The Farm Theater's Bullpen Sessions

Bullpen Sessions Episode 40: Melissa Friedman

MELISSA FRIEDMAN is co-Artistic Director of Epic Theatre Ensemble and has performed in numerous Epic Off-Broadway productions including Hannah and Martin with David Strathairn, Einstein’s Gift with Aasif Mandvi, A Hard Heart with Kathleen Chalfant as well as Habitat, A More Perfect Union, Time and The Conways, Othello, Little Eyolf, Macbeth, and Born with Teeth. Other Off-Broadway & Regional credits include An Ideal Husband (Tennessee Rep), Last Night of Ballyhoo (Fulton Theatre), Much Ado About Nothing and Degenerate Art (Irondale), and Substance of Fire, Macbeth, and Henry IV directed by Jack O’Brien (Old Globe). MFA in Acting from the University of San Diego.  Other credits include AN IDEAL HUSBAND at Tennessee Rep, LAST NIGHT OF BALLYHOO at Fulton Opera, Beatrice in MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING with Irondale, a witch to Victor Garber’s MACBETH and Lady Mortimer in Jack O’Brien’s production of HENRY IV at the Old Globe. Melissa has directed 13 Shakespeare Remix productions for which, on behalf of Epic, she received the 2009 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award from First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House. Before co-founding Epic, Melissa worked as a Lead Teaching Artist with many NYC theatres including Roundabout, BAM’s Shakespeare Teaches program, and Theatre for a New Audience. She co-developed Epic’s Citizen Artist curriculum and currently acts as a Lead Teaching Artist in Epic’s partner schools and outreach programs. Melissa received her BA from Oberlin College and MFA from the Old Globe University of San Diego.

Bullpen Sessions Episode 39: France-Luce Benson

FRANCE-LUCE BENSON Playwright and Community Engagement Coordinator with The Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles. Named “Someone to Watch ” in 2019 by American Theatre magazine, she is a recipient of a Miranda Foundation grant (DETAINED), Alfred P. Sloan Foundation New Play Commission (DEVIL’S SALT), and a Princess Grace Award runner up (BOAT PEOPLE).   Additional honors include: Zoetrope Grand Prize (CAROLINE’S WEDDING); Dramatists Guild Fellow 2016-17, Sam French OOB Festival Winner, NNPN Award for Best Play, and three time Kilroy List Honorable Mention.  Residencies include Djerassi, the Camargo Foundation in France, and Instituto Sacatar in Bahia, Brazil. Her plays have had productions, workshops, and readings at Crossroads Theatre New Jersey, City Theatre of Miami, The Playwrights Center, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, City Theatre of Miami, Loyola Marymount University, Global Black Voices in London, and in New York The Lark, The Billy Holiday Theatre, and the Ensemble Studio Theatre where she is a company member. She’s been published by Sam French and Routledge Press. She earned an MFA in Dramatic Writing from Carnegie Mellon University and a BA in Theatre from Florida International University. Teaching appointments include UCLA Extension, St. Johns University, Columbia University, Girl Be Heard, and P.S. Arts/Inside Out in L.A. She is a proud member of The Dramatists Guild, Inc.

Bullpen Sessions Episode 38: Juan Villa

Juan Francisco Villa is an actor, playwright and teaching artist currently residing in Los Angeles. He has worked nationally with both his acting and writing being performed in New York City, Los Angeles, Syracuse, and Chicago. His credits include numerous theatres, including New York Public Theatre, the Goodman, Rattlestick, television including Madame Secretary and The Blacklist, and film. He has been nominated for two Joseph Jefferson Awards, 3 New York Theatre Innovation Awards, won ITBA Patrick Lee Award, and performed in all three of Luis Alfaro's Greek trilogy plays Elictricidad, Oedipus El Rey, and Mojada. Juan's play, Empanada for a Dream, was named best show in Chicago and Los Angeles. Juan did VO for an animated pilot for FX called Little Demon with Aubrey Plaza, Danny Devito and Lucy Devito. He shot an indie called To Leslie with Allison Janney, Marc Marron, Andrea Riseborough, Andrea Royo, Stephen Root. I'm sure Fall of 2021 it will be released. Around that time. Maybe we can see it in theaters then :)

Bullpen Sessions Episode 37: Purva Bedi

Purva Bedi A 2019 Drama Desk Award winner for her work in Dance Nation (Playwrights Horizons), Purva is an Associate Artist of Target Margin Theater and a member of the Actors Center.  New York theater credits include: Wives (Playwrights Horizons), Passage (Soho Rep), India Pale Ale (Manhattan Theater Club), An Ordinary Muslim (New York Theatre Workshop), Uncommon Sense (Tectonic Theater Project), The Idiot (Here Arts Center), Veil'd (Women's Project); Ten Blocks on the Camino Real, Reread Another, The Tempest, and Second Language (Target Margin); There or Here (Hypothetical Theater), The Rise of Dorothy Hale (St. Luke's); East is East (Manhattan Theater Club & New Group); and many others. She recently shot the NBC pilot One Of Us Is Lying.  Her guest and recurring appearances include Billions, High Maintenance, She's Gotta Have It, The Code, Madam Secretary, Person of Interest, Unforgettable, Nurse Jackie, The Blacklist, The Good Wife, A Gifted Man, Gossip Girl, House, Boston Legal, Alias,  Law & Order and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, The Drew Carey Show, ER, Strong Medicine, and The West Wing. www.purvabedi.com 

Bullpen Sessions Episode 36: Florencia Lozano

Florencia Lozano is an Actor and Writer. Florencia can be seen on Netflix's show Narco. She has worked extensively on T.V. and in theatre. She has worked at The Public Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, Manhattan Class Company, Manhattan Theatre Company, and LAByrinth Theatre Company. On T.V. she has been seen on numerous shows: Narco, Madame Secretary, Kevin Can Wait, The Blacklist, and What Am I Doing Here. She played Téa Delgado on One Life To Live. She is also a writer. Her play Underneath My Bed premiered at Off-Broadway Rattlestick Theatre. Her film that she stars in and co-wrote Life After You will be screening in festivals this upcoming season. Flor has an MFA from NYU and is a founding member of LAByrinth Theater Company.

Bullpen Sessions Episode 35: Felix Solis

Felix Solis (Actor) plays Ray Vera on Ozark and is currently filming season 4. He started booking Film and Television gigs starting with shows set in NYC such as New York Undercover, NYPD Blue and Third Watch and the film Empire (starring opposite John Leguizamo and Peter Sarsgaard). Soon Felix appeared in acclaimed television Shows such as The West Wing, OZ, Law & Order: SVU, The Sopranos, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Damages and Fringe (to name only a few); and numerous films such as The Forgotten (opposite Julianne Moore), Wes Craven’s My Soul To Take, Man On A Ledge (opposite Sam Worthington and Ed Harris) and Arbitrage (opposite Tim Roth). With his roots in theatre, Felix has also continued to work on stage receiving the HOLA 2013 Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor for the production of Basilica at New York’s prestigious Cherry Lane Theatre; a Connecticut Critics Circle Award in 2008 for Boleros For The Disenchanted and a Helen Hayes Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Passion Play in 2006. He is especially proud of a letter Al Pacino wrote him to thank him for his performance in the original production of Our Lady Of 121st Street with the LAByrinth Theatre Company of which he has been a member since 1999. In addition to acting, Felix co-created a film production company, Subway Token Films, where their first short film, TINTO, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2014; their next short film, iHeart (which he directed), made its world premiere at the Hoboken International Film Festival; it won the Award of Merit at One-Reeler Short Film Competition.

Bullpen Sessions Episode 34: Andrea Dymond

Andrea Dymond is a Chicago-based freelance director, specializing in new work, Andrea was formerly Resident Director at Victory Gardens Theater. She directed 11 productions there, including 7 world premieres. Chicago credits include Tree, Year Zero, Blue Door, Free Man of Color, Shoes, and I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document…(Victory Gardens); Helen (Next); and Keep A Song In Your Soul, which she directed and developed with the Grammy Award-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops (Old Town School of Folk Music). Other regional credits include: the new musical, St. Heaven (Village Theatre) and Having Our Say (Madison Repertory). Recent credits include: Shepsu Aahku’s Softly Blue (MPAACT) and Lynn Nottage’s Mud River Stone, (Eclipse) In addition, Andrea’s experience includes research and production dramaturgy, directing at new works festivals nationally; serving as thesis play advisor for MFA playwrights at Carnegie Mellon; and, directing at NNPN’s MFA Playwrights Workshops, at the Kennedy Center. Andrea teaches directing, collaboration, text analysis, acting and new play development at Columbia College Chicago, where she recently directed a production of Blues for an Alabama Sky, by Pearl Cleage and Euripides’s Hecuba, in the traditional style, with masks, and a singing and dancing Chorus.

Bullpen Sessions Episode 33: Lisa Ramirez

LISA RAMIREZ (playwright/actor) Associate Artistic Director at Oakland Theater Project, Artistic Associate at Cherry Lane Theatre.  Roles include, The Angel in Angels in America at Berkeley Rep, Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire at the Ubuntu Theater Project in Oakland. Lisa has performed extensively at theaters on both the East and West Coast such as the Cherry Lane Theatre, Atlantic Theatre Company, Working Theater, The Foundry, Ubuntu Theater Project, Magic Theatre, Berkeley Rep amongst others. Writing credits include, Exit Cuckoo (nanny in motherland) was first presented Off Broadway by the Working Theater (Colman Domingo- director) and subsequently toured in various theaters throughout the U.S. and Ireland; Art of Memory, a dance theatre piece, commissioned by Company SoGoNo and presented at the Ontological-Hysteric Theater and the 3-Legged Dog in New York (Tanya Calamoneri- director) Invisible Women-Rise, Foundry Theatre & Domestic Workers United; To The Bone, originally a Working Theater commission, was a finalist for the 2012 NPN Smith Prize, the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference and the Ellen Stewart Award; All Fall Down was conceived/written in at INTAR during the Maria Irene Fornés Hispanic Playwrights in Residency Lab; Contributing playwright for In Mother Words, presented at the Geffen Playhouse and various regional theatres (Lisa Peterson- director); In 2012/13 Lisa was part of the Mentor Project at the Cherry Lane Theatre where she wrote Pas de Deux (lost my shoe), (Bryan Davidson Blue- director); In September 2015, the Cherry Lane Theatre presented the world premiere of To The Bone (Lisa Peterson- director).

Bullpen Sessions Episode 32: Victor Malana Maog

Victor Malana Maog was born in the Philippines, raised in the Bay Area, and is a graduate of New York University Gallatin School, with a concentration in Global Leadership and Performance Studies. A highly respected theatre director, educator, and arts leader with more than twenty-five years of experience directing projects, programs, and companies. He’s directed and developed works at The Public Theater, Hartford Stage, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Signature Theatre Company, Mabou Mines, Working Theater, York Theater, Drury Lane, Connecticut Repertory Theate, New Dramatists & The Lark. He was the Artistic Director of Second Generation 2016-18, he served as Show Director for Disney Parks Live Entertainment creating and directing stage shows, large scale events, and spectaculars for millions of visitors. www.victormaog.com 

 

Bullpen Sessions Episode 31: Elyzabeth Wilder

Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder’s plays include Gee's Bend, Fresh Kills, The Flagmaker of Market Street, The Furniture of Home, White Lightning, Provenance, and Everything That’s Beautiful.  Her plays have been produced at the Royal Court (London), Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Denver Center, Cleveland Play House, KC Rep, Northlight, the Arden, B Street Theatre, and Hartford Stage, among others.  Her one act Santa Doesn’t Come to the Holiday Inn was featured in the Marathon of One Act Plays at the Ensemble Studio Theatre. Elyzabeth is the recipient of the Osborn Award given by the American Theatre Critics Association and is a graduate of the dramatic writing program at New York University. Elyzabeth is the current Tennessee Williams Playwright-in-Residence at Sewanee: The University of the South where she teaches playwriting.