The Farm Theater's Bullpen Sessions

Dipti Bramhandkar is a Mumbai-born playwright, filmmaker, LAByrinth Theater Company member. She was commissioned by Juggerknot Theatre Company in Miami for Conjuring the King, a fully immersive show about an Elvis fan, which is currently running (2024.) The Farm Theater has awarded her their 2023-24 College Collaboration Project Fellowship. Bramhandkar will be in residence at multiple universities throughout 2023-24 to develop a new play in collaboration with different college theater programs. The first of the two, Soft Launch, premiered at Centre College in early 2023. The second, The Ruminants, will be produced three times - Austin Peay State University, Middle Tennessee State University, Shenandoah University (2024.) She presented her new play, Love Lake, at LAByrinth's Barn Series in 2023, which is now in development. This is the third of four plays that have been selected for the Barn Series since 2020. Other recent work includes Is There Even Porn in India?, which was workshopped in London with director Tim Supple (former AD of the Young Vic) and dramaturg, Jack Bradley (Sonia Friedman Productions.) It was presented in New York (with Sarita Choudhury, Kevin Corrigan, and Ajay Naidu.) Her play Islands of Contentment (Daphne Rubin-Vega, Danny Pudi, Florencia Lozano, Sathya Sridharan, Mahira Kakkar, Laura Gómez, Rita Wolf, Kalki Koechlin, Suraj Sharma, and more) was produced by Hypokrit Productions and The Tank. She was the playwright in residence at Guild Hall, which subsequently commissioned A Land Without Weather(with David Zayas, David Anzuelo, Chris McGarry, Purva Bedi, Rajesh Bose.) She was commissioned by Compass Needle Productions to write two audio plays, Kishori’s Canteen and Learning to Swim, which are out on Audible. Her audio series Quarantheater was featured on WNYC. Her short film The Choice (with Bobby Daniel Rodriguez) was selected for several film festivals. She holds a BA from Cornell University and a MA from Cambridge University.

Eden Marryshow is an award-winning Director/Writer/Actor from Flatbush, Brooklyn. For over a decade, Eden served NYC’s Department of Education as a Paraprofessional where he taught some of city’s most marginalized youth. Latina "Peanut" Bilbro, one of his most beloved students, would always tell him that she believed in him, she knew he was going to be on stage and make movies someday. On June 22nd 2006, Eden received a call that Peanut was killed in a drive-by shooting. He decided it was time to follow his dream... and prove Peanut right. Since that decision, Eden wrote, produced, directed and starred in the Nationally Theatrically released Feature Film Bruce!!!!, which garnered Marryshow multiple awards. He is currently in post-production for his newest feature, Can You Stand The Rain, which is a love-note to his brother, Shawn Xavier Brown, who he lost last year. Theatre credits include INK (MTC/Broadway), Seven Guitars (Arena Stage), Pipeline (Actors Theatre), Game On (Kennedy Center). Marryshow recently recurred on Netflix’s Archive 81, and previously Jessica Jones and It’s Bruno. A huge thanks to my parents, Cesa, KMR, Victor Villar-Hauser, and The Boothe Group. To my Peanut… dreams do come true.

Jake Brasch (he/they) is a writer + actor + composer + clown and a graduating second-year playwright in the Juilliard School’s Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program. Jake is a member of the 2024 Page 73 Writers Group and a 2023-2024 Alliance/Kendeda Finalist. His play The Reservoir was commissioned by the Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Science & Technology Project and was presented at the 2023 Colorado New Play Summit at the Denver Center. Their work has been developed by New York Stage and Film, The Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Farm Theater, ArtHouse Inkubator, Letter of Marque Theater Company, Eden Theater Company, and LAByrinth Theater Company. He is currently under commission from the EST/Sloan Project and The Farm Theater’s College Collaboration Project. They're a proud graduate of Ensemble Studio Theatre's Youngblood, The Farm Theater's Development Workshop, and The LAByrinth Intensive Ensemble. As a composer, Jake has written music and lyrics for several films, plays, and podcasts. He works as a birthday party clown in the tri-state area and is currently developing a series based on his clowning career. They are also developing a Grotowski-based physical dramaturgy pedagogy for playwrights. BFA from NYU Tisch (Experimental Theatre Wing/New Studio on Broadway).

Tricia Alexandro is an actor, writer and native New Yorker. She has studied acting with Seth Barrish and Lee Brock at The Barrow Group, Bob Krakower at Manhattan Film Institute and attended Playhouse West in LA where she studied the Meisner Technique. She is an alumni of The Labyrinth Theater Company’s Master Class. Her latest credits include the Off-Broadway play Seven Deadly Sins, written and directed by Tony nominated and Obie winner Moisés Kaufman, a recurring role on the TV show Bridge and Tunnel (written and directed by Ed Burns) which premiered at The Tribeca Film Festival, The Blacklist (NBC), she guest starred on BULL (CBS) and Law and Order: SVU and recently appeared on The Other Two (with Wanda Sykes and Molly Shannon) on HBO Max. In 2023 she won the Best Actress Award in India for her lead role in the sci-fi film Life Quest, which is currently playing in festivals worldwide. Tricia was in the one woman show The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, at Cape May Stage where she played 9 characters, and We, the Invisibles at the Humana Festival, in which she played 14 characters. Tricia’s performance in John Yearley’s collection of one acts called The Unrepeatable Moment at The Barrow Group Theater was singled out in The New York Times: “bravely acted, a high point of the show”. Next up, Tricia will do a staged reading at 59 E 59, for The Labyrinth Theater Company’s Barn Series, of Mel Nieves’ new play La Potencia, in which she plays the title character, a boxer from the Bronx who is past her prime, but unwilling to leave the boxing ring behind. Tricia also teaches at The Barrow Group School in NYC, and is a certified life coach who loves helping creative folks flourish. Find her on IG: @triciaalexandro

Ajay Naidu On screen, Naidu starred in the cult film Office Space, as well as appearing in films such as K-Pax, Subway Stories, π, Requiem for a Dream, Bad Santa, The War Within, The Guru, Waterborne, and Loins of Punjab Presents. He co-starred as a series regular in the sitcom LateLine and had guest starring roles on the television dramas The Sopranos,The West Wing and Bored to Death. Naidu has been working extensively with musicians from the Asian underground music movement for many years as a breakdancer and an M.C. His vocals have appeared on many records, most notably Talvin Singh's mercury award winner "OK". In 2006, Naidu directed his first feature film Ashes which had its release in 2010 and for which he won Best Actor accolades from the MIACC Film Festival in New York and the London Asian Film Festival. Naidu's most recent theatre credits include The Kid Stays in the Picture at the Royal Court Theatre, The Master and Margarita with Complicite, a world tour of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure with Complicite, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui alongside Al Pacino, directed by Simon McBurney, The Little Flower of East Orange alongside Ellyn Burstyn at New York's Public Theater directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Waiting for Godot at TFANA directed by Arin Arbus. In 2001 Naidu's solo theatre piece Darwaza was a sold-out hit at New York's Labyrinth Theatre, where he is also a member of the company. In 2019, Naidu was awarded the Excellence in Performing Arts Award by Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White.

JESSI D. HILL (she/her) is a NYC-based director, theatre-maker, teacher and runner (8 Marathons and counting!) whose play development projects have included work at New York Theatre Workshop, The Public Theater/Joe’s Pub, Playwrights Horizons, The Playwrights’ Center, Primary Stages, Labyrinth, Keen Company, The Women’s Project, 59E59, The New Group, Rattlestick, HERE Arts Center, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Culture Project, The Acting Company, The Barrow Group, New Dramatists, P73, Clubbed Thumb, The Lark, The Playwrights Realm, PS122, Baruch Performing Arts Center, New Georges, Premiere Stages, Luna Stage, The Wild Project, Abingdon, Naked Angels, Jewish Plays Project and others. Her work has been seen internationally in Edinburgh, London, New Zealand, Bucharest, Berlin, Hamburg and Rome.. www.jessidhill.com

Lori Vega is a New York-based stage and screen actor whose most recent TV credits include work on Pretty Little Liars, And Just Like That (HBO), Bull (CBS) and FBI (CBS) and El Deafo (Apple TV+). Coming from world class training at LAMDA and Cornell University, her on stage credits include both classical and contemporary plays with Off-Broadway theaters such as Playwrights Horizons, Target Margin Theater, Classical Theater of Harlem, and Ensemble Studio Theater (EST). She has also worked at regional theaters such as Trinity Rep, The Rep St Louis, Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF), Portland Stage Co., Lake Tahoe and Idaho Shakespeare Festivals, and many more. www.lorivega.net

ERIN MALLON is a USA Today Bestselling Author, playwright, producer of audio plays and narrator of 600 audiobooks. She is a six-time Earphones Award Winner and a five-time Audie Award Nominee. Her audio play These Walls Can Talk is a 2021 Independent Audiobook Award Winner for Humor. The Natural History Series is Erin’s debut trio of romantic comedy novels including Flirtasaurus, Lovebug and Sharkbait. Erin’s plays have been presented with Urban Stages, New Georges, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, The Collective, Cherry Picking, Great Plains Theater Conference, Samuel French #OOB Short Play Festival, Project Y Theater, Vivid Stage, Mile Square Theatre and more. Erin’s play Branched (dir. Robert Ross Parker) premiered with InViolet Theater at HERE Arts Center in NYC and is in print with Original Works Publishing. Her play, The Net Will Appear had its Off-Broadway Premiere at 59E59 Theaters in NYC starring the great Richard Masur and is now available on Audible.com as an audio drama co-starring Matilda Lawler (Disney Plus’ Flora & Ulysses, Broadway’s The Ferryman). Erin’s Other full-length plays include: Pale Blue Dot(s), Good Riddance, Soft Animals, Hand Me Down, Stunning Displays of Prowess, Skin Hungry, The Other White Meat, Come Find Me, These Walls Can Talk 2: The Narwhal Strikes Back! and These Walls Can Talk 3: Rise of the Machine.

Katie Mack (she/her) is a queer sober scrappy nomadic creative who loves other creatives. Her most recent curiosity is the intersection of technology and live theater, to be explored in future production #uglycry: grief hits different coming this fall. She is the founder and producer of multi-award winning podcast “fcking sober: the first 90 days”, has helped create over 40 original song works as an actor, and six first works with her company Somehow9am Productions, and has an unhealthy love of peanut butter.

Awoye Timpo: is a New York-based director. Off- Broadway directing credits include Elyria (Atlantic Theater Company) In Old Age (New York Theatre Workshop), Good Grief (Vineyard Theatre), The Revolving Cycles Truly and Steadily Roll’d (Playwrights Realm), and The Homecoming Queen (Atlantic Theater Company). Regionally she has directed Pipeline (Studio Theatre), Everybody Black (Actors Theatre of Louisville) and Paradise Blue (Long Wharf Theatre). Additional credits include Carnaval (National Black Theatre), Sister Son/ji (Billie Holiday Theatre) and Ndebele Funeral (59E59 Theaters, Edinburgh Festival/Summerhall, and South African tour). She is a Creative Director for music events and a Creative Consultant for the African-American Policy Forum.

Suzy DeVore is a professor of theatre, actor and director. She holds an MFA from The Actors Studio Drama School, New School University in New York City and a BA in Dance from Point Park College, Pittsburgh, PA. She is currently the Program Manager for the Hillsborough Community College Theatre Program, Ybor Campus in Tampa, FL. She has directed over 25 productions for the college. She is also the president of the Visual and Performing Arts Series of the college, which welcomes national guest artist performances and workshops. While in NYC, she was the managing director of her theatre company of P.L.A.Y. Put Life Ahead of You, which focused on the integration of education through the arts, by both producing new work and pursuing the history of classical work. Favorite theatre productions include roles in Extremities, Laura, The Shadow Box, Last Night of Ballyhoo, and In the Blood. She is a member of Association of Theatre in Higher Education and has been awarded outstanding director for the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, Region IV.

Dr. Indira Etwaroo (she/her) (award-winning producer, director, scholar, and arts and culture executive) has worked across the world to develop multiplatform venues and content that represents the diversity of the globe and explores the complex intersections between stories-that-matter and the topics-of-our- time. She currently serves as the first-ever Director of the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple in California. Dr. Etwaroo was a major force for content innovation and inclusion in the public media field, as the Founding Executive Producer of The Greene Space in NYC and Founding Executive Producer of NPR Presents, the national live events platform to bring live, on-air and online content to audiences across the world. Of note, she Executive Produced the American Broadcast Premiere of the 75th Anniversary of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, starring Phylicia Rashad and the first-ever audio recordings and video broadcasts of August Wilson’s entire American Century Cycle, in partnership with the August Wilson Estate and Artistic Directors Ruben Santiago-Hudson and Stephen McKinley Henderson. She led The Billie Holiday Theatre in Brooklyn through radical growth, as its Executive Artistic Director: more than doubling the audience, increasing revenue by 212%, and producing groundbreaking content. Dr. Etwaroo spearheaded the launch of the first-ever national $10 million strategic plan for thrivability for Black theater institutions, The Black Seed, in partnership with Gary Anderson, Dr. Monica NDounou and Shay Wafer. Indira’s work at BAM developed educational and humanities’ content that leveraged BAM’s MainStage work. Dr. Etwaroo has been a professor of graduate studies at Temple University and at NYU, teaching Leading Performing Arts Institutions in the 21st Century. She has received awards and honors for her work, including the “40 under 40” of national leaders by The Network Journal, the Black Theater Network’s Larry Leon Hamlin Legacy Award, as well as the Larry Leon Hamlin Producer’s Award from the National Black Theatre Festival. She has lectured and published extensively on the performing arts, race, womanhood and equity; and has served as a Fulbright Scholar where she lived and worked with refugee Somali women in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Indira is the mother of Zenzele, a director and writer.

Skylar Fox (he/him) is a director, playwright and creator of magic and illusions for theatre. He cares about making wildly theatrical plays and musicals that push the boundaries of what theatre can do to tell demandingly vulnerable stories powerfully. As a magic designer, Skylar is the illusions and magic associate for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Broadway and around the world, and has created magic for Fat Ham (The Public Theater and National Black Theatre, Broadway upcoming), You Will Get Sick (Roundabout), A Beautiful Noise (associate design, Broadway), Damn Yankees (Shaw Festival) and Dracula (Maltz Jupiter Theater). He also has consulted on The Tonight Show, The Tony Awards and San Diego Comic Con. He is the co-artistic director of Nightdrive, where he has directed and cowritten an apocalypse around a campfire (The Grown-Ups, secret location); a live, immersive alien movie (Alien Nation, Paradise Factory); a fivedimensional community meeting with a full pancake breakfast (Providence, RI, The Tank); a haunted rock concert (Thank You Sorry, Ars Nova); and a hybrid comic book with interactive animation (Apathy Boy, The Brick & Ars Nova, 2015 O’Neill finalist). He also directed and co-created The Annotated History of the American Muskrat by John Kuntz (The New Ohio, Boston Center for the Arts).

Stacey Raymond is a critically-acclaimed stage and screen actor who resides in New York City. They played Paramedic Kerry Whitaker on NBC's hit series New Amsterdam for entire five seasons, Stacey has appeared in dozens of performances, workshops and readings with such theaters as New York Theatre Workshop, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Manhattan Theatre Club, Ensemble Studio Theater, Page 73, LAByrinth Theater Company, The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, to name a few. Select Film credits include: Alice in Andrew’s Land, August In The City and Romance In The Digital Age. Select TV credits include a recurring role on New Amsterdam (NBC), The Legend Of Vox Machina (Amazon Prime), Mr. Robot (USA), Bull (CBS), Law & Order: SVU (NBC), The Good Cop (Netflix), Alpha House (Amazon). Stacey received a BFA in Acting from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University and is a proud member of AEA and SAG-AFTRA.

Neptune: (HE/THEY) After a stint at home in Los Angeles with the ELIZA company, ‘Tune has been a member to all national companies of Hamilton but currently stands by for Aaron Burr, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, & King George III. Select credits: OFF BWAY: MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG BWAY: HAMILTON, BEAUTIFUL, MOTOWN. T.V.: SVU, GOD FRIENDED ME, STEPHEN COLBERT, FILM: (in post) QUEEN OF KNIVES

Scott Illingworth is a professor in the Graduate Acting Program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, a freelance director, co-founder of SOCIETY, and author of Exercises for Embodied Actors: Tools for Physical Actioning. He’s taught, lectured, and directed at universities and schools across the United States and internationally. His directing credits include new play collaborations with Lucas Hnath, Mona Mansour, Christina Anderson, Stefanie Zadravec, Padraic Lillis, and Bill Bowers among others. Scott's work has been seen in New York, across the United States, Europe, South America, and Asia. He is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner (GCFT), and a Fulbright grant recipient.

ROBERT KAPLOWITZ is most interested in the stories told by deliberately curated sound and music, and how those stories interact with society. He has spent the last 27 years creating work as a sound designer and composer for theater, opera and art installations, and has been honored with a Tony Award for Fela! and an OBIE Award for Sustained Excellence in Sound Design, among other flattering celebrations of his work. His approach to design was greatly influenced by the years he spent working with James Houghton, at both the O’Neill Playwrights Conference and the Signature Theater in NY, where he learned his role as a writer’s ally, and to never say “no” but only ask “why” when he doesn’t understand a collaborator’s idea. His work for the screen is more recent – since the Pandemic, he has undertaken various roles for theatrically centered movie work. “Sound Design” in theater seems to translate to about 15 titles in film, including location recording, audio editing, audio repair, music supervision, mixing, mastering… Film projects include After/Glow for Helios Films (Nominee,Best Sound Track On a Feature Film, Seattle Film Festival), Opera Philadelphia’s Digital Commissions series, and the full-length concert film of Tyshawn Sorey and Terrance Hayes’ Cycles of My Being. He is also on the Faculty at Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts, the leader of an annual Masterclass in Sound Design at the Kennedy Center, a co-founder of We Embrace Fatherhood (a West Philadelphia organization dedicated to reduction of systems harms and violence in the Black community), co-creator of the app Stagecaller and proud spouse and parent in his delightful family.

Maggie Bofill: Actor/Playwright. Founding member of LAByrinth Theater Company, member Ensemble Studio Theater (EST) WAW, WomanArtistWriters. WRITER/FILM: Wrote and featured in Cuban American Gothic, nationally televised PBS short, Pata de Perros Productions, PLAY PRODUCTIONS: Devil of Choice, LAByrinth Theater Co. NYC, Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Drawn and Quartered, INTAR (NYTimes critic’s pick), Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Kingshead Theatre Pub, London. Winners, EST Mainstage, Face Cream, EST One Act Marathon. ACTING/STAGE: Moises Kaufman Workshop of Las Aventuras de Juan Planchard, NYC: Miranda, The Formula (world Premier) and Alonso, The Tempest, Santa Cruz Shakespeare Co.: Bella, The Sound Inside, Theater Works Hartford, Dir. Rob Ruggiero: Nora, A Doll's House Part Two, The Longwharf Theatre, Dir. Will Davis: Armida, Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles, St. Louis Rep. Dir: Rebecca Martinez: Blanca in The 24 Hour Plays Viral Monologues, Writer Michael John Garcés: TV/FILM: High Town, The Path, Smash, Law&Order SVU. IG: maggiebofillita

Douglas Taurel recently played Joe Petito in the upcoming Lifetime Movie, The Gabby Petito Story. He worked opposite Thora Birch, who also directed the film. He was cast as a voice in the popular video game Red Redemption and has appeared in numerous television shows and independent films. Including The Cobbler (starring Adam Sandler and Dustin Hoffman) and The Kindergarten Teacher (starring Maggie Gyllenhaal), which premiered at Sundance. He's built a seasoned resume with characters living on the edge of life. The Los Angeles Times said his work on Nurse Jackie, "Nurse Jackie gets her most fascinating character yet to date." He recently finished directing and starring in the TV series Landing Home which he wrote. It recently earned Best Drama at the GI Film Festival, and he was nominated for Best Actor and Best First Time Director at the GI Film Festival. The series also earned Best Drama by the Wings of Honor Festival. It is now streaming on Amazon, Apple, Google Play, Tubi and Vudu, and Vimeo On Demand. Douglas is well known for his solo show, The American Soldier, which has been nominated for the Amnesty International Award. A play that he wrote to honor Veterans and their families. It is based on actual letters from veterans and their families that span from the Revolution through the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is touring throughout the country and has performed in over 34 cities. Including notable spaces like The Kennedy Center in 2016 and 2019, The Library of Congress, and Off-Broadway at 59east59th street.

Andrea Ciannavei is a writer, actor, teacher, producer, and political activist. TV: Pink Marine (Netflix), Mayans MC (FX Networks), The Path (Hulu), Last Men Out (National Geographic); American Odyssey (NBC Universal), Copper (BBC America), Borgia (Canal Plus). She has optioned her pilot Late Bloomers with Universal TV with Jessica Goldberg as showrunner in summer 2021. Plays: The Winstons, one-act play commissioned by Hangar Theater, Deep Trees, The Hard Sell, 7 Captiva Road, and Pretty Chin Up which received a development production at LAByrinth Theater Company (Artistic Directors: Philip Seymour Hoffman and John Ortiz) at The Public Theater. Publications: Pretty Chin Up (Playscripts, Inc.) She has also been published in DAME Magazine, Alternet and Flurt Magazine. For a decade, Andrea produced the Helen Deutsch Writing Workshops: free writing workshops for wounded warriors returning from service in Iraq and Afghanistan (as well as their family caregivers) in Colorado, Minnesota, Ohio, Texas, New York, Los Angeles, and the American Military Hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. Sponsored by the Writers’ Guild Initiative and in partnership with Wounded Warrior Project. This workshop has expanded to include Witness to Innocence who advocate for death row exonerees. In addition to teaching privately, Andrea has taught master classes and been a guest lecturer at Carnegie Mellon, Chapman University, Snow College and UC San Diego. Education: NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts’ Dramatic Writing Program and went on to Juilliard’s Lila Acheson Playwriting Fellowship 2008-2010. Proud member of WGA.