The 51st State

Molly Smith

Director

MOLLY SMITH has served as Artistic Director since 1998. Her more than 30 directing credits at Arena Stage include large-scale musicals like Disney's Newsies, Anything Goes, Carousel, Fiddler on the Roof,  Oklahoma!,  My Fair Lady, The Music Man, Cabaret, South Pacific; new plays like Sovereignty, The Originalist, Camp David, Legacy of Light, The Women of Brewster Place, How I Learned to Drive; and classics like Mother Courage and Her Children, A Moon for the Misbegotten, The Great White Hope, and All My Sons. Her directorial work has also been seen Off-Broadway at 59E59 in New York, Portland Center Stage, Canada’s Shaw Festival, The Court Theatre, The Old Globe, Asolo Repertory, Berkeley Repertory, Trinity Repertory, Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre, Montreal’s Centaur Theatre and Perseverance Theater in Juneau, Alaska, which she founded and ran from 1979-1998. Molly has been a leader in new play development for over 40 years. She is a great believer in first, second and third productions of new work and has championed projects including Dear Evan Hansen; Next to Normal; Passion Play, a cycle; and How I Learned to Drive. She led the re-invention of Arena Stage, focusing on the architecture and creation of the Mead Center for American Theater and positioning Arena Stage as a national center for American artists through its artistic programming. During her time with the company, Arena Stage has workshopped more than 100 productions, produced 39 world premieres, staged numerous second and third productions and been an important part of nurturing nine projects that went on to have a life on Broadway. In 2014, Molly made her Broadway debut directing The Velocity of Autumn, following its critically acclaimed run at Arena Stage. She was awarded honorary doctorates from American University and Towson University.  In 2018, she was honored as Person of the Year by the National Theatre Conference and inducted into the Washington DC Hall of Fame.

Nick "the 1da" Hernandez

DJ and Sound Designer

Nick "tha 1da" Hernandez's (DJ/Producer/Sound Design) recent work includes: The Hip-Hop Children's Trilogy with playwright Psalmayene 24 (Imagination Stage); Fences (Ford's Theater); Native Son and Les Deux Noir (Mosaic Theater); Word Becomes Flesh (Helen Hayes Award, Outstanding Production) at Theater Alliance; Long Way Down and Darius & Twig (The Kennedy Center); and Havana Hop and All the Way Live with sibling Paige Hernandez (Discovery Theater). Additionally, Nick has produced theme music & projects for Hot 97 FM, Red Bull Music, Netflix, DC Public Library, Smithsonian Associates, and Words, Beats & Life, Inc.

Paige Hernandez

Monologue Director

Paige Hernandez is a multidisciplinary artist who is critically acclaimed as a performer, director, choreographer and playwright. As an AEA equity actress, Paige has performed on many stages throughout the country. She has collaborated with the Lincoln Center and has been commissioned by several companies including the National New Play Network, the Smithsonian, The Kennedy Center, La Jolla Playhouse and the Glimmerglass Festival. She is the recipient of an Individual Artist Award from the Maryland State Arts Council as well as three Helen Hayes nominations for choreography and performance. Paige has also been named a “classroom hero” by The Huffington Post, a “Citizen Artist Fellow” with The Kennedy Center, "40 under 40" by the Washington Post and one of “Six Theatre Workers You Should Know” by American Theatre Magazine. She is elated to be the Associate Artistic Director of Everyman Theatre in her hometown of Baltimore, MD. With her company B-FLY ENTERTAINMENT, Paige continues to develop and tour original work internationally. paigehernandez.com.

Anita Maynard-Losh

Director of Community Engagement/Senior Artistic Advisor

Anita Maynard-Losh is the director of community engagement and senior artistic advisor at Arena Stage where she leads the theater’s education and outreach programs and serves on the artistic team. Now in her 16th season at Arena Stage, Anita has been involved in an artistic capacity on 40 Arena Stage productions: she directed the world premiere of Our War as part of the National Civil War Project, and has been an associate director, text director, and vocal/dialect coach on multiple other productions. Anita trained and taught at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, was on the faculty at Webster University in St. Louis, headed the theater department at the University of Alaska Southeast and was the associate artistic director of Perseverance Theater in Juneau, Alaska where she directed 21 mainstage productions. Anita traveled extensively with the artist-in-schools program in Alaska, working primarily with indigenous populations within the context of traditional villages. The Alaska Native-inspired production of Macbeth that Anita conceived and directed was performed in English and Tlingit at the National Museum of the American Indian as part of the Shakespeare in Washington Festival. Her essay about the project was published in Weyward Macbeth: Intersections of Race and Performance, Palgrave MacMillan. She has coached dialects for the Kennedy Center, the Washington National Opera, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Portland Center Stage and the Broadway revival of Ragtime. Anita directs and devises ensemble theater with Arena Stage’s Voices of Now program, primarily in partnership with the Wendt Center for Loss and Healing working with grieving teenagers to create and perform original autobiographical theater pieces exploring loss and stigma of grief. Anita has traveled with the Voices of Now program to India (2012, 2014), Croatia (2015, 2019) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (2019), to collaborate with communities in devising original plays addressing social justice issues.

amaynardlosh@arenastage.org

Psalmayene 24

Arena’s Master Teaching Artist

Psalmayene 24 is an award-winning playwright, director, and actor. Psalm—as his colleagues call him—is currently the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Playwright in Residence at Mosaic Theater and the Doris Duke Artist in Residence at Studio Theatre. Directing credits include PASS OVER by Antoinette Nwandu at Studio Theatre, NATIVE SON by Nambi E. Kelley at Mosaic Theater Company, WORD BECOMES FLESH (recipient of five 2017 Helen Hayes Awards, including Outstanding Direction of a Play) by Marc Bamuthi Joseph at Theater Alliance, and THE SHIPMENT by Young Jean Lee at Forum Theater . Psalm is one of the writers of Arena Stage’s coronavirus pandemic film, May22, 2020, and he wrote “Double Entendre”, the fifth episode of Roundhouse Theatre’s ten-part pandemic influenced web series Homebound. His play, LES DEUX NOIRS (2020 Charles MacArthur Award Nomination for Outstanding Original New Play or Musical and Venturous Capital Grant recipient), is inspired by a legendary 1953 confrontation between famed writers Richard Wright and James Baldwin in a Paris café and received its world premiere production at Mosaic Theater Company. Psalm has received commissions from the African Continuum Theater Company, Arena Stage, Imagination Stage, The Kennedy Center, Theater Alliance, Solas Nua, Mosaic Theater Company, and Theatrical Outfit. His one man play, FREE JUJUBE BROWN!, is recognized as a seminal work in Hip-Hop Theatre and is published in the anthology, Plays from the Boom-Box Galaxy: Theater from the Hip-Hop Generation (TCG).

Seema Sueko

Deputy Artistic Director

SEEMA SUEKO loves directing, research and development (R&D), as well as building community through theater. She serves as deputy artistic director of Arena Stage, where she directed Right to be Forgotten,The Heiress, The Price and Smart People. Her R&D work includes consensus organizing for theater methodology, the Green Theater Choices Toolkit and researching theater and neuroscience. Prior, she was associate artistic director with Pasadena Playhouse and executive artistic director with Mo`olelo Performing Arts Company. Her directing credits include: Arena Stage, Denver Center, Ford’s Theatre, Pasadena Playhouse, People’s Light, The Old Globe, among others. As a playwright, she received commissions from Mixed Blood Theatre and Baltimore Center Stage. Her work has been recognized by the Chicago Jeff Awards, NAACP, American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Asian Pacific American Friends of the Theater and California State Assembly.

Dane Figueroa Edidi

Playwright

DANE FIGUEROA EDIDI is excited to be returning to Arena Stage. The last time she was here, she choreographed Nina Simone: Four Women which garnered her a Helen Hayes Nomination. In 2019 Her play Klytmnestra: An Epic Slam Poem had a world premiere at Theater Alliance which she recently won a Helen Hayes for. She is a newly commissioned artist at Baltimore Center Stage and co-produced & curated Black Trans Women At The Center... at Long Wharf Theater. Considered a prolific artist, she has 13 books published and another world premiere of her latest play, Ghost/Writer, at Rep Stage. www.LadyDaneFE.com  

Farah Lawal Harris

Farah Lawal Harris (she/her/hers) is a first-generation Nigerian playwright, actress and poet. She is the Artistic Director of Young Playwrights’ Theater, a Producing Playwright with The Welders and was included on the 2020 Kilroys List for her play, Silence is Violence. She deeply believes in the power of Black women and their stories and aims to make people feel less alone through her art, which is her activism. Her plays are deeply personal, raw, poetic, funny and hip-hop-infused with a focus on social justice. Farah co-founded the D.C.-based theatre companies, The Saartjie Project and Wild Women Theatre (Deconstructing the Myth of the Booty, Four Women, and Letters to and from Me). Her play, America’s Wives, was produced by the Capital Fringe Festival in 2018. For more, visit farahlawalharris.com. 

Caleen Sinnette Jennings

Caleen Sinnette Jennings is an actor, director and playwright. Dramatic Publishing Company has published eight of her plays. Since the COVID-19 lockdown, she has been commissioned to write for Arena Stage, Signature, Everyman Theatre and Roundhouse Theatres. From 2015-2020, her Queens Girl Trilogy plays have been commissioned and produced by Theatre J, Mosaic Theatre and Everyman Theatre. After playing at the Kennedy Center Family Theatre in 2017, her adaptation of Darius & Twig did a Kennedy Center national tour. Caleen has received five nominations for outstanding new play from the Helen Hayes Awards and play writing awards from the Kennedy Center and The Actor’s Theatre of Louisville. She is a Professor of Theatre, Emerita at American University in Washington, D.C. where she taught for 31 years and received A.U.’s Scholar/Teacher of the Year Award in 2003. She has been a faculty member of the Folger Shakespeare Library’s Teaching Shakespeare Institute since 1994. Caleen graduated from Bennington College with a B.A. in Drama, and she received her M.F.A. in Acting from NYU Tisch School of the Arts.  

Teshonne Nicole Powell

Teshonne Nicole Powell is a writer and arts administrator from Providence, RI. She has extensively worked with FRESHH Incorporated Theatre (FRESHH) in Washington, D.C. as a performer, arts administrator and manager of Sister Cipher, a playwriting circle for Black women. She’s directed staged readings with Silenced Voices: Anacostia Playhouse New Works Festival (2018), and FRESHH’s Next to Kin One-Act Festival (2019). FRESHH also produced her short play, Afromemory (2018), and presented an extended version at The Kennedy Center Page-to-Stage New Play Festival in 2018. Teshonne is also a member of The Welders and will produce her play, Girls’ Night (with Spirits), in October 2021. She is a former company member of Mixed Magic Theater in Pawtucket, RI, and a graduate of Duke University and Howard University. Learn more about Teshonne at tnicolepowell.com.

Otis Cortez Ramsey-Zöe

Otis Cortez Ramsey-Zöe is a care worker, dramaturg, director and theatre arts educator. He is an Adjunct Instructor in Dramaturgy at Carnegie Mellon University and Junior Lecturer in Women’s Studies at University of Maryland. He has developed new works at such institutions as Sundance Institute, The Kennedy Center, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Playwrights Center, National New Play Network, Theater Alliance, The Classical Theatre of Harlem and Arena Stage. He was an Adjunct Instructor in Performing Arts at American University, Lecturer of Theatre Arts at Howard University, Associate Artistic Director at banished? productions, Future Classics Program Coordinator at The Classical Theatre of Harlem and Literary Manager at Center Stage. He holds degrees from New York University and the University of Notre Dame. 

Gregory Keng Strasser

Gregory Keng Strasser  is a director and writer. The Washington Post called the D.C. premiere of his production of 410[GONE] by Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig "irreverent, audacious, and ultimately moving." He has made work in Bangkok, Thailand; Bali, Indonesia; Holstebro, Denmark; New York City; Los Angeles; Washington D.C.; and Ann Arbor, Michigan. Credits include The Infinite Tales (World Premiere - 4615 Theatre Comany) Doi Nang Non: A Puppet-Dance Drama (with Makhamphom, Splashing Theatre, and InsightPact of Bangkok), The Odyssey (World Premiere - adapted from Emily Wilson; Brighton Center for Performing Arts), 410[GONE] (Rorschach Theatre), Derangements (Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics) and more. He was the 2020 Allen Lee Hughes Directing Fellow at Arena Stage where he assisted Seema Sueko on Right to be Forgotten by Sharyn Rothstein, Carey Perloff on A Thousand Splendid Suns adapted by Ursula R. Sarna; and Molly Smith on Celia and Fidel by Eduardo Machado. University of Michigan BFA; Odin Teatret Cohabitation Member 2019. Currently, Greg is developing a video game script with 4615 Theatre Company which he runs as Producing Director. Slide into his Instagram DMs @gregory.keng.strasser or visit his website at gregorykengstrasser.com.

Deb Sivigny

Deb Sivigny (she/her/hers) is most well-known as an award-winning costume and scenic designer from Washington, D.C. Specializing in the creation of new work, she was a member of the playwrights collective The Welders, and creator of Hello, My Name Is… an immersive promenade about Korean adoptees. Her work has also been featured at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage and Theatre Lab’s Dramathon. She is currently working on an environmental piece about North Korean refugees. Her academic research includes “design-driven” works inspired by literature and personal experience and design dramaturgy. She is on the faculty at George Mason University. Website: debsivigny.com Instagram: @indepenguin

Mary Hall Surface

Mary Hall Surface is devoted to intergenerational audiences and multidisciplinary collaborations. A member of Arena’s 2017 Playwright's Arena, she was also among the 10 playwrights for May 22, 2020. Recent D.C. projects include writing/directing Color’s Garden, inspired by Henri Matisse’s art (National Gallery of Art) and directing The Skin of Our Teeth (Constellation Theatre), The Second Shepherds’ Play (Folger Shakespeare Theatre) and Ella Enchanted (Adventure Theatre MTC). Nominated for nine Helen Hayes Awards, Mary Hall received the 2002 Outstanding Director of a Musical for her Perseus Bayou.  As the founding artistic director of Atlas INTERSECTIONS Festival, she curated over 600 all-arts performances and events from 2009–2015. She has had 18 productions produced by the Kennedy Center, where she is a National Teaching Artist. maryhallsurface.com.

Aria Velz

Aria Velz is a director, dramaturg, producer and just likes being a part of the team. Aria was an Allen Lee Hughes Fellow at Arena Stage where she worked on Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville, Fiddler on the Roof and Blood Quilt, among others. She is a graduate from The University of the Arts with a BFA in Directing, Playwriting, and Production. Thank you KJM for being my partner and forever dramaturg. 

Karen Zacarías

Karen Zacarías was recently hailed by American Theater Magazine as one of the 10 most-produced playwrights in the U.S. Her award-winning plays include The Copper Children, Destiny of Desire, Native Gardens, The Book Club Play, Legacy of Light, Mariela in the Desert, The Sins of Sor Juana, the adaptations of Just Like Us, Into the Beautiful North and How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent. She is the author of 10 renowned TYA musicals and the Marvel play Squirrel Girl Goes to College, and the librettist of several ballets. She is one of the inaugural resident playwrights at Arena Stage (where she has been produced four times!), a core founder of the Latinx Theatre Commons – a large national organization of artists seeking to update the American narrative with the stories of Latinos – and she is the founder of the award-winning Young Playwrights’ Theater (YPT). YPT was cited by the Obama administration as one of the best arts-education programs in the nation. She also was awarded the 2019 Medallion by the Children’s Theater Foundation of America for her advocacy for youth and the arts.

Sherri L. Edelen

Sherri L. Edelen last appeared at Arena Stage in Ann. Other Arena credits include Dave, Vanya…Spike, My Fair Lady and Cabaret. She received the Helen Hayes Award for Les Miserables and Side Show at Signature Theatre and a Barrymore Award for The Light in the Piazza at the Philadelphia Theatre Company.She performed in the NY Workshops of Freaky Friday and the Broadway bound Dave. Other credits include Copenhagen at Theatre J, Romeo and Juliet at Folger Theatre, Outside Mullingar at Fusion Theatre Company and Gypsy at Signature Theatre. National tours include Me and My Girl and Nunsense. She performed at the Kennedy Center, Shakespeare Theatre, Olney Theatre, Ford’s Theatre and Round House Theatre for over 20 years.

Michael Glenn

Michael Glenn is delighted to return to Arena Stage, having previously appeared in Junk, Sovereignty, Baskerville and Good People. Washington-based for two decades, Michael has performed on nearly every area stage. Some favorite past credits include Gem of the Ocean and Small Mouth Sounds at Round House Theatre, Nell Gwynn and Sense & Sensibility (Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Ensemble) at the Folger Theatre, Hothouse and Cat’s Cradle with Longacre Lea, School for Lies with the Shakespeare Theatre Company, Clybourne Park at Woolly Mammoth, Brighton Beach Memoirs at Theater J, Robin Hood at Imagination Stage, Lieutenant of Inishmore at Signature Theatre and Marjorie Prime at Olney Theatre Center. Michael’s voice also appears on hundreds of western, science fiction, fantasy and pulp audio books with Graphic Audio. 

James J. Johnson

James J. Johnson appeared in Arena Stage’s Helen Hayes Award-winning production of Lynn Nottage’s Ruined. Other D.C. credits include: The Royale, Hero’s Welcome (1st Stage); Les Deux Noirs (Mosaic Theatre Company); Our Suburb (Theater J); The Member of the Wedding (Ford’s Theatre); The Unmentionables (Woolly Mammoth Theatre); Kingdom, Wedding Dance, Buffalo Hair (African Continuum Theatre Co.); Anna Lucasta (Rep Stage); Jungle Book (Adventure Theatre MTC); Zomo the Rabbit, P. Nokio, (Imagination Stage); Homer P. Figg (Kennedy Center). Film credits: Too Saved, Nocturnal Agony, The New N-Word and The Henchman’s War. Education: BFA, Virginia Commonwealth University. James is also a founding member of Galvanize DC, a support network for Black DMV theatre artists. Instagram: @JamesJJohnson1. Website: jamesjjohnson.weebly.com.

Joy Jones

Joy Jones was previously seen in Arena Stage’s Jubilee, A Raisin in the Sun and Mary T. & Lizzy K. Off-Broadway, she appeared in workshops at the Lincoln Center Festival, The Public and Playwrights Horizons. In London, Joy performed in Tantalus (Royal Shakespeare Company). Selected D.C.-area credits include: The Hard Problem, Cloud 9, Belleville and Invisible Man (Studio Theatre). Her selected regional credits include: Disgraced (Virginia Stage); Invisible Man (Huntington Theatre); Ruined and Tantalus (Denver Center); The Champion (TheatreSquared);and Pericles (PlayMakers Repertory). Her recent on-camera appearances are Little America (Apple TV); Daylight Daycare (Hulu); and Augustus (iEG Productions). Joy has an acting MFA from UNC-Chapel Hill/PlayMakers Repertory and a Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Ensemble in Invisible Man (Studio Theatre). thejoyjones.com.

Jason B. McIntosh

Jason B. McIntosh is a D.C. based actor last seen as Roosevelt in August Wilson’s Radio Golf at Everyman Theatre in Baltimore. Jason’s other recent performances include Juror #6 in Twelve Angry Men at Ford’s Theatre and Evan in Sweat at Everyman Theatre. Jason will be appearing in the film Nevernight due out in 2021. Jason is a proud member of Actors Equity Association.

Gary L. Perkins III

Gary L. Perkins III is a two-time Helen Hayes award winning actor in the D.C. area. Regional theater credits include: Theater Alliances: Blackest Battle, Word Becomes Flesh (Remount), Word Becomes Flesh (Helen Hayes Award); Imagination Stage: Zomo the Rabbit, Thumbelina; Keegan Theatre: Airness (Helen Hayes nomination); 1st Stage: Airness, A Civil War Christmas; Studio Theater: P.Y.G or The Misedumacation of Dorian Belle; Solas Nua: The Frederick Douglass Project (Helen Hayes Award); Forum Theater: The Shipment; New Horizon Theater: Do Lord Remember Me. He has appeared in independent films, commercials and received his training from Point Park University in Pittsburgh, PA. Instagram: @garylperkins3rd.

Todd Scofield

Todd Scofield last appeared at Arena Stage in Sovereignty and City of Conversation. Over the past 17 years in D.C., Todd has also done numerous shows at Shakespeare, Folger, and Round House Theatres, as well as shows at Studio, Theater J, Ford’s, Olney, Adventure Theatre and Imagination Stage. Outside of the D.C. area, Todd worked at Everyman Theatre, Arden Theatre, PlayMakers, Charlotte Rep and four seasons at North Carolina Shakespeare Festival. Television credits include recurring roles in seasons 3 and 5 of The Wire.

Thomas Adrian Simpson

Thomas Adrian Simpson is a longtime Arena performer (he first walked through the stage door some thirty years ago). Tom was most recently a member of the Newsies cast, playing three different roles -Wiesel, Jacobi and the Mayor. Other notable performances at Arena Stage include Eli Whitney in Anything Goes, Karl Lindner in A Raisin in the Sun, Colonel Pickering in My Fair Lady and Abraham Lincoln in Mary K. and Lizzie T.Regionally, Tom has appeared at The Goodman, Signature, Ford’s Theatre, The Kennedy Center, The Shakespeare Theatre, Roundhouse, The Delaware Theatre Co, The Olney Center for the Performing Arts, Theatre J and Studio Theatre among others. TV appearances include House of Cards and America’s Most Wanted. He trained at The University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

Dani Stoller

Dani Stoller is a Brooklyn-born playwright and actor originally from Brooklyn, New York. Her plays include Easy Women Smoking Loose Cigarettes, which received its world premiere at the Tony Award – winning Signature Theatre, Accepts with Pleasure, which was part of the inaugural SigWorks workshop series and Crazy Bitch: An Unauthorized Account of the First Mrs. Edward Fairfax Rochester. As an actor she has performed at The Folger Shakespeare Theatre (Midsummer, District Merchants) Olney Theatre Center (The Crucible, Anne Frank), Signature Theatre, Studio Theatre (Carrie the Musical), 1^st Stage, Keegan Theatre and The Kennedy Center. She received a Helen Hayes Nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical for her performance as Mrs. Taylor in Bat Boy. Education: BFA Ithaca College. danistoller.com.

Justin Weaks

Justin Weaks makes his Arena Stage debut in The 51st State. A Charlotte, NC native, he has been appearing on Washington, D.C. stages since 2015, working at theaters such as The Kennedy Center, Woolly Mammoth Theater Company, Ford's Theatre, Studio Theatre and many more. Pre-pandemic, he was working with Theater Alliance (This Bitter Earth) and Studio Theater (Pipeline). Additional regional and New York credits include work with Round House Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Shakespeare & Company and Barter Theatre. A two-time Helen Hayes Award recipient and five-time nominee, Justin is a teaching artist in the DMV area and a company member of the Woolly Mammoth Theater Company. Education: BA in Theatre from Greensboro College. Instagram: @keithweaks.

Jacob Yeh

Jacob Yeh is thrilled to be working on such an important & timely project with Arena Stage and these wonderful artists & collaborators. Jacob is a D.C.-area-based actor who has over 45 professional productions to his credit, including productions at these (and other) theatre companies: Studio Theatre, Theater J, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Ford's Theatre, Washington Stage Guild, NextStop Theatre (Helen Hayes Award Nomination - Supporting Actor - East of Eden), 1st Stage (HHA Nom. - Ensemble - The Farnsworth Invention), Constellation Theatre, Imagination Stage, Adventure Theatre and 4615 Theatre. Future projects include Marjorie Prime at Prologue Theatre, Maple & Vine at Spooky Action, Noises Off at NextStop Theatre and The Tempest at Round House Theatre. jacob-yeh.com.