Theater

Theater work.

Eight productions across four years, mostly at Wesleyan Second Stage, one professional gig in New York. I did a bit of everything: directed, stage managed, designed sound and sets, acted, ran social. Listed here by role rather than chronology.

Productions 8 productions

Director · Poster designer

Disgraced

by Ayad Akhtar

Wesleyan Second Stage · Malcolm X House · Dec 2018

Ayad Akhtar's Pulitzer-winning one-act. A Pakistani-American corporate lawyer's hidden Muslim identity surfaces over a dinner party and blows everything apart. Two years earlier I'd acted in a Readers Theater reading of the same play as Hussein Malik/Abe Jensen, so I came to the script knowing it from the inside out.

What I did: directed, and designed the poster. We set up in the basement of Malcolm X House, an improvised black box with borrowed furniture and Ikea dimmers where a lighting rig should have been. Stage manager: Thanmye Lagudu. Set designer: Angelica. I wrote about the directing in Sacred Geometry: On Directing Disgraced.

Stage Manager

Really Really Gorgeous

by Nick Mecikalski, directed by Miranda Haymon

The Tank, NYC · Jan 23 – Feb 9, 2020 · World premiere

Nick Mecikalski's world premiere, directed by Miranda Haymon. Two women in a moldy shack at the end of a flooded America; the play is a two-hander and it's relentless. Produced by The Tank with Lucy Powis and The Hodgepodge Group. Got a New York Times review.

What I did: stage managed. Kept the prompt book, ran rehearsals, called the show in performance, held the production schedule together through a packed run.

Stage Manager

Action

by Sam Shepard, directed by Ray Achan

Wesleyan senior thesis · 2019

Sam Shepard's 1974 one-act. Four characters in an isolated cabin on Christmas, after some unspecified collapse outside; the play is very still and very tense. Ray Achan's directing thesis.

What I did: stage managed. Kept the prompt book, ran rehearsals, called the show. Held the line between director and production so Ray could focus on the work.

Sound Designer

Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them

by A. Rey Pamatmat

Second Stage, Wesleyan · 2018

A. Rey Pamatmat's play about two Filipino American siblings living alone on a farm in Middle America; their parents left and didn't come back. A third character shows up and upsets the fragile equilibrium they've built. Originally produced at the 2011 Humana Festival of New American Plays.

What I did: designed sound. Built day-scene ambience and night-scene cue stacks, sourced and cut every cue, specced and patched the rig, ran sound through tech and performance.

Set Designer

La Violecion of My Papiyon

by Arline Pierre-Louis, directed by Ray Achan & Ruby Fludzinski

SHADES · Patricelli '92 Theater, Wesleyan · Apr 2018

New work by Arline Pierre-Louis, produced by SHADES, Wesleyan's student collective for theater by and about people of color. Directed by Ray Achan and Ruby Fludzinski. Ray also directed Action, which I stage managed the following year.

What I did: designed the set. Ground plan and elevations, build costing, supervised the build with the tech crew, paint and dressing.

Actor · Clotaldo

Life is a Dream

by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, directed by Shira Milikowsky

Wesleyan Center for the Arts · 2017

Calderón de la Barca's verse drama, one of the great works of the Spanish Golden Age. Prince Segismundo has been imprisoned since birth by a prophecy; the play turns on whether fate can be escaped. CFA main-stage production, one of my first at Wesleyan.

What I did: played Clotaldo, Segismundo's tutor and the keeper of the secret.

Actor · Harjito / Sukarno

Islands

directed by Ronald Jenkins

Wesleyan Center for the Arts · 2017

Ensemble-devised production on the CFA main stage, directed by Professor Ronald Jenkins. The work drew on island histories and collective memory; the form matched the content, built in the room by the room.

What I did: played Harjito and Sukarno.

Social Media Manager

Rhinoceros

by Eugene Ionesco, translated by Derek Prouse, directed by Jordan Tragash

Wesleyan Second Stage · Patricelli '92 Theater · May 2018

Ionesco's 1959 absurdist classic, in Derek Prouse's translation. A small French town's inhabitants begin turning into rhinoceroses one by one; the holdouts dwindle, resistance becomes its own kind of loneliness. One of the great plays about conformity and what it costs to refuse it.

What I did: ran social media for the production. Wrote and scheduled posts, coordinated promotional assets with Jordan, pushed ticket sales through the three-night run.

Photos · Disgraced, Dec 2018

The dinner party scene: Arnaav Bhavanani, Abhishek Fakiraswaminath, Dache Rogers, Ava Biery

Dache Rogers, Arnaav Bhavanani, Abhishek Fakiraswaminath

Photography by Elijah Comas '22. Rehearsal photo by Thanmye Lagudu '20.

Company · Wesleyan Second Stage

Second Stage

Student-run theater company · Wesleyan University

Staff Two academic years on the company. Helped support productions across the season: everything from load-ins to strike.

2017 – 2019

Lights & Rigging Liaison Point person for the lighting rig and rigging hardware. Coordinated with CFA technical staff on hangs and refocuses.

2017 – 2018