the cell

Joe Rivera (Actor / Playwright) is a multi-disciplinary actor from the San Francisco Bay Area, and a graduate of the Terry Knickerbocker Studio. Theatre: DIRT (Sour Milk); The Trouble with Paradise (Columbia); TRAFFIC (Sour Milk); The Happy Garden of Life (New Ohio); A Modest Proposal (Cherry Lane); Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo (SF Playhouse); In the Heights (NYU); The Room in Between (ETW). Film: Misha’s Victory, On the Fire’s Sacred Stream I Write Your Name, and Strictly Liminal.

Jesse Itskowitz (Director) is a multi-disciplinary theater artist based in NYC. Recent credits include: Carmen (Opera Theater Rutgers, video design); BIRTHDAY (Sour Milk, food design); Vile Isle (The Tank NYC, video design); DIRT (Sour Milk, video design). In his spare time he manages a concert hall.

Heather Holmes (Actor) is a performer and writer from east TX, currently based in Brooklyn. Projects include: Covenant, NYTW (workshop); Dreamscapes, LPAC Rough Draft Festival & NYTW (workshop); Flight, Dixon Place; A Modest Proposal, Cherry Lane Theater; The Cake, Shaker Bridge Theatre; The Magic Bullet, LubDub Theatre Co./Noor Theatre (workshop); The Promised Land, Amsterdam Over Het Ij Festival (Netherlands); Hemispheric Institute's EmergeNYC; Naked Angels Theater Company's Issues Project Lab. Heather has been co-developing a strange and beautiful performance project about dreams and the way home. Gentle encouragement for all us good people out there... keep dancing like it's bringing the rain, and it will. MFA, The New School for Drama.

Brian Joél Sanchez (Actor) is a New York native and graduate of Purchase College with a BFA in Acting. He was last seen in Apple TV+’s "The Changeling" and short film Tomás is Not a Clown. On stage he was previously seen in The Happy Garden of Life at New Ohio Theatre and The Skin of Our Teeth at Theatre For a New Audience. Next up for him is the short film No Glory Just Guts.

Samuel Golland (Video Designer) is a filmmaker and cinematographer based in NY. Cinematography credits include Runaway Train and SPNTD. Directing credits include The Frenchman and Misha’s Victory.

Joonas Lemetyinen (Composer) is a composer and trombonist based out of NYC. He has an eclectic style of writing that spans multiple genres, and stems from whatever is going on in his head that day. Originally from Finland, he has spent the last 12 years in NYC pursuing his passion of music and film. He is a part of several original bands including, Civilians, Flowmigos, and his solo projects YAWU and MAR$HMANGO. Check him out busking in Washington Square Park when the weather’s nice or performing with his various acts around the city.

The Cramer Quartet has recently performed at the Morgan Library, Academy of Early Music, the Stearns Collection of Instruments at the University of Michigan, the Portland Bach Experience, and the world premiere of cello quintet Soul Bop by Brian Nabors at the Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia. The Cramer Quartet is in the midst of Haydn: Dialogues, an ambitious multi-year cycle combining Haydn’s 68 string quartets with sixteen new commissions by American composers. This season will also include the next installment of Haydn: Dialogues, featuring the world premiere of a new work by Darian Donovan Thomas to be performed alongside Haydn’s Op. 76 string quartets. Highlights of past seasons include performances of The Seven Last Words Project— an immersive multimedia journey through Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Christ as reflected upon by seven diverse contemporary composers— at Five Boroughs Music Festival; the quartet’s debut at Music Mountain Summer Festival as the first period instrument ensemble to perform in the concert series 92 year history, and a residency at Festival de Música de Santa Catarina in Jaraguá do Sul, Brazil. The Cramer Quartet is generously supported by New York State Council of the Arts and the Copland Foundation, and is the recipient of a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Creative Engagement Grant, Chamber Music America’s Ensemble Forward Grant. The ensemble takes its name from Wilhelm Cramer, a brilliant violinist who enjoyed a multifaceted career as London’s first major string quartet leader. Cramer is credited with popularizing a late 18th century violin bow which became the inspiration for the style of historical bows used by the Cramer Quartet.

inti figgis-vizueta (b.1993) is a composer and educator who works to reconcile historical aesthetics and experimental practices with trans & Indigenous futures. Described as an “ever-intriguing, rising new music star” (LA Times), whose “arresting…sparse, beautiful” (NPR Classical) work brings “a sense of true dramatic stakes” (New York Times), inti has been commissioned and performed by leading artists including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony, Oregon Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, New World Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Reflektor, Aspen Music Festival, Ojai Music Festival, Spoleto Music Festival, Kennedy Center’s Sounds of US Festival, International Contemporary Ensemble, Alarm Will Sound, Wild Up, Roomful of Teeth, Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect, Kronos Quartet, Attacca Quartet, JACK Quartet, Music from Copland House, Crash Ensemble, pianist Conor Hanick, violinist Jennifer Koh, and cellists Andrew Yee and Jay Campbell, among many others. inti’s work has been featured at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Walt Disney Hall Concert Hall, Symphony Center, REDCAT, National Concert Hall (IE), Southbank Centre (UK), Philharmonie de Paris (FR), Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ (NL), and Konzerthaus Berlin (DE).Upcoming projects include Rose Bond's 1968 for the 2025 Venice Biennale, a new work for Trickster Orchestra's 2026 TransTraditionale FESTIVAL, the NYC premiere of opera mad scramble for crumbs in Lincoln Center's Rubenstein Atrium, and new works for flutist Claire Chase, organist James McVinnie, and cellist Andrew Yee with Roomful of Teeth. inti is the recipient of the 2026 United States Artists Fellowship, the Lotos Foundation Prize, ASCAP Foundation Fred Ho Award, National Sawdust Hildegard Award, Café Royal Foundation Music Grant and residency fellowships from Dumbarton Oaks, Civitella Ranieri, Juilliard Summer Percussion, and Music at Copland House.

inti has held faculty positions with Luna Composition Lab (21-24’), Wildflower Composers (20-22’), Fresh Inc Festival (22’), and Atlanticx Composition (21’). She regularly lectures on her music with recent visits to Harvard University, The Juilliard School, Peabody Conservatory, and CalArts, among many others. inti has curated programs for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Green Umbrella series, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra Current Series, CalArts' REDCAT, Wild Up’s Darkness Sounding, and American Composers Orchestra SONiC Festival. She was the 2024 Robert M. Trotter Plenary Keynote Lecturer for the College Music Society 67th National Conference.

inti studied with Marcos Balter, Felipe Lara, Donnacha Dennehy, and George Lewis. Her mentors include Tania León, Nico Muhly, Angélica Negrón, Derek Bermel, and Andrew Norman, among many others. inti honors her Quichua bisabuela who was the only woman butcher on the plaza central and used to fight men with a machete.

Josh Brown (Creator) (a.k.a. Meth Borrison) is a composer, librettist, and playwright who approaches live theatre as the final bastion of focus in a distracted world. Josh has a lot of feelings and wants you to feel them, too. Josh's theatrical work has been developed and produced by American Opera Projects, Thompson Street Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Boston Opera Collaborative, The Tank, Strange Trace, New Opera West, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and La Jolla Playhouse. Most recently, he was a Composition Fellow with American Opera Projects' 2023–2025 cohort of Composers & the Voice.

Stephen M. Eckert (Director) is a New York-based director whose work spans new plays, musicals, operas, and contemporary interpretations of classical texts. Their work has been described as bold, visually arresting, intellectually rigorous, unsettling, austere camp. Stephen is the founding Artistic Director of Promethean Theatre Company in New Orleans, where they directed over a dozen critically acclaimed productions between 2012 and 2017 including notable productions of EQUUS, Long Day’s Journey into Night, and The Flick. Their work has been off broadway at The Players Theatre, featured at The Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival, recognized by the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, and presented internationally at London’s TÊTE À TÊTE new opera festival and the Prague Quadrennial. BFA, Tulane | MFA, Carnegie Mellon

James Clements (Playwright) (he/him) is a Scottish actor, theatermaker and educator based between New York and Scotland. Clements has performed at venues including La Mama, BRIC, HERE and MITU580, and has written and directed projects at the Public, Rattlestick, the 92nd Street Y, Culture Lab, Mercury Store, The Colony Theatre (Miami), Woolly Mammoth Theatre (Washington D.C), Centre Theatre (Los Angeles), Dundee Rep (Dundee) and the Stockwell Playhouse (London). His acting has been called "impressive...incredibly compelling...excellent" (BroadwayWorld), "deft" (TheatreMania) and "magnetic" (The Scotsman). His plays, including The Diana Tapes (2016), Four Sisters (2017), MEDEA/BRITNEY (2019), Ellis Island (2021), Brothers in Arms (2023), GUAC (2024) and The Burns Project (2025), have been described by critics as "searing" (New York Times), "magnifying" (TimeOut), "compelling" (The Guardian), "intricate" (BroadwayWorld), "affecting" (Playbill) and intellectual" (Theatre is Easy). His latest play, The Burns Project, will tour the U.S. in Spring 2026, while his documentary play GUAC was revived at The Centre Theatre in Los Angeles in October 2025 with an encore run scheduled for Spring 2026. He is a Professor at NYU Tisch School of the Arts and Co-Artistic Director of What Will the Neighbors Say?

Danilo Gambini (Director) is a NYC-based director of Theater, Musicals and Opera. He is originally from São Paulo, Brazil, and a graduate of the Yale School of Drama. As a Producer, he served as Studio Theatre’s Associate Artistic Director for three seasons. Prior to Studio he was the Associate Artistic Director at Rattlestick, as well as part of the 20/21/22 Roundabout Directors’ Group. Recent credits include: A Case for the Existence of God by Samuel Hunter at Mosaic Theater; The Heart Sellers by Lloyd Suh and Wipeout by Aurora Real de Asua, both at Studio Theatre; the operas Iolanta by Tchaikovsky and The Rake’s Progress by Stravinsky at Yale Opera/Shubert Theatre New Haven; Ni Mi Madre at Rattlestick (Obie Award Winner; Drama Desk Nom., Drama League Nom., Outer Critics Nom., NYT Critic’s Pick, TheaterMania Editor’s Pick); Agreste by Newton Moreno at Spooky Action Theater; and the new musical Sabina, by Willy Holtzman, with music by Louise Beach and lyrics by Darrah Cloud, co-directed with Daniella Topol at Portland Stage in Maine.

What Will the Neighbors Say? (Co-Producer) is an investigative theatre company that provokes questions through untold stories. Led by a collaborative cohort of international artists, the Neighbors present overlooked social, cultural and historical narratives that challenge the audience to reflect on the current moment. Through a combination of original plays, arts education workshops and dynamic community gatherings, the troupe incites rowdy and rigorous debate at the theatre and throughout the Neighborhood. Since its inception in 2016, the company has premiered 11 original plays in 6 cities in 4 countries on 2 continents, and co-presented a further 27 new works. Over the course of these projects, the Neighbors have created jobs for over 375 artists - 75% of them non cis-male identifying and 50% of them members of the global majority or immigrants. What Will the Neighbors Say? is led by Founding Co-Artistic Directors Sam Hood Adrain and James Clements. What Will the Neighbors Say? has received funding from a number of grantors including the the New York State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, the Foundation of Contemporary Arts, Americans for the Arts, the Howard Gilman Foundation, A.R.T./NY, the Brooklyn Arts Council, the Dumbo Improvement District, Off-Broadway Angels, IndieSpace, Rhode Island Foundation, Actor’s Equity Association, the Bel Geddes Fund, the Leon Levy Foundation, the Puffin Foundation and the Network of Ensemble Theatres. The company has been selected for residencies with NYU’s Espacio de Culturas, the Goethe-Institut New York, the Brooklyn Arts Council’s Six Foot Platform, Catskill Mountain Shakespeare, IRT Theatre's 3B Development Residency, MITU580's Gowanus Affordable Arts Initiative and Artists-at-Home Program and BRIC's BRIClab Performance Residency. The Neighbors have collaborated with partners including the Brooklyn Public Library, the Queens Public Library, El Puente Presente, the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico, the Queens Memory Project, the Queens Historical Society, the Queerly Festival, Pregones/P.R.T.T. and THE CITY newspaper.