MEET THE MAKERS
CAST
BIANCA LEIGH* (Jocasta) is an actress, singer, writer and educator. Miss Leigh originated the role of Louise in the critically acclaimed play Oh, Mary! at the Lyceum Theatre. Other acting roles include Waxy Bush in MTC's The Nap (Understudy/performed), Franny Halcyon in Tales of the City the Musical:the Concert at the Music Box, Time/Wind in Taylor Mac's theatre epic The Lily's Revenge at Here Arts Center, Tatiana in Paul Lucas' award-winning verbatim piece Trans Scripts at ART, and Beatrice in Christina Anderson's Man In Love at Kansas City Rep. Bianca also appeared as Mary Ellen in the groundbreaking film Transamerica and as Dr. Rachel Sandow on Law & Order: SVU. Bianca wrote and performed her solo musical Busted, about the challenges and dangers facing a young Trans woman in pre-Disney New York, at the Laurie Beechman Theatre. Her play, MBJrT, was part of the Monday Night Playwright Series at Kansas City Rep in 2018. She is featured in Laverne Cox's documentary Disclosure, an exploration of Trans representation in motion pictures and on television and can be heard on the Audible recording of Shakina Nayfack's Chonburi International Hotel and Butterfly Club.
ALESSANDRA MARI LOPEZ (Antigone) is a newly graduated actor from NYU Tisch School of Drama. She studied in the Stella Adler Acting Studio, where she played Rosse from Macbeth and Gin in the premiere production of Down in the Holler. She then spent her final year at the Classical Studio, where she doubled the roles of Hermione and Perdita in The Winter's Tale. After graduation, she played Horatio in The Circle Theater Festival's production of Princess Hamlet, and has been doing film work and barista-ing since then. She is so excited to be returning to the stage for the first time in over a year and reprising the role of Antigone for the first time since high school! Yay!
SIMON HENRIQUES (Kierkegaard/Ismene) is an actor, writer, and co-artistic director of the theatre company Nightdrive, with which he has co-written and performed in an apocalypse around a campfire (The Grown-Ups, published by Concord Theatricals), a participatory focus group (Society, Relentless Award semifinalist), and a motivational speech about how terrifying it is to change yourself (Make Me). Other recent performance credits include Out of Order (NYT Best of 2025) and On a String (Tribeca Festival). He is a resident actor at the Mercury Store, a new play development lab. simonhenriques.com
MICK HILGERS* (Hegel/Guard), an actor, voice actor, and playwright, is delighted to be a part of another Peculiar Works Project, and to be back at La Mama ETC, where his work includes Tom Murrin's Son of Cock-Strong (with Peculiar Works), and all three (and counting!) installments of Ric Sheinmel's Modern Living series. Other Theater includes: The Courtroom (Off-Broadway, Waterwell Theater), Tiny Beautiful Things at Mile Square Theatre in Hoboken, NJ, and projects at Joe's Pub, Luna Stage, Forager Theatre Company, the Frigid Festival, AMT Theater, the Utah Shakespearean Festival, Northern Stage, Mill Mountain Theater. Selected TV, Film, and Audio: the Emmy-Nominated The Accidental Wolf (Chalant Productions, Topic), The Courtroom (Waterwell Films, premiered at the Tribeca Festival), Everwood (WB Network), The Mel & El Show (ClearMetrics), Jesse Feldberg's feature, My Love of New York (currently in production), and assorted voice work. Mick's work as a playwright includes Midnight Baseball at Mile Square Theatre's Seventh Inning Stretch Festival, Debunked at the Actors' Theatre of Santa Cruz 8 Tens at 8 festival, and a 2025 Finalist Award from the New Jersey State Arts Council Fellowship program. MFA in Acting from the University of Illinois. Proud member AEA, Dramatists Guild. www.mickhilgers.com
FREJA HØJLAND HØJ (Vocalist), MM Royal Danish Academy of Music / Eastman School of Music, is a soprano, performer, and improviser from Denmark. Described as a "gorgeous soaring soprano'”' in the German Magazine OPER!, Freja seeks interdisciplinary collaboration and explores the intersection between classical singing, theater-making, performance, improvisation, and electronics. Her operatic appearances include Una Novizia in Puccini's Suor Angelica (Copenhagen Opera Festival), Proserpina in Monteverdi's L'Orfeo at Den Fynske Opera (recomposed by We Like We), Euridice in L. Rossi's L'Orfeo (Eastman Collegium Musicum), and Susanna in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro. Other projects include the world premiere of Matias Vestergård's song cycle KRISER, Female Voice 1 in Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians, the Soprano in a staged production of Handel's Messiah at Copenhagen 2021 WorldPride, the Danish Radio Broadcast of Earl Kim's Where Grief Slumbers, and the world premiere of Faun Vium and Amanda Drew's Queen Annabell. Additional appearances include Theatre S/H, O-days Festival, Festival & Friends, and The Stone (NYC). Freja has been awarded the 2024 Birkhave Honorary Prize and Else Frederiksen Prize from the Danish Acting Society.
SAMANTHA KOCHIS (Flute, she/they) is a flutist, educator, and composer dedicated to the endless expansion of experimental performance. Her “fearless” (NYCJR) works are grounded in a foundation of hope, with her sound described as “tender and flourishing” (NYCJR). Based in Brooklyn, NY, Samantha draws from the tradition of free improvisation and avant-garde jazz to engage in sonic conversations with listeners and collaborators alike. In 2025, they were selected as a Music Fellow for the Art Omi Artist Residency program. Samantha is the co-founder of “Phonotonic”, an artist collective dedicated to building community among experimental and improvising artists who share the experience of gender-based oppression. A musician dedicated to multidisciplinary performance, she has recorded and performed works at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and The Mattress Factory. Samantha has collaborated with artists such as James Newton, Joel Ross, Craig Taborn, Luke Stewart, gabby fluke-mogul, and Laura Cocks. Samantha holds a BM in K-12 Music Education from Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania and a MM in Flute Performance and Composition from The New School.
SAMMY RIVAS (Lacan/Haemon, he/him) B.F.A. Drama NYU Tisch; co-founder/associate artistic director of The Fool Volk experimental theatre collective, company member of the Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theater, Teatro SEA, International WOW Company, and Bated Breath Theatre Company; co-founder Rivasorio Puppets Company and Fish Paul Productions; Recent Theatre Credits: Dirty Books (Bated Breath Theater), The Pocket Park Kids (Off-Broadway, Theatre Row), Fowl Play (La MaMa), The Edge of Nature (La MaMa), Roommates (Hudson Guild - Best Actor Nominee), Good Soldier Svejk (TNC), and Pete/Pianist in the Spirits' Speakeasy at Sincerely, Ophelia. Writer/Director: Gutter Soup (2026), Strange Key (2025); Producer: The Monks of Lorisidia (2024). sammyrivas.com
LINNEA SCOTT (Butler/Artemis) is a New York based actor, theatre maker, and drag performer who is originally from Denver, CO. They are in the practice of making art that heals. They are also in the practice of making art that is stupid, funny, and exists to help build our collective stamina for joy. Their work has been presented at Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Lincoln Center: Education, Theater Row, EmergeNYC, The 24 Hour Plays Off-Broadway, Theaterlab, The Tank, Center for Performance Research, The Denver Fringe Festival, BAX, Queerly Festival, Switch n' Play, Dyke Drag, and House of Yes. Also, they really like to hug trees. Training: UNCSA. linneascott.com @linneascott @feral.thing
NOMI TICHMAN (Irigaray/Tiresias) has appeared in many other Peculiar works including Freedom's Last Stand, Floydada, Manna-hata, The Beggar's Opera, and It's Good Enough For Me. Other NYC appearances include the one woman show In Ithaca When Physics Saved My Life at Dixon Place, Modern Living and Orlando at La MaMa, and Come Clean with Jeff Weiss at PS 122. Nomi has also toured nationally and internationally in numerous productions including On The Town, Godspell and Babes in Toyland. In addition, Nomi works as a singing teacher and vocal coach in NYC (tichmantraining@gmail.com).
CREATIVE TEAM
BARBARA BARCLAY (Playwright) is a multi-disciplinary artist living in SoHo, NYC, since 1973. She made her career as a painter, sculptor, printmaker, and photographer before taking up playwriting. Following two decades of dramaturgical work with Peculiar Works Project, her first solo work, JOE & BUBBLE BOY, was performed in benefits at Coney Island USA and The Piano Store theater. Her first short play, LANGUAGE GAMES, was selected by NYC's Rogue Theater Festival in 2020. A film version was exhibited in AD ABSURDUM: THE POLITICS AND POETICS OF ABSURDITY 2020 and in the 2020 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The film has been selected for over a dozen film festivals and has received several awards, including Women Empowerment Award and Women Awareness Award (Rome Women Festival), Best Short Script (4th Dimension Independent Film Festival, Ubud, Bali), Best Women Empowerment Film (New Wave Short Film Festival, Munich), and Best Women Short (Rotterdam Indie Film Festival). Her short plays INTUITIVE LEAP and ANIMAL MAGNETISM followed, creating THE HARE TRILOGY, and were also filmed. She added intermezzo scenes for live actors in between the three films for week-long runs at both Wild Project and Frankel Theater. ANTIGONE IN ANALYSIS was commissioned by La MaMa for a December 2024 staged reading. It received a 2025 Puffin Foundation grant and a NYSCA individual artist grant and will premiere at La MaMa in March 2026.
RALPH LEWIS (Director) is a producer, director, writer, and actor who creates multi-disciplinary performances as a co-director of Peculiar Works Project. Post-Pandemic: Antigone in Analysis (La MaMa @ Great Jones); The Great Climate Change (Howl! Happening); In Memoriam: Astor Place Riots (Under St. Marks); The Hare Trilogy (Wild Project, Frankel Theater); Good Jew (Museum of Jewish Heritage); Birth of Broadway (BroadwayCon, Hudson Yards Coterie); and Railroad Christmas (Episcopal Actors' Guild). Pandemic work includes: Smile Like A Knife (Ego Actus Theatre); Astor Place Riots (NY Adventure Club); and 3 short films: Language Games (Edinburgh Festival Fringe online), Intuitive Leap (Irondale's On Women Festival), and Animal Magnetism (Anthology Film Archives). Pre-Pandemic: AFTERPARTY (222 Bowery); Two Jane Jacobs (Cherry Lane Theater); Planet X (Black Mountain College, NC); 3 Robert Heide Plays (Howl! Happening); 2 Climate Change Theater Actions (Artichoke Arts); and America's first play, Androboros (Fraunces Tavern Museum; Overthrow Boxing Ring), among others.
ALANA AMRAM (Composer) is a multidisciplinary artist, sound designer, and multi-instrumentalist who has been performing and recording for over two decades. She tours and collaborates with a wide range of artists including Hunx & His Punx, Habibi, Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek, Vanishing Twin and The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black. As a solo artist with her band The Rough Gems and through her family's musical projects, Alana has created an expansive body of work across music, film, and performance. Her compositions and sound designs have been featured in numerous films, reflecting her distinctive voice and commitment to storytelling through sound and art.
RACHEL COHEN (Choreographer) has made and performed interdisciplinary work in New York City for 30 years, in the orbits of seminal creative communities: Mary Anthony Dance Theater, Galapagos Art Space, Cave, Norte Maar, The Construction Company, ChaShaMa, Triskelion Arts, and Ruth Zaporah's Action Theater improvisation. In 2003, she founded performance company Racoco Productions. The New York Times' John Rockwell listed If the Shoe Fits, Rachel's collaboration with composer Chris Becker and visual artist Olek, among NYC's dance highlights of 2005. Rachel has been Harvard's Clifton Visiting Artist, a Field Dance Fund Fellowship awardee, and a Women in Motion commissioned artist. She has developed projects for diverse audiences and environments, in NYC including Symphony Space, World Financial Center, Incubator Art Space, Creedmore Psychiatric Center, Slipper Room, and Socrates Sculpture Park, and in New Mexico, Maryland, France, England, Czechia, Poland, India, and Vietnam.
MEG DOWLING* (Production Stage Manager) is a NYC-based stage manager, theater maker, and arts & crafts enthusiast originally from Philadelphia. With over 15 years of experience, her work spans traditional theater, award shows, site-specific work, outdoor performances, immersive Shakespeare (sometimes with a drink in hand), and a long-running theatrical experience aboard a talking tour bus winding through the streets of New York City. Most recently she was the Production Stage Manager for the world premiere of the new musical Falling Out at Under St. Mark’s. She is passionate about creative problem solving and the collaborative process that helps create the conditions for artists to do their best work. All her love to her family and friends, whose support never misses a cue. And of course: Go Birds.
GRACE MARTIN (Costumes) most recently designed costumes for Peculiar Works Project's Freedom's Last Stand at Target Margin's Doxsee Theater as well as two workshops of the play at The Tank Attic and Arts on Site, and has collaborated on many other PWP projects, including Floydada in the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, Monuments, a revival off Caffe Cino's last show, performed on Cornelia Street, and Afterparty: The Rothko Studio in the loft of the landmark Bowery building where he once painted. After studying costume design at Temple University, she became a member of IATSE local 764. When she's not working with PWP, she is working as a costumer for film/TV. Her favorite credits include: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, At Home with Amy Sedaris, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, The Life List, and The Equalizer.
DAVID CASTANEDA (Lighting Designer) has shed light on at least 500 productions including numerous peculiar projects over decades of association with the creative partners of PWP. Such works include Manna-Hatta, Floydada, Androboros, AfterParty, Can You Hear Their Voices?, The Hare Trilogy, Before I Wake and multiple developments of Freedom's Last Stand. Bright moments in NYC include Broadway Irena's Vow (Tovah Feldshuh), Directors Company Murder in the First (Chad Kimball), Helen Hayes Marvin's Room (T.R. Knight), Abingdon Theatre, NY Fringe Festival. Regional illuminations include Albany/Berkshire Ballet (MA), Broadway Rose (OR), Virginia Stage Co (VA), Round Barn Theatre (IN), ArtisTree (VT), Next Stage (MS), Temple Theatre (NC), Ocala Civic (FL), Hofstra University (NY), Theatre Winter Haven (FL), Cape Fear Regional Theatre (NC), Merrimack Rep (MA), Carousel Dinner Theatre (OH), Millbrook Playhouse (PA) and many musicales 'de Misi' in Bogota, Colombia. David radiates from University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
EVAN FRANK (Sets) is an award-winning New York-based scenic and video designer. Recent scenic designs include Wounded at Soho Playhouse, The Weir at Centenary Stage and Street Theater with TOSOS where he is the resident scenic designer. Recent video designs include Diva Therapy and Meltdown at Theatre for the New City, and Cinderella at Ocala Civic Theatre. Upcoming work includes Twelfth Night with Oak Park Festival Theatre and Romeo and Juliet with Catskill Mountain Shakespeare. MFA-CMU, efrankdesign.com.
HARRISON ADAMS (Sound Designer) is an audio engineer, pianist, composer, and sound designer based in New York. He has worked with Peculiar Works as a sound designer on multiple projects including Freedom's Last Stand, Floydada, and the Hare Trilogy. His theatrical sound designs have appeared at the House Theater of Chicago (Twice Nominated, Equity Jeff Award for Sound Design), Horse Trade Theater Group, Workshop Theatre, La MaMa, Theater for the New City, Columbia Stages, and others. As a musician, he organizes a series called Environs, now on its twelfth edition at Dada Bar in Ridgewood, featuring music that embraces texture, improvisation, and environment.
MADISON MEYER (Properties Designer) is a senior Spatial Experience Design student at the Fashion Institute of Technology based in New York City. She works in theater production with the New York Neo-Futurists on their weekly show, The Infinite Wrench, contributing to fast-paced, collaborative performance-making. Her practice is rooted in research and material exploration, with a focus on how physical space and objects function as storytelling devices for the human experience.
GURKAN YIGIT (Properties Designer) is a multi-media designer studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology. His most recent works range from large scale window displays presented on 7th ave to interactive exhibition projects on figma. Upon completion at Fashion Institute of Design he plans to use his design skill in the tech or luxury industry.
JOHN EPPERLY (Recording Engineer) is an audio engineer, producer, musician, and the owner of Metropolitan Sound, a recording studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, since 2014. John has over 30 years of experience in both studio (Black Lips, Daddy Long Legs, Chasen Wayne) and live sound (CBGB, Honky Tonkin' in Queens). As a singer-songwriter, he performs as Ill Angel. Website: metropolitansound.org. Instagram: @metropolitansound, @illangel
YUKARI MORISHIMA (Piano, recording) is a multi-instrumentalist musician from Japan. Her first band, Zzz’s, was formed with members all based in Japan, and the group toured internationally. After moving to New York in 2018, Yukari began recording in studios across the city and later joined the band Habibi, touring extensively throughout Europe and the United States. She now writes and records her own music from her loft in Brooklyn.
DAVID WECHSLER (Flute, recording) is the founder and Music Director of The OMNI Ensemble, a chamber music group that performs standard repertoire as well as contemporary and electronic improvisation. Mr. Wechsler is currently the Principal Flutist in the Queens Symphony and has played Principal Flute in the Connecticut Grand Opera, and Second Flute in the Brooklyn Philharmonic. He has played Principal Flute and various other chairs with many groups including The Key West Symphony, The Discovery Orchestra, The New York Pops, The New Jersey Symphony, The American Symphony, The American Composers Orchestra, The New York Grand Opera, The Westchester Philharmonic, and The Long Island Philharmonic. In the commercial field, he was the solo flutist in the Public Theater’s production of King Lear starring Kevin Kline, with music by Stephen Sondheim and Michael Starobin. He was principal flutist in the 1998 Broadway production of Peter Pan with Cathy Rigby, and has played at many other shows, including Beauty and the Beast, Aida, Les Miserables, La Bohéme, The Lion King, and Wicked. He has recorded for film and TV, playing on scores by Phillip Glass and Ryuichi Sakamoto. As an electronic musician and composer, he performs on the midi wind controller and has written numerous works for live electronics and conventional instruments. He holds degrees from Brooklyn College, SUNY at Stony Brook, and in 2012 received his DMA degree from the CUNY Graduate Center. He maintains a private lesson studio, and is on the faculty of the CUNY College of Staten Island, the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, and the Poly Prep Country Day School.
BARBARA NITKE (Press Photography) is a New York photographer best known for her humanistic, often explicit, exploration of intimate relationships. She has published two acclaimed monographs of her work. She has also worked as a still photographer on numerous movies and television shows shot in New York, and has served on the faculty of the School of Visual Arts since 1992. www.BarbaraNitke.com
CAROL PRUD’HOMME DAVIS (Antigone in Analysis drawing) is an artist, activist, dancer, and arts administrator. In 2013, Ms. Prud’homme Davis’s art became the first permanent art collection in the American Contemporary Dance Museum. Her art has also been exhibited at Peridance from 2010 to the present. Carol has exhibited at the Garth Greenan Gallery’s Janet Panetta Legacy Exhibition, Infinity Dance Theatre, The Theater for the New City solo show and the “Persevere” group exhibition, Goddard Riverside, Childhood Unmuted, Spoke the Hub, Visual Aids, and the East Texas Fair. Her work is featured in the Nordic Journal of Dance and has illustrated Jeanne Donough’s book The Simonson Legacy. She is creating syllabi and illustrations of Janet Panetta’s classes and Infinity Dance Theatre’s Abled/Disabled Horton, Ballet techniques. She is currently creating a book with Keith Lee and Susan Saandholland of her ‘Asemics’, and a children’s book titled Helmet, written by Kimberlee Monroe. Her images are on Mordance, Saraika, American Dance Museum and Live in the Moment Dance merchandise. Carol illustrated the covers of Marie Paquet-Nesson’s book A Dancer Writes Haiku and Richard Maddock’s Ballet Music for Adagio record covers. She is the Executive Director of Inside Change from Within and President of Inside Change Inc.
DAVID GIBBS (Press Representative) (he/him) is the founder of DARR Publicity, a boutique entertainment press agency specializing in theater, comedy, dance, film, music and unique theatrical experiences. David has publicized shows at many Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway venues throughout NYC. His clients have won Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, Obie and Off Broadway Alliance Awards, and have been nominated for Bessie and Chita Rivera Awards. www.DarrPublicity.com
R. KANE (Production Associate) lives in NYC.
CATHERINE PORTER (Producer) is Co-Founder/Artistic Director of Peculiar Works Project, with whom she has served as producer, writer, director, teaching artist, fundraiser, bookkeeper, and/or performer in 100+ site-specific plays and performance events, featuring the work of scores of cross-disciplinary artists annually since 1993. Works have been in various non-theater spaces in NYC, as well as locations in Bulgaria, Michigan, and Philadelphia, PA. As a teaching artist, Catherine has co-led master classes in site-specific, multi-disciplinary, and promenade theater for Trinity/La MaMa, Pace, Fordham, Illinois State, and New Bulgarian University. In addition to her PWP work, she has acted with such Off-Off companies as La MaMa, Concrete Temple Theatre, Flux Theatre Ensemble, TOSOS, Theatre Askew, The Forge, and Aisling Arts; and appeared Off Broadway with En Garde Arts in Mac Wellman's award-winning Crowbar. Catherine has served as Co-President and Treasurer for the League of Professional Theatre Women, is Board Secretary for the Alliance of Theatres/New York, and is on the board of Concrete Temple Theater. She is a member of Actor's Equity Association. @catpeculiar
BARRY ROWELL (Producer, he/him) is a co-founder of Peculiar Works Project. He has written or directed numerous PWP productions,including the 2025 world premiere of Freedom's Last Stand, the 2013 epic promenade performance Manna-Hata at the James A. Farley post office. With partners Ralph Lewis and Catherine Porter, he created the OBIE Award-winning OFF Stage: the West Village Fragments and the East Village Fragments. He was part of the artistic team that developed promenade performances at the Varna International Theater Festival and at New Bulgarian University in Sofia. He is one of eleven playwrights who adapted the Sumerian epic Gilgamesh for The Forge. His play Floydada was a finalist in the 2011 Texas Playwrights Festival and was in the Philadelphia Fringe Festival; his Before I Wake was presented by Theatre of NOTE in Los Angeles, and his 10-minute play, Dialogue in 3 Parts, was a finalist in the Creative Mechanics' inaugural Stage This! festival and is available in the published collection on amazon.
LA MaMa EXPERIMENTAL THEATER CLUB (Presenter) is dedicated to the artist and all aspects of the theatre. La MaMa's 64th Season, LA MAMA NOW, focuses on creating solidarity and building community, exploring ways to build connections for cross-sector coalition and invite artists, activists, organizers and community members into the creative process La MaMa has been honored with 30+ Obie Awards, dozens of Drama Desk, Bessie Awards, Villager Awards, the 2018 Regional Theatre Tony Award, and most recently a 2023 New York Drama Critics' Circle Special Citation. We are a creative home to artists and resident companies from around the world, many of whom have made lasting contributions to the arts, including Blue Man Group, Bette Midler, Ping Chong, Jackie Curtis, Robert De Niro, André De Shields, Adrienne Kennedy, Cole Escola, Bridget Everett, Harvey Fierstein, Diane Lane, Charles Ludlam, Tom Eyen, Spiderwoman Theater, Tadeusz Kantor, Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, Meredith Monk, David and Amy Sedaris, Stephanie Hsu, Julie Taymor, Kazuo Ohno, Tom O'Horgan, Andrei Serban, Liz Swados, and Andy Warhol. La MaMa's vision of nurturing new artists and new work from all nations, cultures, races and identities remains as strong today as it was when Ellen Stewart first opened the doors in 1961.
*Equity Member appearing with permission of Actors’ Equity Association without benefit of an Equity contract in this Off-Off Broadway production.
