Cast & Crew
Final Show Saturday, May 28, 2022
Licensing Information for SISTAS
Cast
Debra Thais Evans (Simone)
Debra Thais Evans, a native of Brooklyn, NY, is thrilled to be a part of the Sistas family. Favorite credits include: Broadway: Rocktopia: A Classical Revolution, Tours: Porgy & Bess, Hairspray: Regional: Little Shop of Horrors (Ronnette), South Pacific (Bloody Mary), Carousel (Nettie), Into the Woods (The Witch). Other previous credits include several albums with Stage Stars Records. Many thanks to Bill, Tracey and the entire creative team for this incredible opportunity. Mama, Love ya!
Member of Actors Equity Association
Romelda Teron Benjamin (Roberta)
Romelda is known for her powerful, full, rich, and emotionally charged vocal style. She recently appeared on Law and Order SVU and in the original Off Broadway Production of The Secret Life of Bees as Queenie at Atlantic Theater Company. She is most recognized for her portrayal of Sister Chantell in the original Off Broadway Production of Bare: A Pop Opera, and for her portrayal of Paradise in the Broadway Production of Brooklyn The Musical. Romelda recently appeared at Joe’s Pub in the critically acclaimed Ryan Raftery: Watch What Happens Live On Stage The Tale of Andy Cohen and the Housewives as Nene Leakes and Ryan Raftery Is the Most Powerful Woman in Fashion The Anna Wintour Musical. Other Credits Include: Momma Morton in Chicago, Mavis White Eagle in Idaho!, Featured Ensemble in Catch Me If You Can original workshops through its out of town run at The 5th Avenue Theater in Seattle, BJ Crosby in the national tour of Smokey Joe’s Café. Romelda has appeared in numerous Recordings, Workshops, Readings, The John Oliver Show on HBO and concerts with Linda Eder, Natalie Douglas, Harry Connick Jr., Pope Francis, Gloria Estefan, and Billy Porter. Thank you God for my Mommy, my Family, and Friends. My WAM Family Managers Rich and Mike THANK YOU! IG: @theromeldateronbenjamin
Member of Actors Equity Association.
Dawn Cantwell (Heather)
Broadway: Sting’s The Last Ship (originated the role of Young Meg), Wicked (Nessarose). Off-broadway credits include: original company F#%king Up Everything/Brooklyn Crush, Music in the Air (Encores! City Center), original company Dogfight (Second Stage), Love’s Labour’s Lost (37 Arts) . Regional/Tour credits include: Les Miserables, The Master Class, Romeo and Juliet, Carousel. Film: The Train (opposite Eli Wallach), Isolation (Independant). Save the Date (Independant) TV: Every Other Sunday (Amazon), The Tonight Show. She is writing a musical, Hiraeth, alongside Addi McDaniel. She also writes and performs with her brother Ryan Cantwell (musical director/conductor forthcoming Broadway revival of 1776, Waitress, Pippin, Bat Out of Hell). Their music can be found here. BA: NYU Tisch. www.dawncantwell.com, www.hiraethmusical.com. insta @dawasong, fb @dawncantwell
Member of Actors Equity Association
Maria Lawson (Gloria)
Maria is excited to join Sistas! A UK native who relocated to New Jersey, with her father hailing from New York, Maria obtained her Bachelor’s Degree in Social Science at Lancaster University, UK and was awarded a scholarship to the Berklee College of Music. Maria started her music career as a songwriter with Peer Music Publishing and went on to record her debut album with Sony Music.
Television credits: The X Factor UK– Finalist, The Equalizer – CBS, Eastenders– BBC, Lost Arc, VO- Amazon. Theater Credits: (Lead Singer) Thriller Live– West End, London, (Candy) Saturday Night Fever – US Tour, (Chiffon) Little Shop of Horrors – Edinburgh Fringe, Soul Train – The Musical.
Maria would like to thank her UK/US family for their continued love and support. Follow Maria and you can download her vocal app at https://www.instagram.com/marialawsonofficial/
Member of Actors Equity Association
Montria Walker (Tamika)
Member of Actors Equity Association.
Paula Galloway (Swing)
Paula is thrilled to be making her Off-Broadway debut in SISTAS: The Musical! Favorite roles include: Sour Kangaroo (Seussical), Beatrice (Much Ado About Nothing), Audrey (As You Like It), Wicked Witch (Wizard of Oz), Lala (The Colored Museum), Beneatha (A Raisin in the Sun), Berthe (PIPPIN) & Mom, to Benjamin. TV: Featured in COVID Ditty (online), Short Comings (MTV), Over My Dead Body (Discover ID).
Thanks and love to the cast and crew of SISTAS, my family and friends, Scotty Kreindler Mgmt. and most of all, Mom, Dad, my son and the most supportive husband in the world!
Actors’ Equity
Equity Association (AEA), founded in 1913, represents more than 45,000 actors and stage managers in the United States. Equity seeks to advance, promote and foster the art of live theatre as an essential component of our society. Equity negotiates wages and working conditions, providing a wide range of benefits, including health and pension plans. AEA is a member of the AFL-CIO, and is affiliated with FIA, an international organization of performing arts unions. The Equity emblem is our mark of excellence. www.actorsequity.org
Production
William Franzblau (Executive Producer)
Produced on Broadway – Tony-nominated Best Play, Say Goodnight Gracie, The Moscow Circus American Buffalo, WONDERLAND as well as touring versions of Beatlemania, Little House on the Prairie, the Musical and The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Mr. Franzblau also produced Robert Dubac’s The Male Intellect: An Oxymoron? as well as the musical adaptation of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead, entitled EVIL DEAD the Musical and Jewtopia. He managed several multi-platinum international rock recording acts and founded Interfilm Inc., a publicly traded company combining interactive technologies with cinematic art, in which he produced three films. He also produced Disney’s Virtual Reality Theme Park attraction, Ride the Comix in Orlando. He is currently Producing ROCKTOPIA, which is being filmed in Budapest for a December PBS National Pledge show.
Creative Team
Dorothy Marcic (Playwright)
Dr. Dorothy Marcic is a playwright, professor, and writer, whose musicals have played in over 100 cities: RESPECT/This One’s for the Girls and SISTAS, which has also played on BET-TV and is based on interviews of 100 Black women in Nashville. She has 18 published books, including the True Crime book, With One Shot: Family Murder and a Search for Justice about the murder of her uncle, which was recently turned into the #1 podcast, Manslaughter. She is a professor at Columbia University, a former Fulbright Scholar at the University of Economics-Prague, and the writer/story creator of three award-winning short films, Great Expectations, Spillings, and Last Resort. Dorothy started her career in the arts as a production assistant on the TV program, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, while in graduate school. She has appeared on C-SPAN, CMT, and Bravo Network and is on IMDB and drdorothy.com.
Tracey Conyer Lee (Director / Choreographer)
Ms. Lee is a multidisciplinary artist and entrepreneur. In addition to originating Sistas’ Gloria Off-Broadway, she has acted on stage regionally, on tour, abroad and in other original Off-Broadway companies. A career highlight is six (& counting) productions as Billie Holiday in the solo tour de force Lady Day At Emerson’s Bar & Grill. On screen highlights include recurring as Det. Ross in seasons 3 & 4 of FBI. She’s a proud audiobook narrator on Audible for dozens of Black authors of both fiction and non. Ms. Lee’s playwriting has received awards and productions and she has recently been published by Bloomsbury (Methuen Drama). During the pandemic she co-founded the non-profit, Be Ready., which provides Black and brown leaders of tomorrow with free professional presence training. For more info and links to her work: www.traceyconyerlee.com
Nehemiah Luckett (Music Director)
Originally from Jackson, Mississippi, and now a resident of New York City, Nehemiah Luckett has been creating music for more than 30 years. From an early age he connected his deep love of music to the transformative power of building community through breathing and singing with family and friends. He is a freelance composer, performer, teacher, and music director. Current projects include composing an afro-futurist queer Bible-based opera, Jonathan and David, and two new musicals: A Burning Church with collaborators Zhailon Levingston and Alex Hare and Triple Threats with Tracy Conyer Lee. Nehemiah is honored to be a part of the Music Team and the s family.
Germono Toussaint (Other Arrangements)
Bio forthcoming
Josh Iacovelli (Lighting Set Designer)
Josh is a grad of Stockton College and holds his MFA from the Actors Studio Drama School, New School Univ. Recent Designs include the Drama Desk Award-winning Zero Hour (St Clement’s Theatre). Josh has designed many successful shows at St. Luke’s Theatre including the long running Danny and Sylvia: The Danny Kaye Musical, Dietrich and Chevalier: A Musical Love Story, Black Angels over Tuskegee, Lansky, Annulla, One Night With Fanny Brice, Harry and Eddie: The Birth of Israel and The Rise of Dorothy Hale.
Cynthia Nordstrum (Costume Designer)
A blend of fashion and costume, Cynthia’s range of designs have been seen worldwide on stage, tour, ice, theme parks to Broadway. Based in the NYC area, Cynthia is focused to help productions here reopen successfully. Current tours include: Blippi the Musical, Cocomelon Live, Marvel Universe Live Arena tour, Rock of Ages 10th Anniversary tour. Off-Broadway credits: Evil Dead the Musical, Silent Laughter, Jewtopia, This Property called Garland, Jewtopia, Championship Season. Broadway: Rocktopia. Cynthianordstromdesigner@instagram.
Nicholas Kourtides (Audio Consultant)
Nick Kourtites designs for musical theatre and creates sound environments for devised ensemble works. His practice for musical theatre is informed by a background in live performance as a multi-instrumentalist (a long time ago!) in classical, jazz, and rock idioms. His focus is centered on the performability of a work: to support singers’, musicians’, and generative artists’ collective goals, often in mixed genres and unusual spaces. for devised and narrative projects, Nick is an occasional composer and often music curator, but also deeply interested in a cohesive, immersive performance universe that aligns actors with objects and locations, and audiences with the devised eality of the work. He believes that the auralization of this alignment, in collaboration with scenic, costume, and props designers, can heighten creative and performance outcomes onstage.
Off-Broadway credits include Oratorio for living Things (Ars Nova), Blacklight (Commercial, Greenwich House), The Lucky Ones (Ars Nova), Object Lesson (New York Theatre Workshop, Brooklyn Academy of Music), Elephant Room (St. Ann’s Warehouse), Carson McCullers Talks About Love (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater) and Jomama Jones: Radiate (Soho Repertory Theatre). Internationally, Nick is the Sound Designer for Channing Tatus’s Magic Mike Live, with performance installations in Las Vegas, London, Berlin, and Australia. Other Las Vegas projects include Mat Franco: Magic Reinvented Nightly, and Frankie Moreno: Under the Influence. His projects have been presented at international festivals including Paris Quartier d’Ete, Barbican Centre, Edinburgh Fringe, and Sydney Festival. Nick was the Sound Designer and broadcast mixer of the rock-classical concert project Rocktopia which airs periodically on PBS and played a limited Broadway engagement, also produced by Bill Franzblau.
Regional credits include Actors Theatre of Louisville, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Cleveland Play House, New York Stage and Film, McCarter Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Folger Theatre, Studio Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, the Wilma Theater, Arden Theater, Prince Music Theater, and La Jolla Playhouse. Collaborations with Pig Iron Theatre Company include A Period of Animate Existence, Cankerblossom, Isabella, Chekhov Lizardbrain and Mission to Mercury. With BalletX, Nick designed Sunset o639 Hours at the Wilma, The Joyce Theater, Jacob’s Pillow and Vail Festivals. Site-specific designs include works with Pearl Damour, Lynn Nottage and Kate Whoriskey, and the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts. He has taught Sound Design for Live Performance at Drexel University and Swathmore College. Nick received the 2006 Barrymore and 2015 Bessie awards. Learn more about Nick at www.nickkourtides.com.
Bernard Tansey (General Manager)
Mr. Tansey has worked in professional theatre for 48 years. Some of his favorite productions have been Heartstrings, Little Shop of Horrors, Man of La Mancha, The Peking Circus, The 10th Anniversary Tour of La Cage aux Folles, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Say Goodnight Gracie, The Make Intellect: An Oxymoron, Golda’s Balcony, and Little House On The Prairie.
Georgiana Mitrol (Company Manager)
No bio –
Jamibeth Margolis (Casting Director)
CSA has more than 20 years of experience as a professional casting director in New York. She was with Johnson-Liff Casting, Cameron Mackintosh, and Margolis-Seay Casting and is now out on her own as a freelance casting director. Previous credits include the Broadway and National Touring Companies of such mega hits as Les Miserables, The Phantom Of The Opera, Miss Saigon, Cats, and Jane Eyre as well as a dozen other shows on Broadway. She also currently casts for Off Broadway, National Touring Companies and shows for prominent regional theaters and all of the major theater festivals in NYC. Her casting office is dedicated to the development of new plays and musicals. Additional casting credits include multiple television pilots and on camera industrials for major US companies. Recent Casting Projects: Jane Eyre and Pete (Her) Pan (Cleveland Musical Theatre), Fiddler On The Roof In Yiddish (National Yiddish Theatre and Stage 42 Off Broadway/2020 Artios Award Winner For Casting), Rebel Rebel: The Many Lives Of David Bowie (Tour), Harmony (NYTF) and more. Many thanks to the Sistas creative team.
Natalie Jones (Stage Manager)
Off-Broadway debut! Natalie Jones is a freelance theatre artist based in Astoria, Queens. Previous stage management credits include: Gruesome Playground Injuries, Songs for a New World, Marguerite (starring Tony Award-winner Cady Huffman), Romeo and Juliet, In The Bleak Midwinter (produced, written by, and starring Emmy Award-winner Dorothy Lyman), Elvira: The Immigration Play (Collaboraction Theater – Chicago, IL), Memphis, Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story (Suffolk Theater – Long Island, NY), Ebenezer (Resorts Casino – Atlantic City, NJ), and Much Ado About Nothing, among others. In addition to her stage managing work, Natalie is a Kennedy Center-recognized performer and director as well as an accomplished teaching artist and dialect coach. Ephesians 6:7.
Matthew Palmer (Assistant Stage Manager)
Matthew is honored and thrilled to be a part of Sistas! Some of his recent credits include: The Babies (ASM), Black Angels Over Tuskegee (PSM), Ruthless (ASM), and the Village Voices (PSM). Matthew would like to thank all of his friends and family for their never-ending love and support.
Leanne Schanzer Promotion (Marketing)
Melissa Skinner /Culture Spheres (Marketing)
Leanne Schanzer Promotions is a full service marketing company, celebrating over 35 years, representing the theatrical and entertainment communities. LSP’s customized strategic services have consistently delivered heightened brand awareness and increased ticket sales for more than 400 Broadway & Off-Broadway productions, theater companies and entertainment venues.
Culture Spheres is a boutique marketing agency led by Melissa Skinner. We conceive strategy, design content, integrate brand partnerships, and promote events that celebrate Black and artistic excellence for multicultural audiences
Hofstetter + Partners (Advertising)
Hofstetter+Partners is an independent marketing and advertising agency of passionate thinking, spirited ideas, and relentless problem solving. Services include brand development, strategic planning, copy, conceptual design execution and production.
PLAYWRIGHT’S NOTE
SISTAS began eight years ago, after the African-American cast members of my first musical, RESPECT: A Musical Journey of Women, asked me to write a similar piece, but geared towards Black women. These two women, Paula Chavis and Adrienne Ewing-Roush, told me they wanted something that spoke more to them. I asked Adrienne why a different musical was warranted. She replied, “I never thought that the weak damsel waiting for Prince Charming really spoke to us as African-American women.” So began my own journey of reading everything I could get my hands on and talking to every African-American person I came in contact with. One of my friends, Stella Reed, arranged for me to spend two mornings a week for a year at a Senior Center in North Nashville, interviewing many Black women, who ended up sharing with me story after fascinating story, some of which are in the current SISTAS. My friend Karen Streets-Anderson practically moved in with me for long periods while I was working on the play, making sure I got the tone and the issues right. Finally, after all these years of work, SISTAS went up in the Midtown International Theater Festival in July of 2011. We did not expect the overwhelming response that resulted in every seat of every show being sold out. Producers were interested in developing it further. Audience members begged for more. So here we are, playing SISTAS Off-Broadway. It’s a dream-come-true for many of us in the cast and crew, for the whole company. Thank you Paula and Adrienne for asking the first question. —Dorothy Marcic