Isolated Incidents
ABOUT
ISOLATED INCIDENTS follows five essential workers and their families as they grapple with anxiety and the need for honesty–and how race impacts every interaction and decision they make. The series shows that maybe all those isolated incidents aren’t so isolated after all. This series is both specific to 2020 and universal, looking at how a once-in-a-century public health crisis exposes the things that were always there. This majority-BIPOC majority-queer collective of writers capture stories that center the invisible front line – workers who are essential inside of the pandemic, and the lives they lead behind the job. The stories that don’t make the headlines but are just as important.
WAYS TO SUBSCRIBE
Directors
Jade King Carroll Seven Deadly Sins (Miami New Drama – Drama League Award); Proof of Love (Audible at Minetta Lane/audiobook); Detroit ’67 (McCarter Theatre co-production with Hartford Stage); Intimate Apparel, The Piano Lesson (McCarter Theatre); The Piano Lesson (Hartford Stage); Having Our Say (Hartford Stage co-production with Long Wharf Theatre); Autumn’s Harvest (Lincoln Center Institute); A Trouble in Mind (Two River Theater & Playmaker’s Rep); Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, The Whipping Man, Native Gardens, Skeleton Crew, Bad Dates (Portland Stage); The Revolutionists, Sunset Baby (City Theatre); A Raisin In The Sun (Juilliard & Perseverance); The Tempest (Chatauqua Theater Company); Seven Guitars, The Persians (People’s Light and Theatre); King Hedley II (Portland Playhouse); Cardboard Piano (Juilliard) Laughing Wild, Redeemed (Dorset Theatre Festival).
Nicole A. Watson is the Associate Artistic Director at the McCarter Theatre Center. Prior to this appointment, she was the Associate Artistic Director at Round House Theatre. On behalf of both theaters, she created the Adrienne Kennedy Festival. While at Round House, she launched Round House’s Relaxed Performance Initiative, directed A Doll’s House Part 2 and School Girls; or, The African Mean Girls Play (Helen Hayes winner Best Ensemble, and Best Supporting Artist). She was also the directing mentor to the Teen Ensemble Company. In addition to her work as an arts leader, Nicole continues to work as a freelance director and educator. A former history teacher, Nicole started directing in 2008 and has worked at theaters and universities across the country. She has worked with New Dramatists, the Lark Play Development Center, the Fire this Time Festival, the New Black Fest, the Women’s Project Theater, The 52nd Street Project, Signature Theater, Geva Theater Center, A.C.T., Asolo Rep, Washington National Opera, Theater Latte Da, The Playwrights Center, The Kennedy Center, The Contemporary American Theater Festival, Working Theater, Smith College, NCSA, NYU, and LIU. She is a New Georges Affiliated Artist and an alum of the Drama League, the Lincoln Center Directors Lab and the Women’s Project Directors Lab and a member of the SDC. BA: History, Yale. MA: NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study. http://www.nicoleawatson.com/
Playwrights
Pascale Florestal is a Director, Educator, Dramaturg, Writer and Collaborator based in Boston, MA. Directing Credits; Seven Devils, SpeakEasy Stage, Opera Del West, NorthEastern University, Huntington Theater Company, and others. New Play development; R. Eric Thomas, Obehi Janice, Phaedra Michelle Scott, and others. As an Assistant to the Director she has worked with Kimberly Senior, Liesl Tommy, Billy Porter, Paul Daigneault and M. Bevin O’Gara. Recent dramaturgy for Christina Anderson’s play The Resurrection of Michelle Morgan with Geva Theater. She is the Education Director for The Front Porch Arts Collective and is an Assistant Professor of Theater at Boston Conservatory.
Nicholas Kaidoo is a Brooklyn-based playwright. Plays include Fall the House, Severance, Sycamore, and an untitled Great Gatsby adaptation. He has worked with and learned from the Atlantic Theater Company, the Movement Theatre Company, The Civilians, Pipeline Theatre Company, and the Playwrights’ Center. He is the inaugural recipient of the Jim Anderson Outlaw Playwright Award, a finalist for the Keene Prize for Literature and has been recognized for distinguished achievement by the Kennedy Center (for: the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, the Rosa Parks Playwriting Award, and the Mark Twain Prize for Comic Playwriting). MFA: University of Texas at Austin.
Laura Neill developed her play Winter People at the 2019 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. She is currently writing the site-specific play Public Property with the support of a ScriptWorks Groundwork Grant and the Pease Park Conservancy. Past commissions include Just Cause (SpeakEasy Stage Company) and DIVAS (OperaHub). Other previous productions include Skin and Bones, workshopped with the Wilbury Theatre Group, and Don’t Give Up the Ship, premiered by Fresh Ink Theatre. Laura was an affiliate of the Company One PlayLab, and she was the WomenWorks playwright-in-residence at the University of Tulsa. She co-edited the New England New Play Anthology for StageSource. Laura has taught courses on creative writing and theatre at universities across the country. MFA: Boston University. Representation: Katie Gamelli at A3 Artists Agency. Learn more at http://laurajneill.wixsite.com/plays.
Jaymes Sanchez is a Texan playwright, actor, director, and educator. Jaymes’s plays have been developed with The Lark, Company One, Teatro Vivo, San Diego REP, and Artists’ Theatre of Boston. His play THE CUCUY WILL FIND YOU received the 2020 Keene Prize for Literature, and his short play S.W.A.T. was the second-place winner of Playing on Air’s James Stevenson Prize. Jaymes has been a finalist for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, SPACE on Ryder Farm, the Latinx Theatre Commons Carnaval and the Kitchen Dog Theater New Works Festival. Jaymes is pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Playwriting at the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin.
Hayley Spivey is a screenwriter, playwright, and dramaturg with a B.F.A from Boston University. She began her career in dramaturgy while working for Company One Theatre shortly after graduation. Hayley then worked as a freelance Dramaturg in Boston for six years, where she found a passion for new work development. Hayley’s greatest love is encouraging nervous, green writers to write fearlessly and to stop waiting for permission. Hayley’s latest full-length play, The Birch Prep Five, was honored as a 2020 Semi-Finalist for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference.
Creatives
Pearl Hodiwala is a Producer from Sydney, Australia with a background in creative development, fundraising, licensing and theatre management. Pearl has worked at some of the preeminent theaters in the world including Belvoir Street Theatre, The Public Theater, and Disney Theatrical Group. Managing Director of Kaimera Productions (www.kaimeraproductions.com). Masters of Arts Administration from Columbia University. Member of the WP Theatre’s Producers Lab 2014-2016.
Twi McCallum is a sound designer living in NYC, by-way of Baltimore, MD. Her favorite theatrical credits include Kansas City Rep, The Kennedy Center, The Public Theater, Baltimore Center Stage, and her Broadway debut with Chicken & Biscuits at Circle in the Square Theatre in fall 2021. She hopes to focus her career on musicals, new plays, and anything in the genres of children’s stories and horror stories. Her cinema/digital credits include sound design and/or dialogue editing for STARZ, NBCUniversal, Audible, Penguin Publishing, and Marvel. Most importantly, she is a former student of Howard University’s theatre department and a graduate of Yale School of Drama’s one-year sound program. When not working, she loves taking care of her pet snails, studying American Sign Language, and binge watching reality television
Brian Quijada is an actor, playwright, and composer who’s original work has been developed and produced all across the country. His hip hop solo show Where Did We Sit on the Bus? has been produced at Victory Gardens, Teatro Vista (Jeff Award), Ensemble Studio Theatre (Drama Desk Nomination), 1st Stage, City Theatre Pittsburgh, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and Geva Theatre. He has composed plays that have been developed/produced at The Kennedy Center, Pittsburgh CLO’s Spark Festival, Victory Gardens’ Ignition Festival, New Stage and Film’s Powerhouse Festival, and The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Musical Conference.
Marvin Quijada (a.k.a. Silent Marvin) is a Chicago based electronic music producer/ composer, DJ, theatrical actor, and an award winning Clown/ Mime. His most recent music composition credit is “Kid Prince & Pablo” which was performed at The Kennedy Center. Other recent performer credits in Chicago include: “La Havana Madrid“ (Teatro Vista), and the silent play “The Dueling Gentlemen” (Silent Theatre Company) which he wrote and directed. You can catch him in Teatro Vista’s production of “The Dream King”, which is the newest silent play penned by Mr. Quijada. www.silentmarvin.com
Episodes
#1 – Mediation
#2 – Nightmare Next Door
#3 – Neither Nor
#4 – In Public
#5 – Monster in the Pandemic
#6 – The Package
Bonus – Behind the Scenes: Meet the Writers of Isolated Incidents
Regine Vital (she/her/hers) is a theatre artist, administrator, educator, scholar, and storyteller from Somerville, MA. She has worked with several Boston area theatre companies, including Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, ArtsEmerson, Company One, and Central Square. She has taught composition and introductory literature at the college level; text and performance to high schoolers; and continuing adult education classes in literature. Currently, Regine is Manager of Curriculum and Instruction at the Huntington Theatre Company. Regine holds degrees from Boston University, UMass Boston, and studied Shakespeare at King’s College, London and Shakespeare’s Globe.
Ronald Peet’s film projects include The Meyerowitz Stories, opposite Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson; Paul Schrader’s First Reformed; Nevada, 2018 Sundance Official Selection; and The Land of the Owls. Television credits include “The I-Land” (series regular), “Dicktown” (Season 1 and upcoming Season 2,) “The Good Fight,” “Tommy,” “The Looming Tower,” “Bull, “ “Blindspot,” and “Girls.” New York Stage appearances includes DADDY, (New Group/Vineyard Theatre); Play On Shakespeare (Classic Stage/Utah Shakespeare Festival); Spill (Ensemble Studio Theatre); Cute Activist (Bushwick Starr); Kentucky (Ensemble Studio Theatre /Page 73); Icarus in the LES (Joe’s Pub); The World My Mama Raised (Clubbed Thumb); Debutante (Ars Nova) and regionally The Last…(Williamstown Theater Festival), The Lion In Winter (Two River Theater); peerless (Barrington Stage); The Golem Of Havana (Barrington Stage/Miami New Drama), and 15 productions with the American Shakespeare Center. An accomplished singer, Ronald recently performed in Lincoln Center’s Bernstein’s MASS and Karehouse at Joe’s Pub. Graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts and Emory University Alumnus.
Blair Baker is a queer, gender non-conforming actor, director, and writer interested in the intersection between storytelling, feminism and LGBTQ voices. Some favorite stage credits include: Stephen Karam’s Tony-winning play The Humans (Broadway, Roundabout Theatre Company), The First National Tour and New World Stages production of The Play that Goes Wrong, Oleanna(Broadway, Mark Taper Forum, Bristol Riverside Theater), title role in Hvmlet (SheNYC), and The Soap Myth (opposite Ed Asner). Blair is the Co-Artistic Director of Missing Bolts Productions, http://www.missingbolts.com and has created activist-minded projects including After Orlando an international response to the shooting at Pulse Night Club. www.blairbaker.info
Rachel Cognata’s recent credits include: Echoes (Dream Boston Series, Huntington Theatre), Gloria: A Life (American Repertory Theatre), Hype Man (2018 Elliot Norton Award winner) Greater Good, and Really (Company One Theatre); Cardboard Piano (New Repertory Theatre); The Book Club Play (Boston Playwrights Theatre). A graduate of both the Boston Arts Academy and Tufts University, Rachel is from and resides in the Boston area.
Sarah Herrman is an actress, comedian and recent graduate of Syracuse University, where she received the Jerry Gershman Award for an Outstanding Comedic Actor. Select Credits include staged readings of James Shirley’s The Traitor as part of Red Bull Theater’s Revelation Reading Series, and Winter People by Laura Neill as part of the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference. Stand-up venues she’s performed at include Gotham Comedy Club, the Comedy Cellar, Broadway Comedy Club. Her horror comedy short ‘REMOTE’ is currently in pre-production.
Naomi Lorrain is a Harlem based actor/playwright. She is an AUDELCO Awards nominee and a NY Innovative Theatre Awards nominee for Best Lead Actress for Behind the Sheet and Entangled, respectively. Her play how to roll a blunt is a 2021 Finalist at the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. Theater: Mark it Down (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Behind the Sheet (Ensemble Studio Theatre), What To Send Up When It Goes Down (The Movement Theatre Company), Entangled (The Amoralist). TV: “Orange is the New Black” (Netflix), “Elementary” (CBS), “The Good Fight” (CBS All Access), “Madam Secretary” (CBS). NYU: MFA; Yale: B.A. www.naomilorrain.com
Kadahj Bennett Bio: Broadway Podcast Network; Debut. Regional: Hype Man: Film, A.R.T; Watertown Historical Moving Plays: The Charles W. Lenox Experience, New Rep; Pass Over, SpeakEasy Stage; Dream Boston, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Huntington Theatre Company; This Place Displaced, Artists’ Theater of Boston; Hype Man, Peerless, The T Party, An Octoroon, Dry Land, How We Got On, Company One; Akeelah and the Bee, Wheelock Family Theatre. Web Series: The Halls, Beyond Measure Productions. Music: Music Director: Company One, Front Porch Arts Collective; Dancelujah (Writer/Lyricist/Vocalist), Zumix (Songwriting and Performance Manage). Luminary Artist, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Education: Hamilton College, Boston Arts Academy.
Brian McManamon is best known for his portrayal of the shape-shifting DC Comics villain Clayface on the FOX TV show Gotham. Other TV: Succession, Gossip Girl. His film work includes The Subject starring Aunjanue Ellis and Jason Biggs, Seeking: Jack Tripper, Hide the Sausage, and I am a Big Ball of Sadness… On stage, Brian has performed at Yale Rep, Mabou Mines, Burning Coal Theater, Abingdon Theatre, Capital Rep, New Repertory Theater, Ensemble Studio Theater, P.S. 122 and Target Margin among others. MFA, Yale School of Drama.
Angus O’Brien is an NYU Tisch Alumnus and is over the moon to be collaborating with so many talented artists. After a year where much of industry has taken a long pause, he is inspired to be connecting with such amazing cast mates who are just as eager to get back to creating thoughtful, compelling work. Angus would like to thank everyone who has supported him thus far. His work can be seen on Hightown (Starz), The Path (Hulu), and The Blacklist (NBC).
Nancy Robinette most recently worked at the Actor’s Theatre of Louisville in the premiere production of Nicole Clark Is Having A Baby. She has worked in the DC area most of her career, as an early company member of Woolly Mammoth, and as an Associate Artist at Arena Stage and Shakespeare Theatre, where she also teaches. She has worked regionally at the Papermill Playhouse, The Everyman Theatre, the McCarter Theatre, the Globe, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and In New York at the New York Theatre Workshop, the Roundabout, and in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime on Broadway. Film and TV credits include Serial Mom, The Three Christs, Soldier Jack, Homicide and Louie. She received the Helen Hayes lifetime tribute in 2019.
Jen Ponton (she/her) Actor/Podcast Host/Activist, Most known as the fiercely feminist fat activist ‘Rubi’ on AMC’s critical darling DIETLAND, Jen is an award-winning actress and body liberation activist. With a television resume that includes 30 ROCK, UNBREAKABLE KIMMY SCHMIDT, ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK, LAW AND ORDER: SVU, THE BLACKLIST, and BLUE BLOODS, she also starred in the late Ash Christian’s body-positive romantic comedy, LOVE ON THE RUN. In 2020, she delivered the TEDx Talk “Hollywood’s Fatphobia Problem.” She also hosts ALL THE FUCKS, a storytelling podcast about caring too much. Socials: @jenponton (Twitter, IG), www.jenponton.com
Robert Jimenez: One of Robert’s favorite Broadway experiences was originating the role of Martinez in Richard Greenberg’s Tony Award winning play, Take Me Out, directed by Joe Mantello. It was a unique opportunity to perform with a show from The Donmar Warehouse in London’s West End to The Public Theater in NYC, and then to the Walter Kerr on Broadway. Robert took part in the inaugural Pride Plays, playing Jose Maria In Mariquitas by Eduardo Machado (Rattlestick Theater). One of his most challenging and rewarding roles was playing a neurodivergent adult in The Field Trip by Chip Bolcik (Cherry Lane Theater).
Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr. is an award-winning actor, producer, director and playwright. He is Artistic Director for HartBeat Ensemble in Hartford, CT. Godfrey co-founded Civic Ensemble, a regional theatre in Ithaca NY, and was Producing Artist for Off-Broadway’s Epic Theatre Ensemble for four years. As an actor, performances Off-Broadway and Regionally include Fast Blood, My Children, My Africa (Civic), Macbeth, The Winning Side, A Mre Perfect Union, A Hard Heart (Epic); The Old Settler (Primary Stages, Audelco Award), and Betty’s Summer Vacation (Playwrights Horizons) among many others. Also at Epic, Godfrey co-wrote and starred in the Off-Broadway documentary play about the election of President Barack Obama, Dispatches From (A)mended America. Godfrey is a 2012 TCG/Fox Fellow and a lifetime member of Ensemble Studio Theatre.
Lipica Shah (she/her) is an NYC-based actor, voice actor, and singer who thrives on collaboration, with a passion for new play development. She has originated roles at Manhattan Theatre Club, Mixed Blood Theatre Company, American Conservatory Theater, California Shakespeare Theater, and The New Group, among others. Her screen work includes roles on television shows for ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, USA, HBO, Showtime, and Comedy Central. Hear her in the English dubs of Pokémon, A Silent Voice, Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin, Great Pretender, and more. In her spare time, she enjoys solving crosswords in pen, lighting one-match campfires, and running for inordinate amounts of time outdoors. Lipica co-founded 1497 (an initiative to support and uplift talent of South Asian descent and challenge their underrepresentation in the American film and television industry), is a co-host for “The Collective Perspective: Reclaiming and Reshaping Theater” podcast, and serves as a National Volunteer Partner for Girl Scouts of the USA. www.LipicaShah.com
Danaya Esperanza: OFF-BROADWAY: Working Theater: Missing Them. National Black Theatre: Bayano (Yemaya). The Public Theatre: for colored girls . . . (lady in orange), Tempest Mobile Unit (Ariel), Twelfth Night Mobile Unit (Viola). CSC/OSF: Play On! Shakespeare (Various). Esperance: Breitwisch Farm (Zainabu); New York Theatre Workshop [NYTW]: Mary Jane (Amelia/Kat), Othello (Emilia u/s). Playwrights Horizons/Clubbed Thumb: Men on Boats (Seneca Howland/The Bishop). Soho Rep: Washeteria (Lucy/Consuela). Signature Theatre: Our Lady of Kibeho (Schoolgirl). REGIONAL: Geva Theatre Radio: The Bleeding Class (Sugar). Milwaukee Rep Zoom: Mother’s Tongue (Instructor). Acting Company Zoom: Letters From Cuba (Fran). ATC Zoom: Alma (Alma). Denver Center [DCPA]: Alma (Alma). New York Stage and Film-Powerhouse [NYSF]: Annie Salem . . . (Gaby/77ilith). Seattle Rep: Joe Turner Vino y Se Fue (Molly Cunningham). Shakespeare Theatre Company: Romeo and Juliet. McCarter Theatre: Protect the Beautiful Place (Symphony); The Goodman Theatre: Another Word for Beauty (Luzmery). FILM: After Party. TELEVISION: The Blacklist, Elementary. TRAINING: The Juilliard School (Raúl Juliá Memorial Scholarship in Drama).
Helen Cespedes (She/Her) Broadway: The Cripple of Inishmaan. Off-Broadway: Fefu and Her Friends and Timon of Athens (TFANA), Paul Swan is Dead and Gone (Civilians), The School For Scandal (Red Bull), A Picture of Autumn (The Mint). Regional credits include Doug McGrath’s world premiere adaptation of The Age of Innocence directed by Doug Hughes (McCarter/Hartford), Taking Steps (Barrington Stage Co.), The Women of Padilla (Two River), the world premiere of José Rivera’s Another Word for Beauty (Goodman Theatre and NYSF), The Importance of Being Earnest (Williamstown and The Old Globe). Film/TV: The Way I Remember It, The Knick. Helen trained at The Juilliard School where she received the John Houseman Prize.