Creative Team & Cast

Soho Rep.’s AN OCTOROON

By Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Directed by Sarah Benson

Featuring Maechi Aharanwa*, Pascale Armand*, Danielle Davenport*, Amber Gray*, Ian Lassiter*, Austin Smith*, Haynes Thigpen*, and Mary Wiseman*.

Sets: Mimi Lien; Costumes: Wade Laboissonniere; Lights: Matt Frey; Sound: Matt Tierney; Projections: Jeff Sugg; Wigs and Makeup: Cookie Jordan; Songs, Music, and Music Director: César Alvarez; Fight Director: J. David Brimmer; Choreography: David Neumann; Props: Noah Mease; Cellist: Lester St. Louis; Production Stage Manager: Amanda Spooner*.

*Member of Actors Equity Association

BJacobsJenkins_150-x150 BRANDEN JACOBS-JENKINS (Playwright). Branden’s plays include Appropriate (Obie Award; Outer Critics Circle nomination; Signature Theatre), Neighbors (The Public Theater), War (Yale Rep), and An Octoroon (Obie Award; Soho Rep). He is currently a Residency Five playwright at the Signature Theatre and a former Lila Acheson Wallace fellow at The Juilliard School. His work has been seen at Yale Rep, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Victory Gardens Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Vineyard Theatre, Matrix Theatre in L.A., Mixed Blood Theatre is Minneapolis, CompanyOne in Boston and the HighTide Festival in the UK. He is under commissions from Lincoln Center/LCT3 and MTC. His honors include a Paula Vogel Award, a fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the inaugural Tennessee Williams award.
SARAH BENSON (Director) has been the Artistic Director of the Obie Award-winning Soho Rep since 2007. Recent New York credits include Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ An Octoroon (Soho Rep); Lucas Hnath’s A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney (Soho Rep); David Adjmi’s Elective Affinities (site-specific); Sarah Kane’s Blasted (Soho Rep, Obie Award and Drama Desk nomination); and The Lisps’ musical Futurity (A.R.T. & Walker Arts Center). Other credits include Gregory S. Moss’ House of Gold (Woolly Mammoth) and Ajax (A.R.T.). Upcoming: The Lisps’ Futurity and Richard Maxwell’s Samara.

Maechi Aharanwa_150x150 MAECHI AHARANWA (Minnie). Off-Broadway: Night Vision, No More Monsters Here (NBT); Mother Courage, Macbeth, The Blacks, Trojan Women (Classical Theatre of Harlem); The Beyonce Effect (TFTTF). Regional: Seven Guitars, Antigone, Miss Julie, A Woman Called Truth. Workshops/readings: Sundance Theatre Lab, Playwrights Realm, The Public Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, Soho Rep, The Lark, Atlantic Stage 2. Television/Film: “Show Me a Hero” (HBO); “Person of Interest” (CBS); “30 Rock,” “Mercy” (NBC); Maybe There’s a Tree, Police State, Silver Sling. 2013 Princess Grace Award.
Pascale Armand_150x150 PASCALE ARMAND (Dido). TFANA debut. Broadway: The Trip to Bountiful with Ms. Cicely Tyson. Off-Broadway: Belleville by Amy Herzog; Breath, Boom by Kia Corthron. Regional: Love/Sick, The Convert, Eclipsed by Danai Gurira, Ruined, Hamlet, As You Like It, A Raisin in the Sun, The Piano Lesson, Jitney, Gem of the Ocean, etc. Television/Film: “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” “Strangers with Candy.” NYU Graduate Acting Program alumna. Quick Silver Theater Company.
Danielle Davenport_150x150 DANIELLE DAVENPORT (Grace). New York: Neighbors, All’s Well That Ends Well (The Public Theater); Adoration of the Old Woman (INTAR); Be the Death of Me (The Civilians); Aristophanes’ Birds (Target Margin). Workshops/readings: Playwrights Horizons, New York Theatre Workshop, The Lark, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, The Amoralists, and others. Television: HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire.” Education/training: Public Theater Shakespeare Lab; B.A. Barnard College, Columbia University.
Amber Gray_150x150 AMBER GRAY (Zoe). An Octoroon (Soho Rep, P.S.122); Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 (Kazinoi, Ars Nova); The TEAM’s Mission Drift (London’s National, Hong Kong, Perth, NYC COIL, Salzburg, Edinburgh’s Traverse, Coimbra, Lisbon, ArtsEmerson); The World is Round (Ripe Time); We Play for the Gods (Women’s Project); All Hands (Hoi Polloi); Eager to Lose (Ars Nova); Banished Children of Eve (Irish Rep); and ongoing with Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping. M.F.A.: NYU Graduate Acting.
Ian Lassiter_150x150 IAN LASSITER (Assistant/Pete/Paul)Broadway: War Horse (Lincoln Center). Off-Broadway: Antony and Cleopatra (The Public Theater, RSC Swan Theatre); Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 (Kazino); Mission Drift (co-writer/performer, National Theatre/Connelly Theater, NY). New York/Regional: The Iliad: Guerillas at Troy (Continuum Company), Henry V (Two River Theater), Ash Girl (Connelly Theater), The Martian Chronicles (Fordham Alumni Co), Land O’Fire (Wings Theater), September 12th (Nuyorican Poets’ Cafe), Fitz and Walloughs Get it in the End (NYC Fringe). Television/Film: Queen of Glory, Time After, King Theo Live!, Mixed Up. M.F.A., NYU Tisch Graduate Acting.
Austin Smith_150x150 AUSTIN SMITH (BJJ/George/M’Closky) hails from Chicago and is a recent graduate of The Juilliard School. Recent Juilliard credits include “Master Harold”…and the boys, The Great God Pan, War, Hamlet, and Twelfth Night. He is thrilled to be making his professional New York stage debut here at Theatre for a New Audience.
Haynes Thigpen_150x150 HAYNES THIGPEN (Playwright/Wahnotee/Lafouche). Broadway: Dead Accounts by Theresa Rebeck, Misalliance (Roundabout). Off-Broadway/Regional: The Patron Saint of Sea Monsters, Our House (Playwrights Horizons); To the Bone (Cherry Lane); The Revenger’s Tragedy (Red Bull Theater); Hamlet (McCarter); The Aliens (San Francisco Playhouse); Dead Accounts (Cincinnati Playhouse); Our House (Denver Center); August: Osage County (The Old Globe); and more. Television/Film: “Law & Order,” “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” “The Good Wife,” “Dance ‘Til Dawn.”
 Mary Wiseman_150x150 MARY WISEMAN  (Dora) is a fourth-year student at Juilliard. At Juilliard you may or may not have seen her in Our Town; As You Like It; and By the Way, Meet Vera Stark. New York credits include An Octoroon (Soho Rep) and The Octoroon (P.S.122). Regional credits include Clybourne Park, The Comedy of Errors (Chautauqua Theatre Company); and Appropriate (Vineyard Arts).