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Frankie J. Alicea (he/they) is a theatre maker, educator & producer. Since receiving his BFA from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University in 2012, they've worked throughout the US and abroad and has extensive training in devised theater techniques, arts integration and trauma-informed theater & educational practices. They have created and spearheaded a wide range of theater education programs throughout Connecticut, New York, southern California, creating & facilitating curriculum to support students K-12, adults & neurodiverse folks. Frankie most recently served as the Associate Artistic Director of Diversionary Theatre in San Diego, CA and currently works as the Creative Producer/Director of Productions with Trusty Sidekick Theater Company. When not making theatre, Frankie can be found taking care of his German Shepard pup (Diego), watching most every television show produced by Bravo and perfecting their mac and cheese recipe.
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Michael Alvarez is an Indigenous Mexican-American interdisciplinary and international theatre director, creator, and visual artist. He has been a Directing Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop, a Drama League Directing Fellow, and a Director with the Civilians R&D Group, amongst others. He has directed and created work in New York, London, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Eastern Europe, and at such institutions as Her Majesty’s Theatre in the West End, Arcola Theatre, London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts, National Theatre of Slovenia, New York Theatre Workshop, Serenbe Playhouse and made performance art pieces at the British Museum. He is the founding Artistic Director of The Muse Collective and teaches Directing and Interdisciplinary Practice at UNCSA. Member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab. Education: Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and California Institute of the Arts. www.Michael-Alvarez.com
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A contemporary music enthusiast, soprano Sydney Anderson (she/her), has sung numerous World Premieres and workshops, recently featured with Beth Morrison Projects, Aural Compass Projects, HERE Arts, and American Lyric Theater. Last season, she created the roles of One in it is a comfort to know (Gartman/Bywaters), Dalinda in Being Ariodante (Dawe) with Ensemble Échappé, Lover/Ana in Uncovered (Laitman/Lax) with City Lyric Opera, and sang Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Scalia/Ginsburg with Opera in the Heights. In 2019, Sydney was named an Eastern District Winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and won the Audience Favorite Award at Eastern Region Finals. Sydney is the Founder and Artistic Director of The Why Collective, who was in-residence at Nancy Manocherian’s the cell theatre in NYC, January-May 2023, and produced four new works of interdisciplinary theatre, including the sold-out premiere of The Smallest Sound, in the Smallest Space by Bryce McClendon. www.thewhycollective.art
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About Kin Marie Broughton
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Kin Marie is a Chicago based artist and filmmaker whose artistic practice currently focuses on the visual culture of afrofuturism, its social imaginations and how this ideology can serve as a blueprint for cultural growth through both a mundane and interpretive lens. Their primary focus lies in actively researching the perceptibility of colonial and post-colonial Africa and how it informs the use of imagery, color, and expression in their work. Marie explores identity, self image and environmental influence with a cadence that can contribute interpretations of what the reclamation of power and visibility looks like in both our everyday life and imaginative states.
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About Erin Buvala-Benites
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Erin's artistic journey spans over 42 years, marked by a profound desire to transform the world of performing arts. From her enchanting debut as a witch in a school carnival haunted house, her passion for the stage has flourished. She refined her performance skills at Phoenix College in the 90s and more recently completed a certificate program in Performing Arts Essentials at NYU-TISCH, solidifying her lifelong commitment to artistic expression.
Since the summer of 2020, Erin has taken the helm as the Artistic Director of Virtual Theater Lab, an Arizona-based experimental theater company. With a focus on pushing virtual theater into the mainstream, Erin passionately works to create a platform for individuals marginalized within the performing arts. She has actively participated in numerous virtual productions, using her talents to uplift and amplify underrepresented voices.
Now, as she embarks on her journey with the BMP Producer Academy, Erin's dedication to expanding virtual theater's reach and advocating for inclusivity remains steadfast.
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Matt Cahill (he/they) is a NYC and Maine based performer, educator, and producer. Highlights of his performance career include starring as Papageno in Peter Brook’s Molière Award-winning Une Flûte Enchanté, dancing in the movie The Producers!, and performing at BAM, ART, and New York City Opera. As an educator Matt has taught at The Gilman School, SongFest, Brooklyn College, and Montclair State University, and at Summer Performing Arts with Juilliard’s voice and musical theater programs, which he also created and led for five years. He currently teaches Alexander Technique at the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program of the Metropolitan Opera and the Circle in the Square Theatre School. Most recently Matt co-founded Hogfish, a regenerative arts and artist cultivation company dedicated to holistically cultivating the next generation of artists, building a more inclusive canon, and bridging divides through the arts. www.hogfish.org
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Esha Datta is a singer, creative producer, and a software developer/technologist. She is co-founder of Immersion, a NYC based opera and concert production company. Besides performing around NYC, she has also been performing and co-producing concerts of new and re-imagined works from the classical and operatic canon through Immersion. She is interested in highlighting different voices and perspectives using multidisciplinary techniques from technology, theatre, and various types of arts such as dance, video, and poetry to tell stories. This has been a throughline in all Immersion productions. Previous productions have included an expanded interpretation of Franz Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin. An upcoming production will be a workshop of a very abridged Alcina by G.F. Händel which will include motion capture, virtual production with gaming software, and a live performance of the opera bringing in different perspectives and a new backstory. immersionrepertory.org
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Canadian soprano Julia Dawson has been hailed as "radiant and riveting" (Opera News) and "spitfire" (NY Times). She is a winner of the George London Award and the Anny-Schlemm-Preis from Oper Frankfurt, where she was a member of the ensemble and Opernstudio from 2015-2019. She has performed with the Munich Philharmonic, the French Radio Symphony, Tiroler Festspiele Erl, and Opera Lafayette among others.
Combining her love of contemporary and classical music, Dawson recently conceived and performed in "Obscura Nox," a musical film featuring Mozart's "Exsultate, jubilate" and new commissions from Iranian-Canadian composer Iman Habibi. The film was selected for Opera Philadelphia's O22 Festival and the Canada Shorts Festival.
Dawson has trained at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, Rice University, and Oberlin Conservatory. She was nominated for Singer of the Year by Opus Klassik for the album 'Girl in the Snow;' songs by American composer Scott Ordway.
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Gavin Gamboa is a Los Angeles-based composer, pianist, and video-artist interested in the intersections of improvised and premeditated composition, using software to form a multifaceted stylistic praxis. Born in Mérida, Yucatán, he composes for a variety of ensembles and performs classical/new works internationally. He has given concerts as a soloist in Los Angeles, Seattle, at Festival de las Artes Otoño Cultural Mérida and Cultura Mazatlán (Mexico), and has accompanied Erykah Badu with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and tenor León de Castillo in Vienna, Austria. Performances of his music have taken place in Bolzano (Italy), Lublin (Poland), Basel (Switzerland) and his opera with E. Elias Merhige "Polia & Blastema" premiered at Opera Philadelphia's Festival O22 and has since shown at Offscreen in Brussels and E'trange Festival in Paris. Additional works for film with Argentinian artist David Lamelas have screened at The Getty and Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA).
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American vocalist Katherine Goforth shares the “thrilling tenor power” (Opera News) of her “noble, colorful and iridescent vocal sound” (Magazin Klassik) in vivid character portraits and heartfelt performances that “[do] not hold back” (The New York Times).
The recipient of Washington National Opera’s inaugural True Voice Award for transgender and non-binary singers and of the Career Advancement Award from the fourth Dallas Symphony Orchestra Women in Classical Music Symposium, Katherine recently received critical acclaim for her role in Philip Venables and Ted Huffman’s The F****ts and Their Friends Between Revolutions at Manchester International Festival, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, and Bregenzer Festspiele.
Katherine was a member of the International Opera Studio of Oper Köln, received her Bachelor’s degree from St. Olaf College and her Master’s degree from the Juilliard School. Katherinegoforth.com
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Becca Hoback is a dance theater producer and performing artist based in Nashville, Tennessee. She developed Enactor Productions to create performances and movement workshops that unpack what it means to be a human being having a relationship with your body. The solo work she has curated, collaborated on, and choreographed has been programmed locally in Nashville and internationally at festivals residencies in Europe and the Middle East. Becca is an active collaborator with local Nashville artists and regularly assists her colleagues creatively and administratively in launching their independent projects.
In 2020, she received a Tennessee Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship for her solo work. Becca received the writer’s choice for “Best Movement Artist” in the Nashville Scene’s 2022 “Best of Nashville” awards. She received the “Pitch Perfect” award at the culmination of the Periscope Artist Entrepreneurship Program 2022 hosted by the Arts and Business Council of Greater Nashville.
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Nikkei-Canadian artist, Luka Kawabata ???? has quickly established himself as a rising force in Canadian opera. As a baritone and producer, he strives to push the boundaries of representation in opera through the creation of new works.
Luka is a recent graduate of the Yulanda M Faris Young Artist Program with Vancouver Opera, the Digital Emerging Artist Residency (Manitoba Opera) and the Association for Opera in Canada’s RBC Fellowship. Recent collaborations include Edmonton Opera (La Bohème), Saskatoon Opera (Carmen), Opera on the Avalon (February) and re:Naissance Opera (IndieFest).
His ongoing series ‘The HAFU ??? Project' explores the history of Japanese immigration and internment in North America through an intersectional lens of identity, culture and memory. The project’s third digital chapter, ??, premiered last summer with Pacific Opera Victoria’s Civic Engagement Residency and is set to present its first live development with City Opera Vancouver next May.
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About Brandon Kazen-Maddox
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Brandon Kazen-Maddox - (they/them) is a Grandchild of Deaf Adults (GODA) and third-generation native signer of American Sign Language (ASL) who identifies as a Nonbinary, Black Indigenous Person of Color and a member of the LGBTQAI community. Brandon is an artist, choreographer, director, actor, acrobat, activist, and ASL Artist.
Brandon creates work with and for the Deaf and Disability communities, and highlights and empowers BIPOC and LGBTQAI artists, building bridges of collaboration and community among people of all backgrounds and abilities. In May 2019, Brandon graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with an MFA in Dance and New Technology.
In the summer of 2020, Brandon co-founded Up Until Now Collective, an arts and media company that focuses on developing and producing radically inclusive inter-disciplinary work.
Find more at: www.brandonkazen-maddox.com, www.upuntilnowcollective.com
Instagram/Twitter: @bkazenmaddox, @upuntilnowcollective
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About Destin Randell King
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Destin Randell King is an enthusiastic artist with an affection for music, theater, and the arts. Having embarked on a professional acting journey in 2019 and having successfully completed studies at the University of Montevallo. Destin has spent the last three years uncovering a profound passion for directing and producing, which serves as a wellspring for their creative endeavors. Within the realm of cinema, sci-fi productions have carved a special niche within Destin's heart, igniting a desire to orchestrate enthralling narratives that whisk audiences away to fantastical dimensions. Beyond the realm of directing, Destin brings to the table an array of diverse talents encompassing photography, marketing, and adeptness in social media curation.
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Rory James Leech is a creative director dedicated to creating art by and for the next generation of storytellers. He is the founding artistic director of Misfit Toys Collective, a performance company founded to incubate the creation of new forms of opera, theater, and multi-media work by emerging artists. He is a producer with Center for New Performance, and has previously produced projects with Lemonada Media and Rec Room Arts. As a director, he has been involved in the creation of new works and reinventions of classics. He is an alumni of California Institute of the Arts and was awarded as an arts activist by the Dramatist Guild of America. Having grown up surrounded by Opera, he is dedicated to inviting young and diverse audiences into the intimate spectacle at the forms core, sharing an artform that has given him so much. https://roryjamesleechcreative.cargo.site/
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Diana Ly is a Vietnamese-American screenwriter and playwright based in New York. She grew up as an expat in the Philippines before studying Computer Science at Stanford and subsequently working at Google. She recently completed the Universal Writers Lab, a yearlong mentorship program to develop a feature under the guidance of Universal Pictures. She’s been selected for the Orchard Project’s ’23-’24 Greenhouse Lab, a multi-disciplinary incubator for generating new work. Her writing has been presented at LPAC The Brick’s Rough Draft Festival and Piper Theatre’s Spotlight Series. Diana was previously a Women in Film|Black List Feature Resident, a Project Involve Fellow at Film Independent, and a member of the S?ng Collective’s inaugural Vi?t Writers Lab. She received her MFA in Playwriting from Hunter College, under the guidance of Christine Scarfuto. Diana writes about women and people of color coming into their own power, agency and artistry.
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The bass and collaborative artist Andrew Munn studied at Bard College & Juilliard with Dawn Upshaw and Sanford Sylvan. He performs principal roles and world premieres at Deutsche Oper Berlin, Münchener Biennale, Salzburger Landestheater, Szczecin Opera, and Carnegie Hall. In May 2022 he was the protagonist of Lieder von Vertreibung und Nimmerwiederkehr by Bernhard Gander on a libretto by Ukrainian writer and activist, Serhiy Zhadan. The opera meditated on war and statehood in eastern Europe. Prior to Andrew's artistic work, he organized environmental justice movements in the US. He continues to engage with questions of ecology and power in his artistic work and collaborations with composers such as Nina C. Young and Andile Khumalo, sound artists Kat Austen and Marco Donnurrama, the pianist Jacob Greenberg, and artist collective AM ARE IST ÄRE. He was a fellow of Tanglewood and Aspen Music Festivals, and the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium.
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WI-MOTO NYOKA is a horror and sci-fi writer. She is the founder of Dusky Projects, creating and producing horror & sci-fi projects for young adult and adult audiences. Awards and honors include: Stowe Story Labs selected project, Puffin Foundation grant recipient, A.R.T/New York Creative Space Grant recipient, Awesome Foundation grant recipient, Velocity Fund grant recipient, Scribe Video Finishing Grant recipient, Nightmares Film Festival Best Short Screenplay Award Winner, 13 Horror Screenplay Award Winner, Oregon Short Film Festival Best Horror Teleplay Award Winner and more. She is a published author and a regular contributor to The Last Girls Club. She holds a BFA in Music Theater from the University of the Arts, and an MFA for Performance & Interactive Media Arts from Brooklyn College.
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Garrett is a Queer artist who finds joy at the intersection of performance, facilitation, design, and production. His work celebrates holism, criticality, and justice, prioritizing authentic connection and community building while simultaneously disrupting problematic and ineffective systems and structures that impact the complex and nuanced people and stories that shape and fuel the world of art-making! Garrett’s relationship to art and creation developed during his 150 performance credits and a decade’s worth of leading experiential workshops and residencies that uplift creative expression, identity work, purpose, power dynamics, and leadership development. He has collaborated with a wide-variety of organizations such as Opera Philadelphia, the Kimmel Center, Harvard’s Kennedy School and Graduate School of Education, Opera Saratoga, Sarasota Opera, the Olivetti Leadership Institute (Ivrea, Italy), Midori & Friends, and Leadership for Asian Pacifics. Weaving together his passions, Garrett has transitioned into the role of creative producer, most notably in supporting Grammy-award winning Eighth Blackbird on their journey of evoliving the Blackbird Creative Lab, a creative and practice development program for contemporary classical artists.
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Ana Pitol is a Brazilian producer, actress and mother of little Isabel (1-year-old) based in St. John's, NL, Canada. She has a Bachelor's degree (2011) and a Master's degree in History (2015) and has been a History teacher since 2010. She began to study acting in 2018 and since arriving in Canada (2022), she decided to change her career and dedicated herself to working in theatre. Since then she has been involved and working with relevant organizations in St. John's such as TODOS Productions (Project Coordinator Intern and co-producer for Happy Anniversary by Vanessa Cardoso-Whelan), White Rooster Theatre (producer for The Heart Play by Marie Pike on July 2023) and St. John's Shorts (assistant producer for the 8th Annual St. John's Short Play Festival). In parallel to these projects, she is a member of and staff for PARC (Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre).
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Dalia Sevilla is a director and lighting designer. She is the founder of La Senta through which she recently directed Ice-ing on the Cake. Credits include: Off-Broadway U.S. premiere of the musical Of A Lifetime; For the Love of Natalie Woods (Communal Spaces); the premiere of Bismillah (Fresh Fruit Festival). She is the founder of the Classical Voice Collective at NYU, directing Bastien und Bastienne, Hänsel und Gretel, Riders to the Sea, and Daphnis et Chloé. She has been the recipient of the Harrower Music Festival directing fellowship and Boundless Theater Company lighting design fellowship. Her lighting design credits include: Truckers at INTAR, It’s in the Play (1st Irish Festival); Once on this Island (Summer Theatre of New Canaan, dir. George Faison); One Night Only: An Evening with Norm Lewis (NY Pops at Carnegie Hall); Lifeline (Boundless Theater Company); Fiddler on the Roof (NYU Drama Therapy Dept); Self Love Kind of Thing (ChristinaNoel and the Creature).
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About Roshan Singh Sambhi
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Roshan Singh Sambhi is a Singaporean NYC-based writer and multimedia producer, and the founder of the digital storytelling company Andas Productions. His debut work, the historical epic Temujin (2020), was recognized at the Webby Awards (2021), Audio Production Awards (2021), and Asian Podcast Awards (2021). Additionally, as a game developer, Roshan’s work has premiered at the Manhattan SPRING/BREAK Art Show (2021), Sing Lit Station’s Blk Party (2022), and the National Gallery Singapore's Gallery Children’s Biennale (2023).
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Sheree Spencer finds creative balance as a Producer, Performing Artist and Director with a strong passion for interdisciplinary art expression. Born in Toronto of Barbadian heritage, Sheree graduated from McGill University in 2012 with a major in Music and Double Minor in Drama Performance and Environmental Science and MA in Cultural Diplomacy & International Events from the University of the West of Scotland & Institute of Cultural Diplomacy in Berlin.
Sheree was selected as the 2016 TD Emerging Producer for the Toronto Fringe Theatre Festival and has also worked with the Luminato Festival Toronto as the Associate Producer of the Artist in Residency (AIR) Program and with Volcano Theatre as the company producer on The Book of Life Tour (Edinburgh International Festival 22') and Scott Joplin's Treemonisha world premiere. She is currently working in the hybrid role of Associate Producer/Assistant Director for Aportia Chryptych with the Canadian Opera Company and will be directing Sanctuary & Storm with re:Naissance Opera & the Vancouver Symphony in Nov 2023.
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N’yomi “Omi” Stewart (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist, managing director, and organizer based in Brooklyn, NY.
N’yomi is the first black trans woman to graduate from the prestigious University of North Carolina School of the Arts Acting program receiving a B.F.A. and since has worked at the Public Theater (Richard III, A Raisin in the Sun) and other notable theater companies such as The O’Neil, Manhattan Theatre Club, The Roundabout, The New Group, Playwrights Horizons, and The Old Globe.
Recently, she was named a GALLIM Moving Artist Resident and Artist in Residence with the New York Theater Workshop creating and producing intentional inclusive work that will have an innovative impact.
Currently she serves as a managing director for ITBOY® AGENCY, an emerging mother and casting agency in NYC while continuing to lead her own creative projects.
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Greta Štiormer (b.1997) is a Vilnius-based theatre and contemporary opera director. She started her career as a pianist and later graduated from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre with a Bachelor's degree in theatre directing in the course of Eimuntas Nekrošius. Later, she completed Master's degree in Sculpture at the Vilnius Academy of Arts. As a stage director, Greta has presented her work together with ,,Operomanija”, Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre, Lithuanian National Drama Theatre, Vilnius State Small Theatre, ,,Meno fortas'', as well as abroad, at the festival "O!" Rotterdam and the Paris Academy of Dramatic Arts. Greta’s performances have been awarded with nominations and prizes: the Golden Stage Cross nomination for the best ensemble of actors in the opera-performance "Sport's Group", the first prize in the "DramaTest" competition for theatre plays, and many more. Also, Greta is a creative writing workshop leader working with queer youth.
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BMP: Producer Academy introduces external panel of industry experts for applicant selection process
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Troy Anthony is a Kentucky-born composer, director, and theater-maker based in NYC, rigorously practicing Black queer joy. He is the founding artistic director of the Fire Ensemble where he focuses on the intersection between music theater, community practice, and social justice. He has presented work at The Shed, Joe’s Pub, Musical Theater Factory (MTF), Rattlestick Playwright’s Theater, Prospect Theater Company, and JACK to name a few. Commissions include The 5th Avenue Theater, Public Theater, The Shed, and The Civilians. He has also been seen performing at the Delacorte in the Public Theater’s Hercules, Twelfth Night and As You Like It. Troy recently received the Vivace Award from the Bret Adams and Paul Reisch Foundation and has made an artistic home at The Shed. IG: @troyanthonymusic
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About Chase Henry Hopkins
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Chase Hopkins is the general director of Chicago's acclaimed Haymarket Opera Company and the artistic director of Opera Edwardsville. Hopkins was appointed as Haymarket’s first general director in 2020. Recently, Hopkins made his directorial debut at Haymarket Opera Company with Hasse's Marc'Antonio e Cleopatra, receiving praise from Heidi Waleson in the Wall Street Journal, saying "Chase Hopkins, the director, wisely had the performers interact naturalistically, and the portrait of their relationship deepened through the evening." Chicago Classical Review praised Hopkins' staging as "skillful and alert to the intimate nature of the piece." Previously, Hopkins served as a creative producer for three innovative cinematic productions of Handel operas that received praise as “an inspiring and relevant modern production” (Operawire) and “a superb document of a Handel opera” (Chicago Tribune). Hopkins served as creative producer for the 2022 production of L’Amant Anonyme by Joseph Bologne, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, which was praised by the Chicago Tribune for “making history.” The world-premiere recording of this forgotten work was released in collaboration with Chicago’s Grammy Award-winning label, Cedille Records, earning a 5-star review from the BBC Music Magazine and praise for “luxury casting” by Gramophone. Hopkins also served as creative producer for Haymarket’s 2022 production of L’incoronazione di Poppea, which was included in the Chicago Tribune’s “Top Performances of 2022.” Hopkins is currently pursuing executive training at the Harvard Business School.
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Mari Lee is an artist dedicated to forging deep human connections through music. Praised as “extremely impressive” by The Strad, Mari has performed as a violinist at such prestigious venues as the Wigmore Hall, Philharmonie Berlin, Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall, as well as renowned festivals including Ravinia, Verbier, and Marlboro.
As the CEO and Artistic Director of Salon Séance, Mari creates and produces experiential concerts rooted in the idea that performing is an act of channeling. This fall, Salon Séance will be presented by Howland Chamber Music Circle as well as Google and Event Leaders Exchange at IMEX America.
Mari is an alumna of New England Conservatory of Music and Universität der Künste Berlin, studying under Miriam Fried and Nora Chastain. She was a fellow at Carnegie Hall's Ensemble Connect and Beth Morrison's Producer Academy, and is a member of CIPA (Creative & Independent Producer Alliance). www.salonseance.com
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A Chicago native, and formerly the PROTOTYPE Festival Producer, Melanie is now the Producer of Public Programming at the Metropolitan Opera. She has produced work with BAM, Fringe Arts in Philadelphia, Los Angeles Opera, National Sawdust, HERE, and Works & Process at the Guggenheim. A trained soprano, Melanie has sung with Downtown Voices and The Collegiate Chorale in venues spanning Carnegie Hall, Trinity Wall Street, Park Avenue Armory, Alice Tully Hall, The Caramoor Festival, and NYTW. Melanie has a passion for bringing evocative opera to a new, eager set of ears and recreating the concept of the performance venue through her work with LoftOpera and an active freelance event schedule. Melanie holds a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance and Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from North Park University.
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About Tiffany Vega-Gibson
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Tiffany Vega-Gibson is a Puerto Rican arts administrator, creative producer, and educator from East Harlem, NYC, and is a Partner and Co-Founder of Evolution Management Consultants and is the President & Founder of La Vega Management. She is a trained and certified Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion facilitator through artEquity and Northwestern University. She is an Adjunct Professor at Loyola University-New Orleans and a Senior Consultant with Jennifer Brown Consulting. Previously, she was an Associate and Consultant with ALJP Consulting, the General Manager at Hi-ARTS NYC (Formerly Hip-Hop Theater Festival), a Client Success Manager with AudienceView, and an Adjunct Professor at Dillard University.
Tiffany is an industry expert in Black, Latine, and Hip-Hop Theatre. She holds an MFA in Theatre Management & Producing from Columbia University and a BA in Theatre Performance from the University of Maryland-College Park.
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BMP: Producer Academy announces BMP Faculty for 2023 Program
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About Beth Morrison, President & Creative Producer
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Recipient of the Musical America Award for Best Artist of the Year and Agent of Change and a Kennedy Center Next50 Honoree, Beth Morrison is hailed as a “contemporary opera mastermind” (LA Times) and “a powerhouse leading the industry to new heights” (WQXR), Beth Morrison is an opera and theatre producer, President and Creative Producer of Beth Morrison Projects, and Founding co-Director of the PROTOTYPE Festival.
Beth created Beth Morrison Projects (BMP) in 2006 to identify and support the work of emerging and established living composers, and to create a new kind of opera (“Beth Morrison is her own genre”-Opera News). BMP is celebrated as having been an industry disruptor and is now a tastemaker at the forefront of musical and theatrical innovation by commissioning, developing, producing and touring the groundbreaking new works of a diverse group of living composers and their collaborators, which take the form of opera-theatre, music-theatre, and vocal-theatre.
BMP encourages risk-taking and the result is provocative works that represent a dynamic and lasting legacy for a new American canon. Opera News has noted: “More than any other figure in the opera industry, Beth Morrison has helped propel the art form into the twenty-first century." In 2013 Beth co-founded the PROTOTYPE Festival with HERE, which has become “essential to the evolution of American opera.” (New Yorker). Beth served a founding tenure as Producer for the Yale Institute for Music Theatre, as well as Producer for New York City Opera's VOX: Contemporary American Opera Lab. She first honed her management skills as the Administrative Director for the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. She is currently an advisory board member of National Sawdust and Brooklyn Youth Chorus, as well as a board member of Opera America, the international competition, Music Theatre Now and Voices 21C, a social justice choir. Morrison is frequently asked to give lectures at conservatories across the country, including Yale, Mannes School of Music, NYU, Manhattan School of Music, Arizona State University, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and more. Morrison is also in demand as a speaker both nationally and internationally and has delivered key note speeches for Classical:Next and Opera Europa among others. Morrison holds a Bachelor of Music from Boston University, a Master of Music from Arizona State University, and an MFA from Yale School of Drama.
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About Carlos Diaz Stoop, Associate Producer & Director of Administration, BMP: Producer Academy
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Carlos joined BMP as an Associate Producer in July 2021 and in 2023 became Director of Administration for BMP: Producer Academy. Previously he was employed as the Program Associate at The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, a multi-disciplinary grantmaker in the arts, where he supported the Performance program, cross-program functions, and served as the coordinator and founding member of the Center’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee. Carlos holds an M.S. in Arts Administration from Drexel University and a B.A. in Theatre Arts from West Chester University of Pennsylvania. As a participant in the first cohort of BMP’s Producer Academy, Carlos is beyond thrilled to be part of the BMP team!
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About Roderick Murray, Director of Production
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Roderick Murray (in the beforetimes he was a lighting designer) The majority of his work has been with dance and music , both experimental and traditional, and experimental operas. His designs and installations have been seen world-wide in the works of Kimberly Bartosik, Ralph Lemon, Benjamin Millepied, Dusan Tynek, Wally Cardona, Kathy Westwater, NYCBallet, Ballet di Roma, ABT, Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève, the Lyon Opèra Ballet, Luca Veggetti, Troy Schumacher, and other amazing companies and artists since 1989. He also performed outside for 9 years in the streets of New York with Circus Amok. He helped form OpenCultureWORKS to support artists working outside.
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About Victoria Voketaitis, Director of Touring
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Victoria Voketaitis is thrilled to join BMP after several years as a Performing Arts Consultant working with theater and music companies, along with serving as Artistic Producer for the documentary Rachmaninoff Revisited. An accomplished music industry executive, she worked for Steinway & Sons as Administrator of Concert and Artist Activities, co-producing the company’s 150th Anniversary concert series at Carnegie Hall. She spent six years as an agent with Columbia Artists Management and Windwood Theatricals and co-produced the 2013 “Jazz Loft Party” for the Jazz Foundation of America. Vicky has given guest lectures at colleges and conferences, including APAP, AAAE and NAMM. A native New Yorker, Vicky is a graduate of The Hartt School at the University of Hartford with a Bachelor’s Degree in music management and classical flute. When not in a theater, Vicky can likely be found at Yankee Stadium or on a Long Island beach.
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About Kendra Wieneke, Director of Development
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Kendra Wieneke (she/her) has enjoyed a diverse career as a music educator, classical singer, and nonprofit administrator and is thrilled to join the team at BMP after six years working in higher education advancement. She holds degrees in music education and vocal performance from Eastman School of Music and in arts administration from Florida State University. She is a proud Chicago native, dedicated yogi, and lives in New York with her rescue pup Johann Sebastian Chewbacca, known to friends as Chewie.
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About Sam Linden, Executive Director
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Sam Linden (he/him) comes to BMP from TDC, a Boston-based nonprofit consulting firm working across the arts and culture sector. There, his client work included shepherding business planning processes, grantmaking strategies, financial turnarounds, and large-scale mergers for performing arts institutions, funders, museums, and arts service organizations. Prior to TDC, Sam was the Associate Director of Marketing and Communications at Yale Repertory Theater. Earlier in his career, he held roles in strategy, marketing, and operations at LaPlaca Cohen, Center Theater Group, the Yale Cabaret, and various community-based arts education organizations. Sam holds a BA with honors in music from Harvard University, an MFA in Theater Management from the Yale School of Drama, and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. As a composer, lyricist, and librettist, he is an alumni of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop. He lives in Brooklyn with his partner Andrew and their rescue cat, Latke, where he is an avid museum-goer, a former classical saxophonist, and a singer in the New York City Gay Men's Chorus.
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About Liz Uchtman, General Manager
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Liz is thrilled to be joining the Beth Morrison Projects team as the General Manager. Prior to joining BMP, Liz was the General Manager at Ensemble Studio Theatre, supporting the development of provocative and authentic new plays. She has also worked as an arts administrator at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn and Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge Massachusetts. Liz is dedicated in supporting artists throughout the collaborative process. She holds a BA in Theatrical Design from The University of Nebraska- Kearney.
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ABOUT BMP: Producer Academy
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BMP: Producer Academy will demystify the entire production process and teach the students concrete skills to develop and produce new performance works. This 8-week course starting October 18 includes the following:
• Instruction from industry experts in budget development, fundraising planning and execution, how to tour a show, pitching work to presenters, and production vocabulary and definitions
• One-on-one mentoring [with BMP creative producer and administrative and production staff]
• Networking opportunities with professional producers and presenters in the industry
• Feedback on pitch materials and projects by high level industry presenters
25 applicants have been selected for the Academy at no cost thanks to the generosity of the Mellon Foundation.
In addition to the Academy course, 2 BMP Fellowships will be created for 2024 that will be open to any individual who completes or has completed an 8-week session of BMP: Producer Academy. The 1-year, salaried Fellowships ($50,000 plus health insurance) will fill the role of an Associate Producer, assisting in the areas of:
• Development
• Producing and touring
• Fundraising
• General management
• Production.
At the conclusion of the 1-year fellowship, BMP is committed to helping the Fellow find sustained, gainful employment in producing for the performing arts. The Fellows will be selected through a separate application and interview process with qualified alumni.
BMP strives to foster an equitable & inclusive creative, educational, and work environment. With a focus on the cultivation of the next generation, we highly encourage applicants of all gender identities, racial & ethnic backgrounds, socioeconomic statuses, and mental & physical abilities to apply.
Learn more at bethmorrisonprojects.org
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About Beth Morrison Projects
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Beth Morrison Projects (BMP) is one of the foremost creators and producers of new opera-theatre and music-theatre, with a fierce commitment to leading the industry into the future, cultivating a new generation of talent, and telling the stories of our time.
Founded by “contemporary opera mastermind” (LA Times) Beth Morrison, who was honored as one of Musical America’s Artists of the Year/Agents of Change in 2020, BMP has grown into “a driving force behind America’s thriving opera scene” (Financial Times), with Opera News declaring that the company, “more than any other… has helped propel the art form into the twenty-first century.”
Operating across the US and internationally, with offices in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, BMP’s unique model offers living composers the support, guidance, and freedom to experiment, allowing them to create singularly innovative and impactful projects. Since forming in 2006, the company has commissioned, developed, produced and toured over 50 works in 14 countries around the world, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning chamber operas Angel’s Bone (Du Yun/Vavrek) and p r i s m (Reid/Perkins).
In 2013, BMP co-founded the PROTOTYPE Festival with HERE Arts Center, which has been called “utterly essential” (The New York Times), “indispensable” (The New Yorker), and “one of the world’s top festivals of contemporary opera and theater” (Associated Press).
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About the Mellon Foundation
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The Mellon Foundation is the nation’s largest supporter of the arts and humanities. Since 1969, the Foundation has been guided by its core belief that the humanities and arts are essential to human understanding. The Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom that can be found there. Through our grants, we seek to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive. Learn more at mellon.org.
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