(PLAYWRIGHT, They/Them) is a playwright and television writer from Portland, OR. Their plays include: Whisper’s Gone (Theatre Exile), Double Atlas (workshop at Playwrights Realm), Masculinity Max (Public Theater Studio production, Pride Plays ’20 reading), Sensitive Guys (InterAct Theater and numerous theaters and schools around the country) and A Walrus in the Body of a Crocodile (Clubbed Thumb). Their work has also been produced and developed at WP Theater, Huntington Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, the New Museum, NAATCO, Playwrights Realm, Colt Coeur, Yale School of Drama and the Lark Play Development Center, as well as in Russian in Moscow and in Australia.
MJ received the 2017 Helen Merrill Emerging Writers Award, 2013 ASCAP Cole Porter Prize in Playwriting, the 2013 Global Age Project Prize, and the 2010 Jane Chambers Prize in Feminist Theatre. MJ has held residencies at the MacDowell Colony and SPACE on Ryder Farm and is currently a resident playwright at New Dramatists. MJ has been a member of the Public Theater’s Emerging Writers’ Group, WP Theater Lab, a core playwright at InterAct Theatre and a playwriting fellow at the Huntington Theater.
MJ curated the 2016 and 2017 seasons of Trans Theater Fest at The Brick and, along with Kit Yan, founded Trans Lab Fellowship, a program to support emerging transgender theater artists. They have worked as a writer for two seasons for Netflix. Since the COVID19 pandemic began, MJ has written zoom plays for New Dramatists and Play at Home, adapted their play Sensitive Guys for the internet and worked on an audio piece for New Dramatists Plays for the Ear initiative. An alum of Wesleyan University and Yale School of Drama. http://mjkaufman.com/
(DIRECTOR, He/Him) is a transgender director and choreographer focused on physically adventurous work for the stage. Off-Broadway credits include: Road Show (Encores! Off-Center); India Pale Ale (MTC); Bobbie Clearly (Roundabout Underground); Charm (MCC); Men on Boats (Clubbed Thumb and Playwrights Horizons—Lucille Lortel nomination); and Duat (Soho Rep). Regional credits include: Spamtown,USA (Children’s Theater Company); Everybody (Shakespeare Theater Company); A Doll’s House, Part 2 (Long Wharf Theatre); The Carpenter (The Alley Theatre); Colossal (Olney Theatre Center and Mixed Blood Theater—Helen Hayes award for best direction); Evita (Olney Theatre Center—Helen Hayes award nomination); and multiple productions for ATC in Chicago where Davis also served as artistic director. He is an alum of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, the NYTW 2050 Directing Fellowship, the Brooklyn Art Exchange’s Artist in Residence program, and is currently a Princeton Arts Fellow.
(MELEBEUS / TELOSIA, He/Him/They/We/Us) (Giizhig) Oneida + Ojibwe Nations, is an interdisciplinary artist, writer/actor, director, and Grammy Award winner. Ty’s has an integral approach to artistic projects pulling in social justice messages rooted through words, music, literature, theatre, film. Awards: Robert Rauschenberg Artist in Residence, Jonathan Larson Award. Works created: Red Pine, The Way They Lived, Ajijaak on Turtle Island, Hear Me Say My Name. All My Relations Collective—(DTWG, Public Theater, GIZHIBAA GIIZHIG | Revolving Sky at Under the Radar’s Incoming!). Movement Director: Mother Road, Dir. Bill Rauch (OSF), Manahatta, Dir. Laurie Woolery (OSF + Yale Rep), Choreographer for Tracy Lett’s, The Minutes (Broadway). Netflix Appearance: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Broadway: Young Jean Lee’s Straight White Men, Dir. Anna Shapiro. Degrees: CalArts, Goddard College, + NYU Tisch. Lives in NYC, loves the color clear. tydefoe.com
[NEPTUNE / CUPID, Esco] is an actor, singer, dancer, clown, movement artist, and creator located in New York City. Esco recently wrapped a role on the upcoming Sundance series STATE OF THE UNION, from creator Nick Hornby and directed by Stephen Frears. Recent credits include Starz BLINDSPOTTING, HBO’s HIGH MAINTENANCE, Netflix’s upcoming series INVENTING ANNA, Hulu’s MONSTERLAND and Bravo’s IN A MAN’S WORLD, where they appeared as a movement coach. Esco’s theatre credits include: Interstate, Runaways, Galatea, The Demise (Magic Theater Player), Beowulf. Esco was a resident actor at the historic Barter Theater for three and a half years and is an alum of the ABC Discovers Showcase. As a movement artist, Esco is the creator and performer of “One”, a mute character that lives in the same world as the great artists Charlie Chaplin, Burt Williams, and Harpo Marx. Esco has used this character to explore the language of movement and how one would communicate with people if one could not speak. More information about Esco and their work can be found at escojouley.com, @escojouley, onezlife.com, and @onezlife.
(PHYLLIDA, She/Her) has been seen Off-Broadway in Hundred Days (New York Theatre Workshop), Joan of Arc: Into the Fire (title role at the Public Theater, Lucille Lortel Award nomination), Rimbaud in NY (Brooklyn Academy of Music), New York Animals (New Ohio), Iphigenia in Aulis (Classic Stage Company), and Dance, Dance Revolution (Ohio Theater). Selected regional appearances include Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ Superstar (Lyric Opera of Chicago), Marie Antoinette (American Repertory Theatre/Yale REP), Prometheus Bound (A.R.T.), and The Last Goodbye (Williamstown Theater Festival). She was seen in Japan in Elizabeth Swados’s The La Mama Cantata and on the 2014 tUnE-yArDs world tour in support of their album “Nikki Nack”. Jo’s film and television credits include Amazon’s Transparent: Musical Finale, Netflix’s Orange is the New Black, Hulu’s The Path, The Tonight Show, Conan O’Brien and the upcoming season of HBO’s BETTY.
(VENUS / RAMIA / HEBE, She/Her) is an Iranian-American actor, writer, filmmaker & Transgender activist. She’s co-producer/star/writer of “Transit “, a short film about love between a trans woman and a cis man, coming out in 2021. Her stage performances include “She,He,Me” by Raphael Aime Khouri, for National Queer Theater, dir Sivan Battat, “Our Town” in Pride Plays, dir Jenna Worsham, “Hamlet” in Play On Shakespeare festival, dir Ellen McLaughlin, an award winning one woman show “One Woman“, in United Solo at The Theatre Row, dir Joan Kane, “Galatea“, dir Mo Zhou for the WP Pipeline festival and “The Good Muslim” dir William Carden at EST. She has guest starred on “Law & Order: SVU “ dir Mariska Hargitay, “Falling Water” on USA, “Madam Secretary” and a recurring guest star on the drama “Big Dogs” on Amazon Prime. Her newest feature film “See You Then” dir Mari Walker will make its premier at SXSW, Atlanta FIlm Festival, DisOrient and others this year. She is a member of the advisory council for Ackerman Institute’s Gender and Family Project.
(DIANA / AUGUR, She/Her) is a singer, actress, producer, director, writer, and transgender activist. Born in Pune, India and relocating to the United States at an early age, she quickly found a passion for music. After receiving her BFA, she enjoyed the tour life performing in various musicals including the Broadway National Tour of A.R. Rahman’s Bombay Dreams as Sweetie in 2006. In 2008 Aneesh returned to New York University to pursue a Master’s Degree in Social Work and dedicated her time throughout the next few years working with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth as a counselor with The Trevor Project and a patient advocate at Beth Israel Medical Center. After spending her life thus far in the Big Apple, she relocated to San Francisco in early 2010 and then to Seattle in 2013. She returned to the stage working with several regional companies including PlayGround SF, Playwrights Foundation, The Asian American Theatre Company, Village Theater and The 5th Avenue Theatre. Now residing back in her hometown of New York City, she is most notably known as Carly in the critically acclaimed Public Theater production of Southern Comfort, which garnered six nominations, two Lucille Lortel wins and a New York Times Critic’s Pick. She has since returned to the Public as part of their Mobile Unit, Public Studio, Public Forum and Shakespeare Initiatives programs, as well as added NYMF, NAMT and Lincoln Center Theater Director’s Lab to her resume. Aneesh made her network debut as a guest star on NBC’s Thursday night sitcom Outsourced (2011) and has since appeared in Hulu’s Difficult People, HBO’s High Maintenance and NBC’s New Amsterdam. She also had a cameo in IFC’s A Kid Like Jake, alongside Jim Parsons. She’s currently a recurring guest star on Marvel’s Jessica Jones on NETFLIX as “Gillian”, assistant to the titular character. Along with her work in theatre, film, and television, she is an event host, trans activist, panelist and committee member with many national organizations. In March 2013, Advocate Magazine honored Aneesh Sheth on their 40 Under 40 List and in January 2020 she became the recipient of the HRC Visibility Award in Cincinnati. She is currently represented by Take3Talent and managed by 1022m Management.
(GALATEA, He/Him) is excited to return to WP Theater with Galatea, the first play he performed in after coming out as transgender back in 2018. Other favorite acting credits include the 25th Anniversary Tour of RENT and new works with the Kennedy Center, Barrington Stage Company, SoHo Rep, Ogunquit Playhouse, and New Dramatists as well as his screen debut in the series Sideways Smile. Offstage, he works to support transgender and gender expansive youth at the Gender & Family Project and to uplift new theatrical voices at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. A 2020 recipient of the Paul Robeson Award, Futaba dreams for us all to be free of capitalist cycles of oppression. www.futabashioda.com
(CULTURAL COMPETENCY CONSULTANT, They/Them/She/Her) is a black, queer, lesbian, and nonbinary transfeminine New York-based storyteller working at the intersection of theatre and activism. Their work and she are dedicated to interrupting the exclusivity of luxury by making things like entertainment, nourishment, and self-care accessible to the most marginalized in their community. In the summer of 2017, Ianne was selected out of over 500 applicants to be one of the 15 US Fellows for Humanity in Action’s 2017 John Lewis Fellowship. During this fellowship, Ianne studied and organized with contemporary and historic civil rights leaders in Atlanta, GA exploring the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement and its roots in present day social justice movements. Since then, Ianne has developed a cultural competency consulting and teaching artist practice which spans from talkback facilitation to teaching artistry to community outreach and organizing. Spaces that have benefited from Ianne’s practice include: The Alliance of Resident Theatres, Lincoln Center Theater, MCC Theater, Playwrights Horizons, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, Music Theatre Factory, NYC charter schools, and the Rose M. Singer Center on Riker’s Island. As a performer, Ianne has worked consistently in productions at NYC venues such as: Joe’s Pub, Dixon Place, La Mama, and many more. Ianne was personally requested by Sara Ramirez (Grey’s Anatomy) to play her love interest in an interracial polyamorous couple of color in the 3-Time Emmy-Nominated web series The Feels. Other Film/TV Credits include: Dash & Lily (Roberta), The Bold Type (Chloe Blair), and Pose (Pretty Bartender). Ianne is also the founder of The Okra Project which seeks to address the global crisis faced by Black Trans people by bringing home cooked, healthy, and culturally specific meals and resources to Black Trans People wherever they can reach them. Ianne’s platform substantially grew when she co-organized Brooklyn Liberation: A Rally for Black Trans Lives and delivered a speech in front of 15,000 people who gathered to march for Black lives.
(TITERYS / EUROTA, They/Them) Broadway: “Straight White Men” Person In Charge, Second Stage Theater. Off Broadway: ”Is This A Room?” Agent Taylor, Vineyard Theater. “Lessons In Survival” Bayard Rustin, Virtual Vineyard Theater. “You Were Mine” Noah, Kane Repertory Theatre. “Waafrika 123” Aweeno, Criminal Queerness Festival. TL is also the voice of Niko, a trans character in the Magic The Gathering video game. Podcasts: “Meet Cute” Podcast. “Adventures in New America”. “Welcome to NightVale”. Webseries: “THESE/THEMS”, TI, Dir. Jett Garrison. ”Dinette Season 2” Nun, Dir. Shaina Feinberg “THE HUNTED” Nic, Dir. Crystal Arnette. Films “While We Breathe” Miles, NAACP fundraiser for BLM. “Flu$h” Wrex, Dir. Heather Acs. “Friday Afternoon” Eli, Dir. Paige Campbell. TL is also NY Neo Futurist, who performs frequently in The Infinite Wrench, an ongoing attempt to perform 30 plays in one hour. TLThompsonactor.com.
(Voicing STAGE DIRECTIONS, she/her/hers) A singer, actor, and songwriter, Lillian is a New York City based artist from Texas. Pre Covid, she has done many regional productions in North Texas including Liesl Tommy’s reimagined Les Miserables at Dallas Theater Center. In the city she is best known for being a cabaret regular in venues such as Feinstein’s 54 Below, Laurie Beechman Theatre, City Winery, Green Room 42 and more. She has also done many new readings and singing appearances in this new era of online and virtual performances. One being her first solo show that has been nominated for Best Live Streamed Concert of BroadwayWorld’s Cabaret Awards 2020.
(ERNIE, she/hers) Broadway credits include Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, A Raisin in the Sun, and Gem of the Ocean. Other credits include By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, Fabulation, or The Re-Education of Undine, Fairview, Barbecue, Born Bad, The Exonerated and Insurrection: Holding History. Her film credits include Red Hook Summer, The Nanny Diaries, Broken Flowers, and the upcoming Roxanne, Roxanne. Her television credits include Law and Order, Whoopi, and The Good Wife. She received an Audie award for her work on the audiobook Upstate, and the prestigious TCG/Fox Foundation Fellowship.
(STAGE MANAGER, she/her/hers): Recent credits include WHAT TO SEND UP WHEN IT GOES DOWN East Coast Tour (Wooly Mammoth Theatre Company; A.R.T. Cambridge; The Public Theater); PUBLIC WORKS’ HERCULES (The Public Theater); LOCKDOWN (Rattlestick Theater); RECENT ALIEN ABDUCTIONS (The Play Company); WHAT TO SEND UP WHEN IT GOES DOWN (The Movement Theatre Company); THE REVOLVING CYCLES TRULY AND STEADILY ROLL’D (The Playwright’s Realm); IS GOD IS (Soho Rep); THE CHRISTIANS (Baltimore Center Stage).
(WISE, he/him/his) Lockdown (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater). Broadway: Jitney, American Psycho, Fences, Come Back Little Sheba, King Hedley II, Salome, Piano Lesson. Off-Broadway: Paradise Blue, First Breeze of Summer, Intimacy, Tamburlaine, Fabulation.
(CORRECTIONS OFFICER, he/him) is a recipient of the Fox Foundation Resident Actor Fellowship from TCG, the Thomas Barbour award for Playwriting and a member of the Civilians R&D Group. Off-Broadway credits include work at Signature, TFANA, the Public, Rattlestick, Working Theater and NYTW Next Door. Regional credits include Baltimore Center Stage, Syracuse Stage, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Cleveland Play House, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, O’Neill and the Sundance Theater Lab. Follow him @ReynaldoRey. www.reynaldopiniella.com
(CLUE, he/him/his) is an actor from New York City and recent graduate of SUNY Purchase’s Acting Conservatory. This past year he has been featured in a national commercial for Master Card, a live Pop tart commercial on Twitter and a live stream run in the Phoenix Theatre’s production of Henry VI part 3 playing Henry VI. He is forever in endless gratitude and debt to his mother and grandmother for their endless love and support. He would like to thank family, friends and predecessors for allowing him to stand on their shoulders. Black lives have and always will matter. His website is www.travisraeburn.com
(PLAYWRIGHT/LYNNE, she/her) is a writer, actress and comedian based in Los Angeles. She’s written for Castle Rock on Hulu and plays Heather Culbreth in the animated comedy Dicktown on FXX’s CAKE. She’s currently developing a pilot with Big Beach TV and writing on an upcoming series for HBO. Obehi is an alum of the Emerging Writers Group at The Public Theater and the Colt Coeur artist residency. Her plays have also been developed at SPACE on Ryder Farm, WP Theater, New York Theatre Workshop and Lark Play Development Center. You can see her face on a screen at The National Museum of Natural History talking about the lessons learned from dinosaur extinction.
Headshot Credit: Leslie Hassler
Obehijanice.com
(DIRECTOR, she/her) is a director and theater maker based in New York City. Recent work includes Panopticon (Gracie Gardner), Cherie Dre (Sacha Yanow) and MADONNA col BAMBINO (Sarah Einspanier and Deepali Gupta). She is currently developing United States v. Gupta with Deepali Gupta and Ohio with The Bengsons (co-director Anne Kauffman). Caitlin was a co-founder and Artistic Director of Seattle’s critically acclaimed Satori Group. She is an alum of The Drama League Directors Project and the Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellowship and a member of the New Georges Jam. Proudly born and raised in Dorchester, MA.
Headshot Credit: Delaine Dacko
caitlinesullivan.com
(MILLS, he/him) most recently was seen in Bart Freundlich’s independent feature AFTER THE WEDDING, where he shared the screen with Michelle Williams, Julianne Moore and Billy Crudup. The film premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, and then released in theaters last summer. Esola will next be seen in the independent film TANKHOUSE, directed by Noam Tomaschoff. On the small screen, Alex played the role of Freddy Blakestone in Paolo Sorrentino’s HBO limited series THE YOUNG POPE and reprised his role in Season 2, THE NEW POPE. He also has recurred on Jenji Kohan’s hit Netflix series ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK, and guest starred on BLUE BLOODS, LAW AND ORDER: SVU, MR. ROBOT, SCREAM, ODD MOM OUT, MYSTERIES OF LAURA, and EYE CANDY . On stage, Alex played Marco in Ivo van Hove’s award winning production of A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE at The Kennedy Center in Washington DC, and the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles. Alex is a graduate of NYU Tisch School of The Arts’ Stella Adler Studio.
Headshot Credit: Matthew Murphy
(JELANI, he/him) Andy Lucien’s credits include The Siblings Play (The Rattlestick Theater), The Qualms (Playwrights Horizons), City of Conversation (Lincoln Center), On Every Link A Heart Does Dangle (The Lark), Seared (MCC), The Last Seder (Theatre Three). Regional Theater: Queen of Basel (Studio Theater), Cry Old Kingdom and 27 Ways I Didn’t Say Hi to Laurence Fishburne (Actors Theatre of Louisville), The Last Tiger in Haiti (Berkeley Repertory Theater/La Jolla). Film work: Seven Lovers, TV: The Blacklist (NBC), Daredevil (Netflix), Madam Secretary (CBS), Elementary (CBS) Film: Vows: The Series, Believin, Aperture.
Headshot Credit: Emily Lambert
(CHARLIE, she/her) hails from Brooklyn, NY. Her credits include You (Netflix), the Blacklist (NBC), the Sinner (USA), the Deuce (HBO) and Show Me a Hero (HBO). Natalie was nominated for a NAACP Image Award for her performance in the independent film Crown Heights. She currently stars in the Blumhouse horror Delivered now on Hulu.
Headshot Credit: Stan Demidoff
(Voicing STAGE DIRECTIONS, she/her/hers) is a writer and performer currently based in Los Angeles. Her recent solo works have been produced by The Tank NYC, Parsnip Ship and Salvage Vanguard Theater. She is currently earning an MFA in acting at UCLA.
Headshot Credit: Jen Rachid
www.tajisenior.com
(MARCUS, he/him) credits include premiere productions of Bruce Norris’ The Qualms at Steppenwolf (directed by Pam MacKinnon), Rolin Jones’ These Paper Bullets! at Yale Rep (directed by Jackson Gay), Keith Reddin’s But Not For Me (South Coast Rep), and Ethan Coen’s Offices (Atlantic Theater Company). He performed on Broadway in Larry David’s Fish In the Dark, directed by Anna Shapiro, Elaine May’s Taller Than a Dwarf, directed by Alan Arkin, David Mamet’s November, directed by Joe Mantello, and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, directed by James Lapine. Along with director Jenna Ricker, Greg conveniently co-wrote a starring role for himself in the acclaimed indie film, The American Side, which the San Francisco Chronicle hailed as a ‘stylish, tense, witty, imponderable and exhilarating tribute to film noir classics’ (take THAT, Bergman!). He produced the award-winning ESPN 30 for 30 documentary, Qualified, also directed by Ms. Ricker, which premiered at SXSW in 2019. And with fellow- New Neighborhood members, Adam O’Byrne and Rolin Jones, Greg created the comedy series Luba’s Lot for Fox Television Studios. The pilot script is rumored to exist in a hermetically sealed crate at a Disney-owned warehouse somewhere in North Hollywood.
Headshot Credit: Jenna Ricker
(MEL, she/her/hers) is a New York City-based actor and co-founder of New Saloon Theater Co. Her theatre credits include Minor Character at the Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival and elsewhere, Testmatch at ACT, The Bridge of San Luis Rey at Two River Theater, Cute Activist at the Bushwick Starr, Choice at the Huntington and Wallis Annenberg Center, Far Away at Sharon Playhouse, and more. Her film and television credits include season three of HBO’s Crashing, Whatever this is., Snow Day, Places Thank You Places, and Lapsis, which was set to premiere at this year’s SXSW. She is a member of the Actors Center; you’ve maybe also seen her making fun of the current president in her 45 Selftapes series. @wise_dumb
Headshot Credit: Maria Baranova
madelinewise.com
(DESIGN CONSULTANT, she/her) is a Brooklyn based, new work focused, lighting designer for the live stage. Notable recent work includes Heroes of the Fourth Turning, by Will Arbery, which earned multiple New York design awards in the 2019 season, directed by Danya Taymor. Recent and select productions include Martyna Majok’s Sanctuary City (NYTW), “DADDY” by Jeremy O.Harris, Plano by Will Arbery, and countless collaborations with Caitlin Sullivan. Productions in process include a new play by Annie Baker, a re-envisioning of Anna Deavere Smith’s Twilight: Los Angeles 1992, and a reworking of “DADDY” at the Almeida Theatre, London. Isabella is a proud USA829 member.
www.isabellabyrd.design
