Entry Point 2018 Creators

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Molly Andrews-Hinders

Molly Andrews-Hinders is a performer, composer, educator and activist. She has been performing and teaching as an independent artist at CPT since 2011. Molly has created many original works for CPT shows. Her original compositions were featured in Station Hope (2017); Light the Lights, Ol’ Moses CLE! (A Wild Holiday Romp); Airwaves; Earth Plays; When the Moon Was Green Cheese, The Cracker Maker Was King (Big Box 2013) and Soliciting for Change (Big Box 2011), as well as numerous STEP shows. As an actor, Molly has been featured in 44 Plays For 44 Presidents, Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays, Rusted Heart Broadcast and Akarui.

She is a proud graduate from Wright State University, earning a BFA in Acting.

Lucy Biederman

Lucy Biederman is a lecturer in English at Case Western Reserve University. Her first book, The Walmart Book of the Dead, won the 2017 Vine Leaves Press Vignette Award. Her poems, short stories, and literary and scholarly essays have appeared widely.

Chennelle Bryant-Harris

Chennelle Bryant-Harris, originally from Brooklyn, NY is an actor, director, and teaching artist who received her B.A. in both History and Theatre at Gettysburg College. Recent work includes 44 Plays for 44 Presidents at Cleveland Public Theatre, Olivia in Twelfth Night (As Told By Malvolio), Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and various roles in productions with Karamu House, Talespinner Children’s Theatre, Ensemble Theatre and Rubber City Theatre.

William James Burke

William is a recent graduate of DePauw University, where he studied English Writing and Theatre, with focuses in playwriting, directing, performance studies, dramatic criticism, and queer theory. His creative work is largely concerned with the interrogation of modern mythologies—specifically those moments where we as the collective or we as the individual grasp at the mythic, the indescribable, the perennial, the explosive; those moments where our lived experiences speak to larger and more universal lived motifs or mythologies. William is also interested in the reality of absurdism; in how absurdism touches on the emotional essence and, in doing so, circumvents Freudian psychology and grasps at the ‘real’ in ways that naturalism and realism cannot.

Melissa Crum

Melissa is Cleveland-based performer, director, writer and educator. Crum currently holds a position as a Staff Teaching Artist with Playhouse Square and is passionate about arts education and its role within our growing community. Recently, Crum served as Education Associate at Dobama Theatre, and has been a Teaching Artist with Cleveland Play House, Great Lakes Theater, The Musical Theatre Project, and Cleveland Public Theatre’s Brick City Theatre Program. Melissa recently received the Nord Family Foundation Playwright Fellowship through Cleveland Public Theatre, where she and co-creator Caitlin Lewins will develop an original musical, Everything is okay (and other helpful lies). Melissa completed the 2013/2014 Joan Yellen Horvitz Director Fellowship at Cleveland Public Theatre where she directed The Drowning Girls. Cleveland Stage Credits include 44 Plays For 44 Presidents, Air Waves (Part Three of the Elements Cycle), Conni’s Avant Garde Restaurant, The Loush Sisters DO the Nutcracker, Earth Plays (Part Two of the Elements Cycle), Tender Napalm, Two Plays by Gao Xingjian (CPT), and Loki and Lucy (Talespinner Children’s Theatre). Melissa has directed locally at Dobama Theatre (Peter and the Starcatcher; remount, production by Nathan Motta), Talespinner (The Crocodile, The Cobra, and the Girl Down the Well), True North Cultural Arts (Falling), and CPT (The Drowning Girls, The Waters – A Nord Fellowship Reading, Style is The Answer to Everything – A Nord Fellowship Reading). Crum has also directed and co-created several short works at CPT including: Bags of Air which appeared in Air Waves (Part Three of the Elements Cycle), The Natural Order of Things which appeared in Earth Plays (Part Two of the Elements Cycle) and Seppuku (Big Box ’10). Melissa studied Directing Devised Theatre and Theatre Creation under the tutelage of Raymond Bobgan, and holds a BA in Theatre Arts from Cleveland State University.

Lauren Joy Fraley

Lauren Joy Fraley is a performer, theatre-maker, and teaching artist in Cleveland. In addition to having performed at CPT in devised and collaborative works like Airwaves, Earth Plays, Ancestra, and The Secret Social (co-pro with Conni’s Avant Garde Restaurant), she has co-created short works including Noonday in CPT’s Test Flight series, for which she composed original music. Lauren is a part of Theater Ninjas’ Cadre of creative producers, and has contributed to the creation of past Theater Ninjas’ productions including Who We Used to Be, Don’t Wander Off, The Last Day, and Broken Codes, which featured Auxiliary, her original short-form work inspired by her experiences with Theater Ninjas’ after school STEAM club for girls at Orchard STEM school. She will lead this program again in spring, 2018, this time culminating in Mystery Box: an interdisciplinary experience, co-created with Jeremy Paul. Lauren spent over 5 years on Playhouse Square’s Community Engagement & Education team and currently teaches yoga and mindfulness in a variety of settings including CPT’s Brick City Theatre. laurenjoyfraley.com

David Hansen

David Hansen has participated in Cleveland’s theatre renaissance as the founder and artistic director of Guerrilla Theater Company and Dobama’s Night Kitchen, as well as an actor and director at Cleveland Play House, Great Lakes Theater, Cleveland Public Theatre, Dobama Theatre, Beck Center and Karamu House. His produced plays include Red Onion White Garlic, Rosalynde & The Falcon, The Vampyres and On the Dark Side of Twilight. Published works include Double Heart (The Courtship of Beatrice and Benedick) and adaptations of Agatha Christie’s The Mysterious Affair at Styles and The Secret Adversary. Solo performances include And Then You Die (How I Ran a Marathon in 26.2 Years) and his award-winning work on stillbirth, I Hate This (a play without the baby). David is Education Outreach Associate for Great Lakes Theater and a member of the Cleveland Play House Playwrights’ Unit and the Dramatists Guild of America. He lives in Cleveland Heights, the City of Great Writers. http://davidhansen.org

Faye Hargate

Faye is a director, performer, installation artist and educator who creates original work in collaborative settings. Collaboration, experimentation, and personal connection characterize her work. A Cleveland critic noted that she is “rapidly acquiring a reputation as one of the area’s most exciting and adventurous theater artists…often blurring the boundaries between roles.” Her major works – She’s Wearing White…, Royal Ann’s Preserve, Echoless Shore and Fellsalie – explored American female identity. The worlds she creates are 360 degree stories that invite the audience to have a full sensory experience.

JAMES IJAMES

James Ijames is a Philadelphia-based performer and playwright. He has appeared regionally in productions at The Arden Theatre Company, The Philadelphia Theatre Company, InterAct Theatre Company, The Wilma Theatre, Baltimore Center Stage, Mauckingbird Theatre Company, and People’s Light and Theatre. James’ plays have been produced by Flashpoint Theater Company, Orbiter 3, Theatre Horizon (Philadelphia, PA), The National Black Theatre (NYC), and Ally Theatre (Washington DC) and have received development with PlayPenn New Play Conference, The Lark, Playwright’s Horizon, Clubbed Thumb, Villanova Theater, The Gulfshore Playhouse, Wilma Theater, Azuka Theatre, and Victory Garden. James is the 2011 F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Artist recipient, and he also won two Barrymores for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Play for Superior Donuts and Angels in America and one Barrymore for Outstanding Direction of a Play for The Brothers Size with Simpatico Theatre Company. James is a 2011 Independence Foundation Fellow, a 2015 Pew Fellow for Playwriting, the 2015 winner of the Terrance McNally New Play Award for WHITE, the 2015 Kesselring Honorable Mention Prize winner for ….Miz Martha, and a 2017 recipient of the Whiting Award. James is a founding member of Orbiter 3, Philadelphia’s first playwright producing collective, and a mentor for The Foundry. He received a B.A. in Drama from Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA and a M.F.A. in Acting from Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. James is Assistant Professor of Theatre at Villanova University and resides in South Philadelphia.

Meredith L. King

Meredith L. King is a playwright, director and musician whose credits include work with Round House Theatre’s Heyday Players, dog & pony dc, The Hegira, African Continuum Theatre Company and eXtreme eXchange. Recently, Meredith created work for Talespinner Children’s Theatre’s PLAYground series as well as Cleveland Public Theatre’s inaugural Entry Point series. Meredith served a three-year term as a judge for Washington, DC’s regional theatre awards, The Helen Hayes Awards, and is currently in her sixth year as a reader/judge for the Source Theatre Festival. Meredith is passionate about theatre that brings the personal into the public and serves as a catalyst for connection and community building.

Caitlin Lewins

Caitlin Lewins, a Cleveland native, is a performer, writer, director, avid crafter and musician. Recently, Caitlin was awarded a 2016/2017 Nord Family Foundation Catapult Fellowship. During the fellowship year, Caitlin will develop (with Melissa Crum) a new musical, Everything is okay (and other helpful lies). Last season at CPT, Caitlin co-directed (with Dan Kilbane) and music directed 44 Plays For 44 Presidents. Caitlin joined the CPT staff in the fall of 2013 as Story Connector, became New Play Associate in the summer of 2014 and transitioned into her current role as Director of Audience Engagement & Media Relations in 2017. Caitlin completed the 2013/2014 Joan Yellen Horvitz Director Fellowship which culminated in the production Left in Ink which she conceived, directed and co-created. Recently at CPT, Caitlin created The Cleveland Line Dance as a part of Light the Lights, Ol’ Moses CLE! (A Wild Holiday Romp). Caitlin line produced Entry Point 2017 (A New Play Development Program), four Road to Hope events in the Spring of 2016, line produced The Santaland Diaries at Playhouse Square and the Nord Family Foundation Playwright Reading Series, directed Canon Fodder – a Nord Fellowship Reading, music directed Frankenstein’s Wake and assistant directed/contributed to The Loush Sisters Love Dick’ns: Great Expectations. Caitlin co-created and directed Edison and Ford which appeared in Air Waves (Part Three of the Elements Cycle) and completed her third year in the Directing/Theatre Creation class. In the 12/13 season, Caitlin was Stage Manager/Assistant Director to Raymond Bobgan for Rusted Heart Broadcast and made her writing/directing debut at CPT with The Environmented in Earth Plays (Part Two of the Elements Cycle). Recent/favorite performances include Light the Lights, Ol’ Moses CLE! (A Wild Holiday Romp), Red Ash Mosaic (workshop), She’s Wearing White…, Air Waves (Part Three of the Elements Cycle), Earth Plays (Part Two of the Elements Cycle), Bird Behind the Curtain (Big Box 2013), 13 Most American Dreams, Grizzly Mama and The New Century. Caitlin is a graduate of Baldwin-Wallace College, where she studied Theatre, Philosophy and Music.

Michael Rohd & Sojourn Theatre

Sojourn Theatre has been developing projects that serve the needs of civic, social service and municipal partners since 1999. Its national/international touring and reputation for innovation as artists and engagement practitioners has led to awards, being featured as a “best practice model” for arts-based civic dialogue, articles in American Theatre Magazine and Yale’s Theater Journal and partnerships with non-arts sector organizations such as city and state legislative bodies and social service agencies.

How to End Poverty in 90 Minutes (with 119 people you may or may not know) creator Michael Rohd is founding artistic director of Sojourn Theatre, on faculty at Arizona State University and author of the widely translated book Theatre for Community, Conflict, and Dialogue. His work focuses on social practice, civic practice and capacity-building projects through collaboratively designed arts-based events, engagement and participation strategies. He leads the Center for Performance and Civic Practice, where current initiatives include The Catalyst Initiative (supported by The Andrew Mellon Foundation) and Learning Lab (in collaboration with Metro Arts Nashville).

Renee Schilling

Renee Schilling is a playwright from Cleveland, Ohio. She was one of the recipients of the 2016 Creative Workforce Fellowship.

Darius Stubbs

img_6168-copy Darius Stubbs is a poet, playwright, performer, vocalist, educator and transgender advocate who has been living and working in Cleveland, OH since 2006. Artistically, he has collaborated with many fine creative thinkers across the city. Selected acting credits include Rusted Heart Broadcast (CatManDu, Cleveland Public Theatre ’13), Titus Andronicus (Aaron the Moor, Cleveland Shakespeare Festival ’10), Comedy of Errors (Sir Balthazar, Great Lakes Theatre ’09), and The Boys Next Door (Lucien P. Smith, Medina Showbiz ’07). His artistic home-base continues to be among the artists who work under the visionary guidance of Raymond Bobgan, Executive Artistic Director at Cleveland Public Theatre. At CPT, Darius has been involved in the creation of over one dozen original performance pieces spanning the genre spectrum from performance art to fully-staged production. For the last 3 years, Darius has been a member of CPT’s Core Ensemble and played the lead role in their original play, Red Ash Mosaic, directed by Raymond Bobgan. Darius has been a featured speaker in an array of venues and events, including TedXCle 2015 “Untold” series, City Club of Cleveland’s Forum on Transgender Identity in Northeast Ohio, Cleveland Public Theatre’s Station Hope and Guide to Kulchur’s “Uncanny Voices” series. In 2015, Darius was highlighted among Scene Magazine’s “Cleveland People” series, presenting Clevelanders who are “working every day to make the city better, to drive it forward, to contribute to its successes and rectify its shortcomings.” In July of 2016, Darius was awarded the Greater Cleveland Community Shares Rising Activist Social Justice Award. In that same year, he was fortunate enough to have had his poem “If It Takes a Village” published by GTK Press in A Race Anthology: Dispatches and Artifacts From A Segregated City.

Tecia Delores Wilson

Tecia Delores Wilson is Cleveland Public Theatre’s Education Associate, visual artist, director and performer. She has directed shows for educational programming, Cleveland School of the Arts, Karamu House and Cleveland Public Theatre. Tecia aspires to live up to a quote by Nina Simone: “An artist’s duty is to reflect the times.” Her work reflects the beauty and tragedy of our world.

Jimmie Woody

Some of Jimmie Woody’s most recent directorial credits include: The Art of Longing by Lisa Langford (Cleveland Public Theatre), brownsville song/b-side for tray by Kimber Lee (Dobama Theatre), Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris and A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (Weathervane Playhouse), The America Play by Suzan-Lori Parks (University of Akron), The Split Show by Lisa Langford (convergence-continuum), How Blood Go (Entry Point 2017) and The Bomb (Station Hope 2016) by Lisa Langford (Cleveland Public Theatre), Underground Griots by Natalie Parker and Keith Josef Adkins (Cleveland Public Theatre, The National Black Theater Festival and Here Café NYC), Wilberforce and Hollis Mugley’s Only Wish by Keith Josef Adkins (Cleveland Public Theatre, The National Black Theater Festival and New York Hip Hop Festival), The Bacchae of Euripides: A Communion Rite written by Wole Soyinka (Cleveland Public Theatre and Columbia University), Song by Daniel Gray-Kontar and InCogNegro (Big Box 2009) by Lisa Langford (Cleveland Public Theatre).

As an actor, Jimmie has appeared in numerous productions, including Cassius in Julius Caesar at Karamu House, MacBeth in Voodoo MacBeth at Ensemble Theatre, Paul in “8” at Cleveland Play House, Julio in The Mother F**ker With The Hat at Dobama Theatre, Cholly in The Bluest Eye at Karamu House, William in Lobby Hero at Beck Center for the Arts, Booth in Top Dog/Underdog at Beck Center for the Arts, and he appeared in Cleveland Public Theatre’s production of Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape directed by David Herskovitz. Jimmie directed and performed the role of Dionysus in Cleveland Public Theatre’s production of The Bacchae of Euripides: A Communion Rite written by Wole Soyinka. Additional credits include Hollis in Hollis Mugley’s Only Wish at Joseph Papp Public Theater, Pozzo in Waiting for Godot at The Oscar Hammerstein Theater in New York City, and Spaniard in Cymbeline at New Shakespeare Festival.