Cherry Lou Sy
Playwright

Cherry Lou Sy is a writer/performer and playwright originally from the Philippines. Her work has been developed/presented in La Mama Experiments, Rising Circle Theater Collective, The Letter of Marque, Brooklyn College, Primary Stages' ESPA, The Wild Project, The Brick, the Classical Theatre of Harlem, The Tank, Leviathan Lab, The Public Theater. MFA in Playwriting: Brooklyn College. Co-Artistic Director of Trade Co Theatre. https://newplayexchange.org/users/13410/cherry-lou-sy

Ifa Bayeza
Director

Ifa Bayeza is an award-winning theater artist and novelist.  Her critically acclaimed drama The Ballad of Emmett Till, received a Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference fellowship and premiered at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago in 2008, winning the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best Play. The Ballad made its West Coast premiere at the Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles in 2010, garnering six Ovation Awards, including Best Production; four Drama Desk Critics’ Circle Awards, including Best Production; and the Backstage Garland Award for Best Playwriting.

Acclaimed productions followed with the Houston Ensemble Theatre and the National Black Theatre Festival in 2011, Penumbra Theatre in 2014, and Ion Theatre in 2017 where it earned top honors at the San Diego Critics Circle Craig Noel Award, including Outstanding Dramatic Production.

Fueled by this success, Bayeza has expanded The Ballad into The Till Trilogy, recounting the epic Civil Rights saga now in three distinct dramas: The Ballad, telling the intimate story of the boy’s quest; That Summer in Sumner, chronicling the five-day trial of his killers; and Benevolence, charting the transformation in the Mississippi Delta in the wake of Till’s death. Penumbra Theatre’s current debut production of Benevolence has garnered outstanding reviews and Mosaic Theatre Company of DC has announced that it will mount The Till Trilogy in full, with all three plays running in repertory in the spring of 2020.

Bayeza’s other innovative works for the stage include Homer G & the Rhapsodies in The Fall of Detroit (Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award); String Theory, interweaving a quartet of stories surrounding the La Amistad slave ship; Welcome to Wandaland, A Fictional Autobiography; and the musicals Charleston Olio (Fred Ebb Musical Theatre Award finalist); Kid Zero with music by multiple Grammy-nominee Harvey Mason; and Bunk Johnson, LIVE, at The Shadows, which was commissioned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.Her innovative adaptations include Wallace Thurman’s inside view of the Harlem Renaissance, Infants of the Spring, a minimalist Antony and Cleopatra from the queen’s point of view, and Ta-zieh-Between Two Rivers, the first English-verse interpretation of the Iranian classic passion play Ta-zieh. Bayeza also co-authored with her sister Ntozake Shange, the “gorgeous” (NY Times), “magical” (Elle), “dazzling” (Essence) novel Some Sing, Some Cry, chronicling 200 years of African American music through seven generations of women. 

Bayeza’s work has been performed at New Federal Theatre in New York, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre and Crossroads Theater. A performer and lecturer, herself, Bayeza has appeared at the Getty Institute, the Chicago Historical Museum, the Mississippi Museum of Art, DuSable Museum, BRAVA Women’s Center for the Arts, the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, the National Museum of African American History and Culture at the Smithsonian, Cosmic Theater in Amsterdam, and at the Sorbonne. A graduate of Harvard University with an MFA in Directing and Dramaturgy from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, she recently was named inaugural Humanist-in-Residence at the National Endowment for the Humanities. http://gurmanagency.com/ifa-bayeza/

Mars neri
PRODUCTION stage manager

Mars Neri (they/them) is a junior Stage Management major and Gender Studies minor at Fordham University. They are also a chair for Fordham Theatre’s BIPOC Alliance, and the 2021-2022 head of the Fordham Theatre AAPI Affinity Group. Most of their work is with the Fordham Theatre program, but they’ve also done work with Signature Theatre DC, the Song Collective, and worked on the Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder Abridged fundraiser for Stop AAPI Hate. They’re devoted to doing work that brings unheard voices and untold stories to light.

johnathan dougan
deshawn jones

Johnathan Dougan is a Brooklyn born performer. After studying classical voice at LaGuardia High School, he studied BFA theatre at Brooklyn College. Out of college, he made his Broadway debut in “The Inheritance” and has starred in short films and readings. He is excited to work with Leviathan Lab to celebrate Filipino American History Month! https://www.backstage.com/tal/johnathan-dougan/

dame-jasmine hughes
chanel jones

Dame-Jasmine Hughes is a graduate of The Piney Woods School, Tougaloo College (B.A.) and California Institute of the Arts (M.F.A). Hughes garnered a 2016 IVEY Award for her role in Penumbra Theatre’s SUNSET BABY and a 2018 OBIE  for Soho Rep’s premiere of IS GOD IS. She is noted for originating some of contemporary theaters most sought-after roles including Letitia in Lynn Nottage's FLOYD’S ( renamed for Broadway  CLYDE’S), Mercedes in Katori Hall’s PUSSY VALLEY, and Racine in Harris’ IS GOD IS, and Bea in Bayeza’s benevolence.  Other theater credits include:  INTIMATE APPAREL (TTT), DOT (Park Square), HURT VILLAGE (Ubuntu Theater-Oakland),  WEDDING BAND, JITNEY (Penumbra Theatre), BRIGHT HALF LIFE (Pillsbury House), AN OCTOROON, IS GOD IS, SAFE AT HOME, ROE (Mixed Blood), BUS STOP (Rattlestick-NY), HOODOO LOVE (Mo’elelo -San Diego), FOR COLORED GIRLS (LA), GIRLS OF SUMMER (Whitmore Lindley), CAMINO REAL (Theater @Boston Court),  KING HEDLEY II and DAY OF ABSENCE (dir. James Avery), LATE BUS TO MECCA (Fran Bennett), CRACKBABY (Candrice Jones)  I’m An Actor They Don’t Get It (Tre Stages-LA), and My Barbarians:PoLAAt (REDCAT-LA and the New Museum-NY). 

She appeared in Katori Hall’s debut directorial film ARKABUTLA, The Biography Channel’s CELEBRITY GHOST STORIES, George Metaxas animated short RetroGrade, Stranded in Existence,  but is most proud of her humanitarian work in Kenya, as an Operations Crossroads Africa volunteer.  The former beauty queen is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated, creator and producer of series ANGRY BLACK B@&$%#!, Head of Narrative-Based Content Development for BLACK WITH NO CHASER, founder of THE DAME HAUS PRODUCTIONS, an MC, an educator, a scholar, a root-worker, a crystal collector,  and a single mom. www.damejasmine.com

kim jones
The dancer/customer/doctor

Kim Jones is the Artistic Director of Movement Migration, a modern dance company based in Charlotte, NC & New York City. She is an Associate Professor of Dance at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and a régisseur for the Martha Graham Resource Center. She danced with the Martha Graham Dance Company and the Metropolitan Opera Ballet and served as a principal dancer in the US National Tour of The King and I. She is well known for her work in dance reconstruction with "lost" historic modern dances, including Paul Taylor’s Tracer (1962) for the Taylor 2 Company, presented at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) & The Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) in NYC, and Martha Graham’s Imperial Gesture (1935) presented at the Knight Theater, Charlotte, NC & Joyce Theater, NYC. She is a two-time grant recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). https://movementmigration.org/

laura mercedes
vicky flores

Laura Mercedes Martínez (she/her/hers) Some of her New York credits include: The Marquis de Sade is Afraid of the Sea (INTAR) and Pride Plays (Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre) and Panic Room: An Unkindness of Ravens by Cherry Lou Sy (Leviathan Lab). She has an MFA in Acting from Columbia University. Born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

tony aidan vo
johnny khieu

Tony is a first generation Vietnamese American originally from Boulder, CO. He is a child of refugees and was raised by a single mother who owned a nail salon when he was growing up. Tony is honored to be joining this team to tell this story and to raise funds for a wonderful cause. Off B’way: The Great Leap (Atlantic Theater Company), SeaWife (Naked Angels, 2016 Drama Desk Nomination), Frontieres sans Frontieres (The Bushwick Starr) and various concerts at Joe’s Pub (The Public Theater). Select Regional: Baltimore Center Stage, Two River Theater, NY Stage & Film, The Hangar Theater, and Colorado Shakespeare Festival. Television: Teenage Bounty Hunters (Netflix), Queen Sugar (OWN), and Instinct (CBS). Follow: @tvo_this, https://tonyaidanvo.com/

jen yip
visna khieu

Jen is a New York City-based performer, director, and teacher. She wrote and performed a solo show "Iris" based on the life of the late author Iris Chang (The Rape of Nanking) which was produced at various venues including La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club. Stage credits include A Chorus Line (Connie Wong), RANT (Tamayo), and SAFE (Feliz). Acting training includes The Barrow Group, Upright Citizens Brigade, Atlantic Theater Company School, Improvolution, and Bay Area Theatersports. Stage and comedy experience includes Pan Asian Repertory Theater, Darknight Theater, and the improvisational and sketch comedy troupes Punching Hal and Friends with Deficits. Film and TV credits include We Are New York, Year of the Dragon, and Matrix II. Dance experience includes Ace Entertainment, Impulse Dance Company, The New England Patriots Cheerleaders, Samba Tropical, and the Bally's Fitness Dance Team. She has taught dance and acting at New York University and Sarah Lawrence College and is a 200 hr Registered Yoga Teacher with the Yoga Alliance. She is on the Board of Directors of, and teaches dance and yoga for the non-profit Keoni Movement Arts and lives in Brooklyn, NY. http://www.jenyip.com/