Marvin González De León

Madre de Dios

Marvin González De León (Madre de Dios) is a playwright originally from Elko, NV, who writes plays that incorporate a myriad of genres—from sci-fi to horror—anchored in the traditions of Latin American literature. His work has been produced and developed at theatres and universities across the country. He was awarded the 2022 Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship and is currently a Jerome fellow and Core Writer at the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis, where he was previously a McKnight and Many Voices fellow. He was a member of the 2020-21 Interstate 73 Writers Group at Page 73 and was a Virtual Realm mentee with The Playwrights Realm. His plays include Madre de Dios; So-Called Occult; Pan Genesis; and Pa’ Fuera, Pa’ Fuera, Pa’ Fuera. He received an MFA in Dramatic Writing in 2017 from Arizona State University and teaches playwriting at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN. marvingonzalezdeleon.com

Morgan Gould

Jennifer, Who is Leaving

Morgan Gould (Jennifer, Who is Leaving) is a New York based playwright whose play Nicole Clark is Having a Baby was set to premiere as part of the 44th Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville. The production was cancelled due to COVID-19 after only five performances. Her other plays include I Wanna Fucking Tear You Apart (world premiere at Studio Theatre in Washington, DC; Helen Hayes Award Nomination for Outstanding New Play); All the Stupid Bitches, Three Fat Sisters, and I've Honestly Never Wanted to Bash Someone Over the Head with a Baseball Bat More Than I Do Right Now (commission from Cutting Ball Theatre in San Francisco, world premiere upcoming in Fall 2022). Gould is a Resident Playwright at New Dramatists, a Member Artist at Ensemble Studio Theatre, a Yaddo Colony Fellow, and a MacDowell Colony Fellow. She is a proud alumnus of the Dramatist Guild Foundation Fellows Program, Interstate I73 at Page 73 Productions, the Ingram New Works fellow at Nashville Rep, The Women's Project Lab, the Civilians R+D Group, Target Margin Lab, Lincoln Center Director's Lab, SDC Observership Program, the BAX AIR Residency, Playwrights Horizons Directing Residency, and New Georges Writer/Director Lab. She has previously held staff positions at Playscripts, Inc., Lark Play Development Center, Cape Cod Theatre Project, and was the Associate Artistic Director of Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company. She is also the Artistic Director of Morgan Gould & Friends, her theatre company with nine actors, three designers, and a filmmaker. MG&F’s work has been featured in and at the New Ohio/Ice Factory Festival, Dixon Place, The Brooklyn Lyceum, HERE Arts Center, Ars Nova, CAP21, BAX, New Georges, and The Culture Project. As a director, Gould has directed world premieres and contemporary works by herself and other playwrights at Studio Theatre in DC, The Humana Festival, Marin Theatre Company, Primary Stages, WP Theater (Women’s Project), Hangar Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Page 73, and many more. Gould is a graduate of the Brooklyn College M.F.A. Program and the Lila Acheson Wallace Playwrights Program at Juilliard.

Mary Kathryn Nagle

On the Far End

Mary Kathryn Nagle (On the Far End) is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation. She is an attorney whose work focuses on the restoration of tribal sovereignty and the inherent right of Indian Nations to protect their women and children from domestic violence and sexual assault. From 2015 to 2019, she served as the first Executive Director of the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program. Nagle is an alum of the 2013 Public Theater Emerging Writers Program. Productions include Miss Lead (Amerinda, 59E59); Fairly Traceable (Native Voices at the Autry); Sovereignty at Arena Stage; Manahatta at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival; Return to Niobrara at Rose Theater; Crossing Mnisose at Portland Center Stage; 6 Sovereignty at Marin Theatre Company; and Manahatta at Yale Repertory Theatre. She has received commissions from Arena Stage, the Rose Theater (Omaha, Nebraska), Portland Center Stage, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Yale Repertory Theatre, Round House Theatre, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She is most well known for her work on ending violence against Native women. Her play, Sliver of a Full Moon, has been performed in law schools from Stanford to Harvard, New York University, and Yale. She has worked extensively on Violence Against Women Act re-authorization, and she has filed numerous briefs in the United States Supreme Court as a part of the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center’s VAWA Sovereignty Initiative, including, most recently, United States v. Cooley, Oklahoma v. McGirt, and Oklahoma v. Murphy. She represents numerous families of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls, including Kaysera Stops Pretty Places’ family who have brought a public campaign demanding an investigation into her murder. More can be read here: JusticeForKaysera.org

Mfoniso Udofia

Adia and Clora Snatch Joy

Mfoniso Udofia’s (Adia and Clora Snatch Joy) plays include Sojourners, runboyrun, Her Portmanteau, and In Old Age, which have been seen at the American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.), New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW), The Playwrights Realm, Magic Theater, National Black Theatre, Strand Theater Company, and Boston Court. She’s the recipient of the 2017 Helen Merrill Playwright Award and the 2017-18 McKnight National Residency and Commission at The Playwrights’ Center and is a member of the New Dramatists class of 2023. Udofia is currently commissioned by A.C.T., Hartford Stage, Denver Center, A.C.T., Round House Theatre, and South Coast Repertory. Her plays have been developed by Manhattan Theatre Club, A.C.T., NYTW, The Playwrights Realm, McCarter Theatre, OSF, New Dramatists, PCS’s JAW Festival, Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor, The OCC, Hedgebrook, Sundance Theatre Lab, Space on Ryder Farm, Page 73, New Black Fest, Rising Circle, and more. She has worked as a television writer on the third season of Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why and the first seasons of both Apple TV’s Little America and Pachinko. She's also working on Amazon's A League of Their Own and Showtime’s Let the Right One In.

Nehemiah Luckett

Music Composer for Adia and Clora Snatch Joy

Originally from Jackson, Mississippi, Nehemiah Luckett (Music Composer for Adia and Clora Snatch Joy) has been performing, composing, and conducting for over 30 years. From an early age, he connected his deep love of music to the transformative power of building community through breathing and singing with family and friends. He has composed solo, choral, and instrumental pieces, has been a featured soloist at Washington National Cathedral and Carnegie Hall, and has performed on six continents. From 2011 to 2020, Luckett served as the music director and composer for the activist/performance art collective Rev. Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir. Full production credits include three original full-length musicals: Hamlet: Prince of Funk (1999) with collaborators Owen Beverly (Evans) and Matthew Smith; Brick by Brick (2006) with Ross Wade; and jazz singer (2019) with Joshua William Gelb, presented at Abrons Arts Center. Projects currently in development include a Bible-based afrofuturist opera/music-theatre piece titled Jonathan and David, Triple Threats with Tracey Conyer Lee, and A Burning Church with Zhailon Levingston and Alex Hare.

Kimberly Gilbert

Jennifer

Kimberly Gilbert (Jennifer) last appeared at Round House Theatre in Oslo. Other Round House credits include The Book of Will, Angels in America, Uncle Vanya, The Lyons, and The Beauty Queen of Leenane. Recent credits include Compulsion or The House Behind at Theater J and The Realistic Joneses at Spooky Action Theater. Kimberly has been in the DC Theatre community since the year two thousand, where she has been fortunate enough to play on the stages of Round House Theatre, Ford’s Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Company, The Kennedy Center, Folger Theatre, Studio Theatre, Theater J, Forum, Mosaic, Source, Metro Stage, and, most often, Woolly Mammoth and Taffety Punk Theatres, both of which she is a proud Company Member. Kimberly is a graduate of Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Academy for Classical Acting.

Floyd King

Joey

Floyd King (Joey) has appeared at many theatres throughout the United States, but primarily at the Shakespeare Theatre in D.C. At Round House Theatre, he was seen as “Emperor Joseph” in Amadeus. Other roles include over 100 productions at the Shakespeare Theatre, including “Feste” in Twelfth Night; “Parolles” in All’s Well; “Bottom” in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; and “The Fool” in King Lear. Other favorite credits are “Pseudolus” in A Funny Thing at Signature; Quills at Wooly Mammoth; The History Boys and Tale of Two Cities at the Studio Theatre. Teaching credits include the Julliard School, RADA, Oxford, England, and ACA at the George Washington University. Fulbright Scholar and Fox Fellowship are also treasured accomplishments.

Morgan Gould

Playwright

Morgan Gould (Playwright) is a New York based playwright whose play Nicole Clark is Having a Baby was set to premiere as part of the 44th Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville. The production was cancelled due to COVID-19 after only five performances. Her other plays include I Wanna Fucking Tear You Apart (world premiere at Studio Theatre in 5 Washington, DC; Helen Hayes Award Nomination for Outstanding New Play); All the Stupid Bitches, Three Fat Sisters, and I've Honestly Never Wanted to Bash Someone Over the Head with a Baseball Bat More Than I Do Right Now (commission from Cutting Ball Theatre in San Francisco, world premiere upcoming in Fall 2022). Gould is a Resident Playwright at New Dramatists, a Member Artist at Ensemble Studio Theatre, a Yaddo Colony Fellow, and a MacDowell Colony Fellow. She is a proud alumnus of the Dramatist Guild Foundation Fellows Program, Interstate I73 at Page 73 Productions, the Ingram New Works fellow at Nashville Rep, The Women's Project Lab, the Civilians R+D Group, Target Margin Lab, Lincoln Center Director's Lab, SDC Observership Program, the BAX AIR Residency, Playwrights Horizons Directing Residency, and New Georges Writer/Director Lab. She has previously held staff positions at Playscripts, Inc., Lark Play Development Center, Cape Cod Theatre Project, and was the Associate Artistic Director of Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company. She is also the Artistic Director of Morgan Gould & Friends, her theatre company with nine actors, three designers, and a filmmaker. MG&F’s work has been featured in and at the New Ohio/Ice Factory Festival, Dixon Place, The Brooklyn Lyceum, HERE Arts Center, Ars Nova, CAP21, BAX, New Georges, and The Culture Project. As a director, Gould has directed world premieres and contemporary works by herself and other playwrights at Studio Theatre in DC, The Humana Festival, Marin Theatre Company, Primary Stages, WP Theater (Women’s Project), Hangar Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Page 73, and many more. Gould is a graduate of the Brooklyn College M.F.A. Program and the Lila Acheson Wallace Playwrights Program at Juilliard.

Shana Laski

Dramaturg

Shana Laski (Dramaturg) is thrilled to be working with Round House Theatre for her first time, and as a part of the inaugural National Capital New Play Festival readings! Shana has been working to elevate new works across the country as a freelance dramaturg, literary associate, director, and performer. She reads for publishing houses, playwriting MFA programs, and regional theaters like La Jolla Playhouse, The Goodman, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Writers Theatre, and others. In DC, she directed Grief Containers by Robin Berl with Spooky Action Theater, and assisted Serge Seiden with Birds of North America by Anna Ouyang Moench at Mosaic Theatre Company. You can catch her acting in Patrick Marber’s Closer at Silver Spring Stage, April 29 – May 22.

DeLanna Studi

Jean

DeLanna Studi (Jean) is a proud Cherokee citizen, actor, and playwright whose theater 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, which had its Off-Broadway debut at Minetta Lane and is available on Audible Theatre. She has created plays for Theatre for One, The Theatre Center, and Period Piece. TV credits include Dreamkeeper; Edge of America; Shameless; General Hospital; Z Nation; Goliath; and Reservation Dogs. She is the Chair of SAG-AFTRA’s National Native Americans Committee, the Artistic Director of Native Voices at the Autry, and a 2022 USA Fellow. Instagram: @DeLannaStudi. AndSoWeWalked.com

Mary Kathryn Nagle

Playwright

Mary Kathryn Nagle (Playwright) is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation. She is an attorney whose work focuses on the restoration of tribal sovereignty and the inherent right of Indian Nations to protect their women and children from domestic violence and sexual assault. From 2015 to 2019, she served as the first Executive Director of the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program. Nagle is an alum of the 2013 Public Theater Emerging Writers Program. Productions include Miss Lead (Amerinda, 59E59); Fairly Traceable (Native Voices at the Autry); Sovereignty at Arena Stage; Manahatta at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival; Return to Niobrara at Rose Theater; Crossing Mnisose at Portland Center Stage; 6 Sovereignty at Marin Theatre Company; and Manahatta at Yale Repertory Theatre. She has received commissions from Arena Stage, the Rose Theater (Omaha, Nebraska), Portland Center Stage, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Yale Repertory Theatre, Round House Theatre, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She is most well known for her work on ending violence against Native women. Her play, Sliver of a Full Moon, has been performed in law schools from Stanford to Harvard, New York University, and Yale. She has worked extensively on Violence Against Women Act re-authorization, and she has filed numerous briefs in the United States Supreme Court as a part of the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center’s VAWA Sovereignty Initiative, including, most recently, United States v. Cooley, Oklahoma v. McGirt, and Oklahoma v. Murphy. She represents numerous families of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls, including Kaysera Stops Pretty Places’ family who have brought a public campaign demanding an investigation into her murder. More can be read here: JusticeForKaysera.org

Laurie Woolery

Director

Laurie Woolery (Director) is a director, playwright, community activist and citizen artist who works in theaters across the country including The Public Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Yale Repertory, Trinity Repertory, Goodman Theatre, Cornerstone Theater Company, and South Coast Repertory. Laurie develops new work with playwrights from Tanya Saracho, Charise Castro Smith, Aditi Kapil, Julie Marie Myatt to name a few. Recent projects include the world premiere of Eliana Pipes’ DREAMHOU$E at Alliance Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre and Baltimore Center Stage, Mary Kathryn Nagle’s Manahatta at both Yale Repertory and Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the world premiere musical of As You Like It co-created with Shaina Taub for the Public Theater. In 2020, Laurie produced the documentary Under The Greenwood Tree that tells the story of how the Public Works community banded together amidst the global pandemic and antiracist uprising as well as curating the national community public art installation The Seed Project on the façade of The Public Theater featuring 164 Public Works community members sharing their hopes for the future. Laurie has developed new work with diverse communities ranging from incarcerated women to residents of a Kansas town devastated by a tornado. She creates site-specific work ranging from a working sawmill in Eureka to the banks of the Los Angeles River. Laurie is the Director of Public Works at The Public Theater, a program that seeks to engage the people of New York by making them creators and not just spectators. Working with partner organizations in all 5 boroughs, Public Works invites members of diverse communities to join in the creation of ambitious works of participatory theater. Laurie is the former Associate Artistic Director of Cornerstone Theater Company and Conservatory Director at South Coast Repertory. Laurie is founding member of The Sol Project, 2020 United States Artist recipient and 2021 American for the Arts Johnson Fellow.

Kelli Blackwell

Ensemble

Kelli Blackwell (Ensemble) is thrilled to be a part of the National Capital New Play Festival at Round House Theatre. DMV area credits include A.D. 16 at Olney Theater Center; Crowns and Thunder Knocking on the Door at Creative Cauldron; Elephant & Piggie: We Are in a Play at Adventure Theatre; Black Nativity at Theater Alliance; Dreamgirls, Grease, and A Christmas Carol at Toby’s Dinner Theatre; By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, and A Streetcar Named Desire at Everyman Theatre; and Next to Normal at ArtsCentric. Regional credits include Hairspray at TriArts Sharon Playhouse; and Once on this Island at Cortland Repertory Theater; National Tour credits include Amazing Grace and Chicago the Musical. Education: University of Maryland, Baltimore County, BFA Theatre.

JaBen Early

Ensemble

JaBen Early (Aniekan) has previously worked on All the Way at Lincoln Theatre; Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and We Are Proud to Present… at Guthrie Theatre; Toni Stone, Junk, The Great Society, All the Way, and Ruined at Arena Stage; Death of a Salesman at Ford’s Theatre; Macbeth at Shakespeare Theatre; Round House Theatre: Father Comes Home From the Wars; Unexplored Interior at Mosaic Theater Company; The Convert at Woolly Mammoth Theatre; Julius Caesar at Folger Shakespeare Theatre; F*cking A at Studio Theatre; Titus Andronicus at Molotov Theatre; Native Sun at American Century Theater; The Convert at Marin Theatre Company; and The Death of Bessie Smith at Liberty Free Theatre. Training: MFA, Sarah Lawrence College; BFA, Morehouse College; British American Drama Academy at Magdalen College, University of Oxford.

Ines Nassara

Clora Abernathy

Ines Nassara (Clora Abernathy) has previously worked on the Kate Spade Summer Launch Commercial (Vocalist); BGVs for Cynthia Erivo on the Today Show; AJ Mitchell’s performance at the MTV VMA’s; and Wildwood reading at 54 Below; DC area credits include RENT, Spunk, Crossing, Aftershock (Signature in the Schools), SKBSTD reading, and U.G.L.Y. reading at Signature Theatre; HAIR (Helen Hayes nomination Best Supporting Actress) at Keegan Theatre; Freedom’s Song, 110 in the Shade, Ragtime (Helen Hayes winner: Ensemble), and The Wiz (Helen Hayes Nomination: Ensemble) at Ford’s Theatre; Lost in the Stars at the Kennedy Center Washington National Opera; Once on this Island at Olney Theatre Center. Education: Towson University BA in Sociology/Anthropology and Music Performance.

Shayla Simmons

Ensemble

Shayla Simmons (Ensemble) is happy to be joining Round House Theatre for the reading of Aida & Clora Snatch Joy. DC and regional credits include After Midnight, Signature Vinyl, A Motown Christmas Cabaret, and Dreamgirls at Signature Theatre; The Mountaintop at Nextstop Theatre Company; Aida at Constellation Theatre Company (Helen Hayes Award Nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Musical); Young Playwrights Festival at Baltimore Center Stage; Women of the Blues and Thunder Knocking on the Door at Creative Cauldron; Ain’t Misbehavin’ at Cape Fear Regional Theatre; and The Color Purple at Toby’s Dinner Theatre. National Tour credits include Ain't I a Woman! (One Woman Show) with Core Ensemble. International Tour credits include The Golden Gospel Singers; and The Lion King and Aladdin with Disney Cruise Lines. Film credits include House of Stones.

Kara-Tameika Watkins

Ensemble

Kara-Tameika Watkins (Ensemble) Regional productions include Signature Theatre: Daphne’s Dive, Light Years, Jesus Christ Superstar, Dreamgirls, Hairspray, Sunset Boulevard, A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Forum; MetroStage: Three Sistahs; Barter Theatre: Ain’t Misbehavin’; Creative Cauldron: Caroline or Change, Once on This Island (choreographer), And the World Goes Round (choreographer), Jacques Brel is Alive and Well...(Assistant Director); Arena Stage: Crowns, Smokey Joe’s Café, The Pajama Game; Ford’s Theatre: Little Shop of Horrors, Children of Eden; Studio Theatre: Caroline or Change; Round House Theatre: Once on This Island, Caroline or Change; Olney Theatre: Miss You Like Hell; Carmen: An Afro-Cuban Musical, Peter Pan, Camelot; Hairspray at PCLO, Northshore Music Theatre and the Nevada productions of Hairspray and Smokey Joe’s Café. Proud member AEA.

Mfoniso Udofio

Playwright / Director

Mfoniso Udofio (Playwright / Director) plays include Sojourners, runboyrun, Her Portmanteau, and In Old Age, which have been seen at the American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.), New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW), The Playwrights Realm, Magic Theater, National Black Theatre, Strand Theater Company, and Boston Court. She’s the recipient of the 2017 Helen Merrill Playwright Award and the 2017-18 McKnight National Residency and Commission at The Playwrights’ Center and is a member of the New Dramatists class of 2023. Udofia is currently commissioned by A.C.T., Hartford Stage, Denver Center, A.C.T., Round House Theatre, and South Coast Repertory. Her plays have been developed by Manhattan Theatre Club, A.C.T., NYTW, The Playwrights Realm, McCarter Theatre, OSF, New Dramatists, PCS’s JAW Festival, Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor, The OCC, Hedgebrook, Sundance Theatre Lab, Space on Ryder Farm, Page 73, New Black Fest, Rising Circle, and more. She has worked as a television writer on the third season of Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why and the first seasons of both Apple TV’s Little America and Pachinko. She's also working on Amazon's A League of Their Own and Showtime’s Let the Right One In.

Nehemiah Luckett

Music Director

Nehemiah Luckett (Music Director) Originally from Jackson, Mississippi, Nehemiah has been performing, composing, and conducting for over 30 years. From an early age, he connected his deep love of music to the transformative power of building community through breathing and singing with family and friends. He has composed solo, choral, and instrumental pieces, has been a featured soloist at Washington National Cathedral and Carnegie Hall, and has performed on six continents. From 2011 to 2020, Luckett served as the music director and composer for the activist/performance art collective Rev. Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir. Full production credits include three original full-length musicals: Hamlet: Prince of Funk (1999) with collaborators Owen Beverly (Evans) and Matthew Smith; Brick by Brick (2006) with Ross Wade; and jazz singer (2019) with Joshua William Gelb, presented at Abrons Arts Center. Projects currently in development include a Bible-based afrofuturist opera/music-theatre piece titled Jonathan and David, Triple Threats with Tracey Conyer Lee, and A Burning Church with Zhailon Levingston and Alex Hare.

Otis Cortez Ramsey-Zöe

Dramaturg

Otis Cortez Ramsey-Zöe (Dramaturg) is a care worker, dramaturg, director, theatre arts educator, Literary Manager at Arena Stage, and Lecturer in Dramaturgy at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale. Otis has developed new works at such institutions as Sundance Institute, Kennedy Center, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Playwrights Center, and National New Play Network. Otis has held posts in Theatre at Northeastern University, Dramaturgy at Carnegie Mellon University, Women’s Studies and Honors Humanities at University of Maryland, Performing Arts at American University, and Theatre Arts at Howard University. Otis was Associate Artistic Director at banished? productions, Future Classics, Program Coordinator at The Classical Theatre of Harlem, Literary Manager at Center Stage, and an Allen Lee Hughes Senior Fellow at Arena Stage.

Regina Aquino

Traveler

Regina Aquino (Traveler) is a DMV native Filipinx actor, creative, and activist. She's delighted to return to Round House Theatre after starring in We're Gonna Die. Nominated for multiple Helen Hayes Awards over 19 years, she was the 2019 recipient for Outstanding Lead Performer for her work in THE EVENTS at Theater Alliance – the first Filipino to have earned the distinction. One of Washingtonian Magazine’s "10 Biggest Theater Stars DC," she is deeply committed to equity in the industry. She was co-chair of the theatreWashington 2021 Summit on anti-oppression and continues in 2022. A single mother filmmaker, writer, and director, she recently launched her production company, Origin Stories, and is hosting a podcast centered on POC and immigrant creative liberation. (She/Her) Instagram: @regina.r.aquino; Twitter: @avereginaaquino. ReginaAquino.com

Camilo Linares

Moisés

Camilo Linares (Moisés) is originally from Bogotá, Colombia and currently resides in the Washington DC area. Select DC-area theatre credits include Picasso, Tìa Julia y el escribidor, and La vida es sueño at GALA Hispanic Theatre; THEORY at Mosaic Theater Company; Òyeme, The Beautiful at Imagination Stage, where he is currently a teaching artist; Drumming with Dishes at Arts on the Horizon; and Por lo que soy at 4615 Theatre Company. He received an Associate of Arts degree in theatre performance from Montgomery College and is a graduate of the British American Drama Academy. He was a Dreamer and none of this would be possible without DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and perseverance. Learn more at CamiloLinares.com.

Maria Rohde

Marisol

Maria Rohde (Marisol) is honored and thrilled to be a part of Round House Theatre’s developmental reading of Madre de Dios, as a part of the inaugural National Capital New Play Festival. Local DC credits include Into the Woods at Tantallon Community Players; Sweeney Todd at The Arlington Players (WATCH Awards Nominated for Best Ensemble of a Musical); The Wizard of Oz at Zemfira Stage (Nominated for Broadway World DC, Best Musical-Small Professional Theater); Quilters at Dominion Stage (Nominated British Embassy Player’s Ruby Griffith Award for Outstanding Achievement in a Musical). Recent filming includes New Dominion Pictures’ A Haunting – Deliverance in Chicago (Wella), airing on The Travel Channel/Streaming on Discovery+.

Marvin González De León

Playwright

Marvin González De León (Playwright) is a playwright originally from Elko, NV, who writes plays that incorporate a myriad of genres—from sci-fi to horror—anchored in the traditions of Latin American literature. His work has been produced and developed at theatres and universities across the country. He was awarded the 2022 Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship and is currently a Jerome fellow and Core Writer at the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis, where he was previously a McKnight and Many Voices fellow. He was a member of the 2020-21 Interstate 73 Writers Group at Page 73 and was a Virtual Realm mentee with The Playwrights Realm. His plays include Madre de Dios; So-Called Occult; Pan Genesis; and Pa’ Fuera, Pa’ Fuera, Pa’ Fuera. He received an MFA in Dramatic Writing in 2017 from Arizona State University and teaches playwriting at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN. MarvinGonzalezDeLeon.com

Ricky Ramón

Director

Ricky Ramón (Director) has directed and stage managed over 60 plays and musicals at Adventure Theatre, Atlantic Theater Company (NYC), Arena Stage, Signature Theatre (DC), Theater Alliance, Rorschach Theatre, Imagination Stage, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, and Teatro Vivo (Austin). Ricky earned a Master of Education in Arts in Education from Harvard University, a Master of Fine Arts in Acting and Directing from Texas Tech University, and a Master of Arts in Performance Studies from NYU-Tisch School of the Arts. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre and English from the University of Notre Dame. Ricky currently teaches theatre in the Department of Theatre Arts in the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University. He is a member of Actors’ Equity Association. Ricky is originally from Pearsall, Texas.

Dylan Arredondo

Dramaturg

Dylan Arredondo (Dramaturg) is thrilled to return to Round House Theatre as dramaturg for Madre de Dios, where he previously assistant directed and appeared in Quixote Nuevo. He has served as dramaturg at Unexpected Stage Company, The Reclamation Project, and Performance Interface Lab. Recent DC acting credits include The Glass Menagerie at Rep Stage; Daphne’s Dive at Signature Theatre; Beauty & the Beast at Olney Theatre Center; in addition to productions with Synetic Theater, Spooky Action Theater, Adventure Theatre MTC, 4615 Theatre Company, Rorschach Theatre, Longacre Lea, and National Players. Recent directing credits include Chūshingura at We Happy Few; TRACE at The Kaleidoscapes; and Unexpected Turbulence at Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Upcoming directorial projects include Fade, by Tanya Saracho, at Unexpected Stage Company. Instagram: @dmarredondo. DylanArredondo.com

(APR 30) New Plays at Home: The State of Play Development in the 51st State

Live Panel Discussion

Round House’s Festival is only the latest addition to a rich new work ecosystem in the Washington, DC region. Come hear from local writers, administrators, artists, and educators as we discuss what our current moment in new play development looks like here in the DMV.

Panelists include: Gregg Henry (Artistic Director, Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival); Abby Cady (Program Director, Sisters Freehold); Lauren Halvorsen (Writer, Nothing for the Group); Randy Baker (Co-Artistic Director, Rorschach Theatre); Jared Shamberger (Producing Playwright, The Welders); Julianne Brienza (Founding Director, Capital Fringe)

Randy Baker

Panelist (APR 30)

Randy Baker is a playwright, director, and the co-Artistic Director of Rorschach Theatre. Recent shows he has directed include Very Still and Hard to See (Five Helen Nominations including Best Director) and She Kills Monsters with Rorschach, Hello, My Name Is… (Three Helen Hayes nominations including Best Director) with The Welders, and a shadow puppet gamelan-inspired A Midsummer Night’s Dream with WSC Avant Bard. Recent plays he has written include Forgotten Kingdoms, Distance Frequencies, and Truth & Beauty Bombs with Rorschach, and workshops and educational productions of The Burning Road (Arena Stage), Monastery (Theater J), and Between Days (Theatre Lab). This fall he will direct The Legend of Hang Tuah with Pointless Theatre, an adaptation of the Malay legend with shadow puppets and martial arts.

Abby Cady

Panelist (APR 30)

Abigail “Abby” Cady is a new play and production dramaturg in the Baltimore/DC region and the Foundation Relations Manager at Arena Stage. She leads the Horticulture Playwrights Workshop at Sisters Freehold in Baltimore and has served as production dramaturg at many Baltimore theaters including Single Carrot Theatre (Pink Milk, ...The Death of Walt Disney, Promenade: Baltimore) and Interrobang Theatre Company (Heavy Hors D’oeuvres 3, Bully). Abby was an Education Apprentice at Everyman Theatre and she has interned in the literary departments of the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and City Theatre Company in Pittsburgh. She holds a Master’s Degree in Literary and Cultural Studies from Carnegie Mellon University and a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature and Creative Writing from Miami University of Ohio.

Lauren Halvorsen

Panelist (APR 30)

Lauren Halvorsen is a dramaturg and writer based in Washington, DC. She has dramaturged over 40 new, contemporary, and classic plays and held artistic and literary positions at the Alley Theatre, City Theatre Company, WordBRIDGE Playwrights Laboratory, The O'Neill, The Wilma Theater, and Studio Theatre, where she was the Associate Literary Director for nine years. Lauren writes Nothing for the Group, a weekly newsletter about the American theatre. She is currently working on projects for Theatre Washington, Woolly Mammoth, Baltimore Center Stage, Repertory Theater of St. Louis, and Long Wharf Theater. Lauren is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College, where she studied English, History of Art, and Creative Writing.

Gregg Henry

Panelist (APR 30)

Gregg Henry is artistic director of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. He coordinates the Michael Kanin Playwriting Awards and the annual Summer Intensives programs in Dramaturgy, Playwriting and Directing. For fifteen years, he produced the annual MFA Playwrights’ Workshop at the Kennedy Center, in association with the National New Play Network. He is artistic associate for New Works and Commissions for Kennedy Center Theater for Young Audiences. Currently: coordinating the KC50 New Plays Project; five works commissioned in celebration of the Kennedy Center’s 50^th Anniversary, by Hansol Jung and Brian Quijada, Ike Holter, Martyna Majok, Molly Smith Metzler, and Marco Ramirez.

Jared Shamberger

Panelist (APR 30)

Jared Shamberger is a proud DMV resident who studied acting and directing at Bowie State University. In 2021, Jared produced his first film, The B Word, as a third-generation member of the playwriting collective, The Welders. He has also penned the short plays Donuts & Dilemmas, Virginia is for Lovers, Brass Tacks, and Water Break. He has written and performed two solo shows, 12 and Unsaid. When not in a theater, Jared can most likely be found working as Education Director for Young Playwrights’ Theater where he designs and implements playwriting and storytelling programs for young people and adults. He co-wrote an article for American Theatre magazine called "Facing Our Failure: The Power of Acknowledging Racism Within the American Theatre" based on his work serving as an antiracism consultant for arts organizations. Before joining YPT, Jared spent five years working for Kaiser Permanente as an educational theater specialist, facilitating their sexual health and anti-bullying programs. Jared is incredibly proud of his work as a founding member of Brave Soul Collective, a DC-based Black LGBTQ+ arts organization. To learn more about Jared and what he’s working on next, just ask him. (He/Him)

(MAY 7) Everybody in the Room: Perspectives on New Play Development

Live Panel Discussion

New plays start with a playwright. But it takes a whole team of artists working together to bring those plays to production. What does a new play process look like for a lighting designer, an actor, or a stage manager? Join a broad group of artists for these perspectives and more on the different challenges and exciting benefits of helping build a new play.

Panelists include: Jen Barclay (Playwright); Sonia Fernandez (Director of New Work, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company); Peggy McKowen (Producing Artistic Director, Contemporary American Theater Festival); Che Wernsman (Resident Stage Manager, Round House Theatre); Cody Nickell (Actor); Sherrice Mojgani (Lighting designer).

Jennifer Barclay

Panelist (MAY 7)

Jennifer Barclay is a DC-based and Chicago-bred actor-turned-playwright. Her play Ripe Frenzy won the National New Play Network (NNPN) Smith Prize for Political Theatre, the Dramatists Guild Fund Writers Alliance Grant, and had a NNPN Rolling World Premiere. Jennifer’s plays have been produced and developed internationally, nationally and locally. Jennifer is developing a trilogy of plays set in the National Parks, including a commission from Arizona Theatre Company to write Certain Inherent Dangers, set in Glacier National Park. Upcoming in the DMV: Murdered Men Do Drip and Bleed at Mosaic Theatre, in collaboration with Solas Nua and Fishamble (Dublin); a three-theatre international commission, co-written with Irish-Palestinian playwright Hannah Khalil. Jennifer has degrees from Northwestern University and UC San Diego (MFA Playwriting). Locally, she’s been a resident playwright at Center Stage and Arena Stage, and she’s currently an Associate Professor at the University of Maryland where she teaches both acting and playwriting.

Peggy McKowen

Panelist (MAY 7)

Peggy McKowen’s work with CATF includes Mr. Marmalade, Jazzland, Antonio’s Song: I Was Dreaming of a Son, The Welcome Guest, The Wedding Gift, Not Medea, Everything You Touch, and Scott and Hem in the Garden of Allah. She was the resident designer for the Obie-award-winning Jean Cocteau Repertory in New York. Regional theater includes Barrington Stage, Milwaukee Repertory, Merrimack Repertory, and Perseverance theaters. International work includes: B.A.T. Studio Theatre (Berlin, Germany); Teatro Alfa Real (Sao Paulo, Brazil); and the Mandarin translation of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying in Beijing, China. Peggy’s work was featured in the exhibition, High Drama: Costumes from CATF at the MFA, Washington County, Maryland. Peggy was named 2018 West Virginia Artist of the Year.

Cody Nickell

Panelist (MAY 7)

Cody Nickell (Actor) is thrilled to be returning to Round House Theatre. Recently, Cody was seen in Tuesdays with Morrie at Theater J. Other recent credits include The Merry Wives of Windsor at The Folger Theatre; The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and Oslo at Round House Theatre; Fairview at Woolly Mammoth Theatre; and Richard III at Shakespeare Theatre. Cody’s regional credits include shows at Gulfshore Playhouse (Artistic Associate for 3 seasons); The Arden Theatre; The Wilma Theatre; Playmakers Rep; Portland Center Stage; Santa Cruz Shakespeare; Syracuse Stage; San Jose Rep; Studio Theatre; Two River Theatre; and Barrington Stage; as well as appearances at the Naples Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra. Cody’s career also includes film, television, and voice over work. Cody is the recipient of the Connecticut Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Lead Actor and has been nominated for 4 Helen Hayes Awards. Cody is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Drama.

National Capital New Play Festival

Overview

Playwrights (Developmental Readings)

Jennifer Who Is Leaving

On the Far End

Aida and Clora Snatch Joy

Madre de Dios

Panel Discussions

Also On Stage