CAST

Madeleine Tran

Min Li, Old Woman

Madeleine is a Vietnamese-American soprano, actor, fight choreographer, and occasional street and festival performer. She was born in Tacoma, WA but studied classical voice at the University of Portland under Dr. Nicole Hanig. Madeleine studies and teaches stage combat under the mentorship of Kristen Mun. She has performed locally with many companies, including Artist’s Repertory Theater, Third Rail Repertory, Portland Center Stage, Shaking The Tree, Portland Opera, Mock’s Crest Productions, and Renegade Opera.

Jeremy Abe

Ba, Vendor, A-Gong

This is Jeremy’s first production with OCt and he is so thrilled to be a part of this cast! Previously seen in A Feminine Ending (Twilight Theater), Jesus Christ Superstar (Stumptown Stages), and Marat/Sade (Twilight Theater).

Terry Kitagawa Ensemble

Terry (he/him) is a PNW based actor, director, and musician. He is excited to be performing with OCT and with the Where the Mountain Meets the Moon team. Credits include: Ring of Fire, Stumptown Stages; Baseball Saved Us, 5th Ave Adventure Musical Theatre; Cambodian Rock Band, Oregon Shakespeare Festival; We Are Not Free, audiobook. Thank you to all my loved ones! IG: @the_terrence terrykitagawa.com

Beatriz Abella

Ma, Vendor, Amah

Beatriz is a first-generation FilipinoAmerican that was born and raised in Alaska. She studied Music and Business Administration at Southern Oregon University and performed classical and musical theatre repertoire in San Francisco, Seattle, Germany, Mexico, the Czech Republic, and at a variety of venues including the Oregon Cabaret Theatre and New York City’s Carnegie Hall. An avid performer and recipient of multiple musical and theatrical awards, Beatriz recently made her film debut in 945 Productions’ internationally recognized film Buried, and continues to prioritize diversity and inclusivity with her artistic pursuits.

Samson Syharath

Dragon

Samson Syharath is a LaotianAmerican producer, actor, director, writer, and educator based in Portland, Oregon. After attending B.A. from the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith and the Portland Actors Conservatory, he was part of TCG’s Rising Leaders of Color Cohort in 2017 featured by American Theatre Magazine and was the recipient of the Portland Civic Theatre Guild’s Leslie O. Fulton Fellowship that same year. He is the Board President of the Portland Area Theatre Alliance (PATA) Board, Associate Producer of MediaRites, and Managing Artistic Director of Theatre Diaspora.

Jenna Yokoyama Ensemble

This is Jenna Yokoyama’s second time working with Oregon Children’s Theater and is very honored to be back. Her recent credits include T he Journal of Ben Uchida: Citizen 13599 as Naomi with OCT and Bag&Baggage’s production of Troy: USA as Yuri Kochiyama for the 2021 Fertile Ground Festival.

Jason Nuesa Understudy

Jason is over the moon to be making his OCT Mainstage debut! Some favorite past credits include Pestilence:Wow! With OCT Young Professionals (Craig), Newsies at Broadway Rose Theatre Company (Davey), The Jungle Book with Northwest Children’s Theatre (Vik), as well as Mamma Mia! and Mary Poppins with Southridge Highschool. A second year Young Professional with OCT, junior in highschool, and proud Filipino-American, they’d like to send massive thanks to Dani Baldwin, Linda Quinn, Karen Hill, and the whole Where the Mountain Meets the Moon team. Enjoy! <3

Kaitlyn O’Neill

Understudy

Kaitlyn is thrilled to be joining the cast of Oregon Children’s Theatre’s Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. She is currently a junior at Oregon Episcopal School and has taken summer courses with OCT. Kaitlyn is an accomplished singer, dancer, actor, poet, and pianist. This past season she performed with Portland Opera in Carmen and played Little Red Riding Hood in her school’s performance of Into the Woods . Last summer she attended Carnegie Mellon University’s pre-college drama program and will attend the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and American Musical & Dramatic Academy pre-college drama programs this summer.

Lulu Kashiwabara Ensemble

Lulu is thrilled to be participating in Where The Mountain Meets the Moon! After being in OCT’s Diary Of A Worm, A Spider, And A Fly in 2019, she’s excited to return to the Newmark stage. Previously, you may have seen her in A Christmas Carol at Portland Playhouse or Matilda at Northwest Children’s Theater. When not in a show, she enjoys creative writing, Taekwondo, and watching cartoons. Lulu would like to thank her family and friends for always uplifting her. Also, she thanks the cast and crew, for being amazing to work with, collaborative, and kind. She hopes you enjoy the show!

Dmae Lo Roberts | Director

Dmae is a two-time Peabody award-winning TaiwaneseAmerican writer, director, theatre and media artist. Locally she has won two Drammy awards and the Oregon Book Award. Her plays have been produced at IFCC, Artists Rep, Portland Repertory Theatre, Northwest Asian American Theatre in Seattle and East/West Players in LA. Her recent short films have won over a dozen film festivals world-wide. With Samson Syharath, she co-founded Theatre Diaspora, Oregon’s first and only AAPI theatre, as a project of MediaRites, a nonprofit multicultural production organization, where she is the executive producer. Roberts previously directed The Journal of Ben Uchida at OCT.

Addison DeSantis | Music Director

Addison grew up in Northern California and earned his BA in Music Composition from California State University, Chico in 2012. There he served as Music Director for The Blue Room Theater Young Company from 2016 to 2019. Since relocating to Portland in 2020, Addison has been enamored by the local theater community. He made his MD debut with the Chapel Theater, and feels extremely grateful to be a part of the team at Oregon Children’s Theater.

Willow Zheng | Art Director & Cultural Consultant

Minh Tran | Choreographer

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Willow Zheng is a professional artist specializing in Chinese traditional paintings. She did art works for the short film, Meimei, produced and directed by Dmae Roberts. She is a painting instructor with the NW China Council (since 1999), the Portland Culture and Art Center (2001-2003). She holds a BFA in figure painting and an MFA in Chinese painting from Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts in Xi’an, China. Gallery showings include Portland Art Museum Rental & Sales Gallery (2001- 2009); Cook Gallery, Port Or Ford, Oregon (Since1990); and Solo Painting Exhibition (January 2001). Awards include Regional Art & Culture Council 2002 City of Portland Public Art Commission for the painting: “Lan Su Classical Chinese Garden, Portland, Oregon; No. III, 4th Annual Gresham Juried Art Exhibit (2002); Best of Show, 19th Annual Beaverton Art Showcase (2001); Best of Show, 18th Annual Beaverton Art Showcase (1999)

John Kashiwabara | Set Design

John Kashiwabara is a co-founder of the art and architecture company rhiza A+D. rhiza designs architecture and makes public art, furniture, lighting, and temporary installations. Notable local works are the “Knotted Gateway Series” along the Eastbank Esplanade and the Timberline Lodge Winter Entrance. In addition to John’s work with OCT (2019’s The Legend of Rock Paper Scissors; 2020’s The Journal of Ben Uchida: Citizen 13559), he has worked to design theatrical sets for Shaking the Tree Theater, Performance Works Northwest, PICA’s TBA Festival, and Ten Tiny Dances. John is also a poet and strives to make spaces that tell stories.

Sumi Wu | Costume Design

Sumi is a sculptor and designer whose works include large-scale public installations in metal and glass. She creates properties and costumes for dance and theatre, and has designed original and experimental works with Imago Theatre. She designs and builds kinetic sculptural sets for dance and opera, including Skinner|Kirk Dance Ensemble and Portland State University’s world-renowned opera program. She is resident properties designer for Oregon Ballet Theatre. She performed as Lily Uchida in OCT’s 2020 production of The Journal of Ben Uchida and is delighted to be working with OCT once again.

Jeff Forbes | Lighting Design

Jeff is a Portland based lighting designer working primarily in theatre and dance. He is a 10-time winner of the Willie and Drammy Awards for theatre for such companies as Artists Repertory Theatre, Broadway Rose, Imago Theatre, the Musical Theatre Company, Storefront Theatre, and Tygres Heart Shakespeare Co. He has also designed for American Repertory Theatre (Cambridge, Mass), the New Rose Theatre, Portland Repertory Theatre, Portland Center Stage, Portland Actors Conservatory, and many others. He tours nationally and internationally with Imago Theatre, NorthWest Dance Project, the Deborah Hay Dance Company, ate9 dANCE cOMPANY, and Antony and the Johnsons. His work in Dance and Performance includes frequent collaborations with choreographers such as Linda Austin, Tahni Holt, Linda K Johnson, Josie Moseley, Mary Oslund, Sally Silvers, and Cydney Wilkes, as well as ten years as resident designer for the Boris and Natasha Dancers. For the NorthWest Dance Project, he has worked with choreographers such as Danielle Agami, James Canfield, Lucas Crandall, Andrea Miller, Benoit-Swan Pouffer, Ihsan Rustem, Didy Veldman, and Patrick Delcroix. He is currently the Technical Director for White Bird Dance, a presenting organization based in Portland, and has served as a technical director for PICA’s TBA Festival since its beginning in 2003. He is a co-founder, with Linda Austin, of Performance Works NorthWest, for which he also serves as technical director.

Lawrence Siulagi | Sound & Projections Designer

Lawrence is a performer, director, playwright, sound designer, projection designer and music composer from San Diego where he pursued a Bachelors degree in the Dramatic Arts (directing emphasis) at San Diego State University; and film editing and marketing at the University of Southern California. He is excited to return to OCT after designing sound for their production of The Journal of Ben Uchida. He is a resident artist at Bag&Baggage where he performed in productions of Deathtrap (as Sidney Bruhl) and Romeo & Juliet/Layla & Majnun (as The Sayyid); and directed Troy, USA last season. Other notable plays he directed include ¡Viva La Muerte! and Duende de Lorca at Milagro Theatre, where he is a resident artist. He is currently directing The Play You Want at Milagro Theatre.

Victoria Alvarez-Chacon | Props Designer

Victoria (she/her) is a theatre artist who’s worked on and around the stage for two decades. Attended college in California and acting apprenticeship in Louisville, KY, before moving to Chicago. During Her four years in the Windy City, Victoria worked for Halcyon, Jackalope, Red Theater and Chicago Danz. Her decision to relocate to Portland to work with Oregon Adventure Theatre has been a life changing one. Most recently working with Artist Repertory Theatre on the world premiere of American Fast, she is thrilled to be back so soon!

Amanda Vander Hyde | Stage Manager

Amanda Anderson (Vander Hyde) graduated from Western Oregon University in 2018 with a B.F.A in Technical Production. Since then, she has worked as a freelance Stage and Production Manager at almost every theater space in Portland. Currently, she is the Production Manager of MediaRites Productions, one of the Stage Managers in rep at Oregon Children’s Theatre, and on the Stage Management team at Portland Center Stage. She is excited to return to Oregon Children’s Theatre after having worked on Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Journal of Ben Uchida. She is also an Intimacy Choreographer in the area, working in various artistic spaces to promote staged intimacy as ethical, efficient, and effective. In her ample spare time, she is also a friend, a wife, and a cat mom.

Alea Tran | Assistant Stage Manager

Alea Tran (they/them) is a multi-hyphenate theatre artist whose interests lie in creating art that provides space and support for minority voices. In addition to freelancing in a variety of backstage roles, they are a grateful member of the PATHWAYS mentorship program through Artists Repertory and work box office and front of house at Third Rail Repertory Theatre. Recent productions include American Fast (production manager, Artists Repertory); Chicken & Biscuits (asst. stage manager, Portland Playhouse); The Hombres (props assistant, Artists Repertory); and the workshops for the upcoming production, The Sounds of the Afrolitical Movement (stage management) at Portland Playhouse.