David J. Baldwin (Charles)
David J. Baldwin (he/him) has been seen in New York directed by Michael Mayer in a reading of the Gershwin’s Funny Face (Professor), Stomping Ground Theater’s Next Fall (Adam), and NYC Fringe Festival’s Boston Tea Party Opera (James Otis). He continues his acting studies with Matthew Corozine Studio and Patrick Page Studio. At MCS Theatre, David created and produces the monthly Queer Play Reading Series.
He is grateful to have performed with the Metropolitan Opera Chorus, New York Philharmonic, Bard Festival Chorale, Lyric Opera of Chicago Chorus, and the Chicago Symphony Chorus. When he’s not singing, David is a total fitness nerd, focusing on Strength Training and CrossFit. He integrates his knowledge of the body and the brain into his teaching as an Adjunct Professor of Voice at NYU Steinhardt and in his Private Studio. Much love to Ian and Percy for their support.
davidjbaldwin.com @davidjosephbaldwin
Bri Cala (Lisa)
Brianna (she/her) is an actor, storyteller, comedian and producer currently living a coastal dream life on Cape Cod. She founded the production company Lady Garden Productions and teaches monthly workshops on indie filmmaking. She is in post production for her series, The IV League, in which she wrote, directed and starred in. She just wrapped production on the feature film The North Witch, directed by Bruce Wemple and the short film The Cottage, directed by Haulston Mann. She is absolutely thrilled to be back in New York City working alongside a dream team of artists including her fiance Sophia Grasso. She is grateful to her friends, family and fiance who have endlessly supported and inspired her. BriannaCala.com
Sophia Grasso (Bex)
Sophia Grasso (she/her) is a theatrically trained actor and director based on Cape Cod who recently transplanted from Brooklyn. With most of her resume covering film and television, she’s ecstatic to be back in the theatre working alongside an incredible team of people including the love of her life, Brianna Cala. A fun update for 2024: she recently wrapped a psychological horror film on the Cape, is set to direct another film this Fall, and will be dabbling in LA life come the end of the year. Sophia is grateful to her fiancée, her friends & family, and the forcible move out of NYC for giving her time for herself and her artistry. www.sophiagrasso.com
Javere Green (Aaron)
The shy, introverted kid who grew up to be the crowd’s favorite with his infectious laugh. Javere Green discovered at a young age that he wanted to be an actor on TV. He pursued this passion and is now a college graduate with a BFA in acting from Shenandoah University. Now, he plans to see the world, develop his craft, and find a way to make art anywhere he goes.
TJ Young (Playwright, T4tP Co-Op Member)
T.J. is a Texas-born playwright and dramaturg based in Pittsburgh, where he serves as co-representative for the Dramatists Guild - Pittsburgh region. His plays include WE FLY, The Inseparables (Pittsburgh Public Theatre Commission), Isle of Noises (James Madison University Commission), No. 6 (2017 Harold and Mimi Steinberg Award Winner – KCACTF, Indiana Rep), Lyon’s Den (2018 Harold and Mimi Steinberg Distinguished Achievement awardee), Ruby’s Baby Blue (2016 John Cauble Short Play Award Regional Finalist- KCACTF), Hell is Empty (2017 John Cauble Short Play Award Regional Finalist - KCACTF), and Sperm Donor Wanted (2023 L. Arnold Weissberger New Play Award Finalist). He is the recipient of the 2017 Ken Ludwig Playwriting Scholarship. He was the 2019 Spotlight Artist of Throughline Theatre Company in Pittsburgh, PA. He received his MFA in Dramatic Writing from Texas State University. He is also the NPP Chair for Region 2 of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, where he also aids with the Playwriting Intensive and teaches workshops both at the regional and national levels. He is currently an Associate Professor of Dramaturgy at Carnegie Mellon University.
Haley Rice (Director, T4tP Creative Producer and Co-Op Member)
Haley is a NYC-based writer, director, and producer. She was the Assistant Director for the benefit reading of Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart produced by Broadway for Arts Education. She directed the staged reading of Ryan Tofil's Part One, Writers' Block Showcase Scratch That, and assistant-directed Isle of Shoals 2022 production of Romeo & Juliet. She curates the New Works Series, a reading series dedicated to helping writers develop their new pieces and find community. Proud to be asked by the late Ted Wold to direct his 2021 production of Sunday on the Rocks. Co-Founder of Messy Stars Productions. @the_tales_of_hales
Joshua Rose (Production Design, T4tP Co-Artistic Director)
Joshua has been involved in theatre from a very early age. Performing on stage occasionally as a child into college when he discovered the technical side of theatre. Falling in love with design in general and lighting in particular Joshua got his BFA in design from the University of Utah and his MFA in stage design from Southern Methodist University. After arriving in New York City Joshua has worked in theatre, dance, opera, concerts, events and architecture. His work has been seen from Hong Kong, to The Vatican, to Mexico City in venues from the Kennedy Center to China’s National Center for the Performing Arts, to Lincoln Center. Touring the world, the country and the five boroughs of New York City.
Joshua has been a lighting designer, set designer, projection designer, stage manager, technical director, company manager, production manager, writer, director, student, teacher, audience member, basically he has almost done it all. Unless it involves sewing. He can’t sew.
Joshua is excited to use his decades of experience in the many facets of the industry, to build a company that aims to build an industry that pushes for progress and continual improvement in all the ways we interact with each other, as colleagues, as collaborators, as artists, as humans.
Erin Dunlevy (Intimacy Choreographer)
Erin Dunlevy (she/her) is an intimacy professional, restorative justice facilitator and equity consultant with extensive experience training stakeholders in the theatre arts. Erin has facilitated equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) training for Six the Musical, (Broadway and touring companies), has provided restorative justice facilitation and training for New York Theatre Workshop and provides ongoing individual coaching to actors, directors, theatre arts educators and other creative professionals looking to deepen their commitment to consent-forward artistry, equity in the arts, and restorative models for conflict resolution. Along with her professional partner Cardozie Jones, Erin has also designed creative approaches to EDI for corporate clients like PepsiCo, Penguin Random House and the TCC Group.
Erin is an adjunct professor in the theater department at Columbia University School of the Arts, is a visiting professor at the United Nations Mandated University for Peace and works as an intimacy coordinator and equity facilitator nationwide. website: Erin Dunlevy
Keaton Shapiro (Stage Manager)
Born in New York and raised in Los Angeles, Keaton Shapiro has worked bi-coastally in the world of theater, dance, and film. She is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University with a Bachelors of Humanities and Arts in Linguistics and Dramaturgy. Her career has centered primarily around theatre, shifting from the stage, to backstage, to production through her work within multiple theaters and companies, such as the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, The Wooster Group, REDCAT, Scotch'n'Soda Theatre, and PLAY LA Workshop where she served as Festival Producer and Program Coordinator. She has a passion for storytelling media and has worked as a theater and short film producer in LA.
Keaton recently completed her Juris Doctor at The George Washington University Law School, where she focused on social justice and equity, public policy, and art and entertainment law. She remained involved in the arts throughout, working both professionally with Buck's Rock Creative and Performing Arts Camp and at an amateur level with The George Washington University Law School Law Revue - a comedy revue show combining music, dance, and sketch comedy.
Rebekah Rawhouser (Assistant to the Director)
Rebekah Rawhouser is trying her hand at being on the other side of the table for this production! Thank you to Haley Rice for trusting me to assist with this beautiful work. NYC stage credits include Primordial, Dear Mom, I'm Gay!, Start With I Do. Other fave credits include Next to Normal and Jesus Christ Superstar. Film: 15 To Sunrise, Retreat!, Cassie Kaleidoscope, No Place Is Home. @rebekah_rawhouser - www.rebekahrawhouser.com
Theatre 4the People, the company
Mahina Susan Bowyer, Co-Op Member
Mahina Bowyer is a hapa kānaka maoli director and artist, from Waiʻanae Hawaiʻi. She began singing and acting at a young age and eventually graduated with her B.A. in Theater from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. After graduation Mahina moved to New York City where she studied acting with Celia Schafer (McCaskill Studios) and Directing with Isaac Byrne (MCS). She is passionate about carrying on the storytelling practices of her kūpuna and highlighting indigenous voices in her work. Mahina previously directed the staged reading of Blue Gum, Brooklyn by LR Savage, and the 2023 MCS Scene Showcase. She most recently served as the Assistant Director to Isaac Byrne on T4TP production of Stupid F*cking Bird.
Isaac Byrne, Founder and Co-Artistic Director
Isaac has spent over a decade in New York City making new plays happen as a director, actor, writer, and producer. He has received the New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Direction twice and productions he has directed have been nominated for a Drama Desk Award, an Off Broadway Alliance award, 25 NYIT awards, and 11 Planet Connection Awards. He also performs regularly with the Ad hoc Economy theatre company in the touring show Butcher Holler Here We Come. He studied acting with renowned acting teachers including Fred Kareman and Matthew Corozine in NYC and Terry Martin in Texas. He teaches acting and directing at the University of the Arts. MFA in Directing from Texas State University. www.isaacbyrne.com
Evan Simone Frazier, Co-Op Member
Evan Simone Frazier is an interdisciplinary artist from Long Island, NY. Evan is trained in Musical Theater and Meisner acting - her stage credits include Ragtime (Axelrod Theater), The Cake (The Philipstown Theater). In 2021, she received an MFAIA from Goddard College, where she developed a solo show Perfect. In 2022, Evan became certified in Playback Theater with The Village Playback theater Company. Through Playback she has used storytelling to connect with communities and further understand what it means to be human. She continues to discover the power in storytelling through teaching writing workshops with Naked Angels Theater Company to children living in residential foster care. Evan is also a yoga and meditation instructor. She approaches yoga as a vital tool for discovery, creativity and self-understanding.
Sidney Rushing, Co-Op Member
Syd has penned various stage productions in both Chicago, Texas and Los Angeles. He also wrote and performed his one man show Brother’s Tellin’ in Los Angeles which was nominated for a NAACP Theatre award. Syd was then selected for the Mark Taper Playwright’s Program. He went on to write a string of produced plays including Akashic Permutations, Unsung Heroes, Patterns, Flossie, Zu’s Earth and many others. Soon thereafter, Syd was employed at Paramount Studios where he learned under mentors in the TV industry with the nation’s top rated shows. Rushing was grateful to be a winner in the Queensbury Theatre New Work Playwright series and a recipient of the Lorraine Hansberry Distinguished Achievement Award at the Kennedy Center. He was the recipient of the Inaugural August Wilson Playwright Fellowship for 2021 and received the honor of 21st Century Voices for 2022. He is a graduate of the American Musical & Dramatic Academy in New York, the University of Mississippi, Writer’s Boot Camp Screenwriting in Los Angeles, Kingwood College and Texas State University’s dramatic writing program. He thanks Greenlight Production Company for hiring him to write numerous plays, the people that did not give up on him and the Grahams. Before playwriting, Syd enjoyed a career performing in hundreds of professional productions in summer stock theatre, regional theatre, tours and Off-Off Broadway. Lastly, as an educator, he has taught every grade from K-12 to college while winning Teacher of the Year three times.
Theatre 4the People
The Mission
To nurture and support a truly diverse range of emerging and established theatre artists—giving voice to new stories;
To ensure that theatre is accessible to all people, regardless of background or economic status.
The human experience cannot be found in generalities or monoliths. Our humanity reveals itself in those distinct person-to-person interactions against specific backdrops in the face of particular challenges, small and large. It appears at those moments when our life experiences diverge from our expectations, when we discover an unanswerable question – then we will find the human condition that unites us.
Theatre, an inherently collaborative art form, explores those details of the human condition not just in the performance on stage, but in the interactive process required to create the art – the friction, the challenges, the unanswerable questions start in the rehearsal room and that examination, experimentation, and exploration of humanity leaps onto the stage and then carries through the audience who collectively experience joy, pain, laughter, fear. Then their questions and revelations pass into the world.
At Theatre 4the People we understand that collaboration is at its most creative when there is a multiplicity of voices and experiences in the room. Not just many people, but many peoples. We strive to hold a space where all voices are empowered to speak and share, knowing they will be heard and embraced with equity and openness. We actively seek out those artists whose e perspectives differ from our own and each others.
Emily Owens, Publicity
Emily Owens PR is an NYC-based press agent specializing in new work premiering Off and Off-Off Broadway. EOPR's clients include performing arts venues, theatre festivals, indie theatre companies, self-producing artists, and early career playwrights. www.emilyowenspr.com
