Cast of BMCC TPAC Writers in Performance Includes Two BMCC Students

Writers in Performance is a 12-week writing and performance workshop hosted by BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center and culminating in two public presentations on Friday, December 1 and Saturday, December 2, at 7:30 p.m.  

Throughout the course of the workshop, actors, playwrights, poets and storytellers have explored writing exercises, theater games, improvisation, movement techniques and ensemble work in a safe, creative environment. This season, the theme and title of the Writers in Performance show is In The Center.

Writers in Performance participants are diverse by design; not only in ethnicity, but by age and experience as well, mixing professionals with students. During the performances, the troupe will showcase the monologues and short scenes they have been crafting. This year, BMCC students are featured members in the production.  

Tickets are Free, with a suggested donation of $10, and can be obtained at Ticketing Services in the lobby of 199 Chambers St. or by calling (212) 220-1460.

PARTICIPANT BIOS

Ramone Boland (BMCC STUDENT) is currently studying business management at BMCC. He’s had a passion for theater since the age of 12 when he played the role of Sebastian in the off-Broadway production Promised. He went on to do the play Take It From the Top and has also worked in numerous films. He’s extremely thrilled to be a part of WIP and explore the writing side of things. Ramone is grateful to have received acting training from Paul Griffin and Kenneth Phillips at the Possibility Project. Currently he’s studying theater with Carol Johnson. You can keep in touch with what he’s working on via Instagram: @hairarchitectramone

Mathilda Chua is an actor/writer from Singapore. She moved to New York to attend NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and graduated with a BFA in Drama and Producing minor. Past credits: Diary of Gay Housewife (Staged reading- Third Eye Theatre Company), Code Adam (MITF), The Girl Side (Youtube – webseries).

Rhonda Hansome is an actor, director and comedian. She has performed stand-up at Radio City Music Hall, Carnegie Hall and Constitution Hall. Her TV appearances include Louie, Saturday Night Live, Showtime at the Apollo and London Underground. She’s told her true life stories at Generation Women, NY Story Exchange, Theater For The New City, Bady House StoryTelling Concert, Tale: NYC’s Finest StoryTelling and Nancy Giles’ Mosquito at Dixon Place. Catch her Mondays from 2 p.m to 5 p.m., channel 121 Sirius XM Insight, on John Fugelsang’s, Tell Me Everything.

Tom Kalnas NYC debut. After graduating William and Mary in 2017, Tom moved to the city to act and write. He sings, enjoys classical text and swears by the Alexander Technique. He’s only relaxed when he improvises.

Veronica Maria Maccari was born in Milan, Italy and moved to the United States to study acting at Hampton University, in Virginia and then at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA) in NYC. Since she graduated, she has been cast in off-Broadway shows such as Twelve Angry Women (Juror #12) and The Laramie Project (Romaine Patterson) at The AlphaNYC Theatre in Midtown Manhattan. Later she acted as a feature fighter and ensemble actor in the production of Macbeth, at Shakespeare on the Sound (BroadwayWorld Regional Theatre Awards – Best Play and Best Ensemble Performance nominee) as well as Lady Macbeth in its touring Apprentice Company. She has also written and played in her own short films and plays and is now thrilled to showcase her work with Writers in Performance with her wonderful cast mates. She is incredibly grateful for her family, teachers and friends all over the world for always supporting her. Follow her through her blog poweredbyv.org and her Instagram page @poweredbyv.

Lou Matthews is active in the local indie film scene in New York and has done countless voiceovers. She studied piano and sang in musicals as a girl and then, here in New York, had the great good fortune to learn music theory from Juilliard-trained concert pianist Niels Ostbye. After she started spontaneously composing pop tunes, she went on to win a scholarship to study classical vocal technique with Metropolitan Opera tenor Sam Sakarian. She’s thrilled that her participation in WIP has led to her creating her first musical, and looks forward to finishing it in the coming months as well as recording vocals for her first album, Radioactive Love. She can’t wait to share more of her creative endeavors with the world! Insta/Twitter: @TheLouMatthews

Ayana McAllister (BMCC STUDENT) is an Afro-Guyanese poet, a pen hoarder, tea enthusiast and circle-skirt aficionado currently residing in New York. She was an Urban Word Grand Slam Finalist and has performed on many noteworthy stages including The Apollo Theatre and Bowery Poetry Club. Her forthcoming chapbook Cassava Bread and Pepperpot is a response to the current state of human affairs, her running home to self-love and healing and her preparation for a fight.

Summer Minerva is an Italian-American queer goddess, storyteller, performer, musician and dancer. She recently was awarded a residency at Gibney Dance Center to develop her piece entitled “Belonging/Femminiello,” a ritual performance which channels ancestors, blesses the past and casts a spell of peace for the future, to show in March 2018. She has a collection of writings revolving around heteronormative society’s default exclusion of queer narrative to be released in mid-December, entitled Girl Tawk. She is also writing an autobiographical documentary that explores what it means to belong in our families, communities and the world. The documentary is scheduled to be released in December 2018 and will take viewers into transgender subcultures of NYC, Rio de Janeiro and Naples; places where Summer has sought belonging.

Utkrash Rajawat is a New York-based actor and playwright who moved to NYC from Baltimore! His writing was most recently seen in Variations On Magic (Rapid Lemon Productions), and his most recent stage appearance was October’s A Sketch of New York (A Sketch of New York Productions). You can see him again in December as part of the cast of Everyone’s Carol!

Epiphany Samuels is an actress, singer, writer and director. She is also a student at NYU Tisch Drama and co-founder of Affirmation Theatre Company. Off Broadway and Off-Off Broadway writing and acting credits include “Time Is On My Side” from Past, Present and Future, produced by TPAC/WIP and “Empire (TV parody)” from In Living Color (a stage play) produced by I Act, You Act! Harlem Theater. Other acting credits include “A Person Thing” from Inmates Running the Asylum, produced by Atlantic Acting School. Epiphany will also be starring in Spring 2018 in the first full-length play she has written, What Do They Want with her theatre company. Please contact her and keep up to date with her via Facebook.

Rashmi Singh is a singer, songwriter, actress and screenwriter. As a singer-songwriter, Songwriting Magazine UK noted: “… gorgeous slice of acoustic folk-pop” and Baeble Music: “… Rashmi’s impassioned voice can swing through careful precision to primal yelp on a dime.” She plays regularly around the city at venues such as Rockwood Musical Hall, The Way Station, L.I.C. Bar and The Shrine. Her melodic country rock sound is unique, with her varied influences. Her new album, PUZZLE is available on ITunes, Amazon and her website. An AUDELCO-nominated actress, Rashmi was most recently seen on NBC’s American Odyssey. Her highlights include shows in Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park, the New York Fringe Festival, and the Classical Theatre Lab of Los Angeles. Known for her range and depth, she has worked with iconic film and theatre directors including Ron Howard, Ed Zwick, Jamie Payne and AUDELCO Board of Directors Pioneer Award Honoree, Passion. As a screenwriter, RASHMI’s first feature, THE DIVIDE, was selected to be in the top five screenplays and won Honorable Mention in HBO’s UrbanWorld Film Festival, was a finalist for both the Sundance Producer’s Lab and Producer’s Guild Diversity Now Workshop. 

Gina Stevensen is a playwright, performer and teaching artist based in Brooklyn. This is her fifth season with WIP and she couldn’t be happier about it! Her plays have been produced in New York City and regionally and include Book of Esther (semi-finalist: 2016 Princess Grace Award, workshop production: Binghamton’s KNOW Theater), The Time Crawlers Save the World (grand prize winner: Manhattan Repertory Theater’s one-act competition, space grant recipient: Looking Glass Theater) and Troll Doll’s Big Day (36-hour Off-Broadway play festival: Urban Stages). Her newest play, When You’re Young You Know You’ll Live Forever, will be produced next weekend at Columbia University. Gina will be performing in Love Trade by the Hess Collective at Dixon Place this month. Gina is the artistic director of Park Slope Day Camp’s Cirque d’Été summer circus camp and a creative writing instructor at Writopia. She was the choreographer for Narcissus: An Ancient Roman Pantomime, a new opera that aired on PBS in March of 2016. She received her BFA in Drama from NYU Tisch and is an MFA Playwriting candidate at Columbia University. 

Mario Giacalone (Director) has been working in theater, performing as a singer, songwriter and actor in New York City since the 1970s. His credits include being Artist Director and/or a founding member of The Root Theater Collective, Mass Transit Street Theater, The Writers Actors and Directors Collective and the co-owner and both Producing and Artistic director of The Creative Acting Company (CAC). Mr. Giacalone taught acting classes and produced Short Play Festivals and short films at CAC, as well. Other directing credits include Neighbors, The Drowning of Manhattan, and the short films Vinny and Iggy’s Big Date and Mamma Millie’s Pasta Sauce Stupendiouso. Recently Mr. Giacalone directed the show Girl Group: A Daughters Tale at LaMaMa, Bridge to Baraka for the National Black Theater Festival, and Natural Novice, for the NY Fringe Festival. Mr. Giacalone continues to direct the Writers in Performance workshop/performance at BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center each season. He has had featured and leading roles in a number of independent films including, I Was on Mars and The Giraffe by the acclaimed German Director Danni Levi. This past summer he starred in Portraits at the New York Fringe Festival and played a version of himself in The Complete Works of Shakespeare at the Carmel Arts Center, and is featured in New Media Comedy videos. He continues to perform as a singer/songwriter and actor, and recently released his new CD The Only Thing I’m Sure Of. Mr. Giacalone is the Program Director at BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center.