Gracy Brown Gracy is celebrating her seventh season with Elm Shakespeare Company. Credits include REGIONAL- Elm Shakespeare Company: Comedy of Errors (Emilia), (Love’s Labour’s Lost (Boyet), Romeo and Juliet (Nurse), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Egeus), Pericles (Gower). Long Wharf Theatre: The Good Person of New Haven (Taiwa/Taiwo). Great Lakes Theater Festival: Peter Pan (Adult Wendy). Edinburgh Fringe Festival: A Clockwork Orange (Dr. Brodsky), Fahrenheit 451 (Mildred). Cornerstone Theatre Company: An Antigone Story (Ismene). Mark Taper Forum: For Here or to Go (Luce). Collective Consciousness Theatre Company’s Rasheeda Speaking (Jaclyn), Web Series: Ringer$(Claudia). Gracy is a proud alumnus of Southern Connecticut State University where she earned a BA in Theatre and is an Adjunct Faculty member in the Theatre Department. A proud member of Actor’s Equity Association.

Brandon E. Burton. Regional: Macbeth, Richard II, Antony and Cleopatra (Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival).  Yale Theater: Othello (Othello), Henry 6 pt. 3 (York, George, Bona), Marty and the Hands That Could (Mike Money). Yale Rep: A Raisin in the Sun (Bobo).  Brandon is a Saint Louis, Missouri Native and a recent graduate of the Yale School of Drama.  Amongst other things, Brandon is a DJ, a computer repair service, comic book buff and former Artistic Director of The Yale Cabaret (2019-2020 Season).  Brandon also loves puppies.

MaConnia Chesser. REGIONAL THEATRE: Shakespeare & Company (company member), Kennedy Center, Ensemble Studio Theatre (NYC), Actors’ Shakespeare Project, WAM Theatre, Berkshire Playwrights Lab, Chester Theatre, New Jersey Repertory Company (company member), Theater Alliance (Insurrection: Holding History, Helen Hayes nomination), Tennessee Shakespeare Company, York Shakespeare, African Continuum Theatre, Totem Pole Playhouse, & Folger Theatre. FILM/TV: The Shape of Destiny (Official selection, 2018 Women in Comedy Festival), Nothing But the Truth, Ghosts of Hamilton Street, Diseasels web series, HBO’s The Wire. EDUCATION: Shakespeare & Company, National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts, Alcorn State University.  

Rebecca S’manga Frank is an actor, writer and director, passionate about the development of new works, particularly in Theatre Arts. Rebecca started performing in the Oakland Bay Area as a jazz singer with an improvisational ensemble out of Mills College. She found herself in a new play by Marcus Gardley in Berkeley, Ca, and has been on stages and in process ever since. Most recently she performed as Manke in Paula Vogel’s Yiddish, musical “Indecent” at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Her TV credits include Prodigal Son (FOX), Elementary (CBS), and an upcoming release on Apple TV+. She’s worked at the Actors Theatre of Louisville Humana New Play Festival, Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor, California Shakespeare Company, Red Bull Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, and Sundance Institute Theatre Lab in Morocco, as well as many other regional and off Broadway theatres. This summer she was slated to perform in a world premiere at Lincoln Center’s new play space, LCT3. After Covid hit, she and her theatre company began creating new work for Zoom with bi-weekly or monthly shows. Society Theatre Company is a New York based ensemble that works in the joint-stock method. As a director, Rebecca returned to Oakland in 2018 to direct a six-person “Romeo and Juliet” in a church in Downtown Oakland, partnering with local artists and designers. This summer Rebecca was commissioned by Hillel Metro Chicago to pen “A Psalm for Racial Justice,” updating the traditional Psalm 27 for the time leading up to the Jewish new year known as Elul. Rebecca holds a B.A. in Creative Writing from Mills College and an MFA from NYU’s Graduate Acting program at the Tisch School of the Arts. She is a New Jewish Culture Fellow through Brooklyn Jews, with an upcoming project in 2021. She contributes writing and storytelling as an intersectional force for equity and advocate for Black Lives.

Rebeccasmangafrank.com

Manu Kumasi. Manu Kumasi is an artist. A recent graduate of the Yale School of Drama and recent player with Elm Shakespeare (Comedy of Errors, 2019), Manu is tra-la-la’ing his way through Shakespeare’s cannon. Previous work includes: Hamlet, The Tempest, Titus Andronicus, Measure for Measure, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and more. Manu was born, raised, and now lives, once again, in the best city in the world.

Cloteal Horne. Standing on the shoulders of those that have come before her, Cloteal is a product of her grandmother’s prayers + her ancestors’ wildest dream, Cloteal proud member of Actors Equity, holds a BFA in Theatre Arts from Boston University and is a graduate of the Brown/Trinity Rep MFA Program.  Credits include: Trinity Rep: Alsendra Sabine, Circe Nzinga, Carib’diss, black odyssey. Brown/Trinity Rep: Luann, How We Got On; Augustina/Angel, Comedia De Equivocaciones; Saartjie Baartman (Venus), Venus; Off-Broadway: Siyah Powell/Stevens/Phebe, The Steadfast, Slant Theatre Project; Ruth-Anne Darcy, Dirty Blood, Billie Holiday Theatre; Ruby, She a Gem, NYTW. Other Theaters: Salarino, The Merchant of Venice, Silvia, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Luciana, The Comedy of Errors, Helena, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Jane, Christmas at Pemberley, Shakespeare & Company; Mabel, Saturday Night/Sunday Morning, Lyric Stage Company, Elliot Norton Nominee; Helen Robinson, To Kill a Mockingbird, Weston Playhouse; Panacea, A Funny Thing Happened…, BarnStormers; Mary Mack, The Clothesline Muse, Aion Productions; Luann Finnis, How We Got On, CompanyOne, Elliot Norton Nominee; Jordan, The Gift Horse, The Nurse/Lady Montague, Romeo & Juliet, New Repertory Theatre; Senator, Othello, Actors’ Shakespeare Project; Cherie/M-16, BlueShift, Huntington Theatre Company.