Radio Play: antarctica

SOPHIA SKILES (she/her/hers) (MATTY) is an actor and teacher of theater. She was last seen onstage in Artistic Director Michael Kahn’s final production for Shakespeare Theatre Company in Ellen McLaughlin’s new adaptation of The Oresteia. Together with the ensemble, she was recognized with a Helen Hayes Award nomination for their collective work as the Chorus. She recently reunited with many of the original cast to share The Oresteia for Theater for a New Audience. She has performed in productions directed by May Adrales, Chay Yew, Ralph Peña, Andrei Serban, Mary Zimmerman, Richard Foreman and David Herskovits, among many others —  in venues throughout New York City, in regional theaters across the United States, as well as on tour to Vienna, Austria and Amsterdam, The Netherlands. She is particularly rooted in her work with The National Asian American Theatre Company and Ma-Yi Theater Company. An experienced educator, she joins the faculty of the Brown/Trinity MFA program as Associate Professor of the Practice and Head of Acting this fall. Education: Northwestern University (BS, Performance Studies) and Columbia University (MFA, Acting).

SHANNON TYO (she/her) (DEL) Off-Broadway: The Chinese Lady, Kentucky, Bikeman. Select regional: The Good Book at Berkeley Rep, Fun Home at Baltimore Center Stage, Broadway Bounty Hunter at Barrington Stage, Smart People at Geva Theatre, The White Snake  at The Old Globe. Audio plays: Half the Sky at 5th Avenue Theater, The MS Phoenix Rising at Playwrights Horizons. TV: 30 Rock (NBC), Rediscovering Christmas (Lifetime), The Last O.G. (TBS). BFA Syracuse University. shannon-tyo.com.

KIMBER LEE (she/her) (PLAYWRIGHT) Lee’s plays include to the yellow house (upcoming World Premiere at La Jolla Playhouse), untitled f*ck m*ss s**gon play (2019 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference), tokyo fish story (South Coast Repertory, TheatreWorks/SV, Old Globe), brownsville song (b-side for tray) (Humana Festival, LCT3, Long Wharf Theatre, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Seattle Rep, Moxie Theatre, Shotgun Players), and different words for the same thing directed by Neel Keller (Center Theatre Group). She has developed work with The Lark Play Development Center, The Ground Floor/Berkeley Rep, Page 73, O’Neill NPC, Hedgebrook, Ojai Playwrights Conference, Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Great Plains Theatre Conference, ACT Theatre/Seattle, Premiere Stages, and Magic Theatre. Lark Playwrights Workshop Fellow, Dramatists Guild Fellow, member of Ma-Yi Writers Lab, and recipient of the Ruby Prize, PoNY Fellowship, Hartford Stage New Voices Fellowship, 2020-2021 Hodder Fellowship, 2020 Helen Merrill Award, 2020 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Finalist, 2021 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Special Commendation and Finalist, inaugural winner of the 2019 Bruntwood Prize International Award, 2021 Edgerton New Play Award and 2021 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts. MFA: UT Austin.

NEEL KELLER (he/him/his) (DIRECTOR) is a freelance director and an Associate Artistic Director at Los Angeles’ Center Theatre Group.  His recent productions include world premieres of Julia Cho’s Office Hour, Dael Orlandersmith’s Until The Flood, Eliza Clark’s Quack, Jennifer Haley’s The Nether, Kimber Lee’s different words for the same thing, and Lucy Alibar’s Throw Me On The Burnpile and Light Me Up! More distant, but fondly remembered productions include the American premiere of David Greig’s The Cosmonaut’s Last Message To The Woman He Once Loved In The Former Soviet Union, and, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, staged in a prickly mountain meadow, the thought of which, all these decades later, still makes him smile. His productions have been mounted at theaters across the country including, The Public Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, La Jolla Playhouse, Goodman Theater, South Coast Repertory, Williamstown Theater Festival, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Long Wharf Theatre, and various venues in Ireland, Scotland and England. He is currently working with Kimber Lee on her play To The Yellow House, which will premiere at La Jolla Playhouse this fall.