Biography

Carlos Aguirre (actor, musician, vocal percussionist, educator) has been performing and educating in the Bay Area for over 24 years. He has shared the stage with The Roots, Eryka Badu, Black Eyed Peas, Mary J. Blige, Jam Master Jay, L.L.Cool J and has recently as a guest star with Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony Award winning show, Freestyle Love Supreme. He is also currently producing his original rap and beatbox adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Tell Tale Heart as well as recording and releasing new music. Aguirre shares his experience by teaching at various schools and at-risk environments throughout the Bay Area.

Biography

Liz Anderson is an actor, filmmaker, and teaching artist. She is a graduate of the San Francisco School of the Arts theater program and holds a B.F.A. in theater from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. She has served as a bilingual arts educator and curriculum designer in public schools in Los Angeles and San Francisco, master teaching artist for the Brava Theater Academy, theater department chair for the Academy of Arts and Science, and program director for the Stonestreet Studios NYU Tisch LA Intensive Program. Liz has worked with numerous Bay Area theater companies, and is a company member with the Leela Faculty Armando Ensemble and PlayGround at Berkeley Rep.

Biography

Heidi Carlsen is a director and experimental theater artist whose 15 years teaching experience spans kids to adults in New York, California as well as Poland. She most recently directed You Can't Take It With You and Into The Woods in the Bay Area. Carlsen has presented work in numerous venues including: BAX, NYTW, The New School, Ontological-Hysteric, HERE, Judson Church and in L.A. at REDCAT and Highways. Carlsen received a Fulbright Scholarship to Poland where she created a dance/opera titled, +--Infinity. She graduated with an MFA in directing from CalArts. Heidi is a Feldenkrais practitioner who specializes in working with performing artists.

Biography

Frances Epsen-Devlin has performed for the past 30 years in national tours and regional productions of musicals and plays, working with Houston Grand Opera, Pasadena Playhouse, Westchester Broadway Theatre (NY), Starlight Theater (KS), Spreckels Theatre (SD), A.C.T., 42nd Street Moon, Woodminster and San Jose Stage Company. Since 1998, Ms. Devlin has served on the faculty of Studio A.C.T., STC, A.C.T.’s M.F.A. Program and Young Conservatory, teaching Voice Building, Musical Theater, Acting, Voice and Speech, and directing the Spring Cabarets. Frances holds a B.S. in Theater /Vocal Performance from Northwestern University and an MFA in Acting from A.C.T.

Biography

Paul Finocchiaro has taught at Studio ACT since 1989. He has performed at ACT, Berkeley Rep., The Magic Theatre, Aurora Theatre, Eureka Theatre, Marin Theatre Company and has worked with Word For Word Performing Arts Company for over 20 years in San Francisco and Europe. He is a Vietnam veteran, a long time musician in various ensembles and holds an MFA in playwriting.

Biography

MARGO HALL award winning actor/director/playwright/educator and the Artistic Director of Lorraine Hansberry Theatre. Recently awarded the 2021 Kenneth Rainin Fellowship in Theater, and listed as one of the YBCA 100 honorees.

Acting credits include Black Odyssey*, Fences, Twelfth Night, A Raisin in the Sun, A Winter’s Tale, American Night: the Ballad of Juan Jose and SPUNK for the California Shakespeare Theater, JAZZ, Skeleton Crew, Gem of the Ocean, Fences and Seven Guitars for Marin Theater Company. Ah! Wilderness, Once in a Lifetime and Marcus or the Secret of Sweet* at The American Conservatory Theater. Exit Strategy, and Trouble in Mind*, at the Aurora Theater, Marcus Gardley’s A World in a Woman’s Hands for Shotgun Players. Barbecue* (also directed), and MF with a Hat at SF Playhouse.

Some of her acting credits for Campo Santo** include Dennis Johnson’s Nobody Move, Chinaka Hodges' Mirrors in Every Corner, Jessica Hagedorn's Fe in the Desert and Stairway to Heaven, and Naomi Iizuka’s Hamlet: Blood in the Brain, 17 Reasons (Why) and Polaroid Stories, floating weeds, a world premier by Philip Kan Gotanda, References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, by Jose Rivera, Bethlehem by Octavio Solis, and Hurricane, by Erin Cressida Wilson. She has toured France with Word for Word as Missie May in The Gilded Six-Bits by Zora Neale Hurston, and Oceola in The Blues I’m Playing by Langston Hughes.

Margo’s recent film credits include Leslie White in All Day and a Night, and Nancy in Blindspotting, and the voice of Melba in Pixar’s SOUL. TV credits include Nancy in Blindspotting coming to STARZ summer 2021, Helen in Chances, Marsha Watkins and Blind Witness on Nash Bridges.

She debuted as a Theater Director with The World Premiere of Joyride, from the novel Grand Avenue by Greg Sarris, which was the Bay Area Critics Circle Winner for Best Original Script; the SF Weekly Black Box Awards for Best Production, Best Ensemble, Best Director; Drama-Logue Awards- Northern California for Best Production, Best Ensemble; the Backstage West-Garland Awards- Northern California for Best Production, Best Ensemble, and the Bay Guardian GOLDIE Award Winner for Stage. She most recently directed Hieroglyph by Erika Dickerson- Despenza which was a co-pro for LHT and SF Playhouse. The play was filmed live onstage and streamed virually. Other credits include How I Learned What I Learned for Lorraine Hansberry Theater, Ubuntu and MTC-Co-production, Barbecue, Red Velvet and The Story, a SF Playhouse/Lorraine Hansberry Theatre Co- Production, and Thurgood, and Rejoice! for the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre. Prior directing credits include Sonny’s Blues a story by James Baldwin, for Word for Word, which toured France. She co-directed Bulrusher with Ellen Chang, a play by Eisa Davis, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and Once on This Island, Hamlet, Blood in the Brain, SPUNK, The Trojan Women, It Falls, Ragtime, and A Streetcar Named Desire for Chabot College.

 Margo completed her first writing project in April 2005 with the World Premier of The People’s Temple at Berkeley Repertory Theater, which won the Glickman award for best new play in the Bay Area for 2005.  She was a part of a collaborative team of four writers who used interviews of survivors, and archival material to form a play exploring the People’s Temple movement and the tragic ending at Jonestown. The play went on from Berkeley Rep. to The Perseverance Theater in Juneau, Alaska and the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. Margo is also part of the acting ensemble. In 2013 she  premiered her semi biographical piece, Be Bop Baby, a Musical Memoir, at Z Space, featuring the 15 piece Marcus Shelby Orchestra, which chronicled  her life growing up in Detroit with her jazz musician stepfather who was with Motown. Lyrics and book by Margo Hall, with original music composed by Marcus Shelby. 

**She is a founding member of Campo Santo, multi-cultural Theater Company in San Francisco *Theater Bay Area best actress recipient

Biography

Maya Herbsman is a theatre director, intimacy director, and teaching artist. She is also currently the Associate Artistic Director at Cutting Ball Theater. She received her BA in Theater from Wesleyan University, where she was awarded the Rachel Henderson Memorial Prize for excellence in directing. As an intimacy director, she has worked with Shotgun Players, Aurora Theatre Company, Cutting Ball Theater, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Crowded Fire Theater, New Conservatory Theatre Center, Quantum Dragon Theatre, Custom Made Theatre Co., and Golden Thread Productions. She is currently an apprentice with Intimacy Directors International. Favorite intimacy credits include Women Laughing Alone with Salad (Shotgun Players) and La Ronde (Cutting Ball Theater).

Biography

Baily Hopkins has been acting on-camera for over a decade in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, and has a degree in Theatre from UC, San Diego. She's worked with director Joe Robert Cole (Netflix: All Day And A Night), Academy Award-winning cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (Pre-production VFX for Gravity), Academy Award-winning director Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master), Academy Award-winning director Barry Jenkins (Venmo spot), and Emmy award-winning choreographer Mandy Moore (Stella Artois national spot). Commercially, she’s had principal roles in campaigns for over 60 nationally recognized companies including Comcast, Toyota, Rocket Mortgage, Uber, NerdWallet, Roku, Credit Karma, and Visa. When not in front of the camera, Baily can be found as a Casting Associate at Nancy Hayes Casting in San Francisco. She's also helped cast national SAG and non-union commercials with Kristen Beck, Gregg Cohen, Kristen Armstrong, and Cathi Carlton, so she has her finger on the pulse of what TV and commercial directors are looking for. Going back to her roots in the theater, she's had the opportunity to perform with The Shotgun Players, New Conservatory Theatre Center, We Players, The Speakeasy SF, UCSD/La Jolla Playhouse, American Conservatory Theatre (Youth Company), Contra Costa Civic Theatre, and Masquer’s Playhouse

www.bailyhopkins.com

Biography

Mark Jackson is an award-winning theater maker whose work in theater, dance, and performance has been seen in the Bay Area at the American Conservatory Theater M.F.A., Art Street Theatre, Aurora Theatre Company, Cutting Ball Theatre, Encore Theatre Company, EXIT Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, Potrzebie Dance Project, San Francisco International Arts Festival, SF State University, Shotgun Players, and Z Space; Nationally at The Studio Theatre (Washington D.C.), The Catamounts (Denver), and Hunger & Thirst (NYC); Internationally at Arts International Festival IV (Japan), Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Bread & Roses Theatre (UK), English Theatre Berlin and Deutsches Theater Berlin (Germany). markjackson-theatermaker.com

Biography

Monique Jenkinson is an artist, choreographer, performer and writer whose work dwells at the intersection of contemporary dance and cabaret, and considers the performance of femininity as a powerful, vulnerable and subversive act. Her alter-ego, Fauxnique, made herstory as the first cis-woman to win a major drag queen pageant. Her solo performance works have toured nationally and internationally in wide-ranging contexts from nightclubs to theaters to museums. Her memoir, Faux Queen is out now on Amble Press. www.fauxnique.net

Biography

Drew Khalouf has a wide range of experience teaching students of all ages and abilities. For two years he toured nationally as an actor and interpreter, teaching hearing and deaf students in both spoken English and American Sign Language. Terry Gross interviewed him about his work with inner-city students in Cleveland's public schools for NPR's Fresh Air. Drew has acted in over forty productions with touring and repertory companies in the United States. In the Bay Area he has performed at A.C.T., Golden Gate Opera, Sierra Repertory Theatre, and in The Muse, a musical he wrote, composed and performed. Drew is a graduate of A.C.T. MFA.

Biography

Peter J. Kuo (Conservatory Director, Director of A.C.T.'s San Francisco Semester) is a director, producer, writer, and educator focused on raising the visibility of marginalized communities. He just finished a First Stage Residency at The Drama League and was recently named one of Theatre Communications Group's Rising Leaders of Color. Recently, he was the social justice programs coordinator at The New School, where he founded the NSD: Affinity Groups program and was involved with several equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives. He taught the class “Acting Beyond Marginalization” at HB Studio, and has directed students in productions at the Atlantic Acting School and Redhouse Arts Center. Kuo previously worked as an art administrator at  South Coast Repertory, East West Players, Soho Rep., and LA STAGE Alliance. He is the co-founder of Artists at Play, a Los Angeles Asian American Theatre Collective. As a director and assistant director, he has worked at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Play Company, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, East West Players, South Coast Repertory, Geffen Playhouse, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Leviathan Lab, Ma-Yi Theater Company, and Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, among others. He holds a BA in drama with a minor in business management from UC Irvine and an MFA in directing from The New School’s School for Drama.