"Crossing Mnisose" Cast & Creative Team

By Mary Kathryn Nagle 
Directed by Molly Smith

Music and Sound for Crossing Mnisose include:

Original Music by Roc Lee
Tribute to Kenny Merrick Jr. by Elk Soldier, led by Glenn Drapeau
Bryce Drapeau, Yankton Sioux Vocals
Elizabeth Brady, Shoshone Vocals
Whitefish Jr. Drum Group
Different Heroes, featuring Northern Voice by A Tribe Called Red
No DAPL Song by Cherry Creek
An Anthem for Standing Rock — Water to Fire by Aliza Hava
American Indian Movement (AIM) Song
Water and Wildlife recorded along the Missouri River
Women's Warrior Song

The Actors and Stage Manager employed in this production are members of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.

Mary Kathryn Nagle, Playwright 
Mary Kathryn is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation. She currently serves as the executive director of the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program. She is also a partner at Pipestem Law, P.C., where she works to protect tribal sovereignty and the inherent right of Indian Nations to protect their women and children from domestic violence and sexual assault. Mary Kathryn is an alumn of the 2012 Public Theater Emerging Writers Group, where she developed her play Manahatta in Public Studio (May 2014). Productions include Miss Lead (Amerinda Inc., 59E59 Theaters, January 2014), Fairly Traceable (Native Voices at the Autry, March 2017), Sovereignty (Arena Stage, January 2018), Manahatta (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), and Return to Niobrara (The Rose Theater). In 2019, the Marin Theatre Company will produce Sovereignty.

Molly Smith, Director
Molly has been a leader in new play development for 40 years. She has been the artistic director of Arena Stage since 1998. Her most recent directing credits at Arena include Anything Goes, Snow Child, and Sovereignty. Her directorial work has also been seen around the country and Canada, including on Broadway (The Velocity of Autumn, 2014), Off-Broadway (The Originalist), and Perseverance Theatre in Juneau, Alaska, which she founded and ran from 1979-1998. She has worked alongside playwrights Sarah Ruhl, Paula Vogel, Wendy Wasserstein, Karen Zacarías, Mary Kathryn Nagle, and many others. She led the re-invention of Arena Stage, through the creation of the Mead Center for American Theater and positioning Arena Stage as a national center for American artists. Arena’s Power Plays Cycle is a massive commissioning project focusing on 25 writers over 10 years on stories of American politics and power from 1776 to the present decade.

Todd Rosenthal, Scenic Designer
Broadway: August: Osage County (Tony and Laurence Olivier Award for Best Scenic Design), The Motherf**ker with the Hat (Tony nomination), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Of Mice and Men, This is Our Youth, Fish in the Dark, Straight White Men, and the upcoming Linda Vista. International: The Beauty Queen of Leenane and Madame Butterfly in Ireland; Nice Fish and Downstate in London. Regional: Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Goodman Theatre, Guthrie Theater, Mark Taper Forum, American Repertory Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Arena Stage, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Alley Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and many Off-Broadway theaters. He designed six seasons for Big Apple Circus. Awards include: USITT 2019 Distinguished Achievement Award, Helen Hayes, Ovation, Joseph Jefferson, and Michael Merritt Awards. Featured designer at the United States exhibition at the Prague Quadrennial in 2019. Professor, Northwestern University. Graduate, Yale Drama.

Alison Heryer, Costumer Designer
Alison is a costume designer for theater, film, and print. She is thrilled to be returning to Portland Center Stage at The Armory after designing costumes for Sense and Sensibility, Fun Home, Wild and Reckless, The Oregon Trail, Ain’t Misbehavin’, Our Town, Three Days of Rain, and Threesome. Other design credits include productions with Steppenwolf Theatre Company, 59E59 Theaters, La MaMa, The New Victory Theater, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Portland Opera, Artists Repertory Theatre, and The Hypocrites. She has exhibited work at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, World Stage Design, and the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space. Alison is on the faculty in the School of Art + Design at Portland State University and a member of United Scenic Artists Local 829. alisonheryerdesign.com

Sarah Hughey, Lighting Designer
Sarah is happy to return Portland Center Stage at The Armory where other credits include Sense and Sensibility, A Christmas Memory/Winter Song, and Major Barbara. Additional design credits include projects at Guthrie Theater, Asolo Repertory Theatre, Oregon Children’s Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Lookingglass Theatre Company, Northlight Theatre, City Theatre Company, Writers Theatre, Chicago Children’s Theatre, Victory Gardens Theater, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, The Black Rep (St. Louis), and Court Theatre. She has taught lighting design at Northwestern University, Columbia College Chicago, and Willamette University. She holds an M.F.A. from Northwestern University and is a member of USA Local 829. skhugheylighting.com

Roc Lee, Composer & Sound Designer
Roc is a Washington D.C.-based composer and sound designer. He holds a Master of Music in stage music composition from The Catholic University of America. Credits include: Snow Child, The Price, The Year of Magical Thinking, Mother Courage (Arena Stage); Small Mouth Sounds (Round House Theatre); Admissions, Curve of Departure (Studio Theatre); The Watsons Go to Birmingham (The Kennedy Center Theater for Young Audiences); Charm, Hooded, Or Being Black for Dummies, Ulysses On Bottles, Oh, God (Mosaic Theater Company); Aubergine, The Importance of Being Earnest (Everyman Theatre); The Invisible Hand, On The Town, Aubergine, Annie, Thurgood, Fickle: A Fancy French Farce, Dial M for Murder (Olney Theater Center); AIDA (Constellation Theatre Company); In This Hope: A Pericles Project, Hello My Name Is ... (The Welders); [410]Gone (Rorschach Theatre); and In the Heights (GALA Hispanic Theatre). roclee.net 

Anita Maynard-Losh, Text Director & Vocal Coach
Anita is the director of community engagement and senior artistic advisor at Arena Stage, where she leads the education and outreach programs and serves on the artistic team. Now in her 15^th season at Arena Stage, Anita directed the world premiere of Our War, and has been an associate director and text director on several productions, including Sovereignty by Mary Kathryn Nagle, directed by Molly Smith. Anita trained and taught at the American Conservatory Theater, was on the faculty at Webster University, and was the associate artistic director of Perseverance Theater in Juneau, Alaska where she directed 21 mainstage productions. She has coached dialects at Arena Stage, The Kennedy Center, Washington National Opera, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and for the Broadway revival of Ragtime.

Devon Roberts, Assistant Director
Devon is thrilled to be working on his first show at Portland Center Stage at The Armory. He is a graduate of Portland State University's Theater Program where, following his work as a director on Shaw's Arms and the Man, he was chosen to direct Ionesco's Victims of Duty for the main stage season; the following year he acted the role of Malvolio in Twelfth Night. Devon is an alumni of the Orchard Project Core Company, developing new works with artists and companies such as The Civilians and Amyra Leon. His recent professional credits include directing the new play Gayface at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and acting the role of Leo Irving in Ruhl's In the Next Room, or the vibrator play (guest artist, Portland State University).

Kristen Mun, Fight Director
Kristen is originally from the island of Oahu and holds a B.F.A. from Southern Oregon University. She is excited to return for her sixth season at Portland Center Stage at The Armory. Recent credits at The Armory include fight choreographer and assistant stage manager for The Color Purple, stage manager for Until The Flood, Sense and Sensibility, Constellations, and Major Barbara. Kristen has been in the world of stage combat for almost 15 years and has recieved a Drammy Award for Best Fight Choreography for her work on Tender Napalm (2018), Henry IV, Part I (2013), Oedipus El Rey (2012) and Danny and the Deep Blue Sea (2012). She owes her skills and training to Toppo, Duval, and Dueling Arts Intervational.

Benjamin Fainstein, Dramaturg
Benjamin is the literary manager for Portland Center Stage at The Armory and JAW: A Playwrights Festival. Selected dramaturgy and new play development credits include Astoria: Part One and Two (The Armory); Sarah Sander’s Golden (MIDD Summer Play Lab); Meghan Brown's The Tasters and Kevin Artigue’s The Forcings (JAW); Meg Miroshnik’s The Tall Girls (Carlotta Festival of New Plays); and Marcus Gardley’s The House That Will Not Stand (Yale Repertory Theatre). Benjamin was a 2018 Lambda Literary Playwriting Fellow, and his plays have appeared in New York, New Haven, Boston, and Washington, D.C. Previous posts include founding artistic director of Whistler in the Dark Theatre, associate artistic director of Yale Cabaret, and managing editor of Theater magazine. He received his M.F.A. from Yale School of Drama.

Glenn Drapeau, Cultural Consultant, Yankton Sioux Nation
Glenn is an enrolled member of the Ihanktonwan Oyate, Yankton Sioux Nation. He is currently a Dakota language instructor at Marty Indian School in Marty, South Dakota. He has also been gifted with the beautiful role of being a culture keeper for the Seven Council Fires of the Great Sioux Nation. Glenn has a B.A. in biology and earth and environmental science. He has grown up and lived on the Indigenous homeland and territory of the Dakota Nation, which is in the heart of what is known as Turtle Island, South Dakota.

Lauren Cordova, Cultural Consultant, Shoshone-Bannock Tribes
Lauren is the great-great granddaughter of Shoshone Chief Arimo. She grew up in the Washington, D.C. area and spent a great deal of her childhood with family on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation. She is an enrolled member of the Taos Pueblo tribe of New Mexico, and is a descendant of Tesuque Pueblo through her paternal grandmother. Lauren is a two-spirit writer and poet. Her writing is mainly focused on Native American culture and activism. She has worked on numerous productions in the Northern Virginia area and at Appel Farm Arts camp in Elmer, New Jersey. Previously, she assisted with Mary Kathryn Nagle’s Sliver of a Full Moon in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Susan R. White, Stage Manager
Susan is honored to be a part of Portland Center Stage at The Armory’s season, and is thrilled to be working with director Molly Smith. Susan is a proud member for Actors' Equity Association.

Mark Tynan, Stage Manager
Imagine being in a room full of artists, watching the birth of an idea, a movement given purpose, a sentence, phrase, scene, act given life. Then imagine that room translating to the stage with lighting, sound, costumes, scenery, and props; then you can imagine what Mark’s job is like. Special thanks to the stage management apprentices, Alexis Ellis-Alvarez, Molly Reed, and Sarah Stark. Prior to The Armory, Mark toured nationally and internationally with musicals including Dreamgirls, The King and I with Rudolf Nureyev, How to Succeed …, Grand Hotel, The Phantom of the Opera, Rent, and Jersey Boys. Other Portland credits include several summers with Broadway Rose Theatre Company in Tigard. Regional credits include Alley Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, and Casa Mañana Theatre.

Lilo Alfaro, Production Assistant
Lilo is grateful to be contributing to new and important works at Portland Center Stage at The Armory. As a business school graduate of California State University, and Fullerton and MBA candidate at Portland State University, she is continuing her pursuits in theater to engage in conversations like the ones that will inevitably be sparked by this play. Recent Portland backstage credits include Sides: the Musical at Lakewood Theatre Company; The Secretaries at Profile Theatre; and Fences, Scarlet, and A Christmas Carol at Portland Playhouse. Outside of work, Lilo is a Halloween enthusiast, escape room aficionado, operates an Instagram account dedicated to ugly fashion, and shares a home and life with writer and future husband, Matthew Capurro. @disgusting_trends

Alexis Ellis-Alvarez, Production Assistant
Alexis is thrilled to be working as a stage management apprentice at Portland Center Stage at The Armory. Credits at The Armory include The Color Purple, A Christmas Memory/Winter Song, and Buyer & Cellar. Outside of Portland, credits include Huntington Theater Company as the production assistant for Tartuffe; ArtsEmerson as the assistant stage manager for the world premiere of Mala; and Cygnet Theatre as the production assistant for Animal Crackers. Alexis studied stage and production management at Emerson College, where she worked on Antigone Project as the stage manager and Guys and Dolls as the production assistant. Alexis would like to send love to her parents and sister, who have always been extremely supportive of her.