Biography

Biography

Shannon R. Davis is a Bay Area-based Director/Performer, originally from her ancestral homeland of Wisconsin. She is in the CalShakes Artist Circle, and a company member of In The Margin Theatre. She holds an MFA in Directing & Acting from UW-Madison. Shannon has worked with the following: American Conservatory Theatre, New Native Theatre Company, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The American Repertory Theatre, American Indian Community House, CalShakes, Anchorage Opera Company, Theatre of Yugen, Berkeley Rep, MoxieArts NY, Brava Theater, Tantrum Theatre, Ashland New Play Festival, Forward Theatre, Shotgun Players, TheaterWorks, Theatre Bay Area, Marin Shakespeare, San Francisco Playhouse, Renaissance Theaterworks, Playwrights Foundation, Vortex Rep, others. www.shannonrdavis.com

Biography

Natalie Greene (School Programs Manager) is an artist and educator working at the intersection of dance, theater, and community engagement. Natalie worked with the award-winning devised performance ensemble Mugwumpin for a decade, and became Artistic Director in 2016. As a choreographer and intimacy director, Natalie has worked with Aurora Theater Company, Cal Shakes, Custom Made Theater, Portland Center Stage, and Shotgun Players. Her dance-theater work has been presented by California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco Airport, ODC Theater, Dance Mission Theater, San Francisco City Hall, Danspace (NYC), DiMenna Center/Baryshnikov Arts (NYC), Club Principe (Spain), and Montescudaio Amphitheater (Italy). Natalie has performed with numerous Bay Area dance companies and choreographers including Deborah Slater, Emily Keeler, Erin Mei-Ling Stuart, Kim Epifano, and Mary Armentrout. 

As Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Performing Arts & Social Justice at the University of San Francisco from 2006-2021, Natalie directed USF's intergenerational performance company Dance Generators and led the international exchange program Minds in Motion in Tacna and Lima, Peru. She has served on faculty at San Francisco State University, ODC School, and San Francisco Arts Education Project, and has led workshops and trainings in the United States, Peru, Mexico, Nicaragua, Colombia and Ecuador.  Natalie is a passionate advocate for socially-conscious arts education. Her research focuses on ethical means and specific tactics for bringing people together for embodied creative experiences that build a culture of consent.

Biography

Alejandra Maria Rivas is a theatre artist and administrator currently living in the Bay Area. Administratively she has worked with A.C.T. since 2019, first as a Conservatory Fellow, then as a Conservatory Associate of Academic Programs, and now working in both the Conservatory and Education & Community Programs departments. They have also worked as a teaching artist and after-care supervisor with California Shakespeare Theatre in their Summer Conservatory and at their student matinees. She has organized and run trainings for student leaders and organizers at Saint Mary's College of California in their New Student & Family Programs department, assisting students and families transition into higher education and working in their Residential Experience offices assisting students, resident advisors, and resident directors in their daily on-campus life.

Artistically, Alejandra wrote La Paloma which had its first staged reading as a part of the Bay Area Women’s Theatre Festival as a part of their Women of Color Reading Series, previously staged in an Under 30: One Acts Festival. They directed Late: a cowboy song with A.C.T.’s MFA students in their Sky Fest and stage managed History Keeps Me Awake with T1. Other credits include, Performer: Cabaret, In the Heights, Twelfth Night, Lysistrata, and Impure Thoughts (without apology). Assistant/Directing: selections from 365 Plays/365 Days, Inked Baby, This is Modern Art, And Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi. Alejandra has a BA in Performance & Theatre Studies with a minor in Psychology from Saint Mary’s College of California.