Will You Come With Me?

Ebru Nihan Celkan (Playwright, she/hers) received her bachelor's degree in labor economics from Uludağ University in 2001 and MBA (master's degree in business administration) from Istanbul University and started her professional career in 2003. List of publications and plays staged in Turkey, Germany and USA; Complete Plays I: After The Day Nobody Died & Where Were We? Mitos-Boyut (İstanbul 2013); Complete Plays II: Home! Sweet Home! & 17:31. Mitos-Boyut (İstanbul 2015); Complete Plays III: Babel Towers & Triggerman. Mitos-Boyut (İstanbul 2016); Complete Plays IV: Tilt & A Prince from Outer Space. Mitos-Boyut (İstanbul 2018).

Keenan Tyler Oliphant (Director, he/him) is a theatremaker and director from South Africa whose work is in the lineage of the communal theatre-making and storytelling traditions of South Africa. As a theatremaker, he recalls his traditional Southern African storytelling lineage by simultaneously exchanging with histories and futures to create spaces of healing, investigation, mourning, and celebration through performance. Keenan endeavors to create work that is powerful in its relation to contemporary experience, and that challenges social and political conventions while engaging with performance as a ritual expression of the spiritual. Keenan is the Associate Director of Hadestown (Broadway), Oratorio for Living Things (Ars Nova), and was the assistant director for the Bengson’s work The Broken Ear Set-list (St Ann’s Warehouse). Keenan is a Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellow, a Drama League Directing Fellow, and an Alumni of the Columbia MFA Directing for Theatre program.

Layla Khoshnoudi. (Performer) MFA, Brooklyn College. Select Theater: 7 Minutes (Waterwell); Men on Boats (Clubbed Thumb); Dance Nation (Playwrights Horizons); Bull in a China Shop (Lincoln Center); Dido of Idaho (Ensemble Studio Theater); Wyoming (Lesser America); I am Gordafarid (Noor Theater). TV: Instinct (CBS); FBI (CBS); All Hail Beth (BricTV), My Ex is Trending (YouTube). FILM: Long Nights, Short Mornings; Bad at Birthdays, Nadia Jaan; Androgen; Bookends.

Maribel Martinez (Actor) Artist existing and creating at the intersection of womanhood, Blackness, and Latinidad. Off-Broadway: Will You Come With Me? (PlayCo); Julius Cesar (New York Shakespeare in the Park). Select Regional Theatre: Mushroom (People’s Light); Vanity Fair (Shakespeare Theatre Company, American Conservatory Theater); Christmas at Pemberley (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park); Henry V P 1 (Folger); Black Joy Project (JAG). Film / Television Includes: Evil (CBS), New Amsterdam (ABC), The Watcher (Netflix), Sacrifice (BET+). In community with the Latinx Playwrights Circle and with Dominican Artists Collective as an Artistic Producer. MFA, UC Irvine.

Avi Amon (Sound Designer, Composer) is an award-winning, Turkish-American composer and sound artist. Avi’s multi-genre work has been developed or presented by: HBO Films, Hulu, Spotify/Gimlet, Tribeca Film Festival, Ars Nova, LCT3, New York Theater Workshop, The O’Neill, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Playwrights’ Center, Prague Quadrennial, Roundabout, SoHo Rep/Page 73, Spoleto USA, and Target Margin among others. Avi is the resident composer at the 52nd Street Project, an inaugural fellow with THE WORKSHOP, and teaches at NYU Tisch.

Afsoon Pajoufar (Set Designer) is a NYC based designer of stage and environment for play, opera, and other live performances. Afsoon’s artistic practice is often focused on the intersection of space and new technologies including XR and live video. Her recent works include Don Juan (Bard Summerscape 2022), Lady-M (HeartBeat Opera), MƆɹNIŊ / MORNING//MOURNING (Prototype Festival), Mad Forest (Theatre for a New Audience/Bard), Word.Sound.Power (Brooklyn Academy of Music, BAM), Will You Come With Me (Play Co.), Purple Room (New Ohio Theatre), s.i.n.s.o.f.u.s (HARVARD), The Silence (MIT). She is a proud member of USA829.

Enver Chakartash (Costume Design) is a British born Turkish Cypriot costume designer. Enver’s work has been presented internationally at numerous venues including: BAM, The Public Theater, Steppenwolf, Centre Pompidou, the Barbican and the Sydney Opera House. Most recently, Enver designed: English (Atlantic Theater Company/Roundabout Theatre Company); Wolf Play (Soho Rep.); and Tina Satter’s Is This A Room on Broadway. Other recent works include: Tina Satter/Half Straddle’s Ghost Rings; The Wooster Group’s A Pink Chair, The B-side, The Town Hall Affair, Early Shaker Spirituals; Young Jean Lee’s Straight White Men; Reggie Wilson/Fist & Heel Performance Group’s POWER.

Reza Behjat was born and raised in Iran where he worked with some of the most prominent directors for several years before moving to the United States in 2014. Off-Broadway: Wish You Were Here (Playwrights Horizons); The Vagrant Trilogy (The Public); Out of Time (The Public/NAATCO); English (Atlantic); P.S. (Ars Nova); Disclaimer (The Public’s UTR); Henry VI (NAATCO); Hamlet (Waterwell). Regional and others: Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Guthrie Theater, PlayMakers Rep, Actors Theater of Louisville, Baltimore Center Stage, Geva Theatre, Alabama Shakespeare, New Georges, Long Wharf Theater, etc. Awards: Knight of Illumination Award (Nina Simone: Four Women, 2019)

Stefania Bulbarella (Video and Projections Designer) from Buenos Aires, Argentina based in Brooklyn, NY. Broadway credits include: Kimberly Akimbo as associate video designer (The Booth) Desiger credits include Off Broadway: Space Dogs (MCC), Semblance (New York Theatre Workshop), The Watering Hole (Signature Theatre), Will You Come With Me? (The Play Company), Turtle on a Fence Post (Theatre 555). Opera: Letters You Will Not Get (American Opera Project). Regional: House of Joy (St Louis Rep), The Mountaintop (Weston Playhouse). Other: Eva Luna (Repertorio Español), Desaparecidas (Jack) Nominations: Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Outstanding Video/Projection Design for Space Dogs. www.stefaniabulbarella.com

Dee Lamar Mills (they/she) is a lens-based artist and motion designer with their eyes on a bright star somewhere far beyond the perimeter of this universe. Recent: New York Hall of Science, The Shed (Open Call), Clubbed Thumb, Interior Design, MAP (Adidas, Collina Strada, GQ). dddiiiooonnn.com. For Mom – in vivid memory.

Christina M. Woolard (Stage Manager) stage manages for theatre, dance, and live events. Previous credits include Space Dogs (MCC), Kinky Boots (Bucks County Playhouse), Preparedness (The Bushwick Starr), Passing Through (Goodspeed Musicals), Will You Come With Me? and Notes on My Mother’s Decline (The Play Company), Wilder Gone (Clubbed Thumb), American Hero, and A Doll’s House, Part 2 (George Street Playhouse). Proud AEA member and alumna of Rutgers University. For Mom — your song is in my heart.

Siena Yusi (Stage Manager) is a stage manager, theatre maker, and arts educator based in Brooklyn, NY. Her artistic endeavors revolve around cultivating and supporting creative spaces where theatre and artistic processes can be utilized to foster healing and spark change. Siena is passionate about new plays and has had the honor of working on over 15 world premiere productions in NYC. Recent stage management collaborations include 59E59 Theaters, The Hearth, Mabou Mines, PlayCo, Abrons Arts Center, The Brick, Playwrights Horizons Downtown, Brooklyn College, and Columbia University, among others. BFA: NYU Tisch. www.sienayusi.com