Claudia Alick is performer, producer, and inclusion expert. Named by American Theater Magazine as one of 25 theater artists who will shape American Theater in the next 25 years, Alick has served as the founding Artistic Director of Smokin' Word Productions, is a NY Neofuturist alum, published playwright, recipient of NYC Fresh Fruit directing award, TedXFargo speaker, the Lilla Jewel Award for Women Artists, featured on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam and former Community Producer at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. At OSF for ten years she produced events such as “The Every 28 Hours Plays”, "The Green Show", The Daedalus Project, OSF Open Mics as well as producing/directing audio-plays with OSF such as the Grammy nominated "Hamlet". Her personal projects include her podcast “Hold On…Wait for it”, vlog “This Week in Cultural Appropriation”, StreetPoetry, and one-person Show “Fill in the Blank” exploring disability and the medical industry. Claudia served on Oregon Arts Leaders in Inclusion, the steering committee of The Ghostlight Project, the steering committee for Black Theater Commons, and is currently co-president of the board of Network of Ensemble Theater, She is currently the executive producer of the transmedia social justice company CALLING UP.

Follow her work at ClaudiaAlick.com and Patreon.com/Claudiaalick

Alison M. De La Cruz is an executive arts leader, producer, facilitator, educator, multi-disciplinary theatre artist, contemporary ritualist & cultural space instigator. DeLa has over thirty years of experience as a facilitator and training deviser, and has worked with the Network of Ensemble Theaters (where they serve as Member of the Board of Directors) and the Theatre Communications Group. De La Cruz leads at the intersections of dramaturgy, adaptation, youth development, generative processes, community organizing, dialogue, workforce investment and playwriting with over 10 Youth Arts productions by Shakespeare Center Los Angeles, About Productions and East West Players. Their individual artistic work has been presented at the Smithsonian Institution, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; Asian Arts Initiative, Kirk Douglas Theatre, Highways Performance Space, and East West Players.

De La Cruz has also been a featured speaker at national convenings for Art Change US: Arts Equity Summit, Grant Makers in the Arts and the Weingart Foundation.

Pamela Capalad is a Certified Financial Planner™ and has been in the financial services industry for over 8 years, spending a lot of those years at wealth management firms (if you’re really curious where, check out her LinkedIn). She is the owner of Brunch & Budget, where you can have a meal and talk about your finances. I'm based in Brooklyn, NY and serve clients virtually across the country.

Brian ‘Dyalekt’ Kushner is an actor, rapper, educator, and performing artist. After witnessing civil rights injustices at the law firm he worked for, he dropped the job and began pursuing the arts instead. His first album/one man play Square Peg Syndrome helped him get named to the Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group. He has been a mainstay in NYC’s Theatre and Hip Hop scenes, rocking everywhere from the Bowery Ballroom to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

While presenting at a workshop for New York SCORES his perspective on performance changed. He realized that, “students are much better audience members than bar patrons”, and discovered a natural affinity for facilitation. Hip Hopping with students led to better engagement, grades, and overall attitude toward school than the usual classes. He ran rap based Lincoln-Douglas debate/battles to teach youths how to prepare and present at a job interview. and linked up with Pockets Change to help students find freedom in expression, understanding, and finances.

Read more at dyalekt.com

Daniel Park is a queer and bi-racial, theatre/performance artist based in Philadelphia. Park is the co-founder of the worker-cooperative Obvious Agency, and the Project Coordinator with the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives. Since moving to Philadelphia in 2014 Daniel Park has become a leader for radical thought in the local creative ecosystem and has self-produced multiple major works, created commissions for institutions such as the Barnes Foundation and Moore College of Art and Design, taught anti-oppressive creation methodology at the University of the Arts, and collaborated with local companies including The Bearded Ladies, Orbiter 3, and Applied Mechanics. Deeply tied to his artistic practice, Daniel is also an activist and organizer, focusing on racial and labor justice in the cultural sector. He has provided his services as a facilitator and consultant nationally with organizations such as The PA Governor’s Commission on Asian American Affairs, ArtPlace America, and Headlong Dance Theatre. Daniel also acts as the membership and engagement coordinator with Philadelphia Asian Performing Artists, a community group that brings together folks of pan-Asian descent involved in the performing arts.

Julius Rea is a playwright, curator and performer. In addition to writing for publications such as the East Bay Express and EBONY magazine, he obtained a degree in Philosophy at San Francisco State University. He is a part of Crowded Fire Theatre’s 2020-21 Resilience and Development Lab, leading up to a new play production in their 2021 Rough Reading Series. Also an actor, Rea has performed with Ragged Wing, Left Edge Theatre, and Benicia Old Town Theatre Group; he received a 2019 Arty award for his portrayal of Chris in Lynn Nottage’s Sweat. He has worked with the Playwrights Foundation, Greenhouse Theatre Festival, Nomadic Press, Firehouse Art Collective, Golden Thread, Adelines Lab, and Playground. Recently, he was a part of a healing arts lab with Cal Shakes focusing on empathic communication around incarceration situations. Julius started an arts and performance collective called The Forum Collective with several SF Bay Area collaborators focusing on blending live performance, gallery curation and journalistic reporting. www.theforumcollective.com

Originally from Mumbai, India, Pratik Motwani is an Actor/ Writer/ Director/ Theatre Maker/ Theatre Educator with a specialization in eastern and western forms of mask performance technique and devised physical theatre. As a self producing actor/creator Pratik likes to collaborate with other artists and cross- sector partners in an ensemble-based process to create, produce, and tour original works of devised physical theatre. His work contemplates themes of identity and inclusion, death and transformation, illusion and duality and includes aspects of Commedia Dell’arte, mask performance, heightened physical movement and clown. As an actor Pratik has lent his voice to actor Dev Patel in the Indian version of the Oscar winning film Slumdog Millionaire; played leading roles in the Dell’Arte Company’s productions of The State of Jefferson (2017), The Big Thirst (2016), Comedy of Errors (2014) and premiered the title role as Ruzante (Arlechino) in a Commedia Dell’Arte adaptation of Ruzante Returns From The War .

Pratik has performed and taught in Canada, France, Egypt, Jordan, and India; has been an invited guest teacher/respondent/judge at Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Festivals. He has been a guest teacher at Pennsylvania State University, University of California – Berkeley, and Virginia Tech University. Pratik holds an MFA in ensemble based physical theatre from Dell’Arte International in Blue Lake, CA where he currently works as a resident artist.

Yvonne Montoya is a mother, dancemaker, bi-national artist, thought leader, writer, speaker, and the founding director of Safos Dance Theatre. Based in Tucson, A.Z. and originally from Albuquerque, N.M., her work is grounded in and inspired by the landscapes, languages, cultures, and aesthetics of the U.S. Southwest. Montoya is a process-based dancemaker who creates low-tech, site-specific and site-adaptive pieces for nontraditional dance spaces. In addition to being the founding director, Montoya is the lead choreographer for Safos Dance Theatre; under her direction, the company won the Tucson Pima Arts Council’s Lumie Award for Emerging Organization (2015).

Montoya is a 2019-2020 Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellow, a member of the 2019-2020 Dance/USA Fellowships to Artists pilot program, and a recipient of the 2019 National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC) POD grant. From 2017-2018 Montoya was a Post-Graduate Fellow in Dance at Arizona State University, where she founded and organized the inaugural Dance in the Desert: A Gathering of Latinx Dancemakers.

Read more at yvonnemontoya.co

Lacresha Berry, better known as Berry, Lacresha Berry is a singer/songwriter, actress, poet, educator, and writer from Queens by way of Lexington, Kentucky. She received her BA in Theatre from the University of Kentucky where she honed her playwriting skills and went on to produce three one woman shows since 2002. Her last one woman show, "Browngirl. Bluegrass." documented her life as a brown girl coming of age in the bluegrass state of Kentucky. She's performed all over the country with the show as well as singing and hosting with The Inspired Word weekly series. Her newest work, TUBMAN, a reimagining of Harriet Tubman’s life as a young girl in Harlem, debuted to packed audiences in her hometown of Lexington, Ky, and NYC, with additional performances in San Diego California, New Bedford Massachusetts, and Tubman's birthplace in Cambridge, MD. When she's not performing, she's teaching spoken word to middle and high school students in the Bronx and leading Black Gotham tours in lower Manhattan. She is currently writing her young adult debut novel, "Seeing Janelle".

Zac Jaffee is a New York-based actor and writer with on-screen work including supporting roles in Hustlers, starring Constance Wu and Jennifer Lopez; Amazon's The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel; NBC's Law and Order: SVU, and The Mysteries of Laura with Debra Messing; and Netflix's Friends from College. He has written and performed two New York Innovative Theater Award nominated solo shows, “Heroes and Other Strangers” and "I Don't Know Shit About Cars" which have played in NYC and nationally. He has written a dozen short plays and frequently collaborates with Amios Theatre Company in New York as a performer, writer, and director. Regional acting credits include Magic Theatre, B Street Theater, Marin Theater Company, and Z Space, among others. Zac has also toured internationally with Word for Word Performing Arts Company.

Zac is a former member of foolsFURY Theater. He trained as an actor and teacher at The Barrow Group under Seth Barrish and Lee Brock and is a member of SAG-AFTRA and AEA.

Amy Smith is a dance, theater artist, educator, and facilitator who works to dismantle oppressive structures in non-profit organizations and other groups so that artists and low income folks can achieve collective liberation. She does this through financial well-being workshops, one-on-one work with clients giving financial advice and doing tax preparation, consulting with arts organizations, co-facilitating anti-racism sessions with co-facilitators of color, and as a dance and theater educator. Amy co-founded, co-directed, and performed with Headlong, a dance theater non-profit that transformed into a community arts organization over 25 years. She left Headlong in 2019 to pursue her freelance work. She leads financial well-being workshops through Creative Capital, Assets for Artists, and in many other settings. She holds a BA from Wesleyan University and has been greatly affected by her learning as part of artEquity’s National Facilitator Training and other anti-oppression trainings.

Zahydé Pietri is a Puerto Rican actress, prop stylist and artist living in New York City. She has a BA in Drama from the University of Puerto Rico and has trained with Deborah Hunt in Puerto Rico and with the prestigious theatre companies Malayerba in Quito, Ecuador and Yuyachkani in Lima, Perú. She's been onstage in Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Perú and NYC. She's particularly proud of her work with the Improv Group IMPROpio in Puerto Rico, the sculpture and photography collaboration "Fresh Faces" with photographer Emily Dryden and the work she did with the Puerto Rican Children's Theatre Group Desiderátum, where she got to collaborate with other artists in the creation and performance of larger than life masks and puppets. Favorite roles in NYC include Who in "Among Who, Whom and Ever" at LATEA, many roles for Writopia Worldwide Plays Festival and the title role in the upcoming short film "Adriana".