A Gathering Program 2024 (Light Version)

A GATHERING 2024

These few days are designed to bring together an intimate community of artists and changemakers working locally, nationally and globally. Members of the Creative Core and Global Fellows from the first 3 cohorts are joined by policy-makers, scholars, and artistic leaders from the extended Lab Community. We gather to reinforce relationships, replenish our artistic energies, and draw inspiration and strength from each other, expanding and experimenting with models for interconnection and community building between individuals and organizations. We will share in essential interstitial exchanges, vibrant discussions, sharings, and creative forums.

Monday, May 20 - Welcome:

11:00 AM Lab Studio is open

2-5:00 PM Opening Circle & Hopeful Encounters @ Lab Studio

5-6:30 PM Hotel Checkin

6-8:00 PM Dinner @ El Centro

Tuesday, May 21 - Coming Together:

9:30 AM Orientation & Breakfast @ Lab Studio

10:00 AM In Your Shoes Part 1

10:45 AM Peace-building & Empathy Lunch

2:30-4:00 PM Migration & Movements

6:30-8:30 PM Celebration @ The Swedish Embassy

Wednesday, May 22 - Dreaming & Building:

9:30 AM Orientation & Breakfast @ Lab Studio

10:00 AM Ecosystems for New Work and Collaborative Global Exchange

10:45 AM In Your Shoes Part 2 Lunch

2:30-4:00 PM Communities & Coalitions: Imagining Forward

4:30-6:00 PM Closing

6:30-8:30 PM Dinner, Drinks, & what comes @ Lab Studio

ERSIAN FRANÇOIS

GENERAL MANAGER / ASSOCIATE PRODUCER

A creative solution seeker and arts advocate with an international arts management background, Ersian’s experience onstage and off spans from Baroque opera to contemporary theater. At The Lab, Ersian manages the daily financial and administrative operations, and supports a wide range of projects at the intersection of arts and activism. She has served on grant committees for Opera America; collaborated with The Folger Shakespeare Library, The Avalon Theatre, and the Bowie Center for Performing Arts to create communitycentric events; and is the cocreator of the acclaimed family program Opera Starts with Oh! Online. While living in Paris, Ersian worked with the Choir and Orchestra of Sorbonne Universities, Jérémie Rhorer’s Le Cercle de l’Harmonie, Raphaël Pichon’s Pygmalion, and co-founded the Karaïb Festival in Île-de-France. She holds an MA in Music Administration and Management from Sorbonne Université.

DIRECTOR/ CO-FOUNDER

Dr. Derek Goldman is an award-winning international stage director, playwright, producer, festival director, adapter/ deviser, curator, and published scholar. He serves as Artistic and Executive Director of The Laboratory for Global Performance & Politics (The Lab), which he co-founded in 2012 with Ambassador Cynthia Schneider with a mission “to humanize global politics through performance.”

He is Professor of Theater and Performance Studies at Georgetown with a joint appointment in the School of Foreign Service In nineteen years at Georgetown, he has also served as Chair of the Department of Performing Arts, Director of the Theater & Performance Studies Program, and Artistic Director of the Davis Performing Arts Center.

He is director and co-author of the celebrated play “Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski. The play was created by The Lab and stars Oscar-Nominated actor David Strathairn, and has been performed to great acclaim Off-Broadway and at leading theaters worldwide. He also co-directed and co-authored the new feature film version (Remember This) which has received awards at numerous festivals and aired nationally on PBS Great Performances.

Goldman has directed over 100 theatrical productions and has worked regularly as an adapter/playwright at leading off Broadway, and international and regional theaters

He was honored to receive the prestigious President’s Award for Distinguished ScholarTeachers as well as the Provost’s Award for Innovation in Teaching for his work around the world on In Your Shoes, a groundbreaking approach he created to counter polarization by using innovative techniques rooted in theatrical performance, dialogue and deep listening. His In Your Shoes workshops have been shared with thousands of participants in diverse settings and contexts around the world, and the approach is now being scaled as part of The Lab’s In Your Shoes Research and Practice Center

RACHEL GARTNER

CO-DIRECTOR, IN YOUR SHOES RESEARCH AND PRACTICE CENTER

Rachel Gartner is a rabbi, dialogue facilitator, educator, and activist with deep roots in the work of performance for social transformation. She joined the core teaching team of In Your Shoes in 2019. Years prior, she served as Interim Artistic Director of TOVA: Theater of Witness for Social Change, through which she created and produced performances by members of Martin’s Run Life Care Center, PA and by teens of Yes! Theater, Media, PA. She is a dialogue facilitator and facilitation trainer for Resetting The Table, and holds certificates in dialogue facilitation from Sustained Dialogue Institute, DC and the Richmond Center for Conflict Resolution, IN. Rachel served as the Director for Jewish Life at Georgetown for 11 years, and is now the rabbi at congregation Shirat HaNefesh, Montgomery, MD. She is a past co-chair of T’ruah: Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, and works in various contexts in education and chaplaincy for those impacted by the US carceral system. In her rabbinic capacity, she has made multiple appearances on NPR’s 1A as well as one on CNN.

Rachel is a graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, an alumni of the Marshal T. Meyer Rabbinic fellowship of B’nai Jeshurun, NYC, and of the CRR rabbinic internship of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, NYC. She holds BA magna cum laude from Barnard College, where she focused her work and theses on gender, race, and class in post-modern and contemporary American dance

Rachel’s performance, dialogic and rabbinic work are all powered by her trust that each love-inspired, mindfully approached, and artfully taken step in the journey towards justice and wholeness brings us closer to both, to our best selves, and to each other.

EMMA JASTER ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR/ RESIDENT MOVEMENT ARTIST

Emma Jaster is an internationally trained director, choreographer, and facilitator based in the U.S. She has led projects with UTheatre in Taiwan, the Natanakairali Institute in India, Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center, LaMama’s Directors’ Symposium, and the Grotowski-based Teatr Zar in Poland. She has been granted artist residencies at ODC in San Francisco, HERE Arts and BAX in NYC, and artist fellowships from the DCCAH and the Asian Cultural Council. She has led workshops at IDEO, MoMA, Cornell Tech, University of Louisville, and Georgetown University in everything from body language to play. She is the founder and director of the international artist residency @mamaisamaker. Grounding her life practice in social justice and the cultivation of peace, she believes in the power of art to help us listen more deeply and love more openly.

ASHANEE KOTTAGE THE LAB X EARTH COMMONS RESEARCH

ANALYST LTHEA

Ashanee Kottage is a research analyst at the Earth Commons and the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics. She is inspired by her experience growing up in Sri Lanka, a beautiful tropical island, and embraces the responsibility to be a steward for homes, her’s, and others, that bear severe and disproportionate consequences of climate change. She is a scientist, activist, and storyteller concerned about the security of this earth and the security of people. She is working towards decolonizing conservation, effective science communication, and marrying rigorous scientific research with empathy, embodiment, and performance.

IJEOMA NJAKA

SENIOR LEARNING DESIGNER FOR TRANSFORMATIONAL AND INCLUSIVE INITIATIVES

Ijeoma Njaka (she/her/hers) serves as the Senior Learning Designer for Transformational and Inclusive Initiatives at the Red House and the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University. In this joint position, she specializes in arts-based approaches to inclusive and anti-racist teaching, curricula, and faculty development. A co-recipient of the 2021 Provost’s Innovation in Teaching Award for her work with the Lab’s performance-based dialogue program In Your Shoes, she also teaches courses on Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski, critical speculative design, and arts and enduring meaning. Since 2022, Ijeoma has also received multiple individual fellowship awards from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Ijeoma holds an MA in Learning, Design, and Technology from Georgetown University as well as an AB from Brown University. Learn more at www.ijeomanjaka.com.

CYNTHIA P. SCHNEIDER CO-FOUNDING DIRECTOR

Cynthia P. Schneider, Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University, teaches, publishes, and organizes initiatives in the field of cultural diplomacy, with a focus on relations with the Muslim world. Ambassador Schneider co-directs the Los Angeles-based MOST Resource (Muslims on Screen and Television). Additionally, she co-directs the Timbuktu Renaissance, an innovative strategy and platform for countering extremism and promoting peace and development, which grew out of her work leading the Arts and Culture Dialogue Initiative within Brookings’ Center for Middle East Policy.

Cynthia teaches courses in Diplomacy and Culture in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where, from 1984-2005, she was a member of the art history faculty, and published on Rembrandt and seventeenth century Dutch art. She also organized exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Cynthia publishes and speaks frequently on topic related to arts, culture, and media and international affairs, particularly about the Muslim world. Her writings range from blogs for the Huffington Post, CNN.com, and Foreign Policy to policy papers for Brookings.

From 1998-2001 she served as U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands, during which time she led initiatives in cultural diplomacy, biotechnology, cyber security, and education. Cynthia has a Ph. D. and BA from Harvard University, and she serves on multiple Boards of Directors and Advisory Boards. http://cynthiapschneider.org/

MÉLISANDE SHORT-COLOMB COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT ASSOCIATE

Mélisande Short-Colomb began her relationship with Georgetown University in 2017 as a descendant of two families enslaved and then sold by the Society of Jesus in 1838 to ensure the solvency of the institution. Following the Working Group on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation recommendations and with the support of President Jack DeGioia, Mélisande was one of two undergraduate students accepted into the College. Beginning as a freshman, and continuing to this day, she has developed an ongoing relationship with the Laboratory for Global Performance & Politics. Under the direction of Derek Goldman, Meli has written, developed, and will be performing her one person show Here I Am.

Meli serves on the Board of Advisors for the Georgetown Memory Project, is a founding Council Member of the GU272 Descendants Association, and was on the GU272 Advocacy Team. She was a leading voice in the student referendum on the $27.20 reconciliation fee, which passed with overwhelming student support on April 11, 2019. She received the 2019 Fr. Bunn Award for journalistic excellence for commentary in support of the “GU272 Referendum to Create a New Legacy.”

Additionally, Meli serves as a Research and Community Engagement Associate for The Lab, a position for which she is very well qualified given her high media profile. Meli is frequently invited to speak on the subjects of the GU272 and reparations. Her talks vary from testimony before the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights, to speaking at the Brooklyn Historical Society, to a TEDx talk. Meli has been featured in print in outlets from the Washington Post and The New Yorker to the AARP Journal.

A native of New Orleans, LA, she retired from a lengthy culinary career, most recently as Chef Instructor for Langlois Culinary Crossroads, to relocate to Washington to attend Georgetown University. Her family includes four adult children and much-loved grandchildren, and scores of newly identified GU272 extended family members.

P A R T I C I P A N T B I O S :

Nephelie Andonyadis 1.

Sonya Armaghanyan 2. Sahar Assaf 3. Victoria Murray Baatin 4. Karishma Bhagani 5. Chantal Bilodeau 6.

Caitlin Nasema Cassidy 7. Cynthia Cohen 8. Catherine Coray 9. Abner Torres Delina Jr. 10. David J. Diamond 11. Velani Dibba 12. Elizabeth Dinkova 13.

Reginald L. Douglas 14. afshan d'souza-lodhi 15. John Clinton Eisner 16. Adam Ashraf Elsayigh 17.

Héctor Flores Komatsu 18. Maria Manuela Goyanes 19.

Kiyo Gutiérrez 20.

Anne Hamburger 21. Ethan Heard 22. Misha Kachman 23.

Irina Kruzhilina 24. Joanne Seelig Lamparter 25.

Hilda Lee Tijerina 26. Kate Loewald 27.

Todd London 28.

29.Erwin Maas

30.Ifrah Mansour

31.Megan McClain

32.Jared Mezzochi

33.Princess Zinzi Mhlongo

34.Dijana Milošević

35.Tom Minter

36.Azar Nafisi

37.Trà Nguyễn

38.Van Tran Nguyen

39.Lloyd Nyikadzino

40.Katie Pearl

41.Nwabisa Plaatjie

42.Devika Ranjan

43.Heather Raffo

44.Michael Rohd

45.Erika Rose

46.Howard Shalwitz

47.Joanna Sherman

48.Sophia Skiles

49.Tuyet Thi Pham

50.Brandice Thompson

51.James Thompson

52.Yury Urnov

53.Sara Zatz

NEPHELIE ANDONYADIS

Nephelie Andonyadis (she/her) is a theater artist and educator, a gerontologist, and a certified TimeSlips facilitator and trainer. Nephelie works at the intersection of community, arts, and policy to help change the culture of care and care systems for all older adults. She brings 25 years of university experience and her artistic practice into conversation with health care economics and policy to help transform the lives of older adults and the field of aging. Nephelie holds a BS from Cornell University School of Architecture, an MFA from Yale University School of Drama, an MS in Aging and Health from Georgetown University, and tenure as professor of theater arts. She is a long-time ensemble member of Cornerstone Theater Company and former TCG/NEA design fellow. Her scenic and costume designs have been seen in regional theaters from coast to coast and around DC, where she was honored with the 2020 Helen Hayes award for scenic design.

SONYA ARMAGHANYAN

Sonya Armaghanyan is a theatre practitioner and cultural producer from Armenia. For her theatre is a place of magic where deep emotions become tangible. Influenced by war and the history of the Armenian Genocide, the notion of identity and sense of belonging are central in her theatrical practice. She cherishes the creative process of the arts which can reveal one’s feelings, thoughts and perceptions individually and in relation to others. Sonya values the moments of tension between one’s carefully constructed identities and those that start emerging in the space of theatre. She is a producer and facilitator of performative workshops and projects in Armenia, Nepal, Switzerland, Greece, Kenya, and Rwanda. She is the recipient of the Swiss Humanitarian Award 2018 for her research paper “Theatre as Psychosocial Approach in Humanitarian Settings.” Sonya is a Fellow with the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University. Sonya is the Founder and the Artistic Director of The Postcard Theatre- a place for collective dreaming.

SAHAR ASSAF (IN ABSENTIA)

Sahar Assaf (she/her) is a Lebanese theatre-maker and Executive Artistic Director of Golden Thread Productions. With an eclectic directing portfolio, Sahar explores diverse theatrical styles, cultural influences, and social themes. Recent projects for Golden Thread include directing Drowning in Cairo by Adam Ashraf Elsayigh and Stamp Me by Yussef El Guindi. As part of the Theater Initiative at the American University of Beirut, she has directed works by GarciaLorca, Shakespeare, Wannous, Mahfouz, and others, spanning site-specific, immersive, and documentary plays addressing societal and political issues. She is a recipient of the Fulbright scholarship, has presented works globally, and authored academic articles on theater-making. She proudly balances (or tries to!) her theater work with her role as a mother to Zad.

VICTORIA MURRAY BAATIN

Victoria is a capable and dedicated thought leader committed to excellence. She is the Principal of Apex Arts Consultants, a consulting firm dedicated to bolstering the health and vitality of the arts and humanities sector by tailoring comprehensive services to meet the unique needs of clients. She is currently the Senior Director of Social Impact at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts where she leads a dynamic team in leveraging the arts for non-arts outcomes to advance justice and equity.

Holding a Master’s in Art and Public Policy from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and a BFA in Theatre Arts from Howard University, Victoria is an artist in her own right and has directed numerous productions throughout the Washington, DC metropolitan area and is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.

KARISHMA BHAGANI

Karishma Bhagani is a producer, dramaturg and theatre-maker from Mombasa, Kenya. Karishma is keen on contributing to the development of a sustainable creative economy within East Africa, as well as sharing African stories around the globe. Karishma has worked at the LAM Sisterhood in Kenya, the Tebere Arts Foundation in Uganda and the Nairobi Musical Theater Initiative. She was also a fellow at the Georgetown Lab for Global Performance and Politics (20192022). Production credits include: Goddess: The Musical, The Manic Monologues: Africa Edition, Theatre for One: Nairobi Edition. She graduated from New York University with a B.F.A in Theatre and History. She is currently completing her PhD in Theater and Performance Studies at Stanford University and is a Knight Hennessy Scholar.

CHANTAL BILODEAU

Chantal Bilodeau is a Montrealborn, New York-based playwright whose work focuses on the intersection of storytelling and the climate crisis. She is the founder of the Arts & Climate Initiative and in her capacity as artistic director, has spearheaded local and global initiatives for nearly two decades, getting the theatre and educational communities, as well as audiences in the U.S. and abroad, to engage in climate action through programming that includes live events, talks, publications, workshops, artist convenings, and a worldwide distributed theatre festival. She is working on a series of eight plays – including Sila (2014), Forward (2016), and No More Harveys (2022) – that look at the social and environmental changes taking place in the eight Arctic states. She is a Creative Core member of the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics. In 2019, she was named one of "8 Trailblazers Who Are Changing the Climate Conversation" by Audubon Magazine.

CAITLIN NASEMA CASSIDY

Caitlin Nasema Cassidy (she/they) is an actor, director, and producer making experimental performance that is physical, collaborative, and poetic. Her practice is rooted in joy, embodied research, and (com)postactivism. Caitlin is a Grist 50 List Fixer, Social Impact

Community Partner at the John F. Kennedy Center, and recipient of National Performance Network Creation and Development Fund Awards. She holds the Artist-inResidence position at Georgetown University’s Earth Commons Institute for the Environment and Sustainability and is Co-Artistic Director of LubDub Theatre Co. CaitlinNasemaCassidy.com

CYNTHIA COHEN

Cynthia Cohen (Cindy) founded the Program in Peacebuilding and the Arts (PBA) at Brandeis University and is a senior fellow at IMPACT, Inc. At Brandeis, she initiated an undergraduate minor in Creativity, the Arts, and Social Transformation. She has written extensively on aesthetic and ethical dimensions of peacebuilding, and co-edited “Acting Together: Performance and the Creative Transformation of Conflict”, a two-volume anthology accompanied by a documentary and toolkit. Prior to her tenure at Brandeis, she founded and directed an anti-racist community oral history center. Cindy has worked as a coexistence facilitator with communities in the Middle East, Central America, and South Asia. She is exploring the contributions of arts and culture to opposing authoritarianism, and serves on the Jane Sapp Legacy Project team. Cindy holds a PhD in Education from the University of New Hampshire, an MA in Urban Studies from MIT, and a BA in Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University.

CATHERINE CORAY (IN ABSENTIA)

Catherine Coray has taught at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts since 1991, and has taught and collaborated with artists in Austria, Belarus, Chile, Cuba, Egypt and Lebanon. As an actor, she worked regionally and offBroadway with directors such as Anne Bogart and Andre Gregory. She was the curator of the hotINK Festival at Tisch School of Arts and at The Lark, and Director of The Lark Middle EastUS Playwright Exchange; she curated and co-produced Arab Voices: here/there/then/now (Abu Dhabi, 2016), Arab Voices: Stories of Palestine (Beirut, 2018), and Arab Voices: Three New Dramatic Texts from Beirut and Berlin, at the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute in NYC (2019.) She is currently working with Noor Theatre and the Foundation for Arab Dramatic Arts on the next iteration of Arab Voices, to take place in Beirut, Sept 2024. Catherine is a Producing Affiliate with the Noor Theatre, and serves on the advisory boards of several institutions, including The Georgetown Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics Think Tank, Golden Thread Productions in San Francisco, and the Artistic Advisory Council of Playwrights Horizons.

ABNER DELINA

Abner Torres Delina Jr. is a Filipino artivist-storyteller, performancemaker, cultural worker, arts educator, eco-healer, martial artist and founding artistic director (MaPa) of BLACK CANVAS- a multi-arts collective nurturing care culture, global justice, and ecological healing. His work ranges from contemporary performance-making to socially-engaged projects, embodiment to care-based collective healing, and community development to intercultural collaborations. Through the years, Abner has trained thousands of youth, artists and educators throughout the Philippines. He partners with the Cultural Center of the Philippines, National Commission for Culture and the Arts, and the Department of Education for arts education, arts therapy and climate action. Abner is a fellow for Asian Cultural Council Grant, International Teaching Artist Collaborative, International Interdisciplinary Artists Consortium and Georgetown University's The Lab. He produced SACLAW (Social Actions Community Leadership Arts Workshop) and developed KaMaLayaAn, an ecoembodiment practice reclaiming ecoconsciousness. Abner (father of light) lives to liberate the world through queer, eco-feminist, and intersectional perspectives.

DAVID J. DIAMOND

David is Artistic Producer of the La MaMa Umbria International Symposia in Spoleto, Italy. He serves on the Steering Committee for Theatre Without Borders, which is engaged with the International Exchange among theatre artists. He co-produced conferences such as Socially Engaged Performance: A Global Conversation. He is a Founder and Trustee Emeritus of the Barrow Group Theatre located in New York City. He is an author, professor, community activist, and Facilitator ("joker") of Forum Theatre. As a Fulbright Specialist in Theatre, he had a residency with Dah Teatar in Belgrade, Serbia. He received two CEC ArtLink Residencies in St. Petersburg, Russia. Other international residencies include Erbil, Kurdistan and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, with Sundance Theater Project. David is Founder and Director of Transformative Coaching for Theatre Artists which provides individual and group coaching and presents workshops, including Directing Your Theatre Career at major universities, providing resources for navigating a career in the professional art world. His most recent publications include articles on HowlRound, a chapter in Dah Teatar: A Sourcesbook, published and others.

VELANI DIBBA

Velani Dibba is an LA-based director and multidisciplinary artist. Her work focuses on the collision of cultures through design-focused and ensemble-driven pieces. Select credits include Pride and Prejudice (The Dramat at Yale Repertory Theatre), we need your listening (New Ohio Theatre Ice Factory Festival), Apologies to the Bengali Lady (Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The Tank NYC, The Gathering), I Pledge Allegiance (UNESCO International Theatre Festival and World Congress, TCG National Conference), Space Odyssey (Columbia School of the Arts). She is an Inaugural Fellow at the Laboratory for Global Performance & Politics in Washington D.C., a former Global Cultural Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, a co-founding member of The SuperGeographic Ensemble Theatre, and a former SITI Company Artistic Associate. Her work has been reported on by The New York Times, Vulture, The Scotsman, and various other outlets. M.F.A. Columbia University, B.S.F.S. Georgetown School of Foreign Service.

ELIZABETH DINKOVA

Elizabeth Dinkova, Spooky Action Theater’s new artistic director, is a Bulgarian director, adaptor, and collaborative creator who explores alternative realities at the intersection of theater, film, and music in pursuit of communal transformation. In 2021-22, she was an Associate Artistic Director of 7 Stages Theatre, Atlanta's hub for boundarypushing international theater. She is an alum of the Alliance Theatre’s Artistic Leadership fellowship, the Studio Theatre's Artistic Apprenticeship, and a recent graduate from the MFA Directing program at the Yale School of Drama, where she served as a Co-Artistic Director of the Yale Summer Cabaret and received the Julian Milton Kaufman prize for Directing. Recent projects include Spooky Action’s Sonnets for an Old Century and workshop of Syrena, the visual album TIT, inspired by Titus Andronicus and cowritten with Jesse Rasmussen, at the NYC Indie Theatre Film Festival, Rage, a play with music adapted from Stephen King, at Quinnipiac University, The Seagull at Serenbe Playhouse, and the opera Orfeo ed Euridice at Bel Cantanti Opera Company. Elizabeth has taught acting, directing, devising, and musical theater at the Toronto Metropolitan University, University of California Riverside, Quinnipiac University, and Queens College CUNY.

REGINALD L. DOUGLAS

Reginald L. Douglas (he/him) is the Artistic Director of Mosaic Theater Company of DC. He has directed at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, Round House Theatre, TheaterWorks Hartford, CATF, Everyman Theatre, Weston Theater Company, La Jolla Playhouse, Audible, Bard at the Gate, Profile Theatre, Playwrights Realm, The Kennedy Center, Pittsburgh CLO, Arizona Theatre Company, Barrington Stage, Cape Cod Theatre Project, Negro Ensemble Company, TheatreSquared, Playwrights' Center, McCarter Theatre Center, Florida Rep, The Lark, New York Theatre Workshop, City Theatre (where he served as Artistic Producer), Studio Theatre (where he served as Associate Artistic Director), and many other national companies. A proud graduate of Georgetown University, Reginald is a member of the Board of Directors of Theatre Washington and of the National New Play Network. He received the National Theatre Conference's Emerging Professional Award in 2020 and the Georgetown University Legacy of a Dream Award in 2024.

AFSHAN D'SOUZA-LODHI

afshan d'souza-lodhi was born in Dubai and forged in Manchester. She is a writer of scripts and poetry. Her work has been performed and translated into numerous languages across the world. afshan has been writer-inresidence for Sky Studios, New Writing North, Royal Exchange Theatre, Warner Bros Discovery and was writer-in-residence for Bluebird Pictures. afshan was also one of the first to receive The National Theatre's Peter Shaffer award in 2022. afshan has been a BAFTA BFI Flare mentee and has developed a TV series with Sky Studios. A TV pilot she wrote called Chop Chop, was selected for the second annual #MuslimList (The Black List). As well as her own writing, afshan is keen to develop other younger and emerging artists and sits on the boards of Manchester Literature Festival, Pie Radio and Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester. She is also the WGGB Regional chair of Manchester and Lancashire. www.afshandl.com

JOHN CLINTON EISNER

JOHN CLINTON EISNER is a stage director and producer of classic and contemporary work as well as a story consultant for theater and media. For 27 years he served as Artistic Director of The Lark, a new play development center and think-tank for the theater based in New York City. Currently, he is President of Peacedale Global Arts, supporting writers in their creative process through international and intercultural exchange, and Creative Producer in Residence at En Garde Arts, a national innovator in site-specific, community-based theater. He has worked closely with hundreds of award-winning writers including Jackie Sibblies Drury, Madeleine George, Katori Hall, Tina Howe, Sam Hunter, David Henry Hwang, Arthur Kopit, Matthew Lopez, Rajiv Joseph, Lisa Kron, Martyna Majok, Mona Mansour, Dominique Morisseau, Sarah Ruhl, Robert Schennkan, and Lucy Thurber. Recent projects include: “The Road Less Traveled,” a play commissioning program at Silk Road Rising in Chicago; a yearlong career seminar for MFA playwrights at Columbia University; an International Center for Playwrights in Portugal; a multilingual playwriting residency in Transylvania; and "A Dozen Dreams," one of the very first live theater events in New York City after the pandemic shutdown. He has dedicated his career to reducing structural barriers to the arts and encouraging inclusive pathways into theater and media careers through intercultural exchange, fellowships, increased artist compensation, and local artmaking.

ADAM ASHRAF ELSAYIGH

Adam Ashraf Elsayigh was born in Cairo, Egypt. When soon thereafter, his parents relocated the family to Dubai, Adam grew up in a religious Muslim household with American cable TV, going to a British school in a Gulf state where over 90% of the population were migrant workers. This upbringing at the cross-section of cultures is at the core of the artist Adam is. Today, Adam is a theatermaker and writer of stage and screenplays about modern humans living across and between cultures. Adam's plays (including Alaa: A Family Trilogy, Drowning in Cairo, Revelation, Memorial, and Jamestown/Williamsburg) have been developed and seen at New York Theater Workshop, The Lark, NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, The Alliance Theater, and Golden Thread Productions. Adam is an alum of the Laboratory for Global Performance at Georgetown University. He holds a BA in Theater History and Dramaturgy from NYU Abu Dhabi and an MFA in Playwriting from Brooklyn College.

HÉCTOR FLORES KOMATSU

Héctor Flores Komatsu is a theatremaker born in Mexico, raised in the United States, and currently based in Japan. He's a proud member of the Lab family's 2nd Global Fellows cohort. As recipient The Julie Taymor World Theatre Fellowship HFK journeyed on a year-long theatrical journey across Mexico, eventually founding Makuyeika Colectivo Teatral and directing works such as "Andares", performing all across Mexico and on various world stages: Wuzhen Theatre Festival, China; Chicago Shakespeare Theatre; Under the Radar, New York; Santiago a Mil, Chile; Thalia Theater, Germany; The Gathering, 2022. Other productions include "Rematch (based on the Popol Vuh)"; "Ixkik: blood, moon, sister"; and "Canek". Prior, he worked as an actora and apprentice of Peter Brook at the Théàtre Bouffes du Nord in Paris. In Japan where he's trained with the Suzuki Company of Toga and with Tatsushige Udaka of the Kongō-ryū Noh. University of Michigan (BFA in Theatre Directing).

MARIA MANUELA GOYANES (IN ABSENTIA)

MARIA MANUELA GOYANES (she/her) is the Artistic Director of Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. Prior to joining Woolly, she served as the Director of Producing and Artistic Planning at The Public Theater, where she oversaw the day-to-day execution of a full slate of plays and musicals at the Public’s fivetheater venue at Astor Place and the Delacorte Theater for Shakespeare in the Park. While at The Public, Maria also held a position on the adjunct faculty of Juilliard and curated the junior year curriculum of the Playwrights Horizons Theater School at NYU. From 2004 to 2012, Maria was the Executive Producer of 13P, one of her proudest achievements. Maria is a firstgeneration Latinx- American, born to parents who emigrated from the Dominican Republic and Spain. She was raised in Jamaica, Queens, and has a collection of hoop earrings to prove it. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in 2001 from Brown University.

KIYO GUTIÉRREZ

Kiyo Gutiérrez is a Mexican historian and performance artist currently studying in L.A. (MFA in Art at USC). She started doing performance art as a reaction against the brutal Mexican reality, which is a violent one full of femicides, disappearances, and a constant and insatiable looting towards nature. Kiyo draws on multiple mediums including video, photography, dance, poetry, textile, sculpture and sound. Ecofeminist, provocative, earthy, political, her performance pieces question established order and power, and explore the ties between female oppression and the destructive exploitation of Planet Earth. Kiyo performs often in public spaces and has participated in International Performance Festivals and exhibitions in Mexico, Colombia, Bolivia, Spain and the United States. She also participated in Debates, an editorial project for Colección Cisneros, was a recipient of the Franklin Furnace Fund, a Fellow at the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics of Georgetown University, received the Fulbright Scholarship and was recently nominated for the Gilder/Coigney International Theatre Award.

ANNE HAMBURGER

Hamburger founded En Garde Arts in 1985. As its Executive Artistic Director, she is responsible for pioneering sitespecific theatre in New York using its streets and historic landmarks as her stage. She is committed to bringing up a new generation of theatrical risktakers, encouraging artists to explore the deeply personal meaning of the projects they embark upon. En Garde’s relationship with its artists is not only about the work, it is also about caring for their selfesteem as a mentor and friend while understanding that mentorship goes in both directions. For her work, Hamburger has won 6 Obies, 2 Drama Desk Awards, an Outer Critics Circle Award, Lee Reynolds Award, and the Exceptional Merit in Media Award from The National Political Women’s Caucus. She graduated with a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Yale School of Drama and is the proud mother of Owen and Hannah Jenney.

ETHAN HEARD (IN ABSENTIA)

Ethan Heard is a director, producer, and teacher who makes theater to build community and foster love. He is Associate Artistic Director of Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA, where he has directed “The Bridges of Madison County”, “Pacific Overtures”, and “Which Way to the Stage”. He co-founded Heartbeat Opera and led the company for its first eight seasons, growing it into “an enterprise that, while small and still young, has already contributed more to opera’s vitality than most major American companies" (NYTimes). With Heartbeat, his radical adaptation of Beethoven’s “Fidelio” (NYTimes Critic’s Pick), reenvisioned through the lens of Black Lives Matter, featured more than 100 incarcerated singers from six prison choirs. Confronting other urgent issues such as Asian erasure (“Butterfly”) and climate collapse (“Hot Mama: Singing Gays Saving Gaia”), his operatic work is “incisive and inspired” (Opera News) and has been presented at BAM, The Met Museum, and The Kennedy Center. He has also reimagined classic musicals and plays, casting Audrey II in "Little Shop of Horrors” as a lip-syncing drag queen and the mob in “Julius Caesar” as social media users caught in a dangerous echo chamber. His interpretation of Sondheim (“Woods”, “Merrily”, "Sunday”) has been praised for its “emotional eloquence” (Boston Globe), and he has shepherded new works by Marisa Michelson, Mark Campbell, and Daniel Schlosberg that explode traditional ideas of genre. Ethan taught at Yale for six years, where he earned his BA and MFA and began the beloved tradition of Yale School of Drag. ethanheard.com

MISHA KACHMAN

Misha Kachman is a visual artist and a scenographer who has worked at Arena Stage, Asolo Rep, Baltimore Center Stage, Berkeley Rep, Children’s Theatre Company of Minneapolis, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Cleveland Playhouse, Court Theatre, The Kennedy Center, Olney Theatre Center, Opera Royal Versailles, Pasadena Playhouse, Portland Center Stage, Rattlestick, Round House Theatre, Seattle Opera, Seattle Rep, Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center, Signature Theatre, Syracuse Stage, Theater J, Theatre for a New Audience, The Wilma Theater, Woolly Mammoth, 59E59 Theaters and many other companies in the United States and abroad. Misha is a Helen Hayes Award recipient and a Company Member at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, as well as an Associate Artist at Olney. He is a graduate of the Academy of Theatre Arts in St. Petersburg, Russia. Mr. Kachman serves as Professor and Head of MFA in Design at University of Maryland. For more information visit www.mishakachman.com.

IRINA KRUZHILINA

Irina Kruzhilina is a New York-based director, scenographer, visual dramaturg, experience designer and educator, creating work at the intersection of visual art, live performance, and civic engagement. She has collaborated with acclaimed artists and organizations including Doug Fitch, Lars Jan, Dmitry Krymov, Geoff Sobelle, En Garde Arts, Mabou Mines, and Arlekin Players. Irina is the founder of Visual Echo, a New York-based performance organization dedicated to facilitating generative dialogues among people from diverse backgrounds. As the artistic director of Visual Echo, Irina has conceived and directed several original productions, including Journey of a Dream, a cross-generational venture developed in collaboration with Peace Child International in commemoration of the UN’s 75th Anniversary, and SpaceBridge, a performance which deals with the adaptation and assimilation of young Russian refugees. Irina holds the position of associate professor at the New School of Drama, where she co-developed a new MFA program in Contemporary Theatre and Performance. Irina is a former NEA/TCG Career Development Program recipient, a Target Margin Theatre Institute Fellow and a La MaMa resident artist.

JOANNE SEELIG LAMPARTER

Joanne Seelig Lamparter is the Chief Artistic Programming Officer at Imagination Stage. She has led the organization’s school and community partnerships, theatre arts training programs, and the development of new work based on youth voices . Under Joanne’s leadership, Imagination Stage’s youth programming has been featured at international festivals, national conferences, at local universities and even on Capitol Hill! An arts educator with over 20 years of experience, she has administered programs for Smithsonian, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, The National Building Museum and Capitol Hill Arts Workshop. Joanne is a Board Member of TYA/USA, a Global Connectivity Task Force Member for Theatre Communications Group, and a Commissioner for Out of School Time Grants and Youth Outcomes Committee of the Mayor’s Office of DC. Joanne currently serves as an advisor for the PBSKids series, Pinkalicious. She holds a Masters in Arts in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

HILDA LEE TIJERINA

Hilda graduated with a BA in Film from The University of TexasRio Grande Valley where she discovered the magic of theatre. She left the great land of Texas and continued her theatre adventure in the new land of Washington D.C. Amongst many things, she is a theatre artist, stage manager, and teaching artist. She has a passion for serving the community, and is currently one of the Theatre for Change Managers at Imagination Stage where she works in programs that help immigrant and incarcerated youth. Through the use of theatre and arts activities, she strives to provide a safe space for the youth to build relationships, find their voice, and share their stories. Hilda currently serves as the camera and livestream team lead at Catalyst Church where she trains and manages a team to film services every Sunday.

KATE LOEWALD

Kate Loewald is the Founding Producer of PlayCo, where with her team she has produced 44 world, U.S. and New York premieres of plays from the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, South and East Asia, Central and South America, and the Russian Federation. She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Columbia University School of the Arts, and has also been a faculty member at The New School, Fordham College, and New York University. She led the literary department at the Manhattan Theatre Club through the 1990s, overseeing programming and creative development, and was also Director of MTC’s acclaimed Writers in Performance series in 1998 and '99. Prior to MTC, she was the producing associate to Margo Lion on several productions on and off Broadway.

TODD LONDON

Todd London has been a leading figure in the U.S. nonprofit theater for more than 35 years and was the first recipient of Theater Communications Group's Visionary Leadership Award for "an individual who has gone above and beyond the call of duty to advance the theater field as a whole..." He spent 18 seasons as Artistic Director of New York's New Dramatists. From 2014-18 he was Executive Director of the University of Washington's School of Drama, where he held the Floyd U. Jones Family Endowed Chair. His many books include two novels, If You See Him, Let Me Know and The World's Room; This Is Not My Memoir (with Andre Gregory); and theater books, An Ideal Theater; Outrageous Fortune; The Importance of Staying Earnest; The Artistic Home, and Zelda Fichandler's The Long Revolution (editor). He is founding director of The Third Bohemia retreat and director of the Legacy Playwrights Initiative.

ERWIN MAAS (IN ABSENTIA)

Erwin Maas is a New York based theatermaker, curator, educator and international arts advocate from the Netherlands with extensive international experience across a variety of creative and community contexts. As a curious traveler, he prioritizes a collaborative spirit and embraces contemporary and interdisciplinary approaches driven by a vision that centers culture and the arts at the core of society. The integration of holistic practice, diversity, equity, and inclusion stands as a fundamental principle in his work. In New York, his directions both Off Broadway and site specific have received multiple NYTimes Critic’s Picks. He is especially passionate about developing new or existing works with local artists and/or communities and has done so all around the world. His directing work ranges from plays by contemporary playwrights to devised, interdisciplinary immersive projects, opera, music theater & dance with performances for all ages. Maas is the CoExecutive Director of the Pan-African Creative Exchange (PACE) and teaches as Adjunct Professor at CUNY Brooklyn College's MFA Performance & Interactive Media Arts Program (PIMA). As former Artistic Director of the International Society for Performing Arts (ISPA), Director of the Fellowship Program for the International Performing Arts for Youth (IPAY), and Director of Performing Arts for the Cultural Department of the Royal Netherlands Embassy & Consulates in the USA, Maas offers an extensive knowledge and network in the international cultural field with a focus on international cultural relations and policy –

IFRAH MANSOUR

Ifrah Mansour is a Somali, refugee, Muslim, multimedia artist and an educator based in Minnesota. Her artwork explores trauma through the eyes of children to uncover the resiliencies of blacks, Muslims, and refugees. She interweaves poetry, puppetry, films, and installations. She's been featured in Middle East Eye, BBC, Vice, OkayAfrica, Star Tribune, and City Pages. Her criticallyacclaimed, "How to Have Fun in a Civil War" premiered at Guthrie Theatre and toured to greater cities in Minnesota. Her first national museum exhibition; "Can I touch it" premiered at Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Her visual poem, "I am a Refugee" is part of PBS's short Film festival. "My Aqal, banned and blessed" Premiered at Queens Museum in New York. Currently touring the " Healing Aqal(hut) installation. Learning more at Facebook/ifrahmansour

MEGAN MCCLAIN

Megan McClain is a dramaturg and collaborative theater artist who co-founded Peacedale Global Arts to promote international and intercultural exchange through theater. As Artistic Director, she guides the company’s new play development initiatives in the U.S. and abroad. She previously served as Second Stage Theater’s Literary Manager, scouting plays for the organization’s Broadway and Off-Broadway venues. As the former R&D Program Director at The Civilians, she supported the work of over 80 writers, composers, and directors creating new plays and musicals. Additional dramaturgy/literary work for: Goodman Theatre, Disney Theatrical, Playwrights Realm, The Lark, Superhero Clubhouse, PlayPenn and more. M.F.A

Dramaturgy: UMass Amherst

PRINCESS MHLONGO

Princess Zinzi Mhlongo, an awardwinning theatre producer and director, boasts an impressive list of accolades including the Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year for Theatre and multiple nominations for the Naledi and Mbokodo awards. Her criticallyacclaimed work has been showcased globally at prestigious festivals such as the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, Afrovibes Festival in Amsterdam, and National Black Arts Festival in North Carolina, USA. A highlight of Mhlongo's career was being selected as one of four international young directors for the prestigious Salzburg Young Directors Project in Austria, where she presented her production TRAPPED. She also produced the international tour of Albert Ibokwe Khoza's performance art piece The Black Circus Of The Republic of Bantu, which had soldout shows across Europe, the USA and South America. Most recently, Mhlongo served as producer of the Netflix action drama INKABI in 2024 and is slated to release her second feature film in October 2024.

DIJANA MILOŠEVIĆ (IN ABSENTIA)

Director, DAH Theater Research Center for Culture and Social Change; Professor, Institute for Modern Dance, Belgrade Dijana Milošević is an award-winning theater director, activist, writer and lecturer. She co-founded DAH Theater and has been its leading director for over thirty years. She was the Artistic Director for theater festivals, was the president of the Association of the Independent Theaters and president or member of several boards. Being involved with several peace building initiatives and collaborating with feminists - activists groups she also serves as a member of the Board at IMPACT- a network of arts and conflict transformation. She has devised and directed theater shows with her company and toured them nationally and internationally as well as directed the work with other companies all over the world. She is a well-known lecturer and has taught at prestigious Universities, writes articles and essays about theater. She is recipient of prestigious fellowships and awards (Fulbright, Arts Link, Helena Vaz de Silva).

TOM MINTER

Tom Minter – Playwright, Teaching Artist, and Librettist – creates works that explore issues of diversity and otherness, framing context to the 'undiscussed past' as an experience of intergenerational perspectives that weave immersive experiences for journey and education. Based in DC, Tom has developed collaborative performance/education programs through the support of Duke Ellington School of the Arts, School Without Walls, the DC Public Library, the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum, The Phillips Collection, the Library of Congress, the March on Washington Film Festival, the National Portrait Gallery, and Stanford in Washington. Commissioned work has been presented by the Washington National Opera, and Kennedy Honors/Washington National Opera. His theatre work has had productions in London, NY, DC, and Auckland, NZ, and recent benefit of a Kennedy Center Theatre Residency. He is especially grateful for the long journey of support by Derek Goldman and the Laboratory for Global Performance & Politics community.

AZAR NAFISI

Azar Nafisi is a critically acclaimed author of Reading Lolita in Tehran, Things I've Been Silent About, The Republic of Imagination, That Other World, and most recently, Read Dangerously. In 2009, Reading Lolita in Tehran was named one of the "100 Best Books of the Decade" by The Times (London) and remained on The New York Times bestseller list for 117 weeks.

In addition, Nafisi has penned pieces for The New York Times, Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal, among other outlets, and has published several book introductions and forewords. Her books explore totalitarian mindsets, the power of fiction and imagination, and engage with personal memories from the Islamic Republic of Iran. Nafisi was born in Tehran, Iran, and received her Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma. She returned to Iran as an English literature professor during the Iranian Revolution. She was later expelled for refusing mandatory Islamic covering and in 1997, she became a fellow at the School of Advance International Studies at Johns Hopkins and Georgetown University. Nafisi has won many awards, including the Cristóbal Gabarrón Foundation International Thought and Humanities Award, the 2015 Benjamin Franklin Creativity Laureate Award, and several honorary doctorates.

TRÀ NGUYỄN

Trà Nguyễn experiments with theater and builds frameworks to transfer such capacity. Former Acting Director of Sàn Art, the longest-running independent art space in Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), she has contributed to various educational programs for visual art. Trà has earned her MFA in Dramatic Writing at Carnegie Mellon University (US) on Fulbright scholarship. Her theater works, typically extremely slow-pacing, seek to opens up and resides in the quieting space of attention. Her screenplays on the other hand reflect the osmosis of sciences in modern life, portraying the human struggle to connect in the digitally webbed world. She is currently based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam where her independent initiative, The RunA Theater Project, seeks to build infrastructure for experimental theater-making via production, training, and critical discourse.

VAN TRAN NGUYEN

Van Tran Nguyen is a Vietnamese American artist-scholar, filmmaker, curator, and multimedia artist. Her research investigates Asian American performance and media(tions) of the diaspora. Tran Nguyen’s monograph, No Bodies Home: Mediations of Performance in Exile explores Cold War technological advancement and argues that racialized and gendered bodies of the Asian diaspora are the material and technological output of warfare. Her short film, ERIE COUNTY SMILE released in 202, is available for public access via the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Her first full-length feature film, The MOTHERLOAD, will be released in 2025. She is currently an Early Career Fellow at the UCLA Center on Race & Digital Justice. In the fall of 2024, she will join the Department of Performing Arts at Georgetown University as the Assistant Professor of Performing Arts. Dr. Tran Nguyen teaches courses across theory and practice including digital filmmaking, Techno-Orientalisms, and autoethnography in performance.

LLOYD NYIKADZINO

Lloyd Nyikadzino continues to work extensively, locally and internationally as an arts consultant of creative and cultural products and services, arts administrator, creative director, educator and columnist. Lloyd is a multi-award-winning theatre professional and a graduate of the University of Zimbabwe and Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre. He is a fellow at the John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing, Theatertreffen, Magnet Theatre, and The Lab at Georgetown University. Lloyd is the founder of the Zimbabwe Theatre Academy Trust and the Mitambo International Theatre Festival. Furthermore, Lloyd is one of the Vice Presidents of the African Regional Council of the International Theater Institute. Lloyd has worked as a guest theatre lecturer at Ecole De Sables in Senegal. He serves as a coordinator of the Network of Emerging Young Professionals and also a Theatre Communications Group (TCG) Global Connectivity Taskforce member and a drama teacher at Dominican Convent High School.

KATIE PEARL (IN ABSENTIA)

Katie Pearl is director, playwright, and educator. Her work explores the performance event as a tool for engagement, one that can enliven people to the world and to each other and spark the flexibility of thought and trust in imagination that is rapidly disappearing in today’s divisive climate. As Co-Artistic Director of the Obie-winning PearlDamour, she has pushed the boundaries of theater-making and civic conversation for over 25 years through projects that range from large-scale spectacle (the 8-hour performance installation How to Build a Forest; the 40-acre Lost in the Meadow; the theatrical fabulation Ocean Filibuster) to intimate encounter (the performance tour for twenty Bird Eye Blue Print; the itinerant SLABBER) to community-wide collaborations (the five-town Milton project, created with and for small towns named Milton across the country). PearlDamour is the recipient of four Map Fund, two NEA, a Creative Capital Award and the 2011 Lee Reynolds award, given annually by the League of Professional Theater Women to a woman whose work in the medium of theatre has helped illuminate the possibilities for social, cultural, or political change. Commissions/presenters include: The American Repertory Theater, Kitchen, the Whitney Museum, PS122, Brookfield Arts, HERE Arts Center, Longwood Botanical Gardens, the Walker Art Center, and the Contemporary Arts Center/New Orleans. Pearl was the 2016/17 Anschutz Distinguished Fellow at Princeton and a visiting lecturer at Harvard, where her work focused on the concept of the Artist-Citizen, and the 2017 Quinn Martin Guest Chair of Directing at UCSD. She is on faculty at Wesleyan University where she teaches theater directing, site-specific performance, and collaborative practices. Alum of Drama League; founding member of Climate Lens and Works on Water; member of SDC. www.Katiepearl.com/www.pearldamour.com

NWABISA PLAATJIE

Nwabisa Plaatjie is an independent producer, theatre-maker, and director from South Africa. She holds an MA in Theatre and Performance from the University of Cape Town and her practice draws from traditional oral storytelling practices to create plays that challenge systemic discrimination in the theatre sector.

Her artistic prowess and leadership have been recognized through various special grants and commissions and supported the creation of nine original pieces, with two touring internationally.

Nwabisa is devoted to stories, people, and culture. She is an alumna of the coveted Mandela Washington Fellowship (2020/21) and recently completed her fellowship with Georgetown University’s Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics (20212023). She is also an IETM Global connector (2022) and an ISPA Global fellow (2022 and 2023 cohort) .

From 2018 to 2022, she coordinated and curated the Baxter’s Masambe Theatre, driving its relaunch as a space for performance, collaboration, mentorship, and networking. In 2023, she launched the project, 'An Artist Is Made', celebrating community and recognizing the role of social and cultural capital in the careers of first-generation artists.

Her passions lie in creating spaces that support the career development of young artists and also in providing mentorship and access to resources.

DEVIKA RANJAN

Devika Ranjan (she/her) is a writer, ethnographer, theater-maker, and educator who tells stories about migration and technology. She specializes in devised immersive performance and has facilitated workshops with refugees and migrants internationally. Devika is currently studying the performance of "data doubles" at the Performance Studies PhD at Northwestern University. As Associate Director of Albany Park Theater Project, Devika worked with immigrant and first-generation youth to create ethnographic immersive theater about community issues like family separation, labor rights, and deportation. She has taught classes about migration, performance, and cross-cultural practice at Georgetown University, the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, King's College London, Syracuse University, Northeastern Illinois University, and Illinois State University. Previously, she was an Inaugural Fellow at the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics from 20172019. As a Marshall Scholar alumna, Devika holds a distinction from the University of Cambridge for her MPhil research on the electronic tagging of asylum-seekers, and an MA in Applied Theatre from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.

HEATHER RAFFO

Heather Raffo is a multi awardwinning playwright and actress whose plays have been championed by The New Yorker as “an example of how art can remake the world”. She is the author and performer of NOURA (2018), Fallujah (PBS film, 2016), and 9 Parts of Desire (2003, PBS film 2023) which played across the U.S. and internationally for over two decades helping birth a whole new genre of Arab American Theater. An anthology of her work Heather Raffo’s Iraq Plays: The Things That Can’t Be Said (2021), brings together two decades of her contributions to shaping national and cultural conversations in the decades since 9/11. A recent Creative Capital, APAP and NPN grantee, Raffo is currently building an ambitious new theatrical platform following migration and the global economy which aims to be the first everevolving, multi-locational play.

MICHAEL ROHD

Michael is a theatre-maker, educator, process designer, writer and facilitator. His research and creative practice is focused on civic imagination. He has a 30+ year history of projects across sectors bringing cultural activity to the work of public engagement, community planning and cross-sector coalition building. In 1992 in Washington DC, Michael co-founded Hope Is Vital, an arts & public health program that, over 8 years, helped start up theatre-based public engagement/HIV prevention coalitions in over 80 communities around the US. In 1999, Michael co founded Sojourn Theatre and served as artistic director for 20 years, co-creating & directing nearly 30 devised, often sitespecific and participatory theatre works. In 2012, he co-founded the Center for Performance and Civic Practice, a collective of nine artist/facilitators who work with organizations and agencies around the country on community research, transformational process and system change. He is currently Civic Collaborations Director for One Nation One Project, a national arts/municipality/public health project & research cohort in partnership with National League of Cities and he is codesigner/ co-facilitator for Art-Train, a virtual national technical assistance program in partnership with Springboard for the Arts. He recently founded the CoLab for Civic Imagination at the University of Montana, and he is author of the book Theatre for Community, Conflict and Dialogue (Heinemann Press).

ERIKA ROSE

Regional: Here There Are Blueberries (Shakespeare Theatre Company); Tiny Beautiful Things (Baltimore Center Stage); Confederates and The Cymbeline Project (Oregon Shakespeare Festival); In Darfur (Theater J); An Octoroon, Lenny & Lou and Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play (Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company); Crying On Television, Queens Girl in Africa and The Soul Collector (Everyman Theater); Fences (Ford's Theater); Book Club Play and Pippin (Round House Theatre); The Father (Studio Theater); The Bluest Eye (Theater Alliance); Don’t Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus! The Musical!, Knuffle Bunny, OLIVERrio and Barrio Grrrl! (The Kennedy Center); Clybourne Park (Pioneer Theater Company); Looking for Roberto Clemente and Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters (Imagination Stage). Erika studied at the University of Maryland, College Park, LAMDA and Labyrinth Theater Company. Awards: Helen Hayes Award winner for Outstanding Lead Actress for In Darfur, directed by Derek Goldman and Queens Girl in Africa, directed by Paige Hernandez.

HOWARD SHALWITZ

Howard Shalwitz, Associate Director of the Center for International Theatre Development (CITD) and Artistic Director Emeritus of Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, is the 2014 winner of the prestigious Margo Jones Award for his lifetime commitment to new American plays. He co-founded Woolly Mammoth in Washington, DC in 1980, and over 38 seasons built it from a tiny alternative theatre into one of the nation's most influential producers of provocative new plays. He has directed or performed in works by American and international playwrights – at New York Theatre Workshop, Playwrights Horizons, Arena Stage, Portland Center Stage, Syracuse Stage, Milwaukee Rep, Woolly Mammoth, and other US theatres. Over the past decade, partnering with CITD, Howard has sought new models for American theatre by engaging with artists in Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and Russia, and has shared his insights with the US theatre field. He currently leads LINKAGES:Poland, a multi-year CITD project to build a new generation of connections between theatre leaders in the US and Poland. He teaches about international theatre for the University of Maryland and Theater J, and is currently working on a book about the language of theatre.

JOANNA SHERMAN

Joanna Sherman is Artistic Director of Bond Street Theatre. As director, actor and musician, she has conducted theatre projects in 60+ countries. The company collaborates with local organizations using theatre as a means to bring information to communities and promote social equity.

Ms. Sherman received an Award from the League of Professional Theatre Women, the Otto Award for Political Theatre, and Public Service Award from Cooper Union School of Fine Arts. She served as Cultural Envoy in Myanmar and India. The company received a MacArthur Award for its intercultural programming. Ms. Sherman has a BFA in Art & Architecture from Cooper Union, and an MA in Theatre & International Studies from New York University. Notable projects: Created the first all-female theatre groups in Afghanistan, collaborated with Thukhuma Khayeethe In Myanmar on human rights campaigns, provided theatre training for Rohingya and Somali refugees in Malaysia, conducted women’s rights programs in Egypt, South Sudan and South Africa, collaborated with Fragments Theatre in Jenin, Palestine, and trained social workers in Thailand in theatre for victims of trafficking.

SOPHIA SKILES

Sophia Skiles (she/her) is a New York City-based stage actor, acting teacher, facilitator, and citizen -- purposefully blurring, disrupting, and bridging the boundaries of the stage, the classroom, and the public. She recently served as Cultural Advocate and Equity Facilitator for Here Lies Love Broadway. Sophia is the Head of Acting of the Brown/Trinity MFA Programs in Acting and Directing and Associate Professor of the Practice in the Theater Arts and Performance Studies department at Brown University. She is also a twice-elected Trustee of the New Paltz Central School District Board of Education. 2016 artEquity cohort and 2021 artEquity BIPOC Leadership Circle. www.sophiaskiles.com

TUYET THI PHAM

TUYET THI PHAM is a Helen Hayes Award-winning actor living in Washington, DC. After earning her Masters, she moved to Washington, DC to become an Artistic Fellow at the famed Living Stage Theatre Company at Arena Stage. Following her fellowship, she has worked in theater, television, film, and print as an actor, director, and writer for over twenty years. She has been seen in over 40 productions in the BaltimoreWashington DC area that include roles at Centerstage, Everyman Theatre, Olney Theatre, Constellation Theatre Company, RepStage, Roundhouse Theatre, Imagination Stage, Signature Theatre, The HUB Theatre, NextStop Theatre, The Inkwell, Ford’s Theatre, The Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, Arena Stage, and The Capital Fringe Festival. She is currently an Associate Artistic Director at Everyman Theatre in Baltimore, Maryland.

JAMES THOMPSON (IN ABSENTIA)

James Thompson is Professor of Applied Theatre at the University of Manchester. He has run theatre projects internationally and has written widely on applied theatre and socially-engaged arts. His most recent books are Performance Affects (2009), Humanitarian Performance (2014) and edited with Amanda Stuart Fisher (2020) Performing Care. His new book Care Aesthetics was published in summer 2022.

BRANDICE THOMPSON

Brandice is a self-generative artist, educator, and director from the Pacific Northwest. She has been working in theater for over a decade and has studied many facets of the form, including clown, cabaret, Shakespeare, Commedia Dell'Arte, melodrama, somatic movement, and more. She previously studied Ensemble Based Physical Theater at Dell'Arte International and yoga, ritual, and art in Quito, Ecuador. While obtaining her MFA at Towson University’s interdisciplinary MFA program, she saw her first Polish theatre performance and has been fascinated with Central and Eastern European theatre ever since. She is currently the Project Manager at the Center for International Theatre Development (CITD), where she manages projects that connect US theatre artists with their counterparts in Poland, Ukraine, and Hungary.

YURY URNOV

Born in Moscow, Russia, Yury graduated from the Russian Academy of Theater Art (GITIS) in 2000. Since 2009, he has lived and worked in the United States. Currently, Yury serves as a coartistic director of the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia, where his directing credits include Twelfth Night, Minor Character, and Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play. Woolly Mammoth Theater has been Yury’s first artistic home in America. Here, Yury directed My Mama and the Full-Scale Invasion, KISS, Marie Antoinette, and You for Me for You, and is a proud company member since 2014. In 2009-2011, he was a Fulbright Scholar in Residence at Towson University, MD where he still teaches. Yury is an Associate Director of the Center for International Theater Development. With CITD, Yury participated in and co-produced multiple US-East European cultural initiatives. He also translated plays of Martin McDonagh, Sarah Ruhl, and Edward Albee into Russian, and several contemporary Russian plays into English.

SARA

ZATZ

Sara Zatz is the Associate Director of Ping Chong and Company and a member of the Artistic Leadership Team. For over 20 years, she has led the Undesirable Elements series, an ongoing series of interview-based theater productions featuring local community members telling their own stories of place, identity, and belonging. Working with partner organizations from regional theaters to community-based arts organizations, she has had the honor of collaborating with hundreds of community members to bring their stories to the stage. She has also overseen the creation of an inschool arts education program and training programs to share the methodology of Undesirable Elements with other artists and community members. Productions include Generation Rise and Generation NYZ (with Kirya Traber; New Victory), (Un)Conditional, with individuals living with chronic illness (Profile Theatre), Inside/Out: Voices from the Disability Community, and Beyond Sacred: Voices of Muslim Identity (national touring). She has spoken and presented workshops on community-engaged theater at many conferences and universities.

A Gathering is supported by Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation and the Revada Foundation