Harrison David Rivers is an award-winning playwright, librettist, and television writer based in St. Paul, Minnesota. His works include we are continuous(Williamstown Theatre Festival, Geva Theatre Center, New Conservatory Theatre Center), the bandaged place (NYSF, Roundabout Theatre), This Bitter Earth (NCTC, Penumbra, About Face, Theater Alliance, Richmond Triangle Players, The Road, InterAct, TheaterWorks Hartford, Seattle Public, Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre), among others, and the musicals We Shall Someday with Ted Shen and I Put a Spell on Youwith Nubya Garcia. His television credits include One of Us is Lying (Peacock), The Nevers (HBO), and Wytches (Amazon). Harrison is a recipient of McKnight, Jerome, and Van Lier Fellowships; residencies with the Siena Art Institute, New York Theatre Workshop, Williamstown, Geva, and Duke University; and commissions from Roundabout, Transport Group, Geva, La Jolla Playhouse, History Theatre, and Minnesota Opera. He sits on the Board of Directors of The Movement Theatre Company and Playwrights’ Center. M.F.A., Columbia University.

harrisondavidrivers.com

Mikael Burke is a Chicago-based director, deviser, and educator. A Princess Grace Award winner in Theatre and Jeff Award-nominated director, Mikael has worked with Goodman Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, TimeLine Theatre Company, Remy Bumppo Theatre Company, About Face Theatre, Victory Gardens Theater, Northlight Theatre, Raven Theatre, Jackalope Theatre Company, First Floor Theater, American Theatre Company, Chicago Dramatists, The Story Theatre, Refracted Theatre Company, and Windy City Playhouse in Chicago, and regionally with TheaterWorksHartford, Forward Theatre, Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Urbanite Theatre, Theatreworks Colorado Springs, Asolo Repertory Theatre, GevaTheatre Center, Phoenix Theatre Indianapolis, and Third Avenue Playworks. Mikael previously served as Associate Artistic Director of About Face Theatre and has taught at DePaul, Roosevelt, and Butler Universities. Recent directing credits include Blues for an Alabama Sky by Pearl Cleage; the Chicago premiere of Tambo & Bones by Dave Harris; Clyde’s by Lynn Nottage; The Magnolia Ballet by Terry Guest (2022 Jeff Award—Production, Short Run); Fireflies by Donja R. Love (2022 Black Theatre Alliance Award—Best Direction of an Ensemble). M.F.A., The Theatre School at DePaul University.

Tislarm Bouie is a choreographer and creative director from Brooklyn. He attended Professional Performing School and University of the Arts for Dance. He’s a Princess Grace Award winner for theater and a Drama Desk nominee for Roundabout Theatre Company’s Off-Broadway production of the bandaged place. His work has been supported by residencies at Ars Nova and CUNY Dance Initiative. As a performer, select credits include In the Heights (film), Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus (Broadway), Saturday Night Live, and Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. He’s danced for Coldplay, Alicia Keys, Jon Batiste, Bebe Rexha and appeared in advertisements for Vogue, Estee Lauder, and Cadillac.

B Entsminger they/he is currently pursuing their M.F.A. at David Geffen School of Drama, where their credits include Marys Seacole. Some other scenic design credits include The Dastardly Thornes V. The Town of Goldhaven, Sleeping Car Porters (The Brick); Tulsa Swinton Variety Hour (Flux Factory); L.A. Pretty Boy (Playwrights Horizons Theater School); Fatboy, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (The Overtime Theater); and The Gas Heart (The McNay Art Museum). Assistant/associate credits include Affinity (the Geffen School) and True West (Tobin Center, Texas). B holds a B.A. from Trinity University, San Antonio.

Risa Ando is a fourth-year M.F.A. candidate at David Geffen School of Drama, where she designed the costumes for furlough’s paradise and Next to Normal. She received a B.F.A. in costume design from SUNY Purchase College. Selected credits include Mamma Mia! (Forestburgh Playhouse, NY), #4 (Yale Cabaret), Switch No Otoko (Éclo, Tokyo), Dracula (Gekidan Ijin-Butai, Tokyo); Otoko-kai (Gekidan Ijin-Butai, Tokyo), The Best Place For Love (Fire & Ice Production, Dublin), Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles (Wonderland Productions, Dublin).

risaando.myportfolio.com

Nic Vincent is a Brooklyn-based lighting designer. He designs for theatre, dance, opera, film, and everything in-between. Recent Off-Broadway includes Lincoln Center Theater LCT 3, Roundabout, Atlantic, New Ohio, and New York Live Arts. Other Credits include BONEZ, Thurgood (People’s Light); The Indigo Room (Under the Radar/La Mama); Wéi 成为 (Aki Studio/Tiger Princess Dance); Wolf Play, Everybody, Constellations (Brown/Trinity Rep); NIGHTGOWNS (Sasha Velour/ Quibi); El Huracán (Yale Repertory Theatre/The Sol Project); The Barber of Seville (Sacramento Opera); All the Lonely Women and DirectorJam (Rattlestick). He is a member of the Associated Designers of Canada ADC IATSE 659. M.F.A: David Geffen School of Drama.

nicvincent.com

Stan Mathabane is a sound designer, audio engineer, composer, multi-instrumentalist, DJ, actor based in New York City, by way of Portland, Oregon—the coastal opposite of his birthplace, High Point, North Carolina. Stan’s work spans theater, film, dance, virtual/augmented reality, video games, installation, and live performance. His design has resonated with audiences of the U.S. National Exhibition produced in collaboration with USITT at the Prague Quadrennial, The Public Theater: Under the Radar Festival, The Juilliard School, The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Stanford Live, and more. Stan is a fourth-year sound designer at David Geffen School of Drama, where his credits include Color Boy. He also served as assistant sound designer and engineer for Choir Boy and Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles at Yale Rep.

@stanmathabane | stanmathabane.com

John Horzen he/him is a fourth-year M.F.A candidate in projection design at David Geffen School of Drama. He received his bachelor’s degree in violin performance from the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University and is constantly examining the connective tissue that binds his rhyming loves of producing, designing, and communal music-making in order to discover new ways of storytelling. John’s selected projection credits include The Planets (Woolsey Hall, co-projection designer), Cuatro Bailes (The Bushnell, Co-Producer and Set/Projections designer), and The Kite Runner (Broadway, 3D Animator).

johnhorzen.com | @johnhorzen

Eric M. Glover is an Assistant Professor Adjunct at David Geffen School of Drama and a Faculty Fellow in the Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration. Glover served as a production dramaturg at Yale Rep for productions of the ripple, the wave that carried me home, Choir Boy, and A Raisin in the Sun (canceled due to COVID-19).

Luke Tarnow-Bulatowicz he/him is a fourth-year technical design and production student at David Geffen School of Drama, where his credits include Next to Normal (technical director), Love’s Labor’s Lost (assistant technical director), and She Kills Monsters (projection engineer). He also served as assistant technical director on Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Yale Rep). Prior to Yale, Luke attended the University at Buffalo, where he received a B.A. in theater technology and a minor in computer science. While at UB he was a member of the Prague Quadrennial build team in 2019 and worked with the design teams to technical design and build each of the exhibits.

Grace Zandarski is Associate Chair of the Acting program and Head of Voice and Text at David Geffen School of Drama, where she has taught Voice since 2002. She has coached numerous productions at Yale Rep and the Geffen School including The Brightest Thing in the World, An Enemy of the People, Hamlet, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, and Between Two Knees. New York coaching credits include Mike Nichols’s productions of Death of a Salesman and Betrayal (Broadway), The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide… (The Public Theater), and Homebody/Kabul (BAM). She was named Associate Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework in 1998. Grace is Co-Artistic Director of The Actors Center Workshop Company, a company member of Pantheatre (Paris), SAG-AFTRA, AEA, and VASTA. Acting credits include McCarter Theatre, OSF Ashland, Wilma Theatre, and ACT. Directing credits include the Peer Gynt Project and Chekhov Shorts. M.F.A., American Conservatory Theater; B.A., Princeton University.

Michael Rossmy is a Resident Fight and Intimacy Director for Yale Rep, a lecturer in acting at David Geffen School of Drama, and the Stage Combat and Intimacy Advisor for Yale College. Broadway credits include A Tale of Two Cities, Cymbeline, and Superior Donuts. Regional theater credits include The Public Theater, Westport Country Playhouse, Goodspeed Musicals, Paper Mill Playhouse, Asolo Rep, The Old Globe, TheaterWorks Hartford, Princeton University, The Acting Company, Soho Rep, the Geffen Playhouse, Long Wharf Theatre, McCarter Theatre, Kansas City Rep, People’s Light & Theatre, and others. He was nominated for a 2017 Drama Desk Award for his work on Troilus and Cressida for The Public Theater’s production in Central Park. Recent credits include Cyrano De Bergerac at Kansas City Rep directed by Nelson T. Eusebio III and the world premiere of Bonez written and directed by Steve Broadnax III. Upcoming is the New York premiere of Sally & Tom by Suzan-Lori Parks.

Calleri Jensen Davis is a creative casting partnership among James Calleri, Erica Jensen, and Paul Davis of over 20 years. They began their collaboration with Yale Rep in 2023 with Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles and the ripple, the wave that carried me home. Broadway credits: The Piano Lesson, Topdog/Underdog, for colored girls…, Thoughts of a Colored Man, Burn This, Fool for Love, The Elephant Man, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Of Mice and Men, Venus in Fur, A Raisin in the Sun, 33 Variations. Television: Love Life, Queens, Dickinson, and The Path, to name a few.

callerijensendavis.com

Nakia Shalice Avila she/they is a black afro-latine abolitionist, dreamer, and multi-hyphenate artist. Credits include Today is My Birthday; the ripple, the wave that carried me home (Yale Rep); Skeleton Crew, Othello (Trinity Repertory Company); Big River (Utah Shakespeare Festival); Familiar, True West (Steppenwolf Theatre Company); I was waiting for the echo of a better day (Fisher Center at Bard); The Tempest (Elm Shakespeare Company); the father, the son, and the holy spirit (Yale Summer Cabaret); love i awethu further, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts, and Macbeth (David Geffen School of Drama). Nakia holds a B.A. in psychology from Claflin University. They dedicate their work on this production to the black and queer stage managers before them.

Mikayla LaShae Bartholomew is beyond grateful to be making her Yale Repertory Theatre debut! Recently she appeared as the eldest of the Williams sisters in the Academy Award-winning film King Richard (Warner Brothers). Additionally, she is a two-time NAACP Image Award nominee and leads the 2023 NAACP Image Award winning short film titled Dear Mama (SXSW, The New Yorker, Best Actor CFF). She ia 2020 Special Tony Award recipient for her work with the Broadway Advocacy Coalition and Artist Ambassador at the NYCLU. Selected credits/upcoming projects: Grace, So You’re Just Sitting with Her While She Bleeds, The Bottoms, The Niceties (RTCC Award Winner), Pure (HBO Max), The Great Khan, WET, A Doll’s House: Part 2. Facilitator/Programs Producer: Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, The Lion King, Girl from the North Country, Broadway for Black Lives Matter… Again, What Now: Unplugged, and the Arts in Action Festival. B.F.A., theater performance, minor in pre-nursing, gender, sexuality, and women’s studies from Virginia Commonwealth University. Gratitude to God, Mama and Pops, Mya Lauren, Max, and her manager Barney Slobodin for believing in her always. Our stories matter.

@carpeingdiem

Taylor A. Blackman he/him is really excited to be making his Yale Rep debut. Most recently, Taylor was seen on the Broadway National tour of Tina: The Tina Turner Musical. Notable collaborations include work with Playwrights Horizons, Roundabout Theatre Company, The Movement Theatre Company, The Public Theater, Ensemble Studio Theatre, and New York Stage & Film. Television and film credits: FBI (CBS), Alternatino (Comedy Central). Writing credits/commissions: It’s Karen, B**** (Fire This Time Festival/ 2024 Commission), To Infinity (Roberta P Sloan/EST Commission), Riverside Drive (Hi-ARTS Residency), Black Boy Writes Competition (Semi-Finalist). Movement director credits: Sweet Chariot (The Public Theater/Under the Radar Festival). Taylor is currently in development of a new devised piece with Shariffa Ali and Vuyo Sotashe titled, “Hero.” Big love and thank you to his partner Davon Williams, his manager ChiChi Anyanwu, Ayanna Bakari, Stewart Talent, and his friends and family.

McKenzie Chinn is honored to make her Yale Rep debut as Elinor in The Salvagers. McKenzie has originated roles in the world premiere plays Sender and Lottery Day by Ike Holter, The Belfast Girls by Jaki McCarrick, and Nothing to Lose…But Our Chains by Felonious Munk, among others. Regional credits include work with Steppenwolf, Goodman, Woolly Mammoth, The Studio Theatre, and others. McKenzie recently made her stage directing debut with the world premiere of Alaiyo at Chicago’s Definition Theatre. Her on-camera credits include recurring and guest star roles on ABC’s Will Trent, Fox’s The Big Leap, CBS’s The Red Line, and others. She is a 2021 Sundance Screenwriters and Directors Lab fellow, and is the writer and director of the short film A Real One, which premiered at the Oscar-qualifying Pan African Film Festival in LA in 2023.

mckenziechinn.com

Toni Martin she/her is making her Yale Rep debut. Broadway: Airline Highway (Manhattan Theatre Club). Regional (selected): The Crucible (Delaware Rep), Skeleton Crew (Westport Country Playhouse), Nina Simone: Four Women (Arena Stage Theatre), Airline Highway (Steppenwolf Theatre), A Raisin in The Sun (TimeLine Theatre). Television: Chicago Fire, New Amsterdam (NBC), Gypsy (Netflix), Gotham (FOX), God Friended Me (CBS), Three Women and Billions (Showtime). Awards: Black Theatre Alliance Award: Best Supporting Actress, A Raisin in The Sun. Upcoming: Nina Simone: Four Women (Kansas City Rep/Milwaukee Rep). Education: B.F.A,; University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; M.A., The Chicago School of Professional Psychology.

@theetonimartin

Julian Elijah Martinez is so grateful to return to Yale Repertory Theatre, where he was last seen in Father Comes Home From the Wars, Parts 1, 2 & 3. Recent theater credits: Network (Broadway, with Bryan Cranston), This Land Was Made (Vineyard Theatre), Sanctuary City (New York Theatre Workshop), and Anatomy of a Suicide (Atlantic Theater Company). Regional: King Lear (Shakespeare Theatre Company) and 9 Circles (Forum Theatre, Helen Hayes nomination). Select television: Wu-tang: An American Saga, Law & Order: SVU, Prodigal Son, and Elementary. Julian is a member of The Acting Company and Board Member of Developing Artist. M.F.A., David Geffen School of Drama.

julianelijahmartinez.com

Mariah Copeland she/her is a second-year actor at David Geffen School of Drama, where she has worked on Fucking A, furlough’s paradise by a.k. payne, as well as play at Yale Summer Cabaret. Mariah has acted in productions at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, Northlight Theatre, About Face Theatre, BoHo Theatre, and others in her hometown of Chicago. She graduated from Northwestern University, where she received a B.A. in theater.

mariahcopeland.com

Cindy De La Cruz is a Bronx-bred first generation, Dominican-American artist and producer and a second-year actor at David Geffen School of Drama, where she appeared in HELLYOUTALMBOUT and Color Boy. She is an Artistic Producer of the Dominican Artists Collective. Producing credits include Sharing Sessions and Sharing Sessions with Los Pros (Dominican Artists Collective); Tools for an Artist in Process (creator and co-produced with NYTW and Oye Group); Aqui ’Tamos and Vessel of Woman (The Tank). She has worked as an actor at Williamstown Theatre Festival, Olney Theatre Center, Peoples Light Theater, Atlantic Theater, Florida Studio Theatre, Urbanite Theatre, Arden Theatre, Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Asolo Repertory Theatre, among others. Television: Blue Bloods (CBS), The Village (NBC), Blindspot (NBC). Film: Ro & The Stardust and What Doesn’t Float (Apple TV, Amazon Prime)

Janiah-Camile François is a fourth-year actor at David Geffen School of Drama, where she’s been seen in furlough’s paradise, rent free, Macbeth, and The Misanthrope, among others. She is an alumna of Harvard University and has trained at the British American Drama Academy (BADA), the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (LAMBDA), and the Guthrie Theater.

Karl Green he/him is a fourth-year actor at David Geffen School of Drama, where his credits include HELLYOUTALMBOUT, The Misanthrope, The Cherry Orchard, Julius Caesar, Esme, and Color Boy. He has originated roles in the world premiere of Eve’s Song by Patricia Ione Lloyd (The Public Theater) and Socrates by Tim Blake Nelson (The Public Theater); as well as runboyrun by Mfoniso Udofia (New York Theatre Workshop). He holds a B.F.A in acting from NYU Tisch, where he studied at the Stella Adler Studio and Classical Studio, as well as the Shanghai Theatre Academy and NYU Florence. This past summer he studied at the British American Drama Academy (BADA) at Oxford University.

LAW is a second-year actor at David Geffen School of Drama, where he appeared in HELLYOUTALMBOUT and Color Boy. He was seen on Broadway in Girl from the North Country (u/s Joe Scott) and Waitress as Cal. Some of his regional credits are Sex with Strangers, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Seminar. His film and television credits are Little Voice on Apple TV and Miles Ahead. He’s grateful for his beautiful daughter and the opportunity to be at the Geffen School.