BMCC TRIBECA PAC Presents Writers in Performance Showcase: “Longing”

The Borough of Manhattan Community College Tribeca Performing Arts Center (BMCC TPAC) is proud to present on Friday, December 7 and Saturday, December 8 at 7 p.m. in Theatre 2, “Longing,” a performance culminating the annual 12-week writing and performance workshop hosted by BMCC TPAC.

Two BMCC students, Daniel Pena and Akeem “Keemz,” are among the cast of 11, directed by Mario Giacalone, BMCC TPAC Program Director.

Tickets are free, with a suggested donation of $10, and can be bought at the door or by stopping by the BMCC TPAC ticketing services in the lobby of 199 Chambers Street. Advance reservations are not needed.

Throughout the course of the Fall 2018 writing and performance workshop, talented actors, playwrights, poets and storytellers explored writing exercises, theater games, improvisation, movement techniques and ensemble work. “Longing” is a collection of the monolgues and short scenes the participants crafted during those sessions. The result is a dynamic exchange of writing and performance, unique in the creativity, diversity and wide range of its stories.

Participant Bios

Yvette N. Beshier is the co-proprietor of Cobra Plumbing and Heating and a part-time writer and illustrator. Yvette also served as a Newark, New Jersey police officer and held professional positions as a scientist, computer technician and freelance journalist/photographer for the International Boxing Organization. Yvette has authored four books of poetry and is currently working on a fifth. She hopes to eventually become a full-time writer and illustrator. 

Michele Carlo is a writer and performer who has told stories across the United States at venues including Joe’s Pub, the Clearwater Arts & Music Festival and the MOTH’s Mainstage in NYC, on NPR and the PBS TV series “Stories from the Stage.” She is the author of the NYC-set memoir Fish Out Of Agua: My life on neither side of the (subway) tracks (Citadel 2010) and hosts a radio show/podcast called “Fish Out of Agua” on Radio Free Brooklyn, showcasing under-the-radar NYC artists. 

Emily Johnson-Erday (@erdayngerous) is a Brooklyn-based songwriter and theatermaker. Hailing from both the mountains and the Piedmont of North Carolina, her music is proudly rooted in the Appalachian sound. She contributed original music to productions with Columbia University and the North Carolina School of the Arts. She co-created ‘Welcome to the Doll Den’ with the Electric Eye Ensemble and most recently showed a reading of ‘Harpies for the Dead’, which she co-wrote with Thin Space Productions. Upcoming: Check out the web series ‘Acting Out’ to hear Emily’s original theme song. 

Akeema ‘Keemz’ (BMCC student) is a writer, artist and performance poet who has been featured at numerous events, venues and colleges throughout New York City. Most recently, she performed for the New York City Poetry Festival alongside The Blaqlist (Bronx League of Artist and Queers). This is her first year of Writers in Performance and she is excited to witness the fruition of work created over the last few weeks.

Ethan Ness (@thinspaceproductions) is a writer, actor, and producer living in Manhattan. His recent works include Harpies for the Dead, a musical co-written with Emily Johnson-Erday and produced at Dramatist’s Guild Foundation, and Die For Me, produced with NYC Fringe Festival. As an actor, he has appeared with Paper Kraine Theater as well as Rhapsody Theater Ensemble. He is co-founder of Thin Space Productions, a theater group dedicated to new works, and a company member with Electric Eye Ensemble, a Brooklyn-based theater group that tells ‘untold american stories.’ Upcoming projects include Welcome to the Doll Den, a new musical based on the first all-female radio station in the USA. 

Daniel Peña (BMCC student), a Dominican actor, singer and dancer, was born and raised in New York City and is excited to appear in Writers in Performance.

Stéphanie Rupe is a Brooklyn-based actress, designer and writer. Stéphanie’s latest acting work includes two seasons of “Same Coin”; the festival-winning thriller “Taste” and her YouTube channel “Stéph’s Stories and Crafts.” Stéphanie has costumed various shows including “It Can’t Happen Here” and “Dirt is Where Flowers Grow.” Her design work can be seen on her Etsy shops DaisyDoodleStudio and Boutique Frockets.

Melissa Shaw is a writer, educator, performer and humorist from Brooklyn. Most recently she was an ensemble member with A SKETCH OF NEW YORK, the long-running comedy show at the Producer’s Club in midtown Manhattan. Melissa has told stories at the Moth, Bowery Poetry Club, Friday Night Stories and Tell-It Brooklyn, among other venues. She has written and performed two full-length, one-woman shows at venues throughout the city. She holds an MFA in Theater from Sarah Lawrence College.

Rashmi Singh is thrilled to be a part of Writing in Performance for the third time. An Audelco-nominated actress, award-winning singer-songwriter and accoladed screenwriter, her highlights include The Public Theatre’s Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte Theatre, the New York Fringe Festival, Target Margin Theatre and the Classical Theatre Lab of Los Angeles. She has worked with iconic directors including Ron Howard, Ed Zwick and Jamie Payne. Her album of original songs, PUZZLE, is a winner of the Akademia Music Awards Best Folk/Singer-Songwriter EP and she plays regularly at venues such as Rockwood Musical Hall, The Way Station, L.I.C. Bar and The Shrine. Rashmi’s feature film, THE DIVIDE, is an Athena IRIS Screenwriting Lab Official Selection, a semi-finalist for the prestigious Atlanta Film Festival, a finalist for the Sundance Producer’s Lab and Honorable Mention winner at the HBO Urbanworld Film Festival. 

Bria Youngblood is a New Orleans-born performing artist, beauty influencer and founder of the beauty business Lashes To Eye 4™. She attributes most of her love for the arts to her soulful and jazzy upbringing. She is currently leveraging her diverse performing arts background to emerge into a well-rounded influencer and future thought leader.

Gina Stevensen is a playwright and writing instructor who has been involved with Writers in Performance since 2012. Congrats to this year’s cast for their wonderful, courageous work! Gina’s plays include THE COLONY (winner of the American Stage’s 21st Century Voices New Play Festival, and a semifinalist in the Austin Film Festival Playwriting Competition), CRUEL SISTER (semi-finalist in the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference), KIDS (Williamstown Theatre Festival), and BOOK OF ESTHER (Top Ten Finalist: Jewish Playwriting Contest; Semi-Finalist: Princess Grace Award). She teaches playwriting through The Writer’s Rock and earned an MFA Playwriting at Columbia University.

Mario Giacalone (Director) is Consulting Programing Director for the BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center, where he directs the Writers in Performance series. In the 1970s, he wrote, produced and directed staged works for the Root Theater Collective, which he created. In the 1980s, as Artistic Director of Mass Transit Street Theater, he worked within communities to create new theatrical works which later toured under an Actors’ Equity contract. He also wrote and directed children’s theater for the SYDA Foundation, wrote for a PBS-produced children’s show and was an owner of the Creative Acting Company, a school for professional actors. In recent years Mario has directed shows for The United Solo Theater Festival, The New York Fringe Festival, La Mamma ETC, The Strawberry Play Festival and The National Black Theater Festival. He also is a singer songwriter who appears frequently in Westchester and New York City and is currently recording with his Trio, in the hope of a Spring 2019 release.  

 

 

BMCC Tribeca PAC (BMCC TPAC) is Downtown Manhattan’s premier presenter of the arts, reaching audiences from the college community, downtown residential and business communities, local schools, families, and audiences of all ages. BMCC Tribeca PAC presents a broad global perspective through high-quality artistic work in music, theatre, dance, film and visual arts. BMCC Tribeca PAC is located on the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC/CUNY) campus, 199 Chambers Street (between Greenwich Avenue and West Street) and is convenient to the 2/3, A/C/E and R  subway lines and the New Jersey Path Train.