Artistic  Team

Playwright: Sean Christopher Lewis

Sean Christopher Lewis is the Artistic Director of Working Group Theatre the recent winner of the 2013 Rick Graf Award from the Human Rights Commission. His previous monologues and plays have won the Kennedy Center’s Rosa Parks Award, the National New Play Network Smith Prize, the NEA Voices in Community Award, the Barrymore Award, the Central Ohio Critic Circle Award and more. His plays have been performed at major theaters, colleges, prisons, detention centers and living rooms in the United States, Canada, East Africa, and Europe. He can be heard as a contributor to NPR’S This American Life and his work has appeared in the NY Times, Huffington Post and numerous literary journals.

Performer: Christopher Koval

  Christopher’s most recent Tucson credits are The Big Meal, at Winding Road Theater Ensemble, Death Trap, at Arizona Rose Theater, the premier of Mr. Goldberg’s Prodigal Son, at Invisible Theater, I Hate Hamlet and God’s Favorite, at The Road Runner Theatre, The Winter's Tale, at The Rogue, Clean and Sober Theater, a youth outreach program of Compass Mental Health Clinic, and Tucson Theatrical Mime Troupe. Some of his San Francisco credits include, Mid Summer Night’s Dream, Cabaret, Dinner With Friends, and Bobby Gould in Hell. As a member of California Desert Regional Theatre, he performed John Brown’s Body and Lone Star. Christopher has also instructed and directed at The Bennett Theatre Lab and Conservatory, Live Theatre Workshop, and Catalina High School.

Director: Barclay Goldsmith

 Goldsmith served on the faculty and later chair of the Pima College Theater Department from 1970 to 2004. Active also in the community, he was a co-founder of Teatro Libertad and later was founder/director of Borderlands Theater, (1986- 2014 when he retired).  He is a co-founder of The National New Play Network, (Washington DC), and has participated in readings/workshops at  The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, (Washington DC)  and Lark Play Development Center, (New York). Internationally he has directed extensively at El Circulo Teatral in Mexico City and has been invited as director or producer to  The first  National  LatinX Theater Festival,( Los Angeles); The UNESCO International Theater Festival,  (Tampico) and other festivals in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and  Mexico. He has garnered press nominations and awards in Tucson and Mexico City.

Associate Director: Eva Zorrilla Tessler

Eva Zorrilla Tessler is a native of Mexico City. She has been working in the theater as a performer, choreographer, and director since 1980 in the USA and Brazil. She worked with the Latina Dance Project, a dance theater company for 12 years, and toured extensively throughout the USA, and internationally in Brazil, Portugal, and Canada. Tessler worked with Borderlands Theater in many capacities, artistic and administrative. Currently, she's a freelance theater artist who enjoys working with local companies such as Live Theater Workshop, Winding Road, Digna Teatro and Something Something. Tessler is the proud recipient of the LULAC Individual Artist Award (2008) and a LUMIE Lifetime Achievement Award (2009).

Producer: Trayce Peterson

Trayce Peterson is a native of Philadelphia, PA, and received her B.A. and her Master's of Divinity from Earlham College and Earlham School of Religion, IN respectively. At Earlham College, Trayce produced two Art Is Our Resistance concerts that featured artists such as Rebel Diaz, Dead Prez, and Shadia Mansour and a spoken word show featuring Remi Kanazi. In Tucson, Trayce served as one of the organizers for the Empty Chairs Project associated with the play Digna by Patricia Davis. She is the co-founder of SplitSeed Productions and was one of the producers of the Binational Encuentro: Female Migrations. Most recently, she served as the dramaturge for the play Apples In Winter by Jennifer Fawcett.

Dramaturge: Ana Cornide

Ana Cornide is a native of Madrid, Spain and received her BA and MA degree in Spanish and Latin American Literature from Universidad Complutense de Madrid. She received her Ph.D. in Spanish from the University of Virginia, VA. She previously taught at Earlham College, IN and is currently an assistant professor and the Director of the Critical Service Learning and Outreach Program for the Spanish and Portuguese Department at the University of Arizona, Tucson. Alongside her academic career, she has acted in and directed Spanish language plays in Spain, Argentina, and the USA. Ana served as dramaturge for the final plays of Borderlands’ 2015-16 season, The Ghosts of Lote Bravo by Hilary Bettis and Digna by Patricia Davis. She was the producer and curator of the Binational Encuentro Female: Migrations.

Videographer/Editor: Leslie Ann Epperson

An Emmy Award-winning director with experience in television and independent film, a teacher, mentor, and recent editor of the film, Taste Bud Memories, director/editor of History and Stories of the Tohono O'odham Districts, award-winning documentaries Celebrate Now, Many Bones, One Heart, Director/Writer/Co-Editor of Emmy Award-Winning film Divine Mission San Xavier del Bac. Producer/Director of live streaming video of the All Souls Procession for Visit Tucson, Director of on-air broadcast for PBS affiliate AZPM, current with emerging technologies and stylistic trends in film and television. A background in fine art, theatre and biology combine to create lyrical cultural, science and natural history film programs

Sound Design/Composition: James Klingenfus

A sound designer and/or composer for over 90 plays, his most recent work includes composing original music for Pima College production of “Popol Vu.” Jim was a 2005 Zonie Award nominee for sound design of "Men On The Verge 2." Jim designed sound and composed for 23 seasons of Tucson Shakespeare Under The Stars, music director of Borderlands Theaters’ "A Tucson Pastorela" since 2007 and played Lucifer in 2010 and 2011. On stage, the most recently performed as “Franz” in AZ OnStage 's “The Producers” and in 2011, portrayed “Turpin” in "Sweeney Todd" and in the ensemble cast of "Head" at Beowulf Theater.

Digital Producer & Visual Designer: Adam Cooper-Terán

Adam Cooper-Terán (ACT) is a critically-acclaimed video, sound, and multimedia artist from Tucson, Arizona, better known for their collaborations with various theater companies, performance artists, musicians, rabble-rousers, and activists. Their work has featured across the globe in universities, museums, basements, and streets as large-scale projections, musical interventions, and installations of digital storytelling. As a performer, Adam incorporates live video and audio mixing into ritualized improvisations, which have led to highly personal and political spectacles rooted in ceremony and social justice. For more information and overview of their work, visit ANTRAL.NET.

Stage Manager: Alejandra Becerra

Alejandra was born and raised in Tucson. This is their first professional show for which they are excited to stage-manage. They have worked three shows at Pima Community College as assistant video designer (Sun Serpent), assistant sound designer (Baskerville), and sound designer and sound engineer (Singin' In The Rain). Alejandra is currently working on their associate's degree in Fine Arts with a concentration in theatre.