Laura Neill (Playright) (she/they) is a Brooklyn-based playwright. Her published plays include The Doctor Will See You Shortly(Concord Theatricals), Don’t Give Up the Ship and Almost Tragic (Uproar Theatrics), Game Night (Stage Partners),and Funtown(YouthPLAYS). Laura has completed commissions for Ensemble Studio Theatre/Sloan Project (CWIID: a comedy!), Keen Company (The Doctor Will See You Shortly), OperaHub (DIVAS), SpeakEasy Stage Company (Just Cause), and more.Residencies include the O’Neill National Playwrights’ Conference, University of Tulsa, VoxLab and CompanyOne’s PlayLab. They received a 2025 NYSCA Support for Artists grant for Foot Wears House.MFA: Boston University. Read Laura’s work or reach out: https://www.laura-neill.com

Sivan Battat (Director) (she/they) is a theatre director & community organizer, and the Director of New Work Development at Noor Theatre, a company dedicated to supporting the work of artists of Middle Eastern and North African descent. Sivan seeks to bridge justice work and cultural work, bringing the power of performance to our movements, and the vision of movement work to our theaters. sivanbattat.com

Anthony Adu (CLARK/BOZ) is a Ghanaian born artist with a passion for telling fierce, funny, and unabashed queer African diasporic stories. NYC/LA credits: backstroke boys (Faultline Theatre); The Skin of Our Teeth, A Christmas Carol (A Noise Within); Voices from a Pandemic (Notch Theatre Company). Regional credits: world premiere of Donja R. Love’s When We Are Found (Penumbra Theatre Company); Pick Me Last (La Jolla Playhouse); Love’s Labour’s Lost, Cyrano de Bergerac (Colorado Shakespeare Festival); DragON, The Christians (Denver Center); new play developments with The O’Neill Theatre Conference, South Coast Repertory, IAMA Theatre Company and Cygnet Theatre. Anthony holds an M.F.A in Acting from UC San Diego and has trained with Chautauqua Theatre Company’s Summer Conservatory.

Carlos Angel-Barajas (DAVY) (he/they) is an actor, writer, and activist. Carlos was born in Uruapan, Michoacán, Mexico, and raised in San Diego, California. He received an MFA in acting from The Old Globe and USD Shiley Graduate Theatre Program. Some of Carlos’ favorite roles include: Prince Escalus in Romeo and Juliet (Old Globe), Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing directed by Kathleen Marshall (Old Globe), Leontes in The Old Globe’s touring production of The Winter’s Tale, and more recently; Creon in a trilingual production of Antigone with Epic Theatre Ensemble.

Miles G. Jackson (SANNE/BRAD/ZACHARY) Broadway: Chicken & Biscuits; Off-Broadway: The Great Privation (Soho Rep), Stargazers (Page 73), Pay The Writer (Signature), Three Sisters (Sheen Center), Endlings (NYTW); Regional: Your Local Theater Presents: A Christmas Carol, By Charles Dickens, Again (La Jolla), Endlings (ART), Hand to God (TheaterWorks Hartford), Typhoid Mary (Barrington), Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley (Rep of St. Louis), Mama’s Boy (George Street), Tribes (Barrington), My Name is Asher Lev (George Street), 4000 Miles (Capital Rep), Mad Forest (Williamstown). Television: “The Other Two” (HBO Max), “Hunters” (Amazon), “The Last O.G.” (TBS), “Monsterland” (Hulu), “Lisey’s Story” (Apple TV). Film: A Different Man (A24), Problemista (A24).

Amandla Jahava (ALISHA) is a first generation Kenyan-American actor, writer, and director based out of New York. Unfortunately her tribe is not the tribe that runs (they’re next door), so she had to settle on becoming a storyteller. She passionately creates and advocates for African stories from an African perspective for African people. Her first short film, VUKA, was shown at festivals in Switzerland, Amsterdam and Oaxaca. She is currently in post production for her second short film, NONVIABLE. She can be seen in Issa Rae’s Rapsh!t and Ava Duvernay’s DMZ. Some people call her a pilot princess having booked the leads of FX produced PEEP SHOW, Lena Waithe’s produced HOW TO MAKE LOVE TO A BLACK WOMAN Film credits include co-lead of THIS IS A BAD IDEA directed by Nicco and Marina . She made her off-broadway debut in Dave Harris EXCEPTION TO THE RULE She will be seen in the World Premiere of SPIRIT OF THE PEOPLE written by Tony Nominated Playwright Jeremy O. Harris and PRACTICE a new play by Nazareth Hassan. Regional theater credits include: Geffen Playhouse, Arizona Theater, Denver Theatre Club. She received her MFA in Acting from the fka Yale School of Drama ‘19 and a BFA in Acting from CalArts. ‘16

Annella Kaine ( ELLIE) (she/they) is a queer actor, writer, and audiobook narrator based out of NYC. Some favorite past productions include Romeo & Juliet, The Laramie Project, and King Lear. Television: Scream (VH1). When they’re not at the theatre, Annella works as a conservation educator. You can find them performing with and about animals at the New York Aquarium and the Bronx Zoo. She also runs a small craft stained glass business, with a focus on queering an artform that people most often associate with religious imagery. You can find out more about their acting at www.annella-kaine.com and their glass @glass.slut on Instagram.

Jully Lee (AGNES/MARTY) is an Ovation-nominated actor and director, based in New York and Los Angeles. Jully made her Broadway debut in KPOP, and was nominated for Good Morning America’s Inspiration List: “Who is Making Asian American Pacific Islander History in 2021.” Earlier this year, Jully worked with Sivan on the world premiere of EMPTY RIDE by Keiko Green at the Old Globe. In New York, she’s worked with Second Stage, Roundabout, The Public, Pan Asian Rep, Ma-Yi, EST, Alchemation and LDK Productions. TV credits include recurring roles on Young Sheldon, The Kicks and Gang Related, as well as appearances on S.W.A.T., Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Jane the Virgin, Veep, This Is Us, Henry Danger, Rosewood, I Think You Should Leave and The Kominsky Method. Up next, she is looking forward to tackling the role of Hannah in THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA at Boston Court in Los Angeles. jullylee.com

Owen Laheen (Stage Directions)(they/them) is an actor from Wicklow, Ireland. Their most recent credits include Henry IV (TFANA), Drip Feed (Wild Project), Translations (Irish Repertory Theatre, Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Revival), The Wolves (McCarter Theater), Belfast Girls (Irish Rep). Screen: Mutt (Sundance 2023, Berlinale 2023); City On A Hill (Showtime). They have devised and developed new work in collaboration with LaMaMa Etc, Clubbed Thumb, Mercury Store, and others. They trained at UNCSA, BADA, and received a BFA from SUNY Purchase. 

Campbell Anidjar (Stage Manager) (he/they) is a New York City-based stage manager and theatre artist. Recent credits include MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG (New York Theatre Workshop); A CHRISTMAS CAROL (Hartford Stage); THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS National Tour; THAÏS, THE SONG OF ROME (Spoleto Festival USA). Campbell has worked on developmental readings with Manhattan Theatre Club, the Working Theater, New York Stage and Film, Ars Nova, and Breaking the Binary Theater. He is a graduate of Marymount Manhattan College with a BA in Theatre Arts and a concentration in Producing & Management. For all the trans folks who came before, and for all who will come after.

Anton Volovsek (Set Designer) (he/him) is a scenic designer, artist, and theater maker currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Recent design credits: Off Broadway: Bowl EP (Vineyard) Regional: Our Town, Life is a Dream, Everything That Never Happened, Akeelah and the Bee (Baltimore Center Stage), Little Shop of Horrors (People’s Light) Curse of the Starving Class (PTP, Williamstown Theatre Festival), Mr. Burns (Brown/Trinity), Off-off Broadway: Hype Man (The Flea Theatre), Princess Phooey (TADA! Youth Theater). Collegiate: Real Housewives of the Restoration, King Charles III (NYU Grad Acting and Design), Spring Awakening, Jesus Christ Superstar (Montclair State University), Indecent (Central Michigan University), The Caucasian Chalk Circle (City College of New York). MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. BFA from the University of Michigan. Go Blue! You can find more of his work at www.antonedward.com.

Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Founded in 1937, the RWDSU represents about 60,000 workers in a wide range of industries, including but not limited to retail, grocery stores, poultry processing, dairy processing, cereal processing, soda bottlers, bakeries, health care, hotels, manufacturing, public sector workers like crossing guards, sanitation, and highway workers, warehouses, building services, and distribution. Learn more. 

Zara Cadoux (Moderator) is a member-organizer with the Crown Heights Tenant Union, the chair of the Amazon Labor Union Solidarity Committee, and the co-founder of the Whole Worker Solidarity Hub. When she’s not organizing, she moonlights as an academic who studies organizing. She is an alumna of the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies and a current PhD student at NYU, where is a member of GSOC-UAW Local 2110.

Stuart Appelbaum (Panelist) serves as President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). Under his leadership, the union has pursued an aggressive organizing agenda; and has secured contracts that have raised industry standards. In March of 2022, the REI SoHo store successfully won the first REI union election with RWDSU. Workers organized in part out of pandemic concerns on the heels of another historic RWDSU campaign. In 2019, the union successfully opposed Amazon’s efforts to build its second headquarters in New York City; and in 2021 conducted the first union organizing campaign in the company’s history – leading to further organizing efforts around the country including the now 11 REI store campaign, which continues to grow.

Appelbaum is also Executive Vice President of the 1.3 million member United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW); and he is a Vice President of the National AFL-CIO. Globally, he is the President of UNI Global Commerce (a federation representing 160 unions and 4 million workers worldwide involved in commerce).

Claire Chang (Panelist) (she/they) is a second generation Chinese-American born and raised in Queens, NY. She began her journey as a rank-and-file worker organizer at REI Co-op SoHo where she helped form the first unionized REI store in the nation back  in 2022.

Inspired and guided by radical movements in history and across the globe, they believe that everyday people can bring about meaningful change through collective action and deep community organizing.

They currently sit on the SoHo location’s elected bargaining committee where they continue to organize and work alongside their coworkers to win a first contract.

During their free time, they enjoy traveling with their wife, playing pool with friends, and cuddling with their three cats.