Speakeasy
In 1956, after some time away, Leon Ivy returns home from a sojourn in Paris with a finished novel, a publisher, and big plans for his future — but times have changed along Central Avenue and his wife, Bird, and her new business partner, Daddy August, have enacted secret plans of their own. What are the costs of leaving home and what is the price of fighting for what you believe in?
Cast
Bernard K. Addison*
DADDY AUGUST
At ANTAEUS: As You Like It, The Curse of Oedipus. Recent: King of France, All’s Well That Ends Well (A Noise Within). LA: Chutes&Ladders, Water by the Spoonful (Mark Taper Forum), Citizen: An American Lyric (Kirk Douglas Theater), Romeo and Juliet (Ahmanson Theater), Solly Two Kings, Gem of the Ocean (u/s, A Noise Within), Off the Rails (Native Voices), Prometheus Bound (Getty Villa), Citizen: An American Lyric, The Ballad of Emmett Till, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (Fountain Theatre), Mother Courage (Theatre @ Boston Court). Regional: Ghost/Claudius in Hamlet and Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare Santa Cruz); Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre in San Francisco); Henry V and The Man Who Came to Dinner (Oregon Shakespeare Festival); Othello (California Shakespeare Festival); the Denver Theatre Center; Actors Theatre of Louisville; the Long Wharf Theatre; the Shakespeare Theatre (DC); and PlayMakers Rep. New York: Broadway (Electra). Film: Celebrity, The Farm. Recent TV: Call Me Kat, Modern Family, Rake. Awards: Ovation and LADCC for Acting Ensemble: The Ballad of Emmett Till.
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Cherish Monique Duke*
BIRD IVY
Los Angeles: Everybody, Zip Code Plays - 91505: Burbank "True Sound" (Antaeus Theater Company); August Wilson's "Seven Guitars'' (A Noise Within); Beloved, At The Table (Stage Raw- Best Ensemble and Best Actress Nomination), Friends with Guns, Through the Eye of a Needle (The Road Theater); The Mountaintop (Garry Marshall Theater). Selected NY Credits: The Tragedy at Hood 14542: Hooksickle (International Fringe Festival), Ida B Wells: A Play in Four Parts (Afrikan Woman’s Repertory), Taming of The Shrew (Pulse Theater Ensemble), Timon in Athens (George Bernard Shaw Theater – UK). TV/Film: Black-ish, Jane the Virgin, Pearson, Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, and Jimmy Kimmel Live! Training: B.A. New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts; Classical Acting – Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) in London; Member: AEA, SAG-AFTRA. www.
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At ANTAEUS: Measure for Measure, readings of The Rover; Mayor of the 85th Floor. Frequent participant of the Antaeus Playwrights Lab. Other Theater: My Children, My Africa! (Marin Theatre Company); A Christmas Carol (American Conservatory Theater); Exonerated (Lynx Performance Theatre); Good Breeding (Yerba Buena Center for the Arts); Hamlet Machine (Ion Theatre). TV/Film: 40; Easy Made Hard; The Institute. Training: B.A., San Diego State University; M.F.A., American Conservatory Theater. Member: AEA, SAG.
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Adam J. Smith*
DAVID DeLAIN
At ANTAEUS: Hamlet, Cloud 9, As You Like It, Henry IV, Part One, The Curse of Oedipus. Other Theater: Pasadena Playhouse, CTG - The Kirk Douglas and Mark Taper Forum, South Coast Rep, International City Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Disney Concert Hall, 6th Act, Chalk Rep, The Blank, EST/LA, Boston Court, Ojai Playwrights Conference, The Road, Chautauqua Theater Company (NY), Center for New Performance/Huntington Gardens, numerous Off- and Off-Off-B’way. Film: Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon I & II, Taken 3, Bloody Bridget, Zombie Strippers, Deceit. TV: The Good Doctor, Jane the Virgin (recurring), Orville, Scandal, Castle, 90210, Medium, Without a Trace, Numb3rs, Victorious, Chemistry, As the World Turns (recurring), among others. Emmy Award Winner for When Things Get Small. VO work in video games, TV/online narration, ads, audio drama podcasts, dubbing, and educational programming. Faculty member at CalArts School of Theater. M.F.A.: UCSD/La Jolla Playhouse, B.A.: Duke (Magna cum laude).
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Jocelyn Towne*
SOPHIA DeLAIN
At ANTAEUS: The Little Foxes, The Hothouse, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Changeling, La Ronde. Other Local Theater: LATW (Steel Magnolias, Fathers and Sons, Amadeus); Playwright’s Arena (Red Ink); The Getty Villa (Phaedra); Sacred Fools (Free $$$). TV: The Kominsky Method, Lodge 49, Gilmore Girls. As a filmmaker: I Am I (writer, actor, director) (Newport Beach Film Festival Winner Outstanding Achievement in Directing & Champs Élysées Film Festival Nominee Audience Award Best American Feature), We’ll Never Have Paris (co-director) (Closing night film at Edinburgh Film Festival, SXSW Audience Award Nominee, Newport Beach Film Festival Winner Best Comedy).
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Khari Wyatt
Playwright
Khari Wyatt is the descendant of runaway slaves and inner-city America with its adversities, tragedies and triumphs; the son of high school sweethearts: a mother who is an artist and a father who courageously moved his young family from the rust-belt to our Nation's Capital to find a better life; the grandson of men who wore blue collars in auto plants and on railroad trains; the grandson of women who taught Sunday school and waitressed in greasy spoons. He is a writer.
His work has placed in various competitions including, Disney/ABC Writers Fellowship, Sony Pictures Entertainment Diversity Writers Program, AMC One-Hour Drama competition, Austin Film Festival Screenplay Competition, and Writer’s-for-Writer’s Diversity Fellowship among others. Some of the fellowships and grants he has received came from the MacDowell Colony, the Guy Hanks/Marvin Miller Screenwriting Program, and the Panavision New Filmmaker Equipment Grant.
He was recently selected to write and develop his play, Starchild, in the Circle X Theatre Company Evolving Playwrights Group. He was one of eleven writers of #While We Breathe: A Night of Creative Protest, a streaming theatrical event produced by Brian Moreland and Arvind Ethan David. Moving Arts, Chalk Repertory Theatre as well as the DC Black Theatre Festival have hosted his plays for readings and workshops. His play Some Type of Ecstasy was a semifinalist for the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference. His ten-minute play, Ingredients, was presented as part of the Moving Arts- Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Night at the Museum. He currently is a writer for Moving Arts’ web series, Isolation Inn being aired on YouTube in fall 2020.
Wyatt is an alumnus of Howard University, earned an MFA in Film from Columbia University in the City of New York, and also completed the Summer Legal Institute at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. He is member of Antaeus Theatre Company Playwrights Lab, Moving Arts and the Playwrights Union.
khariwyatt.com
Other
At ANTAEUS: Measure for Measure, Diana of Dobson's, As You Like It, Henry IV Part I, Measure for Measure, and The Curse of Oedipus. Other theater: Vietgone (The Alley Theatre), Sense & Sensibility (South Coast Rep); Love's Labour's Lost, Edward III, and Cyrano de Bergerac (Colorado Shakespeare Festival); Hamlet (The 6th Act); Frankenstein (A Noise Within); The Hard Problem and Vietgone (LA Theatreworks); Gloria and The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide (Curious Theatre Company); Colony Collapse (Boston Court Pasadena); Supper (Theatre of NOTE); Rose and the Rime (Sacred Fools); and 99 Histories (Artists at Play). She holds degrees in Theatre and Business from UNCo. DesireeMeeJung.com
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