Round 2
AFO Solo Shorts
Round 1
Beaudau Karel Banks
So Tired...
BEAUDAU (Bo-day) KAREL BANKS is a Choreographer, Dancer and Production Technician born and raised in Belize, Central America. Beaudau is a Black, queer, gender non-conforming immigrant artist and Theatre Technician based in New York City that started formal dance training at the age of thirteen studying ballet and modern dance. They were accepted and graduated with a BFA in Fine Arts from the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida. They are now living in New York City freelancing with various artists while still following their love of theatre production.
Eliza BEnt
Karen, I said
ELIZA BENT is a playwright and performer whose performances are indeed, “bent”: “different from normal; strongly inclined; changed from an originally straight condition” and often feature misfits who toil in the recent past. These "bentertainments" include soloish works (Toilet Fire and Aloha, Aloha, or When I Was Queen), plays (Indeed, friend!, On a Clear Day I Can See to Elba, The Hotel Colors), adaptations (The Beyoncé, She of the Voice), and hybrid affairs (Real Talk / Kip Talk, Blue Wizard / Black Wizard, Pen Pals Meet). Bent’s shows have been developed, workshopped, and produced at the Abrons Arts Center, JACK, the New Ohio, the Atlantic, the Bushwick Starr, and New York Theatre Workshop’s Next Door Series. Residencies with MacDowell, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, SPACE on Ryder Farm, New Georges, Target Margin Institute Fellow, Casa Zia Lina, and Pilot Balloon. As an actor Bent has performed in pint-sized New York theatres, regionally in Omaha and Louisville, and toured internationally. Bent has a BA in philosophy and an MFA in playwriting from Brooklyn College. She currently is a lecturer in the Radio/TV/Film department at Northwestern University.
EllaRose Chary &
Brandon James Gwinn
NEMOD Industries Presents Dr. Blau's Seance Machine App - Surround Sound
NEMOD Industries Presents Dr. Blau's Séance Machine App: Surround Sound is an immersive, digital, theatrical experience in 4 parts. When each part ends, look for the link to get to the next part and follow any instructions.
ELLAROSE CHARY (she/hers) (Playwright) is an award-winning New York-based writer and advocate for inclusion in musical theater. She is a Dramatists Guild Fellow, NYFA Fellowship Playwriting/Screenwriting Finalist, Kleban Prize Finalist, Kernodle New Play Award Finalist, and winner of a BOH Cameronian Arts Award and the Weston Award for Musical Theater. Her musical TL;DR: THELMA LOUISE; DYKE REMIX has been developed at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center (NMTC Incubator Residency, NMTC Finalist), Rhinebeck Writers Retreat (Triple R Residency), and the UArts Polyphone Festival. She is the bookwriter for the award-winning THE DOLL MAKER’S GIFT, which opened at The Rose Theater in 2019 and THE SÉANCE MACHINE, which premiered at The Tank in 2019. Her other shows include: COTTON CANDY AND COCAINE, THE LAKE AND THE MILL, QUEER. PEOPLE. TIME., and the Malaysian musical MARRYING ME. She has been in residence at Ars Nova (Uncharted), Harvard ArtLab, Catwalk Institute, and has received an Anna Sosenko Grant and a NAMT grant. Her work has been produced, developed and commissioned by the Great Plains Theater Conference, the Drama League, The Civilians and City Center (Encores! Off-Center), Theater C, Prospect Theater, The Flea Theater, Joe’s Pub, and 54 Below. She is an activist and advocate for inclusion in musical theater both on and off stage. She has written for The Lilly Awards Blog, HowlRound, and Musical Theater Today (where she is a contributing editor). She has appeared on panels at NYMF and with Honest Accomplice Theater and co-curates Tankaret, a cabaret series for underrepresented voices.
BRANDON JAMES GWINN (Playwright) is an award-winning composer, lyricist and musician. His new album, Bullit, will debut later in 2020. His album Not Too Late is now available and was supported as part of Trixie Mattel's LiveNation North American Tour. His musicals include How to Survive the End of the World (web-musical now streaming on YouTube), Cotton Candy & Cocaine (Ars Nova Uncharted, NAMT Grant, Theatre C), Queer. People. Time. (Dramatist Guild Fellowship, CATWALK Residency), TL;DR: Thelma Louise Dyke Remix (The Tank, Polyphone at UArts, Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, Barn Arts), Matchmaker Matchmaker, I’m Willing to Settle (ART Club Oberon, New York Musical Festival 2011), and Small Town Story (World Premiere: American Theatre Group, Finalist Richard Rodgers Award, NAMT Writer’s Residency Grant, Village Originals Seattle, NYTB Commission). He created the horrifying soundscape for the world premiere of The Séance Machine (The Tank). Web Series Themes/Scores: It Takei's Two (George Takei), Tori Tries It (Tori Scott), The Anonymous Lives of John and Jane. Music director/producer: Alexis Michelle’s LoveFool ("RuPaul’s Drag Race," Broadway Records) Trixie Mattel’s Two Birds and One Stone (Billboard #1). MFA from NYU's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. Proud member of ASPAC, Grammy Voting Member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, & Dramatists Guild of America.
LISA C.M. LAMOTHE (Performer) is so happy to be reunited with Brandon James Gwinn and EllaRose Chary, after a spooky and fabulous run of The Séance Machine this fall, and is pleased to be revisiting Dr Blau. Lisa is an actress, singer and educator. She has had the pleasure of lending her vocals to original cast recordings, film scores, and parties/events. Favorite theatrical credits Off-Broadway and Regionally include: Incredibly Deaf Musical (Diva); Ragtime
(Sarah), All Shook Up (Lorraine), Walden (Effie/May), Romeo & Juliet (Balthazar). An avid supporter of new works, Lisa has also performed in: How Green Was My Valley (soloist) at the Actors Studio, Blood Puddin (ensemble) at New Dramatists,
Bloom! by Melvin Tunstall III (ensemble), The Goddess Wheel
(Persiphone/Penelope), The Restoration of Sight (Denise), and others. This summer Lisa joined an ensemble of actor/singers in Chris Wade’s 29Lives and will be seen in the upcoming webseries, as a featured soloist. Commercial work includes Loews, and Education Connection (EC Singer, recurring). BFA: Pace University, Magna Cum Laude. When not performing or directing, Lisa works as a teaching artist and facilitator, specializing in arts education, violence prevention, and Restorative Justice. Follow Lisa on Instagram @LisaLaDiva!
All thanks and Glory to God. Phil 4:13
Jasmine Eileen Coles
Tend
JASMINE EILEEN COLES is an artist who was inspired by Nina Simone “to reflect the times we live in.” One of the most urgent stories Jasmine is amplifying begins on June 9, 2020 in Fort Tryon Park in New York City, when Dominique Alexander was found mysteriously hanging from a tree. It was hastily ruled a suicide in the same month that six other black men were found hanging around the country in the same manner. Jasmine requests that people join the movement to support Dominique’s family and take action by following @declaringjusticefordomo and #justicefordomo on Instagram. For other information on Jasmine, visit jasmineeileencoles.com.
Darian Dauchan
Brobot PSA
DARIAN DAUCHAN is an award-winning actor, writer, and musician who has appeared both on Broadway (Twentieth Century starring Alec Baldwin and Anne Heche) and Off Broadway (Jean Cocteau Rep., Classical Theatre of Harlem). He is the 2016 Loop Station Vice Champion of the American Beatbox Championships, a finalist for the 2019 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship and more recently completed The Brobot Johnson Project, an Afrofuturism, Sci Fi Hip Hop transmedia piece. The web series The New Adventures of Brobot Johnson won for Outstanding Comedy Series at the 2017 LA Web Festival, Best Soundtrack at the 2017 Escape Velocity Festival sponsored by the Museum of Science Fiction, and Best Editing at the 2018 Independent Television Festival. The album Brobot Johnson: Bionic Boom Bap is now available on iTunes, and the show The Brobot Johnson Experience is a Howard Gilman Foundation Grantee and critically acclaimed New York Times Critic's Pick by Ben Brantley.
Visuals by Sadah Espii Proctor.
Toni Ann DeNoble
A Secret Cup of Gladness
TONI ANN DENOBLE is a writer and actress born and raised in Jersey City, NJ; and is now based in Los Angeles, CA. She wrote A Secret Cup of Gladness in response to the Ossie Davis quote: “I find, in being Black, a thing of beauty: a joy; a strength; a secret cup of gladness.” Credits include: Sneaky Pete (Amazon), Elementary (CBS), Shades of Blue (NBC) and Manifest (NBC). Theatre credits include: Smoke & Mirrors, New Georges, Playwrights Realm, Clubbed Thumb, LaMama, Negro Ensemble Company, National Black Theatre, Classical Theatre of Harlem, Poetic Theatre, Dutch Kills, Piehole Inc, and NYTW. VR: Tender Claws and Oculus Quest. Her solo show Eulogy for Cookie was featured at Dixon Place & The Nuyorican Poets Café, winning First Place and brought back for encore performances. Upcoming: Weird Weird Times for Google/YouTube, and A Storybook Ending - HBO Film Festival, American Black Film Festival, Woodshole Film Festival. MFA, Columbia University.
Kathryn Grody
White Hair
KATHRYN GRODY
MEMORABLE OFF BROADWAY - Fishing, Top Girls, Nasty Rumors and Final Remarks, Museum, 49 Years (with Estelle Parsons), Endgame (with Alvin Epstein), The Oak Tree, Seven Jewish Children, The Woman Who Lost Her Head, The Penetration Play, A Model Apartment, A Mom’s Life, falling apart....together
FILM - Harry and Walter Go To New York, My Bodyguard, The Lemon Sisters, Another Woman, Reds, Men With Guns, Limbo TV - "The Sunset Gang" with Uta Hagen, "Execution of Private Slovak" with Martin Sheen
Nominated for a Drama Desk Award for her three-character solo show, A Mom’s Life, Obies for The Marriage of Bette and Boo and Top Girls, all at the Public Theater. She was recently seen as Gaby in Susan Miller’s 20th Century Blues at The Signature.
Her essays have appeared in Harper's Bazaar, Mountain Record, and Oprah Magazine, and the narrative version of A Mom’s Life was published by Avon. She is on the board of Dances For A Variable Population and Downtown Women For Change, and is a Usual Suspect with NYTW.
Directed by Sybil Wigglesworth.
MAtthew Paul Olmos
to the people i hated
MATTHEW PAUL OLMOS (Playwright) is a three-time Sundance Institute Fellowship/Residency recipient, New Dramatists Resident Playwright, Center Theatre Group LA Workshop Playwright, Oregon Shakespeare Festival Black Swan Playwright, Princess Grace Awardee, selected by Taylor Mac for Cherry Lane's Mentor Project, and La MaMa's Ellen Stewart Emerging Playwright Awardee; selected by Sam Shepard. He spent two years as a Mabou Mines/SUITE Resident Artist being mentored by Ruth Maleczech; former New York Theatre Workshop Fellow, Baryshnikov Arts Center Resident, Dramatists Guild Fellow, Primary Stages Playwright, INTAR playwright; and is an Ensemble Studio Theater lifetime member, Echo Resident Playwright, and Kilroys nominator. His work is produced internationally and nationally, published by Samuel French and NoPassport, and is taught in university. Currently developing American Nationalism Project, in part through New York Theatre Workshop’s Adelphi Residency and We Walk Along the Christmas Bridge, in part through Center Theatre Group’s LA Workshop. matthewpaulolmos.com
ANNIE HENK (Performer). Off Broadway: Pinkolandia, Lucy Loves Me. NYC Theater: Triggered (The Amoralists); City of No Illusions (Talking Band); Cute Activist (New Saloon); The Rafa Play (Flea Theater); To The Bone (Cherry Lane Theatre); La Ruta (Working Theater); The Play About My Dad (Collaboration Town); Enfrascada (Clubbed Thumb); Frank Dwyer, Sadly Missed (Ensemble Studio Theatre). Regional: Ritu
Comes Home (InterAct); Pinkolandia (Two River Theater); Enfrascada (Renaissance Theaterworks); Taking Flight; The Cook (Stages Repertory Theatre). Film/TV: "Bull," "The Blacklist," "Longmire," "Red Oaks," "High Maintenance," That’s What She Said; "White." Entre Nos. Member: The Actors Center. AEA, SAG-AFTRA.
Erika Sheffer
The Descent
ERIKA SHEFFER (Playwright). Plays include Russian Transport at The New Group (Outer Critic Circle nomination), regional premiere at Steppenwolf, with subsequent productions in the US and abroad. The Fundamentals at Steppenwolf (TCG Edgerton New Play Award, featured as part of The Guggenheim’s Works in Process Series), and Vladimir, which is set to premiere at South Coast Rep in April 2021. Erika’s plays have been read and developed at Steppenwolf, The New Group, Vineyard Theatre, Geffen Playhouse, Atlantic Theater Company, and Ars Nova. She is a recipient of Vineyard Theatre’s Paula Vogel Playwriting Award and an alumna of Ars Nova Playgroup and Space on Ryder Farm’s Working Farm Group. She has held commissions from Geffen Playhouse and Steppenwolf and is published by Dramatist Play Service. BFA, Syracuse University.
PURVA BEDI (Performer). Theatre: Wives (Playwrights Horizons), India Pale Ale (Manhattan Theatre Club), Dance Nation (Playwrights Horizons, Drama Desk Award), An Ordinary Muslim (NYTW), Uncommon Sense (Tectonic, IDIOT! (HERE), Veil'd (WP), Rise of Dorothy Hale (St. Luke's). With Target Margin Theatre as Associate Artist: Reread Another, Tempest, Second Language, Ten Blocks on the Camino Real, Old Comedy, 5 Hysterical Girls Theorem. Regional: Rice Boy (Mark Taper), My Wandering Boy (South Coast Rep). Select Film: The Assistant, Gabriel’s Rapture, Sully, Equity, Kumare, Cosmopolitan, Green Card Fever, American Desi. TV: "High Maintenance," "Billions," "The Code," "She’s Gotta Have It Too," "Person of Interest," "Madam Secretary," "Nurse Jackie." Member The Actor's Center Workshop Company, Founding member, Disha Theatre. Teacher, Anthony Meindl Actors Workshop. She co-created the web series "Shrinkage," streaming on Amazon, and the play Assembled Identity (HERE), which premiered Off Broadway in spring 2018. Purva studied at Williams College, BADA, and the Public Theater Shakespeare Lab. Purva is represented by Artists & Representatives and managed by Forte Artist Management. Purva lives in New York City with her husband, two small humans and two large cats.
Casey Alexander Smith
Their Names
CASEY ALEXANDER SMITH is a New York City native. He is a full-time artist and arts educator and is grateful to the many voices and talents that supported this work. As a black man in America, he is blessed to bring creations like this to life but is plagued constantly by the voices that go unheard and the creations that will never be seen.
Emily Waters
Look Back At It
EMILY WATERS (she/they) is a Brooklyn-based theater-maker, poet and educator. Emily helped to roll out #MeToo Curriculum with Girls for Gender Equity, focusing on joy and storytelling through theater. Emily has also co-created healing justice spaces and has facilitated workshops with Harriet’s Apothecary. Emily was an Emerge Fellow '19, with Hemispheric Institute and was the headlining performer for the work in progress at Abrons Arts Center. They are also the recipient of the Peace and Social Change Fellow with Columbia University where she supervised research on the healing capacity of theater for survivors of gender based violence. In December 2019, Emily was awarded the Mount Tremper Arts Family Residency. Emily has been a collaborator and performer in works presented at The Shed and HERE Arts. She has also presented her original work at JACK, the Apollo, NYC’s Highline, In Solidarity Conference, Novo Foundation Grantmakers of Color Conference, and Judson Church. Emily is currently a Performance Project Fellow with University Settlement and was a selected writer in Billie Holiday Theater’s annual 50in50. Most recently, Emily is creating work commissioned by Black Revolutionary Theater Workshop’s Revolution Now! podcast series.
To find music and research credits for this piece check out this link:
www.canva.com/design/DAEDACUj620/u3vl1BHIUdMeFi3VZFRu7g/edit.
To read the script you can click this link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fN_Mye9PEQImajyHLugDUfVnHuPjaMMQPg7vDJHpGvs/edit?usp=sharing
and to connect with Emily you can go to their website: