13 minute read
BIOGRAPHIES
from IS GOD IS Program
by recroomarts
JESSICA T. JOHNSON (Racine) was born in Houston, TX. Jessica received her MFA in Acting from the University of Central Florida and B.A. in Theater at Texas Southern University. She has worked in regional theaters such as The Orlando Shakespeare Theater, where she has appeared in Aesop’s Fables (Goose / Grasshopper), Apologies to Lorraine Hansberry (You Too August Wilson), and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (First Fairy/ Mustardseed). At The Ensemble Theater in Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters (Messenger) and Brer Rabbit (Brer Raccoon). Main Street Theater in The Watsons Go To Birmingham 1963 (Wilona Watson). Amongst her theater career, she works as a videographer, photographer, and director. https://jessicatjohnson35.wixsite.com/mysite
COMFORT IFEOMA KATCHY (Anaia) is a playwright/actor rooted in Houston, TX and a member of the Rec Room Writers program. Acting: Lady in Orange, Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow is Enuf (AMDA NYC); April, Student Body, Frank Winters (Flea Theatre NYC); Writing: How I Learned to Play Tennis (University of Houston) You Can Tell a Tree by its Fruit (Rec Room Arts). School: University of Houston BFA Theatre, Yale MFA Playwriting (c/o 2025).
KIMBERLY HICKS (She) was born and raised in Houston, Texas. She graduated from the University of Houston with a degree in Theater. There, she had the privilege to act in Dangerous Liaisons, William Shakespeare’s Richard III, Christmas Pageant, and Now This. She worked with The Ensemble Theater in productions such as Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters, Knock Me a Kiss, By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, What I Learned in Paris, and Jimmy. She was Juror #5 at Upstage Theater in 12 Angry Women, and was a part of four seasons of Fade to Black’s playwright festivals and The Flow. She was also seen at Company Onstage as Actor 2 in Poe! Poe! Poe!, and at Obsidian Theater as Lady in Red in Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf. She was last seen as Quencella in Mildred’s Umbrella’s production of The Mother Project. Kimberly would like to thank the Director, Candice D’Meza and Assistant Director, Robert Jackson for the opportunity to tell this amazing story as well as her castmates and crew for this wonderful experience. Most of all, she would like to thank her mother and sister for their never ending love and support
BRANDON MORGAN (Chuck Hall) a Houston native, has been a professional actor for nine years. In that time he has been blessed to be involved in over 70 productions. Voted “Best Actor of 2020” and “Best Everywhere We Looked Actor of 2019” by Houston Press. Brandon has worked for many theatres in Houston: Rec Room Arts: Pass Over, The Royale; Stages Repertory Theatre: My Mañana Comes; Houston Grand Opera: Romeo & Juliet; The Alley Theatre: Skeleton Crew; Main Street Theatre: Love and Information; and Ensemble Theatre: Platanos y Collard Greens. Brandon’s only intent is to be as natural as an actor can be. @actoratwork88 #NeverNotWorking
GRANT EASON (Riley) is a (very) recent graduate from Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (Kinder HSPVA), and he’s extremely excited to participate Is God Is as his first professional production. Some of his previous credits include Dreamgirls (Jimmy Early), The Color Purple (Mister), Sweeney Todd (Anthony) and FELA! (Ensemble). When he’s not busy learning his lines, he enjoys skateboarding, making music, spending time with friends and long walks on the beach. He would like to thank his family, friends, and girlfriend for always supporting him, and he’s overwhelmingly excited to be a part of this production. He plans on attending The Juilliard School this fall to further study acting.
JACKSON SWINTON (Scotch) is making his professional debut at Rec Room Arts. Jackson will be entering his 3rd year as a theatre student at Kinder HSPVA. Past productions include: Hairspray, A Year With Frog and Toad, and Dreamgirls at Kinder HSPVA; Chicago at HITS Theatre. Jackson enjoys the theatre industry and
BIOGRAPHIES
looks forward to continuing his journey.
REYNA JANELLE (Angie) is a multi-faceted actor from Houston, TX who fell in love with the performing arts at a young age. Reyna graduated from University of Oklahoma with a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering and Drexel College of Medicine with a Master of Science in Medical Sciences with plans of becoming a physician. However, she made a career change and began to pursue acting professionally after the passing of her mother to colon cancer. Her professional acting debut was in 2019, and since then she has appeared in several commercial, film, television, and theatrical productions. Her most recent performances on stage include The Lawsons, Forbidden Places, The Contract, The Last Night of Josephine Baker, and The Storm is Here. She has begun to expand her resume by helping produce productions and hopes to begin directing soon. Outside of acting, Reyna is an educator. She enjoys being a fitness coach and trains in stunts and martial arts. She is also a trained dancer and published model. Reyna desires a lifetime career of storytelling and bringing authenticity to humanize every role she undertakes.
JUSTIN WALKER (Man) has appeared in several theater productions in the Houston area, most recently cast as Xavier in the popular play Pipeline by Dominique Morisseau. He’s also appeared in several seasons in Houston’s Fade to Black Fest most recently as the character Edgar written by Joe Lewis. When he’s not on stage he enjoys reading, playwriting, and spending time with family.
ALESHEA HARRIS (Playwright) Is God Is won the 2016 Relentless Award, an Obie Award for playwriting in 2017, the Helen Merrill Playwriting Award in 2019 and was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. What to Send Up When It Goes Down, a play-pageant-ritual response to anti-blackness, had its critically acclaimed NYC premiere in 2018 (directed by Whitney White and produced by The Movement Theatre Company), was featured in the April 2019 issue of American Theatre Magazine, and received a rare special commendation from the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. The play was subsequently remounted at Woolly Mammoth, A.R.T., BAM and Playwrights Horizons. Her newest play, On Sugarland (directed by Whitney White) premiered at New York Theatre Workshop in the spring of 2022. Awards: Windham-Campbell Literary Prize, Mimi Steinberg Playwriting Award, Hermitage Greenfield Prize, Horton Foote Playwriting Award, Arts and Letters Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Harris is a two-time MacDowell Fellow and has enjoyed residencies at the Hermitage Artist Retreat, Hedgebrook and Djerassi.
CANDICE D’MEZA (Director) is a multidisciplinary artist, actor, director, writer and experimental filmmaker whose work has been featured in numerous film festivals; press outlets: Houston Press, Houston Chronicle, Playbill, American Theatre Magazine; archived with Rice University; and published in The Acentos Review. She has received grants from the Houston Arts Alliance, Red Bull Arts and has been commissioned by DiverseWorks, Catastrophic Theatre, and the Latinx Playwrights Circle. She is currently an Artist-in-Residence with Black Spatial Relics and a BOLD Ventures Grant Awardee for the creation of theater performance. Her work centers on grief, ritual, liberation, and the Black imagination. She is an advocate, activist, and mother who believes in bringing her kids (and baby) to art working spaces with her. A big huge thank you to her son Tafari for being her production assistant. Love you. Her website is www.candicedmeza.com
ROBERT JACKSON (Asst. Director) is an actor, director, educational strategist, and producer that utilizes theater, film, television and other live media experiences to push the boundaries of storytelling. Robert is a graduate from New York University where he received a Master of Arts in Educational Leadership, Politics, and Advocacy and a BFA in Drama from New Studio on Broadway at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. He has received artist grants from Houston
BIOGRAPHIES
Arts Alliance, National Endowment for the Arts, and Mid-America Arts Alliance. His passion for activism has led him to found and lead several organizations that aim at empowering lowincome and marginalized populations. He is excited and honored to support Is God Is and wants to continue to support the arts in Houston. www.robertdjackson.com
STEFÄN AZIZI (Scenic Design/Executive Director) is the Executive Director here at Rec Room Arts. His Rec Room design credits include: Dance Nation, Pass Over, The Children, Woyzeck, The Royale, On the Exhale, Hansel and Gretel (both times), Exit Strategy, and Sender. Additional scene design credits in Houston: Putnam County Spelling Bee and Sensitive Guys at Stages. He graduated with departmental honors in Scene Design and Technical Direction from the Conservatory of Theatre Arts at Webster University. He is currently a freelance scene designer and a Project Manager for Caspian Enterprises based in Houston,TX. Recently finished The Sanctuary Lofts, a conversion of a Gothic Revival Church(built by the Tellepsen family) into a forty-five unit residential loft. @TheSanctuary_Lofts / @Stefan_Azizi
SAIDA CARTER (Costume Design) is a native Houstonian with a mosaic of interests, disciplines, passions that intermingle the spectrum of creative writing, poetry, fashion design, photography, community, women, freedom and education through the arts. A selftaught renegade drawing from various fields to create not only art but an archive of activism. She is the owner of ERA Vintage (Everyday. Repurposed. Apparel). It is her antidote to fast fashion, a nostalgic wonderland of unique and one of a kind wearable poetry pieces. Driven by reducing waste and increasing style, she also deconstructs discarded fabrics into timeless pieces, her form of public engagement. Her rai·son d’ê·tre is to create new narratives and imagine new wonderlands through fabric and play. She gets to tell her own story by bridging experimental ideas with a maximalist approach full of funk, couture, art, and street wear in the fashion show runways and editorial photography.
JANESSA HARRIS (Lighting Design) is from Houma, LA. She began her professional career as a lighting designer at McLeod Summer Playhouse in Carbondale, IL. She holds a Bachelor from Louisiana State University and a Master of Fine Arts from Southern Illinois University in theatre. Rec Room: Is God Is; Stages: Song of Me, Sunrise Coven, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill, Stages Studio Sessions (SSS) with Raven Troupe, Button’s Sleeping Beauty, SSS with Teresa Zimmerman, and SSS with Anna Maria Morris; HITS Theatre: Descendants the Musical; Main Street Theater: The Watsons go to Birmingham - 1963; The Ensemble Theatre: Motown Christmas. Lighting Designer credits include Pinkalicious the Musical, Spring Awakening the Musical, Burn the Floor: Farewell Show, Norwegian Getaway Christmas Show, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and Peter and the Starcatcher. #staylit | janessaaharris.com
SEAN RAMOS (Sound Design) Off-Broadway: SKIN, 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, While You Were Partying, Emojiland, Riddle Of The Trilobites, Only Human; Off-Off-Broadway: Macbeth, Cabaret Northeast; Regional: Theatre Workshop Of Nantucket: We Will Rock You, Meteor Shower, Plaid Tidings, London Suite, Mamma Mia, A Grand Night For Singing, Matilda, Terms Of Endearment, Grease, Miracle On 34th Street; Katonah Classic Stage: Oleanna; ArtistTree Musical Theatre Festival: I Do! I Do!; Southeast Regional: Alley Theatre: Choosing Love Stages: Sunrise Coven, 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Fatherland; Film: Vicki, WAIL Rec Room: Is God Is; Audio Drama: This American Wasteland
NICHOLAS LAM (Projection Design) is a lighting, scenic, and video designer and recent graduate of Kinder HSPVA. He will attend Northwestern University in the fall. Past designs at HSPVA include Sweeney Todd, Fences, Top Girls, Hairspray, Electra, Once on This Island, The Color Purple, Mary Poppins, and Fela. He recently assisted on Dance Nation here at
BIOGRAPHIES
Rec Room. Many thanks to his family and the company at Rec Room.
AVERY VONN KENYATTA (Fight & Intimacy Director) is a Houston based actor, Intimacy Director, and Fight Choreographer. He has a passion for actor advocacy and is extremely grateful to use his gift of storytelling in multiple ways. He is a certified Actor Combatant with the Society of American Fight Directors and has studied with Intimacy Directors and Coordinators. Avery is thrilled to be back at Rec Room working with this wonderful team! He holds a BFA from Western Michigan University and an MFA from the University of Houston’s Professional Actor Training Program.
BRANDON CHO (Technical Director) is a senior at the University of Houston pursuing his BFA in Stage Production. He is originally a sound designer but has worked in various production roles around Houston. Previous credits at Rec Room include Hurricane Diane and Dance Nation. He is glad to be working with the Rec Room and artistic staff as the Technical Director!
EMMA BACON (Production Stage Manager) is a Senior Stage Manager at the University of Houston and is happy to be back at Rec Room Arts. Recently, Emma assisted on Hurricane Diane at Rec Room. Previous credits include University of Houston’s Holy Ghosts, The Oresteia, Our Lady of 121st Street, 10 Minute Play Festival (2022), Ocean Filibuster; a touring production from A.R.T., and TEATRX’s La Vida Es Cortos festival. Emma is so grateful to her friends and her mom for their continued support, and to all those who support the arts in this time we so desperately need artistic expression.
SOPHIA WATT (Director/Associate Artistic Director) is the associate artistic director at Rec Room Arts and a freelance director in Houston, Texas. Directing credits include: Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. (Hangar Theatre/ Wedge), Jack and the Beanstalk (Hangar Theater), The Diaries of Adam and Eve (Unity Theatre), The Nest (University of Houston- Guest Artist), The Effect (MATCH), Oleanna, The Visit and Creatures of Habit (The Landing Theatre Company), Hedda Gabler (part of Rec Room’s artist residency), Three Sisters (University of Houston- Guest Artist). She has assistant directed for Theresa Rebeck at the Alley Theatre as well as James Bohnen and Bill Brown at the University of Houston. She is an alumni of Barn Arts Residency, the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab and SDCF observership class 2016-2018. Sophia is a 2019 Drama League Directing Fellow. BFA : The Hartt School. MFA: University of Houston. Sophiawatt.com
MATT HUNE (Artistic Director) is co-founder and Artistic Director of Rec Room Arts where he is dedicated to energizing a new generation of theatre artists and audiences. In Rec Room’s short history, Hune and staff have produced plays, opera, dance, and concerts. Before cofounding Rec Room, Hune developed the Living Room Series, where he converted a Montrose living room into a 22-seat black box theater. In addition to Rec Room Arts, he has been involved in the development of The Loring Theatre in Minneapolis. As a director, he has worked on world and regional premieres as well as reimagined classics. He currently was a faculty member in the acting program at Kinder HSPVA for seven years. He has also taught acting in the graduate Opera Studies program at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. He is an alumnus of The Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago, graduate candidate at Boston University, and a recipient of the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts award for Theatre. He is a member of SDC (Stage Directors and Choreographers Society).
REC ROOM WRITERSGROUP
a professional long-term writers group for Houston playwrights to develop and workshop new plays.
The Rec Room Writers Group provides essential support to emerging writers including; space, time, mentorship, and community in order to foster the future of American theatre. Meeting bi-weekly for 8 to 9 months, the playwrights gather at Rec Room, reading and offering critical and supportive responses to each other’s work. The group culminates in a collection of public readings.
Writers are selected yearly, and after the first year of residency members have continued access to advocacy and resources for the creation of new work in Houston and beyond.
Rec Room Writers Group has directly nurtured Texas playwrights by facilitating multiple commissions, productions, prestigious fellowships, and grants.
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FALL|Starts October 20
-Chicago Tribune
PUT YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER
written by
Ike Holter
directed by
Matt Hune
A romantic-comedy/horror/thriller about a first date that spirals into a race against an invading force. This Houston premiere from playwright Ike Holter (Exit Strategy, Sender) explores new beginnings at the end of the world.
