Cast of Fortinbras
JENNIFER CHANG (Director / Host) - Select directing credits include WHERE THE MOUNTAIN MEETS THE MOON by Min Kahng at South Coast Rep, HANNAH AND THE DREAD GAZEBO by Jiehae Park at The Fountain Theatre, VIETGONE by Qui Nguyen (LA Drama Critic’s Circle award for Direction) DEATH AND COCKROACHES by Eric Reyes Loo for Chalk Rep, ANIMALS OUT OF PAPER by Rajiv Joseph at East West Players (LA Times Critic’s Pick), EDITH CAN SHOOT THINGS AND HIT THEM for Artists at Play (GLAAD Media Award, Stage Scene LA Award Best Director, Ovation Award Nominated) and OUR AMERICAN STORY and RESIDENCE ELSEWHERE (commissioned for the 75th Anniversary of Executive Order 9066) at the Japanese American National Museum. She loves developing new plays and has done so with Ashland New Plays Festival, Center Theatre Group, Boston Court, The Geffen Playhouse, the Chance Theatre, Echo Theatre Company, Circle X Theatre Company, EST-LA, Chalk Rep, and East West Players. COVID affected projects included The TIME OF YOUR LIFE by William Saroyan at Antaeus Theatre Company. Other: 2020 APAFT Award Outstanding Direction, Alumnus Directors Lab West, Drama League NY Fellowship. She is currently on faculty at UCSD’s Department of Theatre and Dance as Head of Undergraduate Acting and is an inaugural member of the Drama League Director’s Council. She is a proud member of the Stage Directors and Choreographer’s Society (SDC), Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA), and Actor’s Equity Association (AEA). BFA NYU, MFA UCSD. More info: www.changinator.com
LIZ ELKINS NEWCOMER (Ophelia) is a Founding Company Member of CCS. Theatre credits include: Off-Broadway World Premiere of Sea of Tranquility (Atlantic Theater Company), The Deception (La Jolla Playhouse), LoveSick (59E59Theaters), and The Fox (George Frankel Theatre), as well as Pericles, Good Breeding, The Love of the Nightingale and Gum. Film/TV Credits include: SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture for Black Panther, Breaking News in Yuba County, Out of Blue, NCIS: New Orleans, Leverage, and Army Wives. She is a proud member of AEA and SAG-AFTRA. MFA: UCSD, BFA: NYU Tisch. Liz is also a Certified Enneagram Teacher and Coach.
DR. JOHN (RAY) PROCTOR (Polonius) is an Assistant Professor of Theatre at Tulane University, where he teaches Intermediate Acting, Advanced, African American Theatre History, and Theatre for Social Justice. He holds a BA in English from Webster University, an MFA in Acting from West Virginia University, and a Ph. D. in Theatre Research from the University of Wisconsin Madison. This past Summer played Colonel Brandon in the Reno Little Theatre’s production of Sense and Sensibility. He has also played Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet (Organic Theatre/Chicago), Peter in Lorraine Hansberry's Les Blancs (Madison Repertory Theatre), Shylock in The Merchant of Venice (Arizona Repertory Theatre), the title role of Othello in Othello (The Greenbriar), Here in New Orleans he has appeared on the Southern Rep stage in Airline Highway and Father Come Home from the Wars (Southern Rep). Dr. Proctor has also co-authored (with Ms. Olivia Dawson) the play - Out Loud, which opened at eta Creative Arts Foundation on Chicago's south side. That play received seven 2014 Black Theatre Alliance nominations for Best Play, Best New Script, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Ensemble. He is a featured contributor in the forthcoming essay collection Adaptations and Translations of Shakespeare: Race as Text, which will be published in November. Last February Dr. Proctor interviewed, Pulitzer prize winning playwright, Lynn Nottage, here at Tulane University. Also in November, Professor Proctor will direct The Colored Museum for the Storyville Theatre Collective, which will open at the Stella Jones Contemporary Gallery of African-American Art. This coming Spring he will direct A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Tulane University, Department of Theatre and Dance.
JASON BAYLE (Marcellus) - Originally from Chicago, Jason graduated from LSU’s MFA Actor Training Program in 2013 and continues to call Baton Rouge home. Film/TV Credits (Selected): Happy Death Day, Happy Death Day 2 U, The Big Short, Trumbo, NCIS New Orleans, Claws, Roots, The Purge, Cloak and Dagger. Theatre Credits (Selected): Scrooge: The Musical (Nat’l Tour), Anyone Can Whistle, King Lear, The Full Monty, A Free Man of Color, Once Upon a Mattress, August: Osage County, All the King’s Men, Pride and Prejudice, Forever Plaid. Proud to be AEA. jasonbayle.com.
MICHAEL A. NEWCOMER (Fortinbras) is a founding company member of CCS. He has been seen in over 35 productions across the country, performing at some of the country’s most renowned regional theatres. Proud #ParentArtist, 23 year member of Actors’ Equity Association, and #FairWageOnStage advocate. Michael is a graduate of Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania.
BRYAN DEMOND (Hamlet) is a Baton Rouge native and very excited to be a part of this cast. Some past credits include: Shakespeare in Something Rotten!, Avery in The Piano Lesson, Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors, and Papa Gè in Once on This Island. Some 2020 virtual reading/plays: Tragical Historie of Dracula as Sultan Mehmet, War of The Worlds , and A Picture for her Dresser.
BRIAN HOSTENSKE (Laertes) has his BFA from the University of Evansville and his MFA from UCSD. He was in the world premiere of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson at Center Theatre Group. Other Regional credits include; Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre DC, South Coast Repertory, La Jolla Playhouse, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, A Noise Within, and Artists at Play (Los Angeles Ovation and GLAAD Media Award Nominations). He has worked with the Tony Award-winning theatre company Theatre de la Juene Lune. Brian has also appeared in HBO's Room 104, as well as several commercials, independent films, and popular webisodes.
HILARY WARD (Horatio) - Television/Film: Station 19, OUTDated, Bull, Sharp Objects (Emmy nomination), All the Way (Emmy nomination), NCIS, The Fosters, Grey’s Anatomy, Modern Family, Other People, Like You Mean It. Hilary’s image and voice have been featured in over two dozen national commercials. Theatre: Ashland New Play Festival (Those Days are Over), South Coast Rep (Sense and Sensibility), Ojai Playwrights Conference (Ripe Frenzy), La Jolla Playhouse (Mother Courage), Classical Theatre of Harlem (Macbeth, King Lear, Medea). She serves on the Organizing Committee for SAG-AFTRA, of which she is a proud member. She is also a member of the Television Academy and Actors Equity Association. She serves as Co-Artistic Producing Director of the award-winning Chalk Rep, which she co-founded in 2008. She is the owner and CEO of Apian, Inc., specializing in audition preparation and career coaching for professional actors. MFA: University of California- San Diego.
JANA MESTECKY (Gertrude) is a Founding Company Member of Crescent City Stage. After two decades in New York City, Jana has found her a new home in New Orleans this past year. She has appeared with companies on stages across the country including the Astoria Symphonic Choir, The New Group, Cherry Lane Theatre, The Mint, The Gene Frankel Theatre, Lincoln Center Festival, Ernie Martin Studio Theatre, DR2. Playhouse on Park, Shakespeare and Co (Paris), The Players Club, Little Light Productions, and the Bleecker Street Theatre. She has also been a resident company member of The New Globe Theatre Inc., the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis’ Imaginary Theatre Company, and now Crescent City Stage. Her work extended beyond the stage to include television, film and commercial work nationally and internationally. In addition to her BA in French and Theatre, she holds an MFA in Acting from the Actors Studio Drama School at New School University and has studied at The American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, Théâtre des Cinquantes in Paris, France, and The Actors Studio in New York City. Her other passion is teaching where she has held positions as Chair of the Performing Arts at The Spence School (NYC) in addition to other appointments at St. John’s University, The Birch Wathen Lenox School, The Buckley School, and Le Petit Théâtre du Vieux Carré (New Orleans). She is a member of the professional unions AEA and SAG-AFTRA.
ELIZABETH DURING (English Ambassador / Polish Maiden) is a Caribbean-American actress from Harlem, New York. After being cast as part of a radio play in middle school, she discovered her ardor for acting. She then went on to star in several plays during her time at the Spence School in New York City, including: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: Abridged: Revised, Twelfth Night, Noises Off!, Top Girls, Macbeth and more. On behalf of the Spence School Performing Arts department, Elizabeth was the first student to be awarded the James Coleman scholarship and attended the summer intensive program at University of North Carolina School of the Arts. After graduating, she attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts during the summer session to study dramatic writing. Elizabeth is currently a student at Syracuse University, where she is completing a minor in Drama.
KIMIYE CORWIN (Osric) New York Theater: Red Bull Theater, National Asian American Theater Co./ NYTW, Ma-Yi Theater, La Mama, Ars Nova, Ripe Time, Joe’s Pub. Regional: Guthrie, Studio Theatre D.C., McCarter Theatre, Actors Theater of Louisville, Syracuse Stage, TheatreWorks Palo Alto, Hartford Stage, Two River Theater, Shakespeare Festival St. Louis. TV/Film: New Amsterdam, The Blacklist, The Family, The Following, The Michael J. Fox Show, One Life to Live, Five Dances (film by Alan Brown). Kimiye trained as a dancer at Juilliard and danced with the Jose Limon Dance Company for five years before expanding her career with acting. She also enjoys working as a teacher, choreographer and movement consultant for theater. Choreography credits include Dallas Theater Center, The Guthrie and Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She is adjunct professor at Stella Adler Studio/NYU and Brooklyn College.Training: BFA Juilliard (Dance), MFA Brown/Trinity (Acting). She currently lives in Connecticut with her husband and two daughters. www.kimiyecorwin.com
ABDUL-KHALIQ MURTADHA (Claudius) has enjoyed various classical and contemporary roles in regional and repertory theatres across the country and is delighted to be rejoining the Crescent City Stage ensemble. A few of his most recent acting roles include: Duke Vincentio in Measure for Measure at the Ensemble Theatre Company, (Santa Barbara),playing Claudius and the Ghost in Hamlet for the Indianapolis Shakespeare Company , Orsino in Twelfth Night at Pioneer Theatre Co.(Salt Lake City), Martin Luther King, Jr. in Mountaintop at WBTT (Sarasota) , James T in Barbecue at the Phoenix Theatre (Indianapolis), for Ensemble Theatre Co. (Santa Barbara), and Martin Luther King, Jr. in the LBJ plays - All the Way and The Great Society , as well as Dr. Prentice in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner at Asolo Rep (Sarasota). Some of his TV and Film credits include: NCIS-LA, All My Children, Raising the Bar, The Unit, Medium, Numb3rs, and the current streaming feature – 8989 Redstone. (Amazon). Awards include Best Actor - New Orleans Short film festival - In the Wind; NAACP Award: Best Ensemble - All My Sons (playing Chris Keller) at The Matrix Theatre in Los Angeles. He was recently the Featured Guest Artist for the Africana Repertory Theatre of IUPUI where he directed The People Speak/ Voices of the African Diaspora. He is an ensemble member of the Fonseca Theatre Company in Indianapolis, a member of the artistic ensemble at Crescent City Stage in New Orleans, and his interactive multimedia play The American Muslim Project was the resident umbrella project for the 2019 Indy Convergence. He is an active member of both the Actor’s Equity Association and SAGAFTRA.
DAIJAH GUILLERMO (Captain of Norwegian Army / Polish Maiden) - is a Latinx actress from Queens, New York studying theatre and psychology at Northwestern University. Prior to Northwestern, she studied at The Spence School where she performed in a number of productions including Men on Boats, Top Girls, Noises Off!, and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: Abridged: Revised. Upon receiving the James Coleman theatre scholarship award, she attended the University of North Carolina School of the Arts drama intensive where she studied devised theatre, vocal performance, and screen acting. While at UNCSA, she performed in Proof by David Auburn. Her recent credit at Northwestern includes The Displaced by Isaac Gomez.
BRAD MAKAROWSKI (Barnardo) is thrilled to be working again with Crescent City Stage. In New York, he's a Resident Company member of the TITAN Theatre Co. where he's been seen in: Richard III, King Lear, Hamlet, Love’s Labour’s Lost, and A Christmas Carol. Off Broadway: The Flea: Design Your Kitchen; Metropolitan Playhouse: Both Your Houses; Resonance Ensemble: R.U.R., Caesar and Cleopatra; Attic Theatre: The Time of Your Life, Moonchildren. Regional: Shakespeare Theatre Co., Asolo Rep, Palm Beach Dramaworks, People's Light, Depot Theatre. Film: Ask for Jane, The Heart Outright TV: Happy!, Redrum. MFA: FSU/Asolo Conservatory. Much Love to all during this pandemic. www.BradMakarowski.com