The Ensemble
Valeria A. Avina (Resident Actor)
Queer Mexican artist, clown, director, producer and voice coach based in NYC, born and raised in Durango, Mexico. MFA from The University of Iowa, and a BA from Graceland University. She is a Certified Assistant teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework and The Fitzmaurice Institute Regional Coordinator of Latin America. Currently she teaches vocal technique at Fordham University. Proud member of Intar UNIT52, BBR Productions, The Dramatist Guild, NALIP, Cayenne Film Festival, FLOW Film Festival, and El Colectivo LGBTTTIQ from Durango, Mexico. Valeria has performed in prolific companies and festivals such as All for One Theater, Dixon Place, Drama League, INTAR, Danisarte, Teatro SEA, Bushwick Starr, The Tank, The Lark, Noor Theater, La Micro Theater, Shakespeare in the Park (IA), Judson Church, Human Rights Festival, International High School for Health and Science, Michael Chekhov Theater Festival CT, So-Fi Festival, Edward Hopper House, Phoenix Theater Ensemble, LATEA, The Flea, AS220 Providence RI, The ONE Festival (Teatro Círculo) and, Planet Connections Festivity. In 2017, she was nominated at The Planet Connections Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Play for her role in Victory Girls by Kristina Poe. Some of her TV/Film credits are commercial for the NBA, Target, Cadillac, Revlon, Enfamil, Stratus, Fidelis Care, Indriver, NJM Insurance, Mastercard and an episode for Ralph Friedman TV Series, The Perfect Murder and POSE (FX). She will performs the solo piece, Honduras by Sara Farrington, originally directed by Evan Zes. She is the co- producer of a Series “Hechas” Official Selection for the Latino Film Festival 2020 and Berlin Lift Off Festival 2021.
She recently released a short film called You Are Enough at Fuerza Fest 2021 and Official Selection of Scream it Off Screen 2021; Do You Believe Me Now a political piece to expose the problem of femicides in Mexico a official selection for the Latino Film Market 2021; “What If” a short film questioning the abuse of the art of dead artist, in this case Frida Khalo, Official Selection of the Generos E_Performances 2021 in Portugal.
She just received the City Artist Corps Grant where she will be screening her upcoming short “Entre Guerra y Guerra, a la Mierda la Bicicleta. You can find some of her Directorial work in her website such as “Out in our World” commercial by Out, sponsored by Orbitz and other music videos by well knowing singers such as Audry Funk, Sonia de Los Santos and Alea Music.
Craig A. Bannister (Resident Actor)
Craig Anthony Bannister - Originally from Harlem, NY, currently resides in Brooklyn. Has been working as an actor/director/producer across the tri-state area and beyond for over 3 decades. The sampling of the stages and places include: 13th St. Repertory, Joyce Soho, LaMama, Castillo Theatre, Wild Project, The Metropolitan Playhouse and Amphibian Stage. Also works as a performer/activist, using theatre to bring diverse communities together, including seniors and teens and police officers and inner city youth. Also performs as Executive/Artistic Director, Spectrum Arts Productions, Inc., an arts service group. Currently NY Production Manager, Only Make Believe, a NY/DC based children's theatre, that specializes in performing interactive shows for children in hospitals, schools and care facilities. Next up, directing No Child, this Spring at Amphibian Stage, Fort Worth Tx. Thank you to Ellen also to Elise and Craig for this great opportunity. A special thank you to my partner of 25+ years, Bruce.
Jessica Crandall (Resident Actor)
Jessica Crandall is proud to be a Resident Artist of Phoenix Theatre Ensemble! She starred in Phoenix’s production of The Domino Heart, which was presented on Zoom in 2021 and had an extended run. In NYC, Jessica was nominated for an Innovative Theatre Award (Outstanding Featured Actress) for playing Cassandra in Agamemnon at La MaMa, and is reprising the role in a concert reading for the Emerging Artists Theater’s Spring New Works Series in April 2022. Last October, she starred in the new play The Wayward Daughter of Judah the Prince at Theater for the New City. Critic Joel Benjamin called her performance “luminous.” Just before the pandemic, Jessica was singing and dancing in the snowy mountains of Colorado while workshopping and performing the new show MacGyver the Musical at Telluride Theatre, where she played Hilde, the head of the East German Tourism Bureau; Babu, a Russian grandmother/mobster; and a teenage punk rocker, among others. Favorite roles include Rose of Sharon in The Grapes of Wrath at Trinity Rep; Antigone in Burial at Thebes at La MaMa; and Isabella in Measure for Measure at the Warehouse Theatre in SC, where Jessica was a company member for two years. She has an MFA in acting from Brown/Trinity Rep. Jessica sings regularly with NYC composer and fellow Resident Artist Ellen Mandel. Their first CD is I So Liked Spring: Jessica Crandall Sings Music by Ellen Mandel. It can be found on Amazon, Spotify and YouTube, and autographed copies can be purchased from the artists!
Karen Case Cook (Resident Director)
Karen Case Cook is Phoenix Theatre Ensemble’s Resident Director. She received an Outstanding Director, New York Innovative Theatre Award Nomination for Phoenix Theatre Ensemble’s critically acclaimed production of Don Juan in Hell. The production received five nominations, winning Outstanding Revival of a Play and Outstanding Lead Actor.
Also for Phoenix Theatre Ensemble: Director, Medea and The Furies, On the Verge and the staged readings of Trojan Women, The Infernal Machine, The Knights of the Round Table, Cyrano de Bergerac, A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur and The Lifeblood. Assistant Director: Judas, Tartuffe and Entertaining Mr. Sloane. Karen is a member of Actors’ Equity Association, SAG-AFTRA and the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.
Ash Daniels (Intern)
Ash Daniels (he/they) is so excited to be working with Phoenix Ensemble on this project. He will be a junior at Fordham University this fall, and has worked on a few productions there: The Drag (Lighting Board Operator), The Dracula Files (SM), and Space Show (ASM). They also worked with Phoenix Theatre Ensemble last fall on the devising process of The Dracula Files. He has worked on website maintenance and organization so far for the Fall Festival, and is looking forward to continuing his journey here.
Ariel Estrada (Resident Actor)
Off-Broadway: A PERSISTENT MEMORY, MBL Productions (Jessi D. Hill, dir.); DOUBLE FALSEHOOD, Letter of Marque (Andrew Borthwick-Leslie, dir.); FAR EAST, Lincoln Center Theater (Daniel Sullivan, dir.); SHOGUN MACBETH, CAMBODIA AGONISTES, Pan Asian Repertory Theatre. Selected Off-Off/Regional: TARTUFFE (NYITA Nominee), Phoenix Theatre Ensemble; MADE IN CHINA (NYT Critics Pick), Wakka Wakka (Gwen Warnock, dir.); ALL WE HAVE LEFT, Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, Jim Henson Foundation Puppetry Residency; THE IMBIBLE (FringeNYC Encore Award); DISORIENTED, Theater C; HONOR, Prospect Theater Company; MISS SAIGON, Merry-Go-Round Playhouse; 90 NORTH, Kennedy Center, ASCAP/In the Works Program; TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA, TWELFTH NIGHT (Colorado Shakespeare Festival). TV/Film: No Loss Here, Title VII, Future Folk, Don’t Let Me Drown; “Occupy White House Sprites”, “Tell Me A Story”, “Bull,” “Blue Bloods”, “The Americans”, “One Life to Live”, “Another World.” Ariel has been designated a member of ArtEquity’s BIPOC Leadership Circle; by NYFA as an Emerging Arts Leader; and by Theatre Communications Group as a Rising Leader of Color. www.arielestrada.com
Clara Francesca (Resident Actor)
Clara Francesca is an artist, educator, activist and speech coach. Stage: Clara has performed with prolific companies such as The Brick Theater, Dixon Place, The Players Club, The Players Theater, Culture Lab LIC, The Hayden Planetarium, Bob Holman’s The Bowery Poetry Club, Theatre Row, River Terrace's Poet House, Teatro LATEA, The Tank, The Wild Project, Judson Church, Phoenix Theater Ensemble, Gia Forakis & Co, The 98 Collective, Boston Playwrights Theater, SU-CASA, Times Square The Dramatists Guild, is co-founder of The Extended Reality Ensemble (XRE), and is a proud member of multiple New York ensembles. Screen: Clara acts in all mediums, with notable IMDB credits and is a featured voiceover artist. Household names include “New Amsterdam”, “Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire”, NBA, Salvatore Ferragamo, Audible Books, “Pokémon” and Shiseido. Training: An inaugural alumni of New York City’s SITI Company’s Conservatory she has worked with Anne Bogart, Roger Hendricks Simon, Tony Greco, Mary Overlie, Bill T. Jones, Laura Sheedy, Tom Nelis, Barney O'Hanlon, Darron West, Robert Woodruff, Tina Landau, Chuck Mee, Belinda Mello, Moises Kaufman, and the Martha Graham Studio, specializing in Suzuki, Viewpoints, and Alexander Technique. Clara holds a double Bachelors Degree in Laws & Biomedical Sciences as a graduate of Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Adjudicator: A two-time guest adjudicator for the Mildura Eisteddfod Speech & Drama Festival, and Victorian Debating Association. Awards: In 2022 she was nominated New York Theater Festival’s Best Actress, 2007 she won Best Actress at the Fairfax Melbourne Arts Centre for self-devised solo play, Susun Who?, in 2016 she won Best Performance SaraSolo International Festival, Dante Alighieri Society three-time prize winner, Alliance Française Poetry two-time winner, and the Dame Joan Sutherland Australian American Association Scholarship for Artistic Excellence. As a former Victorian Actors’ Benevolent Trust Committee Member, she uses her skills today as a speech coach, to empower others to share their authentic voice. Teaching Artist: The New York TownHall, Phoenix Ensemble InFlight, Wingspan, Hoboken Children’s Musical Theater, Acting Antics, Australian Shakespeare Company and Theater Breaking Through Barriers. Visit: clarafrancesca.com / xrensemble.com
Amelia Fowler (Resident Actor)
Amelia Fowler is a native of Brooklyn, New York and proud to have been performed on “Law & Order: SVU”, "POSE", “The Many Saints of Newark”, GLAAD award winning play “She Like Girls”, “The Danger: Homage to Strange Fruit” and her one woman show “Flozetta” performed at HERE as part of the Downtown Urban Theater Festival. Amelia has also been seen in commercial spots for ecoATM, Cablevision, the History Channel, as well as comedy venues throughout the U.S. with her fellow cast mates of the improv troupes “Comedy Sportz-New York,” and “Eight is Never Enough.” She is also totally psyched about a few projects she is anxiously awaiting to be released like, "A Thousand Miles" and "Shelter in Solitude". Amelia is thrilled to be performing live and in person with her fellow Phoenix Theatre Ensemble members. Let the good times roll!
Debbi Hobson (Resident Costume Designer)
Debbi has been a costume designer for over 20 years in theatre and film. She is a resident artist with the Phoenix Theatre Ensemble and prior credits with PTE include: “The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui” dir. Kevin Confoy; “Judas” dir. Craig Smith; “Ivan Ilych” dir. Leo Lion; “Tartuffe” dir. Craig Smith; for which she was nominated in 2018 for the NYIT Outstanding Costume design award. Off Broadway credits include: “Sewing the Dream” dir. Zillah Glory; “Finding Marie Curie” dir. Staś Kmiec; “A Letter to Harvey Milk” dir. Evan Pappas; “Luft Gangster” dir. Austin Pendleton; “Liberty! A Monumental New Musical” dir. Evan Pappas. In 2015 she was awarded the NYIT Outstanding Costume Design award for her design of “Unmentionables” dir. Monserrat Mendez.
John Lenartz (Resident Actor)
John Lenartz* is a proud PTE Board Member and thrilled to be part of the inaugural "Live Arts in Nyack Phoenix Festival" as he was with Phoenix' own first production back in 2005. Phoenix: The Cult Play (Papa Jaye), Tartuffe (Orgon), Entertaining Mr. Sloane (Kemp), The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Dogsborough/The Actor/Defense Counsel), The Gambler (General Zagorski), Dogg's Hamlet/Cahoot's Macbeth (Easy), Iphigenia at Aulis (Menelaos), An Enemy of the People (Dr. Stockmann), The Lesson (The Professor), Wolfpit (Whityard), The Trial (Josef K), and many staged readings. Broadway: Inherit the Wind (Ensemble) National Actors Theatre. Off-Broadway: Little Women (Mr. Laurence/March) Primary Stages; The Idiot (Prince Myshkin) Manhattan Ensemble Theatre. New York: Operating Systems (Stephen), The Sea Concerto (Chappy) Flux Theatre Ensemble; The Texas Trilogy (Col. J.C. Kincaid) ReGroup Theatre; Under Milkwood (Waldo/Ensemble), Much Ado About Nothing (Dogberry), The Brothers Karamazov (Alyosha) Jean Cocteau Repertory. Regional & National Tours: Macbeth (Macbeth) National Shakespeare Company; Camelot (Arthur), Henry V (Henry) - Texas Shakespeare Festival; Twelfth Night (Toby Belch) Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble; To Kill A Mockingbird (Atticus Finch) Hangar Theatre; The Grapes of Wrath (Jim Casy) Arkansas Repertory. John is proprietor of a wine/liquor shop in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn. Visit our website at windsorwinemerchants.com.
Leo Lion (Associate Artistic Director)
Multidisciplinary storytelling artist with concentrations in playwriting, theatre direction/devising, and emergent-narrative mediums like improv and RPG. BA in Theater Directing (2022) from Fordham University. Founder & Artistic Director of The Firebird Project and Associate Artistic Director of Phoenix Theatre Ensemble. Over 10 years as a NYC teaching artist in improv, playwriting, filmmaking, creative writing, scene study, and game design at Firebird. Member of the Dramatist’s Guild and Associate Member of the Stage Directors & Choreographers Society. Directing Credits: The Dracula Files (2022) at Fordham University and (2021) development lab with PTE. Death of Ivan Ilyich (2020) and Judas (AD, 2018) with PTE. Our Town, Romeo+Juliet, An Enemy of the People, and others with Firebird. leolion.com
Chen-Wei Liao (Scenic Designer, The Importance of Being Earnest )
Chen-Wei Liao is a New York City based scenic designer originating from Taipei, Taiwan. She has diverse experiences in theater, film and exhibition both in Taiwan and the United States. Growing up in a bilingual and multicultural environment, she is interested in observing and creating the connection between people, stories and space. One of her meditation topics is the relativity between Freedom - Rights - Responsibility. And she is always interested in psychology, neuron science, social studies and animal behavior studies. She is a proud alumni of National Taiwan University and Carnegie Mellon University.
Her upcoming project includes the CARMINA BURNARA with the IMC and the Rhodes Island Civic Chorale; THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH with the Phoenix Ensemble; RIFT with the Luna Stage and more. Her recent New York City theatre credits include NYT critic's picks A GIRL IS A HALF-FORMED THING with the Irish Rep; five new plays premiered in the WOMEN IN THEATRE FESTIVAL 2022 with the Project Y Theatre Company; the world premiere of ISLANDS OF CONTENTMENT, produced by The Tank and The Hypokrit Theatre Company; WATER OF OBLIVION, produced by Mitu Theatre; EVERYBODY, produced by Fordham University. Her project NOWHERE NYC, in the 1MOVE : DES19NED BY ..., produced by The Movement Theatre Company, is nominated by the 2021 THE DRAMA LEAGUE for Outstanding Digital Theatre, Collection or Festival.
Ellen Mandel (Resident Composer, Sound Designer, Musician)
Ellen Mandel has created music for over eighty plays: As resident composer for the Phoenix Theatre Ensemble’s Death of Ivan Ilyich, Medea (NYITA nom Best Music/Sound design), Don Juan in Hell (NYITA Best Revival), Judas, Tartuffe, Entertaining Mr Sloane, The Gambler and Agamemnon Home; also New Yiddish Rep’s Death of a Salesman (Drama Desk nom Best Revival), Antaeus (Scenie Award: music: Top Girls), Peterborough Players (nom Best Music and Musical Director) Jean Cocteau Rep Resident Composer, Mint, Arkansas Rep, Asolo.
Ellen has composed many songs to poems by E.E. Cummings, Seamus Heaney, WB Yeats, Thomas Hardy, Charlotte Mew, and her own lyrics, and performed them at NYC’s Tribeca New Music Festival, St Mark’s Church, Klavierhaus, Century Center, Sirena Poetry Festival (PA), In-Series in (Wash DC), Florio Street Concerts (CA), Peterborough Players (NH), New Gallery Concert Series (Boston), and in Ireland, Scotland, and England. Singers from all over the United States and Canada, and in Europe, perform her songs, and the Royal Conservatory, Toronto, and Trinity College, London, have published them. New York Times raves: “Mandel’s songs are ardent and spiky…refreshingly organic,” and as a theatre composer she is “worth her weight in gold.” Ellen has produced five song CDs: a wind has blown the rain away, the first of all my dreams, There Was a World, The Cat and the Moon, and I So Liked Spring, and Every Play’s an Opera, theatre music. Dizzy Gillespie called her a “Wonderful musician.” ellenmandel.com
Anuj Parikh (Resident Actor)
Anuj Parikh is a happy guy originally from Vancouver. Shakespeare credits include Titus, Benedick, Prospero, Edgar, Dromio, Claudius, Theseus, Autolycus, Oliver de Boys. He is a proud graduate of The William Esper Studio. Anuj is also a nuclear astrophysicist. He has a PhD in experimental nuclear astrophysics from Yale and was a professor in Barcelona and expert on thermonuclear stellar explosions. He is particularly interested in developing theatre that explores the interface between physics and poetry. See anujparikh.com for more!
Aeisha Reese (Resident Actor)
Aeisha Reese is a native of Flint, MI and has lived in New York for nine years. Shortly, upon moving to NYC to sign her contract with a Broadway show, she faced several health complications with Crohn’s Disease and lost her small intestines, which slowed down her performing arts career. She didn’t let those complications stop her. In fact, she was inspired to create a support group and ministry that uses the arts as a tool to inspire and uplift patients, revealing that they have the power to overcome any diagnosis presented to them through the Spirit of Christ. This was birthed at Mt. Sinai Hospital and has recently expanded throughout all the boroughs of NYC, across the country, including the international community. The support group and ministry birthed another movement and brand called, Miracles Work, which strives to provide Evidence of God’s existence through Miraculous transformations. She received her intestinal transplant on May 19, 2019!
Within her time living in the Big Apple, Aeisha has had the privilege to work with The Phoenix Theatre Ensemble (PTE) as both a teaching artist and actress, recently being invited as an official resident artist. She has worked with Bob Cline Casting as a lead through a contract with Busch Gardens, toured with Congolese African Dance Company: Fusha Dance, and has recently been in close ties with Jeffery Dreisbach of McCorkle Casting. Additionally, she was signed with Access Talent Group. - a VO Acting Agency, which has been a huge blessing. Her voice has been heard on National TV, radio and internet with Target, Fisher Price, Burger King, Reddit and LeviXTarget to name a few. Aeisha is ecstatic to be joining PTE’s Nyack Performing Arts Festival - The Skin of Our Teeth !
Morgan Rosse (Resident Actor)
Morgan Rosse is grateful and joyed to be part of this festival. With PTE: Tartuffe, The Gambler, Medea & the Furies, Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth, Electra, Every Christmas Story Ever Told...(and then some!), and several readings and workshops, including most recently Leo Lion’s The Dracula Files. Elsewhere: Classic Stage Company, Point of Entry Theatre (at Lincoln Center), Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Gulfshore Playhouse, Two River Theater Company, Know Theatre, The Back Porch Players. BFA Acting, College- Conservatory of Music (CCM).
Craig Smith (Festival Executive Director)
Craig Smith was an ensemble member of New York’s prestigious Jean Cocteau Repertory where he made his artistic home for more than 3 decades appearing in over 200 productions from Stoppard to Shakespeare and Sophocles to Williams. In 2004 Craig and 4 colleagues founded Phoenix Theatre Ensemble, an Off-Broadway award-winning artist-directed ensemble presenting 3 to 6 productions of new and classical works annually, an award-winning arts-in-education program for NYC public schools, a new-works programs, and NYC community activities. The New York Times has called Mr. Smith “One of our most consistently fine actors” and Playbill.com said he is “A Downtown Legend.” He is the recipient of the President of the Borough of Manhattan’s Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Arts and Community Service.
Wesli Spencer (Resident Actor)
Wesli Spencer is a classically trained actor whose skill sets were developed through training at the competitive Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. His range includes stage, television, independent film, and film.Film/Television: Plurality", "Harlemites," USA Channel ShortsTV: "Brian Mickler", PBS Summer Shorts: "Thurman Comes Home" Theater: "Hamlet" (Shakespeare @), "Tartuffe" (Phoenix Theater Ensemble), Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect in "Letters." Commercials: Bank of America, Stacey's Pita Chips: ABC's "The View." Voiceover: NBA (National Basketball Association) Player's Foundation
Elise Stone (Resident Artist, Founder, Artistic Director)
Elise Stone (Resident Artist, Founder, Artistic Director) has performed more than 200 roles on the New York stage including the celebrated world premier productions of Eric Bentley’s and Darius Milhaud Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children (Mother Courage) and the world premiere of Bentley’s adaption of Wedekind’s LuLu (LuLu) and as the lead in Eve Adamson’s production in both the US and South America of Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author all at the Jean Cocteau Repertory where she was a resident artist for two decades. Selected as one of NYTheatre.com’s people of year Ms. Stone was singled out as “one of New York’s most highly regarded and compelling artists.” She is a recipient of Italy’s Premio Maschera di Sipario Award for her performances in plays by Eduardo diFilippo and Luigi Pirandello. On the mainstage for Phoenix, Ms. Stone has appeared in such plays the American premiers of Glyn Maxwell’s The Lifeblood, Broken Journey, Wolfpit and the World Premier of his Agamemnon Home. She has performed in plays ranging from Greek Tragedy, Strindberg, Moliere, Tom Stoppard, Joe Orton and Tennessee Williams. With Phoenix she was most recently seen as Mary in Robert Patrick's Judas, Nora in Topher Cusumano's The Cult Play, Elmire in Tartuffe, Kath in Entertaining Mr. Sloane, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Tekla in The Creditors. Other acting credits include regional theatre, film, television and cabaret. On the mainstage for Phoenix, Elise has directed Pirandello’s The Man with the Flower in His Mouth, Sartre’s No Exit and Sonja Linden’s I Have Before Me Remarkable Document Given to Me by a Young Lady From Rwanda Elise is thrilled to be working with this incredible family of artists and is deeply grateful to her grown children and family for being a source of inspiration always. Deepest gratitude to every audience member, donor, supporter and artist — without you, art would not be possible… without art, the world would be a terrible place indeed. Opre Roma!
Joris Stuyck (Resident Actor)
Joris Stuyck has performed onstage at many venues in the U.K. and the U.S., including London’s Royal Court (in Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, with Martin Sheen), the Cincinnati Playhouse (as Sherlock Holmes), and the Theater for the New City in New York (as Martin Heidegger). He also has worked in film and TV in London, New York, and LA, in The Shooting Party (with James Mason and Sir John Gielgud), We’ll Meet Again (with Susannah York), Liberty! (for PBS, with Philip Seymour Hoffman), and Quantum Leap (for NBC, with Dean Stockwell). Most recent roles include Charles Condomine in Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit (for VoiceTheatre in Woodstock, NY), and Kiril Sidorenko (guest star) in the CBS series Bull.
Josh Tyson (Resident Actor)
Josh Tyson is a long time player with Phoenix Theatre Ensemble where favorite roles include Judas in Judas, Tartuffe in Tartuffe, Adolph in Creditors, Orestes in Electra, Achilles in Iphigenia at Aulis, Napoleon in The Man of Destiny and Haemon in Jean Anouilh’s Antigone. He was also a part of PTE's first production of American Moor which has since gone on to various successful runs including Off-Broadway at the historic Cherry Lane Theatre in New York in conjunction with Red Bull Theater as well as runs in the U.S. and abroad, including it's debut at The Globe Theatre of London's First Annual Shakespeare & Race Festival, Washington DC's Anacostia Playhouse, ArtsEmerson at the Paramount Theatre in Boston, Pittsburgh Playhouse, and Karamu House in Cleveland. While our theatres were closed he appeared in various virtual productions including Play Your Part Seattle's Oedipus The King as Oedipus and Passage Theatre Company's A Twist Of Water as Noah and before that was last seen starring as Ted Hughes in the new play about Sylvia Plath, Lullaby, at the Théâtre Dunois in Paris, France with the Winterreise Compagnie Théâtre. Other credits include Off-Broadway: Modotti (The Acorn @ Theatre Row), Three Sisters (Classical Theatre of Harlem). Off-Off Broadway: Wolves (59E59 Theatre), An Octopus Love Story (Center Stage), The Blue Martini (The Lion @ Theatre Row) Conference Room A (The Red Room). He Film/Television: No Retreat (Nominated Best Feature Austin Film Fest and available on Amazon Prime), Laura Gets A Cat (Available on Amazon Prime), The First Day (Available on Amazon Prime), Law & Order (NBC).
Zoe Watkins (Resident Actor)
Zoë Watkins trained at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and toured nationally in the UK before moving to NYC> Off Broadway includes: The Report (NYC and London) When I was a Girl I used to Scream and Shout( Fallen Angel: Theatre Row) The Pigeon In The Taj Mahal (Irish Rep) Agamemnon Home (Phoenix Theatre Ensemble) and many more.
Film and TV includes: Louie, The Blacklist, Wall Street English, Got Skillz and Zoë can be seen as recurring character, Steph, on the hit Channel 4 (UK) comedy, Lee & Dean.
Zoë is very proud to be a member of PTE and very happy to be speaking the words of Oscar Wilde - having been born in Hertfordshire, she knows only too well how many flowers there are in the countryside and sends love and thanks to her family still there.