Artist Bios

Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp through the Cotton Patch

Andrea Boronell-Hunter (Idella Landy) Main Street Theater: The Book of Magdalene, Men On Boats; The Ensemble Theatre: Sarah Sings A Love Story, The Nacirema Society, Satchel Paige And The Kansas City Swing, Christmas With Great Aunt; Queensbury Theatre: Big River; Houston Family Arts Center: Crowns; Lone Star College: Doubt; Sacramento Theatre Company: A Christmas Carol, Little Shop of Horrors; Music Circus, Sacramento, CA: Hello Dolly; Celebration Arts, Sacramento, CA: Jar The Floor; (Director) The Old Settler. Education: Doctorate of Higher Education, St. Thomas University; M.A., Texas Southern University, Communication; B.A., California State University Sacramento, Drama/ Theatre. www.AndreaB.org

Kendrick “KayB” Brown ( Gitlow Judson) Main Street Theater: Debut; Rec Room: Death of a Salesman; The Ensemble Theatre: Camp Logan, The Piano Lesson; Other credits include Johnnie B. Good, Seven Guitars, Wolf Play, Fences, Pipeline, I Too, Am America, Lilies of the Field, Too Heavy For my Pockets, and many others. Film/TV: Where Loyalty Lies, Staycation, Best of Trades, My Brother’s Keepe, Forgive and Forget. Education: B.A., Prairie View A&M University, Drama.

TiMOThY ERiC* (Purlie Victorious Judson) Main Street Theater: Stagolee and the Funeral of a Dangerous Word (world premiere), The Laws of Storms (by Thomas Meloncon), Intimate Apparel, …and L.A. Is Burning (world premiere), Woof (world premiere); 4th Wall Theatre Company: Topdog/Underdog, Sense and Sensibility; Rec Room: Spring Awakening; The Ensemble Theatre: Clyde’s, The Lawsons, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Djembe, Blues in the Night, Jitney, Seven Guitars, Sty of the Blind Pig, Gem of the Ocean, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Two Trains Running, Piano Lesson, River Niger; Stages: Speaking in Tongues, Orange Flower Water; Alley Theatre: Of Mice and Men, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Film/TV: Roadside Pictures: Jurica Road; HBO: The Leftovers; ABC: American Crime, Ali – King of World. Education: B.F.A., Texas Southern University, Theatre/Cinema; M.A, Texas Southern University, Radio, Television, & Film.

Seán Patrick Judge* (Ol’ Cap’n Cotchipee) Main Street Theater: What the Constitution Means to Me, Wolf Hall / Bring Up The Bodies, Time Stands Still, Henry V, Richard III, Coast of Utopia, I Am Barbie, This, The Doctor’s Dilemma, The House of the Spirits; Stages: The Legend of Georgia McBride, The Book of Maggie, Silence; AD Players: It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play; Catastrophic Theatre: The Strangerer, Jim Lehrer and the Theatre and Its Double and Jim Lehrer’s Double, Evening at the Talk House, Small Ball, The Tamarie Cooper Show; Texas Repertory Theater: Of Mice and Men, The Lion In Winter; Mildred’s Umbrella Theater Co: Ravenscroft, The Marriage of Bette and Boo, The Flu Season; Mighty Acorn Productions: Almost Maine; Next Iteration Theater Co: Turquoise; Black Lab Theatre: Farragut North; Nova Arts Project: Thom Pain (based on nothing), Love Loves A Pornographer, The War of the Roses Cycle, Hamlet, Oedipus³, tempOdyssey; Stagger Lee Presents: The Caretaker. New York: Much Ado About Nothing, Eric LaRue, and The Merry Widow. Chicago: The Silver Chair, Marat/Sade, Twelfth Night, Rhinoceros, The Maids, The Protest/Vanek Plays, The Ring Cycle: The Musical!, Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding, and The Prophet of Bishop Hill. Other regional credits include Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Waiting For Godot, and La Bête. Education: B.A. Theater Arts, University of Iowa. Seán is a proud member of the Actors’ Equity Association and would like to dedicate his performance to Eddie for his amazing support and to the memory of his parents for their wholehearted support of his career in the arts.

Wykesha King (Missy Judson) Main Street Theater: Debut; The Ensemble Theatre: A Motown Christmas, At Midnight Friday the 13^th, Stew (understudy), TourED Program; Midtown Arts Theater Vincent Victoria Presents: 8 Notes to Heaven: The Eternal Rivalry of Prince and Rick James, Hattie’s Big Night, The Disappearance Of Eartha Kitt, Just Lena, Slave Narratives, Divas Ball, Love, Marriage & Heartbreak, The House of Patrick, Dream Girl Deferred, 8 Notes to Heaven; E Major Entertainment: Therapy; Fade2 Black: The Flow: Monologue Series, Reading Series; The Deluxe Theater: 1989 Dreams, You’re Gonna Love Me, When Temptation Comes. Film/TV: Cleopatra: Cinematic Play, The Dichotomy of Hattie McDaniel, The Colored Folks Good Time Hour, Blaque Tcherie. Education: M.A., Criminology; B.A., Psychology; Yoga Instructor.

Domenico Leona (Charlie Cotchipee) Main Street Theater: Debut; The Phoenix Group: (Director) Pullman, WA; Fade To Black: McNally’s Alley; Sankofa Collective: The Three Musketeers; Happy Hour Readings: Andy Warhol in Iran; Lee Theater: The Bear, Buried Child; Independent staged reading: Melville & Hawthorne. Film/TV: (Writer/Director) Cherry Blossom, (Writer/Director) Lilac Cir., A Restless Soul.

Jim Salners (Sheriff) Main Street Theater: The Real Inspector Hound, Native Gardens, The Best Man, Last Night at Ballyhoo, Driftwood (world premiere), Heartbreak House, The Doctor’s Dilemma; Bayou City Concert Musicals: Fiorello, Finian’s Rainbow, One Touch of Venus, Promises, Promises; Classical Theatre Company: Enemy of the People; Dirt Dogs: Boundary; Theatre LaB Houston: The Best Brothers; Unity Theatre: Now and Then, The Fantasticks, Scapino; Becky’s New Car, Butler; Texas Repertory Theatre: Tribute, Proof, Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, You Can’t Take It with You; Country Playhouse: To Kill a Mockingbird, Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Man of La Mancha, Trip to Moscow; AD Players: Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten; Back Porch Players: Tea and Sympathy; additional productions include The Music Man, Butterflies Are Free, Beast on the Moon, The Crucible. Film/TV: Waltz Across Texas. Education: B.S., Carnegie Mellon University, Chemical Engineering with a Minor in Acting.

Krystal Uchem* (Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins) Main Street Theater: Permanent Collection, A Little House Christmas; Stages: The Legend of Georgia McBride; A.D. Players: Kingdom Undone, It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play; The Ensemble Theatre: The Piano Lesson, Flex, Chicken & Biscuits, School Girls, or the African Mean Girls Play, Pretty Fire; Houston Grand Opera: The Magic Flute; Dirt Dogs Theatre Co: Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992; Fade to Black Play Festival: Busted, Hey Best Friend, Escaping Inward; Firecracker Productions: Pipeline; Express Children’s Theatre: Rhyme and Reason; Montgomery County Shakespeare Festival: Measure for Measure; The Company Onstage: Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing; TV/Film: Best of Trades (Amazon Prime), All in the Family (Amazon Prime). Education: B.F.A., University of Houston, Theatre.

Errol Anthony Wilks (Director) Main Street Theater: Stagolee And the Funeral of a Dangerous Word (world premiere); Other credits include: Skeleton Crew, Hamlet, American Son, When the Ancestors Call, Spirits of the Mississippi River, Howling Wolf, The Island, Long Time Since Yesterday, Fabulation or The Re-Education of Undine, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, Once in A Wifetime, Johnnie B Goode, Remembering Juneteenth, Topdog/Underdog (Assistant Director) Clybourne Park. Film/TV: Unsolved Mysteries, Red Ink, Street Tales of Terror, The Author, BorderCross, Wounded Hearts, Thank You Ten, Life of A G, Barber Shop Blues. Education: B.A., Texas Southern University, Theatre/Cinema.

Edgar Guajardo (Lighting Design) Edgar Guajardo is a Lighting and Scenic Designer/Theatrical Producer/ Poet/ Actor/ Painter/Carpenter originally from Pharr, Texas, but has been residing in Houston for 10 plus years. Main Street Theater: Stagolee and the Funeral of a Dangerous Word (world premiere), Trouble in Mind; Disney Live: (Assistant Electrician) Mickey Mouse’s Rockin Road Show; Queensbury Theatre Company: Former Assistant Technical Director; Opera in the Heights: Resident Lighting Designer; Deluxe Theater FWCRC: Production Manager. Education: B.F.A., University of Houston, Theatrical Production, emphasis in Lighting Design and Scenic Design.

Jon Harvey (Sound Design) Main Street Theater: Seven Assassins Walk Into a Bar (world premiere), Taking Steps, The Best of Everything. Jon is a company member of Classical Theatre Company. He is a seven-time Houston Press Theatre Award Nominee for Directing (1) and Sound Design (6) winning last year for his design of A Steady Rain produced by Dirt Dogs Theatre Company. He has been doing theatre in Houston for 25 years and has worked with several performing arts organizations in the Houston area, including 4th Wall Theatre Company, A.D. Players, Alley Theatre, Catastrophic Theatre, Country Playhouse, Da Camera, Dirt Dogs, Dos Chicas Theatre Commune, Ensemble Theatre, Fan Factory, Horse Head Theatre Company, Houston Shakespeare Festival, The Landing Theatre, Unity Theatre and the University of Houston.

Macy Lyne (Costume Design) Houston-based freelance costume designer and professor of Theatre at University of Houston Downtown. Main Street Theater: Seven Assassins Walk Into a Bar (world premiere), Taking Steps, Stuart Little, Permanent Collection, The Real Inspector Hound, Mother of the Maid, The Secretary, Daddy Long Legs, Men On Boats, The Revolutionists, Into the Woods; Texas theatre company designs include: Bye Bye Birdie, Lehman Trilogy, Endgame, Street Scene, Happy Days, Black Super Hero Magic Mama, Candide, Rhinoceros, The Barber of Seville for Catastrophic Theatre, TexARTS, 4th Wall Theatre Company, San Jacinto College, Stages, The Ensemble Theatre and many others. She enjoys traveling and has designed for Utah Musical Theatre, Utah State University, and Santa Fe University of Art and Design among others. Opera companies include: Tulsa Opera, Ars Lyrica, Moore’s School of Music, The Houston Grand Opera, The Shepherd School of Music, and Mercury Chamber Orchestra. Film/TV: Music Video: Hannah Herrera Fall Apart; Feature Film: Be Not Afraid; Web Series: Penny Power, ZomBFF (promo shoot). Education: M.F.A., Utah State University, Theatre Design. www.macylyne.com

James V. Thomas (Set Design) James V. Thomas is a product of Prairie View A & M University where he studied theatre technology. He is the technical director of the Fine Arts Department at Houston Community College Central Campus. He has a 30-year history with The Ensemble Theatre as a scenic designer and has been the resident designer and technical consultant for over seventeen years. At The Ensemble, he has produced scenic design for seven world premieres and numerous regional premiers. He has won the Giorgee Awards for Best Set Design for The Wiz, Gem of the Ocean and Blues for an Alabama Sky and he received a BroadwayWorld nomination for Glengarry Glen Ross and a win for Josephine Tonight. James is one of a few designers that has designed all ten of the August Wilson American Cycle. In addition to his work at The Ensemble Theatre, his designs have been seen locally at Houston theatres such as Dirt Dog, Main Street Theatre, Express Theatre, Theatre under the Stars and Houston Grand Opera as well as at the Syracuse Stage in Syracuse, New York and the National Black Theatre Festival in Winston Salem, North Carolina. He has been a presenter with the National Institute of Theatre Technicians and has had two gallery shows of his work. His scenic art is seen in different places such as the television station Channel 11, an environmental space for enamel artist, Jan Harrel, and at various buildings and private homes. His designs were presented along with seven Houston scenic designers in the book, Ready Set Go, organized by the Architecture Center Houston (ArCH). And was collaborator and contributor for Struggles and Celebrations, a compendium of Black Theater in Texas.

Debs Ramser* (Production Stage Manager) Main Street Theater: Stagolee and the Funeral of a Dangerous Word (world premiere), Georgiana and Kitty, What the Constitution Means to Me, The Book of Will, Copenhagen, Silent Sky, Into the Woods, Arcadia, Homebody/Kabul, Chekhov in Yalta, Burn This, among many others; Alley Theatre: Baskerville, December (world premiere), The Janeiad (world premiere), Pictures From Home (replacement S.M.), The Servant of Two Masters (replacement S.M.), What-A-Christmas! (world premiere), various productions for Alley All New Festival 2018, 2019, 2020; Prague Shakespeare Company: King Lear, King John, Macbeth, Henry V, Richard III, As You Like It, Into the Woods, among others; multiple seasons with Theatre Under the Stars, Houston Shakespeare Festival, Stages Theatre, and Houston Gilbert & Sullivan Society; additional productions at A.D. Players, Queensbury Theatre, 4th Wall Theatre, Classical Theatre Company, Skylight Music Theatre (Milwaukee), Opera Vista, Houston Grand Opera, Houston Ballet; numerous concerts and benefits. Education: B.A., Rice University. Proud member of Equity since 1996.

Rebecca Greene Udden (Executive Artistic Director) Main Street Theater: (Director) The Year of Magical Thinking, Mother of the Maid, Darwin in Malibu, Elliot, a Soldier’s Fugue, The Hard Problem, The Book of Will, Hecuba and The Trojan Women, Troilus and Cressida, An Iliad and Twelfth Night with Prague Shakespeare Company (MST collaborations), Holes, Enemies, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies (First American Productions), Silent Sky, Peace in Our Time, Heartbreak House, The Real Thing (1986 & 2013), The Coast of Utopia, The Year of Magical Thinking, The Heidi Chronicles (2010 & 1992), Arcadia (2010 & 1996), The House of the Spirits (English-language premiere), Caroline, or Change, An Empty Plate in the Café du Grand Boeuf, The Rice (World Premiere), and many more; (Actor) Private Lives (2019), Memory House, Richard III (with Prague Shakespeare Company), The Last Night of Ballyhoo, Third, The Busy World Is Hushed, Somebody’s Sons, The Sisters Rosensweig, Hapgood, Hamlet, and more; (Costume Design) numerous productions; Prague Shakespeare Company: (Director) Twelfth Night. Catastrophic Theatre: Advisory Board. Wordsmyth Theater Company: Advisory Board. Member, American Leadership Forum Class XVI.

Actors’ Equity Association (AEA) was founded in 1913 as the first of the American actor unions. Equity’s mission is to advance, promote and foster the art of live theatre as an essential component of our society. Today, Equity represents more than 45,000 actors, singers, dancers and stage managers working in hundreds of theatres across the United States. Equity members are dedicated to working in the theatre as a profession, upholding the highest artistic standards. Equity negotiates wages and working conditions and provides a wide range of benefits including health and pension plans for its members. Through its agreement with Equity, this theatre has committed to the fair treatment of the actors and stage managers employed in this production. AEA is a member of the AFLCIO and is affiliated with FIA, an international organization of performing arts unions. For more information, visit www.actorsequity.org

*Appearing through an Agreement between this theatre, [Producer], and Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.