FIGHT CALL
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2023
7:30PM at The Shiva Theater at the Public
by Sarah Mantell (they/them)
Directed by Mei Ann Teo (they/them)
Associate Fight Director: Alex Might (her)
Dramaturg: Jeremy Tiang (he/they)
Stage Manager: Mars Juno Bartolome Neri (they/them)
Fight Director: Rocío Mendez (they/she)
featuring Diana Oh “Zaza D” (they/them), Jonny Beauchamp, Marquise Vilsón, Pooya Mohseni (she/her), Sagan Chen (they/he), and Susannah Perkins
with Stage Directions read by Andres Martinez (any pronouns with respect)
How many ingenues can Emma play before she just completely loses it? FIGHT CALL is a time-bending story told through the fight calls for all of Shakespeare’s onstage female death scenes.
Sarah Mantell (they/them)
Writer
Sarah Mantell (they/them) is the recipient of the 2023 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for In the Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot. Their other plays include Everything That Never Happened, Tiny, and The Good Guys. They have worked with Playwrights Horizons, Boston Court Pasadena, Oregon Shakespeare 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. MFA Yale School of Drama.
Mei Ann Teo (they/them)
Director
Mei Ann Teo (they/them) is a queer immigrant from Singapore making theatre & film at the intersection of artistic/civic/contemplative practice. As a director/devisor/dramaturg, they works internationally, at festivals including Belgium's Festival de Liege. Recent work includes Madeline Sayet’s Where We Belong (film and national tour) and the US premiere of Amy Berryman’s Walden at Theatreworks Hartford (Best Production and Director- Connecticut Critics Award). Teo received the League of Professional Theatre Women’s Josephine Abady Award, is the inaugural recipient of the Lily Fan Director Lilly Award, and is an artistic leader at Ping Chong and Company.
Alex Might (her)
Associate Fight Director
Alex Might (her) is an actor and movement director from central Ohio. Credits include POTUS (Broadway), How to Defend Yourself (New York Theater Workshop), RENT (Paper Mill Playhouse), The Wolves (Actors Theatre of Louisville), backstroke boys (Fault Line Theatre), Thelma and Louise and the Time Machine (Breaking the Binary Festival), and Crumbs from the Table of Joy (Keen Company). She has done additional productions at Williamstown Theatre Festival, ATL Humana Festival, WP Theater, Primary Stages, Princeton, Columbia, NYU, and King’s Head Theatre in London. www.alexmight.com
Jeremy Tiang (he/they)
Dramaturg
Jeremy Tiang 程异 (he/they) is a playwright, novelist, and translator. His work for the stage includes Salesman之死 (playing at the Connelly Theater till Oct 28!), A Dream of Red Pavilions and The Last Days of Limehouse, as well as translations of plays by Chen Si’an, Wei Yu-Chia and Quah Sy Ren. He is also the author of a novel and a short story collection, and the translator of over thirty books from Chinese. Originally from Singapore, he now lives in Flushing, Queens. www.JeremyTiang.com
Mars Juno Bartolome Neri (they/them)
Stage Manager
Mars Juno Bartolome Neri (they/them) is an artist and stage manager dedicated to supporting those who want to tell their personal stories and creating community through social justice oriented art through new plays or devised works. Their passion lies in community care and the joy that can be found through these collaborative storytelling processes. They’re devoted to doing work that brings unheard voices and untold stories to light. Congratulations to everyone for the second BTB Theatre Festival, and here's to many more! Previous collaborators include Leviathan Lab, Breaking the Binary Theatre, Rattlestick Theater, and Signature Theatre DC. www.marsjbneri.com
Rocío Mendez (they/she)
Fight Director
Rocío Mendez (they/she). Member of Unkle Dave’s Fight-House. Rocio was recently nominated for two Drama Desk Awards and resident Intimacy Director at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Rocio is also an award-winning actor.
Credits include: Broadway: POTUS, AIN’T NO MO, Merrily We Roll Along
Off-Broadway / Regional Theater: How To Defend Yourself, On Sugarland (NYTW), The Bandaged Place (Roundabout), The Harder They Come, Merry Wives, Romeo y Julieta (Public Theater), NOIR (The Alley Theater), Vietgone, The Royale (Geva Theater Center), The Wolves (Actors Theater of Louisville), The Three Musketeers, Romeo and Juliet, RENT, Twelfth Night, King John, Confederates, It’s Christmas, Carol! (OSF) www.rociomendez.com
Diana Oh “Zaza D” (they/them)
EMMA
Diana Oh “Zaza D” (they/them) is a multi-hyphenate Generative Artist — performer, musician, singer, songwriter, actor, unboxable artist, maker of installations, rituals, performances, gatherings, concerts, documentary film, and parties. Oh describes themselves as an open channel to the art that feels good to their body and is driven by pleasure, mutual care, and keeping things heart-centered. Oh’s work defies easy categorization. The New York Times calls it “messy-beautiful,” “(a) blend of compassion, defiance and practicality” and “a glitter bomb” of “feminist and queer protest,” “with the joyous freedom to be yourself, whatever pronouns you use.” Oh’s {my lingerie play} (NY Time’s Critics Pick, TOW Fellow Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre), Infinite Love Party (NY Time’s Critics Pick, Bushwick Starr), CLAIRVOYANCE (A.R.T. Artist-in-Residence), Asian People are Not Magicians (Mic.com), OH FAMILY CONCERT (All Arts TV Resident Artist), The Gift Project (All For One at Symphony Space), My H8 Letter to the Gr8 American Theatre (written in The Public Theatre’s EWG, Ma-Yi Digital), music, work, and others have been featured on PBS, NPR, Mic, SXSW, Sundance, Huffington Post, People Magazine, Vulture, Upworthy, Vice, The National, MTV, Korean Broadcast Radio, Institute of Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Bushwick Starr, The Public Theatre, A.R.T., The Harvard Arboretum and The White House. Oh is a TOW Fellow, Venturous Capital Fellow, Sundance Institute Fellow, Hellen Merrill Playwright Award Recipient, Steinberg Playwright Award Recipient, Art Equity Persephone Grant Recipient, Williamstown Theatre Festival Artist-in-Residence, and a Refinery29 Top LGBTQ+ Influencer. Oh travels to unexpected places with their work and Shovels @ProfessionalLapDog. @ohyeadiana
Jonny Beauchamp
JUST
Jonny Beauchamp. Most recently a series regular on the Riverdale spinoff Katy Keene as Ginger Lopez/Jorge, Jonny is known for playing Angelique on the Showtime series Penny Dreadful. Film/TV credits include Ray/Ramona in Roland Emmerich's 2015 film, Stonewall, Tyler Rabinowitz’s See You Soon, Barry Jay’s The Way Out, Henry Joost and Ariel Shulman’s Nerve, Dick Wolf’s Chicago P. D., and the action film SNAG, opposite Ben Milliken and Jaime Camil. Born and raised in New York City, they attribute the bulk of their training to New York's Professional Performing Arts School (PPAS). Jonny is a graduate of Marymount Manhattan College.
Marquise Vilsón
MICHAEL
Marquise Vilsón is a New York Native, by way of the Bronx, actor and activist of trans experience. He recently starred on the CW series TOM SWIFT as Isaac Vega; a trans, pansexual badass who is Tom’s bodyguard and right-hand man. Marquise was first introduced to TV audiences when he guest-starred in the critically acclaimed episode of LAW & ORDER: SVU, titled Service, addressing the issues faced by transgender military service members (GLAAD Award Nomination). Other TV credits include QUANTUM LEAP, A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN (recurring), BULL, THE BLACKLIST, TALES OF THE CITY and BLINDSPOT (recurring). Film Credits include THE KITCHEN, BEN IS BACK, B-BOY BLUES and the upcoming THE LOST HOLIDAY. Marquise made his New York stage debut Off-Broadway as Beta in MCC Theatre’s CHARM.
Pooya Mohseni (she/her)
MARIE
Pooya Mohseni (she/her) is a multi award-winning Iranian American actor, writer, filmmaker and transgender activist. She recently appeared in the world premiere of The Sex Party (Menier Chocolate Factory) in London. Her other stage performances include her Obie win in the Pulitzer and Obie-winning play English (Atlantic Theater Company), Hamlet (Play On Shakespeare Festival), One Woman (United Solo), She,He,Me (National Queer Theater), Our Town (Pride Plays), Galatea (The WP Project), The Good Muslim (EST), White Snake (Baltimore Center Stage), and the Audible production of Chonburi Hotel & The Butterfly Club (Williamstown Theater Festival). Her film and television credits include Law & Order: SVU, Big Dogs, Falling Water, Madam Secretary, Terrifier and See You Then, streaming on all digital platforms. She's part of the advisory council for The Ackerman Institute's Gender & Family Project. She’s represented by Headline Talent Agency and TGTalent.
Sagan Chen (they/he)
STAGE MANAGER
Sagan Chen (they/he) is an award-winning queer genderfluid chinese-american artist. They center their work on uplifting underrepresented new narratives onstage, onscreen, and on the page, and enjoy reading scripts for various reading committees, including Breaking the Binary! Onscreen: Survival of the Thickest (Netflix/A24), Grand Crew (NBC), High Maintenance (HBO), Girl Talk (dir. Erica Rose). Onstage: WORK HARD HAVE FUN MAKE HISTORY (Clubbed Thumb Summerworks), Happy Life (The Hearth @ Soho Rep), Two Mile Hollow (Yale), Six Years Old, Stone, and delicacy of a puffin heart (Corkscrew Theater Festival), Exposed Bone (The PIT Loft). You can hear him in the Audible Original The 126 Year Old Artist, and narrating the audiobooks: Ana On the Edge, All The Things We Don’t Talk About, and The Jump. Follow them on Instagram: @sagan.chen
Susannah Perkins
ANONYMOUS INTERN
Since graduating from NYU's BFA program, Susannah Perkins has swiftly become one of the most exciting names in the New York theatre scene. They played a pivotal role in Sarah DeLappe’s critically-revered play, THE WOLVES, directed by Lila Neugebauer, and reprised their role in the remount production at Lincoln Center Theater. Other notable theatre credits include NETWORK on Broadway opposite Bryan Cranston; JUDGMENT DAY (Park Avenue Armory); the title role in THE RAPE OF THE SABINE WOMEN BY GRACE B. MATHIAS (Playwrights Realm) and Bruce Norris’s THE LOW ROAD (Public Theater). Susannah can currently be seen on stage in MARY GETS HERS (Playwrights Realm), which has been met with rave reviews.
On screen, Susannah was most recently seen in a leading guest star role on Ryan Murphy’s THE POLITICIAN. They starred as the lead role in renowned visual artist Rachel Rose’s short film ENCLOSURE, produced by Animal Kingdom, and played a supporting role in the 2020 SXSW Feature LAPSIS. Additional credits include a guest star appearance in THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL.
Andres Martinez (any pronouns with respect)
Stage Directions Reader
Andres Martinez (any pronouns with respect) is an interdisciplinary Latine Queer Artist from Philly. Andres received a BA in Theatre from King's College, and attended the National Theatre Institute at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center. They are a recipient of the Lin Manuel Miranda Family Fellowship. A program that has supported over 100 social justice-oriented, emerging artists and arts administrators from underrepresented communities in various artistic mediums including, but not limited to, theatre, dance, tv / film, visual arts, and music. For more visit andresmartinez.org. Donate to the Next Generation Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to distributing resources to Black and Brown Trans folks in need. Learn more at wearetng.org