Sonnets for an Old Century

ISABEL ARRAIZA – stars as one of the lead roles in the upcoming Amazon / Plan B series OUTER RANGE opposite Josh Brolin and Lili Taylor. On film, she just wrapped the lead opposite Michael Zegen in the INDE film, ZOO. Other film credits include: John Lee Hancock’s film THE LITTLE THINGS opposite Rami Malek and Denzel Washington, Nick Hamm’s feature film DRIVEN opposite Jason Sudeikis and Lee Pace, Derrick Borte’s AMERICAN DREAMER opposite Jim Gaffigan.

Additional Television credits include: USA’s PEARSON, Crackle’s THE OATH

She obtained her MFA from The Juilliard School. Credits at Juilliard include: MISALLIANCE, THE SERPENT WOMAN, MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, LOVE’S LABOURS LOST, AS FIVE YEARS HAVE PAST, THE TEMPEST, A LIE OF THE MIND and THINNER THAN WATER. Additional theater credits include JULIUS CAESAR at the Public Theater, MINNETTI at the Barbican Centre in London, and INTERSECTIONS at The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.

Danielle Davenport is a Brooklyn-based actor and writer who has worked at theaters including The Public Theater, Playwrights Horizons, Lincoln Center Theater, Theater for a New Audience, New York Theater Workshop, The Civilians, Clubbed Thumb, INTAR, New York Stage and Film, MCC, The Lark, Playwrights’ Realm and others, with performance credits including An Octoroon (Theater for a New Audience/Soho Rep), Men on Boats (Playwrights Horizons/Clubbed Thumb), Neighbors (The Public Theater), Adoration of the Old Woman (INTAR) and Be the Death of Me (The Civilians). Film and television credits include Blue Bloods (CBS), The Blacklist (NBC), Power (Starz), Sneaky Pete (Amazon), Netflix’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Master of None, HBO’s High Maintenance and Boardwalk Empire, The Breaks (VH1) and others.

Current and recent writing projects include a television pilot set in the world of reproductive justice and developed during New York Stage and Film’s Filmmakers’ Workshop and co-authoring an article published in the Villanova Law Review.

Danielle graduated summa cum laude from Barnard College with a B.A. in Theater (Honors) and Comparative Literature and Society and is co-owner of BEM | books & more, a bookstore devoted to food literature of the African diaspora.

Sara Koviak is thrilled to be working with McCarter Theatre and Bard at the Gate.  She currently plays “the girl in the music video,” dancing in legendary Steve Conte’s new solo hit song, “Flying.”  She is a producer and sole performer in José Rivera’s latest short film “The Civet.”  Other recent projects include Red Bull Theater’s short play festival directed by Timothy Douglas and Margot Bordelon, the lead in Rivera’s newly-published Lovesong (Imperfect), producer/lead actor in the award-winning short "The Fall of a Sparrow,” HBO's "The Undoing,” and The Hours Are Feminine at The Actors Studio with Chazz Palminteri.  Other theatre: New York Theatre Festival, 2020 Sundance Theatre Lab, Goodman Theatre, Huntington Theatre, Rattlestick Theater, and Planet Connections.  At The Metropolitan Opera -- where she performed as a classical dancer – she worked with directors Bart Sher, Mary Zimmerman, and Robert LePage.  She worked with Steven Schwartz as the aerial soloist in Goodspeed's tour of Pippin, and danced at Lincoln Center in Peter And The Wolf and Cinderella.  Sara is an accomplished choreographer for film and theatre, and has been a dance educator for students from all over the world.  Sara will be performing at the Goodman Theatre again this year.  

Joel Perez (he/him) is an award-winning actor and writer living in NYC. His theater work includes Fun Home (Broadway), Kiss My Aztec! (La Jolla Playhouse) and Sweet Charity (New Group; Lortel Award). TV work includes Jesus Christ Superstar Live! (NBC), Person of Interest (CBS) and Odd Mom Out (Bravo). He performed with the UCB Maude sketch team Peach and for the musical theater sketch show SHIZ. His writing includes The Black Beans Project (The Huntington Theatre), Playing With Myself (Ars Nova), The Church of the Holy Glory (Ars Nova ANTFest). He is a 2021 WarnerMedia 150 Artist Grant recipient for his original comedy pilot You’re Tired, You’re Poor. He is the winner of the 2021 Voces Latinx National Playwriting Competition for his play From the Fountain. He is a 2019 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Playwriting from NYFA. Follow him at @misterjoelperez and visit joelperez.com 

MichaelJohn McGann's acting career began in “the world’ second oldest  Profession” for several years at Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival, where he met and became friends with fellow actors George Maguire, Tom Hanks, and José Rivera. McGann made his film debut in 1983, in Charlie Loventhal-directed comedy film, The First Time. Other films include 84 Charing Cross Road, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, The Goldmine, The Cop, and The Anthem (HBO). For TV: Law&Order, Tribeca, Another World, The Guiding Light.  He has performed on Broadway in Arsenic and Old Lace (Teddy Brewster), Hamlet (Guildenstern) and Annie (Drake, Bert Healy, Morgenthau), as well as off, off-off Broadway and at regional theatres throughout the country including The Theatre Company at BAM, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and Paper Mill Playhouse. He has served on the faculties of The University of Hartford, The University of Wisconsin, The University of Miami, Ohio University, The University of North Carolina, and the South Carolina Governor’s School.  He is a proud graduate of the Copacabana School of Acting.

Paula Vogel’s acting roles have included: Peter Pan in 4th grade, a solo performance of THE TROJAN WAR in 5th grade, Sister George in THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE (Catholic University), M. Carey Thomas in IN HER OWN IMAGE (Bryn Mayr). She is particularly proud of her falsetto performance of Rhoda in THE BAD SEED (Brown University) and reading stage directions at the Public Theatre in Thornton Wilder’s  LONG CHRISTMAS DINNER.

Paula Vogel is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright whose plays include Indecent (Tony Award nomination for Best Play), How I Learned to Drive (Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Lortel Prize, OBIE Award, Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle and New York Drama Critics Awards for Best Play), The Long Christmas Ride Home, The Mineola Twins, The Baltimore Waltz, Hot’n’Throbbing, Desdemona, And Baby Makes Seven, The Oldest Profession and A Civil War Christmas. Lifetime achievement awards include: American Theatre Hall of Fame Award, the Obie Award, and NY Drama Critics Circle Award. She is honored to have three awards dedicated to emerging playwrights in her name: The American College Theatre Festival's Paula Vogel Award in Playwriting, the Paula Vogel Award given annually by the Vineyard Theatre, and the Paula Vogel Mentor’s Award by Young Playwrights of Philadelphia. She was the 2019 inaugural UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television Hearst Theater Lab Initiative Distinguished Playwright-in-Residence. She is currently serving as judge for the Yale Drama Series 2021 and 2022 competitions. Her plays are published in six volumes by TCG Press and she teaches playwriting workshops throughout the United States and abroad. www.paulavogelplaywright.com 

José Rivera is a recipient of Obie Awards for Marisol and References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, both produced by The Public Theatre, NY, and seen regionally and internationally.  Other plays include Cloud Tectonics (Playwrights Horizons, Humana Festival, La Jolla Playhouse), Boleros for the Disenchanted (Yale Rep, Huntington Playhouse), Sueño (Hartford Stage, Manhattan Class Company), Sonnets for an Old Century (Barrow Group), School of the Americas (Public Theatre), Massacre (Sing to Your Children) (Goodman Theatre, Rattlestick), Brainpeople (ACT/San Francisco), Adoration of the Old Woman (Sundance Theatre Lab, INTAR, La Jolla Playhouse), The House of Ramon Iglesia (Ensemble Studio Theatre), Another Word for Beauty (Goodman, New York Stage and Film), The Maids  (INTAR), The Kiss of the Spiderwoman (Menier Chocolate Factory, London), Each Day Dies with Sleep (Circle Rep, Berkeley Rep).  “The Motorcycle Diaries” was nominated for 2005 Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar – making him the first Puerto Rican writer ever nominated for an Academy Award.  It was also nominated for a BAFTA and Writers Guild Award, and received top screenwriting awards in Argentina and Spain.   “On the Road” premiered at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.  “Trade” was the first film to premiere at the United Nations.  Rivera co-created and produced “Eerie, Indiana,” (NBC) and was a consultant and writer on “Penny Dreadful: City of Angels” (Showtime) 2019.  He will be the sole writer of the Netflix series based on One Hundred Years of Solitude.  Rivera’s short film “The Fall of a Sparrow” has been seen in film festivals around the country.  In 2020 he directed the world premiere workshop of his play Lovesong (Imperfect) at the 14th Street Y as well as the short film “The Civet.”  He has served on the boards of Theatre Communication Group and the Sundance Institute and mentored at Sundance Screenwriting Labs in Utah, Jordan, and India.  His most recent play Your Name Means Dream was part of the Rattlestick Playwrights Jam, 2020, and read at the Sundance Theatre Lab. 

María del Sol is a film composer and classically trained pianist originally from Chile. She recently graduated from the Screen Scoring Master’s Degree Program at NYU Steinhardt where she studied under John Kaefer, Chris Hajian, and James E Lawrence. 

Her compositions, ranging from electronic to orchestral, are strongly driven by the emotional power of story — and are intended to create dramatic soundtracks that capture both the intimate and the epic. 

She is the recipient of Best Original Score from Florence Film Awards and FLOW Film Festival and the FLOW 2020 winner for Best Instrumental Composition for her single, Funeral for Past Loves. 

Rosey Strub is Program Director of the Thornton Wilder Estate, and Manager for playwrights Paula Vogel and Ken Ludwig. She has worked in stage production, marketing, development and project management for a range of organizations including the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, Ars Nova, National Theatre Workshop for the Handicapped, Summer Play Festival (SPF), Soho Rep, and Yale University. She has produced the Kurdish Film Festival at NYU's Kevorkian Center and an international human rights and arts festival with Peru’s Grupo Cultural Yuyachkani and Yale Repertory Theatre. Rosey holds a BFA in Single Honours Drama and Theatre Studies from University of Kent at Canterbury, UK and an MFA in Theatre Management from Yale School of Drama. 

Grant A. Rice joined DR Theatrical Management in 2013 after ten years as a General and Company Manager at Richard Frankel Productions and as a consultant for Broadway Asia.  While working with Richard Frankel he supervised the design, construction and opening of the nightclub and restaurant, 54 Below in Times Square, which has become a beloved Broadway institution. Broadway credits include Paula Vogel’s Indecent, Rock of Ages, A Little Night Music with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury, The Crucible with Liam Neeson and Laura Linney, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest with Gary Sinise, Chicago with Bebe Neuwirth, Little Shop of Horrors with Hunter Foster, Kerry Butler, and Joey Fatone, The Lion King, Urban Cowboy, among others.  Mr. Rice graduated from McDaniel College with a B.A. in Theatre Arts and holds an M.F.A. in Theatre Management and Producing from Columbia University’s School of the Arts. He is a board certified member of the Association of Theatrical Press Agents and Managers, and a former board member of The League of Off Broadway Theatres and Producers.

Milan Eldridge is a stage manager, theater designer. and filmmaker who is fascinated by the ways these different disciplines can interact, inform, and influence each other. She is passionate about exploring peculiar interpretations of the world and reexamining underlying assumptions through paradigm shifts. Her recent virtual stage management work includes Cerise Jacobs’s A Survivor’s Odyssey: The Journey of Penelope and Circe (White Snake Projects), Catherine Filloux’s Under the Skin (Intar), The Manic Monologues (McCarter Theatre Center), SUGAR SKULL! A Virtual Día de Muertos Adventure (Mexico Beyond Mariachi), and Virginia Grise’s a farm for meme. Her recent theatrical editing work includes Black Picture Show (Artists Space), Seeing Rape (John Jay College), A Past Becomes a Heritage: The Negro Units of the Federal Theatre Project (Princeton University; CLASSIX), The Chinese Lady (Princeton University), and All Her Power (Princeton University). She has served as a Teaching Fellow for Trenton Youth Theater where she worked with Trenton Central High School students on developing specific skills related to theater. Milan is currently an Associate Digital Producer for MELA Arts Connect and Assistant Stage Manager for the Program in Theater at Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts. She is overjoyed to be a part of this season of Bard at the Gate.

ViDCo is a collection of designers innovating new ways to tell stories and create communities online. Using virtual platforms, ViDCo generates entirely live performances with heightened design elements that bridges Theatre, TV, and cinema tricks into a new online hybrid form. We strategize to use the strongest elements of every discipline to inspire the artistic community to use their tools while we provide them the platforms to tell their stories. ViDCo is formed by Jared Mezzocchi, Tori Schuchmann, Deja Collins and Shoshanah Tarkow.