Season 1 Guests
Rebecca Damon
As part of the executive leadership team, Rebecca Damon oversees the Labor Policy & International Affairs department and has oversight of the Locals outside of Los Angeles and New York.
A champion for workers’ rights, Damon has advocated for a worker centered trade policy and protections for SAG-AFTRA members in a fast changing technological landscape and increasingly globalized creative industry. Damon’s leadership includes strengthening New York’s right of publicity and digital image rights for the benefit of all members. She has been recognized five years in a row as one of the most noteworthy figures on the front lines of New York by City and State Labor Power 100, and was named to the City and State 2023 Power of Diversity: Women 100 list. She has also been recognized two years in a row by amNY Metro and Politics NY as a Labor Power Player.
In 2018, Damon was honored with the LaborPress Leadership Award for her outstanding advocacy on behalf of SAG-AFTRA members and her long standing dedication and support of the labor movement. Additionally, she was a recipient of the Irish Echo Connecting America Award, the Leaders of Labor Award, the SAG-AFTRA George Heller Memorial Award gold card, and SAG-AFTRA New York Local’s Joseph C. Riley Award.
Damon served as executive vice president, the union’s second-highest elected national office, and also served as president of the New York Local. She is a fierce advocate for education and empowerment of performers nationwide.
During her tenure as Screen Actors Guild New York Division Vice President, she was a founding member of both the SAG President’s Forum for One Union and the joint Group for One Union, helping lead the effort to unite SAG and AFTRA. As co-leader of the Operations Workgroup, Damon was a key architect of the merger.
Outside of SAG-AFTRA, Damon advocates for workers’ rights as a vice president of the New York State AFL-CIO Executive Council and a member of the New York City Central Labor Council. She is a member of the New York City Film and Television Production Industry Council advising on the city’s production policies and programs. She is on the board of PowHer NY, an inclusive statewide network committed to securing economic equality for all women. She is also a vice president of the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, an educational, humanitarian and philanthropic nonprofit organization. As the primary liaison for Foundation programming in New York, she oversaw creation of the Robin Williams Center for Entertainment and Media in Times Square.
IG > @rebecccadamon
W > @www.sagaftra.org
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Connect with Rebecca on Instagram & Threads
LaChanze
With a career that has spanned thirty-eight Broadway seasons, LaChanze consistently brings women of complexity and triumph into the cultural lexicon.
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Last season, LaChanze made her debut as producer on two shows, the 20th anniversary revival of Suzan-Lori Parks’ acclaimed Pulitzer-Prize-Winning play, Topdog/Underdog, as well as Kimberly Akimbo, a new musical by Tony Award Winning Composer Jeanine Tesori and Pulitzer-Prize-Winning Playwright David Lindsay-Abaire, earning a combined 11 Tony Award nominations and 6 Tony Award wins, including Best Revival of a Play and Best Musical, respectively. This season, she produced Kimberly Akimbo, Here Lies Love by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim and Jaja’s African Hair Braiding written by Jocelyn Bioh and directed by Whitney White. In Spring 2024, she joined the producing team of The Outsiders, a new musical based on S.E. Hinton’s beloved novel. Next season, she will make her New York City directorial debut with Alice Childress’ Wine in the Wilderness at Classic Stage Company.
LaChanze won a Tony Award for her performance as Celie in The Color Purple, originated the role of Ti Moune in Once on This Island (Tony Award nomination), and upheld her commitment to artistic excellence as Wiletta in Alice Childress’ historic play, Trouble In Mind (Tony Award nomination). Other notable stage performances include roles in Summer: The Donna Summer Musical (Tony Award nomination), A Christmas Carol, The Secret Life of Bees, If/Then, The Wiz, Ragtime, Uptown… It’s Hot! and Dreamgirls.
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On screen, she has delivered memorable roles in both TV and film including: “East New York,” “The Blacklist,” “Handel’s Messiah Rocks: A Joyful Noise” (Emmy Award), “Melinda,” “The Help,” HBO’s “The Night Of,” “Law & Order: SVU,” “The Good Fight,” “Sex And The City,” and Disney animated feature film “Hercules” among other titles.
She is the President of Black Theatre United, a community of creatives dedicated to awareness, accountability, and advocacy. Proud mother of Celia Rose and Zaya LaChanze. She resides in Westchester, New York with her three cats and gardening hats.
Follow LaChanze
IG > @mslachanze
IG > @lachanze_productions
IG > @blacktheatreunited
Kim Montelibano Heil & Victor Vazquez
Kim Montelibano Heil
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Kim Montelibano Heil, CSA is the Artistic Associate and Head of Casting at The Old Globe in San Diego, and the Founder of the Nuance, a series of conversations endeavoring to dispel the myth of the “Starving Artist” through a BIPOC and Feminist lens. She has cast large-scale musicals like Evita and 33 1/3: House of Dreams, both of which were collaborations with the nationally-recognized San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts, as well as intimate award-winning dramas such as A Doll’s House, Part 2 and The Humans. Currently she is the Casting Consultant for the Broadway-bound musical adaptation of Farewell My Concubine, music & lyrics by Jason Robert Brown, book by Kenneth Lin, and directed by Moises Kaufman. Recently, Kim cast the critically-acclaimed film of Aaron Posner’s JQA, which received a Critic’s Pick from the New York Times.
She was also the Casting Director for actress and producer Kathy Najimy’s short film, The Secret Club, which went on to be featured in film festivals across the country.
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Kim is also currently serving as an Associate Producer at The Old Globe, where she from 2004-2013 under Craig Noel, Jack O’Brien, and Jerry Patch. She was the Associate Producer for San Diego Repertory Theatre, and as the Education Director at San Diego Junior Theatre. Currently she is acting as a Consultant to SDSU’s New Musical Initiative, where she works alongside Lynne Shankel and Crystal Skillman on their new musical, Postcard American Town. Prior to San Diego, Kim was an associate for Broadway producer Arielle Tepper, and also served as the Associate Producer/Dramaturg for Second Generation’s In The Works Reading Series, where she produced workshops of plays by emerging Asian-American playwrights. She currently serves on the Board of the National New Play Network, and has also served on the boards of Diversionary Theatre and Blindspot Collective. Kim recently completed her term as an inaugural Ambassador for the newly-formed San Diego Theatre Alliance. As a passionate advocate of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, Kim founded The Nuance on Instagram (@thenuance2020), where she interviews artists about their financial experiences in order to dispel the myth of the “starving artist”. Kim holds an M.A. in Performance Studies from New York University.
IG - @thenuance2020 @theoldglobe
Website - https://www.thenuance2020.com/
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Victor Vazquez
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Victor Vazquez, CSA (he/him/his) is the founder and lead Casting Director of X Casting, casting for TV, Film, Broadway, & London’s West End. He is a member of the Casting Society, and the Television Academy.
TV projects include: Associate Casting Director for ‘GENIUS: MLK/X’ a limited series by 20th Television, Nat Geo, Disney +, executive produced by Brian Grazer and Ron Howard for Imagine Television, Reggie Rock Bythewood, Gina Prince-Bythewood and Francie Calfo for Undisputed Cinema, with showrunners Raphael Jackson Jr. and Damione Macedon.
Associate Casting Director for undisclosed drama series with major streaming service from 2024-2025.
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Film projects include: Casting Director on the independent feature ‘THREE YEARS GONE’ written and directed by John Gutierrez; Casting Associate with Carla Hool on ‘LOS FRIKIS’ a forthcoming feature film produced by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, Lucky Treehouse, and NewSlate Ventures with directors/writers Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz.
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Commercial projects include Co-Casting Director for Swiss sportswear label On Running in the Dream Together campaign with one of luxury’s most powerful ambassadors Zendaya, directed by C Prinz, choreographed by Tyrik Patterson, produced by Luca Chapman and Luigi Rossi with Smuggler.
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Short Films: Casting Director for Hillman Grad Rising Voices Season 4 short film ‘BACK HOME’ written and directed by Mercedes Arturo and executive produced by Lena Waithe, Rishi Rajani, Doménica Castro, Constanza Castro, with Rising Voices, Hillman Grad, and 271 Films, featured at Tribeca Film Festival 2024. Additional short film credits include: Casting Director for McDonald’s 2023 Spotlight Dorado Award ‘FANCY FLOREZ’S SUMMER STAYCATION’ written and directed by Marissa Diaz and mentored by Gloria Calderon Kellet; Casting Director for ‘LYRICAL’ written, directed and executive produced by Carter Stewart, Executive VP at Mellon Foundation.
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Broadway projects include: Casting Director for Broadway remount of ‘SLAVE PLAY’ (most Tony nominated play in history), written by Jeremy O. Harris, directed by Robert O’Hara; Casting Director for ‘HIPPEST TRIP - THE SOUL TRAIN MUSICAL’ (forthcoming), written by Tony nominee Dominique Morisseau, directed by Kamilah Forbes, choreographed by Tony nominee Camille A. Brown, and produced by QuestLove; Casting Director for ‘REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES - THE MUSICAL’ (forthcoming), directed and choreographed by Tony winner Sergio Trujillo, book by Lisa Loomer, music and lyrics by Joy Huerta and Benjamin Velez, additional material by Nell Benjamin, produced by Barry & Fran Weissler (of Broadway’s CHICAGO, and WAITRESS) and Jack Noseworthy.
West End premiere’s include Casting Director for ‘BLACK SUPERHERO’ written by Danny Lee Wynter, and ‘RARE EARTH METTLE’ written by Al Smith, both at The Royal Court Theatre.
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New-play and new-musical projects include (Casting Director): Center Theatre Group (CTG), Signature Theatre (NYC), Tectonic Theatre Project, Audible Theatre, Classic Stage Company, Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center, The Kennedy Center, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, A.R.T. Harvard, and dozens more. Commercial video and photo campaigns include a collaboration with Timberland, Desus & Mero, and a video campaign narrated by Spike Lee.
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Victor has served as an adjunct professor of acting for senior students in the Drama Department at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts within the New Studio on Broadway. Victor has held casting calls nationally and internationally in English and Spanish. He holds a master’s degree (with distinction) from the University of Oxford in the UK. He is the proud son of Mexican immigrants; Spanish is his first language. Victor is a Casting Director member of the Casting Society, and a 2020 Theater Communications Group (TCG) Rising Leader of Color.
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IG - @victorvictorv @xcastingnyc
Website - https://www.xcastingnyc.com/
Theresa Wolters
Theresa Wolters, Vice President, Health & Human Services, leads on executing and advancing the vision and direction of all mission-based programs and services for MusiCares, which include emergency financial assistance, mental health & addiction recovery programs, social and preventive health care services, and disaster relief efforts. As part of the Recording Academy, MusiCares provides safety net services to 20,000 music professionals annually.
Wolters spent two decades working around the globe to increase access to health, financial and emergency services in vulnerable communities. Most recently, Wolters spent over 12 years holding various positions at the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF). At EGPAF, she was part of the organization's senior leadership team and played an integral role in driving EGPAF's strategic, technical and sustainability focus, working in coordination with Ministries of Health, UN agencies, the U.S. government, philanthropies, and NGOs. With her team, Wolters scaled innovative approaches to increase access to health services across low-resource countries.
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Prior to joining EGPAF, Wolters spent more than a decade working on multi-sectoral development and relief programs across Africa. In 2005, she was a founding employee of Millennium Promise, a non-profit organization dedicated to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and was integral in launching and managing the Millennium Villages Project, a demonstration of how the MDGs and SDGs can be achieved. In 2009, Wolters held the role of regional coordinator of the International Medical Corps where she directed the organization's health and refugee programs in Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Somalia, and Uganda.
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Wolters holds a bachelor's degree from the George Washington University, a Master of Business Administration degree from Heriot-Watt University and studied African Affairs at the University of Cape Town.
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MUSICARES helps the humans behind music because music gives so much to the world. MusiCares provides a safety net of critical health and welfare services to the music community in three key areas:
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Mental Health & Addiction Recovery Services: Support, referrals, and emergency financial assistance for counseling, psychiatric care, inpatient treatment, coaching, intensive outpatient care, sober living and more.
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Health Services: Financial assistance during medical crises and preventive services such as dental and medical screenings, hearing clinics, and vocal health workshops.
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Human Services: Support for basic living expenses like rent, utilities, car payments and insurance premiums in times of hardship, plus programs addressing affordable housing, career development, legal issues and senior services.
Read more about what they do here, and how you can get involved.
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IG - @MusiCares @MusicaresFoundation
Aurin Squire
Aurin Squire is a playwright, reporter, and television writer from South Florida. Squire's plays have been produced in London, Toronto, and around the United States. His political satire OBAMA-OLOGY was first developed at the Juilliard summer workshop before going on to be produced in London, Los Angeles, and Dallas. At Miami New Drama, he co-wrote “Confessions of a Cocaine Cowboy” with Billy Corben and wrote the book for the Louis Armstrong musical, “A Wonderful World.” He has been awarded the Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Playwrights, Seattle Public Theatre’s Emerald Prize for new plays, and National Black Theatre's "I Am Soul" playwriting fellowship. Squire was also a writer on Miami New Drama's "7 Deadly Sins," which won a Drama League Award for Outstanding Interactive Theatre.
In TV, Squire was the co-executive producer on the TV drama "The Good Fight" and is currently the co-executive producer on "Evil." He has been nominated for two NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series, a BlackReel Award, and a WGA Award for his work on "This is Us." He is a New Dramatists resident playwright, a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, and the Writers Guild of America. He graduated from The Juilliard School and Northwestern University.
Squire is the book writer for A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical on Broadway, beginning performances on October 16 at famed Studio 54. Opening night is November 11.
IG - @aurinsquire
Raja Benz & Greg Geffrard
RAJA BENZ
Raja Benz (she/her) is a distinguished theatre-maker, cultural consultant, and intimacy professional recently relocated to the Metro-Detroit region. A proud Filipina-American Trans woman, Raja has established herself as a transformative voice in theatre through her advocacy and pedagogy which centers on highlighting the rich histories of queer of color praxis as the foundation for inclusive, authentic, consent-based approaches to intimacy for stage and screen.
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Raja’s career has spanned a number of milestone projects, including serving as the cultural consultant for Pride as part of Tectonic Theatre Project’s Seven Deadly Sins under the direction of Moisés Kaufman. Raja’s work has been featured in collaborations with many other prominent theatre companies including Signature Theatre, Studio Theatre, Live & In Color, IRT NYC, and Virginia Repertory Theatre. Raja’s work was also featured on Swagger (AppleTV), where she was an intimacy coordinator for the second season.
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Raja holds a Certificate in Performance from the legendary Moscow Art Theatre, as well as both a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting from Northern Illinois University, and a Master of Fine Arts in Theatre Pedagogy from Virginia Commonwealth University, where her graduate studies focused on movement for stage, devised theatre, intimacy coordination & choreography, and gender studies. Her thesis, “QTIES: Queer & Trans Intimacy as Emergent Strategy,” focused on developing queer of color driven inclusive pedagogical practices for teaching performance in contemporary theatre training institutions. During her time as a Graduate Student, and in the years following, Raja served as an adjunct professor of movement & devising and worked professionally in the Richmond theatre community– ultimately serving as the Community Engagement and Outreach Manager at the Richmond Triangle Players, a professional theatre focusing on queer stories and artistry. Raja is a highly-sought after educator, and has had the honor of presenting her work through colleges, universities, and independent intimacy programs across the world including The Educator Advocacy Program, Intimacy Coordinators of Color, Randolph College, Oberlin College, Penn State, Villanova University, The University of South Carolina Upstate, and at University of California system at large through the Summer in the Arts program housed at Fresno State University. Raja’s work is proudly now housed across four departments at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre, and Dance where she serves as the Resident Intimacy Choreographer and Cultural Consultant. She is happy to report a new course I created titled Consent and the Arts just launched, which will be followed by a sister course Intimacy for Stage and Screen in the spring term.
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Raja is an Associate Faculty of Theatrical Intimacy Education, where she has developed curricula including Working With Trans & Non-Binary Artists, Staging Sex Beyond the Binary, Sex Work on Stage & Screen, and Non-Monogamy, Polyamory & Staging the Group. In addition, Raja teaches and assistant teaches a wide-range of workshops including Best Practices for Theatrical Intimacy, Staging Sex: Outercourse, Power Play, Consent in the Acting Studio, Stage Managers and Intimacy, and Foundations of Race, Intimacy and Consent. She is a contributing author in two upcoming publications, The Intimacy Coordinators Handbook and Queering the Stage.
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In short, Raja’s work is deeply rooted in a history of queer people of color organizing and navigating issues of consent and autonomy that extends well beyond the existence of the intimacy field. To learn more, and to keep up with Raja, please visit RajaBenz.com or find her at @Raja.In.Rehearsal across social media platforms.
IG - @Raja.in.Rehearsal
GREG GEFFRARD
Greg Geffrard is an educator, Intimacy professional, culture worker, actor, poet, and facilitator. He cultivates sustainable artistic spaces of exploration by sharing consent- based trauma-informed advocacy tools. He aspires to inspire the next generation of self-generators of radical joy.
Greg's work includes sexual assault prevention education primarily with young adults, consent-based ensemble building utilizing the tenants of transformative justice, abolitionist and emergent strategy tools, empathy-building using spoken word poetry and anti-racist frameworks.
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He is the Resident Intimacy Consultant at Steppenwolf Theatre. As an Associate Faculty member with Theatrical Intimacy Education, he has facilitated workshops at the collegiate and professional levels. He is the conference planner for ATHE with the Association of Theatre Movement Educators. His primary research focuses on integrating intimacy practices into theatrical pedagogy to ensure that the principles of IDEAS (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Access & Sustainability) are applied in praxis.
He collaborates with arts organizations to examine their hierarchical structures through the lens of anti-racist practices. He co-leads these complex cultural conversations with The Chicago Inclusion Project and utilizes the “Conversations @ Work: An Antiracist Workshop” format, which he co-created for the Chicago Poetry Center. He facilitates transformative justice-focused conversations & creates curricula with the ambition of establishing brave spaces. He has partnered with Steppenwolf Theatre, The Kennedy Center, the Renee Crown Wellness Institution, the Chicago Poetry Center, the Old Town School of Folk Music, Young Chicago Authors, and the Chicago Arts Partnership in Education.
Greg holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre from the University Of South Florida and a Master of Fine Arts in Theatre Performance from the University Of Iowa. He is the Head of BFA Acting and Associate Artistic Director at Brenau University.
Upcoming projects.
A Third Way with Actor's Express Theatre (Atlanta, GA), Intimacy Direction
Sofa King Queer (A New Musical) with Nothing Without A Theatre (Chicago, IL), Intimacy Consultant
Guiding Faculty | Theatrical Intimacy Education
Director of BFA Acting & Assistant Professor | Brenau University
Facilitator| The Chicago Inclusion Project,
IG - @gregarious86
FB - @gregory.geffrard