Kai Clifton is thrilled to be making their Company One debut. Favorite credits include Usher in the Regional Premiere of A Strange Loop (Speakeasy Stage Company), Sofia in The Color Purple (Umbrella Stage *2024 Elliot Norton Award Nominee), Ursula in The Little Mermaid (Palace Theatre), Mary Sunshine in Chicago (Arts Center of Coastal Carolina), and Gloria in Madagascar: The Musical (North Shore Music Theatre). Kai is a classically trained singer who has trained intensively at the New England Conservatory and at the Assisi Performing Arts Program in Italy on a full tuition scholarship. Kai is also a playwright and their play QUEENS won the 2022 Broadway World Boston Award for Best New Play or Musical. Kai would like to dedicate this performance to Queer and Trans youth past, present and future….we have been here and we will always be here! IG: @kai_clifton

Jade Guerra is excited to be returning to Company One after having been in Shockheaded Peter. Recent credits include Macbeth (Actors’ Shakespeare Project), The Piano Lesson (Shakespeare & Co/ASP) that won Best Play Broadway World Berkshires Awards, Her Portmanteau (Central Square Theater and Front Porch), The Taming of the Shrew (ASP). Jade is a Resident Artist Company member of Actors’ Shakespeare Project. Education: BFA Acting from Ithaca College.

Michael Tow, a versatile actor on stage and screen reunites with Company One and Shawn LaCount where it all began 17 years ago with the Elliot Norton Award-nominated play After the Quake. He’s created memorable characters in Boston theaters from David Henry Hwang’s Chinglish at the Lyric Stage to Proof at Central Square Theater. Some additional theater credits include: Love from Halifax (Gloucester Stage), Wild Swans (American Repertory Theater), Warrior Class (Lyric Stage), Where the Mountain Meets the Moon (Wheelock Family Theater) and yes, he has played the King in The King & I. On TV you’ve seen him in the Taylor Sheridan universe of Landman opposite Demi Moore and Billy Bob Thornton and Lioness opposite Zoe Saldana and Nicole Kidman. He was a series regular on Apple TV’s City on Fire, recurring on many shows such as STARZ’s Raising Kanan and Law & Order and guest starring on shows including FBI International,  The Blacklist, MacGyver, and The Resident. Outside of acting, he is a Certified Financial Planner and owns the first pro pickleball team in Massachusetts, The Boston Dragons. He would like to thank his wife Nancy and daughters Mikayla & Sienna for their loving support. He dedicates this show to his close friends and family who have passed, but most of all his daughter, Alana. #DearAlana

Alex Alexander is excited to be working with Company One Theatre again with such great folks and on such an amazing play after making her debut with the company last year in The Meeting Tree. Alex is a Massachusetts-based, bicoastal actor who is an active member of the San Francisco Bay Area improv group Barewitness Films (barewitness.com). Although she primarily works on stage, Alex was also a principle actor in Another Country’s award winning web series Assigned Female at Birth. She loves helping to bring new works to life and has done so locally with Moonbox Productions, Fresh Ink Theatre, Exiled Theatre, TC Squared, Imaginary Beasts and Chuang Stage among others. A huge thanks to her supportive friends and family. Alex studied acting in San Francisco & London and has a BA in Theatre. alexalexander.net

Nicholas is excited to return to Company One Theatre! Recent credits include Boston Chinatown: Stories on Our Streets: A Chinatown Musical (CHUANG Stage & Company One), Learning How to Read by Moonlight (CHUANG Stage & Company One), The Suppliant Women (Apollinaire Theatre), Mermaid Hour (Moonbox Productions), and The F&L at 1330 (Boston New Works Festival). Born and raised in Singapore, Nicholas made his professional debut as Young Simba in Disney’s The Lion King and received further training from the School of the Arts, Singapore Repertory Theatre, and the SAF Music and Drama Company. He has performed for the Asian Youth Theatre Festival, National Day Parade, and River Hongbao, and has provided voiceovers for brand ads including Spotify and Singtel.

Anjie Parker is excited to return to Company One Theatre after appearing in The Meeting Tree. She is a stage, film, voice actress, and writer, and her recent credits include: Daily Script Reads (Rox Film Festival); Skakzi: A Spell of Ice & Snow (Mystic Evidence Productions); The Suppliant Women (Apollinaire Theatre); Historical Plays (Theatre Espresso); and House Teams (Improv Asylum). Thank you for your time and enjoy the show!

Keiko Green is a biracial and bilingual playwright, screenwriter, and performer based in Los Angeles and Seattle, originally from Georgia. She is a Core Company Member at ACT, the 2023 Resident Playwright at Chance Theatre, and previously part of Seattle Rep’s Writers Group and Theatre Mu’s Mu Tang Clan. Previous produced full-length plays include: Exotic Deadly: Or the MSG Play (Old Globe, Upcoming: San Francisco Playhouse), The Bed Trick (Seattle Shakespeare Company), Sharon (Cygnet Theatre), Hometown Boy (Actors Express/Seattle Public Theater), Hells Canyon (Theater Mu), and Nadeshiko (Sound Theatre Company). Other plays have been developed/produced by the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, the Old Globe, the Kennedy Center, the National New Play Network, Playwrights Realm, Ensemble Studio Theatre, and Atlantic Theatre Company. She currently holds commissions from MTC/Sloan Foundation and the Old Globe. As a screenwriter, she wrote on Hulu’s Interior Chinatown. As an actor, she has performed at theaters nationwide and originated the role of Connie in Lauren Yee’s The Great Leap at the Denver Center and Seattle Rep. BFA: NYU Drama – Experimental Theatre Wing, MFA: UCSD Playwriting. Keiko is represented by the Gersh Agency and Anonymous Content. She also has a basset hound named Gus, who has quickly become her whole life. (She also has a husband. Sorry, husband.) @keikothegreen on Instagram.

Shawn LaCount is a co-founder of Company One Theatre where he serves as Co-Executive Director & Artistic Director. Under Shawn’s co-leadership, Company One Theatre has been called “one of the most innovative theatre companies in the country” by the American Theatre Wing. As a stage director, Shawn’s focus has been on new play development and amplifying diverse stories with a focus on social justice. Directorial credits include the world premiere of HYPE MAN by Idris Goodwin (Elliot Norton Award, Outstanding Production); regional premieres of Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Really; Young Jean Lee’s We’re Gonna Die (American Repertory Theater / C1); A. Rey Pamatmat’s Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them (Elliot Norton Award Nominee for Outstanding Director and Outstanding Production); Annie Baker’s The Flick (Elliot Norton Award, Outstanding Production); the world premiere of Kirsten Greenidge’s Splendor (IRNE Award nominee, Best New Play); the Boston premieres of Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo by Rajiv Joseph; The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity by Kristoffer Diaz (Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Director and Outstanding Production); Annie Baker’s The Aliens (Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Director and Outstanding Production); the Boston premiere of Haruki Murakami’s After the Quake (Elliot Norton Award Nominee, Outstanding Production); Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins (IRNE nomination for Best Director and Best Musical); and the Boston premiere of Noah Haidle’s Mr. Marmalade (Elliot Norton Award Nominee, Outstanding Director/Outstanding Drama). Shawn has taught at Emerson College, Boston Arts Academy, Huntington Theatre Company, Tufts University, Stage One, and the University of Massachusetts. Shawn is a proud alum of ArtEquity’s National Facilitator Training as well as the National Arts Strategies Chief Executive program, where he earned a certificate from Harvard Business School. Shawn holds an MA Ed. in Education from Clark University and an MFA in Theatre from The University of Massachusetts. Shawn is grateful to his kids Shiloh & Levi who inspire him to create!

Jessie Baxter is a Boston-based dramaturg, producer, and facilitator who specializes in creating new work and curating spaces for community connection. She is the Director of New Work and Connectivity at Company One Theatre, and her C1 production dramaturgy credits include Vietgone; Hype Man; Revolt, She Said. Revolt Again.; Dry Land; The Chronicles of Kalki; Brahman/I; The Flick; and The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity. Jessie is also a Co-Founder of Fresh Ink Theatre, where she served as Literary Director for 10 seasons and developed new plays by many local writers, including Walt McGough, Patrick Gabridge, MJ Kaufman, Nina Louise Morrison, and others. She has held fellowships at The Playwrights Center and The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, was a recipient of the the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival National Dramaturgy Award, and graduated from Emerson College with a BA in Theatre Studies.

Kimstelle Merisma is an experimenting theatremaker based in both Boston and Providence. Kimmi currently works as the Artistic Associate at Company One Theatre. She recently graduated from Emerson College, receiving her BFA in Theatre and Performance with a minor in African American & Africana Studies. Kimmi’s heart, mind, and craft exist at the intersection of theatre arts, storytelling, and community-strengthening. As an artist, Kimmi’s focus is bringing under-represented stories to the stage and showcasing faces and bodies American theatre has previously denied. She approaches this practice by bringing people together through makeshift art, unapologetic humanity, and rambunctious joy.

Chris is excited to be joining their first production at Company One. Boston Area: The Glass Menagerie (Gloucester Stage Company),  Orlando, Once: The Musical (Boston University). New York: Fahrenheit 451 (Bay Street Theater), The SpongeBob Musical (The Gateway). They are also credited as a Technical Assistant on Buena Vista Social Club and Chess. Grateful to be back in Boston! IG: @chris_d.aly

Melanie is a writer and stage manager, passionate about new works and advocacy through storytelling. She is excited to be returning to Company One for another production after previously assistant stage managing The Great Privation! Other credits include: Fangirl (ASM, Boston New Works Festival), The F&L at 1330 (SM, Boston New Works Festival), and The Interrobangers (SM, Tufts University). Melanie also previously worked as Playwright Assistant for Central Square Theatre’s “Youth Underground” program.

Lily Barnes is a freelance stage manager currently based in Salem, MA and is grateful to be making their Company One debut! Some previous stage management credits include Not Sightly (MIT Theatre Arts), Antigonick (MIT Theatre Arts), Dear Jack, Dear Louise (Penguin Rep Theatre), Something Rotten!, Blood Wedding, The Thing They Love, and Orlando (Salem State University). She is a Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center Stage Management Fellow (2023) and a BFA graduate of Salem State University. Outside of theatre, Lily can be found trying to keep their sourdough starter alive or taking a walk to the ocean. She is a proud Puerto Rican and a Pisces sun.

Danielle DeLaFuente is a Chinese/Taiwanese and Uruguayan scenic designer and artisan based in New York. She is excited to be returning to Company One for another year at the BPL. Her recent design credits include Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (American Players Theatre), Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus (Weston Theatre Company) Flora & Ulysses (Wheelock Family Theatre), and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (WCSU). Her recent associate design credits include Fun Home (The Huntington Theatre), Beau: The Musical (Theater at St. Luke’s), Heaux Church (Ars Nova), What Became of Us (Atlantic Stage 2), A Guide for the Homesick (Daryl Roth 2), and The Ghost of John McCain (Soho Playhouse). She would like to thank Company One and all the wonderful people who worked on this show! IG: @ddelafuentedesign. Website: danielledelafuente.com

Emily Woods Hogue is a freelance costume designer with a heart based in New England and a suitcase ready for anywhere and anything. East Coast regional design credits include Williamstown Theatre Festival, SpeakEasy Stage Company, Lyric Stage Company of Boston, Actors’ Shakespeare Project, Greater Boston Stage Co., and many, many more. If she’s not in tech or in her haunted old mill building studio, you can find Emily working as a costumer for film & television, hiking somewhere with her partner or her mom, or on the open road with a Subaru full of snacks. Member IATSE 481 & USA 829. ewoodshoguedesigns.com

Athena Parkman is a Boston-based costume designer who views theatre through a contemporary lens with a color story. Recent wardrobe supervisor credits include The Meeting Tree and The Great Privation with Company One Theatre, and CROWNS, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and Once Upon a Carnival with Moonbox Productions. Emerson Stage credits: I Love XXX (Costume Designer), Little Women (Costume Designer), The Loyals (Assistant Costume Designer), The Secret in the Wings (Wardrobe Supervisor), Spitfire Grill (Assistant Costume Designer), As You Like It (Assistant Wardrobe Supervisor), The Late Wedding (Dresser).

Elmer Martinez is excited to return to Company One for their fifth production, following The Meeting Tree, Haunted, The Interrobangers, and Black Super Hero Magic Mama! Elmer is a Puerto Rican-Dominican American interdisciplinary working theater artist, poet and dancer. Born in Lowell, MA he developed in the spoken word, theater and street dance communities before completing his BFA in Theater Studies focused on Lighting Design with a minor in Dance in 2019 at Emerson College. Boston based, Elmer has traveled the world for 15 years as a guest artist, educator, events producer, lighting designer, poet, DJ and dancer. Recent Credits Include: Actors Shakespeare Project: Macbeth; The Theater Offensive: Queer Republic Festival, Isabel, The Best Part of Night is Black; Boston Conservatory at Berklee: She Kills Monsters; Lyric Stage: The Light, Art; Northeastern University: Twelfth Night, Everybody, The Bacchae; SpeakEasy Stage Company: Case for the Existence of God; Brandeis University: Everybody, Wolf Play; New Repertory Theater: Nina Simone and Hip-Hop; Greater Boston Stage Company: Popcorn Falls; VLA Dance: In the space between, For Nina; Connecticut College: The Moors, Ophelia; The Boston Globe: Globe Live; Passion Fruit Dance Co: Dance Within Your Dance, Trapped, Dimensions. Elmer currently enjoys teaching advanced lighting design with Brighter Boston and is multi-award nominated in his field.

Arshan returns to Company One after designing sound and creating music for Splendor, The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, 1001, GRIMM, The Overwhelming, after the quake, and Voyeurs de Venus. Arshan is an interdisciplinary artist who has worked extensively creating soundscapes and original music for the theater. Arshan has worked with theater companies including Shakespeare & Company, ArtsEmerson, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, California Shakespeare Theater, The Huntington Theatre Company, Capital Repertory Theatre, Contemporary American Theater Festival, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, Plays in Place, A.R.T Institute, The Lyric Stage Company, and many more. In addition to their theater design work, Arshan creates works combining performance art, storytelling, video, music, and written and spoken words, exploring and reimagining questions of identity, alienation, belonging, and culture. Arshan previously taught theatrical sound design for Emerson College. They hold a BS in Music from MIT and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College.

Katie Kuan-Yu Chen is a Boston-based sound designer and mixer. She is overjoyed to have worked on this production and feels very lucky to be a part of this process. Her recent credits include Did You Eat? 嫣 ‘歷棲? (CHUANG Stage), Crowns (Arrow Street Arts), Driving in Circles (Boston Playwright’s Theatre), 46 Plays for America’s First Ladies (The Hub Theatre Company), Yerma (Boston University), Orlando (Boston University). She is originally from Taiwan and an alum of Boston University (BFA). katiekychen@gmail.com

Nitsan Scharf is a media artist and programmer, formerly based in Washington DC, currently a third-year MFA candidate in Integrated Media at the University of Texas, Austin. He is particularly interested in the expansive, collaborative, binary-busting, and thoroughly queer possibilities of media design and creative technology. Recent design credits include Cabaret (UT Austin), The Ghosts of Versailles (Butler Opera Center), Óxido (Points of Intersection, UT), tooth fairy (Fall For Dance, UT), Over/Under (Extreme Lengths Productions), Body of a Woman as a Battlefield (ExPats Theatre), The Ascension Project (Uprooted Dance), and A Chorus Within Her (Theater Alliance). He received his B.A. in Theatre from the University of Maryland. nitsanscharf.com

Grace Kroeger, originally from Minnesota, is a Boston engineer and designer for projections and sound. She earned her BA in German and Theater: Design & Technology at the University of Minnesota: Twin Cities. They particularly enjoy the puzzle of putting complicated systems together, creating system schematics, and (most importantly) programming in QLab. Recent projections credits include – Good Breeding, Boston Conservatory (Projections Technician); Paul & Emile, Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater (Assistant Projections Designer); The Ceremony, CHUANG Stage (Co-Projections Designer); Kufre N’ Quay, Wheelock Family Theater (Assistant Projections Designer); Learning How to Read By Moonlight, Company One (Projections Designer); Enron, College of the Holy Cross (Projections Technician); She Kills Monsters, Boston Conservatory (Projections Technician); Liberty Talks, Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater (Projections Programmer); Hoops, Company One (Projections Designer, Projections Engineer); Morning, Noon, and Night, Company One (Assistant Projections Designer, Projections Technician). kroegerav.com

Kelly Smith is a multi-hyphenate artist with a new work focus, having ushered in over 30 world premieres in New England. Selected credits include: Props: Company One/A.R.T. (Greater Good, Vietgone), Commonwealth Shakespeare Company (Much Ado About Nothing), Hub Theatre (Wit), Fresh Ink (Shrike, That Time the House Burned Down), Legion Theatre Project (Break Break), Titanic Theatre, Sleeping Weazel, PF Pictures, and Brown Box among others. Writing: Reset, The White Room (Flat Earth Theatre), Raining Aluminum (theatreKapow – Best Drama Finalist, NH Theatre Awards), ShotzBoston, StoryClub Boston, 1MPF, and others. Directing: Second Act Prod. (Sister Anonymous), Hub Theatre (Robyn is Happy), AKA Theatre (In the Forest, She Grew Fangs), and shorts for Playbill Virtual Theatre Festival, Open Theatre Project, Boston Theatre Marathon, and 1MPF. In addition to stage managing all over, Kelly produced the raucous Irish backroom bar series Solas Nua, the heartwarming Grownup Storytime at Aeronaut Brewery, and founded Also Known As Theatre Theatre. kellyesmith.com

Dr. Ayshia Mackie-Stephenson is a performance studies scholar, intimacy director for the stage, vocalist, and award-winning writer and arts educator from Brooklyn, NY. She received her MFA from CalArts and PhD from UMass Amherst. She uses theatre and new media to investigate race, sexuality, and human rights. Her critical and creative work have been published by Routledge, Black Camera, Qualitative Inquiry, Boston University Press, International Review of Qualitative Research, Theatre Topics, Howlround and Research in Drama Education. Dr. Ayshia has intimacy directed and/or led workshops for productions at Trinity Rep, The Huntington, Emerson Stage, Company One Theatre, LSU, and Northeastern University, among others. ayshiastephenson.com

The Huntington: The Triumph of Love, Leopoldstadt, The Band’s Visit, Prayer for the French Republic, The Lehman Trilogy, Romeo and Juliet, The Art of Burning. Regional: Once, Allegiance (SpeakEasy Stage); The Book of Will, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder (Lyric Stage); Oliver!, Hair, Trayf (New Rep); Little Women, James and the Giant Peach (Wheelock Family Theatre); All is Calm (Greater Boston Stage Company).

Neon Calypso is an internationally known, Boston-based Drag Artist who explores the intersectionality of what it means to be queer, black, femme, and disabled with performances reflecting on life experiences through song, dance, and spoken word. She’s a cast member of Sasha Velour’s Nightgowns and a regular performer for some of NYC and Brooklyn’s best producers! She was crowned Mx. Buswig 2020 at the 2021 Buswig Festival and competed as 1 of 8 Drag Entertainers in the 2022 Drag Queen Of The Year Pageant!

Josh Glenn-Kayden is a Boston based director, the Creative Producer and Casting Director at Company One Theatre, and a co-producer of the Legion Theatre Project. Josh’s work centers around new plays that help us imagine a more equitable and just world together. Favorite directing projects include The Interrobangers by M Sloth Levine (Company One Theatre, nominated for 4 Elliot Norton Awards, including Outstanding Play); Break, Break by Erin Lerch (Legion Theatre Project & Artists’ Theatre of Boston); Muse by Sarah Wendy Burman (Wellesley College); Shrike by Erin Lerch (Fresh Ink Theatre); Wild Flowers by Tatiana Isabel Gil (Company One Better Future series); Visionary Futures: Science Fiction Theatre for Social Justice Movements (consisting of new plays by Phaedra Michelle Scott, M Sloth Levine, and Jaymes Sanchez) at UMass Amherst; Baltimore by Kirsten Greenidge (UMass Amherst); Walden by Amy Berryman (UMass Play Lab); Greater Good by Kirsten Greenidge (A.R.T. & Company One, associate director); the world premiere of This Place/Displaced (Artists’ Theater of Boston, ArtsFuse Best Stage Productions of 2018); The Lyons by Nicky Silver (Titanic Theatre); and Don’t Give Up the Ship by Laura Neill (Fresh Ink Theatre). Josh also directed and co-produced The Legion Tapes, a sci-fi podcast written by Erin Lerch. Josh has directed and developed new work for the A.R.T., Company One Theatre, Gloucester Stage, Fresh Ink Theatre, Flat Earth Theatre, Artists’ Theater of Boston, the Museum of Science, UMass Amherst, Wellesley College, and Hub Theatre, among others. Josh holds a BA in Drama from Tufts University and an MFA in Directing from UMass Amherst.

Liam is a production and stage manager from the New England area who received his BFA in stage management and design from the University of Rhode Island. Liam has previously worked across the Massachusetts and Rhode Island arts scene, and has a deep connection to the growth of underground artists in these areas. He is excited to be part of Company One and to create art in the city he was born!

Andrew March is excited to bring his full range of management and fabrication experience to his fourth Company One production, following Learning How to Read by Moonlight, The Meeting Tree, and The Great Privation. Prior to this, Andrew worked for three years as Assistant Technical Director for the Brown-Trinity MFA program, producing full seasons in the downtown Providence PCPC Theater. He has worked for four seasons at Providence’s Trinity Repertory Company; building sets, fabricating props, scenic painting, and serving as Production Carpenter. Credits include: La Tempestad, La Cage Aux Folles, A Christmas Carol, Sueńo, and Fairview. He also worked as Master Carpenter for the Festival Theater’s production of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat at the Zeiterion Theater in New Bedford.

Jo is excited to return to Company One Theatre following their work on The Meeting Tree and The Great Privation! Previous credits with Central Square Theatre include SPACE, Her Portmanteau, and Mrs. Warren’s Profession (Audio Engineer). With Emerson College, they served as production electrician for Bonnets: How Ladies of Good Breeding are Induced to Murder; assistant lighting designer for How We Got On, Are You Someone to Somebody, Three Romances; sound designer for Head Over Heels, Limber: A Love Story, The Impracticality of Modern Day Mastodons, Rareworks’ Five Times in One Night, Musical Theatre Society’s Dogfight; and production sound engineer for Amour, Imogen Says Nothing, Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, 16 Winters, Little Women, and The Loyals.