Nick Baker (he/him)

Nick Baker is a playwright and theater artist based out of Worcester, MA. His art values community, accountability, and examining the uncomfortable above all else. He dreams of plays that revitalize the heavy spirits of working class people. Of plays that cross divides and show the power of building a coalition. Of plays that make us feel like everything is going to be okay, even when we must confront the darkest parts of our humanity. Nick has written two hip-hop theater plays: And Then a Fight Broke Out and Working On It: A Story of Struggle, Love, and Donuts, both of which were developed and workshopped at the New Africa House Experimental Lab at UMass Amherst, where Nick earned his Bachelor’s of Arts in Theater. Nick is also an active member of the Worcester Writers’ Collective, where he goes weekly to share and develop new works.

Cas Berta (they/them)

Cas Berta is a gender nonconforming actor, writer, and hopeful director. They studied Film & TV Screenwriting and Gender Studies at Boston University and served as the first openly transgender president of BU’s only low-income cooperative house, The Harriet E. Richards House. They made their directorial debut in 2023 at Central Square Theater’s production of “ENOUGH! Plays to End Gun Violence,” centering on gun violence against the LGBTQ+ community. They are a second-year Youth Underground Ambassador with Central Square Theater, a cohort centering meaningful social change through theatre developed with local playwrights. Cas also plays Puck/Egeus and leads education workshops for Boston Theater Company’s educational tour of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” You may have tossed tea and committed treason with Cas as Goody Hewes at the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum or seen Cas during the 2 seconds they were in CODA (2021), for which they were gifted an Honorary Certificate from the Screen Actors Guild (signed by Jewish Icon Fran Drescher) for their work in the ensemble. They’re honored to work, grow, and collaborate with this special cohort in the C1 Volt Lab.

Erin Davis (she/they) — Playwright

Erin Davis is a playwright, dramaturg, hiker, fried green tomato enthusiast, and a riot grrrl at heart. Originally from Georgia and now a proud Allston resident, Erin has a passion for new work that centers queer joy through connectivity, honesty, and Camp. Erin appreciates collaboration, as community through conversations and creativity drives her art. Outside of their writing, they are working on developing the perfect whiskey sweet tea recipe.

Erin’s work, honeyhole, was produced as part of the 2023 Boston New Works Festival. Their co-written play with Julia Hertzberg, the chariot reversed, was produced at Boston University in 2022 and was semi-finalist for the 2023 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. They are a graduate of Boston University’s School of Theatre and currently work at SpeakEasy Stage Company.

Angelique Dina (she/they)

Angelique Motunrayo Folasade Akiya C-Dina is a first-generation Afro-Indigenous embodied theatrical storyteller based in New England. They are a current CAMD PhD student at Northeastern University focusing on Black feminist narratives and embodied theatrical practices through research-based theatre. Her performance credits include: The Inferior Sex (Trinity Repertory Company), Soul Tapes (Brown/Trinity), An Octoroon (Gamm Theatre), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Gamm Theatre), and more. Their other accolades include: KCACTF finalist ‘21, National Young Playwright semi-finalist ‘21, Ronald McNair scholar ‘22, Lime Arts Twenty by Twenty Fringe Playwright ‘23 and Lin Manuel Miranda fellow ‘23. She thanks God, her ancestors, and her Black and Brown Indigenous community for guiding her journey. “Ashe.”

Sofia Lindgren Galloway (she/her)

Sofia Lindgren Galloway is a theatre-maker, educator, and scholar living in the Greater Boston Area, though she is a Mid-Westerner at heart. Sofia will complete her MFA in Theatre Education and Applied Theatre at Emerson College in May 2024. She approaches her work from a feminist and social justice lens, has a penchant for physical storytelling, and is obsessed with the intersections of STEM and the arts. Her research examines how media, cultural institutions, and education systems can work to develop a curious, collaborative, and critically engaged society. She uses arts-integration to explore how performance techniques can solve problems and reveal new truths about society, technology, and ourselves. Her work has been published in ArtsPraxis and on HowlRound. Sofia has worked as an educator/facilitator in urban and rural schools, theatres, museums, and ASD therapeutic programs teaching drama and science. She has also worked as a dramaturg, director, and producer of new works with Emerson Stage, Collective Unconscious Performance, Ten Thousand Things, and Theatre Pro Rata. Sofia is thrilled to join the Company One Volt Lab and learn from this cohort of incredible artists. Learn more about Sofia’s work at www.sofialindgrengalloway.com

Annalise Guidry (they/them)

Annalise Guidry is a Black and Puerto Rican nonbinary theater-anthropologist (playwright, director and recent dramaturg) from New Orleans based in Boston whose artistry focuses on the intersections between ancestral healing, lineage and theater as vehicles for social good and social change. They have seen to the direction and co-direction of seven works, five of which being original and personally devised work exploring ancestral lineage including: 3 Women, 3 Myths (Endinburgh Fringe Festival); Just a Thing (2021) and All Our Stories: From the Caribbean to Me (2023, Hyde Square Task Force Summer Ensemble). Annalise works as a teaching artist across Boston and is the resident artist for The Theater Offensive’s Emergent Artist Residency. 

Marc Hem Lee (he/him)

Marc A. Hem Lee, MFA, MAT, MS, MD is continually seeking the seamlessness between biography and identity. He contains multiverses, not multitudes, and explores each life through the multiverse of play. Dr. Hem Lee’s interests are: Work. Play. Science. Art. He expresses all these through storytelling.

Michael Chekhov stated that “[a]ll true artists bear within themselves a deeply rooted and often unconscious desire for transformation”. To Dr. Hem Lee, play is the medium of transformation. He is currently testing this perspective on play through the practice of Psychiatry, and is training at Harvard’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. More meaningful than the graduate degrees he holds, he also holds the stories of his patients on life’s journey.

He continually explores the intersection and parallels of art and science. His interest lies in the human capacity for learning. His passion lies in creating brave spaces, creating the environment for others to own their stories. His prerogative lies in teaching people how to navigate both art and science in their own lives. His identity is a gradual awakening and rediscovery of what he loves – the workshop, the laboratory, the microcosm of worlds that are in theatre, and the concurrent sense of scientific inquiry that can be gained from this exploration.

Jenny S. Lee (she/her)

Jenny S. Lee is a Boston-based AAPI director, actress, and arts administrator. She is also a Boston College graduate, Northern Virginia native, and currently serves as the community engagement associate at CHUANG stage, Boston’s Asian American theatre company cultivating joyful and challenging AAPI stories that pioneer translingual activism in the arts. Recent regional directing credits include The Heart Sellers AD (Huntington), John Deserves to Die AD (Fresh Ink), and Mad Dash (Fresh Ink). Recent regional acting credits include Concrete Dreams (TC Squared), Troublemaker, and Takeover (Asian American Playwright’s Collective).

Hannah Levinson (she/her)

Hannah Levinson is a multi-hyphenate theatre artist, with a background in directing, playwriting, dramaturgy, and arts admin. She received her BA from Northeastern University in English, Theatre, and Writing. She’s previously held arts administration and creative roles with Actors’ Shakespeare Project, the National Women’s Theatre Festival, and Boston-based creative writing nonprofit GrubStreet. She currently works both at Boston’s oldest LGBTQ+ theater, The Theater Offensive, and as the Co-Literary Director for Playwright Development and Dramaturgy at Fresh Ink Theatre. Recent projects include: Dramaturg, Sisterhood of the Survivors (Northeastern University); Dramaturg, John Deserves to Die (Fresh Ink Theatre); Assistant Director, Indecent (Concord Players); Stage Manager & Dramaturg, Strawberry Princess (Chelsea Theatre Works); Director, Acute Exposure (National Women’s Theatre Festival). Hannah strives to bring an ethic of consent, care, and justice into whatever project she’s working on. When she’s not at the theatre, you can find her foraging, watching drag, snuggling her cat Hazelnut Babka, or cooking up something tasty for her friends and chosen family at her cozy home in Jamaica Plain.

Elijah Punzal (they/he)

Elijah Punzal is a multidisciplinary artist (triple “P”: playwright, performer, and producer) from the California Bay Area now based in Somerville, MA. Elijah’s creative and community-oriented endeavors are influenced by their identity as a Queer, Generation 1.5 Pilipinx immigrant, and they recently presented a 15 min snippet of their new play-in-development through The Voices of America Writers Workshop titled Children of the Basement which is inspired by their childhood growing up in an elderly care facility. Elijah has worked alongside Berkeley Repertory Theatre as the 2022 Education & Community Engagement Fellow, the Bulosan Center for Filipinx Studies (now the Amado Khaya Initiative) as an Education and Retention Intern, and the UC Irvine Filipino American Alumni Chapter as the former Co-Chair of the Mentorship Committee. He is currently a first year PhD student at Tufts University in Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies where his research interests revolve around Filipino American performance, diasporic imagination, and cultural (re)memory. Elijah is incredibly proud of his recent conference presentation analyzing the affective relationship between the audience and the spectacle of Here Lies Love on Broadway.

Thomas Wark (he/him)

Thomas Wark is a playwright, dramaturg, and director. In 2017 he was a playwriting and dramaturgy fellow at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. A graduate of Boston University’s School of Theatre, his undergraduate thesis, Daddy Issues, was chosen for entry into the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. He lives in Cambridge, Mass.

Michael J. Blunt (they/them)

Emily Eldridge-Ingram (she/her)

Janelle Grace (she/her)

Jordan Palmer (she/they)

Charlotte Snow (she/her)

Joshua Lee Robinson (he/him)

afrikah selah (they/them)

afrikah selah is a Boston-based cultural worker specializing in dramaturgy, new play development, and arts journalism. With a passion for dialogue and a desire to explore new ideas in innovative ways, they value creative collaboration that strives to build community towards a more equitable world. Currently, they hold the position of NNPN New Work Producer in Residence at Company One Theatre, and are also a 2023-24 TCG Rising Leader of Color. You can find out more at itsafrikah.com