CREATIVE TEAM BIOS
MAURA MCCARTHY (Playwright, she/her) is an artist, playwright, and entrepreneur. She has developed and produced several narrative documentary and independent feature films including, Cracking the Code: Phil Sharp and the Biotech Revolution (2025), What We Find on the Road (2024), and Jim Allison: Breakthrough (2020). She is co-founder of Citizen56, a nonprofit focused on the arts, environment and democracy in America, and World Connect, a global nonprofit.
LEE SUNDAY EVANS (Director, she/her) is a two-time Obie Award-winning director and the Artistic Director of Waterwell, who directed the world premiere ofA Wrinkle in Time by Lauren Yee, music and lyrics by Heather Christian, at Arena Stage last season. Other notable credits include Oratorio for Living Things by Heather Christian, The Ford/Hill Project which she co-created with Elizabeth Marvel, Dance Nation by Clare Barron, Waterwell’s The Courtroom created with Arian Moayed which premiered in a courtroom in the Second Circuit Thurgood Marshall Courthouse, Caught by Christopher Chen, and Home by Geoff Sobelle. She directed the film adaptation of The Courtroom which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2022 and has had grassroots screenings around the country. As part of her work at Waterwell, she has partnered with the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Center for Youth Law, Labor Notes, the Amica Center, the National Center for Youth Law, Dignity Not Detention Coalition, and others to create original projects that make robust contributions to their work on public policy, communications, and organizing.
CARINA CHAVDA (Producer, she/her) is a filmmaker and storyteller whose work spans documentary, narrative film, and television. Her recent producing credits include Cracking the Code: Phil Sharp & The Biotech Revolution (2025), a feature documentary exploring the life of Nobel Prize-winning scientist Phil Sharp and the rise of the biotechnology industry, now available on Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video. She produced Saving Saffron, a documentary about the impact of climate change on Himalayan farming communities, which screened at environmental film festivals in the U.S. and internationally. Carina also served as Associate Producer on I See You, which screened at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival’s American Pavilion and won Best Film at the Asian American Film Festival. Born and raised in Mumbai, India, she began her career producing sports television before transitioning to film and documentary production.
ANNE PHILLIPS (Producer, she/her) is Director of Operations and Strategic Initiatives at Citizen56, Inc., where she works at the intersection of creative production and organizational infrastructure. Her recent producing credits include Associate Producer for Cracking the Code: Phil Sharp and the Biotech Revolution (2025) and What We Find on the Road (2024), and Social Impact Producer for Girl Talk (2022), Biking While Black: Through Decriminalization, Disenfranchisement & Gentrification (2021), and Suppressed: The Fight to Vote (2018). Before transitioning to film and theater, Anne spent 20 years working for social justice nonprofits in Texas, Maryland, and Massachusetts. She is based in Los Angeles.
CALVIN ANDERSON (Production Manager, he/they) is a designer and production manager located in Western Catskills, NY. They have a strong pull towards the devised, the radical and the risky, while leaning in with heart and trust. Favorite Production Management projects include Skeleton Canoe (All My Relations Collective), 73 Seconds (En Garde Arts), Reconstructing (The TEAM), Late Night Snacks and The Beardmobile (Bearded Ladies Cabaret), Piano Battle (US Tour), and CrossSound Music Festival (International Tour). Favorite design projects include Becoming A Man (Z Space), The Christine Jorgensen Show (Cleveland Playhouse), Body As a Site of Faith and Protest (waheedworks), Blythely Ever After (Bearded Ladies Cabaret), Oscar at the Crown (The Neon Coven), and Strings & Serpents (Andy Milne). Calvin is the Resident Designer and Production Manager with FJK Dance, an educator, mentor and proud member of Wingspace Design Collective, USITT Gateway Program and United Scenic Artists Local 829. coandersondesign.com
FOUAD HASSAN (Production Stage Manager, he/him) is a blind Arab stage manager, proud of both. Fouad dedicates his work to beautiful Arabs who rarely see ourselves and our real stories represented. With credits including Broadway's Hamilton and The Kite Runner, Off-Broadway's We Live in Cairo, and the national tours of Life of Pi and Jesus Christ Superstar, Fouad strives to foster spaces of community, care, and visibility for all. Thank you to Emily, Alisa, and most of all my partner Esteban. Instagram: @fouad_hh
EMILY WASENDA (Assistant Stage Manager, she/her) Recent credits include Broadway Backwards, The Giggling Granny (Theater for the New City), Dirt (Arts on Site), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (PSM, Columbia University); POTUS, Fully Committed, and The Woman in Black (Winnipesaukee Playhouse); Selkie Woman and Three Sisters (PSM, Columbia University); The World’s Most Boring Murder (PSM, The Players Theatre); and Koi-Coy and Phaedra’s Love (SM, Columbia University). MFA: Columbia University. Much love to Tucker and Scout.
ROMAN SANCHEZ (Associate Director, he/him) is a director, producer, and educator. Favorite directing credits include ISLA (Hit The Lights!) The Grown-Ups (Sunstone Theatre), Dance Nation, Hot & Cold Showers: An Evening of Grand Guignol (Yale Cabaret), Yet Another Non-Profit Christmas Carol (Longshadr Productions), Transitions (Linfield University), Radioman (Dell’Arte), Extreme Home Makeover (Teatro Espejo), Prodigal Son (Redwood Curtain Theatre), Every Brilliant Thing (Creative Type Productions), Gruesome Playground Injuries, Doubt: A Parable (Lime Arts Productions). Film: CCC: Conflicted Cuties of Color (Independent, 2025). Awards: Princess Grace Honoraria, SDC Abe Burrows Award, Yale’s Dexter Wood Luke Prize, Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival National Arts Impact Award, Herb Alpert Emerging Young Artist Award. MFA, David Geffen School of Drama at Yale. SDC Associate Member. Instagram: @romansanchez001
PEIYI WONG (Scenic & Costume Designer, she/they) is a Los Angeles and New York-based scenographer and interdisciplinary artist.She designs sets and costumes for theater, opera, dance, and film with a particular interest in experimental and cross-disciplinary modes of expression and collaboration.Her original works draw heavily from her experience as a contemporary theater artist. They often incorporate at least one if not several elements of installation, interactivity, movement/performance, puppetry, or video. This work, on occasion, also informs or supplements her more traditional theatrical and production design process. Peiyi holds an MFA in Scenic Design and Integrated Media from the California Institute of the Arts. She received her BA in Literature and Visual Arts from Columbia University. Her theater work has been shown at REDCAT, Automata, HERE Arts Center, P.S. 122, The Ontological-Hysteric Theater, The Chocolate Factory, Access Theater Gallery, The Brick, The Prague Quadrennial, and multiple other venues and institutions in New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, New Orleans, Indianapolis, and Mount Desert Island, ME.
SAIYA PALMER (Associate Costume Designer she/they) is a New Orleans born costume designer, actor, and theatre artist based in New York City. A recent graduate of Columbia University, they earned a B.A. in Theatre Arts and History with a concentration in Costume Design. Their work is grounded in a deep interest in history, storytelling, and the ways costume can reveal character, identity, and world. Saiya’s design credits include Fefu and Her Friends, Hurricane Diane, and The Boys in the Band, alongside experience in costume construction, wardrobe, production, and stage management. Beyond design, Saiya has worked in arts administration and production at organizations including The Tank and New York City Ballet. They are currently a Development Apprentice at New York City Center. As a multidisciplinary theatre artist, Saiya is committed to creating thoughtful, historically informed, and expressive costumes that deepen storytelling and bring characters and worlds to life.
STACEY DEROSIER (Lighting Designer, she/her) is a NYC-based lighting designer. Her credits include: Miss Julie, Dance of Death (Classic Stage Company); The Good Person of Szechwan, tick, tick…BOOM! (Brown/Trinity MFA); Lewiston/ Clarkston (Rattlestick Playwright’s Theatre); Detroit ’67 (The Juilliard School); The Revolving Cycles Truly and Steadily Roll’d (Playwright’s Realm); 1969: The Second Man (3rd Place Projects, as co-lighting designer).
PAUL JONATHAN DAVIS (Associate Lighting Designer, he/him) Off-Broadway: Lady Patriot. Off-Off Broadway: Bent Through Glass, Satin Secrets, Shamaniac. Regional: Heartbreak Hotel, Hairspray, Waitress. Educational: Pericles, Curtains, Sense & Sensibility. Associate Design | Stacey Derosier: Well I’ll Let You Go, The Saviors, The Poisoner, The Visitors. Cha See: Least Problematic Woman… The Monsters, Whoopi Monologues, Oh Mary! Tour. Aja Jackson: Hadestown 2nd National Tour, Primary Trust, Snow Goose.
MFA: NYU/Tisch Design for Stage and Film. Website: www.pauljonathandavis.com Instagram: @pauljonathandavisdesigns
BRIAN HICKEY (Sound Designer, he/him) is a New York–based sound designer whose work has been heard across Off-Broadway, regional, and university theatres. Select work: Blackout Songs (Regular People), The Wasp (Little Engine Theater), Choreomania 1518 (Playwrights Realm), Sissy (Baryshnikov Arts), Tender Napalm (Theaterlab), The Poisoner (La MaMa, Tour), Wish You Were Here (Playwrights Horizons), No Good Things Dwell in the Flesh (A.R.T./New York), Every Brilliant Thing, Esai’s Table (JAG), Buggy Baby (APAC), Pool Plays 3.0 (59E59), Pool Plays 2.0 (New Ohio Theatre), birthday birthday birthday, Or, An Astronaut Play (The Tank), Novenas for a Lost Hospital (Rattlestick), Self Portraits (BRIC Arts), Phèdre (Cutting Ball Theater), Bright Half Life (Magic Theatre), and Familiar (Yale Rep), along with additional Off-Broadway associate and assistant credits. Development: MASS MoCA, The Mercury Store. Audiobook: Brutal Imagination (Audible Original). Education: MFA, Yale School of Drama.
KEIGHTY MCLALLEN (Technical Director, she/they) has worked in Philadelphia with a wide variety of theaters, taking on jobs spanning from stage technician at the Prince Theater to Director of Production at FringeArts since 2007. In 2021, she took a step back from theater to obtain her cosmetology license. She currently lives and works in South Philly with her husband and 3 cats.
RED KADETSKY (Props Supervisor, he/they) is a theater and visual artist residing in Brooklyn, NY. RED is one half of doxies, a collaborative multimedia performance duo. doxies has featured original work at The Brick as part of ?!: New Works 2026 and Catch80 (Lifeworld). RED has designed, fabricated and/or performed at and with Theater MITU, Mabou Mines. La MaMa, Prototype Festival, LA Opera, HERE Arts, Under the Radar, Abrons Arts Center, MoMA PS1, Soho Rep, and BAM. RED has created and directed original works such as Road Head (Dixon Place) and Eat Yourself Out (Sarah Lawrence College). Upcoming productions include Sonic Life of the Giant Tortoise as the assistant director to Tei Blow (The Bushwick Starr, 2027). RED was a member of the virtual Joy/Grief Residency at Kolaj Institute with featured work at their gallery in New Orleans and corresponding magazine. His work will be featured at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Winter 2026. His collage has been presented on Art Fluent and was featured in Soho Rep’s Watch Me Walk as part of Under the Radar (2026). RED received their undergraduate degree at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Music and their Master of Fine Arts in Theater and Performance at Sarah Lawrence College. www.redkadetsky.com
ANNIKA VOORHEIS (Wardrobe Supervisor, she/her) is a dancer, actor, and theater professional based in Brooklyn NY. She recently worked as a stage hand and wardrobe supervisor (Pink Fang’s The Table at Judson Memorial Church) and as a lighting technician (ART/New York, Miles Square Theater). Recent performance credits include: How to be Normal and Regular (Brick Aux/Collapsable Hole, dir. Celia Krefter and Kate Purdum), Infinite Process (Green Lung Studio, Choreo. Katie Sponenburg), Junk Mail (Alab Theater Festival, choreo. Pimprenelle Noël), Cope (Spark Theater Festival, choreo. Rosie Elliott), Math Live! (Brick Aux, dir. Celia Krefter), Death Scene (Clark Center Showcase, choreo. Rae Su), and Carnival Romeo and Juliet (938 collective). Annika has also danced in works by Trisha Brown, Dormeshia Sumbry Edwards, Candace Brown, and is a member of Undercut Dance. Sending love to the multi-hyphenate artists out there, my mom for teaching me to sew, and to all my family in Michigan.
JUST JUST (Lighting & Sound Supervisor, they/theym) is an emotional Lighting Designer, Assistant, Supervisor, Electrician, spot op, programmer, and over all lover of Lighting (and now sound)! A Graduate from UCSD, Just just finished the international tour of "Kim's Convenience", all while managing their family's business from afar. When not in the dark corners of a theatre you can often find Just singing Loudly, laughing Loudly, or playing video games loudly. Emotions are rampant when considering the non-physical art form that is Lighting and sound, we hope that you enjoy the show and are full of emotions.