SCRIPT & DIRECTION:

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Michael Gene Sullivan (he/him) (Writer, Director, Actor, SFMT Collective) has performed in, written, and/or directed over thirty SFMT productions, as well as appearing in productions at major theaters in the Bay Area, and has had his non-Mime Troupe scripts produced both nationally and internationally. For more complete bio click here.

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Marie Cartier (she/her) (Writer, Collective) has been working with the Mime Troupe since 2012. Born and raised in San Francisco, her theater practices encompass a variety of roles. She created props for Mime Troupe shows from 2016 to 2019, and was also Scenic Painter and on the writing team for Treasure Island. You can hear the original commercials she wrote in each episode of SFMT's first-ever radio play series Tales of the Resistance from 2020. She wrote, co-produced and performed in the yearly circus cabaret, Saturnalia: A Raunchy Circus Christmas from 2017 to 2019, as a founding member of Bow & Arrow: A Circus Theater Collective.  She has also written short pieces for Three Girls Theatre, taught and painted at NCTC, and been board operator (but never bored) at Oasis. While art remains virtual, you can check out her paintings and other visual art HERE. Marie just recently received her Masters in Social Work from CSU East Bay!  mariecartier.weebly.com

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Ellen Callas (she/her) (Writer, Actor, GM, Collective) a native Chicagoan who cut her teeth on Second City, Ellen co-founded, in 1976, Hit and Run Theater, a political sketch comedy troupe that toured rural northern California for many years. Since joining the Mime Troupe in 1986, she has worked as a writer on Ripped Van Winkle, Secrets in the Sand, Rats, Back to Normal, Escape from Cyberia, Revenger Rat, Soul Suckers, Eating It, 1600 Transylvania Ave, Doing Good, Posibilidad, 2012- the Musical!, Treasure Island and Tales of the Resistance. Also as an actor (Rats), director (Making a Killing) and as production, company & stage manager for various productions including the international collaboration and Asian tour of Big Wind. She also served as company manager for ACT's long running production of Angels In America: Parts I & II. She is committed to mentoring future activist artists and from its beginning has been an enthusiastic teacher and occasional project director of company's 24-year-old Youth Theater Project. Ellen credits her ability as an improviser for helping to navigate the rocky road of non-profit political theater.

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Daniel Savio (he/him) (Composer, Lyrist, Musician, Collective) started his professional theater career playing for the San Francisco Mime Troupe, participating in the tours for GodFellas ('06) and Making a Killing ('07), and returned for Freedomland ('15), Schooled ('16), WALLS ('17), and Seeing Red ('18). In 2018 he joined the Collective and has since become the Troupe's resident lyricist, writing lyrics for Treasure Island ('19), and serving as composer/lyricist for the Troupe's first ever radio play Tales of the Resistance ('20). Daniel was co-composer/lyricist, with SFMT vet Bruce Barthol, of the play FSM ('14, Stagebridge Senior Theater), written by fellow SFMT vet Joan Holden. Daniel also composed the scores of four musicals for young audiences at Stagebridge, all with book and lyrics by Josiah Polhemus. He composed original music for an early production of Lauren Yee's A Man, His Wife, and his Hat ('11, AlterTheater). Daniel plays keyboards for The 808 Band, winner of the 2011 North Bay Bohemian Award for Best Hip Hop Band, which has backed many hip hop and reggae performers including KRS-ONE, MC Radioactive, and Robert Herrera. He has performed as an improv pianist with the Perennials, the Antic Witties, the Un-Scripted Theater Company, 6th Street Improv!, and the Midnight Matinee. Daniel has a BA in Music from the University of California at Santa Cruz and has studied with Bay Area composer Michael Kaulkin.

Velina Brown (she/her) (Director, Actor, Collective) directed the SFMT 2020 Season production Tales of the Resistance, a 10 episode radio series the Troupe created due to the pandemic in lieu of our usual park tour for which we won Best of the Bay. Velina is a principal performer for the San Francisco Mime Troupe. She’s played the Devil in Deal With the Devil, Veronique in Veronique of the Mounties, she's played Condoleeza Rice three times, and was both an actor and Contributing Lyricist on GodFellas and Making a Killing. Velina's most recent shows with the Troupe include Tales of the Resistance, Red Carol, Walls: No Human is Illegal,  Schooled, Ripple Effect, For The Greater Good: Or the Last Election, Red State, Too Big to Fail, and Posibilidad: Or Death of the Worker for which she won a Bay Area Critics Circle Award for Best Principal Actress. Velina has toured France with Word for Word, Spain and Portugal with Brooklyn based ensemble Barbez in support of their new album For Those Who Came After: Songs of the Resistance from the Spanish Civil War  http://importantrecords.com/imprec/imprec455. Other credits include California Shakespeare Theatre, New Conservatory Theatre, A.C.T., Berkeley Repertory Theatre, SF Playhouse, Denver Center Theatre Company, Theatre Rhinoceros, Shotgun Players, Center Repertory Theatre, Central Works, Lorraine Hansberry Theater, Theatreworks as well as film (Bee Season with Richard Gere, Playing it Cool with Chris Evans and Milk with Sean Penn) and television (Trauma, Party of Five, Shaughnessy Iron Marshall, Nash Bridges, Final Witness). Velina is the founder and owner of the "Business of Show Biz," which offers career planning consultations and workshops for theater artists. She also writes a popular column of the same name for Theater Bay Area and is a contributing author of TBA’s ATLAS(Advanced Training Leading Artists to Success) Manual. Velina was given the Getting Played: Equity in the Entertainment Industry Award at Stanford University, and has been was honored as one of TBA’s "35 Faces," artists who've made significant contributions to the Bay Area theater community. www.velinabrown.com.

Keiko Shimosato Carreiro (she/they) (Director, Actor, Collective) was born in Cambridge Massachusettes. Keiko holds a BFA in Interdisciplinary Arts and an MA in Multimedia from the University of Iowa. She arrived in San Francisco with the Horse Drawn, Caravan Stage Company of Canada. She has been an actor, designer and director for the Mime Troupe since 1987. Keiko has designed costumes for many Bay Area Theater companies including, Berkeley Rep, S.F. Shakespeare in the Parks, The Asian American Theater Company, African American Shakespeare Company, Crowded Fire and Custom Made Theater as well as the Mime Troupe. She has appeared in many productions at Bay Area Theaters including, Berkeley Rep, The Aurora, The Magic Theater, Center Rep, ACT, Life on the Water, and of course the Mime Troupe. She directed City for Sale and Gotta Getta Life for the Mime Troupe, and Cowboy versus Samurai for the Asian American Theater Company. For her portrayal of Grace in Philip Kan Gotandas' The Sisters Matsumoto at Center Rep she was nominated for a Shellie Award as best actress in a leading role. In 2018 she received an award for Meritorious Achievement in Costume Design from the ACTF Theater Festival, for Three Sisters at St. Mary's College.In 2020, Keiko co-founded a new Theater Company: “Kunoichi Productions”, www.kunoichiproductions.org. Their aim is to create original interdisciplinary works with a Japanese Aesthetic, speaking to a Diverse audience. Keiko will also be teaching at Hollins University (virtually this year), as a Guest Professor for their Summer Graduate program.

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CAST:

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Rotimi Agbabiaka (all pronouns) (Actor, Collective) is an actor, writer, director, and teacher who uses humor, glamor, and drama to upset the status quo. Most recently, Rotimi originated the role of Salima in House of Joy (California Shakespeare Theatre) and the role of Cellphone/Narrator in If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka (Playwrights Horizons, NYC). Other acting credits include Tom Waits’ Black Rider (Shotgun Players), Father Comes Home From the Wars … (Yale Repertory Theatre/American Conservatory Theatre) Bootycandy (Brava Theater, Theatre Bay Area award), originating the role of Boy in runboyrun (Magic Theatre), and several shows with the Tony Award-winning San Francisco Mime Troupe. As a playwright, Rotimi penned the solo shows Homeless, Type/Caste (Theatre Bay Area award), and MANIFESTO, and the musical, Seeing Red—co-written with Joan Holden and Ira Marlowe. Rotimi teaches acting, movement, and play creation to students from pre-school through college and has presented work at museums (the deYoung), in parks (with We Players), in forests (with Detour Dance/Work More), on street corners (with Jess Curtis’ GRAVITY), and on nightlife stages around the world (as alter ego Miss Cleo Patois). www.rotimionline.com

Andre Amarotico (he/him) (Actor) is returning for a fourth summer with the Mime Troupe. Andre studied theater at Stanford University, where he received the Evelyn M. Draper Prize for Performance and the Muses Prize in the Arts and Classics. Recent theatrical appearances include Neighborhood Stories (a drive through theatre experience) where he was featured in a new work by Pulitzer nominated playwright Amy Freed. He also performed as “The Man” in a live streamed version of Turn of The Screw at 6th Street Playhouse. You can hear him in last year’s season of the Mime Troupe’s Tales of the Resistance as Greg and various others. Other theatre credits include Anthony in Sweeney Todd (6th Street Playhouse), Christopher Wren in The Mousetrap (Ross Valley Players), Bones in Treasure Island (SFMT), Kenickie in Grease (Mountain Play), Romeo in Romeo and Juliet (Throckmorton Theatre), Smith in An American Ma(u)l (BACCE), Joe in Seeing Red (SFMT), and the title roles in Hamlet and Macbeth (Stanford). He received a TBA nomination for outstanding featured actor in The 39 Steps (Ross Valley Players).

Michael J Asberry (he/him) (Actor) is thrilled to return to the Mime Troupe following his appearance as The Gravekeeper in last year's Tales of the Resistance Series. He most recently appeared in The Matchmaker at A.C.T. Other theatre credits include Aurora Theatre; Profile Theater; Best of Playground Festival; Center REPertory Company; Sacramento Theatre Company; Shotgun Players; Z Space; San Francisco Shakespeare Festival; Alter Theater; Artists Repertory Theatre; Lorraine Hansberry Theatre; TheatreWorks; African-American Shakespeare Co. and the 6th Street Playhouse; Film appearances include San Andreas, Mr. Incredible and Pals, Chasing Rodriguez, and Portable Storage. Television credits include Chance (Hulu), Trauma (NBC), and Nash Bridges (CBS). Asberry has recorded voiceover spots for Pixar Animation; Pine Sol, Sweetos, General Motors, and Electronic Arts.

Wilma Bonet (she/her) (Actor) actor/director and a past SFMT collective member, has directed several San Francisco Mime Troupe’s summer shows “Treasure Island”, “Ripple Effect”, “2012 the Musical”, “Possibilidad or Death of a Worker” and “Too Big To Fail” all written by Michael Gene Sullivan. Her voice over work includes working on Pixar’s COCO and SFMT’s A RED CAROL as the Ghost of Christmas Present and Brava’s THE PALACIO SISTERS by Cristina Garcia. Before the pandemic Ms. Bonet appeared in Ricardo Perez Gonzalez’s Glickman Award winning play “Don’t Eat the Mango” at the Magic Theatre. She has appeared in numerous plays on stages including Aurora Theater, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, American Conservatory Theatre, the Mark Taper Forum, El Teatro Campesino, San Francisco MimeTroupe, and the Denver Center Theatre Company. Her film and television credits include COCO, What Dreams May Come, 8MM, Underwraps, Jack, Radio Flyer, and Nash Bridges. 

 

Velina Brown (she/her) (Director, Actor, Collective) SEE ABOVE.

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Ellen Callas (she/her) (Writer, Actor, GM, Collective) SEE ABOVE.

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Lizzie Calogero (she/her) (Actor) is a past SFMT Collective member and SFMT regular; last year she played Doctor Janis & Red in Tales of the Resistance (22020) and has appeared in Treasure Island, Walls, 2012 the Musical, Too Big to Fail, and Red State over the years. With roots in the UK, she has performed in plays around the Bay Area, with SF Shakespeare Festival, Marin Theatre Company, Aurora Theatre, SF Playhouse, Center Rep, and Symmetry Theatre among others.

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Hugo E Carbajal (he/him) (Actor) joined SFMT Collective in 2014. Last seen on the Troupe stage in Freedomland. He began his involvement with the Mime Troupe as a mask designer for the production of 2012: The Musical! Later, he performed in SFMT's Oil & Water. He has also performed with Bay Area companies such as Cal Shakes, Cuttingball, Bay Area Children's Theatre, Shotgun Players, Stagebridge, Marin Theatre Company, Alter Theater Ensemble, Shadowlight, and TeatroVision. Hugo is currently living in LA and has been spotted on tv shows such as Brooklyn Nine Nine, SWAT, Good Girls, and Scandal among others. Follow @HugoECarbajal on Twitter and Instagram!

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Michael Carreiro (he/him) (Actor, Collective) began his relationship with the San Francisco Mime Troupe in 1998 as a volunteer and student of the summer workshop. He became a collective Member in 2000 and performed/toured with the company from 2000-2006. During that time he was also the Technical Director. Michael is happy return to work with his friends on Tales of the Resistance, Volume 2: Persistence. Michael was last seen in American Maul at BRAVA Theatre, produced by, Black Artists Contemporary Cultural Experience. 

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Marissa Ellison (she/her) (Actor, Tour Manager, Booking) born and raised in Wisconsin, Marissa has been a theater-lover since her 3rd grade debut as an orphan in Annie. Her relationship with the Troupe began in the summer of 2017, when she spent her summer as a workshop student with the Troupe; after which, she got brought on as the Tour Manager for the summer show. Since making the move to SF, Marissa spends her days working as a special education paraeducator for SFUSD, and has even gotten the chance to lend her voice towards SFMT's Tales of the Resistance Radio Series. Marissa is always excited to spend time at the Mime Troupe and be involved with such passionate theatre professionals!

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Lisa Hori-Garcia (she/her) (Actor, Collective) has been a principal performer and collaborator with the Mime Troupe since 2004 in such shows as Freedomland, Seeing Red, Posibilidad or Death of The Worker, Too Big To Fail, Schooled and Doing Good to name a few. And in 2016, she received a TBA Nomination for Best Principal Actress in a Musical for her performance in the Troupe's hard-hitting show Freedomland. Lisa is also the program director and lead teacher of both the Mime Troupe's Youth Theater Project (YTP) and SFMT's summer intensive theater workshop. When not acting or teaching at the Troupe, Lisa has worked with other Bay Area companies, such as Cal Shakes, The Magic Theatre, Berkeley Rep, Campo Santo, Word for Word and most recently in ACT's Men on Boats and The Great Leap. She was a former Ensemble Member & Production Manager with New WORLD Theater in Amherst, MA and received her BA from Smith College and MFA in Acting from the University of Southern California. www.lisahorigarcia.com

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Amos Glick (he/him) (Actor) has been able to create a career out of acting like an idiot and refusing to grow up. Highlights include: Le Reve, Reveria (Acting Coach & Clown Act Conceptor - The Municipal Circus Of Bucharest), Graeme Of Thrones (Nat'l Tour), Piff The Magic Dragon’s Piffmas Pifftacular, Impro Studio, Fraudway LA, The SF Mime Troupe, The SF Shakespeare Festival, The New Pickle Family Circus, BATS Improv & True Fiction Magazine. Film: Popovich: The Road To Hollywood, The Village Barbershop, Opal, Around The Fire. TV: WandaVision, Agents Of Shield, Just Roll With It, Nash Bridges. Hobbies include making music, ice/street hockey, bluegrass and the Grateful Dead. He wrote, produced and starred in the award-winning short film A Man Wakes Up. Visit www.amosglick.com

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Cassie Grilley (she/her) (Actor) was born and raised in San Francisco and has grown up watching the SF Mime Troupe and is so excited to be a part of it! She received a B.A. in Drama from the University of California, Irvine. Before quarantine, Cassie was last seen as Lucy/White Witch/Susan in THE LION THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE with Bay Area Children’s Theatre and Tracy Turnblad in HAIRSPRAY with Bay Area Musicals.

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Francis Jue (he/him) (Actor) Francis was born in San Francisco, CA, the sixth of nine children. He grew up in the Richmond District of San Francisco and attended St. Ignatius College Preparatory high school, taking part in the school's drama program. He received his B.A. degree at Yale University. He has appeared on Broadway in M. Butterfly, Pacific Overtures, and Thoroughly Modern Millie. Other favorite theatre credits include Cambodian Rock Band (Lucille Lortel Award, Drama Desk nomination), Soft Power (Outer Critics Circle Award, Drama Desk, Lortel, and Grammy noms), Wild Goose Dreams (Obie Award), Yellow Face (Obie and Lortel Awards, Drama Desk and Drama League noms), Love’s Labour’s Lost, Coraline, Falsettoland, A Language of Their Own, The Language Archive (Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award), King of the Yees (BATCC), In the Next Room… (AriZoni Award), Cabaret (BATCC), Red, Kiss of the Spiderwoman (Drama-Logue Award), A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Film/TV: Joyful Noise, “Madam Secretary,” “New Amsterdam,” “Hightown,” “Good Wife,” “Law & Order: SVU.” Proud member of Actors’ Equity, SAG-AFTRA, and UK Equity.

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Jarion Monroe (he/him) (Actor) most recently appeared as King Arthur in Spamalot at Marin Shakes , and has recently been seen as Jack in Berkeley Rep’s Imaginary Comforts, Fezziwig in ACT’s A Christmas Carol, and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare at Marin Shakes.  His fifty year career includes all the major theaters in the Bay Area, as well as South Coast Rep, Yale Rep, Arizona Rep, Teatro ZinZanni, off Broadway theaters, and the Oregon Shakespeare Theater.  His favorite role in film was as Not-Professor X in The Internship, and he was in one of the first Seinfeld shows and one of the last Frasier shows. He won the Natalie Wood Award when he was at UCLA, and was once knocked downstairs by Michael Landon in Bonanza, and literally knocked out by his “father”, Strother Martin, in the same episode.

 

Brian Rivera (he/him) (Actor) performed last summer with the SF Mime Troupe in Treasure Island. His past work with the Troupe also includes Doing Good (2005) and Posibilidad, or Death of the Worker (2010). He made his Broadway debut in the Tony Award winning revival of The King & I at Lincoln Center & subsequently the First National Broadway Tour. Brian's credits include the US Premiere of The Orphan of Zhao at ACT & La Jolla Playhouse. His other Bay Area credits include Major Barbara at ACT, Berkeley Repertory Theatre's Yellowjackets, and California Shakepeare Theater's American Night. Brian studied at Oxford University through BADA and earned his B.A. in Drama from San Francisco State University. Many thanks to the Collective, our cast, band, & staff. Ars Longa Vita Brevis.

Keiko Shimosato Carreiro (she/they) (Actor, Collective) SEE ABOVE.

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Michael Gene Sullivan (he/him) (Writer, Actor, Collective) SEE ABOVE.

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MUSICIANS:

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Patrick Byers (he/him) (Musician) first started gigging in San Francisco and the Bay Area with the swing and ska revival scenes of the late nineties. He earned his Jazz Performance degree from Sonoma State University, then expanded to performing a wide range of music, touring nationally and beyond. As the music industry changed and touring became less sustainable, his focus switched to becoming an in-demand session musician, as well as adding a multitude of instruments to his vocabulary.

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Dylan Jennings (he/him) (Musician) is a multi-instrumentalist woodwind musician who plays an eclectic assortment of music with bands all across the Bay Area. He grew up in ska, punk, and jazz music and found his way to SF from Riverside, CA 6 years ago to further expand his musical experience and skill as a musician. He currently plays in groups such as Lagos Roots Afrobeat Ensemble, Bicicletas por la Paz, Sapphire Lung, and other notable groups in the Bay Area.

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Chris Lauf (he/him) (Musician) grew up in Canberra, Australia where he studied drum set and percussion under Colin Hoorweg and Gary France. After moving to the US in 2002, he studied jazz at UC Santa Cruz under George Marsh. Bringing groove, sensitivity, excitement, and delicious sonic textures to whatever musical context he finds himself in, Chris has performed across the Bay Area in musical theater and a wide variety of other musical projects. Chris is a proud alum of SF Mime Troupe's 2019 "Treasure Island" production and is very excited to be back with the Troupe for Tales.

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Jewell McMillon (she/her) (Musician) is a bassist, singer, songwriter, educator, and mathematician from the Bay Area, California. From a young age she always loved singing and tinkering on the piano. Her earliest musical influences were gospel music and soul and R&B from the 60's - 80's. As she got older she fell in love with many other styles of music including hip-hop, funk, jazz, pop, and alternative - most of which have Black American Music, BAM, at their roots. In all this music the basslines would call out to her, beckoning her to learn them, and so began her love and study for the bass guitar. These days Jewell can be found holding down the groove in many Bay Area live music settings playing funk, hip-hop, soul, and jazz. She has played at Bay Area staples such as The Chapel, The Starry Plough, Milk Bar, The Legionnaire and many more. The year 2020 brought her first experience with band leading and performing some of her own original music. 

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David Rokeach (he/him) (Musician) has performed/recorded with Ray Charles; Aretha Franklin; Mavis Staples; Patti LaBelle; Mariah Carey; Celine Dion; Shania Twain; Joe Henderson; Grammy, Tony, Emmy, and Oscar winner Rita Moreno; Mark Murphy; Steve Miller; Carole King; Wilson Pickett; Ernestine Anderson; Sonny Simmons; Calvin Keys, Taj Mahal and many others. He has played the Broadway shows Jersey Boys, Les Miserables, Ragtime, Ain't Nothin' But The Blues, and Love Janis. He has also worked extensively in film and television. David is a faculty member at Stanford University, He has been a faculty member at The Jazzschool in Berkeley, Lafayette Summer Music Camp and Jazz Camp West. He started working with the San Francisco Mime Troupe in 1982!

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Daniel Savio (he/him) (Composer, Lyrist, Musician, Collective) SEE ABOVE.

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PRODUCTION TEAM:
 

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Taylor Gonzalez (he/him) (Sound Engineer & Design, Collective)

Will McCandless (he/him) (Sound Engineer) is a former Collective Member and Sound Designer/Engineer for the San Francisco Mime Troupe. His sound designs have also been heard at American Conservatory Theatre, Magic Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, Cal Shakes, and Virginia Stage Company. Will has been a sound and video department head for Cal Shakes, South Coast Repertory and Berkeley Rep. Will is honored and stoked to be working with the Troupe again!

 

Karen Runk (she/her) (Production Stage Manager) moved to SF with the intention of only staying for a few months... Over two decades later she's still here! This is largely due to the talented folks at the SF Mime Troupe and thanks to Golden Thread Productions where she has been a Resident Artist since 2018 - but mostly it's due to rent control! Runk has also stage managed with Word For Word, Magic Theater, SFShakes, Intersection for the Arts, and African American Shakespeare Company.

Kari Barclay (he/they) (Community Engagement) is a writer, director, and educator who helps artists tell stories of intimacy and freedom. Originally from Washington, DC, he has made work regionally and in New York at venues including Round House Theater, the San Francisco Mime Troupe Studio, and Manbites Dog. His play CAN I HOLD YOU? was one of the first plays about asexuality performed in the U.S. Kari is a 2020 Bay Area Playwrights Festival finalist and winner of the 2021 So.Queer Playwriting Festival. Stanford PhD '21. kari-barclay.com

 

Marissa Ellison (she/her) (Tour Manager, Actor, Booking) SEE ABOVE.

Lawton Lovely (he/him) (Poster Design & Graphic Designer) is from Gratis, Ohio and graduated from Miami University in 2012, where he received a BA in Theatre and minored in American Studies. He started working in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2010 as an intern for the San Francisco Mime Troupe. In 2013, he became a Collective Member and, from 2015 - 2016, he served as the Secretary of the Board. During his SFMT residency, he designed and created puppets, posters, and served as an audio engineer and sound designer. He also served as the Production Manager at Z Space in San Francisco, where he has previously worked with The Bengson’s on their rock opera world premier Hundred Days, Fat Mike from NOFX and the world premier of his punk musical Home Street Home, and many other great artist, dancers, and performers. Lawton enjoys using visual arts and sound to construct stories that educate and stimulate our imaginations. Lawton is no longer a collective/board member, but continues to work with the company from Ohio.

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