Biographies

Kristine Amarante (actor) is a first generation Filipinx American who grew up in the diverse town of Union (Kawahmee), New Jersey. She graduated with an MFA in Acting from Rutgers University in 2020. She is honored to be working with The Artic Cycle because caring for our climate is a cause she cares deeply about.

Jen Anaya (actor) (they/them) is a theater/music/art/ritual space maker, doula, and energy healer from the desert of Yavapaiv Apache, Cocopah, and O'odham land. They have performed in and created for rock bands, web series, art installations, plays, operas, films, solo shows, healing rituals, and musicals all over the city, Turtle Island, and beyond.

Ras Bad (actor) is a generative theatre artist, arts educator, and death doula from Kansas City, Missouri, currently based in NYC. They hold a BA in Theater-Performance from the University of Missouri-Kansas City (2015) and are currently working on their Master's in Arts Management and Entrepreneurship at New School. Some original works that they're proud of include Beasts of Burden, Young Black Victorian, and Return to Self: A Reflection on Process.

Chantal Bilodeau (playwright) is a Montreal-born, New York-based playwright. As artistic director of The Arctic Cycle, she has been instrumental in getting the theatre and educational communities, as well as audiences in the U.S. and abroad, to engage in climate action through live events, talks, publications, workshops, national and international convenings, and a worldwide distributed theatre festival. In 2019, she was named one of “8 Trailblazers Who Are Changing the Climate Conversation” by Audubon Magazine.

Aja Downing (actor) is extremely pleased and excited to be a part of this project and ready for all the projects to come. Aja graduated from The American Musical Arts Academy in 2016. Some of her previous roles were Annette in TjLovesSally4eva, Fairy Godmother in Cinderella, Jojo in Cherchez La Femme, Cassandra in Alex and Eugene, Christine Daaé in The Phantom of the Opera, Aida in Aida, and Ella Baker in Bayard: A New Musical. Aja would like to thank her mom and dad for all their support and love! And also thank the incredible cast and crew of this project!

Lanxing Fu (director) is a Chinese-American theater artist and co-director of Superhero Clubhouse. With SHC: she is the playwright and co-creator of Mammelephant (The New Ohio / HERE Arts Center), the program director of The Living Stage NYC (University Settlement), and a co-creator of PLUTO (no longer a play), (The Brick), and JUPITER (a play about power), (La MaMa). She has been a workshop facilitator and panelist with The New School, Asian American Arts Alliance, William Patterson University, Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, and more.

Julia Levine (volunteer coordinator) (she/her) is a theatre artist and climate activist. Originally from St. Louis, she is artistic producer of The Arctic Cycle, a co-organizer of Climate Change Theatre Action, and a contributor to the blog series Artists & Climate Change. She organizes for climate justice with Sunrise Movement NYC and is an MSW student at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College.

Amy Liou (actor) is a theater artist from Taiwan. She developed her interest in acting while learning with Oleg Liptsin and her curiosity in theater has led her to New York to study and train with SITI Company. Her recent credits include Yell-Low (Emerging Artists Theatre’s New Work Series), The Bacchae (National Theater and Concert Hall of Taiwan). When not on stage, you’d probably find Amy experimenting with a new cookie recipe or dancing around her plants.

Megan Paradis Hanley (director) (she/her) is co-artistic director of The Syndicate, an ensemble theater company that produces work by women, queer, and trans+ artists. Recent directing credits include Glenn Marla’s The Wild Unwanted (St. Ann’s Warehouse’s Puppet Lab); Diana Lynn Small's Hot Belly (The Tank); Alanna Coby's Graceful Exit (Drama League and The Clemente); and I Know My Only Flaw is I’m Not Peggy Shaw (part of Split Britches’s Desperate Archives at La MaMa Galleria). Megan currently teaches at the New School and with SITI Company.

Rad Pereira (director) is a multi-spirit (im)migrant artist and cultural worker building consciousness between healing justice, system change, re-indigenization and queer futures. They are of Pindorama (Brazil), currently based in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn). Their practices range from renegade participatory ritual facilitation, to popular theatrical and TV/film performance, to community based educational artmaking and healing that weaves together an Afro-futurist longing for transformative justice and queer (re)Indigenization of culture.

Jem Pickard (director) (he/they) co-directs Superhero Clubhouse, a 14-year-old climate theatre organization. Jem has co-created dozens of works of eco-theater including Flying Ace and the Storm of the Century!, Salty Folk: An Oyster Musical, Core of Me: A Hike-Play, and the Planet Play series. For a decade, Jem led the Big Green Theater eco-playwriting program for public elementary students in partnership with The Bushwick Starr. Up next: Ghost Bike, an exploration of transportation justice, October 10 in Prospect Park (with Jackie Rivera).

Sami Pyne (producer) is an independent producer based in New York City. She is currently the Line Producer for 600 Highwaymen’s A THOUSAND WAYS and Production Manager for Jersey City Theatre Center’s 2021 Voices Festival. Most recent producing credits include Capricorn 29 created by Alex Hare and Julia Izumi at The Tank, Kyk Hoe Skyn die Son created by Keenan Tyler Oliphant at Clubbed Thumb, Columbia SOA International Play Reading Festival curated by David Henry Hwang, and 2020 & 2019’s Prelude Festival at The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center.

Delissa M. Reynolds (actor) is a NY-based working actor (Film, TV & Theatre) and Lifetime Member & Board Member of the Actor’s Studio. Owner of Brooklyn’s now closed neighborhood cornerstone Bar Sepia, Ms. Reynolds is a community activist and a food/responsible farming enthusiast. Along with developing her interactive cooking series “Chef In A Shoebox: Big Meals from Small Spaces,” Ms. Reynolds is committed to developing ways to broadening CSA involvement within the public school systems and thrilled to be a part of this worldwide climate initiative.

Jackie Rivera (actor) is a queer, non-binary, Latine performance artist and collaborative theatermaker situated on Lenape Land. They live and work in @TheDolphVAN - a van conversion turned performance project that explores their practice of creative survival. They collaborate as a member of The Syndicate, a NYC and Chicago based theater collective led by women, trans, and queer artists, and serve as Associate Artistic Director of Agile Rascal Bicycle Touring Theater. They hold an MFA in Performance and Performance Studies from Pratt Institute.

Malika Samuel (actor) Broadway: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (original cast), The Music Man. Off Broadway: Our Dear Dead Drug Lord/ WP/2ST. TV: EVIL, Orange Is the New Black, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Chicago P.D., Law & Order: SVU, The Good Wife, Person of Interest, The Big C. Host of Nick Studio 10 and 2013 Kids’ Choice Awards Pre-Show. Film: Holiday Rush, Submission, Central Park. Graduate of NYU/Tisch. Directing: NYU Meisner Studio - Terry Guest's Marie Antoinette & the Magical Negroes, Federico Garica Lorca & Emily Mann's The House of Bernarda Alba.

Priscilla Villanueva (Cilla) (stage manager) is a New York-based stage manager and AEA member. They have graduated from City College of New York with a B.A in Theatre. They have worked for The Bushwick Starr, Theatre for the New City, Signature Theatre, The Kraine Theatre, Playwrights Realm, and The Sappho Project. Off-Broadway credits include: The Siblings Play, Cullud Wattah, Neurosis, Locusts Have No King, and Play On! Shakespeare festival. Peace and Love…

Climate Action

We hope Dispatch to the Future will inspire you to find out more about, and even get involved with, local organizations addressing climate change and climate justice issues. Here’s a short list to get your started:

350 NYC
Billion Oyster Project
Climate Candidates
Drawdown NYC
GrowNYC
New York Bicycling Coalition
NYC Agriculture Collective
NYC Climate Action Alliance
NYC Environmental Justice Alliance
New York Restoration Project
Sunrise NYC
Transportation Alternatives
Trees New York
UPROSE
WE ACT

We also suggest checking out the following for more resources:

Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency
NYC Mayor’s Office of Climate and Sustainability
NYC Mayor’s Office of Climate Resiliency