BIPOC Surviving Predominately White Institutions Contributors
Cloteal Horne
(she/her)
Her name aptly weaves together parts of her grandparents’ names. Be it to muster the courage to stand before witnesses onstage or on screen, as a raw nerve, in order to shine a light upon hidden parts of humanity, or to architect a world that ignites the imagination towards transformation— Cloteal is committed to collaborative processes that illuminate humanity through the craft of storytelling and community building.
Cloteal’s work uproots classics and tethers itself to immersive ceremonies and rituals that center blackness, black-femininity. Calling on both the sacred and profane to locate that small (sometimes quiet) place where healing happens. she dedicates her practice to community, honest liberation, and building more just and joyous futures.
Selected works include: TV: Grey’s Anatomy, recurring guest star, Season 19. Off-Broadway: The Steadfast (Slant Theatre Project); Dirty Blood (Billie Holiday Theatre). Regional: Furlough’s Paradise (Geva Theatre), Crumbs from The Table of Joy (Crossroads Theatre), Fires in The Mirror, solo performer (LongWharf/Baltimore Center Stage); She A Gem (NYTW), The Bluest Eye (The Huntington Theatre); Cross That River the Musical (Marcus Garvey Amphitheater); and Blues for an Alabama Sky (Trinity Rep). Film: Stay Here with Me (Tuli media), The Promotion (C1 Media), The Light (B.K.Lui.Horne), and Driving While Black Magic, Breaking Dawn: American Myth Project (The NET). Teaching: Yale School of Drama, Brown University, NYU-Playwrights Horizons/Meisner Studio, Vassar, and La Jolla Playhouse Student Conservatory. Facilitation: artEquity, co-program lead of the BIPOC Leadership Circle, BIPOC Surviving PWI Processing Space. MFA in acting from Brown University/Trinity Rep. BFA in theater arts from Boston University.
Dat Ngo
(he/him)
Dat Ngo is a seasoned arts education and community engagement leader with over 20 years of experience advancing equity, access, and creativity in the arts. A first-generation Vietnamese American and parent raising children of two cultures, Dat brings a deeply human-centered approach to his work, grounded in his belief in the transformative power of the arts to amplify voices and create pathways for opportunity. Dat served as Associate Director of Engagement and Inclusion at Shakespeare Theatre Company and as Education Director at Adventure Theatre, developing and facilitating programs serving communities across Maryland, DC, and Virginia. As Vice President at Arts Consulting Group, Dat connects emerging and seasoned leaders with arts and culture organizations while also helping those same organizations create inclusive environments to support healthy and sustainable cultures. A frequent collaborator with artEquity and a board member of PlayPenn, Dat continues to inspire change, championing justice, storytelling, and empowerment through the arts.
Ginger Klee
LMFT, LPCC (they/them)
Ginger is a queer, multiethnic Korean mental health therapist in their own private practice in Orange County, California. They specialize in treating trauma and acculturative stress, and treating the queer, trans, and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities. Ginger works with adolescents, adult individuals, and families. They are also an adjunct psychology professor where they teach about the intersectionality of gender, sex, sexuality, and ethnicity.
Lauren Turner Hines
Lauren’s role is that of an advocate and facilitator for justice and change. Lauren is the founding Producing Artistic Director of No Dream Deferred NOLA, a community-anchored theatre production company that is dedicated to the development of new works originating in the South. Additionally, Lauren leads as Founder and Executive Director of the Andre Cailloux Center for Performing Arts & Cultural Justice. Her work lives where storytelling, community building, and politics intersect. Lauren speaks and facilitates with organizations and institutions across the US. She is an artEquity facilitator and founding content creator for the BIPOC Surviving PWI series and the BIPOC Leadership Circle series. Lauren is the founder of Equity and Justice for Institutional Change (EJIC), an organizational development consulting firm. Additionally, Lauren provides executive strategic and wellness coaching for BIPOC leaders working within predominantly/historically white institutions. She is a Round 4 recipient in the Leadership U: One-on-One grant program, funded by the Mellon Foundation and administered by Theatre Communications Group, designed to further develop prominent emerging leaders and change agents in the American Theatre. Lauren has also served as a Mellon Fellow through Tulane University’s Community Engaged Graduate Program, mentoring Tulane University graduate students who wish to implement community-engaged practices into their work. Lauren received her Master of Fine Arts in Performance from The University of Southern Mississippi and her BA from North Carolina Central University. Lauren lives joyfully in New Orleans with her husband and their three children.
Leslie Ishii
(AD, Perseverance Theatre) is an artist, community organizer, and social justice warrior for the theatre and arts/culture sectors and more. Her acting career in Asian American, ethnic-specific/multicultural, regional theatres, on Broadway and on-camera fostered Leslie’s passion for directing and afforded her the opportunity to feature multiracial/artists of color casts.
(Arts Education) Leslie has developed actor and directing approaches based in liberation theory as a response to Westernized trainings.(Organizing) Designs direct actions, Security Lead, Tsuru For Solidarity; 5th, 6th, and 7th CAATA ConFests, Steering Committee Co-Chair/Board; Fitzmaurice Voicework® Conferences in Spain and Canada and a featured presenter at VASTA conferences, Mexico, Spain, and Austria.
(Accomplishments) 2025 Paul Robeson Award, AEA Foundation; 2024 SDC Foundation, Zelda Fichandler Award; US Artist Fellowship, 2023; NNPN Board; Arts For LA ACTIVATE Cultural Policy Fellow; Los Angeles Cultural Equity/Inclusion Initiative Work Groups. Proud to have served on original core faculty of artEquity.
Marissa Herrera
Marissa is a 3rd generation Chicana/Indigenous woman born and raised in Los Angeles. She is the Co-Founder and Executive Artistic Director of 4C LAB (501c3) and CEO of De Mi Alma Productions. As reflected in her feature interview on the PBS documentary, Art & the Mind: “I was born to dance . . . my calling is to create.” Marissa strives to use her creative work to empower individuals into sharing their authentic stories and fostering the next generation of creative visionaries connected by diversity, love, and creativity.
As a visionary and leader in the arts and community, Marissa strives to create and lead the work that connects us all.
Mauricio Tafur Salgado
(he/him)
Mauricio is an Associate Arts Professor of Theatre Studies, Director of Applied Theatre, and the Interim Chair at the Department of Drama in the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. Mauricio is mestizo + first gen + born to proudly subversive Colombians + brown-skinned + amateur bio-regionalist + aspiring theologian + cis-hetero + married + father + artist, pursuing justice and healing through a decolonial framework. He collaborates to organize space where folx rehearse revolution, compromise, rage, tolerance, strength, trust, and vulnerability.
Mauricio co-founded Arts Ignite where he recruited, trained, and supported more than 325 teaching artists and created and implemented 23 programs for artistic youth. He is also a Core Faculty member with artEquity and is working on producing and acting in El Mentiroso, an irreverent dance theatre descent into the subconscious of a fool, that he co-created with An-lin Dauber and Chelsea Ainsworth. He has worked as a facilitator, actor, deviser, and director with communities in Peru, the Dominican Republic, South Africa, India, Belgium, Germany, Scotland, and the United States. He has taught at the Boston Conservatory, Brown University, Santa Clara University, LaGuardia Community College, and Kingsborough Community College. He co-leads a WHO Commission on Arts Practice and the Ethics of Care.
Meena Malik
(she/her)
Nicole Brewer
(she/her)
Nicole is a DC-based multi-hyphenate theatermaker, director, and author of The Anti-Racist Theatre. A proud member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), she brings a bold, inclusive vision to her work, centering anti-racist practices to create transformative theatrical experiences. A leading voice in Anti-Racist Theatre (ART), Nicole collaborates with artists and institutions across the U.S., Canada, and the UK through workshops, keynotes, and creative partnerships.
Nicole serves on the faculty of the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale and on the board of Parent Artist Advocacy League (PAAL), advocating for caregivers in the industry. Her directing credits include Julius X (Folger),The House That Will Not Stand (Howard University), and Fires in the Mirror (Baltimore Center Stage and Long Wharf Theatre), along with readings, devised work, and musical theater. She is a proud mother of three and a loving aussiepoo named Luna Belle.
Patricia Garza
(they/them)
Peter J. Kuo
(he/him)