Dezi Solèy / Danielle
Dezi Solèy is a prizmatic artist & entrepreneur dedicated to co-creating & making space for embodiments of the Divine through explorations in theater, film & performance art. Solèy’s most recent credits include starring in Star Finch’s BONDAGE (directed by Elizabeth Carter); Campo Santo’s ETHOS DE MASQUERADE (directed by Sean San Jose); TheatreF1rst’s production of THE FARM, PARTICIPANTS & BETWEEN US (directed by Margot Hall), Magic Theatre’s THE GANGSTER OF LOVE (directed by Loretta Greco) and LIFE AFTER DEATH- a collaboration between Crowded Fire Theater, Axis Dance Company & Ensemble Mik Nawooj (directed by Mina Morita). She is blessed to be back at T1 for another season alongside such an amazing creative team.
Jasmine Williams / Adrien
Jasmine, is so excited to be working on her second TheatreFirst Production; a true creative process where she has had the ability to grow. Some companies she has worked with include: Campo Santo, Those Woman Production company, African American Shakespeare Company, and New Conservatory Theater Company. She thanks her family and friends for always encouraging her to follow her dreams. Art will make America Great Again!MEET THE CREATIVE TEAM
Cleavon Smith / Playwright
TheatreFIRST resident playwright, Cleavon Smith’s full-length play, Vs., and one-act play, Just One Day, were both developed and produced by TheatreFIRST in the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons respectively. Cleavon also served as a facilitator for T1’s The People’s History of Next. He won a PlayGround Emerging Playwright Award for his short play “You Eat What You Kill,” was a 2018 Lorraine Hansberry Theatre Playwrights Festival finalist, and has had new work featured in UC Berkeley’s New Play Reading Series, the Ohlone College Playwrights Festival, and two Utopia Theatre Project productions. Along with Bonnie Kwong, Cleavon was awarded a California Arts Council grant to collect stories from Oakland residents about what makes Oakland home, the outcome of which will be a play performed at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center in June of 2019. Cleavon lives in Oakland, teaches English at Berkeley City College and is the artist mentor for Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Young Writers of Color Collective.
Regina Evans / Costume
Regina Y. Evans is the owner of Regina’s Door, an Oakland based social enterprise vintage clothing store which operates as a creative arts healing and sanctuary space for survivors of sex trafficking and young artists. Regina’s Door was named 2015 Social Changemaker, Oakland Indie Awards, 2016 Nancy’s Hero (Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley), and received a 2017 Oakland City Council Commendation in celebration of Small Business Week. As a Modern Day Abolitionist, Ms. Evans is a member of the AC United Council, and the CSEC Program Council/Claire’s House Safehouse (Catholic Charities). She was honored to be a speaker and delegate at the 2017 United Nations 61st Commission on the Status of Women.Ms. Evans is an award winning social justice poet, playwright and performer. Her stage play 52 Letters, which brings awareness to the fight against modern day slavery, was honored to win a Best of SF Fringe Festival Award, 2013. She is the Creative Director and Costumer for CEREMONY a theatrical ritual troupe bringing healing to survivors of sex trafficking, and a member of House Full Of Black Women (A multi site performance ritual project that addresses the displacement, well being and sex trafficking of Black girls and women.). Ms. Evans is a board member of The Flight Deck Performing Arts Space, Oakland, Ca., and the costume designer for the Lower Bottom Playaz Theater, Oakland, Ca.
Kristoffer Barrera / Composer & Stage Manager
Kristoffer Barrera set foot on his theatrical journey at Laney College in Oakland as a generation one Fusion Theater member. He has collaborated on and off stage with many East Bay and SF theater companies and is honored to throw down as TheatreFIRST’s production manager and resident sound designer for another exciting season. He says this cast and crew is cooking up the goodness!
Jon Tracy / Scenic
Jon works internationally as a director, playwright, designer, educator and facilitator. He is the recipient of the Kennedy Center Meritorious Achievement Award, fifteen North Bay Arty Awards, a Sacramento Elly Award, two Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards, a Theatre Bay Area Award, Solano College Theatre Alumni Award and is a grant recipient from Theatre Bay Area, Shotgun Players’ Bridging the Gap and the National Endowment for the Arts. He is the Artistic Facilitator for TheatreFirst, Co-Artistic Director of Groundswell: The International Theatre Intensive a proud member of SDC, the union for stage directors and choreographers. www.jontracyplays.com
Michael Gene Sullivan / Director
Michael Gene Sullivan is an award-winning actor, director, and playwright. As a playwright, Mr. Sullivan‘s political dramas, musicals, and satires have been performed at the Melbourne International Arts Festival, the International Festival of Verbal Art (Berlin), The Hong Kong Arts Festival, and in Greece, Spain, Columbia, Argentina, Canada, Mexico, and in theaters throughout the United States. In 1989 Mr. Sullivanbecame a member of the Tony and OBIE award-winning (and despite its misleading name never, ever silent) San Francisco Mime Troupe, where he has written over 30 productions. In 2000 he became the Troupe’s Resident Playwright. 1984, his critically-acclaimed stage adaptation of George Orwell’s dystopic novel of the oppressive present/future, had its world premiere in 2006 at the Actors’ Gang, directed by Academy Award winning actor Tim Robbins. After several extended runs in Los Angeles, 1984 has gone on to several national and international productions.
Stephanie Anne Johnson / Light
I am a second-generation theater practitioner (my mother worked with The American Negro Theater in N.Y.) who has been a lighting designer working locally, nationally, and internationally for over forty years. Locally, I have worked with Cultural Odyssey, Afro Solo, Ubuntu Theatre, and many other groups. My designs have been seen in Holland, India, France, Italy, and Canada.My mixed media art work was exhibited in two one-person shows in San Francisco. I have also written and performed a one-person show entitled Every Twenty-One Days: Cancer, Yoga, and Me. In the realm of education, I am a professor and founding faculty member of the Visual and Public Art Department at Cal State University, Monterey Bay.
I serve on TheatreFirst’s Board of Creative Development. WAAFRIKA is my sixth production with this group. Recently I was nominated for two awards in lighting design excellence: by Theatre Bay Area (TBA) for HeLa which was produced at TheatreFirst, and by the Bay Area Critic Circles for Ubuntu Theater’s production of To The Bone.
My work can be seen online at www.lightessencedesign.com.
