Meet the Artists

 

 

Erin Alys

Erin Alys is an actor, devisor, Intimacy and Stage Combat Director and captivated student of facial expression. Alys’s personal research has led to teaching performers to alter their appearance by deliberately utilizing unfamiliar movement patterns in their face. Just as everyone has a unique way of walking, so does each face has a unique way of communicating. Her workshop called Transforming the Face: Crafting Characters from the Neck Up was first presented at the South Eastern Theatre Conference (SETC) in Louisville, KY.

While devising at Ohio State, Alys discovered an interest in utilizing diegetic sound in live performance. The experience of vibrations from a real source has an emotional impact that is lessened by pre-recorded sound. This investigation manifested in creating the devised show Hear We Go with Connor Graham; another MFA acting student. The show premiered at the 2019 SETC Fringe and was recently adapted into a short film for the Boulder Fringe Festival’s socially distanced 2020 format. www.erinalys.com

Jacob Athyal

Before entering the MFA program at The Ohio State University, Jake received a BA in Journalism from Suffolk University in Boston, MA. He is from the state of Kerala, at the southern tip of India. He has worked in professional theatre since 2011. His regional credits include Guards at the Taj (Central Sq. Theater), The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity (Company One + Perseverance Theater Co.), A Disappearing Number (Central Square Theatre), Midsummer Night’s Dream (Actors’ Shakespeare Project), Nature Plays (Plays in a Place), Shockheaded Peter (Company One), The Draft (Hibernian Hall), Julius Caesar (Bridge Rep.), The Hobbit (Wheelock Family Theatre), The Crucible (Suffolk University), Rhinoceros (Modern Theater Co.), Red Hot Patriot (Lyric Stage Company). Jake is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association.

 

 

Lillian Brown

Lillian Brown is a Graduate Teaching Associate pursuing her MFA in Theatre with an emphasis in acting. She is from Las Vegas, NV and graduated from the University of Northern Colorado with a BA in Theatre Arts. Some of her favorite regional credits include Dreamgirls (Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma), Intimate Apparel, The Piano Lesson (Norton Theatre), Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (Little Theatre of the Rockies), and Hairspray (Performance Now Theatre Co.)

 

 

 

 

Connor Graham

Prior to entering the MFA Theatre (Acting) program at The Ohio State University, Connor received a BFA in Theatre (Performance) from the University at Buffalo. His regional performance credits include The Full Monty and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Subversive Theatre; ARTIE Award nomination, Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Play), Design for Living and The Yeats Project (Irish Classical Theatre Co.), Over the Tavern (Kavinoky Theatre), Free Fred Brown! (Ujima Theatre Co. Inc.), Stupid Fucking Bird (ART/WNY; Broadway World Award, Best Actor in a Play), Junie B. Jones is Not a Crook (Theatre of Youth), and Tuesday Night Magic (P3 Magic Theatre). His acting credits at Ohio State include Are You Now or Have You Ever Been…, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. His directorial credits include Votes for Women! (Kingfisher Theatre; Best of Rochester nomination, Best Production) and The Glass Menagerie (University at Buffalo; KCACTF nomination).

As a creator of new work, in 2017-18, Connor collaborated with a fellow Buffalo native and magician to create, produce, and perform the interactive magic and mentalism play For What It’s Worth, the proceeds of which were donated to Puerto Rican relief following the devastation of Hurricane Maria. In 2019-20, he devised a new Mime and Foley duet with his fellow MFA Theatre colleague, Erin Alys. They toured the piece to SETC before adapting the stage play to film during the summer of 2020. The film premiered at the International Boulder Fringe Festival, and the proceeds were donated to the Okra Project. This year, he is co-creating a new theatre-film hybrid piece with his fellow MFA Theatre cohort members at Ohio State. The project was born out of a response to the opioid epidemic in Ohio.

Connor is a Certified Hypnotist through the National Guild of Hypnotists (NGH), a member of the Gene Gordon – Karl Norman International Brotherhood of Magicians (IBM) Ring 12, a founding member of the Association of Regional Theater Artists (ARTA), as well as the founding president of the Cohort Theatre Company at Ohio State. He is also a member of member of the Association of Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE), Association for Theatre Movement Educators (ATME), and Voice and Speech Trainers Association (VASTA). www.connorjamesgraham.com

 

Matt Greenberg

Matthew Greenberg has appeared along Academy, Tony and Emmy Award winners in plays, opera, Shakespeare, and musicals in New York City and across the country. He is a member of Actor’s Equity Association and SAG-AFTRA.

 

 

 

 

Rina Hajra

Rina Hajra is an actress and filmmaker. Her roles include Vera in My Sekret War (Los Angeles Film Awards, Phoenix Film Festival, etc.), Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Alice Bloomfield in Zoot Suit, Mrs. Alexander in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, and Pancha Garcia in The House of Spirits.

Her award-winning film, My Sekret War, which she created and produced, chronicles the life and redemption of a young child of war. More recently, Rina Hajra directed a new play as part of the SAHAR SPEAKS program at the interdisciplinary and acclaimed Wexner Center for the Arts (October 2019).  She is a Global Arts +Humanities Society of Fellows winner for cross-disciplinary research on film and social change.

 

 

Jessica Hughes

Jessica Hughes is an actor and theatre maker from Texas. She’s performed at Austin Playhouse, Hyde Park Theatre, Penfold Theatre, Doctuh Mistuh Productions, Austin Shakespeare, Pollyanna Theatre Company, Present Company, Collaboraction, and Whirligig Productions. She recently appeared in The Radical Story of Patty Hearst (CNN) and filmed My Stretch of Texas Ground. She completed a year-long internship at Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, participated in the Rhodopi International Theatre Laboratory, and attended the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center’s National Theatre Institute. She’s a member of Actors’ Equity Association.

 

 

Kylie Anna Logan

Kylie Anna is a playwright, an actor, and a filmmaker.

At Ohio State, she serves as a Graduate Teaching Associate pursuing her MFA in Theatre with an emphasis on Acting and the Creation of New Works. In 2020, she received Ohio State’s Graduate Excellence Award for Creative Activity.

She holds a B.A. in Creative Writing and International Studies from Franklin & Marshall College. This summer, she premiered her original one act script, “Three Women Who Are Currently Alive.” One of her greatest joys is teaching Playwriting at OSU. Kylie Anna is also an editorial content writer and recently worked for a London-based web start-up.

This past April, funded by the Global Arts & Humanities Discovery Theme Grant, she premiered her feature-length documentary Free Flow, investigating menstrual disorders and stigma. The premiere was followed by a community conversation with two clinicians in Adolescent Medicine. Her short film “Family Tree” was accepted into the Wexner Center for the Arts’ Ohio Shorts festival. https://www.kylieannalogan.com/

 

Sean Ryan Naughton

Sean Naughton attended high school in Olympia, Washington, and earned his BFA in Theatre from Chapman University in Orange County, California. He has enjoyed a two decade career working in theatre, commercial, film and education. Among the theatre companies he has performed with are Shakespeare Orange County, Harlequin Productions, Capital Playhouse, Cruthaigh Productions and Rude Guerrilla Theater. Some of his favorite roles include Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, Yvan in Art, the title role in Tartuffe, Georg in She Loves Me, John Hinkley in Assassins, Laertes in Hamlet, and Eddie in Fool For Love  as well as Ed in The Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night-time and Bottom in A Midsummer Nights Dream at Ohio State.

In addition to acting, Sean has directed productions of Oedipus: The King, Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet, and Dark Lady of the Sonnets and most recently the premiere of his original play Violent. Beautiful. Things. At Chapman University, Sean founded the student-led Guerrilla Shakespeare Ensemble whose focus was on creating and performing found-space Shakespeare. Sean’s ongoing study and love of Shakespeare’s plays has informed his workshop Shakespeare and the Thinking Breath which he has adapted for both in-person and online delivery.

Sean has extensive experience in community engaged theatre work with East Los Angeles Classic Theater which saw him devising theatre with students in under-served school districts in the Los Angeles area. His work with ELACT focused on leading elementary and middle school students in techniques to write, produce and perform original performance pieces. In addition to working extensively in commercials and film, Sean was heavily involved in the study and performance of improv, graduating from Improv Olympic West Los Angeles and performing with multiple groups at the Hollywood theater. In the summer of 2019, Sean was invited to Saratoga Springs, NY to study Viewpoints and Suzuki movement with Anne Bogart and SITI Company.