Pantomime

JACKSON

Michael C. Forest (Jackson) has made a big name for himself in the city of New Orleans as an actor in a very short period of time. After a very strong stage debut in 2019 as Walter Lee Younger in “A Raisin in the Sun” (Voices in the Dark/Ashe), The 2020 Big Easy Entertainment award winner (Best Actor), has held leading roles in multiple stage productions since his debut which include The Wedding Party, Le Code Noir, and Bestival. Other credits include local film roles such as Rosebud; Milk Man; None of Your Business (YouTube); The Chase; Lady T’s Betrayl (Amazon Prime); and A Frantic Love III. Michael has worked with some of the best directors and casts that New Orleans has to offer including the New Orleans Shakespeare Festival at Tulane University as Antipholus of Ephesus, a leading role in William Shakespeare’s “The Comedy of Errors.” As well as Tuskegee Airman fighter pilot, W. Willis in the JPAS production of “Fly” earlier this year.

HARRY

Michael A. Newcomer* (Harry Trewe) has appeared locally in A Christmas Carol (2018/19) and Freud’s Last Session at Le Petit Theatre, in Christmas at Pemberly with Southern Rep and in The Illusion at the New Orleans Shakespeare Festival. Additionally, Michael was curator of a staged reading series at the New Orleans Shakespeare festival, directing and performing in Othello, Titus Andronicus, and King Lear. As a proud member of Actor’s Equity Association for 24 years, Michael has performed in over 35 professional productions across the country, including favorites: Tom in Glass Menagerie (Virginia Stage), Christy in Playboy of the Western World (New Jersey Shakespeare and A Noise Within), Lelie in The Bungler (A Noise Within), Konstantin in The Seagull (Portland Center Stage), Macduff in Macbeth and Cassio in Othello (The Old Globe), Algernon in The Importance of Being Earnest (Dallas Theatre Center), and Morris in The Heiress (South Coast Rep). Michael’s T.V./Film credits include: Five Days at Memorial (now airing), I’m A Virgo, Walker, NCIS: New Orleans, Sacrifice, Claws, Preacher, Person of Interest, All My Children, Breaking News in Yuba County, A Thousand Cuts, A Father’s Revenge, Pants on Fire, In the Flesh, Harmony, Redemption, and Unforgivable. He can also be seen roaming the virtual world of Red Dead Redemption 2 and Grand Theft Auto V and has appeared in national campaigns for Volvo, Verizon FiOS, and Old El Paso. Michael is one of the co-founders of Crescent City Stage. And if all of that wasn’t enough, Michael is also a top-producing Realtor® with Reve, Realtors. With love to EEN, VXN & RMN.

DIRECTOR

Ray Proctor** (Director) - Dr. John “Ray” Proctor is an Assistant Professor of Theatre at Tulane University. He holds a Bachelor of Arts (English) from Webster University, a Master of Fine Arts (Acting) from West Virginia University, and a Ph. D. in Theatre Research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has been the dramaturg for The Public Theatre’s Mobile Unit’s Measure for Measure (2019), The St. Louis Black Rep The Jitney and The African Company Presents: Richard the Third (2022). For Tulane University he has directed Voir Dire (2017), She Kills Monsters, The Zoo Story, My Cup Ranneth Over, and Trouble in Mind. This past summer he directed Into the Woods for the Summer Lyric Music Theatre. During the pandemic he appeared in numerous Zoom readings and productions including The Importance of Being Earnest (with CCS), Out Loud, and Fortinbras (with CCS). As an actor Proctor has appeared in the Reno Little Theatre’s production of Sense and Sensibility (Colonel Brandon), with the Organic Theatre in Chicago in Romeo and Juliet (Mercutio), with the New Orleans Shakespeare Festival in The Tempest (Alonzo), with the Madison Repertory theatre in Lorraine Hansberry's Les Blancs (Peter), with the Arizona Repertory Theatre in The Merchant of Venice (Shylock),and with the Greenbriar Valley Theatre Company in the title role in Othello. In New Orleans he has appeared on the Southern Rep stage in Airline Highway and Father Comes Home from the Wars. He has given public lectures about the intersection of Race and Casting at New York University, Emory & Henry College, and with the Black Theatre Network. In March of 2023 he, along with Michael Kuczynski, were awarded a grant from The Folger’s Institute to host the symposium Race(ing) Shakespeare. He will be a featured essayist in the forthcoming collection Romeo and Juliet: Adaptation and the Arts and, in the spring of 2023, his writing will be included in the essay collection Black Perspectives on Performance.