Quenna Lené Barrett (Director)
Quenna (she/her) is a theater artist+practitioner, developing programs to amplify teen + community voice and hold space to rehearse, tell, and change the stories of their lives. She is a company member with the Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health’s For Youth Inquiry company, Associate Artist with Pivot Arts, recent co-curator for Theatre on the Lake, and is the Associate Director of Education at the Goodman Theatre.
Quenna received her BFA from NYU Tisch Drama, MA in Applied Theatre from the University of Southern California, and is pursuing an educational doctorate (EdD) in Educational Theatre at NYU Steinhardt. Recent credits include: ob•li•ves•cence, The Theatre School at DePaul (Devised; Director); Free Street Theatre's 50 in 50 (Devised, Director); Eclipsed at Pegasus (AD), Radio Golf at Court Theatre (u/s), and This Boat Called My Body and First with FYI (Devised, Director). She has toured nationally as an actor and deviser with Theatre Unspeakable and Sojourn Theatre Company. Quenna has received Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events grants, artist residences at Santa Fe Art Institute Equal Justice and Free Street Theatre, and a Lincoln City Fellowship from the Speranza Foundation. Continuing to build the world she wants to see/live in, she is developing personal practices of poetic and participatory performance.
Amy Cordileone (Producer)
Amy (she/her) is a director whose artistic work and research is focused on investigating aesthetic spaces across the globe. As a full-time faculty member at NYU, Cordileone continues to develop innovative content for a variety of Steinhardt programs, including the NYU Youth Theatre Ensemble, Theatrix, Playlabs, and the Writers' Roundtable; additionally, she is the Editor-in-Chief for the Teaching Artist Journal (a Taylor & Francis publication). Amy’s passion for new work development led to the curation of the NYU Forum on Developing New Work for the Theatre (2013) and the Forum on Site-Specific Performance (2015). Her directing and choreography credits include: The Winter’s Tale, Peter & the Starcatcher, Comedy of Errors, Noël Coward’s Brief Encounter, Meta (premiere), The Heart Cycle (premiere), Underground: An Unauthorized Ben Folds Jam Session (premiere), Two Noble Kinsmen, Alice: Looking Glass Girl, and more. Cordileone holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Performance from the University of California, at Irvine; she completed both her MA and PhD at NYU.
Cassie Holzum (Production Stage Manager)
Cassie (she/her) is thrilled to be a part of another NYU production. Some of her previous stage management credits include The Winter’s Tale, Making Gay History: Before Stonewall, Peter and the Starcatcher, Comedy of Errors, Radium Girls, The Two Noble Kinsmen, and Of a Certain Age. She is so happy to still be doing theatre and art in this time of uncertainty and hopes the audience enjoys the show.
Jinx Ellwanger (Assistant Stage Manager)
Jinx (they/them) is so excited to be making their first backstage debut at NYU. They are an undergrad in the educational theatre program and their prior stage management experience include Frozen Jr., A Christmas Story, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Seussical Jr. at Steel River Playhouse. They would like to acknowledge Daryl Embry and Cassie Holzum for allowing them to assist on this inspiring production.
I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change…I’m changing the things I cannot accept.
~ Angela Davis
Daryl Embry (Production Director)
Daryl (he/him) has been part of the NYU Educational Theatre community for 18 years and is inspired by the program’s vision to create work that responds to the complexity of this moment. At NYU: resident designer (scenic and lighting), adjunct instructor, and director of Shakespeare To Go.
Kanomé Jones (Dramaturg/Community Engagement Coordinator)
Kanomé (she/her) is a casting director, director and producer and greatly enjoys her work in partnership with several theater companies. Most recently, she served as the Associate Producer at Victory Gardens Theater, where she led the casting and producing team in shepherding groundbreaking and thoughtful work such as The First Deep Breath, How To Defend Yourself and Tiny Beautiful Things. She also was the Associate Producer for Midsommer Flight, where she facilitated casting for multiple seasons and produced their annual holiday hit, Twelfth Night, at the Lincoln Park Conservatory. With her directing hat on, Kanomé's most recent projects include: Stop Kiss (Arc Theatre & Pride Films and Plays) Plainclothes (Co-Director, Broken Nose Theatre), Mansfield Park (Assistant Director, Northlight Theater), Radio Golf (Assistant Director, Court Theater), She Kills Monsters (Aurora University) and Kingdom (Broken Nose Theatre) She is a proud alumni of the Actors Theatre of Louisville Apprenticeship and a BFA graduate of Missouri State University. Outside of theatre, Kanomé works as a NASM-certified personal trainer at Spindle Fitness.
Jaaron Drew Boger (Video Designer/Editor)
Jaaron Drew Boger is a person naturally drawn to the intricacies of planning, preparation and execution. With a career spanning the practices of video editing, producing and cinematography; it has been a welcome challenge to produce video remotely. Jaaron’s story begins in Camden, a city not unlike Chicago in terms of poverty, segregation of wealth and corruption. This South Jersey native with a flair for the dramatic, pursued theater production; and with a minor in determination toured internationally to both Athens in Greece, and Istanbul in Turkey. Relocating to Chicago, Jaaron fully explores his passion of producing video as a Freelance Filmmaker.
Naimah Thomas (Graphic Design & Animation)
Naimah is a Chicago-based visual artist, art therapist and licensed professional counselor, whose work explores the intersections of art and mental health, primarily in communities of color. Utilizing art to shift narratives around healing, mental health, and create spaces where exploration and re-imagination are valued. Her work is informed by her experience as a Black woman, survivor and art therapist. She has worked with a range of people across the lifespan in community, correctional, and nonprofit settings.
Naimah’s work includes digital illustrations, as well as works on paper, canvas and bristol using acrylic, pen/ink and watercolor. She has exhibited in a host of shows including Celebrate Black Hair (2020) at North Liberty Community Library in Iowa; at the Black Music Therapist Network Conference in 2018 and 2019; and Plus Gallery in Chicago, among others.
Most recently, Naimah’s work was featured in a collaboration between La Colombe and ACLU, where her works were featured on various products with a portion of proceeds benefiting Women entrepreneurs . In addition to working with the ACLU, Naimah was invited to collaborate with Mariame Kaba, the founder and director of Project Nia, Naimah provided the illustration and oversaught the design of the recently released zine titled Plight of the Girl: The story of Dorothy Belle Young. In addition, her work was recently highlighted among a host of other artists who have created work responding to recent Black Lives Matter protests. Naimah is member of For the People Artists Collective, a radical squad of Black and Brown LGBTQIA artists. Using artivism to uplifts and projects struggle, resistance, liberation, and survival within and for our marginalized communities and movements in our city and our world. www.naimahthomasart.com
Sarah D. Espinoza (Sound Consultant)
Sarah (she/her) is an award winning Chicago-based sound designer. In 2015, she won the Non-Equity Jeff award for sound design for The Arsonists (Strawdog) and, in 2018, she won the ALTA Award for Outstanding Sound Design for The Displaced (Haven). Some of the productions she has worked on include Borealis (The House Theatre), The Displaced (Haven), Damascus (Strawdog), Another Jungle (Cloudgate), Dontrell Who Kissed the Sea (First Floor Theatre), Epic Tale of Scale (Chicago Children's), Fear and Misery in the 3rd Reich (Haven), Little Red Cyrano (Red Theatre), Two Mile Hollow (First Floor Theatre), Firebirds (Rivendell), Diamond Dogs (The House Theatre), Thumbelina (Lifeline), You On the Moors Now (The Hypocrites), Farewell My Friend ((re)-discover), Douglass (American Vicarious), Dating and Dragons (The Factory), Midnight Cowboy (Lifeline), Mr. Popper’s Penguins (Lifeline), The Revel (The House Theatre), Motel 666 (WildClaw), Midsummer Night’s Dream (Two Pence), and The Last Defender (The House).