BMP: Producer Academy 2023 Participants

About

Frankie J. Alicea (he/they) is a theatre maker, educator & producer. Since receiving his BFA from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University in 2012, they’ve worked throughout the US and abroad and has extensive training in devised theater techniques, arts integration and trauma-informed theater & educational practices. They have created and spearheaded a wide range of theater education programs throughout Connecticut, New York, southern California, creating & facilitating curriculum to support students K-12, adults & neurodiverse folks. Frankie most recently served as the Associate Artistic Director of Diversionary Theatre in San Diego, CA and currently works as the Creative Producer/Director of Productions with Trusty Sidekick Theater Company. When not making theatre, Frankie can be found taking care of his German Shepard pup (Diego), watching most every television show produced by Bravo and perfecting their mac and cheese recipe. 

Michael Alvarez is an Indigenous Mexican-American interdisciplinary and international theatre director, creator, and visual artist. He has been a Directing Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop, a Drama League Directing Fellow, and a Director with the Civilians R&D Group, amongst others. He has directed and created work in New York, London, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Eastern Europe, and at such institutions as Her Majesty’s Theatre in the West End, Arcola Theatre, London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts, National Theatre of Slovenia, New York Theatre Workshop, Serenbe Playhouse and made performance art pieces at the British Museum. He is the founding Artistic Director of The Muse Collective and teaches Directing and Interdisciplinary Practice at UNCSA. Member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab. Education: Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and California Institute of the Arts. www.Michael-Alvarez.com

A contemporary music enthusiast, soprano Sydney Anderson (she/her), has sung numerous World Premieres and workshops, recently featured with Beth Morrison Projects, Aural Compass Projects, HERE Arts, and American Lyric Theater. Last season, she created the roles of One in it is a comfort to know (Gartman/Bywaters), Dalinda in Being Ariodante (Dawe) with Ensemble Échappé, Lover/Ana in Uncovered (Laitman/Lax) with City Lyric Opera, and sang Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Scalia/Ginsburg with Opera in the Heights. In 2019, Sydney was named an Eastern District Winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and won the Audience Favorite Award at Eastern Region Finals. Sydney is the Founder and Artistic Director of The Why Collective, who was in-residence at Nancy Manocherian’s the cell theatre in NYC, January-May 2023, and produced four new works of interdisciplinary theatre, including the sold-out premiere of The Smallest Sound, in the Smallest Space by Bryce McClendon. www.thewhycollective.art

Erin Buvala-Benites’ artistic journey spans over 42 years, marked by a profound desire to transform the world of performing arts. From her enchanting debut as a witch in a school carnival haunted house, her passion for the stage has flourished. She refined her performance skills at Phoenix College in the 90s and more recently completed a certificate program in Performing Arts Essentials at NYU-TISCH, solidifying her lifelong commitment to artistic expression. Since the summer of 2020, Erin has taken the helm as the Artistic Director of Virtual Theater Lab, an Arizona-based experimental theater company. With a focus on pushing virtual theater into the mainstream, Erin passionately works to create a platform for individuals marginalized within the performing arts. She has actively participated in numerous virtual productions, using her talents to uplift and amplify underrepresented voices. Now, as she embarks on her journey with the BMP Producer Academy, Erin’s dedication to expanding virtual theater’s reach and advocating for inclusivity remains steadfast.

Kin Marie Broughton is a Chicago based artist and filmmaker whose artistic practice currently focuses on the visual culture of afrofuturism, its social imaginations and how this ideology can serve as a blueprint for cultural growth through both a mundane and interpretive lens. Their primary focus lies in actively researching the perceptibility of colonial and post-colonial Africa and how it informs the use of imagery, color, and expression in their work. Marie explores identity, self image and environmental influence with a cadence that can contribute interpretations of what the reclamation of power and visibility looks like in both our everyday life and imaginative states.

Matt Cahill (he/they) is a NYC and Maine based performer, educator, and producer. Highlights of his performance career include starring as Papageno in Peter Brook’s Molière Award-winning Une Flûte Enchanté, dancing in the movie The Producers!, and performing at BAM, ART, and New York City Opera. As an educator Matt has taught at The Gilman School, SongFest, Brooklyn College, and Montclair State University, and at Summer Performing Arts with Juilliard’s voice and musical theater programs, which he also created and led for five years. He currently teaches Alexander Technique at the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program of the Metropolitan Opera and the Circle in the Square Theatre School. Most recently Matt co-founded Hogfish, a regenerative arts and artist cultivation company dedicated to holistically cultivating the next generation of artists, building a more inclusive canon, and bridging divides through the arts. www.hogfish.org

Esha Datta is a singer, creative producer, and a software developer/technologist. She is co-founder of Immersion, a NYC based opera and concert production company. Besides performing around NYC, she has also been performing and co-producing concerts of new and re-imagined works from the classical and operatic canon through Immersion. She is interested in highlighting different voices and perspectives using multidisciplinary techniques from technology, theatre, and various types of arts such as dance, video, and poetry to tell stories. This has been a throughline in all Immersion productions. Previous productions have included an expanded interpretation of Franz Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin. An upcoming production will be a workshop of a very abridged Alcina by G.F. Händel which will include motion capture, virtual production with gaming software, and a live performance of the opera bringing in different perspectives and a new backstory. immersionrepertory.org

Canadian soprano Julia Dawson has been hailed as “radiant and riveting” (Opera News) and “spitfire” (NY Times). She is a winner of the George London Award and the Anny-Schlemm-Preis from Oper Frankfurt, where she was a member of the ensemble and Opernstudio from 2015-2019. She has performed with the Munich Philharmonic, the French Radio Symphony, Tiroler Festspiele Erl, and Opera Lafayette among others. Combining her love of contemporary and classical music, Dawson recently conceived and performed in “Obscura Nox,” a musical film featuring Mozart’s “Exsultate, jubilate” and new commissions from Iranian-Canadian composer Iman Habibi. The film was selected for Opera Philadelphia’s O22 Festival and the Canada Shorts Festival. Dawson has trained at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, Rice University, and Oberlin Conservatory. She was nominated for Singer of the Year by Opus Klassik for the album ‘Girl in the Snow;’ songs by American composer Scott Ordway.

Gavin Gamboa is a Los Angeles-based composer, pianist, and video-artist interested in the intersections of improvised and premeditated composition, using software to form a multifaceted stylistic praxis. Born in Mérida, Yucatán, he composes for a variety of ensembles and performs classical/new works internationally. He has given concerts as a soloist in Los Angeles, Seattle, at Festival de las Artes Otoño Cultural Mérida and Cultura Mazatlán (Mexico), and has accompanied Erykah Badu with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and tenor León de Castillo in Vienna, Austria. Performances of his music have taken place in Bolzano (Italy), Lublin (Poland), Basel (Switzerland) and his opera with E. Elias Merhige “Polia & Blastema” premiered at Opera Philadelphia’s Festival O22 and has since shown at Offscreen in Brussels and E’trange Festival in Paris. Additional works for film with Argentinian artist David Lamelas have screened at The Getty and Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA).

American vocalist Katherine Goforth shares the “thrilling tenor power” (Opera News) of her “noble, colorful and iridescent vocal sound” (Magazin Klassik) in vivid character portraits and heartfelt performances that “[do] not hold back” (The New York Times). The recipient of Washington National Opera’s inaugural True Voice Award for transgender and non-binary singers and of the Career Advancement Award from the fourth Dallas Symphony Orchestra Women in Classical Music Symposium, Katherine recently received critical acclaim for her role in Philip Venables and Ted Huffman’s The F****ts and Their Friends Between Revolutions at Manchester International Festival, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, and Bregenzer Festspiele. Katherine was a member of the International Opera Studio of Oper Köln, received her Bachelor’s degree from St. Olaf College and her Master’s degree from the Juilliard School. Katherinegoforth.com

Becca Hoback is a dance theater producer and performing artist based in Nashville, Tennessee. She developed Enactor Productions to create performances and movement workshops that unpack what it means to be a human being having a relationship with your body. The solo work she has curated, collaborated on, and choreographed has been programmed locally in Nashville and internationally at festivals + residencies in Europe and the Middle East. Becca is an active collaborator with local Nashville artists and regularly assists her colleagues creatively and administratively in launching their independent projects.
In 2020, she received a Tennessee Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship for her solo work. Becca received the writer’s choice for “Best Movement Artist” in the Nashville Scene’s 2022 “Best of Nashville” awards. She received the “Pitch Perfect” award at the culmination of the Periscope Artist Entrepreneurship Program 2022 hosted by the Arts and Business Council of Greater Nashville.

Nikkei-Canadian artist, Luka Kawabata 川端ルカ has quickly established himself as a rising force in Canadian opera. As a baritone and producer, he strives to push the boundaries of representation in opera through the creation of new works. Luka is a recent graduate of the Yulanda M Faris Young Artist Program with Vancouver Opera, the Digital Emerging Artist Residency (Manitoba Opera) and the Association for Opera in Canada’s RBC Fellowship. Recent collaborations include Edmonton Opera (La Bohème), Saskatoon Opera (Carmen), Opera on the Avalon (February) and re:Naissance Opera (IndieFest).   His ongoing series ‘The HAFU ハーフ Project’ explores the history of Japanese immigration and internment in North America through an intersectional lens of identity, culture and memory. The project’s third digital chapter, 希望, premiered last summer with Pacific Opera Victoria’s Civic Engagement Residency and is set to present its first live development with City Opera Vancouver next May.

Brandon Kazen-Maddox – (they/them) is a Grandchild of Deaf Adults (GODA) and third-generation native signer of American Sign Language (ASL) who identifies as a Nonbinary, Black Indigenous Person of Color and a member of the LGBTQAI+ community. Brandon is an artist, choreographer, director, actor, acrobat, activist, and ASL Artist. Brandon creates work with and for the Deaf and Disability communities, and highlights and empowers BIPOC and LGBTQAI+ artists, building bridges of collaboration and community among people of all backgrounds and abilities. In May 2019, Brandon graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with an MFA in Dance and New Technology.  In the summer of 2020, Brandon co-founded Up Until Now Collective, an arts and media company that focuses on developing and producing radically inclusive inter-disciplinary work. Find more at: www.brandonkazen-maddox.com, www.upuntilnowcollective.com  Instagram/Twitter: @bkazenmaddox, @upuntilnowcollective

Destin Randell King is an enthusiastic artist with an affection for music, theater, and the arts. Having embarked on a professional acting journey in 2019 and having successfully completed studies at the University of Montevallo. Destin has spent the last three years uncovering a profound passion for directing and producing, which serves as a wellspring for their creative endeavors. Within the realm of cinema, sci-fi productions have carved a special niche within Destin’s heart, igniting a desire to orchestrate enthralling narratives that whisk audiences away to fantastical dimensions. Beyond the realm of directing, Destin brings to the table an array of diverse talents encompassing photography, marketing, and adeptness in social media curation.

Rory James Leech is a creative director dedicated to creating art by and for the next generation of storytellers. He is the founding artistic director of Misfit Toys Collective, a performance company founded to incubate the creation of new forms of opera, theater, and multi-media work by emerging artists. He is a producer with Center for New Performance, and has previously produced projects with Lemonada Media and Rec Room Arts. As a director, he has been involved in the creation of new works and reinventions of classics.  He is an alumni of California Institute of the Arts and was awarded as an arts activist by the Dramatist Guild of America. Having grown up surrounded by Opera, he is dedicated to inviting young and diverse audiences into the intimate spectacle at the forms core, sharing an artform that has given him so much. https://roryjamesleechcreative.cargo.site/

Diana Ly is a Vietnamese-American screenwriter and playwright based in New York. She grew up as an expat in the Philippines before studying Computer Science at Stanford and subsequently working at Google. She recently completed the Universal Writers Lab, a yearlong mentorship program to develop a feature under the guidance of Universal Pictures. She’s been selected for the Orchard Project’s ’23-’24 Greenhouse Lab, a multi-disciplinary incubator for generating new work. Her writing has been presented at LPAC+The Brick’s Rough Draft Festival and Piper Theatre’s Spotlight Series. Diana was previously a Women in Film|Black List Feature Resident, a Project Involve Fellow at Film Independent, and a member of the Sống Collective’s inaugural Việt Writers Lab. She received her MFA in Playwriting from Hunter College, under the guidance of Christine Scarfuto. Diana writes about women and people of color coming into their own power, agency and artistry. 

The bass and collaborative artist Andrew Munn studied at Bard College & Juilliard with Dawn Upshaw and Sanford Sylvan. He performs principal roles and world premieres at Deutsche Oper Berlin, Münchener Biennale, Salzburger Landestheater, Szczecin Opera, and Carnegie Hall. In May 2022 he was the protagonist of Lieder von Vertreibung und Nimmerwiederkehr by Bernhard Gander on a libretto by Ukrainian writer and activist, Serhiy Zhadan. The opera meditated on war and statehood in eastern Europe. Prior to Andrew’s artistic work, he organized environmental justice movements in the US. He continues to engage with questions of ecology and power in his artistic work and collaborations with composers such as Nina C. Young and Andile Khumalo, sound artists Kat Austen and Marco Donnurrama, the pianist Jacob Greenberg, and artist collective AM ARE IST ÄRE. He was a fellow of Tanglewood and Aspen Music Festivals, and the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium. 

Wi-Moto Nyoka is a horror and sci-fi writer. She is the founder of Dusky Projects, creating and producing horror & sci-fi projects for young adult and adult audiences. Awards and honors include: Stowe Story Labs selected project, Puffin Foundation grant recipient, A.R.T/New York Creative Space Grant recipient,  Awesome Foundation grant recipient, Velocity Fund grant recipient, Scribe Video Finishing Grant recipient, Nightmares Film Festival Best Short Screenplay Award Winner, 13 Horror Screenplay Award Winner, Oregon Short Film Festival Best Horror Teleplay Award Winner and more. She is a published author and a regular contributor to The Last Girls Club. She holds a BFA in Music Theater from the University of the Arts, and an MFA for Performance & Interactive Media Arts from Brooklyn College.

Garrett Obrycki is a Queer artist who finds joy at the intersection of performance, facilitation, design, and production. His work celebrates holism, criticality, and justice, prioritizing authentic connection and community building while simultaneously disrupting problematic and ineffective systems and structures that impact the complex and nuanced people and stories that shape and fuel the world of art-making! Garrett’s relationship to art and creation developed during his 150+ performance credits and a decade’s worth of leading experiential workshops and residencies that uplift creative expression, identity work, purpose, power dynamics, and leadership development. He has collaborated with a wide-variety of organizations such as Opera Philadelphia, the Kimmel Center, Harvard’s Kennedy School and Graduate School of Education, Opera Saratoga, Sarasota Opera, the Olivetti Leadership Institute (Ivrea, Italy), Midori & Friends, and Leadership for Asian Pacifics. Weaving together his passions, Garrett has transitioned into the role of creative producer, most notably in supporting Grammy-award winning Eighth Blackbird on their journey of evoliving the Blackbird Creative Lab, a creative and practice development program for contemporary classical artists. 

Ana Pitol is a Brazilian producer, actress and mother of little Isabel (1-year-old) based in St. John’s, NL, Canada. She has a Bachelor’s degree (2011) and a Master’s degree in History (2015) and has been a History teacher since 2010. She began to study acting in 2018 and since arriving in Canada (2022), she decided to change her career and dedicated herself to working in theatre. Since then she has been involved and working with relevant organizations in St. John’s such as TODOS Productions (Project Coordinator Intern and co-producer for Happy Anniversary by Vanessa Cardoso-Whelan), White Rooster Theatre (producer for The Heart Play by Marie Pike on July 2023) and St. John’s Shorts (assistant producer for the 8th Annual St. John’s Short Play Festival). In parallel to these projects, she is a member of and staff for PARC (Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre).

Dalia Sevilla is a director and lighting designer. She is the founder of La Senta through which she recently directed Ice-ing on the Cake. Credits include: Off-Broadway U.S. premiere of the musical Of A Lifetime; For the Love of Natalie Woods (Communal Spaces); the premiere of Bismillah (Fresh Fruit Festival). She is the founder of the Classical Voice Collective at NYU, directing Bastien und Bastienne, Hänsel und Gretel, Riders to the Sea, and Daphnis et Chloé. She has been the recipient of the Harrower Music Festival directing fellowship and Boundless Theater Company lighting design fellowship. Her lighting design credits include: Truckers at INTAR, It’s in the Play (1st Irish Festival); Once on this Island (Summer Theatre of New Canaan, dir. George Faison); One Night Only: An Evening with Norm Lewis (NY Pops at Carnegie Hall); Lifeline (Boundless Theater Company); Fiddler on the Roof (NYU Drama Therapy Dept); Self Love Kind of Thing (ChristinaNoel and the Creature).

Roshan Singh Sambhi is a Singaporean NYC-based writer and multimedia producer, and the founder of the digital storytelling company Andas Productions. His debut work, the historical epic Temujin (2020), was recognized at the Webby Awards (2021), Audio Production Awards (2021), and Asian Podcast Awards (2021). Additionally, as a game developer, Roshan’s work has premiered at the Manhattan SPRING/BREAK Art Show (2021), Sing Lit Station’s Blk Party (2022), and the National Gallery Singapore’s Gallery Children’s Biennale (2023).

Sheree Spencer finds creative balance as a Producer, Performing Artist and Director with a strong passion for interdisciplinary art expression. Born in Toronto of Barbadian heritage, Sheree graduated from McGill University in 2012 with a major in Music and Double Minor in Drama Performance and Environmental Science and MA in Cultural Diplomacy & International Events from the University of the West of Scotland & Institute of Cultural Diplomacy in Berlin. Sheree was selected as the 2016 TD Emerging Producer for the Toronto Fringe Theatre Festival and has also worked with the Luminato Festival Toronto as the Associate Producer of the Artist in Residency (AIR) Program and with Volcano Theatre as the company producer on The Book of Life Tour (Edinburgh International Festival 22′) and Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha world premiere. She is currently working in the hybrid role of Associate Producer/Assistant Director for Aportia Chryptych with the Canadian Opera Company and will be directing Sanctuary & Storm with re:Naissance Opera & the Vancouver Symphony in Nov 2023.

N’yomi “Omi” Stewart (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist, managing director, and organizer based in Brooklyn, NY.  N’yomi is the first black trans woman to graduate from the prestigious University of North Carolina School of the Arts Acting program receiving a B.F.A.  and since has worked at the Public Theater (Richard III, A Raisin in the Sun) and other notable theater companies such as The O’Neil, Manhattan Theatre Club, The Roundabout, The New Group, Playwrights Horizons, and The Old Globe.  Recently, she was named a GALLIM Moving Artist Resident and Artist in Residence with the New York Theater Workshop creating and producing intentional inclusive work that will have an innovative impact. Currently she serves as associate director for ITBOY® AGENCY, an emerging mother and casting agency in NYC while continuing to lead her own creative projects.

Greta Štiormer is a Vilnius-based theatre and contemporary opera director. She started her career as a pianist and later graduated from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre with a Bachelor’s degree in theatre directing in the course of Eimuntas Nekrošius. Later, she completed Master’s degree in Sculpture at the Vilnius Academy of Arts. As a stage director, Greta has presented her work together with ,,Operomanija”, Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre, Lithuanian National Drama Theatre, Vilnius State Small Theatre, ,,Meno fortas”, as well as abroad, at the festival “O!” Rotterdam and the Paris Academy of Dramatic Arts. Greta’s performances have been awarded with nominations and prizes: the Golden Stage Cross nomination for the best ensemble of actors in the opera-performance “Sport’s Group”, the first prize in the “DramaTest” competition for theatre plays, and many more. Also, Greta is a creative writing workshop leader working with queer youth.