(The Review Director) Melissa Crespo is a NYC based director of theater, opera and film. Recent credits include: Jill Abramovitz & Brad Alexander’s Bread and Roses (Amas Musical Theatre), MJ Kaufman’s Eat and You Belong To Us (NYU Tisch), Vid Guerrerio’s ¡Figaro! (90210) (The Duke on 42nd Street, LA Opera), Karen Zacarías’ Destiny of Desire (Garden Theatre), Tar Baby written and performed by Desiree Burch with Dan Kitrosser and The ABC Talent Showcase. Upcoming: Brother Toad by Nathan Louis Jackson (Kansas City Repertory Theatre). Melissa is an alum of the Drama League, current NYTW Usual Suspect and received her MFA in Directing from The New School for Drama. www.melissacrespo.com
(The Review Producer) Roxanna Barrios currently resides at The Public Theater as the Program Manager of the Mobile Unit, a program that brings free year-round programming to the five boroughs of NYC. She is about to manage her eighth tour, bringing Henry V to community centers, homeless shelters, correctional facilities, and more. As a producer, she has worked with the Cherry Lane Mentor Project, UglyRhino Productions, and the producing department of The Public Theater. Prior to her time in New York, she did a brief stint in film in Los Angeles and spent just under a decade working for a children’s performing arts training company in South Florida. She is a graduate of the University of Florida and a proud South Florida native.
(Afloat Music and Lyrics). Zoe Sarnak Works include: Secret Soldiers (with Marsha Norman), Afterwords (Village Theatre Beta Series Production 2018, Playwrights Horizons-MTF lab), The Years Between (with Kirsten Guenther, T-Fellowship), Across the Great Divide (with Michele Lowe, Transport Group’s 20th Century Commission), Galileo (with Danny Strong, Michael Weiner and dir. Michael Mayer), Teddy & Max (with Brian Crawley), A Crossing (with Josh Bergasse, Barrington Stage Company commission) and musical short films Landed, Alma Mater, and Hold Your Peace. (with Emily Kaczmarek, New York Film Academy commissions). Awards include: 2018 Jonathan Larson Grant Finalist (with Emily Kaczmarek, winners to be announced), Davenport Songwriting contest winner, NY Stage & Film’s Founders Award finalist, Fred Ebb Award finalist, two time Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award Honoree, Women’s Project Lab Artist, SWAN song contest award. Residencies include: The Public Theater at Vineyards Arts, Goodspeed Writers Colony, Williamstown Theatre Festival, New York Theatre Workshop, McCarter Theater Residency, Prospect Theatre Company, Eugene O’Neill Artist Residency, and Rhinebeck Writers Retreat. Music featured: NY Times Live, Lilly Awards, Women of Note, Cutting Edge Composers and more. Education: Harvard University.
(Afloat Book) Emily Kaczmarek is a NYC-based writer, teacher, and performer. Works include: Sam & Lizzie (First Floor Theatre), Afloat (with Zoe Sarnak; Prospect Theatre Company, WP Theatre Pipeline Festival), Afterwords (with Zoe Sarnak; Village Theatre Beta Series, Village Originals Festival of New Musicals, Playwrights Horizons–Musical Theatre Factory workshop, NYMF Developmental Reading), American Kids (City Theatre ShortCuts, Women in Arts & Media Coalition, BoxFest Detroit), Landed, Alma Mater and Hold Your Peace (with Zoe Sarnak; New York Film Academy commissions), Paper & Glue (Future of Storytelling Conference, various high schools in NY and CA), and Anything New (NYU commission, Wombat Theatre Co). Residencies include: SPACE on Ryder Farm, Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, Goodspeed Musicals. Awards include: 2018 Kleban Prize Finalist, 2017 Premiere Stages Play Festival Semifinalist, 2018 Jonathan Larson Grant Finalist (with Zoe Sarnak; winners to be announced). She also teaches writing to high schoolers through the college access program SEO Scholars, and sings whenever possible. Education: New York University.
(Afloat Director) Ellie Heyman is a NYC theater director. Credits include: The Traveling Imaginary, theatrical rock show with Julian Koster (Neutral Milk Hotel) rated “Top 5 shows of the year” by NPR; narrative podcast The Orbiting Human Circus (Of the Air) featuring John Cameron Mitchell, Tim Robbins, and Mandy Patinkin, downloaded over 2 million times and rated #1 in iTunes (Night Vale Presents); Jason Craig & Dave Malloy’s Beardo (Pipeline Theater) Erin Markey: Boner Killer (Under the Radar/The Public Theater); Becca Blackwell’s They, Themself and Schmerm,(Under the Radar/The Public Theater); Adrienne Truscott’s THIS (NYLA). International credits include: Elevation 506 in Bulgaria with Yasen Vasilev and Home/Yuva in Istanbul with Sami Berat Marcali. Her work has been presented by The Public Theater/Joe’s Pub, New York Theater Workshop, The Kennedy Center, Abrons Art Center, The Bushwick Starr, Banana, Bag & Bodice, La Mama, New World Stages, The Drama League, Big Theater, Boston Center for American Performance, The Laguardia Performing Arts Center, NYLA, En Garde Arts, and indie rock clubs across America. She is a graduate of Northwestern and Boston Universities (MFA), a Drama League Directing Fellow, a Drama League Artist in Residence, and a Time Warner Directing Fellow at the Women’s Project Theatre.
(Afloat Producer) Nidia Medina is currently the Line Producer at The Public Theater. Before landing there, she had the pleasure of being Associate Producer at INTAR, and also produced an internationally touring one-woman show for charity called “The God Box” that has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for charities all over. Other independent producing projects include off-off Broadway shows, fundraiser performances, and some wacky variety shows. But that’s not all! She’s held a variety of other positions in the theater, and has spent the past ten years backstage, onstage and in the offices of some great NYC theater companies — including Cherry Lane, Ars Nova, MCC, MTC, Theater for a New Audience, and LAByrinth Theatre Company. She makes art, too. It’s probably best to just call her a “Theatre Person.” She holds a Master’s degree in Arts and Cultural Management from Pratt Institute.
(Power Strip Playwright) Sylvia Khoury is a New York-born writer of French and Lebanese descent living in Manhattan. Her plays include Against the Hillside (EST premiere, Lark Playwrights’ Week, Eugene O’Neill Playwrights’ Conference, 2016 Kilroys List, Roundabout Theater’s Underground Reading Series, NNPN National Showcase of New Plays) and Selling Kabul (2017 Kilroys List, Noor Theater’s Highlight Reading Series, La Jolla Playhouse’s DNA Reading Series). She is a member of the 2016-2018 Womens’ Project Lab, EST/Youngblood, and a 2015-2016 Dramatists’ Guild Fellow. BA, Columbia University; MFA, New School for Drama. She is currently a student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
(Power Strip Director) Tyne Rafaeli is a New York based director of new plays, classics and musicals. Recent productions include the world premiere of Michael Yates Crowley’s THE RAPE OF THE SABINE WOMEN BY GRACE B MATTHIAS with Playwright’s Realm, the New York premiere of IN A WORD by Lauren Yee with Lesser America and the world premiere of Anna Ziegler’s ACTUALLY at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles (Ovation nominated). Her work has also been seen at: Classic Stage Company, The Atlantic Theatre, Roundabout Theatre, California Shakespeare Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Two River Theatre, New York Stage & Film, PlayMaker’s Rep, Goodspeed, Julliard, Great Lakes Theatre, American Players Theatre, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, The O’Neill Playwright’s Conference and PlayPenn, amongst others. Tyne is a 2016-2018 Time Warner Directing Fellow at the Women’s Project Theatre and was awarded the 2013-14 SDCF Sir John Gielgud Fellowship for Classical Direction. She previously served as Bartlett Sher’s Associate Director on various Broadway and West End productions. Tyne trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and Columbia University. Upcoming projects include IRONBOUND by Martyna Majok at the Geffen Playhouse, Los Angeles.
(Two Mile Hollow Playwright) Leah Nanako Winkler is a Japanese-American playwright from Kamakura, Japan and Lexington Kentucky Plays include Kentucky (2015 Kilroys List, World Premiere: Ensemble Studio Theatre in coproduction with Page 73 and the Radio Drama Network), Two Mile Hollow (2017 Kilroys List, 2017-2018 Simultaneous World Premiere at Artists At Play in La, Mixed Blood/Theater Mu in Minneapolis, First Floor Theater in Chicago and Ferocious Lotus in SF) and God Said This (World Premiere: 2018 Humana Festival). She a member of the Ma Yi lab, the Dorothy Streslin New American Writer’s Group at Primary Stages and EST. She was awarded the first-ever Mark O’Donnell Prize from The Actors Fund and Playwrights Horizons and is currently one of the inaugural playwrights to receive a commission from Audible’s emerging playwrights fund. She is the 2017-2019 recipient of the Lark’s Jerome New York Fellowship.
(Two Mile Hollow Director) Morgan Gould is a playwright and director. She is currently in the playwriting program at Juilliard, a New Dramatists resident playwright, a 2017-18 Dramatist Guild Foundation Fellow, a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre, a member of the Women’s Project Lab, the former Associate Artistic Director of Young Jean Lee’s Theatre Company (co-creator Untitled Feminist Show), and the Artistic Director of Morgan Gould & Friends – her theater company with 9 actors, 3 designers, and a filmmaker (www.morgangouldandfriends.com). In 2016, she directed Leah Nanako Winkler’s Kentucky (P73/ EST) and her play I Wanna Fucking Tear You Apart won the 2016 Beatrice Terry/ Drama League Award and premiered the next winter at Studio Theatre in DC (with Morgan directing), where DC Theatre Arts said Morgan “shows every bit as much promise as Edward Albee’s early work, arguably more.” Upcoming directing: God Said This by Leah Nanako Winkler (Humana Festival 2018) and Straight White Men by Young Jean Lee (Marin Theatre Company).
(Two Mile Hollow Producer) Sally Cade Holmes is a New York-based creative producer. Credits include: Anastasia (Broadway), Puffs (off-Broadway), Boy Gets Violent (Ars Nova’s AntFest), Summer Valley Fair (NYMF), Hi, Are You Single (2016 Under The Radar), and Here’s Hoover! (Les Freres Corbusier & Alex Timbers). She is the Associate Producer at Tom Kirdahy Productions (White Rabbit Red Rabbit, The Visit, It’s Only A Play) and prior to that served as Producing Associate at Williamstown Theatre Festival. She also works with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival as a Line Producer for their Play On! initiative. BFA: University of Evansville.
(Playwright/Narrator) Kate Benson is a writer and actor living in Brooklyn. Plays include: [PORTO] (The Bushwick Starr), A Beautiful Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes (Obie winner), (New Georges with the Women’s Project Theater), Super Magic Wild Forest (Clubbed Thumb Biennial Commission), and Desert (for Now). She has an MFA from the Brooklyn College Playwriting program. Performances include: I’ll Never Love Again (Bushwick Starr), Tiger, Tiger (on the Nature of Violence) (Dixon Place), Fondly, Collette Richland (Elevator Repair Service at NYTW), Nomads (the Incubator), Good Person of Szechwan (the Public & LaMama), and home/sick (the Assembly).
(Doug the Bartender) Noel Joseph Allain is the Founding Artistic Director of the Bushwick Starr Theater. New York credits include [Porto], Heartbreak, the food was terrible, On a Clear Day I Can See to Elba, Jericho, Luft Gangster, Queerspawn , Motel Cherry, How Much Is Enough, The Wife, Sa Ka La, Tender, and Now That Communism is Dead, My Life Feels Empty. Regional credits include Asher in My Name Is Asher Lev (Cleveland Playhouse), Tom in The Glass Menagerie (Arizona Theater Company), Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice (Playmakers Rep), and Transition with Reggie Watts and Tommy Smith (On the Boards). Awards: Indie Theater Award for Outstanding Actor in a Featured Role for Luft Gangster and Xammie for Best Male Actor for The Glass Menagerie. TV: Blue Bloods, Law and Order:SVU, Damages, Guiding Light. FILM: The Outpatient, Marcy, InContact TRAINING: Juilliard
(Raphael the Waiter) Ugo Chukwu‘s Recent credits include Today is My Birthday (Page 73), Ripcord (Huntington Theater in Boston), Adventure Quest (Edinburgh Fringe Festival), [PORTO] (Bushwick Starr) and Minor Character: Six Translations of Uncle Vanya at the Same Time (New Saloon; NYIT award winner – BEST ENSEMBLE). Ugo has also been in numerous readings, and workshops with various companies such as Target Margin, Ars Nova, Atlantic Theater, The Flea, Clubbed Thumb, Playwrights Horizons, The New Group, EST, and more. BFA at Brooklyn College. www.ugochukwuactor.com
(Hennepin) Theater: Porto (Bushwick Starr, upcoming: Women’s Project/New Georges), Universal Robots (Gideon Productions/Sheen Center), Lady Day (The Little Shubert), Family Play: 1979 – Present (Collaboration Town), Bonedive Scrounger (The Brick). Television: “Seven Seconds” (Netflix, Fall 2017), “Blue Bloods” (CBS), “Madame Secretary” (CBS). Film: “The Visit”.
(Dry Sac) Off-Broadway: The Harvest (LCT3); Pocatello(Playwrights Horizons); Porto (Bushwick Starr). Regional: Miller Mississippi (Dallas Theatre Center); Residence (Actors Theatre of Louisville Humana Festival); Appropriate, The Whale, We Are Proud to Present…(Victory Gardens Theatre); Buena Vista, The Glass Menagerie, The Hot L Baltimore (Steppenwolf Theatre); The Diary Of Anne Frank (Writers Theatre); The Commons of Pensacola (Northlight Theatre); 4000 Miles (Long Wharf Theatre); Punk Rock (Griffin Theatre); Ten Chimneys (Milwaukee Repertory). Film/TV: Chicago Med; Patriot; Olympia.
The Bushwick Starr is an Obie Award-winning nonprofit theater that presents an annual Season of new performance work. We are an organization defined by both our artists and our community, and since 2007, we have grown into a thriving theatrical venue, a vital neighborhood arts center, and a destination for exciting and engaging performance. We provide a springboard for emerging professional artists to make career-defining leaps, and we are a sanctuary where established performance companies come to experiment and innovate. Our past Seasons have included new work from groundbreaking artists such as The Mad Ones, Clare Barron, Dave Malloy, The Debate Society, the TEAM, and Half Straddle.
“The work they program is boldly experimental. It’s also a lot of fun… a bright spot on the Off Off Broadway map” – New York Times
“A home for gutsy experimental work.” – 2012 Village Voice OBIE Award for Outstanding Work
“Brooklyn’s hottest incubator. One of New York’s best-curated off-off venues.” – Time Out New York
New Georges, founded in 1992, is a strategically small theater company with a national reputation as a productive home and launchpad for exuberantly theatrical women artists – individually, as collaborators, and as a community. We cultivate our boundary-pushing aesthetic in a nimble, artist-driven production environment: committing to projects early on, equipping them with processes rooted in strong collaborations, and providing steady artistic support. We serve and sustain the largest ongoing working community of women theater artists in New York City — more than 200 playwrights, directors, actors and designers – with premiere productions; play and artist development programs (such as the New Georges Jam and the Audrey Residencies); and The Room, our permanent workspace and the year-round hub of our activities. Our 22-year commitment to providing our artists with free or low-cost workspace in The Room is unique among small theaters and has incubated thousands of new plays.
Honors for New Georges, our plays and our people include 3 Obie Awards, the Lilly Award, the Susan Smith Blackburn and Kesselring Prizes. And the influx of New Georges artists into the field over the last 25 years has had marked impact on the representation of women nationwide in theater, film, television and arts education.
(Playwright) is currently a resident playwright (w/ Mike Lew) at Ma-Yi Theater as part of the Mellon National Playwright Residency. She is also a 2017 HBO Access Fellow. Additional honors include: 2016 Rita Goldberg Playwrights’ Workshop fellow at the Lark, 2016 Lilly Award (Stacey Mindich “Go Write A Play”), Rhinebeck residency with collaborators Sam Willmott and Mike Lew for Bhangin’ It, TCG Fellowship with New Georges. Productions: Soldier X (Ma-Yi; Brooklyn College; 2015 Kilroy); Lonely Leela (LaGuardia Performing Arts Center); Barriers (Desipina and Asian American Theater Company). Commissions: NNPN/InterAct for Neighborhood Watch; E.S.T./Sloan for Particles of Pakistan; La Jolla Playhouse for The Colonialism Trilogy (w/ Mike Lew); NYSCA/Lark for Soldier X; Kennedy Center commission (w/ Mike Lew.) MFA: Columbia University; BFA: NYU Tisch.www.rehanamirza.com
(Director) is a Brooklyn based director, writer, and educator. Recent projects include Utopia, Minnesota by Meg Miroshnik (2016 Sagal Fellowship, Williamstown Theatre Festival), That High Lonesome Sound (Actors Theatre of Louisville; 2015 Humana Festival) and We Are Proud To Present A Presentation… by Jackie Sibblies Drury (InterAct Theatre Company), And If You Lose Your Way, or A Food Odyssey (Invisible Dog). Her productions of The Dangerous House of Pretty Mbane by Jen Silverman (InterAct Theater Company) and In The Blood (Theatre Horizon) together received a total of fifteen Barrymore Award nominations, including Outstanding Direction and Outstanding Overall Production. She has directed/developed work at The Public, New York Theatre Workshop, Ars Nova, Soho Rep, Playwrights Horizons, Atlantic Theater Company, Ma-Yi Theater Company, Rising Circle Theater Collective, Woodshed Collective (The Tenant: Best of 2011, L Magazine), Partial Comfort, Noor Theatre, Rising Phoenix Rep, HERE Arts Center, New York Musical Theatre Festival, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Wild Project, Dixon Place, Living Theatre, Lark Play Development Center, New Dramatists, Juilliard, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Cleveland Playhouse, La Jolla Playhouse, Geva Theatre, Huntington Theatre Company, Two River, Milwaukee Rep, On The Boards, Perseverance Theatre, Berkshire Fringe Festival, Walnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre, and Hangar Theatre, where she was a 2006 Drama League Directing Fellow. M.F.A. in Directing from Columbia University, (Shubert Presidential Fellow). Current and upcoming: Mad Forest by Caryl Churchill (Columbia), Veil’d by Monet Hurst-Mendoza (Astoria Performing Arts Center), The Invisible Hand (Cleveland Playhouse). Member, SDC. www.pirronne.com
(Playwright) plays include Le Jeté, Stargaze, The Sun Experiment (FringeNYC 2014 Award for Excellence in Playwriting; Time Out New York’s Top Ten Music and Nightlife Events of The Week, published by IndieTheaterNow), and The Day Is Long To End. Her short plays have been commissioned by the 52nd Street Project, UglyRhino, and Culture Project. Her short play “A Sand Romance” was a 2016 Heidman finalist. Her poem “To the Movement” was featured in a recent Planned Parenthood fundraiser. She has been a NYTW Emerging Artist of Color and Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab writer, a 2016 NYSCA/NYFA Playwright Fellow, and a MacDowell Colony Fellow. She is currently working on a play set in Mexico City and a libretto for a Chinese opera. BA: Stanford University. MFA: NYU.
originated the role of Georg in Tony and Grammy Award winning musical Spring Awakening. Astin was most recently onstage in Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s God Bless You Mr. Rosewater at Encores! Off-Center at New York City Center. Earlier last year he starred as Tony in Carnegie Hall’s special production of West Side Story at the Knockdown Center. In film, Astin is best known for his break out role as Jesse in Universal’s Pitch Perfect and sequel Pitch Perfect 2. Other film credits include: Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock, Sundance favorite Hamlet 2, Disney’s award winning animated feature, Wreck-It Ralph, and starring opposite Miles Teller in 21 and Over. Astin will next appear in Eric Bress’s Ghosts of War and the feature film Hot Air. He can currently be seen opposite Nick Nolte in the Epix TV series “Graves.” Previous television credits include the lead in sitcom “Ground Floor”, created by Bill Lawrence, and memorable roles on: HBO’s “Girls”, Fox’s “House M.D”, “Glee”, and AMC’s “Halt and Catch Fire.”
Emmy Award-winner and Golden Globe nominee Marg Helgenberger was last seen guest starring on the CBS series, “Under The Dome”. In Fall 2016 she starred in the Arena Stage production of The Little Foxes Stage in Washington DC. In Spring 2014 she was starring in the Barrington Theatre Company’s production of The Other Place. Prior to that she costarred in the CBS drama series “Intelligence“, also starring Josh Holloway. In 2013 she ended her twelfth season of “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” for which she has earned two Emmy nominations. The critically acclaimed show airs Wednesday nights at 10:00PM on CBS and is executive produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. Her character, Catherine Willows is a single mother working as a crime scene analyst on the graveyard shift in Las Vegas.
Marg was seen starring alongside Kevin Costner in MGM’s psychological thriller Mr. Brooks, about a man who occasionally falls under the spell of his murderous alter-ego. She costarred with Julia Roberts in the Universal hit drama, “Erin Brokovich”, as a woman dying of cancer due to a contaminated water source. Marg also starred as Patsy Ramsey in the highly rated CBS miniseries, “Perfect Murder, Perfect Town” based on the best selling book about the unsolved murder of Jon Benet Ramsey.
co-starred opposite Jared Leto in the hit Warner Bros feature Suicide Squad, reuniting him with director David Ayer for whom he co-starred in Columbia’s award-winning feature Fury alongside Brad Pitt and Shia LeBeouf. Jim will next be seen in the independent feature films Tatterdemalion and Priceless. On stage, Jim received rave reviews as “Slim” alongside James Franco and Chris O’Dowd in the multi-award-nominated 2014 Broadway revival Of Mice and Men for director Anna D. Shapiro. Jim co-starred in the independent feature Wild Horses opposite Josh Hartnett and Robert Duvall (who also directed) and earlier co-starred opposite Duvall in the dramatic feature A Night in Old Mexico. Jim starred opposite James Franco (who also adapted and directed), Logan Marshall-Green and Tim Blake Nelson as “Cash” in As I Lay Dying, based on the novel by William Faulkner (2013 Cannes Film Festival). He was featured in the cult feature Child of God, also directed by James Franco, and costarred opposite Franco in Disney’s Annapolis, directed by Justin Lin. Previously, Jim co-starred opposite Aaron Eckhart and Michael Pena in Sony Pictures’ Battle of Los Angeles, directed by Jonathan Liebesman. Jim is probably best known for his award-winning turn as fan favorite “Hoyt Fortenberry” in HBO’s hit series “True Blood.” He also played the title character “Guy Hastings” in a memorable episode of the Fox series “Alcatraz” for J.J. Abrams/Bad Robot, starred in a season-long arc on ABC’s “Resurrection” and was seen guest starring on the NBC series “Blacklist: Redemption.”
