2023–2024 BIPOC Leadership Circle Cohort
Carlton V. Bell II
(they/them)
Carlton V. Bell II is a southern-based cultural-movement worker utilizing theatre and film as a medium to facilitate liberation strategies within social ecosystems. Investigating, fabulating, and documenting the Black experience and aesthetic as a director, producer, and artistic facilitator on both stage and screen. Named one of Alabama’s Entertainers of The Year in 2019, as well as premiering in the CNN Docu-Series “Blind Angels”. Primarily operating as an ARTIVIST in their local community as Director of Development and co-founder of Birmingham Black Repertory Theatre Collective. Making acclaim as the recent winner of the 2023 Black Lens Filmmaker Award (Sidewalk Film Festival), 2023 Cauthen Fellowship (Alabama Folk Life Association), 2023 Sara Spencer Award for Child Drama (Southeastern Theatre Conference), 2023 Barbara Whitman Award Finalist (Stage Directors & Choreographers Society), and Artist Disruptor Award (The Center for Cultural Power).
CJ also serves full-time as the Program Associate for the Sex Worker Giving Circle at Third Wave Fund of which they are a former fellow & advisor to its annual grant-making cohort. Other organizational affiliations include: LGBTQIA+ in Theatre (Committee Chair) Southeastern Theatre Conference, City of Birmingham LGBTQ Advisory Council, DEI Committee (Vice-Chair) Alabama Council of Theatre, National Black Theatre Day Planning Committee, and the Sex Worker Liberation Project Cohort with Black & Pink Network.
Marisa Carr
(she/her)
Marisa Carr is a theater artist and non-profit leader from Milwaukee, now living in Chicago after a decade in the Twin Cities. As a playwright, she is currently under commission by theaters including Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Baltimore Center Stage, and her work has been presented and/or produced by institutions including: Milwaukee Rep, The Guthrie, Pillsbury House + Theater, the Playwrights’ Center, Montana Repertory Theater, Intermedia Arts, and University of Iowa MFA Program. Selected recent awards and honors include: Kilroys Net (2023), Victory Gardens Playwrights Ensemble (2021–2024), Oregon Shakespeare Festival Native Writers Collaborative (2021), Montana Repertory Theater Warren Miller Commission (2021), Goodman Playwrights Unit (2020–2021), Scratchpad at the Playwrights’ Realm (2019–2020), P73 Finalist (2019–2020), American Blues Theater Blue Ink Award Finalist (2020), Bay Area Playwrights’ Festival Finalist (2019), McKnight Fellowship in Playwriting Finalist (2019), Jerome Artist Fellowship Finalist (2019), Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep (2018), Forward Flux Three New American Plays Commission (2018), Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant (2017), Playwrights’ Center Many Voices Fellowship (2016–2017), Pillsbury House + Theater Naked Stages Fellowship (2015), and “Best New Political Playwright” (Lavender Magazine, 2014). As a composer, singer, actor, and director, she has worked with arts institutions throughout the upper Midwest.
In addition to her work as an artist, Marisa is a seasoned non-profit leader. She served as the co-founding Artistic Director of the Turtle Theater Collective, a Twin Cities-based company committed to producing high-quality, contemporary work that explores Native experiences and subverts expectations about how and when Native artists can create theater, and also served as General Manager at Chicago’s Albany Park Theater Project. She currently serves as the Operations and Finance Director at a national voting rights organization while simultaneously pursuing her work as an artist, and she received her Masters of Public Affairs with an emphasis on nonprofit leadership from University of Missouri in 2022.
Ching-In Chen
(they/them)
Ching-In Chen is author of The Heart’s Traffic, recombinant (2018 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry), to make black paper sing, and Kundiman for Kin :: Information Retrieval for Monsters (Leslie Scalapino Finalist). Chen is co-editor of The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities, a Massage Parlor Outreach Project core member, a Kelsey Street Press collective member, and an Airlie Press editor. They are the Nonfiction Coordinator for Best of the Net Anthology and a Governing Council member for Seattle’s Cultural Space Agency. They are part of Kundiman, Lambda, Watering Hole, Macondo, and Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundations (VONA) communities. They teach in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences and the MFA program in Creative Writing and Poetics at University of Washington Bothell and serve as Writer in Residence at Hugo House. They received the Judith A. Markowitz Award for Exceptional New LGBTQ Writers.
Liyen Chong
Liyen Chong is an artist, arts administrator, and community organizer. Born in the global South and currently living in Houston, TX, her work reflects her values of cultivating authentic and supportive relationships towards social justice and systems change. She is committed to building power for communities of color and historically marginalized identities in the arts.
In 2020 she co-founded Arts Accountability Houston alongside local artists to ensure all artists had a voice in equitable and robust public arts funding. She is currently involved in city, county, state, and federal discussions on arts funding. Chong initially established herself as an artist in Aotearoa me Te Waipounamu, New Zealand, winning local and international grants and residencies. Her artistic works can be found in prominent public collections in Australia and New Zealand. Her work was also recently acquired by the City of Houston Airport Collection.
Jamelyn Ebelacker
Santa Clara Pueblo artist, Jamelyn Ebelacker, was born into a generational family of Indigenous creatives. An award-winning traditional Pueblo potter and international digital designer, Jamelyn has been dreaming up art in various mediums since 1991. She received her BFA in New Media Arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2015. After graduating, Jamelyn served as a Peace Corps Volunteer on the islands of Dominica and Saint Lucia from 2017–2020, where she was nominated for the prestigious Franklin H. Williams award, which honors Returned Peace Corps Volunteers who exemplify an ongoing commitment to community service.
In 2020, she was honored with the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts “Artists Helping Artists!” Fellowship for her work assisting Indigenous elders establish online storefronts in order to continue creating and subsisting off their artwork during the global pandemic. She is a co-founder of RPCV’s March, a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer advocacy group, and Ebelacker Family Pottery, and is a member of the Creative & Independent Producer Alliance (CIPA). Jamelyn is currently working with community arts and theatre company DNAWORKS to produce Fort Worth Lynching Tour: Honoring the Memory of Mr. Fred Rouse, an ongoing racial justice project in Texas. Jamelyn is also a producer for Live in America, an international cultural performing arts festival premiering in 2021 in conjunction with Fusebox Festival and The Momentary / Crystal Bridges. www.ebelackerfamilypottery.com
Amber Espinosa-Jones
Amber Espinosa-Jones is a creative producer and DEI strategist from Oakland, CA. She is a 2022 Documentary New Leader and currently producing the feature film Standing Above The Clouds following Native-Hawaiian mother/daughter activists executive produced by Multitude Films. Amber currently serves as Senior Manager of Artist + Audience Impact at Sundance Institute, overseeing strategy and granting programs for marginalized artists and audiences. With a diverse arts background in theatre and film, Amber is a graduate of the University of Southern California’s Dramatic Arts and Media Arts + Practice programs with an interest in art for social change and collaborative community building.
Bertrand Evans-Taylor
(he/him)
Bertrand Evans-Taylor brings over 10 years of experience as an arts advocate, arts administrator, and event producer, and a lifetime as a pianist. He currently serves as the manager at the Performing Arts Alliance. He is also the founder of Ujima Cultural Solutions, an arts-based social enterprise committed to elevating Black and Brown artists, their work, and their voices as valuable community contributors through strategic event production, professional development, and community-engaged practices. He graduated from the University of Denver with a master’s in Arts and Culture Management with an emphasis in Outreach and Advocacy. While at the University of Denver, Bertrand was awarded the “Keeper of the Flame” Award and “Graduate Community Organizer of the Year” for his work on campus and in the wider community. His graduate research centered around the professional development needs of Black artists.
Estefanía Fadul
(she/her)
Estefanía Fadul is a Colombian-American theatre director and creative producer, and one of the co-Artistic Directors of Ensemble Studio Theatre in NYC. Recent projects include the world premieres of Eva Luna by Caridad Svich (Repertorio Español), The Garbologists by Lindsay Joelle (Philadelphia Theater Company), and Carla’s Quince created with The Voting Project (Drama League Award nomination). She has developed new work off-Broadway and regionally at the Public Theater, Playwrights’ Realm, NYTW, Chautauqua, Audible, Juilliard, and more, and is the inaugural recipient of New York Stage and Film’s Pfaelzer Award. She serves on the Drama League’s Board of Directors, the leadership circle of the Center for Performance and Civic Practice, and the Latinx Theatre Commons advisory committee. She is a member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab and SDC.
Jacqueline Flores
(she/her/ella)
Jacqueline Flores is a producer, theatremaker, and arts advocate. She is currently the Producer for the Latinx Theatre Commons and serves on the Steering Committee for the National Latinx Theater Initiative. Jacqueline spent two years at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, where she produced the theatre’s special events and led the Company Pool Fund, an internal initiative that provides grants to its company of artists. She has also worked at The Public Theater, in the Mobile Unit and Public Forum programs, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Ballet Austin, and Americans for the Arts. Jacqueline was selected as a member of Theatre Producers of Color inaugural cohort and is a two-time recipient of the National New Play Network’s Producer in Residence grant. She is passionate about theatre and the ways in which performance can be used as a means for social change. Jacqueline is a proud Texan and first-generation American, born to parents who emigrated from Honduras and Mexico. She holds a BA in Theater Arts from St. Edward’s University.
Emily Goes
(she/they)
Emily Anne Goes, born and raised in East Side San Jose, is a Filipino New York-based performer and pathfinder. She currently co-conspires with The CRAFT Institute as the Director of Marketing and Communications and supports the marketing of CreateEnsemble.com and #BlackTheatreDay. Emily is also a member of Kinding Sindaw, preserving Filipino indigenous traditions, reflecting on the resilience and resistance of the Moro people against centuries of colonization and erasure. Previously, she proudly served as the Operations Manager for Broadway Advocacy Coalition and now works as a consultant for their annual Arts in Action Festival. Emily attended New York University Tisch School of the Arts and completed her BFA in Drama in 2020. Gratefully standing on the shoulders of those before her, Emily sees and feels her family with each breath.
Blanca Herrada
(she/they)
Blanca Herrada is a queer, Mexican American artist living and working in Lawrence, Kansas. Blanca enjoys working within the intersections of art and activism, and is passionate about their community. In 2022, Blanca was chosen as one of 52 Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) arts and culture leaders selected for the inaugural National Leaders of Color Fellowship. Blanca enjoys working with diverse communities to spread her love for the arts and strives to make art spaces more accessible and welcoming to everyone.
Marissa Herrera
(she/her/ella)
Marissa Herrera is a 3rd generation Chicana and Indigenous woman, and Los Angeles native, who strives to use her creative work to empower individuals to share their stories and foster the next generation of creative visionaries connected by love, creativity, and authentic representation.
Marissa rose to the call to be the change she wanted to see in the entertainment industry and as a leader in Arts Education to include more diverse leadership and create even greater impact. She also launched her own production company, De Mi Alma Productions, and 4C LAB 501(c)3. 4C LAB is an arts organization based in Los Angeles that provides NO COST arts immersion programming for teens and young adults led by professional teaching artists and centered around the four Cs: CREATE, COMMUNICATE, COLLABORATE, and COMMUNITY.
As a visionary and leader in the arts and community, Marissa strives to create work that connects us all.
Eugene Hutchins
(he/him)
Eugene is honored to be the Managing Director of East West Players, the nation’s longest-running Asian American theatre and one of the largest producers of Asian American theatrical works in the country. Previously, Eugene served in arts management positions with Theatre West, Los Angeles Master Chorale, MUSE/IQUE, and Chautauqua Opera (NY), in addition to working as a professional director, choreographer, stage manager, and producer for a variety of professional regional opera houses. These include Syracuse Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Opera North, Opera in the Heights, and Opera San Luis Obispo, to name a few. Eugene is proud to have led the grassroots effort to erect a public art monument to O. Oliver Goodall in Altadena, CA. BA in Dance from UCLA and MM in Opera Production from Florida State University.
Jasiah Jackson
(she/her)
My journey of activism began at the age of 16, then I was organizing protests and meeting with like minded teens to advocate for a better community than the one I grew up in. Navigating adulthood through a pandemic while witnessing an era where a mirror was finally being put in front of the country to make its privileged realize the nation we live in is not the land of the free, pushed my drive even more. With that I rejoined my team here at the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center and got to work. During my first year, I’ve attended city council meetings, advocated for GenZ to vote, and have helped plan programs here. Moving forward, I only see growth for myself and my community, and I hope to further educate myself all the while creating a better future and safe space for future generations and BIPOC.
Naomi Kawamura
(she/her)
Naomi Ostwald Kawamura serves as the Executive Director of Densho, a Seattle-based nonprofit organization and digital archive focused on documenting, preserving, and educating the public on the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII. Previously, she served as the Executive Director of the Nikkei Place Foundation and the Director of Education at the San Diego History Center. In 2021, she was elected the first President of Asian ancestry of the Museum Education Roundtable, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit which publishes the peer-reviewed Journal of Museum Education. Naomi holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Washington, a master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and will be defending her dissertation towards a PhD in Education from the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on cultural memory practices in culturally specific museums. The daughter of a Hiroshima survivor, Naomi was born and raised in San Diego, California.
Hillary Kempenich
(she/her/kwe/ikwe)
Turtle Mountain Anishinaabe Artist Hillary Kempenich is a Creative Micropreneur at Zazegaa Designs, where she showcases her multi-disciplinary artistic talents and cultural values. Hillary has a BA in Visual Arts from the University of North Dakota and is currently studying Museology/Museum Studies at Harvard Extension School.
Hillary’s work is inspired by her community, empowering Indigenous people and addressing social justice issues. She embraces various influences, genres, and mediums, from dressmaking and beadwork to painting and public art. She has received multiple awards and recognition for her work. She has also published her work in books and magazines, and exhibited her work in public spaces, private collections, museums, and galleries. In addition, Hillary is an artist consultant, providing guidance and training to other artists. Hillary’s mission is to sustain her small business and continue her community work, while exploring new forms of artistic expression and cultural preservation.
Clara Kent
(she/her)
Clara Kent is an Afro-Indigenous multidisciplinary artist, entrepreneur, and community liaison from Homewood, PA. Whether the medium is music, canvas, or creative direction, Kent uplifts the creative community, especially for Black artists and youth. The self-proclaimed “Multidimensional Artistic Individual” was named Pittsburgh City Paper’s “Person of the Year” for Music in 2019 and has performed across many stages, opening for Wyclef Jean at SXSW, Cautious Clay at WYEP Summerfest, for Thundercat at Stage AE, Nnamdi, Oshun, Jon Wayne, & OHMME. Clara also embarked on a summer mini-tour in 2019 with London-based music events company Sofar Sounds, becoming one of their cohort performance artists.
Today, Clara Kent is adamantly working on her personal growth and career path while continuously campaigning for other Black and Indigenous creatives in the city. In 2022, she began hosting a radio show on WYEP called “More Bounce with Clara Kent,” managing the Alt-Funk band Mani Bahia & The Mob, working as an Program Specialist with Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, and also launched her production company, Bounce House Studios & Productions LLC—a Black women-led organization whose purpose is to “Elevate the Underground”™️ in Pittsburgh and beyond. One of the first music projects set to release is “The Four Winds,” a music collection from 2016 to the current day that will be used to garner donations for Black and Indigenous organizations that directly impact the local community. Part One of the series, “The Four Winds: EAST,” was recently released on Juneteenth and was named “Best of Soul” by Bandcamp Daily.
Amiyah King
(she/her)
Amiyah is a proud Buffalo native and wellness practitioner. She is an alumna of Howard University, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism, Communications, Film and Political Science. Amiyah holds a master’s in Public Administration from Buffalo State University, which she obtained right before serving as the 2022 Miss Buffalo, byway of the Miss America Organization. She is deeply rooted in values relating to culture, spirituality, and restoration. Amiyah is an informed traveler and researcher. She has studied themes of mindfulness, cultural competence, trauma-informed care, and community restoration in her academic career and volunteerism. She believes in the transformative powers of land healing and addressing past traumas for future success. Amiyah incorporated these values in her work and business as the former Director of Operations for the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center and the Founder and Executive Director of The OYÉ ASÉ Culture Group.
Melike Konur
(she/her)
Melike Konur (she/her/hers) is a passionate artist and arts advocate who considers both Leesburg, Virginia, and Istanbul, Turkey, as her home. She holds a BA in Dance from Point Park University, which paved the way for her ten-year career as a self-managed and producing artist on international performing arts stages. Currently, Melike serves as a Parent Artist in Residence at BAX. Her personal artistic practice encompasses the conscious liberation of the soul and celebrates the transcendent beauty of the multiracial Black experience through visual poetry.
As a multidisciplinary musical and movement-based artist, Melike possesses a captivating ethereal spirit that she infuses into her creations and relationships. With experience in both the commercial and nonprofit arts sectors, she shines brightest as a vocalist and host in the realms of burlesque and off-Broadway theater. Melike’s skills in administration, leadership, and advocacy have brought her to the vibrant city of New York, where she earned her MA in Arts Management from The New School with honors. She has immersed herself in the lively performing arts scene through collaborations with renowned organizations such as A.I.M by Kyle Abraham and Pentacle, which ultimately led her to join the Dance/NYC team.
Emerging as a force in the industry, Melike is determined to shape the future of the performing arts world for generations to come. She hopes that her multidimensionality will prove to be an asset in dismantling colonial systems and ushering in collective remembrance and the ritual of art as a powerful galvanizing force and catalyst for positive social change.
Marleah Makpiaq LaBelle
(she/her)
Marleah Makpiaq LaBelle is Sugpiaq/Iñupiaq/Filipina and is a Tribal member of the Native Village of Port Graham. Makpiaq is a writer who spent most of her career working in Tribal health and a small business owner navigating federal and private contracting. She has a master’s degree from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and a bachelor’s degree from Alaska Pacific University. She has experience working with Tribes across the country through art and has some involvement in Alaska Native theater.
Sharrell D. Luckett
(she/her)
Sharrell D. Luckett, PhD, is Editor-in-Chief of Southern Theatre magazine with the Southeastern Theatre Conference (SETC) and Executive Director of the Black Acting Methods Studio. Celebrated by PBS as one of America’s most influential leaders in theatre performance and training, she was also honored by Black Masks magazine as one of 25 Black Theatre Game Changers in the field. Sharrell recently served on the Independent Equity Committee at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London. In addition to her leadership roles in the arts, Sharrell has authored/co-authored five books and given talks at over 60 institutions. She has been a Fellow at renowned entities, such as the Lincoln Center, Harvard University, and 92Y. Sharrell is also Director of the Helen Weinberger Center for Drama & Playwriting and Charles P. Taft Distinguished Professor of Drama and Performance Studies at the University of Cincinnati. @sdluckett
Samantha Alexis Manuel
(she/her/siya)
Samantha Alexis Manuel is a Queer, Filipinx, First-Gen student, and recent UCLA graduate with a degree in Communications, Art History, and Digital Humanities. As a cultural worker, arts administrator, and budding curator, she desires to forge connections between the arts, technology, equity, and advocacy. Her capstone project, a VR exhibition called In Discrete Fashion: Garment Workers of LA was chosen and presented at UCLA Undergraduate Research Week 2023. She has held exhibition/archival/admin positions at LACMA, LACE, CSPG, 11:11 Projects, and the Getty where she coordinated and planned the launch of Our Voices, Our Getty: Reflecting on Drawings, the first exhibition that featured personal interpretations written by the 2022 cohort of interns. She is currently the Executive Assistant at Arts for LA and an Arts Associate at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, under the City of Los Angeles’ Department of Cultural Affairs Community Arts Division.
Andi Meyer
(she/her)
Andi Meyer (she/her) (AEA) Based in Osage/Kikapoo/Kansa/Sioux/Otoe Missourria ancestral territory (Kansas City), Andi is an award-winning Kanaka Maoli / Asian American theatre maker/activist, arts educator, and parent. She is the Producing Artistic Director of Tradewind Arts, a boutique arts organization devoted to illuminating, motivating, and amplifying the voices of Native Hawaiian, Oceanic, and Asian American artists. Andi was a 2017–2018 Charlotte Street Foundation (CSF) Studio Resident. Her work has been recognized with support from ArtsKC, TCG, Asian Arts Initiative, The Kauffman Foundation, Charlotte Street Foundation, JOCO libraries, InterUrban ArtHouse, and the Dramatists Guild Fund, as well as two NEA award-winning projects in partnership with The Coterie Theatre including Hana’s Suitcase and Justice at War. Andi has appeared in productions at The Unicorn Theatre, The New Theatre, The Coterie, The Kansas City Rep, and Disney’s Spirit of Aloha, with voice and on-camera clients including Hallmark, H&R Block, Sprint, and McDonald’s.
Sam Morreale
(they/them)
Sam Morreale (they/them) is currently the Associate Producer at Soho Rep. With facilitation at the core of their practice, Sam is nurturing their craft in rehearsal rooms as a dramaturg, director, and culture shaper constantly seeking to break down dissonance between artist and institution. They’ve had a blossoming career as a creative producer working with many companies including Baltimore Center Stage, Long Wharf Theater, New York Stage and Film/Powerhouse, The Prelude Festival, Mixed Blood Theater, Penumbra Theater, and Theater Communications Group. In addition, Sam has developed a portfolio of consulting work in strategy planning, institutional alignment, and cultural change with arts organizations such as Center Theater Group, The Goodman Theater, The New Harmony Project, HERE Arts Center, Ars Nova, Breaking the Binary Theater Festival, Boston Court Pasadena, ART/NY, New Georges, and The Acting Company.
Loida Maritza Perez
(she/her/ella/tal y tal)
Loida Maritza Pérez is a native of the Dominican Republic and Founder/Executive Director of AfroMundo—a nonprofit Arts & Humanities organization that explores diasporic narratives, facilitates informed dialogues, fosters civic engagement, and broadens understandings of Black identities and of Latinidad. A 2022–2023 National Leaders of Color Fellow and 2023 WESTAF BIPOC Artist Fund Awardee, Pérez is an independent scholar, cultural activist, and author of Geographies of Home, a novel published in the United States and abroad. Her upcoming book, Beyond the Pale, won a PEN America 2019 Jean Stein Grant for Literary Oral History. Her work has appeared in the Michigan Quarterly Review, Latina, MaComere, Meridians, Edinburgh Review, Bomb, Callaloo, and Best of Callaloo. She is also the recipient of numerous residencies and fellowships and has taught creative writing at the National Hispanic Cultural Center, Taos Writers’ Workshop, Bread Loaf’s Summer Institute at St. John’s College, and elsewhere.
Tuyết Thị Phạm
(she/her)
Tuyết Thị Phạm is a Helen Hayes Award-winning actor living in Washington, DC. After earning her master’s degree, 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 theatre, television, film, and print as an actor, director, and writer for over 20 years. She has been seen in over 40 productions in the Baltimore-Washington, 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. Her play Dinner and Cake received its world premiere at Everyman Theatre in Baltimore, MD, in the fall of 2022 and she was commissioned to write, co-direct, and perform in Ping Chong and Company’s Generation Rise presented at the Reston Arts Center in the spring of 2023. She served as Associate Director for Tripp Cullman on Kenneth Lin’s world premiere of his play Exclusion at Arena Stage. She returned to her alma mater in 2016 to serve as a guest professor of movement and mentored the students at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. She has also worked with Perseverance Theatre in Alaska, Interact Theatre, GPTC, and The Nebraska Shakespeare Festival. She is currently an Associate Artistic Director at Everyman Theatre in Baltimore, MD.
Liz Player
(she/her)
Liz Player is the founder, and executive and artistic director of The Harlem Chamber Players. As an avid lover of chamber music, Ms. Player has organized recitals and chamber music concerts in New Jersey and New York since 1990. She founded West Harlem Winds in 2004 and in 2008 started the acclaimed Music at St. Mary’s chamber music series with the collective that later became known as The Harlem Chamber Players. As artistic director of The Harlem Chamber Players, Liz has contracted chamber ensembles and orchestras for numerous other organizations, such as The Town Hall, Composers Now with Tania León, ChamberMusicNY, American Opera Project, Columbia University, and Jason Moran and Alicia Hall Moran’s production Two Wings: The Music of Black America in Migration. As the executive director of The Harlem Chamber Players, she has grown the organization’s operating budget from less than $3,000 to over $750,000.
Lylliam Posadas
(he/she/they)
Lylliam Posadas is founding co-director of Your Neighborhood Museum, an arts and culture mutual aid organization, and Colonial Pathways Repatriation Manager at the Museum of Us. Lylliam has 15 years of experience in repatriation that includes the Fowler Museum at UCLA and the Autry Museum of the American West, and serves on the board of the Mellon UCLA / Getty Opportunity for Diversity in Conservation. Lylliam focuses on capacity building in the areas of repatriation, sustaining community-directed programs, and action-oriented research that achieves material improvements towards community goals.
Amy Sazue
(she/her)
Amy Sazue, Sicangu/Oglala Lakota, is the Executive Director of the Remembering the Children Memorial in Rapid City, South Dakota. Amy has almost 20 years of experience working with Native American nonprofits in and around the Black Hills region of South Dakota, primarily focusing on work with Indigenous youth. Her work with Native nonprofits has been informed by her experience growing up on the Rosebud and Pine Ridge reservations and then residing in Rapid City for the last 20 years where she is raising her four children alongside husband, Tracy. Amy is an active and engaged community member and advocate in Rapid City and continually seeks opportunities and collaborations that contribute to a just and equitable community. Amy holds three associate’s degrees in Early Childhood Education from Bay Mills Community College, a bachelor’s in Education from Oglala Lakota College, a Certified Fund Raising Manager (CFRM) graduate certificate from the Indiana University Lily School of Philanthropy, and is working to complete a master’s in Nonprofit Management and Leadership from Arizona State University.
Clayton Shelvin
(he/him)
Clayton Shelvin is a performing arts administrator and fundraising professional with over 10 years of experience in driving organizational change in the non-profit sector. Clayton’s work is rooted in equity, community partnership, and social justice. Clayton is currently the Managing Director of Freight & Salvage in Berkeley, CA. Prior, he served as Director of Development at Alonzo King LINES Ballet and previously in the same role at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley during its major leadership transition and the COVID-19 pandemic. Before moving to the Bay Area, he served as Director of Performing Arts at the Acadiana Center for the Arts where he booked and developed a season of music, theatre, dance, and film, along with creating music-based programming like AcA NXT, a program geared towards mentoring and promoting up-and-coming local musicians. He also worked as Associate Producer at Le Petit Theatre, a 106-year-old cultural institution in New Orleans.
Clayton has worked as a fundraising consultant for several organizations across the country, focusing on rebuilding and designing fundraising strategies, implementing a culture of philanthropy throughout their day-to-day work, and refocusing their foundation and corporate strategies. In addition to his work as an arts administrator, he has worked over the past 15 years as a freelance theatre director and choreographer, and is currently writing his first full-length stage musical.
Juan Silverio
(they/she)
Juan Silverio (Nauj Leunam) is a queer/trans femme of Zapotec descent visual artist and arts administrator living and working in Tongva-Gabrielino land (Los Angeles). Nauj’s work as an artist explores gender, belonging, and language through works on paper and performance. Juan joined LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) in 2019 as an apprentice and now runs all exhibitions, programming, and operations. They are invested in championing and building community with artists, curators, creatives, and cultural workers from LGBTQ+, Black, Indigenous, and communities of color across Los Angeles and beyond.
Joshua Streeter
(he/him)
Joshua Rashon Streeter is an Assistant Professor of Theatre Education at Emerson College. His teaching focuses on critical pedagogy, drama and theatre education, and Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) / Theatre for the Very Young (TVY). Joshua’s scholarship analyzes the pedagogies used in rehearsals and classrooms and considers the relationship between process and product in a creative experience. Joshua consults with numerous state departments of education and has created and facilitated workshops across the nation, including the American Alliance for Theatre and Education National Conference, Educational Theatre Association National Conference, Woodruff Arts Center Educator Conference, NYU Forum on Educational Theatre, National Association for the Education of Young Children National Conference, Kennedy Center, and Drama for Schools Summer Institute. He previously held a professorship at James Madison University (JMU), where he was a Center for Faculty Innovation (CFI) teaching associate and a faculty member in the African, African American, and Diaspora (AAAD) studies program at James Madison University.
DeLanna Studi
(she/her)
DeLanna Studi (she/hers) is a Cherokee actor/playwright whose TV credits include Dreamkeeper, Edge of America, Shameless, General Hospital, Z Nation, Goliath, Reservation Dogs, and Disney’s The Roof. Her theatre credits include the First National Broadway Tour of August: Osage County, Off-Broadway’s Informed Consent, and Gloria: A Life. She retraced her family’s footsteps along the Trail of Tears with her father and wrote her play And So We Walked. Recently, it made its Off-Broadway debut at Minetta Lane, where it was recorded for Audible. She has created plays for Theatre for One, The Theatre Center, and Period Piece. She chairs SAG-AFTRA’s National Native Americans Committee and is the Artistic Director of Native Voices at the Autry, the only Equity Theatre in the country developing and producing plays written by Native American playwrights. DeLanna is a 2022 United States Artists Fellow and an Advance Gender Equality’s Arts Legacy Playwright Grant Recipient.
Cynthia Tate
(she/her)
Cynthia Tate, a dedicated arts professional and advocate, focuses on elevating Black narratives within the arts. As the Assistant Director of Storytelling and Impact Engagement at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, she crafts impactful campaigns across diverse performing arts, drawing from over a decade of expertise spanning iconic institutions like The Apollo Theater and emerging platforms like Black Dance Stories. Her versatile skills include marketing, community engagement, and fostering key partnerships, driving enhanced accessibility to the arts. Beyond her professional role, Cynthia finds solace in yoga, strength training, exploring vinyl collections, live music, and cherishing her family’s culinary traditions passed down through generations.
Cynthia was born in New Orleans, LA, and holds an M.A. in Public Relations from the University of Houston. Her commitment to amplifying diverse voices through the arts reflects her unwavering dedication to a more equitable and inclusive world for generations to come.
Andrew Aaron Valdez
(he/him)
Andrew Aaron Valdez is a trauma-informed care professional, educator, artist, community organizer, Intimacy Director (Level 4 w/IDC), and DEI consultant from Donna, Texas. Andrew’s work as a visual artist has been displayed at various venues, while his poetry and plays have been featured in numerous festivals and theaters across the US. He is a Terry Foundation Alumni, holds a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts–Theatre Studies from the University of Texas at Austin, certificates in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion specializing in Organizational Leadership and HR from the University of South Florida, Rice University, and UC Irvine. Valdez is currently a MFA candidate at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale.
Morgana Wilborn
(she/her)
Morgana Wilborn (she/her/hers) is from Dallas, TX. She is a proud graduate of the University of North Texas (BA, Theater) and The University of Houston (MA, Theater Education). For the past 15 years, she has served the community as an arts educator/administrator. She is currently the Director of Arts Engagement at KCREP. She recently served as part of the Grants and Programs team at The Arts Community Alliance (TACA), managing Pop-Up Grants, New Works Fund, and producing the annual Perforum symposium and SPARK!. Before joining TACA, Morgana served as the Managing Director of Bishop Arts Theatre Center (BATC) after serving as Co-Managing Director for DNAWORKS LLC, Dialogue and Healing Through the Arts. Morgana began her career in arts non-profit as Director of Education at Dallas Theater Center (DTC) in 2015 and maintained her roots in the classroom as an Adjunct Professor of Theater and Humanities at Eastfield, El Centro College, and as Professor of Education for the University of North Texas, Dallas. Before serving for DTC and DNAWORKS, she served for eight years as a theatre director and instructor for Dallas ISD. She has served on the board for Booker T. Washington HSPVA, Artstillery, and is the Opportunity & Belonging Chair and Secretary of the Cedars Union.
Kevin Matthew Wong
(he/him)
Kevin Matthew Wong (he/him) is a Hakka Chinese-Canadian theatre creator, performer, dramaturg, facilitator, video artist, and producer. Kevin has created, produced, and toured works across Canada and internationally, at organizations like Barbican Centre (UK), Canada’s National Arts Centre, Shaw Festival, Stratford Festival, Canadian Stage, Luminato, Music Picnic (Macau-Toronto), and Festival Theaterformen (Germany). Kevin is currently the Senior Producer and Artistic Associate at Why Not Theatre leading large-scale projects like the critically-acclaimed world premiere and international tour of Mahabharata. Kevin is also co-founder and Artistic Director of Broadleaf Creative, a company that merges social justice and live performance. His solo-performance The Chemical Valley Project tackles long standing environmental racism in Ontario and has toured widely. Kevin’s recent project entitled Benevolence include a documentary screened at the 2023 ReelAsian International Film Festival, a museum installation through the Toronto History Museums, and a new solo-performance developed with Tarragon Theatre and premiering in 2025. kevinmatthewwong.com
Abdirahman Yussuf
(he/him)
Abdirahman Yussuf is the founder of Somali Cultural Center. He has ten years of experience working as an advocate and a community organizer for local community-based organizations. Abdi is also an active community member and appreciates the opportunity to give back by lending his advisory skills to government boards like the Seattle Equitable Development Initiative. Abdi is highly experienced in community advocacy and organizing and education with a focus on low-income, immigrant, and communities of color in nonprofit and public-sector settings on issues of education, art, civic engagement, affordable housing, land-use policy, community-based participatory planning, and racial justice in policy making.