Everything That Never Happened

Sarah Mantell (Playwright) is the recipient of the 2023 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for In the Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot. Their other plays include The Good Guys, Tiny, and Fight Call. They have worked with Playwrights Horizons, Boston Court Pasadena, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Playwrights Realm, Second Stage, Breaking the Binary Festival, and Artists Repertory Theatre. Sarah has been awarded residencies with MacDowell, Yaddo, Wildacres, Hedgebrook, Fresh Ground Pepper, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and SPACE on Ryder Farm, as well as a Toulmin grant, an Edgerton Foundation grant, and a Playwrights Realm Writing Fellowship.  

Johanna Gruenhut (Director) Folger Theatre: Call Me Olivia. Johanna’s work has been seen at Theater J, Mosaic Theater Company, The Public, The Kennedy Center, Studio Theatre, Everyman Theatre, Weston Theater Company (formerly Weston Playhouse), Long Wharf Theatre, Portland Center Stage, and Baltimore Center Stage. Johanna was the Associate Artistic Director of Theatre J. She has translated several plays from their original Hebrew into English, including works by Motti Lerner and Yosef Bar Yosef.  She has taught at Georgetown University, University of Maryland, College Park, The Johns Hopkins University, and University of California, San Diego.

Derek Kolluri (Shylock) is a director, writer, actor and producer based out of NYC. He is currently the Associate Director for SHUCKED on Broadway helmed by Jack O’Brien. He also recently served as Mark Brokaw’s Associate for HOOD, the musical. His work has been seen across the country at many prominent theaters including OSF in Ashland and with the Rude Mechs in Austin. While at OSF he also performed various artistic duties including producing, acting and casting. As a writer, his play SODARA, co-written with his brother Deven, is receiving developmental support from The Public Theatre in NY. Derek is the Co-founder, and former Artistic Director of Theatre en Bloc in Austin, TX.

Cali Izzi (Gabbo) is an NYC based actor, writer, and gender consultant from Philadelphia. This is Cali’s first production with Folger Theatre. Other credits include Townsperson/Narrator in Pride & Prejudice with Silver Spring Stage, Prince Hal in Henry IV Part I with GW Shakespeare Company, Greg in Ego/Death (2022 Capital Fringe), and Rosencrantz in Frailty Thy Name, Nutshell Theatre’s Hamlet adaptation for Great Salt Lake Fringe. They received training from George Washington University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Cali is passionate about creating and collaborating on art that elevates and uplifts trans and queer stories. You can find more of their work at https://calistaizzi-ragland.com.

Miriam Schwartz (Jessica) is a Portland-based theater, voice, and film actor. She is a graduate of the Guthrie Theater’s BFA Actor Training program, and spent ten years in Minneapolis where her work was seen at the Guthrie Theater, Mixed Blood Theatre, Six Points Theatre Company, Artistry MN, 7th House Theatre Company, Arrow Theatre Company, and The Playwrights’ Center, among others. She is the recipient of a MN Theatre Award for Exceptional Individual Performance for her work in the Guthrie’s acclaimed production of INDECENT. Since moving to Portland, she has worked at Artists Repertory Theatre, Profile Theatre, Portland Shakespeare Project, and Third Rail Theatre Company.

Zack Powell (Lorenzo) Folger Theatre: A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Everyman Theater (Resident Company Member)The Sound Inside, The Lion in Winter, Sense and Sensibility, and The Skin of Our Teeth.  Other regional credits include: The Shakespeare Theatre Co.: Red Velvet, Dunsinane; Washington Stage Guild: Arms and the Man, Alabama Shakespeare Festival: Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; The Kennedy Center: Shear Madness, Sylvain; The Cleveland Playhouse: Sherwood—The Adventures of Robin Hood; Round House Theatre: The Legend of Georgia McBride; Theater J: The Last Night of Ballyhoo; The American Shakespeare Center: King Lear, Twelfth Night, Henry VI pt 2 and Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson; Off-Square Theatre Co.: The Cherry Orchard, Godspell, Cabaret; as well as three seasons at the Utah Shakespeare Festival and two seasons at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival.  Film: Tapawingo, The Call.  Next up, Everyman Theatre: The Book Club Play. BFA Wichita State University,  MFA Illinois State University.  @zackpowellthezactor

*Member of Actors’ Equity Association

Craig Wallace (Stage Directions) DC Area: Multiple productions with Folger Theatre, Ford’s Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Arena Stage, Signature Theatre, Olney Theatre Center, Everyman Theatre, Studio Theatre, Mosaic Theatre, Roundhouse Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre. Regional: Actors Theatre of Louisville, Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Hangar Theatre, others. Training: BFA, Howard University; MFA, Pennsylvania State University; Royal National Theatre, London.

Michele Osherow (Dramaturg) Folger Theatre: The Winter’s Tale (2023, 2018, 2009), The Merry Wives of Windsor, Amadeus, 1 Henry IV (2019, 2008), Love’s Labor’s Lost, Nell Gwynn, King John, Macbeth (2018, 2008),  The Way of the World, Antony and Cleopatra, Timon of Athens, As You Like It, Sense and Sensibility, District Merchants, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2016, 2006, 2022),  texts&beheadings/ ElizabethR, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Mary Stuart, Julius Caesar; Fiasco Theater Company’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Richard III, Romeo and Juliet (dramaturg and actor), Twelfth Night, Henry V, The Conference of the Birds, The Taming of the Shrew, The Gaming Table, Othello (2011, 2001), Cyrano, The Comedy of Errors, Henry VIII, Hamlet, Orestes: A Tragic Romp, Much Ado About Nothing, Arcadia, The Tempest, Measure for Measure (dramaturg and actor). University of Maryland, Baltimore County: Associate Professor of English.

M. Lindsay Kaplan is Professor in the Department of English, Georgetown University, where she teaches courses on medieval and early modern literature and culture, focusing on law, race, religious difference, gender, and adaptation. She has published a number of essays, seven of which focus on The Merchant of Venice, and several books, including a contextual edition of The Merchant of Venice, (Bedford/St. Martins, 2002) a monograph, Figuring Racism in Medieval Christianity, (Oxford, 2019) and a volume of essays on The Merchant of Venice in the Arden State of Play series (Bloomsbury, 2020). She is currently working on Racializing Infidels: Medieval Continuities in Early Modern English Drama, a book project that traces a medieval representation of Jews together with Muslims as racialized enemies to the faith to demonstrate its continuity in early modern English plays coordinating Jews with Muslims as gendered infidel subordinates to male Christian identity.

Jasmine Camille Livingston (Production Assistant) is a graduating Senior at Howard University studying media, Journalism, and Film. She thrives on creativity and loves impactful storytelling. Ms. Camille is the Executive President of the Spotlight TV Network, a nationally award winning writer, and an international thespian. During their 100th year anniversary, Disney in collaboration with Howard University, also named her as an inaugural Disney Future Storyteller Scholar! Upon graduating this May, Jasmine plans to continue working in production and development for scripted TV and film content!

Cameron Luther (Production Assistant) is a stage manager and technician working in the DMV. You may have seen their work at Toby’s Dinner Theatre, Young Artists of America, ArtStream, Baltimore Theatre Project, Fells Point Corner Theatre, In Character Productions, UMBC Dance, and more. They are devoted to promoting accessibility, inclusive workspaces, and to their cat Shrimp Scampi.

Rebecca Talisman (she/they); Production Stage Manager. Folger Theatre: 2024 Reading Room. 1st Stage: columbinus, Hero’s Welcome, How the Light Gets In; Adventure Theatre MTC: Blueberries for Sal; Arena Stage: Catch Me If You Can, Change Agent; Constellation Theatre Company: The Master and Margarita; Kennedy Center: Acoustic Rooster’s Barnyard Boogie Starring Indigo Blume (tour), All That You Touch (workshop), Super Cello!, Mosaic Theater: The Vagrant Trilogy, Hooded, or Being Black for Dummies, Paper Dolls, Queens Girl in Africa; Olney Theatre: Fiddler on the Roof; Rorschach Theatre: Sing to Me Now; The Second City: The Revolution Will Be Improvised!; Theater J: Becoming Dr. Ruth, The Jewish Queen Lear, Love Sick, Occupant, Talley’s Folly, The Pianist of Willesden Lane, The Wanderers; UrbanArias: Glory Denied; The Juliet Letters, Why I Live at the P.O.; Washington National Opera: Il Trovatore; Williamstown Theatre Festival: Paris, ACTORS! (dir. Jack O’Brien), The Pillowman (dir. Lila Neugebauer), Three Sisters.  BFA, Music Composition, Carnegie Mellon University.

* Member of Actors’ Equity Association