As a director, she has worked at NYU and with Hedgepig Ensemble. She served as a founding Curator for Expand the Canon, an annual shortlist of classical plays aimed at expanding gender diversity in the classical theater canon and championing underproduced works from a multiplicity of global theatrical traditions. She currently works on the Programming team at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
Mukta Phatak is a playwright, actor and teaching artist based in New York City. Her writing has been produced/developed at the Children’s Theater of Charlotte, Ancram Opera House, The Workshop Theater, Trike Theatre and in devised works as part of Fringe festivals. She has also written extensively for children through her work with Mind Body Music NYC.
Mukta is a project-seeker and much of her work blossoms from the creative communities she cultivates. A proud daughter of Indian immigrants, her intersectional identities are at the core of her artistry. In her writing, acting and everyday life she strives to be a force for justice, learning, and play.
Lianna Rada-Hung is an arts administrator and producer born and raised in New York City. She received her B.A. in Dramatic Literature at NYU’s College of Arts and Science and is currently the Artistic Programs Manager at Williamstown Theatre Festival. Lianna serves as the Program Coordinator for the American Repertory Theater, a co-producer on the Broadway-bound Queen of Versailles starring Kristin Chenoweth, and the co-founder and producer of the Episodic Theatre Project. Before her time at WTF, she was a Production Intern at Back Roads Entertainment, Sesame Workshop, and Late Night with Seth Meyers. She has stage managed several theatrical productions, including the original musical Ships: A Musical Trilogy at The Tank and Soho Playhouse, several musicals as part of NYU’s Lamplighters, and the 2022 season of WTF’s Fridays@3 reading series.
Jordan Ramirez Puckett is a Chicanx writer from the San Francisco Bay Area. Their plays include A Sapphic Family Christmas, Transitional Love Stories, Untitled Dad Play, Huelga, En Las Sombras, To Saints and Stars, A Driving Beat, Las Pajaritas, Restore, and Inevitable. These works have been produced and/or developed by Abingdon Theatre Company, Creede Repertory Theatre, Flint Repertory Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Intar Theatre, Playwrights Realm, San Diego Repertory Theatre, San Francisco Playhouse, and TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, among others. Jordan was named a finalist for the 2022 Yale Drama Series Prize and is a 2024 graduate of the Juilliard School’s Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program.
Deneen Reynolds-Knott’s plays include BITING THE HAND (Florida Studio Theatre Commission, 2022), SHOEBOX PICNIC ROAD SIDE: ROUTE ONE (World Premiere at Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Fall 2021), BABES IN HO-LLAND (2020 Bay Area Playwrights Festival, World Premiere at, Shotgun Players, Winter 2024), PARTICULARLY MEDDLESOME ANCESTORS (2022 Ingram New Works Festival, Nashville Rep) and BATON (2018 Premiere Stages Play Festival, Staged reading at Florida Studio Theatre’s 2022 Summer Reading Theatre, San Diego Rep’s 2021 Black Voices Reading Series). She contributed work to 24/6: A Jewish Theater Company’s Telephone Plays, True Colors’ 2022 Next Narrative Monologue Competition and The Billie Holiday Theatre’s 50in50: Shattering the Glass Ceiling. Deneen was a member of Clubbed Thumb’s 2019-2020 Early-Career Writers’ Group and participated in SPACE at Ryder Farm’s Family Residency in Summer 2022. She is a New Georges affiliated artist.
Amy Staats is a writer, actor, director, producer, and a 2018 Tow Playwright in Residence through the Atlantic Theater Company.
The world premiere of Amy’s play EDDIE AND DAVE had an extended run off Broadway at the Atlantic Theater and co-starred Amy in the role of ‘Eddie Van Halen.”
Her one-act play, THROWS OF LOVE, has received multiple productions and is the winner of the Samuel French Short Play Festival. Other plays include BAT KITTY (The Momentum Festival); I HOPE SHE’LL BE OKAY (New Works Now) and HANDS (developed at ATC and SPACE at Ryder Farm). As an actor, Amy most recently performed the lead in the Broadway production of THE THANKSGIVING PLAY (u/s three performances). She is a resident artist at Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor and SPACE on Ryder farm (RIP), an affiliated artist with New Georges, and a semi-finalist at Sundance Theater Lab and The O’Neill Playwrights Festival. Her Russian spy/gymnastics dramedy DEFECTED is in development with Olivia Wingate (MO Studios) and Wren Arthur (Olive Productions).
Maia Safani (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based creative producer, education programs strategist, and arts administrator. Her work centers community, accessibility, and collaborative placemaking. She is a former member of Signature Theatre’s artistic team, where she created Signature’s inaugural education program and line produced various artistic productions and initiatives supporting Signature playwrights, including Quiara Alegría Hudes, Dominique Morisseau, and Sarah Ruhl. Prior to Signature, she worked on global programs at The Lark Play Development Center, where she helped produce convenings and staged readings of works by writers from Russia, Mexico, China, Romania, and the Middle East. Beyond theater, she has also produced live music events and supported film and visual arts initiatives. She is currently the Associate Director of Arts Administration at NYU Gallatin. Bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University.
Danielle Stagger is a playwright and performer from Queens, NY. Her plays largely engage questions of performance, respectability, and shame through the exploration of the appropriate and the forbidden. She prioritizes the authentic presence of Blackness, queerness, and womanhood both on and off stage and, as an artist in practice, works to decentralize and destabilize the product-driven, linear theatrical process. Danielle is the inaugural recipient of the Lily’s Lorraine Hansberry Fellowship, is a two-time Eugene O’Neill NPC Finalist, and was a nominee for the 2024 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Danielle’s plays have been finalists for the SoHo Rep Writer/Director Lab, the Ollie New Play Award, and the Lark’s Venturous Playwrights Fellowship. She has been commissioned by Second Stage Theater and Manhattan Theatre Club; she holds a B.A. in Theater and Performance Studies from Stanford University and an MFA in Playwriting from the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale.
Latoya Edwards (Tori/Freddie; Particularly Meddlesome Ancestors) NEW YORK: Off-Broadway: White Girl in Danger (2nd Stage/Vineyard Theatre); The Rolling Stone (Lincoln Center); School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play (MCC & Center Theatre Group); Miss You Like Hell (The Public Theatre). REGIONAL: Shakespeare Theatre Company: Merry Wives; Berkshire Theatre Group: Hair; Adirondack Theatre Festival: Nikola Tesla Drops a Beat. TV/Film: Law & Order: SVU; The Get Down; Many Saints of Newark; Beauty; They Saw the Sun First; Enjoy Your Visit; Don’t Stay Safe. OTHER: Religion (Canada) AWARDS: BAFTA Award (They Saw The Sun First); 2 AUDELCO Award Nominations (White Girl in Danger and The Rolling Stone) Instagram: @latoyaedwards.nyc.
Amandla Jahava (Bree/Hazel; Particularly Meddlesome Ancestors) is a Kenyan-American artist based out of New York. She passionately creates and advocates for EDI stories from an EDI perspective for EDI people. Pilot Princess Credits: PEEP SHOW at FX, DMZ at HBO, HOW TO MAKE LOVE TO A BLACK WOMAN at Showtime. Theater: PRACTICE (Playwrights Horizon) EXCEPTION TO THE RULE (Roundabout) SPIRIT OF THE PEOPLE (Williamstown Theater Festival) Degrees from: fka Yale School of Drama ‘19, CalArts ‘16.
Russell G. Jones (Raymond; Particularly Meddlesome Ancestors) is an Audelco, Obie and SAG Award-winning actor who has worn many theatermaker hats as a fixture on New York City stages since the mid-90s. Russell proudly originated roles in plays by Lynn Nottage, Suzan-Lori Parks, Tanya Barfield, Fernanda Coppel, Kirk Wood Bromley, and Stephen Adly Guirgis. On TV, he was a series regular opposite Edie Falco in CBS’ Tommy and recurrs on Only Mudrers In The Building for Hulu, Long Bright River for Peacock, Steven Soderbergh’s Full Circle for Max, and Godless for Netflix. Russell founded BLND SPOT EXPERIENCE and facilitates cross-cultural dialogue and critical thinking by providing tools and context for perceiving racial inequity and our roles in challenging it.
Adrienne C. Moore (Geneva; Particularly Meddlesome Ancestors) is an acclaimed stage, TV, film and voice actress. Theatre repertoire includes The Blood Quilt (Lileana Blain-Cruz, Lincoln Center Theater), Black Odyssey (Stevie Walker-Webb, Classic Stage Company), the revival of Ntozake Shange’s, For Colored Girls… (The Public Theater), The Taming of the Shrew (Phyllida Lloyd, Shakespeare in the Park), Milk Like Sugar (Rebecca Taichman, La Jolla Playhouse, Playwrights Horizons), John Wilkes Booth: One Night Only (Stevie Walker-Webb, Baltimore Center Stage), and 365 Plays/365 Days (Suzan-Lori Parks, The Public). Adrienne is known for her 3 time SAG Award winning role of Black Cindy on Netflix’s “Orange Is the New Black.” Additional credits include “30 Rock”, “Homeland”, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” “Pretty Hard Cases,” “Search Party,” “Bupkis,” “Poker Face,” “Juror #2”, “Shaft,” “Wonder Woman: Bloodlines”, and “We Lost Our Human.”
Laughton Royce (Jasen; Particularly Meddlesome Ancestors) In 2023 Laughton Royce, a New York-based actor and musician originally from Atlanta, fulfilled a lifelong dream going on as ‘Hamlet’ at The Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park, directed by Tony Award-winner Kenny Leon. And this April he will reunite with Kenny for a workshop of Trading Places.
Laughton originated the role of ‘Bobby’ in the developmental workshop of Purple Rain, helmed by Lileana Blain-Cruz; and was honored to participate in Rattlestick Theater and StoryBridge Productions workshop of the new queer African musical The Call.
Making his television debut on HBO’s The Gilded Age, Laughton most recently shot the independent feature Clean Hands opposite Zach Braff, Abigail Spencer and Esther McGregor under the direction of Jake Allyn. Next up, Nika Fehmiu’s independent film Between Us and the River where he plays ‘Casey’ a soldier dealing with the horrors he’s witnessed in the Iraq war.
Jean-Patrick Simeon (Ainsley; Particularly Meddlesome Ancestors) is an actor, writer, and educator from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, now based in Brooklyn. He studied Psychology at NYU and later trained at T. Schreiber Studio in New York. His work includes appearances on Law & Order and Zoey 101, as well as performances with New York theaters such as Rattlestick Theatre and The Flatiron Playhouse. He most recently appeared in the feature film Alchemy of Solitude (2024), where he received a Best Actor nomination at the Virginia Black Film Festival. He also teaches and advises students in the BA Theatre program at Brooklyn College.
Imani Pearl (Stage Directions; Particularly Meddlesome Ancestors) (she/they) is a NY-based artist. She appeared in the Broadway production of 1776: The Musical (Revival) and in Love + Science Off-Broadway at New York City Center. Their onscreen appearances include Fleishman is in Trouble (Hulu), Law & Order (NBC), and Extrapolations (AppleTV). She has also performed with Tectonic Theater Project, Abington Theater Company, The People’s Theater and has an upcoming reading with Classical Theater of Harlem. Imani is always happy to play a part in Black storytelling! website: imanipearl.com
Jesse James Keitel (Nicole/August; Find Me in the Mirror) As an actress, writer, and advocate, Jesse James Keitel has been pivotal in moving the needle for the LGBTQ+ community’s timely representation in Hollywood. TV/FILM: Big Sky (ABC/ Hulu), Queer As Folk (Peacock), Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Paramount), 56 Days (Amazon), Younger (Netflix), and the BAFTA & Student Academy Award winning Miller & Son — Upcoming: feature films Riding Shotgun & The Designer. THEATER: The Christine Jorgensen Show (off-broadway), Theo (Two River Theater, World Premiere), Beautiful Province (LCT3 Yale Drama Series). Vogue named her one of the “Rising Stars Poised to Dominate in 2022” and she was awarded the Human Rights Campaign Equality Award that same year. BFA Pace University.
April Schwartz (Stage Directions; Find Me in the Mirror) April Schwartz is a Brooklyn based performer and artist. Her recent credits include Jaguar Jones, Minerva the Great, and The Devil in Please Clap (Nu Box Theater), Erica in Likewise (Jerry Orbach Theatre, NYTF, Wesleyan University) Emma in Dr SilkFingers Will See You Now (The Tank); Wesleyan University productions: The Mayor in Wolfcrush, Starveling in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, various roles in Sonnets for an Old Century; and as a clown/mime in devised dance work (Colorado College).
Reed Northrup (Augie/Cole; Find Me in the Mirror) Reed Northrup is an actor and writer based in New York. Film/TV: Kevin Smith’s THE 4:30 MOVIE, Logic’s PARADISE RECORDS, David Mackenzie’s RELAY, HBO’s HIGH MAINTENANCE, and the voice of Javi on Adult Swim’s TEENAGE EUTHANASIA. He leads Sav Rodger’s film, PANCAKE SKANK, premiering fall 2026. He has worked with theaters such as: The Guthrie, Breaking the Binary, New York Theatre Workshop, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Ars Nova, National Queer Theater, and more. As a writer, he has both a television series and feature film in development. His short film, Miracle, is expected to shoot later this year. MFA Yale School of Drama, BA Sarah Lawrence College.
