Check out this fabulous article by Jen Gushue about the work of The Motor Company and what we’re all about!
https://brooklynrail.org/2018/09/theater/Theater-in-the-Wild-The-Motor-Company-at-Large-in-NYC
Meet the Actors!
Holding Up the World
written by Nora Sørena Casey, directed by Gineiris Garcia
Britney Abrahams is honored to play Nikki in Holding Up The World. Recently her love of performing led her to New York, where she has had the joy of starring in new upcoming works throughout the city. Other roles she’s portrayed include: Antigone in The Burial at Thebes, TiMoune in Once On This Island, Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, and Mother Abess in The Sound of Music. When she’s not on the stage, you can find Britney behind the scenes as a writer and director – and co-Founder of a storytelling podcast called You Had Me at Black. She is a proud Alumna of the Illustrious Spelman College in Atlanta, GA.
Amara Janae Brady is a playwright, actor, and producer from Chicago. “The crux of my artistry is uplifting Women of Color, especially Black women and connecting underserved communities with stories about them that subvert genre.” Past credits include Andrea Sharpe in the one woman show Jumping From Rooftops & Other Ways to Cure Depression, Spring Awakening (Martha), Bring It On: the Musical (Ensemble) directed by Tonya Pinkins, and more. Resist, check your privilege, & then give some space to Women of Color & Trans Folx. All love to the family she chose and the ones who got her. Ashé to her ancestors.
Simone Policano is a native New Yorker who has never had the pleasure of performing in a garden, so thank you for this! Her acting work has been seen in the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival, on IFC, and The New Yorker. Theatrically, she has performed at the Yale Repertory Theater, The 24 Hour Plays: Nationals, The Tank, and in the NY International Fringe Festival. Yale ’16. Shoutout to all the womxn holding up the world in this unnerving and uncertain time. Upcoming: Auggie, playing Richard Kind’s daughter.
Makaela Shealy is a graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts and the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. She and her cat hail from a field in Gilbert, South Carolina. Select credits include: Gorilla Repertory’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Hermia); Pericles (Marina) NYU & Polaroid Stories (Eurydice) with Madcap Rep. She can also be seen on the most recent season of A Crime To Remember, if anyone still has cable. IG:@makaelamshealy www.makaelashealy.com
#blessed
written by Catherine Weingarten, directed by Kate Hopkins
Sabina Friedman-Seitz was born and raised in New York City. She holds a BA from Wesleyan University in Theater and English and an MFA in Acting from the Actor’s Studio Drama School. Film and TV credits include The Florida Project, Book Club, The Boy Downstairs, The Blacklist, and the Facebook series Turnt, as well as the upcoming feature film Fingers.
Irina Kaplan is #blessed to find herself stepping into The Motor Company’s Communal Spaces festival. Earlier this month, Irina returned from her first season with Scranton Shakespeare Festival – where she performed as Hedy LaRue in How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying as well as Audrey / Corin in As You Like It (among other roles!). Check Rini out on her instagram @tangirina_k or through her website www.Irina-Kaplan.com. Many thanks to Marianne Wells of Wells Studio!
Bradley McKelvey-Askin is thrilled to be performing in #blessed and to be involved with Communal Spaces for her first time. After getting a BFA in Acting from Ohio University in 2017, she packed her bags and made the move to NYC to pursue her dreams as an actor. Her most recent credit was with Tantrum Theater where she played Natalie in Next to Normal. She is so thankful to have the opportunity to play in this outdoor space and create new work with awesome people!
Stephanie Rocío is excited to make her Communal Spaces debut! Recent credits include: Helps to Hate You a Little at Wild Project, The Sarah Play at the 14th Street Y, and Dreamgirls at Cape Fear Regional Theatre (for which she won BroadwayWorld.com award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical!). She studied theater at Yale where some of her favorite roles include Jeanie in HAIR, Timoune in Once on this Island, and Saint Monica in The Last Days of Judas Iscariot. More at http://www.stephanierocio.com
For the Love of Natalie Wood
written by Matthew Barbot, directed by Dalia Sevilla
James Buhse is a recent graduate of NYU Steinhardt, where he studied in the studio of Dr. Scott Murphree. NYU credits include: Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites, Guillot in Les Mariages aux Lanternes, the Representative in A Game of Chance, a Sword Dancer in Brigadoon and Bernstein in Dogfight the Musical. Other credits include Bernardo in West Side Story and Safarov in, a new musical workshopped with Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin.
John Cruz is an Ohio native, graduating with a BFA in Musical Theater from Youngstown State University. His favorite roles include Henry in Next to Normal, Francis in Gemini, Fabian in Twelfth Night, Matt in Dog Sees God, and Biff Baker in 1940s Radio Hour, among others. John has also appeared in a number of Musical Theater cabarets such as The Cranky Cabaret, Crazy in Love, and Performance Now!
Frances Viviana Ramos, proud Boricua; Started her theatre studies at the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras, graduate of Circle in the Square Theatre School (2016). Theatre credits include Broken Pieces (Happily Bohemian), Little Shop of Horrors (9to5), Godspell (What Dreams May Co.), Much Ado About Nothing (CITSTS), Uncommon Women and Others (CITSTS), Sweet Charity and Legally Blonde (Dramadanza). Stage readings of Hielo, The Vagina Monologues and live Audio Reading of Timestorm by Dania Ramos (Cocotazo Media). Stage management credits Mr. Mr. & Dr. Dr. (Winner of Fuerzafest 2018), Julius Caesar (CITSTS) and A Night of Durang (9to5).
Edgard Toro graduated recently from Lehman College with a Multi-Media Performing Arts BFA. He placed second alongside his best friend Fé for the KCACTF Irene Ryans in 2016. Being blessed to work on shows such as Bring It On (Black Spectrum Theater), Passing Strange, Romeo & Juliet and etc at Lehman College. He’s been able to show case his choreography & dancing abilities at Dixon Place & BAAD. His upcoming Performance will be at Laguardia Community College for an original place called My My Name is September 20th and 21st. Follow him at IG: Blueprintecstasy https://m.facebook.com/edgardtoro
Me Gusta Así
written by David M. de León, directed by Lillian Meredith
Julian Garcia was born and raised in Miami, Florida. He went to college at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, CA where he had many wonderful opportunities to work on plays like, References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, Honey Brown Eyes, Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me and more. He also got to study abroad in Germany and in Russia at the Moscow Arts Theatre school. Post college, Julian has worked on TV and Film projects, such as, 20th Century Fox’s Fantasy Life with Mark Cendrowski, Kevin Connolly and Jamie Lynn-Sigler, The Night Stalker with Bellamy Young and Lifetime’s Killer Kids. He’s now lived in NYC for two years where his Clark Kent job is bartending and serving. He has an undying love and passion for Elvis Presley, physics and is a mediocre trumpet player at best.
Schon Gonzalez is a college freshmen attending Brooklyn College, majoring in the BA Theater program. Previously in spring, he performed multiple roles in the verbatim theatre piece Shadows Among Us, at the Harry Warren Theatre.
Daniela Gonzalez y Perez is excited to participate in this garden party for the next few weekends. She just graduated Brooklyn colleges BFA Acting Program and is exploring what it means to be a queer woman of color in theater and creating spaces where new stories could be told. Thanks Lillian!
Camila Perez is a Boricubana actor based in New York City since 2013. She holds a BFA in Acting from Pace University where she got to perform in many different productions ranging from Juliet in Romeo and Juliet to the Moon in Lorca’s Blood Wedding, but her favorites are always original works that she got to see grow. She’s also gotten the opportunity to Assistant Direct several site specific productions with Pop Up Theatrics, one of which was Broken City in Harlem. I’m honored to be back, performing new work that speaks to my heritage.
Introducing… the creative teams!
Holding Up the World
1:30pm @ Herb Garden (176 E 111th St)
Nora Sørena Casey (playwright) Nora’s plays include Take the Car (Williamstown Theatre Festival, Brooklyn College), The Nature Room (Columbia New Plays Festival), Resistance Training (Women-In-Theatre Festival), Waiting (Columbia Stages), Dreams of Malinche (Everyday Inferno), and Not Afraid (PowerOut). Her play False Stars premiered at the Corkscrew Festival in a “fast-paced, heartfelt and precise” (Stagebuddy) production that was “packed with young talent” (New York Times). A frequent collaborator with The Motor Company, Nora’s site-specific works include Derek and the Sheep, Intimate Bar Plays, and Absolutely Somewhere.
Gineiris Garcia (director) is a New York-based freelance director. Recently, she has assisted directors Jackson Gay on Transfers by Lucy Thurber at MCC Theater and Awoye Timpo on The Homecoming Queen by Ngozi Anyanwu at Atlantic Theater Company. She has participated in MCC’s FreshPlay Festival, Developing Artists’ Rebel Verses Youth Arts Festival, The 24-Hour Plays: Nationals, The Motor Company’s Communal Spaces Festival and the MCC Theater PlayLab series. Currently, she is assisting director Saheem Ali on Fireflies by Donja R. Love at Atlantic Theater Company. She received her BA in Theater Studies from Yale University in 2016.
#blessed
2:30pm @ Tiffany Family Garden (431 E 114th St)
Catherine Weingarten (playwright) is a recent graduate of Ohio University’s MFA in playwriting program. She is a Philly native and NYC based playwright and comedian. She has received commissions from Piper Theater Productions and Bloomsburg University, and has developed plays with Wide Eyed Productions and PlayGround Experiment. Her summer camp play Are You Ready to Get PAMPERED!? was part of Dixon Place’s Bingo Lounge and had a reading at 59E59 with Less Than Rent. Her play A Roller Rink Temptation appeared at the NOLA Fringe and received a production in May 2018 with The Dare Tactic, and Karate Hottie was a semi-finalist for ATHE Excellence in Playwriting Award. Her short plays have been developed with Ugly Rhino, Fresh Fruit Festival, Abingdon Playwrights Group and the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, where she was named a National Semi-Finalist for “Pineapple Upside Down Cake.” She has been involved with Abingdon Playwrights Group as well as New Perspective’s Women’s Work Short Play Lab. She is the recipient of the Scott McPherson Award.
Charles Quittner (director) is a shuga pie supreme from Miami, Florida facilitating theatre as a director and producer. Directing: TOXIC IF SWALLOWED (Irondale, Ars Nova, AmericanAF, The Gay Center) , It’s Cymbeline 🤷(The Brick), Everyday Afroplay (JACK), Bottom of the Scrum (Dixon Place), He Hurt Himself in His Confusion (Jack, Exponential Festival), Medea TragiQuilt (Fresh Ground Pepper, Club Cumming). Producing: The Dudleys, Spaceman, (Loading Dock Theatre), Good Girl Gone Bad (HERE), SipFest (Wild Project), Their food tastes better when they see us starving (The Brick). He is a cofounder of Shuga Pie Supreme, Director of Forklift Reading Series @ Loading Dock Theatre & a 2018 Drama League resident artist. charlesquittner.com
For the Love of Natalie Wood
3pm @ Rodale Pleasant Park Community Garden (437 E 114th St)
Matt Barbot (playwright) is a writer from Brooklyn, NY. His play El Coquí Espectácular and the Bottle of Doom – which was a finalist in the 2013 Repertorio Español Nuestras Voces competition and recipient of the Kennedy Center’s Darrel Ayers Award for Outstanding Student-Written Play for Young Audiences, as well as the Kennedy Center’s Latinidad Award for Outstanding Play Written by a Student of Latino/Hispanic Heritage – received its world premiere at Two River Theater in January of 2018. His play Infallibility was produced as part of the 2013 New York International Fringe Festival, where it was named one of Indie Theater Now’s Best of FringeNYC 2013. Princess Clara of Loisaida was a finalist for the Latinx Theatre Commons’ 2018 Carnaval of New Latinx Work, as well as for the 2018 Columbia@Roundabout New Play Series. Saints Go Marching was a semifinalist for the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference. Recently, his short play “A List of Some Shit I’ve Killed” was published as part of the Red Bull Theater’s anthology Red Bull Shorts Volume III. Additionally, Matt has worked with comic book creator Edgardo Miranda Rodriguez as an editor and co-writer for Darryl Makes Comics’ DMC, as well as Somos Arte’s La Borinqueña. Matt received his MFA from Columbia University.
Dalia Sevilla (director) is a director, performer, and lighting designer. She is graduate of the Vocal Performance program at NYU Steinhardt 2016. She is the founder of the NYU Classical Voice Club through which she produced and directed four operas: Bastien und Bastienne, Hänsel und Gretel, The Portrait of Manon and Riders to the Sea Le Mariage aux Lanternes, and Daphnis et Chloè. She has also assistant directed The Dialogue of the Carmelites as well as directed five opera scenes at the Harrower Music Festival. Her performance credits include Cavalerria Rusticana, A Body in the Allegheny Valley (Lana) Twelfth Night (Malvolio), 4@15, First Stages, Pulsing and Shaking and New Student Cabaret. Other credits include Carmina Burana at Charles University in Prague. Her lighting design credits include Arts for All’s production of Jack vs Rapunzel, New Student Cabaret 2016-18, Players Club’s production of A Little Night Music, Classical Voice Club’s production of Le Mariage aux Lanternes, Daphnis et Chloè, Riders to the Sea, and Hänsel und Gretel, as well as numerous recitals. She has also assisted in many productions around NYC including The New York Pops concerts at Carnegie Hall, Blueprint Specials, Fairytale Christmas, and The Dudleys!.
Me Gusta Así
4pm @ The Home Depot Children’s Garden (421 E 117th St)
David M. de León (playwright) is a writer, poet, academic, and theater artist. This is his third time working with Communal Spaces. Credits include Clickbait, The Odyssey Project; Play, or, The Bacchants; and Gwen Wins! A Tale of the Gwenpocalypse, as well as poetry and short stories published in various places. He is a third-generation Puerto Rican whose grandparents grew up in El Barrio. Currently he is a PhD candidate in English at Yale. http://davidmdeleon.com
Lillian Meredith (director) is a theater artist from NYC focused primarily on creating and developing new and site-responsive plays. She has developed new plays with playwrights, directors, and devising ensembles for a variety of companies and venues, including Theatre for a New Audience, Soho Rep, Ars Nova, Clubbed Thumb, Dixon Place, Culture Project, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Columbia University, UglyRhino, Galapagos Art Space, and the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Festival, among many others. She is the co-founder and Artistic Director of The Motor Company and a founding member of The Living Room (#liberated at ANT FEST 2015 and IRT 3B Development Series 2016). She is also a member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, the inaugural Clubbed Thumb Director’s Fellowship, and the director of the West Kortright Centre’s Shakespeare in the Valley teen theater program. Proud alumna: Vassar College, National Theater Institute, Brooklyn College (MFA expected 2019). http://www.lillianmeredith.com
Communal Spaces 2018
Eight years. Four gardens. Three weekends. Back in Manhattan.
Saturdays and Sundays, September 8-23
East Harlem
The Schedule
Here is our complete schedule for all three weekends. We start tomorrow!
Saturdays and Sundays, September 16 – October 1
12pm @ Madison Street Garden (974 Madison Street, Brooklyn)
Denouments Undone
written by Kate Dakota Kremer
directed by Will Dagger
featuring Corinne Donly, Claire Fort*, Zoë Geltman, Alexander Paris, Renee Rises
1pm @ Decatur Community Garden (1052 Decatur Street, Brooklyn)
when it fell
written by Korde A. Tuttle
directed by Lillian Meredith
featuring Shelley Fort*
2pm @ Cooper Street Garden (34 Cooper Street, Brooklyn)
Serpents
written by Lisa Dring
directed by Gineiris Garcia
featuring Trevor Liu, Evelyn Rivera-Cardenas, Derick James Sherrier Jr.
3pm @ Infant Jesus Garden (36 Aberdeen Street, Brooklyn)
Bitter Better
written by Angela Santillo
directed by Emily Caffery
featuring Leslie C. Nemet, Marilyn Oran*, Michael Patrick Trimm
4pm @ Hull Street Garden (145 Hull Street, Brooklyn)
Hulsam ag Hulsee
dee ga Hulsee Ga Den
written by David M. DeLeon
directed by Lindsey Hope Pearlman
featuring Dee Beasnael, John Paul Harkins, Elizabeth May
*Appearing courtesy of Actors Equity Association
Meet the Actors! – Hulsam ag Hulsee/dee ga Hulsee Ga Den
Dee Beasnael is an actor and voice over artist based in Brooklyn. She has actively been working with the 7 Daughters of Eve Theater Company. Recent credits include 12 Shouts to the Ten Forgotten Heavens (Whitney Museum of American Art); Narrator for Caillou (French Language Version), Maery S (play in development at The New Dramatist); Narrator for The Legend of Geoffrey (French Language Version). Dee holds a B.S. from the University of Texas at Dallas.
Marth Brown is an actor/singer/dancer originally from San Francisco where she was last seen in the wTRIBE productions Cabaret as Rosie. She is an NMTI and University of Idaho alum and is excited to see what new adventures New York has to offer.
JP Harkins
Elizabeth May is a playwright, musician, and performer based in Brooklyn, New York. Original works includeVengeful Moon, a song cycle of love and revenge written for the solar eclipse as a part of Tapp’s Art Center’s ECLIPSEploitation Event; Old Souls, a heart break cabaret, performed in residence at The Barn Arts Collective; and The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Brooklyn Presents: Missionary Style for The Upright Citizens Brigade. Other performing credits include, The Edge of Glory for Lady Gaga and Google Chrome, Stop the Virgens at St. Ann’s Warehouse, The Rocky Horror Show and The Traveling Musicians for The Barn Arts Collective; Sarah Flood in Salem, Mass., #serials, and Mary-Kate Olsen is in Love for The Flea Theatre; At The Rich Relatives for Target Margin; and TL;DR as a part of Prelude Fest and The North West New Works Festival. Upcoming projects include, Trojan Women for The New Collectives (Music Director). Her band is called Pollens. They are releasing new music this fall. Follow them on their website, pollens.band and @pollensband on Instagram.
Meet the Actors! – Bitter Better
![LESLIE100k[1][1].jpg](https://communitygardenproject.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/leslie100k11.jpg?w=170&h=200)
Leslie C. Nemet has performed in Broadway workshops, Off-Broadway, television, film, radio and webisodes. She performed 15 roles in the Off-Broadway show Olympics Uber Alles. Leslie is currently in the long-running show Housewives Of Secaucus, which has played at 54 Below. Other favorite theatrical performances include Company at the Lucile Lortel, Well, A Sopranos Christmas, The Manhattan Medium, and Life 101 (which she also wrote). Film work includes Academy Award winning films as well as playing George Clooney’s Hairstylist in “Money Monster”. She was last seen on the big screen in “Landline” and will be working on a new feature film, “The Take Out Guy”. Leslie is the Pizzeria Woman on “Sesame Street”, was the Notary on the TV show “Bull” and is currently working on several web series’ including “On The Prowl”. You have no idea…
Marilyn Oran* has worked Off Broadway, in Regional Theatre, film, television and on the web. Recent stage credits include Shut Up and Dance and Resistance Training for Athena Theatre as part of the Women in Theatre Festival at N.Y./A.R.T.; The Bluest Sky and The Incident at Sirius D for Athena Theatre at Symphony Space; The Hag, The Slag and the Scarlett Faerie at the Signature Theatre; The Great Pie Robbery at Theatre 80 Saint Marks Place; and Open Rehearsal at Theatre for the New City. She has filmed major roles in The Impending City; D’Urn It!; If Truth Be Told; The Hunter’s Anthology; and on TV, the lead in an episode of Roseanne Barr’s Momsters: When Moms Go Bad. The Big House, in which she played an immigrant mother (another lead), was an official selection at the 2014 TriBeCa 30Under30 and the 2015 Katra Festival. Still in post, is a 12 part comedy series, Casting Calls/Watercooler Madness. AEA/SAG-AFTRA. www.marilynoran.com
Michael Patrick Trimm Past Credits. Off Broadway: The Public Theater (Julius Caesar). Off-Off Broadway: Sanguine Theater Co. (Jessica), Manhattan Reparatory Theater (BC Boys). Regional Theater: The Kitchen Theatre Co. (Hand to God), 4615 Theatre Co. (Dracula), Ithaca Shakespeare Co. (Henry IV, A Midsummer Night’s Dream), City Theater (The Young Playwright’s Festival), and Prime Stage Theater (Everything’s Fine). Michael is a graduate of Ithaca College’s BFA Acting program.
*Appearing courtesy of Actors Equity
Meet the Actors! – Serpents
Trevor Liu was born and raised in Taiwan. He is thrilled to join the Communal Spaces Festival for Serpents this September. He is also a proud member of The Bats Company at the Flea Theatre. Recent credits include Drew from Non-Laughter Anonymous with The 24 Hour Plays: Nationals, Barker/Ojichan from Interabang with Ars Nova ANT Fest, Banquo from Macbeth with Theatre 2020,Journey to the West at the Central Square Theater in Boston, A Beautiful Country by Chay Yew with Columbia Blue Glaze Theatre. Trevor would like to extend his gratitude to the cast and the production team that helped the Serpent to flourish and the support from his family and friends. BFA: BU ’16.
Evelyn Rivera-Cardenas is a senior at The College of Performing Arts at The New School as an actor and playwright. She is a Miami native and past Florida credits include: Into the Woods (Baker’s Wife) and In the Heights (Daniela) at Area Stage Company. Since being in New York City she has performed at the New School in productions such as: Titus Andronicus (Saturninus), Orestes (Chorus Member), and The King’s Stag (Pantalone). Past festivals include: The Strawberry Festival, Summer Fest, and 24 Hour Plays Nationals. She would like to thank her friends, family and her theatrical team for their support and encouragement; as well as Communal Spaces for providing such great space(s) to inhabit and explore.
Derick James Sherrier, Jr. is a Brooklyn-born/based actor, poet, writer and director. His most recent works include Locked Up B!tches (Feelaca) and Simone Says (Jamal), which originally marked his NYC playwright and directorial debut as part of the Thespis Theater Festival. You can also catch him co-hosting on The New York Dose which is a podcast about pop-culture, trending topics & the lives of three creative energies clawing their way through the concrete jungle: available via iTunes, SoundCloud and more.
Meet the Actors! – when it fell
Shelley Fort* is currently developing a web series with her sister, Claire. Her play Runaway was a part of the National Black Theater’s ‘Keep Soul Alive’ Reading Series ’16. She was a finalist for SPACE on Ryder Farm’s 2017 Creative Residency. Select credits NY: Blossom, Burnished By Grief (La MaMa); MiMi, Harry and The Thief (Habitat) Regional: Camae, The Mountaintop (Chester Theatre); Mayme, Intimate Apparel (Trinity Rep); TV: Unicornland BFA Kenyon College, MFA Brown/Trinity Rep www.shelleyfort.com
*Appearing courtesy of Actors Equity
Meet the Actors! – Denouements Undone
Corinne Donly is a playwright and an educator and also, on some occasions, an actor. Donly’s plays have been seen at The Public Theater (2017 Brooklyn College Weasel Festival), The Bushwick Starr (Target Margin’s Lab Series), The Toronto Theatre Centre, Montreal’s Usine C, Dixon Place, and the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. Their work has received developmental support from SPACE on Ryder Farm, the Canadian Arts Council, the Brooklyn Arts Exchange, the Himan Brown Award for playwriting, and the Harold Clurman Center for New Work. Donly holds an MFA in playwriting from Brooklyn College, an MA in Integral Ecology, and a BFA in acting from NYU’S experimental theatre wing. Check out Donly’s play “Wood Calls Out to Wood” at the Tank, October 26–November 12th.
Claire Fort* New York: Witch/Porter (New York Classical Theatre) Ghost of Christmas Past /Helen (Blessed Unrest), New Victory LabWorks (Blessed Unrest), Invisible Man (NYTW, Staged Reading). Regional: (Juliet) Romeo and Juliet (Indiana Repertory Theatre), (Talidia) Brooklyn Bridge (Seattle Children’s Theatre). Film/TV: Breezewood (short). BA from Kenyon College, MFA in Acting from University of Washington, Seattle (PATP), LAMDA. Currently co-writing and producing a web series with her sister, Shelley Fort.
Zoë Geltman is a performer and writer and a born and bred New Yorker. Some favorite productions as an actor include The World My Mama Raised by Ari Stess (dir. Kip Fagan, Clubbed Thumb), Pioneers #goforth (dir. William Burke, JACK), Evelyn (Nellie Tinder, The Bushwick Starr), Evelyn in Concert (dir. Abigail Browde, Incubator Arts Project), and her own play, SEA FRAUD (dir. Julia Sirna-Frest, The Brick). As a writer, she has developed and produced work at The Brick, The Bushwick Starr, Theater for the New City, Uncanny Valley, Dragon’s Egg Studio in Ledyard, CT, Little Theater at Dixon Place, and CATCH. She is currently doing stand-up around town and developing her one-woman show, Puffy Hair. www.zoegeltman.com.
Alexander Paris
Renee Rises Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, Renee is a Filipina actor, educator, and writer in New York City. Creator of original theater works Sidewalk Sisters; Nanay, Tatay, Anak; and Undressing the Fragments, Renee uses theater, hip hop, storytelling, poetry, and improv to lead her life and the students she shares the world with. Renee’s a disobedient listener, proud feminist, dog lover, Warriors fan, and avid (Elite) Yelper, vintage store connoisseur, and a critical race theorist. She also raps and can freestyle. Ask her to. She might just rap for you.
*Appearing courtesy of Actors Equity
Communal Spaces 