What is your favorite part of your job?
I get to work with a lot of different folks at the theater in different departments on different projects (group sales, education programming, playbill stories, all sorts of stuff). So there’s a lot of variety, collaboration, and creativity across the board in my role, which is really the sweet spot for me professionally. And in life!
Why is Two River Theater special to you?
I fell in love with the art first of all, obviously. But what makes TRT more than just an amazing theater is its deeper commitment to diverse programming, representation onstage and backstage, growing the theater world through bold commissions and world premieres, and the eternal effort to open the theater more and more to those who might enjoy and benefit from it. Plus, the people who work here are truly special, I felt like I was among old friends within a month of working here.
What was your favorite production to work on and why?
El Coqui Espectacular and the Bottle of Doom was a Marketing dream! We had so much fun setting up a roster of super fun events, commissioned a comic book artist to create an actual spread, a ton of fun stuff! I also wrote a bunch of things for that playbill which involved me pestering the costume shop for info and getting to know their insane talent even better, so that was all super fun. Plus that cast and creative team were a dream to work with, super down for whatever we asked and generally a ton of fun.
Bradley Tejeda and Gabriel Diego Hernández in El Coquí Espectacular and the Bottle of Doom. Photo by Richard Termine.
If you could go back and work on a production before your time at Two River, what would it be?
I’m really sad I missed A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum! I love me a good musical, and I missed even seeing that one as a regular patron too. Ah well.
What’s your favorite Red Bank restaurant and menu item?
Urban Coalhouse’s ridiculous garlic bread is the ultimate comfort food go-to, and so dangerously nearby. I’m also always up for a trip to Bombay River for the best Indian food in Monmouth County, and Señor Pepper’s burrito Texano (accompanied by the aqua fresca of the day) does not mess around at. All.
What’s your favorite thing to do/hobby outside of work?
I’m a big reader (mostly fiction, forever trying and failing to get more into non-fiction), and enjoy yoga and running, baking extravagant things, hitting the beach in the summer, planning my next million tattoos, and sharing zodiac memes with everyone in my life whether they asked for them or not!
Tell us a fun fact about yourself.
I studied abroad in Japan in college and I have mourned ever since America’s lack of all-night karaoke spots and vending machines with warm tea and coffee every twenty paces. These things haunt me.