CARLSBAD, CALIF.: New Village Arts Theatre (NVA) has announced that Frankie Alicea-Ford is joining the organization’s 2020-21 season as artist-in-residence, thanks to a grant from the California Arts Council. As part of his residency, Alicea-Ford will be leading NVA’s multicultural, bilingual outreach initiative, Teatro Pueblo Nuevo, and working with NVA’s education and outreach programs while ensuring that Latinx voices are celebrated throughout NVA’s programming.
“All of us at NVA are thrilled to have Frankie Alicea-Ford on the team,” said executive artistic director Kristianne Kurner in a statement. “Mr. Alicea-Ford is an incredibly talented actor, singer, and musician, as well as an exemplary teaching artist. We are confident that under his leadership our education and outreach programs will be made stronger and more accessible to everyone in our community and our artistic programs will thrive.”
Additionally, Alicea-Ford will be co-creating an original holiday musical alongside Milena (Sellers) Phillips, Kevin “Blax” Burroughs, and Dea Hurston for NVA. In an interview conducted with NVA, Alicea-Ford said his role at NVA is to ensure representation throughout NVA, create educational programming for all students, and “work to ensure that all members of our communities know that they have a seat in our audiences, a place on our stage, and a home at New Village Arts.”
Frankie Alicea-Ford is a San Diego-based, New York City-trained actor and educator who has been performing and teaching professionally since 2012. After receiving his BFA from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, Frankie has performed and taught in Prague, New York, Chicago, Connecticut, and San Diego. He created the theatre program at Achievement First Middle School in Hartford, Conn., and went on to teach the award-winning high school theatre program at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts. He was also the residential director of the Center for Creative Youth, based out of Wesleyan University. He is currently working as a teaching artist with La Jolla Playhouse and Arts for Learning, San Diego and has training in devised theatre techniques, arts integration, and trauma-based theatre practices.
