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Alexander Mulzac
(Performer)
Alexander holds a B.A. from The City College of New York. He is a founding member of The Seven Collective. He has performed in a myriad of theatrical genres ranging from the absurd (Titanic), to the classics (Iphigenia-Agamemnon). Some notable New York roles include Ain’t Supposed To Die... & Trojan Women, appearing with the Classical Theatre of Harlem, Losing the Light and Big Love.
MICHAELA WATKINS
is a Georgia native now living and working in New York City after graduating from Carnegie Mellon University in 2009. She most recently guest starred on CBS' The Good Wife, and is happy to be apart of The Fire This Time Festival.
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Andrea Patterson
(Performer)
Andrea has recently been performing in her greatest role yet as the new mother of beautiful twin girls! As an actor and singer she most recently worked with BET on their 2010 Upfront and with Dominique Morisseau’s new play, Follow Me to Nellie’s. Andrea studied at The Conservatory of Theatre Arts and Film at SUNY Purchase College. Notable performances include Flyin’ West, Three Sisters, her portrayal of Lena Horne in Jackie, Vi, and Lena, Romeo and Juliet, Ain’t Suppose to Die a Natural Death, Under Fire, and the National Tour of Hairspray.
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Angela Polite
(Performer)
Angela Polite is an actress, singer and educator. She traded southern seed for northern soil in 2006 and made the village of Harlem her home. Since arriving in New York, Angela has worked Off-Broadway with Classcial Theatre of Harlem (Trojan Women, Emancipation), Abingdon Theater (Foggy Bottom). She has appeared in several commercials and guest starred on the hit HBO drama, "The Wire." In addition to acting, Angela is an educator. She works as a Teaching Artist with Harlem Childrens Zone's after-school program.
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Camille Darby
(Playwright)
Camille Darby was born in Jamaica, West Indies, but migrated to New York City with her family at 6 years old. Her constant attempts at adjusting to American culture—she soon discovered—were best manifested through her writing. It was her first play Mother, May I? written in her high school’s Residency Arts Programthat drew the attention of acclaimed playwright, Wendy Wasserstein. With the guidance and encouragement of Wasserstein, Camille continued to study theatre, history, literature and film at Sarah Lawrence College where she received her B.A. in Liberal Arts in 2005. During the same year, she also received Honorable Mention at the College Language Association Creative Writing Contest for her ten-minute play Where Your Gun At?— a social commentary examining the women of the Black Panther Movement of the 1960s. Camille holds an M.F.A in Dramatic Writing from New York University’s, Tisch School of the Arts, and during that time, has had a series of readings at The Public Theatre, which include Easy Conversation and Sweetest Taboo. In 2008, Camille received the Bronx Recognizes Its Own (BRIO) playwriting prize from the Bronx Council on the Arts for her full-length play Lords Resistance.
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Christine Jean Chambers
(Playwright)
Christine Jean Chambers is a published playwright – (oh! and also a photographer.) Write story, see story, same thing. Her plays have been produced, yes. Once at The Flea, once in a barn, and once under a mimed tree. She went to Columbia University to get her MFA in Playwriting, and she misses Eduardo and these other names you might recognize... Theresa Rebeck with her brilliant smile, Christopher Shin and his piercing eyes, and Kelly Stuart with that awesome giggle and super long hair. She would miss them more but most of them are on Facebook. Christine once had a near death experience when she thought she could put down the pen, but then…She is extremely honored to be with such a group of kick-ass writers.
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Christopher Burris
(Director)
Recently directed Kevin R. Free's A Raisin in the Salad: Black Plays for White People as part of FringeNYC. Other directing credits include Dennis Allen’s The Mud is Thicker in Mississippi, which was a winner in the Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival. He is a member of the directing company at NYU's Department of Dramatic Writing, with national directing credits that include Love's Fire, The Home Life of Polar Bears, and The Colored Museum. NYC directing credits include By the Banks of the Nile (Horse Trade Theater) and Shepard (Unconscious Collective). www.christopherburris.com
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Clinton Roane
(Performer)
A recent graduate of Howard University, Clinton just made his debut in "The Scottsboro
Boys". He has also trained at CAP21. Special thanks to Harriett, Marcus and Ms. Gravatt.
STANLEY W. MATHIS
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Colette Robert
(Director)
Colette is a Los Angeles native currently living and working in New York. Directing credits include: when last we flew (FringeNYC, Winner of Fringe Excellence Awards in Performance and Playwriting), Stockton (EST/Youngblood), Work (Ars Nova Theater/A.N.T. Fest), This is How (Atlantic Theatre/The 24 Hour Plays), and Released (The Culture Project/Women Center Stage). Colette is a member of At Play, the Old Vic/New Voices Network, Lincoln Center Director’s Lab, and was the Public Theater’s 2009 Van Lier Directing Fellow. She has developed new work with The Old Vic, Ma-Yi, Second Generation, New York Theatre Workshop, Sundance Theatre Lab, and NYU. M.A., RADA and King’s College, London. B.A., Yale University.
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Dominique Morisseau
(Playwright)
Dominique is a Writer and Actress in New York City, and a current member of the 2010 Public Theater Emerging Writer's Group and the 2010-2012 Women’s Project Lab. Her produced plays include: Black at Michigan (Cherry Lane Studio/DUTF), Socks (Center Stage NY), Roses Are Played Out (Center Stage NY, American Theatre of Harlem), and Love and Nappiness (Center Stage NY, American Theatre of Harlem). Her full-length play, Retrospect For Life, has been workshopped with the Frank Silvera Writer’s Workshop, the National Black Theatre Festival, Lark Play Development Center, Hip Hop Theatre Festival, and the Classical Theatre of Harlem. Her full length play, Follow Me To Nellie’s, was selected for the 2010 Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference.Additionally, Follow Me To Nellie’s has received readings with the Black Mondays Reading Series, The Standard Theatre Collective, Penumbra Theatre Company, and the Classical Theatre of Harlem.Currently, Dominique is developing a three-play cycle on her hometown of Detroit. Her most recently completed play, Detroit 67, based on the riots of 1967, is the first of the cycle. It is currently being developed at the Public Theatre.She has authored several short stories, poetry, plays, screenplays, and has performed as an Actress with such companies as New York Stage and Film, McCarter Theatre, Lark Theatre Co, MCC Theatre, and Women’s Project. Her literary work has been published in the New York Times bestselling series- Chicken Soup for the African American Soul, the Harlem-based literary journal, Signifyin’ Harlem, and featured on Robert Townsend’s MBC Networks series, Spoken and in Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Poetry: Expression in the Right Direction. As a playwright, Dominique is a Jane Chambers Playwriting Award Honoree, a two-time NAACP Image Award Recipient, a two-time nominee for the Wendy Wasserstein Prize in Playwriting, and a scholarship recipient to the Black Women Playwrights Conference. She has a passion for writing stories with strong Women of Color as protagonists, and beautifully human stories- no matter who the protagonist.
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Jared Joseph
(Performer)
Jared is a Houston native and proud NYU(Cap21) alum is excited to be a participant in this festival. Most recent credits include: Dreamgirls National Tour (Robert Longbottom) and Scottsboro Boys (rdg) (Susan Stroman.) Thank you: God for continued favor, Mom/Dad, Justin, family and friends.
Chauncey Gilbert is once again glad to be working at Horse Trade Theater Group and sends a big congratulations to the Fire This Time Festival"
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Jesse Cameron Alick
(Playwright)
Jesse Cameron Alick is a poet, playwright and Zen Master. Jesse works as the Artistic Director for Subjective Theatre Company (www.subjectivetheatre.org), the Executive Assistant to the Artistic Director at the Public Theater (www.publictheater.org) and is Assistant to the playwright Suzan-Lori Parks. Jesse is also the east coast editor of High Contrast Review (www.highcontrastreview.com), freelance journalist and essayist. Jesse studied writing with playwright Adrienne Kennedy.
Jesse has had essays, articles and poetry published by High Contrast Review, XY, A&U, POZ, The Errorist, Courier Life, Smokin Word Publications and Random House. He has been commissioned to write work for Streetlight Productions, Freedom Train Productions, Working Man’s Clothes and Subjective Films. His work has been heard at locations that include Cherry Lane Theater (Downtown Urban Theater Festival), Asian American Writers Workshop (co-produced by New York Theater Workshop), Collective Unconscious, Brooklyn Borough Hall, Museum of the City of New York (produced by Harlem Arts Alliance), CSV, Blue Heron, Bowery Poetry Club, Ensemble Studio Theater, The Ohio Theater, Dixon Place, 78th street theater lab, The Crystal Theater (MT), The Columbus Performing Arts Center (OH), The Poetry Café (UK) and Hip Heaven (UK). Jesse’s newest play was workshopped at the Old Vic Theatre in London as part of their young artist exchange program and this fall his play COME BACK TO ME will be in the Shakespeare in Paradise festival in the Bahamas.
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Juliette Jeffers
(Performer)
Juliette is a Caribbean-American who began her journey as an artist at The High School of Performing Arts in Manhattan. She went on to earn a degree in Languages from Hofstra University. Upon graduation, she moved to L.A. to pursue a career in acting. In the theatre world, Juliette was nominated for a NAACP Theatre Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in ‘Ah Ha Moments’ “Butterscotch and Fudge” at the Complex Theatre. Her first solo show, “Batman and Robin in the Boogie Down” premiered at The Elephant Theatre to packed audiences and rave reviews. Since then, it was the featured opening play at the African American Theatre Festival in Dallas, was nominated for a NAACP Theatre Award for Best Play in L.A., won for Best Lighting and was performed at the L.A. Women’s Theatre Festival twice. Juliette recently completed a successful run of “Batman..” at Stage Left Studio in NYC. Her second solo show, “Looking For a Chocolate Match.com,” premiered in 2008 at the LAWTF and was performed in conjunction with Vanessa Williams’ solo show at the Elephant Theatre in L.A. A few of Juliette's recent T.V. guest star appearances include “Raising The Bar”, “Grey’s Anatomy”, “E.R.” and “Without a Trace.” In Film, she recently appeared in “Play the Game" with Andy Griffith, “The Nobel Son” with Alan Rickman and “Constellation” with Billy Dee Williams. Juliette has also appeared in over 30 national commercials in the last 6 years. For more info go to www.juliettejeffers.com.
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LA Williams
(Director)
LA Williams is a unique stage director, actor and teaching artist. Having directed and assistant directed over 15 productions, he is proud to be one of the most promising, young African American directors today. In 2010, LA was among 70 directors from all over the world, invited to become a member of the prestigious Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab in New York City. His work has been seen in cities along the east coast such as Boston, D.C and Atlanta. Some of his directing credits include: Do It, Miss Celie, (14 Street Playhouse) Malcolm, Martin, Medgar, (Warehouse Theater) and Blues For Mister Charlie, (Duke Ellington School of the Arts). LA is the 2009 Directing fellow to Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theater Company in Atlanta GA. There he served on several productions such as: Miss Evers Boys, (dir: Kenny Leon), Blues For an Alabama Sky, (dir: Andrea Frye) and also assistant director on the acclaimed Atlanta production of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf, (dir: Jasmine Guy) and he also accompanied Mr. Leon to Boston for Huntington Theaters Company’s production of Fences, (dir: Kenny Leon). LA was seen onstage in the Boston premiere of Anne and Emmett, the story of Anne Frank and Emmett Till. LA is the founder and creator of The Black Directors Studio in residence at Horse Trade Theater Group in New York City, NY
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Lisa Strum
(Performer)
Lisa Strum is thrilled to be apart of The Fire This Time Festival and working on Camille Darby's moving play, EXODUS. Lisa was last seen in the reading of SEX on SUNDAY at the Manhattan Theatre Club for the BE Theatre Company. Lisa's other theatre credits include The Etymology of Bird (Summer Stage), Broke-ology (Lincoln Center), 365 Days/Plays (Classical Theatre of Harlem), Lady from the Sea (Intiman Theatre), and Sweet Maladies Workshop (Hansberry Project at ACT, Seattle). Television credits include Law & Order: SVU and Citizen Baines. Thanks to Chris, Angela and Camille for their fearless creativity.
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Louis Martinez
(Performer)
Louis is a Bronx native who attended P.S.R.C high school for the performing arts and has furthered his craft at Shaw university in Raleigh, North Carolina. Graduating with a concentration in Theatre, Louis has gone on to appear on projects like "One Life to Live", all three "Law and Order's", the Show time film a "Spoon Full of Sugar", the 2011 sundance film "GunHill Road", and the 2011 short film "The Assignment". Louis is Currently enrolled at "The Studio", where he is currently studying with long time mentor and coach Shiek Bey.
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Lynda Gravatt
(Director)
Lynda is a gifted actress and director, three-time AUDELCO Award winner (2003, 2004 and 2007) and winner of the Helen Hayes Award (2004). She was born and raised in Harlem and as early as four years of age, she performed on Broadway in The King and I! This led to local weekly television appearances on Joe Michael's Kids and appearances in recitals at Carnegie Hall.
As an adult, Gravatt honed her craft in Washington, DC as a founding member of Robert Alexander's first company of Living Stage/Arena Stage (1969). As a student at Howard University (BFA, 1971), she appeared in numerous productions, while also venturing out to perform with the ground-breaking DC Black Repertory (founded by Robert Hooks and Vantile Whitfield).
Just a few of Ms. Gravatt’s Broadway and Off-Broadway credits include, The Little Foxes, Cat on A Hot Tin Roof, King Hedley II, Purlie, 45 Seconds from Broadway and The Old Settler. In addition to her stage work Ms. Gravatt has appeared in numerous movie and television roles.
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Marcus Gardley
(Playwright)
Marcus is a multiple award-winning poet-playwright who recently won the prestigious 2008 Helen Merrill Award and a Kesselring honor. His most recent play And Jesus moonwalks the Mississippi was produced at the Cutting Ball Theater and received both critical acclaim and two sold-out extensions. His Bay Area plays This World in a Woman’s Hands (October 2009) and Love is a Dream House in Lorin (March 2007) have been hailed as the best in Bay Area theater. The latter was nominated for the National Critics Steinberg New Play Award. He has had six plays produced including: dance of the holy ghost at Yale Repertory Theatre (now under a commercial Broadway option,) (L)imitations of Life, at the Empty Space and like sun fallin’ in the mouth at the National Black Theatre Festival. He is the recipient of the SF Bay Area’s Gerbode Emerging Playwright Award, the National Alliance for Musical Theatre Award, the Eugene O’Neill Memorial Scholarship, and the ASCAP Cole Porter Prize. He holds an MFA in Playwriting from the Yale Drama School and is a member of New Dramatists, The Dramatists Guild and the Lark Play Development Center. Gardley, a native of West Oakland, was recently chosen as one of 50 writers to watch by Dramatists Magazine. His play On the Levee will premiere at Lincoln Center in July and his other new work, Every Tongue Confess will open Arena Stage’s new theater in November directed by Kenny Leon. Gardley teaches Playwriting and African-American studies at Umass Amherst.
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Monica L. Williams
(Director)
Monica L. Williams is a theater artist who designs and implements creative projects at the cross-sections of arts and activism. A graduate from New York University, her ongoing artistic director projects include Poetry Expression in the Right Direction at Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Special Project at the Louisville Metro Corrections Department with Kentucky Foundation for Women, and MoreLife Sundays NYC. Currently, she is the project coordinator for the FUREE musical produced by the Foundry Theater’s NYC Just Like I Pictured It and is an artist-in-residence at 651 Arts.
Past collaborators include The Zipper Factory Theater, Ensemble Theater of Cincinnati, Plays for Living, Hip Hop Theater Festival, Apollo Theater, New World Theater, 651 Arts and various colleges/universities, community-based organizations and non-profits across the U.S. She is honored to be working with such a talented group of people and loves to pieces Ms. Dominique!
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Sean C. Turner
(Performer)
Sean comes to acting from the world of stand up comedy. He has toured nationally and appeared on BET's Comic View. He has been seen in several productions including "Price of the Tickets", "One in a Wifetime" and "Conversation". He is an acting member of Frank Silvera Writers Workshop and Uptown Playwrights. He wishes to thank his friends and family for their support.
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Stanley W. Mathis
(Performer)
Credits: Oh Kay!, Jelly s Last Jam, Kiss Me Kate, Wonderful Town, Animal Crackers (The Goodman Theatre), Death of a Salesman (Yale Rep), Radio Golf (Kansas
City Rep), Gem of the Ocean (Seattle Rep), Fences (Bristol Riverside Theatre), Master Harold and the Boys (Triad Stage), Blues for an Alabama Sky (Cleveland Playhouse) TV: Late Night with Conan 0 'Brien, SNL'; Law & Order, Criminal Intent. Film: Dark Streets, Brother to Brother, Ruined (Florida Studio Theatre)
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Yusef Miller
(Playwright)
In 2006, Yusef suspended his acting career to pursue Playwriting. He was accepted as a Lila Acheson Wallace Playwright Fellow at The Juilliard School, mentored by Marsha Norman and Christopher Durang. In 2007, he was awarded the Le Comte Du Nouy Prize for Excellence in Playwriting. In 2008, he was subsidized for the entire year, being awarded the inaugural Frederick Fellowship.
Plays:
Hookyjook, the Land of...: Lark Roundtable Reading; The Ford Foundation and The Classical Theatre of Harlem’s Future Classics Reading; Arnold Weissberger Nominee (Williamstown); Lincoln Center Theater’s Directors Lab Investigation; Reverie Production’s Next Generation Playwriting Contest Semi-Finalist; The Juilliard School Reading. It Takes a Village. Aaron & Tekla: The Juilliard School Reading; The Dramatists Guild of America, Inc., Reading. The House of Buddy Baines: Lark’s Playwrights Week, Semi-Finalist; The Juilliard School Workshop Reading. Songs of My So-Called Masculinity: NYU Workshop Reading. Films: Ding-Dong, (Short comedy, 2009), written: Ripfest #10 Short Film Festival Patent Leather Scars, (Short psychological drama, 2009), produced, written, starring Memberships: AEA, SAG Training: BA, English, Morehouse College; Certificate of Acting, Alliance Theater Professional Acting Intern Company; MFA, Theatre and Dance, University of California,
San Diego. For acting and other information, log on to www.yusefmiller.com
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Zoey Martinson
(Director)
Zoey is the co-Artistic Director of smoke&mirrors Collaborative in NYC, and the executive director of Bright Future Arts International in Ghana West Africa. She holds a BFA from SUNY Purchase College and MFA from NYU Grad Acting, and has trained in classical theatre/ mask in London, England. She has been working with young artists for over 10 years, teaching in England, Ghana, South Africa and Bed-Stuy Brooklyn. As an actress, she has performed at the Guthrie, Shakespeare On The Sound, 365 Plays/Days at The Public, Purchase Repertory Theatre, Signature Theatre, Penobscot Theatre, The Flea Theatre, Broom Street Theatre, Theatre in the Muz, South Africa, the National Theatre of Ghana, and the Diorama theatre in London. She works in physical theatre and mask, as a writer/director/performer.
She has directed two short films, one documentary and theatre in Ghana, West Africa, Jo’burg, Capetown, South Africa. Richmond University, London. Purchase College, and NYU Grad Acting Freeplay and African Mysteries project with Mark Wing Davey. She is currently working on "The Skype Duet" in Berlin and NYC.
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Zurin Villanueva
(Performer)
Zurin is a proud NYC native. Her previous credits include Regional Theatre: Nobody's Perfect National Tour (The Kennedy Center), Crowns (Arena Stage), and The Girls Inside (Capital Fringe Festival). She has a BFA in musical theatre from Howard University. She also studied dance at the Dance Theatre of Harlem (pre-professional program). Enjoy
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