Our latest version spotlights theatre staff in Southern California. If you want to advocate a theatre artist (from anyplace) for a future Function Name, fill out our open Google Type right here.
Hana S. Kim (Haa-naa)
Career: Projection and video designer
Hometown: Seoul, South Korea
Present dwelling: Los Angeles
Recognized for: Hana has designed projections for a variety of fare, from Orfeo at Santa Fe Opera to King John at Actors Theatre of Louisville, and her Broadway credit embody The Outdated Man and the Pool and Summer time 1976. Nearer to her L.A. dwelling base, she labored on The Trade’s site-specific opera Candy Land and Tiger Type! at South Coast Rep.
What’s subsequent: Her projections seem within the musical Actual Girls Have Curves, which begins performances this week at American Repertory Theater.
What makes her particular: Ralph Peña, who directed SCR’s Tiger Type!, praises the “deep sense of storytelling” that Kim brings to her work, saying that Hana is “at all times wanting so as to add nuance to a scene, but additionally figuring out when to step again. She’s a incredible collaborator who brings pleasure into each room she’s in, and like me, loves snacks.”
Visible fusion: Hana grew up in Korea “watching very theatrical movies,” she recollects, citing the work of Julie Taymor and Akira Kurosawa, however put movie apart when she got here to the U.S. to review manufacturing and scenic design for the theatre. When she found projection design, she discovered a solution to marry her two influences. As she places it, projection design “made me fuse my earlier schooling of visible communication design and theatre design.”
Jonathan Muñoz-Proulx (he/him)
Career: Creative director
Hometown: San Diego
Present dwelling: Los Angeles
Recognized for: Jonathan is simply the second inventive director of the Los Angeles LGBT Heart, the most important LGBTQ+ service group on the planet, the place he packages the Lily Tomlin/Jane Wagner Cultural Arts Heart’s Renberg Theatre, Davidson/Valentini Theatre, and Advocate & Gochis Galleries. For 4 years prior, he served as director of cultural programming for Pasadena’s A Noise Inside.
What’s subsequent: He’s within the midst of planning LGBT Heart’s 2024-25 season, which he says will “amplify our 4 core service classes: Well being, Social Companies & Housing, Tradition & Training, and Management & Advocacy.” He thinks of “the performing arts as an entry level for our group into a bigger ecosystem of care,” and as such feels “motivated to shift theatre from ‘amenity’ to ‘important.’”
What makes him particular: He will get raves from colleagues, together with Celebration Theatre inventive Brittney S. Wheeler, who hails his “innate capability to make one thing good out of nothing”; from Celebration’s govt director, Chris Maikish, who says that Jonathan “takes a holistic view, he genuinely cares, and he’s by no means afraid to advocate for a greater approach of doing issues”; from Outdoors In Theatre AD Jessica Hanna, who praises his “care of the artists he’s working with, obvious throughout all departments”; and from IAMA Theatre AD Stefanie Black, who’s in awe of Jonathan’s “thoughtfulness, imaginative and prescient, and expertise. I can’t wait to see what sort of legacy he’ll create.”
Bringing individuals collectively: Jonathan says that to this point he’s most happy with tripling attendance on the LGBT Heart, from “3,000 patrons pre-pandemic to 9,000 patrons year-to-date. We did this by working towards a ‘consensus organizing’ season planning mannequin, constructing equitable partnerships with over 15 Los Angeles arts organizations, and cultivating shared stakes within the theatre’s success amongst our group of patrons and collaborators.”
Mildred Lewis (she/her)
Career: Author-director, professor
Hometown: Harlem, NYC
Present dwelling: Inglewood, Calif.
Recognized for: For Antaeus Theatre’s Zip Code collection, Lewis contributed $10 and a Tambourine, which was nominated for an Ambie. Different performs embody Louisiana Shoal, The Bridge, Once more?, and /kom’plisit/. She additionally wrote the screenplay for the movie Unbowed. She began out in theatre as a director on the Actors Studio and Circle Rep’s LAB, and served as a U.S. consultant to the Worldwide Theatre Competition.
What’s subsequent: In Spring 2024, Juked, her adaptation of Sophocles’s Electra, will open at A Totally different Fable in Asheville, N.C.; We 4 will likely be a part of the Highway Theatre’s Beneath Development Competition; Fantasmas Crossings will likely be learn by way of the Lucille Lortel’s Alcove Fee; and Phylicia’s Friendship Bench, a brand new fiction podcast, will likely be a part of the Orchard Mission’s Ahead program.
What makes her particular: Nancy Cheryll Davis, founding inventive/producing director of Towne Road Theatre, of which Mildred is an organization member, calls her “a tremendously proficient author whose poignant performs replicate the human spirit in all its complexity and pleasure. The dialogue and storytelling with which she captures the African American expertise specifically is trustworthy, historic, deeply rooted, and compelling.” Sara Guerrero, founding inventive director of Breath of Hearth Latina Theater Ensemble, which has produced Mildred’s work, says that her “storytelling captures the human situation and its flaws with nice humor and pathos.”
Welcoming change: Mildred is sanguine in regards to the modifications being pressured on “the infrastructure of U.S. theatre” and hopes to be a part of the answer. “I need to assist create a brand new, sustainable, dynamic ecosystem.” She provides, “I don’t suppose we’ll be capable to meet the local weather disaster and rising authoritarianism with out artists. Suppose Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, and Václav Havel—hey, we might use just a few extra girls on this checklist!”
Orlando de la Paz (he/him)
Career: Theatre scenic artist
Hometown: Tia Ong, Quezon Province, Philippines
Present dwelling: Van Nuys, Calif.
Recognized for: Olan, as he’s identified to colleagues and pals, began out portray surroundings for a play at his nephews’ and nieces’ elementary college greater than 10 years in the past, and his fame has solely grown since. He has painted units all around the Southland, together with for Skylight Theatre, Colony Theatre, Sierra Madre Playhouse, Antaeus Theatre, Laguna Playhouse, Worldwide Heart Theatre, El Portal Theatre, La Mirada Theatre for Performing Arts, and A Noise Inside.
What’s subsequent: Olan is inventive director for an immersive occasion in Simi Valley subsequent March: a Fiftieth-anniversary celebration of the beloved TV collection Little Home on the Prairie, for which he’ll paint life-sized recreations of each exteriors and interiors of buildings that after stood on the Large Sky Film Ranch in the course of the collection’ filming, by way of which followers will be capable to take each in-person and cell excursions. “We hope to utterly recreate most of the behind-the-scenes experiences shared by the solid and crew of the collection from 1974-1983,” Olan says.
What makes him particular: Stephen Gifford, a scenic designer for whom Olan has labored repeatedly, says that the painter’s “assist for the individuals and firms he works for is unmatched. He’s not solely a scenic artist, he’s additionally a multitalented inventive possessing an enormous array of inventive expertise.” Director Jon Lawrence Rivera, one other frequent Olan employer, calls him “at all times meticulously exact.” And scenic designer Frederica Nascimento says that Olan “captures exactly the colours and textures I would like—he reproduces completely the scenic design. I can’t consider a extra beneficiant collaborator, excellent scenic painter, and impressed visible artist.”
Numerous love: Olan says he notably enjoys “translating what a designer could have created on paper or a mannequin right into a life-sized set by way of simply two devices: a paint brush and a can of paint.” However he additionally enjoys experimenting past these fundamental parts, expressing his love for “fabricating massive bells out of froth or timber out of hen wires and papier-mâché after which portray them to appear to be the true factor.” He has nonetheless extra like to go round, effusing, “Most of all, I like the friendships and relationships I’ve been capable of forge due to the collaborative nature of theatre. If you get to work with individuals are on the high of their craft, you are feeling assured that magic will certainly occur.”
Rachyl Spacca (she/her)
Career: Arts administrator
Hometown and present dwelling: Burbank, Calif.
Recognized for: For the previous six years, Rachyl has been director of patron expertise and gross sales at Pasadena Playhouse, which follows years of comparable expertise at Heart Theatre Group and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Earlier than that she labored within the field workplace for the enduring San Francisco musical revue Seashore Blanket Babylon, and as refrain supervisor for the Queer Refrain of San Francisco.
What’s subsequent: After a banner yr in 2023, during which the Playhouse produced a six-month Sondheim competition and received the Regional Tony, Rachyl stated it’s “full pace forward” with an extension of Inherit the Wind, an upcoming vacation spectacular, Kate Berlant’s Kate in January, and the Playhouse’s first season of youth and household programming. “By no means a uninteresting second or a lot time to look again,” Rachyl says.
What makes her particular: Playhouse inventive director Danny Feldman says that Rachyl “approaches patron providers the precise approach that an artist approaches their work. Despite the fact that they might not know her by identify, all audiences who come to the Playhouse really feel welcome and that it is a place for them. That’s all as a result of Rachyl’s love of what she does.”
The comeback: Calling herself “really a patron expertise nerd,” Rachyl says that she communicates to her groups the philosophy that “the artwork is what brings individuals to us for the primary time, however the distinctive expertise we give them once they’re here’s what retains them coming again.” As an arts administrator, she confesses some concern in regards to the well being of the nonprofit theatre business, particularly as different artwork types appear to be comparatively on the mend, however affirms her perception “within the creativity and resilience of this group. I’m decided to advocate for our future!”
Xavi Moreno (he/him/el/foo)
Career: Actor/graphic designer
Hometown and present dwelling: Boyle Heights, Los Angeles
Recognized for: Xavi serves as each advertising and marketing director and actor for longtime L.A. mainstay Latino Theater Firm, most just lately showing in Joel Ulloa’s Tacos La Brooklyn. Earlier appearances with LTC embody The Mom of Henry, A Mexican Trilogy: An American Story, La Olla, and Melancholia. He’s additionally labored regionally in such reveals as Future of Need at Cincinnati Playhouse within the Park and Into the Lovely North at San Diego Rep, and toured with Placas: The Most Harmful Tattoo. Along with LTC, he’s additionally a veteran ensemble member with L.A.’s Impartial Shakespeare Firm, a producing director with Firm of Angels, and co-founder of the spoken-word duo Los Poets del Norte.
What’s subsequent: He’ll do his fifth tour of obligation as Fraile Joaquin for the LTC’s vacation pageant, La Virgen de Guadalupe, Dios Inantzin, on the Cathedral of Our Woman of the Angels.
What makes him particular: LTC inventive director José Luis Valenzuela calls Xavi “a real jack of all trades,” including that what units him aside is “his willingness to say sure and tackle any problem. Xavi at all times goes above and past, making certain that every thing runs easily. He’s a rising star who by no means lets his title cease him from getting issues carried out. He’s the way forward for American theatre. ”
Our tales: “Theatre saved my life,” Xavi stated unequivocally, including, “The theatre is my pleased place, my sanctuary, my church—a haven of peace and concord.” He traces the road again to a household of “class clowns,” however extra exactly to his discovery, after the tragic dying of a greatest buddy in 2002, of the Boyle Heights theatre CASA 0101. That summer time, on the finish of 10-week inventive writing and theatre workshop for youth at CASA 0101, Xavi and his colleagues produced a present titled Voces Voices, the place “we portrayed our personal life tales.” Now, he says, it his “mission day-after-day as a storyteller to share our tales with as many individuals as potential, particularly these in my group who will not be represented onstage or on-screen.”
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