ACTORS CIRCLE ENSEMBLE - Key Persons
Multi-talented, Casey's range as an actor, writer, and musician is wide.
Melissa Mowry is a Brooklyn-based director and teaching artist. Originally from Virginia Beach, Virginia, Melissa has a BA in Music Industry and Drama from Randolph-Macon College, and her MFA in Directing from The Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University. She has also worked with The Lower Eastside Shakespeare Company, The WP Theatre, The Tank, Women of Color Productions, New York Fringe Festival, and The New Group in New York; Virginia Repertory Theatre and Cadence Theatre Company in Virginia; The Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles; and the Kattaikkuttu Sangam and Gurukulam in Tamil Nadu, India.
Recent projects have included: I Have a Dream (VA Rep), Lost Sock Laundry, Astoria Queens (Wild Project), Trouble In Mind (Rutger University), If Women Rose Rooted (The Tank), Where Love Lies Fallow (The Shed), (DE)CODED (New York Fringe Festival), The Slave (ASDS Repertory Season), The Audition (ASDS Repertory Season), Proof (ASDS Repertory Season), North of Providence (ASDS Repertory Season), Bee (Lower Eastside Shakespeare Co.), and the 5iveSenses Film Series (Secret6Train Productions).
Job Titles:
- Artistic Director
- Co - Founder
- Chapman University Professor
Tamiko Washington received her M.F.A. in Acting from the University of California, Irvine. Her specialization is Voice and Movement for the actor as an Associate Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework, and in the area of Suzuki Movement.
In the late nineties, she created American Noh Theatre, a movement art form based on the traditional movements of Japanese Noh Theatre and Suzuki Master, Tadashi Suzuki. She is also a Professor of Theatre at Chapman University in Southern California.
In the early nineties, she toured her one-woman show, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, throughout Orange County, CA, both Kansas City and Logan, MO and Independent Kansas to sold-out audiences. The performances also received the height of recognition through excellent reviews.
In August of 2009, she was invited as a participant in the Master Director/ Designer Workshop with Ming Cho Lee at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. The national and international world renowned scenic designer Ming Cho Lee is a long time professor at the Yale School of Drama. He designed over 30 productions of Joseph Papp at the Public Theatre. Mr. Lee has been one of the greatest influences and inspirations in Tamikos directorial endeavors.
Just a year later, Tamiko was also invited to present a workshop entitled "American Noh Theatre, An Innovative Form of Theatre Movement at the International Conference Performing Arts Training Today in Leitring bei Leibnitz, Austria. This global conference was sponsored by International Universitys "Global Theatre Experience" (IUGTE) and the ArtUniverse Company.
Some of her Television credits include Co-Starring and Recurring roles on Vanishing Son, Silk Stalkings, High Tide, Pensacola, Extreme Blue, Kidnapped, and Two Voices. She has also been directed by revered playwright August Wilson in his play The Piano Lesson at the Old Globe in England.
Tamiko is now the Artistic Director and a founding member of Actors Circle Ensemble and OC-Centric, Orange Countys New Play Festival.
Vaughn Pole is a NYC actor, currently going into his final year at Columbia University's MFA Acting program. He appreciates the opportunity to work with such talented artists, and would like to thank everyone who tuned in on Zoom tonight. Made in The Bronx, USA.
Victoria Nilsson is an NYC-based director and actor originally from Sweden. She moved to NYC after receiving a BA in Language and Culture from University College London. She holds an MFA in Directing from the Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University.
During her three years of study, she directed No Such Thing by Douglas Hill, The Bear by Anton Chekhov, and Art by Yasmin Reza. Her New York theatre credits include The Bald Soprano by Eugene Ionesco, She Talks to Beethoven by Adrienne Kennedy, and the original play Edda by Kendra Mittermeyer at the ASDS Repertory Season.
She is currently a Finalist at the Actors Studio and an active participant in its Playwrights Directors Workshop in which she has collaborated as a director on three original full-length plays and was invited to direct two pieces for the Actors Studio Short Play Web Fest 2020. As an actress she recently appeared in the play Terrorism by the Presnyakov Brothers at Lenfest Center for the Arts.