Measure for Measure

Psalmayene 24: Folger Theatre: Metamorphoses, Director (Helen Hayes Award Award for Outstanding Direction); The Reading Room Festival 2025, Panelist. Arena Stage: Tempestuous Elements (Director), Ruined (Actor), Cuttin’ Up (Actor), Anthems (Actor); Studio Theatre: The Colored Museum (Director), Good Bones (Director), Flow (Director), Pass Over (Director); Ford’s Theatre: Necessary Sacrifices: A Radio Play (Director); Mosaic Theater: Monumental Travesties (Playwright), Dear Mapel (Playwright/Actor), Les Deux Noirs (Playwright), Native Son (Director), Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Playwright in Residence; Joe’s Movement Emporium: Out of the Vineyard (Playwright); Theater Alliance: The Blackest Battle (Playwright); Word Becomes Flesh (Director); Imagination Stage: The Freshest Snow Whyte (Playwright/Director), Cinderella: The Remix (Playwright/Director), P. Nokio: A Hip-Hop Musical (Playwright/Director), Zomo the Rabbit: A Hip-Hop Creation Myth (Playwright/Director); African Continuum Theatre Company: Free Jujube Brown! (Playwright/Actor). TV/Film: The Freewheelin’ Insurgents (Writer/Director/Actor); HBO’s The Wire (Actor). Helen Hayes and Imagination Award recipient.

Jesse Belsky (Lighting Designer) Folger Theatre: Henry IV, Part 1, The Winter’s Tale, Sense and Sensibility, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Arena Stage: JQA, The Year of Magical Thinking; Ford’s Theatre: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; Baltimore Center Stage: Holes; Studio Theater: Summer 1976, The Colored Museum, John Proctor is the Villain; Round House Theatre: Oslo, The Book of Will; Signature Theatre: Penelope, The Bridges of Madison County, Sweeney Todd; Olney Theatre Center: The Music Man; Oregon Shakespeare Festival: Henry IV P.1; Yale Repertory Theater: Lydia, Rough Crossing. B.A: Duke University, MFA: Yale School of Drama. Teaching: Connecticut College, UNC Greensboro. jessebelsky.com

Debra Booth (Scenic Designer) Folger Theatre: debut. Studio Theatre: Octet, People Places and Things, Pass Over; Shakespeare Theatre Company: Richard III (Helen Hayes nomination), The Lover and The Collection; Mosaic Theatre: Sooner or Later; Round House Theatre: Small Mouth Sounds. NYC: NY Shakespeare Theatre/The Public: Marisol; Actors Studio: Oedipus the King; NY City Opera at Lincoln Center: Marco Polo (opera); Julliard School: Angels in America Pt 1 (NY premiere). International: Münchener Bienniale, The Holland Festival, Hong Kong Festival: Marco Polo (opera). Education: BA, MFA: University of Wisconsin; MFA: Yale Drama School. www.debra-booth.com

Mika Eubanks (Costume Design) Folger Theatre: Metamorphoses (Helen Hayes nomination); Arena Stage: The Motion; Baltimore Center Stage: Pray, Fires In The Mirror. Regional: Old Globe Theater: The XIXth; Barrington Stage: N/A; Classical Theater of Harlem: Twelfth Night, Othello. Off-Broadway: Ars Nova: Heaux Church; Manhattan Theater Club: The Monsters; Lincoln Center: Flex; The Vineyard Theatre: Lessons in Survival: 1971. Film/TV: Candace (Amazon prime), Souvenir. Awards: Connecticut Critics Circle Award, Audelco award. Education/Training: MFA, Design, Yale University. BFA, Fiber Arts, Maryland Institute College of Art. mikaeubanks.com

Nadia Guevara (Associate Director) Folger Theatre: Cymbeline: A Telenovela Dramatic Western (The Reading Room Festival 2026), DC I Love You: First Dates; Other DMV: Imagination Stage: Cinderella: A Salsa Fairy Tale; Keegan Theatre: N; Shakespeare Theatre Company: Merry Wives (Helen Hayes – Best Ensemble). Regional: Dallas Theater Center, McCarter Theatre. NYC/Off-Broadway: Keen Company/Drama League: Cell; National Queer Theatre: The Survival; The Public: Apple Bottom; The New Group: The Capitalist and the Factory Worker. Additional credits with New York Stage and Film, Red Bull Theater, Latinx Playwrights Circle. Awards: Drama League Stage Directing Fellow, NALAC Fellow, Actor of the Year – San Diego Critics Circle. nadiaguevara.com

KOKAYI (Composer) Folger Theatre: As You Like It; Mosaic Theatre Company: Young John Lewis. Artist: Kevin Hart’s Laugh at My Pain, Black Beauty, MTV’s Rebel Music, CNN Great Big Story, Nickelodeon, BET How I’m Living. Guggenheim Fellow Composition, Grammy Nominee Best Urban Alternative Song. www.kokayi.com, @kokayi

Matthew M. Nielson (Sound Designer) Folger Theatre: The Winter’s Tale, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Twelfth Night, Othello, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet; Arena Stage: Nina Simone: Four Women; Ford’s Theatre: The Carpetbagger’s Children; Round House Theatre: Oslo, Book of Will; Theater Alliance: Mnemonic (Helen Hayes Award, Outstanding Sound Design); Olney Theatre Center: Mary Stuart, The Magic Play; Regional: Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park: Last Wide Open, Treasure Island, Misery; Portland Center Stage: Astoria, Parts 1 & 2, The Color Purple; Denver Center for the Performing Arts: Anna Karenina; Actor’s Theatre of Louisville: Dracula; Milwaukee Repertory Theater: Two Trains Running, Peter and the Starcatcher; Baltimore Center Stage: Shakespeare In Love; Off-Broadway: 59E59 Theatres: Occupied Territories; Lincoln Center Theater: Where Words Once Were; Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival:  Shakespeare’s Villains; Film: From Hell To Here, Elbow Grease, Blue, The Long Road, Little Lamb; TV: The Hero Effect, EPIX Drive-In,  Facebook,  Delivery.com,  NFL,  UFC on FOX. Nielson has won five Helen Hayes Awards and has been nominated for several others, including the League of CincinnatiTheatres, Barrymore Awards for Excellence in Theatre, and BroadwayWorld nominations.  CuriousMusic.com

Danica Rodriguez (Casting Director) Folger Theatre: As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Our Verse in Time to Come. New York: Off-Broadway: The Public Theater: cullud wattah*, Romeo y Julieta, Soft Power, for colored girls…, Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare in the Park), Mojada, Ain’t No Mo’*. Regional (selected): Huntington: Purpose; Woolly Mammoth: The World to Come*, The Great Privation, The Sensational Sea Mink-ettes*; Shakespeare Theatre Company: Othello, Guys and Dolls, Merry Wives, Frankenstein*, Kunene and the King, Leopoldstadt, Comedy of Errors, Macbeth, The Lehman Trilogy, As You Like It, Macbeth In Stride, Evita, Here There Are Blueberries, King Lear, Jane Anger, Much Ado About Nothing, Red Velvet, and others. Awards: Theatre Communications Group 2021 Rising Leader of Color. Founding Trainer with Broadway for Racial Justice Casting Directive. Training: David Geffen School of Drama at Yale: MFA Candidate in Theater Management. Dartmouth College: BA in Film & Media Studies. DanicaRodriguez.com @danicarodriguezcasting | *world premiere

Tony Thomas (Choreographer) Folger Theatre: As You Like it, Twelfth Night, Metamorphoses (Helen Hayes Award); Studio Theatre: P.Y.G (Helen Hayes Nomination), PASSOVER, Flow, Good Bones, Fat Ham (Helen Hayes Nomination), People, Places, and Things, The Colored Museum (Helen Hayes Nomination), Imagination Stage: P. Nokio, Dory Fantasmagory, Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed, Miss Nelson is Missing; Arena Stage: Tempestuous Elements; Mosaic Theatre: Young John Lewis; Woolly Mammoth Theatre: A Fine Madness; Theatre Alliance: Word Becomes Flesh (Helen Hayes Nomination); Off-Broadway: Minetta Lane/Daryl Roth Theatre: Mexodus (Lucille Lortel Nomination) @tonythomasii

Sierra Young (Intimacy Director) Folger Theatre: Julius X, Twelfth Night.  Arena Stage: The Age of Innocence, Ja Ja’s African Hair Braiding, POTUS!; Ford’s Theatre: 1776, The American Five, Sister Act; Keegan Theatre: Everything Is Wonderful, Hand to God, Sweat; Monumental Theatre Company: Spring Awakening (Helen Hayes nomination); Mosaic Theater Company: Dodi & Diana (Helen Hayes nomination), et al; Shakespeare Theatre Company: Frankenstein, King Lear (Helen Hayes Nomination); Studio Theatre: Purlie Victorious, Jonah, Paradise Blue, The Scenarios. Resident Fight & Intimacy Director: Baltimore Center Stage & Mosaic Theater Company. @sierrayoungfights www.sierrayoung.org