Metamorphoses

Edwin Brown (Third Man: Phaeton and others) Folger Theatre: debut; Studio Theatre: Wig Out!, Three Sisters/No Sisters (understudy); Shakespeare Theatre Company: Macbeth; African-American Collective Theatre: Out With It. Regional: Alabama Shakespeare Festival: Fly; Kansas City Repertory Theatre: Freedom Rider, Caucasian Chalk Circle; Kansas Classical Repertory Theatre: Comedy of Errors, Boys from Syracuse; Coterie Theatre: The Freedom Trial of Anthony Burns. Broadway Workshop: Thoughts of a Colored Man. Off-Broadway: New Victory Theatre: Romeo and Juliet; 59E59: Separate and Equal. National Tour: The Three Musketeers with The Acting Company. Television: Lincoln’s War at Washington. Instagram: @kingedwinbrown 

Renea S. Brown (Third Woman: Myrrha and others) Folger Theatre: The Reading Room, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Arena Stage: Change Agent; Shakespeare Theatre Company: The Tempest, Macbeth; Kennedy Center: Love Factually; Chesapeake Shakespeare Theatre Company: Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth; Theatre Prometheus: Macbeth, Cymbeline. Regional credits include The Wolves at McCarter Theatre; Othello, Sense and Sensibility, and Twelfth Night (first Black woman to perform) at Island Shakespeare Festival. Wedding Bandand, The Little Princess at Quintessence Theatre; Much Ado About Nothing, A King and No King, and A Chaste Maid in Cheapside at American Shakespeare Center. MFA: Academy of Classical Acting. Instagram: @TheDarkLady

DeJeanette Horne (First Man: Zeus and others) Folger Theatre: debut;  Anacostia Playhouse: Sunset Baby; Chesapeake Shakespeare Company: Macbeth, Hamlet, Henry V, The Adventures of Pericles; The Keegan Theatre:  SWEAT, Elegies: A Song Cycle, The Outsider (2022 Helen Hayes Award, Outstanding Ensemble), West by God, God of Carnage; Theater Alliance: This Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing (2024 Helen Hayes Nominee, Best Supporting Performer, and Outstanding Ensemble in a Play); Unexpected Stage: Sophisticated New Ones; Perisphere Theater:  Blue Door; Washington Stage Guild:  My Children! My Africa!; 4615 Theatre Company: The Infinite Tales; Olney Theatre Center:  The Brothers Paranormal; Valley Place Arts Collaborative: Morning After Grace.  Voiceover: Graphic Audio: Box of Bones, Finder Chronicles 1: Finder; and more. Instagram: @DeJeanetteHorne

Yesenia Iglesias (First Woman: Aphrodite and others) Folger Theatre: Love’s Labor’s Lost. Studio Theatre: At the Wedding; Arena Stage: POTUS, Or Behind Every Great Dumbass are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive; Olney Theatre Center: Dance Nation; Signature Theatre: Daphne’s Dive, Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity; Shakespeare Theatre Company: Hamlet, King Charles III; The Kennedy Center: Kid Prince and Pablo; Round House Theatre: The Legend of Georgia McBride; Constellation Theatre Company: The Caucasian Chalk Circle. University of Washington, MFA. IG: @ye_iglesias 

Billie Krishawn (Second Woman: Eurydice and others) Folger Theatre: debut; Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company: The Sensational Sea Mink–ettes; Mosaic Theatre Company: Till Trilogy; Everyman Theatre: JUMP; Theatre Alliance: Blood at the Root; Olney Theatre: Joy That Carries You; Arena Stage: Angels in America; Studio Theatre: Until the Flood; The Kennedy Center: HERstory; Constellation Theatre: Melancholy Play; 1st Stage and Keegan Theatre: Airness; Ford’s Theatre: Something Moving. Television: Water in a Broken Glass (Prime Video). Two time Helen Hayes award winner. Instagram: @AbsoluteReality. www.BillieKrishawn.com 

Manu Kumasi (Fourth Man: Vertumnus and others) Folger Theatre: debut. La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club: Soulagraphie. Regional: Yale Repertory Theatre: Twelfth Night; Washington National Opera/The John F. Kennedy Center: Lost in The Stars, Darius & Twig; Annapolis Shakespeare Company: Hamlet; Shakespeare Theatre Company: Measure for Measure. Television and Film: EVIL (Paramount+). Yale School of Drama, MFA. IG: @manu.kumasi 

Miss Kitty (Water Nymph) Folger Theatre: debut. Spooky Action Theater: Agreste; Avant Bard Theatre: Suddenly Last Summer, Illyria or What You Will, She Speaks!; Prince George’s Shakespeare in the Parks: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing; Capital Fringe Festival: Brunch with the Boys; Imagination Stage: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Film: A Brighter Tomorrow: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging (WILL Interactive), S.P.I.E.S. and S.P.I.E.S. 2 (Imagination Stage/Leapfrog Productions), Shine (ISA Group/Redmon Group Inc.), and the PSA Open to All – Three Words (76 Words/Movement Advancement Project).  

Jon Hudson Odom (Second Man: Midas and others) Folger Theatre: debut; Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company: Ain’t No Mo’, An Octoroon, Botticelli in the Fire; Round House Theatre & Olney Theatre Center: Angels in America; Olney Theatre Center: Colossal, Piano Lesson, Hay Fever. Regional: Steppenwolf Theatre Company: No Man’s Land, Describe the Night, The Seagull, Ms Black For President; Goodman Theatre: Toni Stone; Writers Theatre: Witch; Denver Center for the Performing Arts: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf; Actors Theatre of Louisville: The Magic Play TV: Lovecraft Country (HBO), Somebody Somewhere (HBO Max), South Side (HBO Max), Chicago PD (NBC). Film: The Year Between, A Savage Nature, Reporting for Christmas. Five time nominee and recipient of the Helen Hayes Awards & Jeff Award nominee. Education: University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

Kalen Robinson (Fourth Woman: Midas’ Daughter and others) Folger Theatre: Our Verse in Time to Come (reading); Woolly Mammoth: The Sensational Sea-Minkettes; Theatre Alliance/The Kennedy Center: Look Both Ways; Imagination Stage: Nate the Great, The Hula Hoopin’ Queen; Signature Theatre: Passing Strange; Constellation Theatre: Once on This Island; Round House Theatre: Spring Awakening. Regional: Fulton Theatre: Cinderella, 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. IG: @k_nicole143

Gerrad Alex Taylor (Fifth Man: Bacchus and others) Folger Theatre: debut; Chesapeake Shakespeare Company: Macbeth, A Raisin in the Sun, Henry IV Part 1; Constellation Theatre Company: Incognito, The Skin of Our Teeth; Mosaic Theatre Company: Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World; Washington Stage Guild: Alabama Story, Everyman Theatre: Great Expectations; Prologue Theatre: Monsters of the American Cinema. Regional: Delaware Shakespeare: The Tempest; PCPA-Pacific Conservatory Theatre: Twelfth Night; Great River Shakespeare Festival: The Merry Wives of Windsor, Henry V, Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.

Renee Elizabeth Wilson (Fifth Woman: Alcyone and others) Folger Theatre: Nell Gwynn, Julius X;  Mosaic Theater Company: Monumental Travesties (World Premiere),  Native Son,  Milk Like Sugar; Theater J: Intimate Apparel;. Round House Theatre: Radio Golf, Nollywood Dreams; Constellation Theatre Company: Moon Man Walk; Woolly Mammoth Theatre:  Ain’t No Mo’ ; Imagination Stage: The Hula Hoopin Queen (World Premiere); Studio Theatre: Skeleton Crew, Doubt, White Noise; Arena Stage: Tempestuous Elements, Seven Guitars. International: Red Shoes (World Premiere) Film: Smoke Out, Veracity @actpoetic88

Saron Araia (u/s First Woman: Aphrodite and others, Fifth Woman: Alcyone and others) Folger Theatre: debut; Shakespeare Theatre Company: Jane Anger, Merchant of Venice, The Winter’s Tale (STC Academy); Avant Bard Theatre: Coriolanus; Forum Theatre: Nat Turner in Jerusalem; Washington Stage Guild: An Ideal Husband; Washington National Opera: Il Trovatore; Drama Lady Theatre Group: Julius Caesar; Negro Classical Carnival: Troilus and Cressida. Education: MFA, STC Academy. Instagram: @saaronaaa

Ronald Benson-El, Jr (u/s First Man: Zeus and others, Second Man: Midas and others, Third Man: Phaeton and others) Folger Theatre: The Winter’s Tale. Some of his most recent work had him in New York working with Netflix, Fever, and Mycoto in their immersive theatre as Fight Captain and Cast member in Money Heist: The Experience NYC and a Cast member in Stranger Things: The Experience NYC. BFA, Acting, SUNY Purchase College in New York. Brought up in the DMV, Ronald Benson-El, Jr started his training at Duke Ellington School of the Arts in the Theatre Program. Ronald also has a passion for fight choreography and stunt work. He thanks his family and friends who have helped and supported him in all he loves to do.

Edmée – Marie Faal (u/s Second Woman: Eurydice and others, Fourth Woman: Midas’ Daughter and others) Folger Theatre: debut. Imagination Stage: Corduroy, P. Nokio, and Aquarium; Constellation Theatre Company: Orlando. As the 2019 Allen Lee Hughes Community Engagement and Outreach intern she was trained to co-instruct Voices of Now, Arena Stage’s devised theater for social change program. American University: Theatre Performance Program; British American Drama Academy. edmeemariefaal.com IG: edmee.marie.

Neko Ramos (u/s: Fourth Man: Vertumnus and others, Fifth Man: Bacchus and others) Folger Theatre: debut. DC credits: Theatre Alliance, The Kennedy Center, and the Young Playwrights Theatre. Television: multiple productions  with HBO. Neko is an award-winning renowned poet/spoken-word artist, as well as an educator in the DC area. BFA Howard University.

Nandi Talton (u/s Water Nymph, Third Woman: Myrrha and others) is a current BFA acting major at Howard University in her freshman year. She is from Brooklyn, New York, and attended LaGuardia High school of performing arts, where she received the majority of her training thus far. She is a classical theater enthusiast, and is incredibly excited to make her professional debut at the Folger Theater. She is so excited to take this opportunity to grow as an artist, and be surrounded by such talented individuals.

Mary Zimmerman (Playwright) Her plays include Metamorphoses (Tony Award for Best Direction), Argonautika, The Odyssey, The Arabian Nights, The Secret in the Wings, S/M: A Dream Biography, Treasure Island, and The Steadfast Tin Soldier, Eleven Rooms of Proust, The Journey to the West, Silk, Jungle Book, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, Candide, Galileo, Galilei. 

Psalmayene 24 (Director) Folger Theatre: debut. Arena Stage: Tempestuous Elements, The Freewheelin’ Insurgents; Studio Theatre: The Colored Museum (upcoming), Good Bones, Flow, Pass Over; Ford’s Theatre: Necessary Sacrifices: A Radio Play; Theatre Alliance: The Word Becomes Flesh (Helen Hayes Award, Outstanding Direction of a Play); Mosaic Theater: Native Son. Playwriting: Mosaic Theater: Monumental Travesties, Dear Mapel, Les Deux Noirs; Joe’s Movement Emporium: Out of the Vineyard; Imagination Stage: Cinderella: The Remix. Acting: Arena Stage: Ruined, Cuttin’ Up, Anthems; Mosaic Theater: Dear Mapel. Television: The Wire. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Playwright in Residence at Mosaic Theater.

Tony Thomas (Choreographer) Folger Theatre: debut; Arena Stage: Tempestuous Elements. Tony is a New York based director, choreographer, and interior architect working in a wide range of arts and entertainment mediums. Tony was trained by Debbie Allen, Shawn Cosby, and Mike Malone, while working with Broadway’s David Saint and Joey McKneely, Steven Nachamie, Christopher Huggins, Tony Powell, Dancing with The Stars’ Jeffon Avin, and many others. Tony delivers innovation in dance from his core strengths in Ballet, Modern, Latin, Jazz, Hip-Hop, Contemporary, and Musical Theatre. His directing technique involves movement, gesture-work, creative staging, and detailed character development – ultimately driving the story through visual interest. Always aiming to redefine the wisdom and artistry of the legends, Tony’s expressive style and pedagogy enforces focus, fluidity, innovation, and precision in the arts and entertainment industry.

Lawrence E. Moten III (Scenic Design) Folger Theatre: debut. Broadway: Circle in the Square: Chicken & Biscuits; Off-Broadway: MCC and 59E59: The White Chip; Roundabout Theater: Covenant; Second Stage, Uptown: Patience; Page 73: STEW . Regional: The Old Globe: King James, Twelfth Night, Trouble in Mind; The Geffen Playhouse: Black Cypress Bayou; McCarter Theatre and Berkeley Rep: Bulrusher; Wolf Trap: Faust; American Players: Proof, Once Upon a Bridge, The Brothers Size; Alley Theatre: Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Jersey Lily; McCarter Theatre and The Guthrie Theater: Blues for an Alabama Sky; South Coast Rep: Appropriate, The Little Foxes; Portland Center Stage: Gem of The Ocean; The Goodspeed: Christmas in Connecticut; Santa Fe Opera: This Little Light of Mine; The Wilma Theater: Fairview; Round House Theatre:  it’s not a trip, it’s a journey, We Declare You a Terrorist... Member: Local USA 829. motendesigns.com; IIG: @motendesigns

Mika Eubanks (Costume Design) Folger Theatre: debut. Classical Theater of Harlem: Seize The King; Lincoln Center Theater: Flex; The Vineyard Theatre: Lessons in Survival: 1971. Regional: Repertory Theatre of St. Louis: Feeding Beatrice; Baltimore Center Stage/Long Wharf Theatre: Fires In The Mirror; Old Globe: The XIXth; St. Louis Shakespeare Festival: King Lear starring André De Shields; Asolo Repertory Theater: Grand Horizons; Yale Repertory Theatre/CTH: Twelfth Night, for which she received the Connecticut Critic Circle Award for outstanding costume design. Film: Candace. Television: Initiative 29 (Hulu). Currently located in New York, but hailing from Maryland, Mika received her MFA in Costume Design at Yale School of Drama and holds a BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art. In 2022, she served as the costume assistant on the Tony Award-winning Best Musical A Strange Loop. mikaeubanks.com

William K. D’Eugenio (Lighting Design) Folger Theatre: debut. Arena Stage: Tempestuous Elements; 1st Stage: The Chosen, The Brothers Size (Helen Hayes Award); Studio Theatre: Good Bones; Faction of Fools: Love Like Tuesday; Mosaic Theater Company: In His Hands, Native Son; Theater Alliance: Mnemonic and Word Becomes Flesh (Helen Hayes Award); Kennedy Center: Long Way Down, Robert Glasper – Black Radio: A Duke x Dilla Celebration, Declassified: Laufey, dodie & Jacob Collier, Gavin Creel in Concert, Ledisi Sings Nina. Television: Cynthia Erivo & Friends: A NYE Celebration, Robert Glasper’s Black Radio, Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, Let My Children Hear Mingus and A Joni Mitchell Songbook (PBS/NEXT at the Kennedy Center), among others.

Nick Hernandez (Sound Designer, Composer) Folger Theatre: Our Verse in Time to Come; Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts: The Day You Begin, Look Both Ways; Round House Theatre: Nollywood Dreams, The Mountaintop; Ford’s Theatre: Fences; Mosaic Theater: Monumental Travesties; Theater Alliance: Word Becomes Flesh (Helen Hayes Award, Outstanding Production); Imagination Stage: Havana Hop, All the Way Live (with sibling Paige Hernandez), Oyeme, The Beautiful, The Hip-Hop Children’s Trilogy; Adventure Theater: Luchadora; Glimmerglass Opera: Stomping Grounds. Additional credits include music production for Hot 97 FM; Netflix, Smithsonian Associates, Words Beats & Life, Inc. and at DC Public Libraries.

Willy Schwarz (Original Music) Folger Theatre: debut. Broadway: Metamorphoses (Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music in a Play); The Odyssey (Joseph Jefferson Award for Original Music); Journey to the West (Bay Area Critics’ Circle Award). Goodman Theatre: The Baltimore Waltz. Willy recently composed, performed and recorded a score for the 1925 silent film The Light of Asia on dozens of ethnic musical instruments, which was enthusiastically received at the recent Berlinale Film Festival, and in Chennai, India.  He has toured and performed with such diverse artists as Tom Waits, Theodore Bikel, Ravi Shankar, David Amram, Robert Bly, Shlomo Carlebach, Holly Near and Leon Russell.

Rueben D. Echoles (Wig Designer) Folger Theatre: debut; Olney Theatre Center: Fela. Regional: Court Theatre: The Lion in Winter; The Muny: Rent; Paramount Aurora/North Carolina Theatre Company: Dreamgirls; The National Black Theater Festival: You Can’t Fake the Funk (Joseph Jefferson Award “Best Costume Design in a Large Theater); ETA; Black Ensemble; Mmpact; Congo Square; Refuge; Porchlight Music Theater; Drury Lane Oakbrook; Skylight Milwaukee; Writers Theater; Theo Ubique; Invictus; The Goodman Theater; Phoenix Theater Company; Studio One Dance Theater. Television: WTTW’s Chicago Stories (Emmy “Best Production”).

Deb Thomas (Props Design) Folger Theatre: Props Assistant 1983 to 1985. Studio Theatre: Props Director from 2009 to 2019: At The Wedding, Fat Ham, Heroes of the Fourth Turning, John Proctor is the Villain, Pass Over, Terminus (Set Design), Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (Assistant Set Design); Mosaic Theater Company: Confederates, Monumental Travesties, Bars and Measures, The Till Trilogy, Birds of North America, Eureka Day; Theater J: The Tale of The Allergist’s Wife, Freud’s Last Session;  Set Design: Gala Hispanic Theatre: Locos de Contento, Entre Mujeres, Our Lady of The Tortilla, Eloisa, Made in Lanus, Slowmotion, Shoemaker’s Wife, Officio de Hombres; Props Master Carpenter: Washington Opera. 

Kaja Dunn (Resident Intimacy and Cultural Consultant): Folger Theatre: The Winter’s Tale, Our Verse In Time To Come, The Reading Room; Arena Stage: American Prophet; Denver Center for the Arts: Choir Boy, 5thAve; ACT Theatre (Seattle): Choir Boy; St. Louis Rep.: Private Lives, Confederates; Two River Theatre: Wine In The Wilderness; Penumbra Theatre: Sugar In Our Wounds; Broadway: A Strange Loop (Assoc. Intimacy Director); Television: The Best Man, Final Chapters, Harlem, The Equalizer; Awards: Kennedy Center American Theatre Award, Playwrights Project Excellence in Arts Education; Publications: Arden Contemporary Shakespeare, Intimacy Direction For Theatre, Theatre Symposium, HowlRound, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training (UK); Associate Professor Carnegie Mellon University.  

Dr. Faedra Chatard Carpenter (Dramaturg) (Ph.D. in Drama from Stanford University, M.A. in Drama from Washington University, B.A. in English from Spelman College) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Performing Arts at American University, a professional dramaturg, and cultural critic. As a professional dramaturg, Carpenter has worked on innumerable projects at venues such as Ford’s Theatre, Round House Theatre Company, Woolly Mammoth, Olney Theatre Company, Everyman Theatre Company, Baltimore Center Stage, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Mosaic Theatre Company, Theater J, Dance Place, Crossroads Theatre Company, and Arena Stage.

Lauren Pekel (Production Stage Manager) Folger Theatre: debut. Studio Theatre: Fat Ham, Fun Home, Good Bones (World Premiere), People, Places & Things, Doubt, Cry It Out, Vietgone, P.Y.G. or the Mis-Edumacation of Dorian Belle (World Premiere), No Sisters (World Premiere); Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company: Teenage Dick, The Second City’s She the People: The Resistance Continues!, Shipwreck: A History Play About 2017, BLKS; Signature Theatre: Private Jones (World Premiere), Selling Kabul; Theater J: Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights Brooklyn and Other Identities; Theater Alliance: The Events. Regional: The American Conservatory Theatre: The Unfortunates, Between Riverside & Crazy; Skylight Music Theatre: Hydrogen Jukebox, Sing Me a Story. Other: The Kennedy Center: The Club at Studio K.

Jenna Keefer (Assistant Stage Manager) Folger Theatre: The Reading Room: The Cuban Vote; Compagnia de’ Colombari: REVELATION; Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics: Little Amal at the Capitol; Constellation Theatre Company: Desperate Measures, Incognito; Taffety Punk Theatre Company: La Salpêtrière; Spooky Action Theatre: The Realistic Joneses. Regional: Baltimore Center Stage: The Medicine Show, Our Town; The Peabody Institute: Cendrillon, Other Side of the Story; Olney Theatre Center: A Christmas Carrol; Hope Repertory Theatre: Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, It’s a Wonderful Life, Every Brilliant Thing, The Importance of Being Earnest, A Year with Frog and Toad. Television: CNN Biden Town Hall.

Mekala Sridhar (Associate Director) Folger Theatre: Producer: Where We Belong, in association with Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company; Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company: Associate Director: Public Obscenities, in association with Theatre for a New Audience; Studio Theatre: Assistant Director: Fun Home, Pass Over, Good Bones (reading), Aspen Ideas (workshop). Regional: The Old Globe: Assistant Director: What You Are; La Jolla Playhouse: Assistant Director: Light Years Away; Prologue Theatre: Director: A Wake At Singh’s (workshop); Sarah Lawrence College: Director: Salome, 10708; Accademia Dell’Arte: (re)Move West. Sarah Lawrence College BA; Moscow Art Theatre School; Accademia dell’Arte.

Jeannette Christensen (Assistant Costume Designer) Folger Theatre: Our Verse in Time to Come, Merry Wives of Windsor, Amadeus; Gala Hispanic Theatre: On Your Feet! The Story of Emilio and Gloria Estefan (world premier in Spanish; Helen Hayes win – Outstanding Costume Design 2022); Kennedy Center/KCTYA: Don’t let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, Show Way; Olney Theatre Center; Roundhouse Theatre; Wolf Trap Opera; Studio Theatre. Regional: American Players Theater; Oklahoma City Rep; Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival; American Stage; The Muny. National tour: Show Way, On Your Feet! The Story of Emilio and Gloria Estefan. Education: BA Design & Production Arizona State University; MFA Design University of Maryland; MPS Business of Art & Design Maryland Institute College of Art (Graduating Sept. 2024). jchristensendesign.com.

Yetunde Felix-Ukwu (Dialect Coach) Folger Theatre: debut; Roundhouse Theatre; Spooky Action Theatre. Regional: Portland Center Stage; Kansas City Repertory Theater; Unicorn Theater; TheaterSquared; Flat Rock Playhouse; Portland Revels; Outer Loop Theater; Contemporary Theatre of Ohio. Film/Television: Paramount +, CBS, Showtime, ALLBLK, Warner Brothers. www.yetundelive.com and @yetundelive.

Claire Fogle (Production Stage Manager) Folger Theatre: debut; Mosaic Theater Company: Mary’s Seacole, Bars and Measures, Unseen, Monumental Travesties (World Premiere), Confederates, Nancy (World Premiere), Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill (upcoming); Arena Stage: Voices of Now Festival; Studio Theatre: FLIGHT. Regional: Washington Revels: Christmas Revels 2022 and 2023; Dance Place: DC Dance Festival 2022; Antaeus Theatre Company: The Tempest; Runway to Hope: Spring Soiree 2019-2022.