Bios

BIOS

JUDITH ANDREW
has acted in many 10-minute plays for previous Spring Writes festivals. She has acted with Ithaca Shakespeare Company since 2005 (some of her ISC roles include Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Gertrude in Hamlet; Maria in Twelfth Night) Other local companies with whom Judith has acted are Theatre Incognita, Wolf’s Mouth Theatre Company, and Homecoming Players.

CHISOM AWACHIE
is an Atlanta-based actress, writer, and Cornell alum (BA Performing and Media Arts). Recent credits include Kaliope (She Kills Monsters) and Luciana (Comedy of Errors) with the Elm Street Arts Center in Woodstock, GA. She’s excited to reconnect with Ithaca artists before returning to New York to attend Sarah Lawrence’s MFA Theatre Program.

ARTHUR BICKNELL
is an Ithaca College alumnus. He and fellow Ithacan Rachel Hockett co-founded Homecoming Players. His plays include My Great Dead Sister, Masterpieces, Dotty, Easy Out, and Moose Murders, the “gold standard” of Broadway flops, as detailed in his hit book, Moose Murdered, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Broadway Bomb.

SARAH K. CHALMERS
is an applied theatre practitioner, community-engagement specialist, teacher, director and actor based in Ithaca, NY. She is a founding member of Civic Ensemble and Kitchen Theatre Company. Sarah’s work is focused on engaging communities in thinking critically about our world through theatre practice and storytelling, with the goal of creating the community we may have only seen in our dreams.

DAVE DIETRICH
is probably familiar to you if you’ve seen the Ithaca Shakespeare Company perform or eaten at Moosewood Restaurant. He’s really excited to be in a play with neither a “thee” nor a “thou” a nor rhymed couplet in sight. Much thanks to Spring Writes for this opportunity. 

ROBERT DENZEL EDWARDS
is an actor originally from Syracuse, NY. He would like to thank God and everyone else who has helped him reach this point in his career. Previous credits include: Madness, in the Clearing of Blue (Syracuse Stage), It’s A Wonderful Life (Redhouse Arts), The Fan (The Cherry), A Christmas Carol (Hangar Theatre), and Still Waiting (Redhouse Arts). Find out more at www.robertdenzel.com

YVONNE FISHER
Yvonne Fisher is a writer, performer, visual artist, and psychotherapist. She has been published in various journals and anthologies. She has written and performed My Viennese Mother and My Wedding Performance Piece in Ithaca, regionally, and in NYC

ROSS HAARSTAD
Ross Haarstad is a writer, theater-maker, graphic designer and social activist who has called Ithaca his home since 1981. In 2009 he launched Theatre Incognita, to provide a space ‘without walls’ focused on local artists creating work of both national and local writers. TheatreIncognita.org

ERIC MICHAEL HAMBURY
is a former Ithacan currently living in Brooklyn, NY. Eric is a graduate of the Actor’s Workshop of Ithaca and has appeared in many of the Ithaca Shakespeare Company’s productions.

RACHEL HOCKETT
is the co-founding artistic director of Ithaca’s Homecoming Players, and founder of the Ithaca Theatre Hub Group (on Facebook). She has worked as a director and teacher in New York, San Luis Obispo, Berkeley, and Ithaca, and is an alumna of the first class of women at Yale.

KAREN KOYANAGI
a dancing marine biologist, has taught for studios, university programs, and arts organizations, and performed with the likes of the American Dance Asylum, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, Rachel Lampert, Jeanne Goddard, the BF Harridans Morris team, and House of Ithaqua. She has made dances for musical theatre, the Ithaca Shakespeare Company, and in various dance genres. Thank you Ross, Saviana, and Marie for this gem of an experience!

RAFAEL LÓPEZ
is an actor, writer, director, and graduating senior at Ithaca College with a BFA in Acting. His work as an artist revolves around explorations of power, sexuality, and the fantastical. More at rafaelgraylopez.com

ANA FLORENCIA LOPEZ ULLOA
Mexican born and Ithaca based, she has been directing and writing plays for Teatrotaller since 2018. Her dramatic work explores the duality of identity, language, and social disparity of the Latin American diaspora in the United States. Learn more:
Teatrotaller: courses.cit.cornell.edu/spanl301/
Ana’s YouTube channel, including the entirety of Pink Glitter:
youtube.com/channel/UCtDhzurAwSU2VkK-5v3RdFg

MICHAEL MARRERO
Michael is a rising senior at Ithaca College with a B.F.A. in Acting.

MIKEL MOSS
An Ithaca native, Mikel is a Dramatherapy researcher who focuses on developing dramatherapeutic interventions and psycological assessments for communities adversely affected by european Colonization. He is also a visiting associate professor at Wells College and a part of the teaching staff at the Actor’s Workshop of Ithaca.

ALLEN PORTERIE
is a Texas-based actor and Cornell alumnus (‘20). He will be entering the Performance as Public Practice MA/PhD program at UT Austin this fall. He is also co-founder of Labelless Black Box (labellessblackbox.com) Enjoy the show!

JUDITH PRATT
Judith Pratt has acted, directed, and taught theatre. Her plays have been produced in Ithaca, New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Kansas City MO, and Cape Town, South Africa. In 2019, her play Maize won the Louisiana State University SciArts Prize, and her novel, Siljeea Magic, was published. Losing It appeared in Best Ten-Minute Plays of 2020. judithpratt.com

CARLEY ROBINSON
is a theatre practitioner dedicated to creating conversation around love and communal care. She has worked with the Civic Ensemble and the Hangar Theatre. She is excited to explore community-based work with youth, reentering people, and other members of our community.

DARCY ROSE
graduated from UCLA’s department of Theater, Film and Television with a B.A. in Acting and lived in Los Angeles for many years working steadily in commercials, television and theater. Her credits include Grey’s Anatomy, Dinotopia and Without a Trace, as well as several national commercials (Bounty, Walmart, Ford, Buick, among others), independent films, and various stage productions primarily with the NoHo Arts Center Ensemble in North Hollywood. She now owns an on-camera acting studio for kids called Acting Out New York (www.ActingOutNewYork.com). This performance (and everything else she does) is dedicated to her husband, Hampden and daughter, Juniper

AJ SAGE
has been a director and actor in the Ithaca area since 2012, more recently becoming the Artistic Director for House of Ithaqua.  His 2019 production of The Skriker was met with acclaim and he hopes to see you in the HOI audience in 2021-2022!  AJ’s next directing project will be this Summer for Ithaca Shakespeare Company. www.houseofithaqua.com

JASMINE SCOTT
is a San Francisco Bay Area native. A sociology major with minors in Spanish and inequality studies at Cornell, she will be graduating in May. She has also performed in Pipeline, The Good Victim, Benchmark, Black Noir, and The Next Storm in Cornell’s Dept of Performing and Media Arts.

KATIE SPALLONE
is a long time retailer and actor, as well as Co-Director of The Actor’s Workshop of Ithaca, a Sanford Meisner based acting studio. Thanks to Ross, Judith P., Judith A. & AJ! actorsworkshop.biz

SAVIANA STANESCU
Saviana Stanescu is a cutting-edge award-winning Romanian-American playwright, poet, and ARTivist, author of Aliens with Extraordinary Skills, Ants, Lenin’s Shoe, Hurt, Useless, and many other plays centering the immigrant experience. Winner of New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Play (Waxing West), Saviana has published over 15 books of plays and poetry, written in English and Romanian, translated/presented around the world. Associate Professor of Playwriting at Ithaca College. saviana.com

AOISE STRATFORD
Aoise Stratford is a playwright, dramaturg and lecturer at Cornell. Best known locally for her adaptation of A Christmas Carol for The Hangar, she is also the author of two audio-headphone walking plays with Katie Marks and Nick Salvato, for The Cherry.

TYLER STRUBLE
is a theatre director/dramaturg, producer and administrator originally from Horseheads, NY. Tyler currently serves as the Artistic Management Associate at Kitchen Theatre Company in Ithaca, NY. Most recently, he completed the “Stolen Joy Project” film with Village at Ithaca and currently is an associate producer on KTC’s production of Shape, premiering in June. At KTC, he has served as assistant director for Cry It Out, The Children, Tribes and directed in the 2nd Annual One Minute Play Festival. Directing credits include: Tatjana in Color and The Moors (Ithaca College Department of Theatre Arts), and The Tingler (a devised performance at The Cherry Artspace). Dramaturg credits include: Pride and Prejudice (The Hangar Theatre) and Madge and Rodney Pretend to Go to Space, a new play developed at Ithaca College. Additional assisting credits include: Pride and Prejudice, A Brief History of America (The Hangar Theatre), Cabaret, The Changeling, and Can Can (Ithaca College). His play, The Luck of the Draw (co-written with Khai Tyler), won the 2019 New Play Incubator Competition.

KIT WAINER
has been performing on and off since 1955 in Chicago, Houston, NYC and now, Ithaca, most recently with The Homecoming Players.

TRENCE WILSON-GILLEM
is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences majoring in performing & media arts. Trence began his acting journey just last semester and he has already been a part of three Cornell productions, Omari in Dominique Morriseau’s Pipeline, Jason in Anna Evtushenko’s Benchmark and AJ in Gloria Oladipo’s The Good Victim. He will be joining the Hangar Theatre Lab Company in Ithaca this summer to help refine his acting skills. Some of his hobbies include filmmaking, going for long walks/hikes, and watching anime and sports. His favorite sports to watch are wrestling and football. Trence wrestled at Cornell for three years and says that nothing brings him greater joy than watching his former teammates and coaches achieve their NCAA and Olympic goals.

KRISTEN WRIGHT
Dr. Kristen Wright is a playwright and Postdoctoral Associate in the Humanities Scholars Program at Cornell University’s Society for the Humanities. Her plays Apple Core, Miss Anne, The Shirt (Civility), Jamal from Empire, and Jodeci for White Girls were previously produced as a part of Cornell’s 10 Minute Play Festival.

SYLVIE YNTEMA
has worked locally with The Cherry Arts, Fitz&Startz Productions, Clockmaker Arts, Homecoming Players, and is an Artistic Ensemble member of Civic Ensemble. Sylvie studied BFA acting at The Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, is a graduate of the Actors Workshop of Ithaca, a Pilates instructor, and a NYS licensed massage therapist.