Refugee Rhapsody

Afsoon Pajoufar is an award-winning New York City–based stage designer. Recent Off-Broadway : Cold War Choir Practice (MCC ), Coriolanus (Theatre for a New Audience), Practice (Playwrights Horizons), Five Models in Ruins, 1981 (Lincoln Center Theater ), and Fuente Ovejuna (Theatre for a New Audience). Opera: Adoration (Beth Morrison Projects/LA Opera), mɔɹnɪŋ [morning//mourning] (PROTOTYPE Festival), Lady M (Heartbeat Opera), Word. Sound. Power. (BAM), and Paper Pianos (EMPAC). Additional work has been presented at Bard SummerScape, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, South Coast Repertory, Pasadena Playhouse, Studio Theatre, Alte Münze (Berlin), and Schauspiel Köln (Cologne). afsoonpajoufar.com

Broadway: The Thanksgiving Play. Off-Broadway/NY: Watch Me Walk (Soho Rep); Skeleton Canoe (Lincoln Center); O.K.! (INTAR Theater); Dirty Laundry (WP Theater); Manahatta, Mobile Unit: The Comedy of Errors (The Public Theater); Between Two Knees, Number Our Days (PAC NYC); On That Day in Amsterdam (Primary Stages); 53% Of (Second Stage Uptown); Songs About Trains (New Ohio Theatre). Regional: You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World! (OSF); The Woman Question (People’s Light); Relentless, Dial M for Murder (Syracuse Stage); For the People (Guthrie Theater); The Wizard of Oz (Geva Theatre); Espejos: Clean (Hartford Stage); LEAR (Cal Shakes). MFA: NYU/Tisch

Venus is a proud Filipino lighting designer based in Brooklyn NY. Broadway: Asst: New York, New York (St James Theatre). International Design and Film: Rituel/Boulez 100 (Philharmonie de Paris). Regional Design select: Lincoln Center, Signature Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Ford’s Theatre, The Kennedy Center, The Wilma Theatre, Arena Stage, Nashville Opera, Oklahoma City Rep, New Studio on Broadway. International Lighting Director: Sydney Opera House, Dubai Opera House, Philharmonie de Paris, Müpa Budapest. Venus is a three-time nominee of the Helen Hayes Awards for Outstanding Lighting Design. venusgulbranson.com

Sinan Refik Zafar (Sound Designer). Broadway: English, What the Constitution Means to Me. Off-Broadway: We Had A World (MTC); What to Send Up…, Wish You Were Here (Playwrights Horizons); English [Obie Award], Shhh (The Atlantic); Letters from Max (Signature, Drama Desk and Lortel nom.); Which Way to the Stage, All the Natalie Portmans (MCC); Lunar Eclipse, To My Girls (Second Stage); The Vagrant Trilogy, Cullud Wattah (The Public). Regional: Kennedy Center, Guthrie, Mark Taper Forum, Berkeley Rep, Arena Stage, The Goodman, Denver Center, Williamstown, among others. M.F.A. Yale School of Drama. sinanzafar.com

NYC: Othello (Bedlam); The Tragedy of Coriolanus, The Wild Duck (Theatre for a New Audience); Regional: Sister Act (Ford’s Theatre); A Funny Thing…Forum, HAIR, Sweeney Todd (Signature Theatre); Where We Belong (Folger Theatre); The Mortification of Fovea Munson (Kennedy Center TYA); Songs for a New World (Rep Stage); Evita, Macbeth in Stride (Shakespeare Theatre Company); The Tempest (Synetic Theater); Teenage Dick (Woolly Mammoth); Oyeme, the beautiful, Inside Out (Imagination Stage); The Mousetrap, Into The Breeches!, Pride and Prejudice (The Barnstormers Theatre).

CATF: Third season, previously PA for Magdalene and The Happiest Man on Earth. Regional: Tent Theatre, Ozarks Lyric Opera, Springfield Contemporary Theatre. Education: Missouri State University, BFA in Theatre & Dance. Jake is a Stage Manager, Projection Designer, Photographer, and recent transplant to the DMV area by way of Missouri.

McCorkle Casting Ltd. is honored to continue its longstanding relationship with CATF, helping bring together actors, playwrights, directors, and producers in service of powerful storytelling. For more than four decades, the company has cast productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, in regional theatres, and for film and television, with a commitment to discovering talent and fostering creative collaboration. Credits include Broadway productions such as On the Town, Amazing Grace, End of the Rainbow, and A Few Good Men; Off-Broadway productions including Tribes, Our Town, and Driving Miss Daisy; hundreds of regional theatre productions nationwide; and more than 100 film and television projects for HBO, Showtime, CBS, Disney, Hallmark, BET, and Paramount. Pat McCorkle has received an Emmy nomination and an Artios Award for excellence in casting. www.mccorklecasting.com

Aaron is thrilled to be returning to CATF as it is his favorite place to pretend to beat people up. He is an internationally certified fight director who works at theaters around the globe. Favorite CATF shows include Happy Fall; The House of the Negro Insane; Thirst; Chester Bailey; Berta, Berta; The Wedding Gift; Byhalia, Mississippi; Not Medea; On Clover Road; H2O; Heartless; Modern Terrorism; Scott and Hem in the Garden of Allah; Barcelona; Captors; Gideon’s Knot; In a Forest Dark and Deep; Ages of The Moon; Lidless; Fifty Words; History of Light; Farragut North; The Overwhelming; Stick Fly; and Pig Farm.

Shea-Mikal Green is an actor, director, and creator who holds an MFA in Devised Performance from Pig Iron School / University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Credits include work at The Kennedy Center, Studio Theatre, RepStage, Adventure Theatre, Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, Quintessence Theatre, FringeArts, Cumberland Theatre, and Maryland Ensemble Theatre, where she is a company member. She has developed and performed original work in the U.S. and internationally through residencies such as Cow House Studios in Wexford, Ireland and The Iron Factory in Philadelphia. Green is the Director of the Contemporary Theater Studies program at Shepherd University. www.shea-mikalgreen.com

Naysan Mojgani is a freelance dramaturg and Artistic/Dramaturgical Advisor at Round House Theatre. Naysan has worked on new and classic work with theatres around the country, including La Jolla Playhouse, Theatre de la Jeune Lune, Theatre Squared, Signature Theatre, Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Lookingglass Theatre Company, and Arena Stage, and has taught at UC San Diego, George Mason University, and Loyola University New Orleans. Naysan holds a PhD in Theatre & Drama from UCSD, and a BA from Carleton College. He currently lives in New Orleans with his wife and children.

Kirsten is a Professor of Theater at Shenandoah Conservatory. Most recently there, she has directed Everybody, She Kills Monsters, and A Dream Play. Kirsten has worked with CATF since its inception, from actor to dialect coach, to educational director to board member, Kirsten’s coaching work includes over 80 plays, and she has most recently worked as a coach for CATF’s Tornado Tastes Like Aluminum Sting by Harmon dot aut, 2024, and Redeemed by Chisa Hutchinson in 2023. In previous seasons, Kirsten has worked on productions of such notable American playwrights as Lee Blessing, Keith Glover, and Catherine Filleaux.