Our newest edition spotlights theatre workers in the DMV—that’s Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, for those not in the know. If you would like to recommend a theatre artist (from anywhere) for a future Role Call, fill out our open Google Form here.
Anabel Milton (she/her)
Profession: Actor and teaching artist
Hometown: Born in Washington, D.C. and grew up in Silver Spring, Md.
Current home: Silver Spring
Known for: Milton has performed with the Maryland Renaissance Festival for four years and is a classically trained singer and alumna of the InterHarmony International Music Festival. As an arts educator, her work focuses on students with diverse need profiles and those who experience geographic, social, and cultural barriers to arts access.
What’s next: Beginning this month, Milton will appear in Aphra Behn’s The Town Fop, Twelfth Night, and The Winter’s Tale as a part of the Maryland Renaissance Festival’s STREETspeare program. She will also begin working in youth programming with the National Theatre, and hopes to publish a book of poetry this year.
What makes her special: “Anabel is an artist who brings unfathomable depth and care to her work,” said director, playwright, and actor Mira Lamson Klein. “She radiates warmth both as a person and performer. I would also listen to her sing the dictionary.”
A mental game: “I have struggled with mental health for many years, and being a student of the arts has offered me so much community during my most challenging periods,” said Milton, who also works in administration at a mental health facility. “I have experience working with students of all ages and abilities and really hope to use my studies in psycholinguistics, clinical psychology, and child development to continue advocating for accessibility and mental health awareness in theatre spaces and in TYA.”
Dylan Arredondo (he/they)
Profession: Actor, director, dramaturg, and producer
Hometown: Born in Phoenix, raised in Las Vegas
Current home: D.C.
Known for: As the pandemic and the George Floyd protests swept D.C., Arredondo helped coordinate a mutual aid hub based out of the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company’s lobby. Protestor Safe Space D.C. provided organizers with bathrooms, water, and air conditioning, and led Woolly Mammoth to appoint Arredondo their interim operations manager. More recently, Arredondo directed a Helen Hayes Award-nominated production of Tanya Saracho’s Fade at Unexpected Stage Company.
What’s next: Arredondo will next appear onstage in As You Like It at Baltimore’s Chesapeake Shakespeare Company and in Fiddler on the Roof and Lend Me a Soprano at Olney Theatre Center.
What makes them special: Arredondo has “no fear or ego when it comes to taking a role or a job, whether it be big or small,” said actor and director Ryan Sellers. “The arts are not a means to an end for him. The art is the point. The story is the goal. He is what theatre is at its best.”
Trust the process: As we continue to debate the differences between in-person and digital theatre three years after Covid first hit, Arredondo wants live theatre to be intentional—not just something we put on because we’re used to it. “After a period of time lacking the interactivity of shared space, how may we anchor back into our sense of theatricality?” Arredondo posited. “How may we teach an audience how to reconnect with that sense of shared connection, and maybe even push against its boundaries? Such questions are cornerstones in my process.”
KenYatta Rogers (he/him)
Profession: Educator, Director, Actor
Hometown: Much of the East Coast is home, but his artistic seeds were planted in Maryland
Current home: The DMV
Known for: In 2014, Rogers was named Maryland Professor of the Year while teaching theatre at Montgomery College. He now teaches at the University of Maryland College Park and has directed and performed with multiple theatres in D.C. and Baltimore. A lover of August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle, Rogers has performed in eight of the 10 plays.
What’s next: Rogers is workshopping Alceste, a reworking of the Euripides classic Alcestis with additional text by D.C. poet and playwright Sybil Williams, at INseries Opera. The show will mark the first time Rogers shares the stage with his wife, entertainment lawyer Michelle Proctor Rogers, in 20 years.
What makes him special: Rogers is “a mentor and friend to so many in the D.C. theatre family,” Alie Karambash of Adventure Theatre said. “His craft and dedication should be acknowledged.”
Community values: Rogers wants his work to honor community theatre “in all its forms—pop-up, fringe,” he said. Hearkening to the NAACP’s Krigwa Players, “I believe theatre is most powerful when it is ‘about us, by us, for us, near us.’” He looks to Black artists in the DMV for further inspiration, including D.C.’s Welders Playwrights’ Collective, where he was a founding board member.
Natalie Bell (she/her)
Profession: Technical director, carpenter, and metal worker
Hometown: Provo, Utah
Current home: Alexandria, Va.
Known for: After starting her career as a carpenter at the Utah Shakespeare Festival, Bell worked her way up to became the first woman technical director at D.C.’s Arena Stage. Among the many productions she helmed at Arena Stage, Bell installed and programmed the automation for the pre-Broadway run of the musical Dear Evan Hansen.
What’s next: Bell is freelancing and “enjoying a little breathing room” as she navigates the next steps of her career. The break has been “a rare opportunity to focus on finding a more sustainable way for myself to create theatre.”
What makes her special: Actor Susan Rome described Bell as a “genius, a magician, an engineer extraordinaire” with a “‘Hell yes, we can do this!’” kind of attitude. Ironically, Bell described her role as technical director as “the realistic voice in a room full of dreams,” requiring a balancing act of creativity and capacity.
Teamwork makes the dream work: “I get a lot of joy in seeing my team succeed at a new skill or something they thought they couldn’t accomplish,” Bell said of her approach to collaborative theatremaking. “It’s all about trying and failing and trying again. The results are much more satisfying when you can build a team to use their different interests and varying experiences to create something bigger than the individuals.”
Sabine Decatur (they/he)
Profession: Producer, administrator, dramaturg, and cultural worker
Hometown: Oberlin, Ohio
Current home: Baltimore
Known for: Decatur has worn many hats at Baltimore Center Stage: assistant to the artistic director, dramaturg, and now executive chief of staff. They were also a producer of Keelay Gipson’s demons. at the Bushwick Starr, have served on TCG panels, and have written for this magazine.
What’s next: Decatur created a biannual BCS staff gathering, Big Think, and is gearing up to lead the summer iteration. This summer’s Big Think will include trainings on decolonizing theatre and gender inclusivity. The week-long program allows BCS staff to breathe, learn, and recenter.
What makes them special: “Sabine is a now and next generation artistic leader whose dramaturgical prowess is as on point as their justice analysis,” said Stephanie Ybarra, who worked with Decatur while artistic director at BCS. “They wear their intellect lightly and their compassion boldly. I would follow them anywhere.”
Brave new world: Despite a barrage of bad news in the field, Decatur is “actually quite optimistic about the future of theatre,” they said. “Having spent five years in the depths of a major regional theatre, I feel pretty clear-eyed about it. There’s so much possibility right there on the horizon, and I see so many people living in it already.” Decatur looks to their peers and mutual aid models as inspiration to create theatre outside a capitalistic landscape. “I see theatre as just one tool that we are carrying with us in the larger mission to make a better world.”
Sherrice Mojgani (she/her)
Profession: Lighting designer, educator, and activist
Hometown: Orange County, Calif.
Current home: Northern Virginia
Known for: Mojgani, an associate professor of theatre at George Mason University, recently designed a new conceptualization of FELA! at Olney and Round House Theatre. She also just wrapped up a three-year term on United Scenic Artists Local 829’s executive board.
What’s next: Mojgani is designing the lighting for the McCarter Theatre Center and Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s co-production of Bulrusher by Eisa Davis.
What makes her special: Mojgani is “an extraordinary collaborator and person,” fellow lighting designer Porsche McGovern said. As co-founder and co-chair of USA829’s Diversity Committee, Mojgani “does so much for so many.”
Slow so we can grow: “I think slowing down allows us the time to be more intentional in how we work together,” Mojgani said of her approach to theatremaking in this moment. “I’d like to see theatre institutions focus on individual artists. When there is time to have those conversations and create healthy working relationships, the work can be both beautiful and a joy to create.”
