And Special Thanks to…

Andrea Bañas, Nick Bertalon, CK Blackmore, Layel Camargo, Stephen Most, The Terrapsychology community, and Sarah Williams

CAST AND PRODUCTION BIOS

Noor Adabachi, (he/him) Environmental & Community Designer, is a graduate of the California Institute of the Arts: CalArts where he studied set and costume design. Past designs for foolsFURY include (dis)Place[d], directed by Ben Yalom, The Unheard of World, directed by Michelle Haner, and Faulted, directed by Evren Odcikin. After working on theater and dance productions in Los Angeles in the early 80's he concentrated on custom furniture design and fabrication, creating work for Milton Katselas, Oprah Winfrey, Catherine Bell, Guy Laliberté, founder of Cirque du Soleil and many others. His work has been featured in architectural magazines and on E The Entertainment Channel. Since 2016 Adabachi has co-stewarded Venado Arts and Farm center, an educational center for arts and farming in Sonoma County, California.

Annabelle Berríos (she/her) Guest Artist, Annabelle is a weaver, experimenter and storyteller. She has ancestral roots in Borikén, the Taíno name for Puerto Rico, where she was born and raised. She is a person of Taino, African and Spanish heritage who currently resides in the ancestral lands of the Ohlone, now known as Berkeley, California.

Annabelle has a law degree from Boston College Law School. She also has a Master of Arts in East West Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies, where she focused her studies in Terrapsychology and Holistic Education. She is the author of “Alternative Mapping: Tracking Solidarity with Sacred Land” in Terrapsychology: Further Inquiry into Self, Place and Planet, Craig Chalquist, Garret Barnwell (Ed.), (Routledge 2023) and “Traveling Landscapes” in Vento e Agua online magazine, 2022, among other publications.

Gabriel Cortez (he/him) Guest Artist, is a poet, educator, and organizer based in the Bay Area, California. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Rumpus, The Breakbeat Poets Anthology Volume 4, and elsewhere. A VONA and Poetry Incubator fellow, he has received awards from the University of California, Palette Poetry, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Gabriel is the inaugural poet in residence at The Ecology Center and Shelterwood Collective, where he uses poetry and arts education to uplift local legacies of resistance rooted in environmental justice and food and land sovereignty. He is a member of the artist collective, Ghostlines, and co-founder of The Root Slam, an award-winning poetry venue dedicated to inclusivity, justice, and artistic growth, as well as Write Home, a project working to challenge public perceptions of houselessness and shift critical resources to houseless Bay Area youth through poetry and arts programming.

Gabriel serves as secretary on the board of directors of Performing Arts Workshop, a BIPOC-led Bay Area nonprofit organization established in 1965 dedicated to anti-racist practices, equalizing access to arts and arts education, and helping young people develop critical thinking, creative expression, Socio-Emotional Learning, and essential life skills. From 2014 to 2023, he served as Lead Poet Mentor and Director of Programs at Youth Speaks, one of the world’s leading presenters of spoken word performance, education, and youth development programs.

Gabriel is of Black, white, and Panamanian descent. His work explores power, identity, belonging, and gold teeth. For more, visit www.GabrielMCortez.com

Debórah Eliezer, (she/her) Writer, Performer, Producer is a mixed identity white/MENA theater maker, social activist, community designer and California fire survivor living and working on the unceded territories of the Ramaytush Ohlone and Southern P’omo. She is the Artistic Director of Aviva Arts, an Associate Artist with Golden Thread, an artEquity arts facilitator alumna, and serves on the inaugural MENA Alliance of Theatre Makers steering committee (MENATMA). Passionate about the power of human transformation, her work focuses on disrupting assumptions about art, human values and society. She has devised and performed in numerous world premieres, working with playwrights Katie Pearl, Kate Tarker, Yussef el Guindi, Denmo Ibrahim, Torange Yeghiazarian, Fabrice Melquiot, Angela Santillo, Sheila Callaghan, Doug Dorst, Ben Yalom and Dan Chumley. With foolsFURY, Eliezer wrote and performed (dis)Place[d] which toured the FURY Factory, Ko Fest, Olivia Cruises and Limmud UK in 2019 and is featured in Michael Malek Najjar’s book, Middle Eastern American Theatre: Communities, Cultures and Artists. She holds a BA Cum Laude from SFSU and a certificate in Sound, Voice Music Healing from CIIS. Eliezer is the Associate Director of Kids on Camera. As a professional voiceover, you may have heard her voice in over 25 Leapfrog Toys, Sims 2, 3 and 4 video games or numerous radio ads. She teaches throughout the Bay Area and maintains a private coaching practice.

Pamela Hollings (she/they) Script Dramaturgy and Writer, Cooper’s Hawk, is a theater-maker, working as a director, dramaturg, educator, actor, deviser and writer, depending on the project. She is the Curation & Education Director at 3Girls Theatre, and an ensemble member of Aviva Arts (formerly foolsFURY). She was the Board Chair (2013-2021), as well as an ensemble member (2018-2022) of foolsFURY Theater and the former Artistic Managing Director of both The Yat/Bentley Centre for Performance, SF Bay Area and Soup Kitchen Theatre, Melbourne, Australia. She was the dramaturg for foolsFURY on (dis)Place[d] by Debórah Eliezer and Dionysus Was Such a Nice Man by Kate Tarker and has directed and been dramaturg on numerous plays in development at 3Girls Theatre and elsewhere. She has directed many plays, including the Australian premiere of Laughing Wild by Christopher Durang. She trained in Theatre Direction at Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) whose distinguished alums include Cate Blanchett, Judy Davis, Baz Luhrmann and many more. She has studied Nature Awareness and Relational Education through Weaving Earth and has strong interests in group process, peacemaking, ritual and storytelling in all its forms.

Jules Indelicato (they/them) Sound Designer, is a dedicated sound designer and engineer from San Francisco, CA, with a passion for creating immersive auditory experiences in theater. In 2024, Jules received the prestigious San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle Award for Excellence in Sound Design for their work on "Assassins" at Hillbarn Theater. Jules has collaborated with esteemed theater companies such as Ray of Light, Shotgun Players and Lower Bottom Playaz, where they have designed sound for multiple productions, including "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" and "Radio Golf." Jules also designed sound for the groundbreaking one-woman show "Tasha" by Cat Brooks, which powerfully addresses systemic injustice. With extensive experience as a FOH and Monitor engineer at notable Bay Area venues, Jules has honed their skills to elevate theatrical productions. In addition to their theater work, Jules is an active member of the world/folk band "Lydia Violet and the Bones" and the indie rock group "SWISS." Wherever there is creativity and innovation, Jules is at the forefront, making a significant impact on the artistic community.

Cynthia Ling Lee Workshop Director/Choreographer, is a Taiwanese American interdisciplinary artist who creates embodied art rooted in crip, queer, and feminist of color praxis. She is curious about long-hauling as a physical discipline that contradicts dance's ableism and embodied art that departs from “the show must go on” urgency of theatrical production. Current projects include Scores for Chronically Ill Bodies, a set of movement scores for chronically ill bodyminds; the Crip Care Cards, a mail art project centering art as carework; and Inventory of Joy, an experimental dance documentary film with Megan Moodie that asks: what if the medical examination, rather than perpetuating traumatizing, ableist projects of “cure,” could create an inventory of embodied joy? Cynthia is an associate professor of Performance, Play and Design at UC Santa Cruz. She spends a lot of time cultivating slowness and crip relationality, unlearning model minority patterns, resting in unknowing, and lying on the ground looking at the sky. www.cynthialinglee.com

Nicky Martinez (they/them) Performer, Video Editor, is a Latiné genderfluid theatre activist who was born and raised in San Francisco. They have a BA in Performing Arts and Social Justice from the University of San Francisco. They are a solo performing artist, poet, published playwright, and visual artist. In their art, they focus on social issues like having queer and trans identities, racial inequities, mental health, and femme rights. They currently work at Theatre Bay Area as a Program and Grants Coordinator and are involved with several ensemble companies like FoolsFURY, Ragged Wing, You Don't Know Me, and others.

Guillermo “Yiyo” Ornelas (they/them) Performer, is a theater creator, teaching artist, and arts education advocate. As a first-generation Mexican-American, they understand the impact that an arts education can have, especially to members of vulnerable communities. Most recently, they performed at Brava Theater in Richard Montoya's, Translating Selena. They have worked with Campo Santo, Fuse, and foolsFury to help develop new work. Yiyo has served as the Vice-Chair for the Arts Education Alliance of the Bay Area (AEABA) to ensure that arts education be equitable and accessible to all members of the community. Guillermo holds a B.A from UC Berkeley, double majoring in Sociology and Theater & Performance Studies, having received the Mark Goodson award for ‘Distinguished Artistic Talent.’ Prior to transferring to UC Berkeley, they led a weekly theater workshop for runaway and homeless youth in Redlands, California. They’ve worked with local communities to encourage youth and their families to foster creative modes of expression, through the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, the Teatro Project, and JumpStart. They currently work as an outreach coordinator and teaching artist with San Francisco Youth Theater.

Sánchez Sánchez (they them, elle elles) Production Manager, is a first generation Mexican American actor, director, and dramaturg from the Southside of Chicago. They are a history buff who attended NYU for Drama and Latino Studies--aspira unir el mundo del teatro con el público Latino. They focus on work by, for, and about Latinos in hopes of having their image reflected back at them. Sánchez invites audiences into the world of the productions they work on by helping them take a deeper look at the traditional family values upheld in Latin households, y ayudándolos entender que la única manera de avanzar hacia su futuro es sanar del pasado.

Princeso “Pepe” Santamaría (they/them) Guest Artist, is a poet-performer rooted in the spiritual practice and culture-making of Queer Xicaneidad. As a gender expansive Xicanx, they create poetry performances and interactive installations encouraging communities to uplift and participate in our living legados (legacies). Princeso has collaborated with the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas for their foolsFURY performance in BUILD Forward: Advocacy, Artistry, Adaptability. They have performed for venues such as the Tobin Center of Performing Arts, Blue Star Arts, and El Comalito Collective. Princeso “Pepe” is a contributing author for Ofrenda Magazine and they’ve hosted creative workshops with partners including the Healing Clinic Collective and the Gender Equity Resource Center of UC Berkeley.

Dr. Vidhu Singh (she/her) Walbridge Fire Dramaturgy, Core Artist, Vidhu Singh’s pioneering efforts as dramaturg, director and scholar have promoted the visibility of South Asian theater in the American theater. She holds a Masters degree in Dramatic Art from UC Santa Barbara and a doctorate from UH Manoa’s Asian Theatre program. Her research on India’s regional experimental 1990s theater movement has provided a vital contextual foundation to the life of Indian theater today.

Vidhu is a resident artist at Brava Theater; a core member of Theatre without Borders; a graduate of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors’ Lab; a founding member of World Wide Lab and the founder of RasaNova Theater.

Vidhu’s passion for dramaturgy emerged from the need for culturally conscious dramaturgy for new plays, including South Asian plays translated from regional languages. Vidhu’s fluency in a variety of cultural and aesthetic forms, her dramaturgy training, her scholarship, and her passion for theater have made her contribution to the American theater truly unique. Cal Shakes recognized this uniqueness by honoring Vidhu with the 2020 Luminary Award in dramaturgy. Recent highlights include Third Eye Moonwalk by Jon Bernson with Playwrights Foundation, BUILD From Here: the Future of Ensemble Theaters 2020 with foolsFURY Theater Company, House of Joy by Madhuri Shekar with Cal Shakes in 2019 and Bay Area Playwrights Festival in 2018, and Golden Thread Productions’ ReOrient 2017 Festival of Short Plays.

Stephanie Whigham (she/hers) Graphic Designer, is a San Jose-based theatre professional and graphic designer, Stephanie has worked as a stage manager, costume designer, properties designer, and in various other technical roles for many regional companies including TheatreWorks, Palo Alto Players, Pacific Repertory Theare, Tabard Theatre, San Jose Stage Company, and Opera San Jose. 

Stephanie currently designs marketing materials for several Bay Area theatre companies and is also an actor and IATSE stagehand. She can often be spotted in local stage productions, tv commercials, open mics or karaoke bars. You can find out more about what she’s up to at stephaniewhigham.com

Thank You for Your Support!

Wildfire Warriors

CK Blackmore Ash Hoover

Incendiary Ally

Sherman Wood

Resilience

Morganne Maher Lisa Flato
Rebecca Novick

A Very Special Thank You to the Aviva Arts Board!

Debórah Eliezer, Lindsay L. Barr, Dr. CK Olivieri Blackmore, CrAsh Redemarrée, Guillermo “Yiyo” Ornelas, and Vidhu Singh, PhD

Thank you for joining us today. Aviva Arts is an arts and wellness hub for innovative cultural practice. We center intersectional narratives that champion our relationship to ourselves, each other and the natural world.

Ticket sales for today’s program only covered a fraction of its expenses. We're raising $10,000 to cover our production expenses and to pay artists a living wage in the SF Bay Area. If you found today valuable, we invite you to contribute what you can to support our work.

Donations over $250 will be invited to an exclusive celebratory party with Aviva Arts staff and crew.