Our Mission

Rising Circle Theater Collective is dedicated to broadening the scope of storytelling on the American stage. We accomplish this by providing an artistic home for artists of color that empowers them to seek out unheard stories of people of color – inspiring the creation of theater that challenges cultural misperceptions in an effort to bridge social divides.

The Collective

Deepa Purohit (Artistic Director)

Deepa co-founded Rising Circle Theater Collective with fellow alum, Rod Bowen. Since Rising Circle’s inception, she’s overseen the development and production of four original plays, three of which she co-wrote with Sanjit De Silva (Pulling the Lever, Dir. Rod Bowen), American Family Project (Dirs. Sanjit De Silva & Deepa Purohit), Grace (Dir. Nandita Shenoy, 2010 Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference Finalist and a 2010 Lark Play Development Center Playwrights Week finalist). Other writing credits include: Exiled, Sahana, and LotusMart, Ohio. She studied acting with James Pringle at the Harlem Theatre Company. Acting on television: The Sopranos (TV Guide’s best episode of television in 2001). Law & Order Criminal Intent, One Life to Live and The Education of Max Bickford. Film: Sex and the City 2 ; Another Journey; Theen; The Lottery; The War Within; and Fillum Star. Stage: For Colored Girls Who’ve Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf (Dir. Amini Johari-Courts); Barriers (Dir. Ashok Sinha); In the Heart of America (Dir. Chad Stutz); and Exiled (Dir. Sanjit De Silva). Deepa has extensive experience teaching Writing and Theater to elementary, middle and high school students. She was a full-time middle school teacher for three years in the Baltimore City Public School District. In New York, Deepa has worked as a teaching artist for Rising Circle’s Q Up arts intensive in Queens, in collaboration with Queens Theatre in the Park, in city schools, detention centers, and at after-school programs in Washington Heights, Brooklyn, Queens and the South Bronx. Most of her teaching focuses on helping students write and perform their own work/stories to address the issues they face every day. Deepa holds a Bachelor’s from Northwestern University and a Masters in Public Health from Columbia University.

Sanjit De Silva (Associate Artistic Director)

Sanjit De Silva is a seasoned actor and emerging playwright in New York City. His writing credits consist of such plays as Irish Eyes, Pulling the Lever (Co-written with Deepa Purohit, Dir. Rod Bowen. Published in Plays & Playwrights, 2006), American Family Project (Co-written with Deepa Purohit) and Grace (Co-written with Deepa Purohit. Dir. Nandita Shenoy). Sanjit received his MFA from New York University’s prestigious Graduate Acting Program, led by the acclaimed Zelda Fichandler and where he studied Acting under Master Teacher Ron Van Lieu. Sanjit has his BA from Washington University in St. Louis, where he double-majored in Biology and Performing Arts. Sanjit’s various stage credits include: WarHorse (Tony-Award Best Play, Lincoln Center Theater); The Little Foxes (NYTW, Dir. Ivo Von Hove); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Hartford Stage, Dir. Lisa Peterson); Masked (DR2, Dir. Ami Dayan); Macbeth (NYSF/Public Theatre, Dir. Moises Kaufman); Measure for Measure (NYSF/Public Theatre, Dir. Mary Zimmerman); Slipped Disc (HERE, Dir. Simone Blattner); In The Heart of America (Studio Tisch); and Indian Ink (Quantum Theatre). Sanjit lists several film credits, such as The Girl is in Trouble, The Company Men, August, Arranged, and American Desi, while his television credits include shows such as Blue Bloods, The Good Wife, The Unusuals, I’m Paige Wilson (Pilot for CW, Dir. Rod Lurie), Law & Order, Law & Order: TBJ, Law & Order: SVU, Law & Order: CI, Six Degrees, and Jonny Zero. Sanjit is a member of the Actors Equity Association, the Screen Actors Guild and AFTRA.

Charity Ballard (Collective Member)

Charity Ballard, actor and emerging playwright, lives in New York City with her husband, Donald. Her first full-length play, The Quiver of Children (Dir. Louis Scheeder and published in Out of Time & Place: An Anthology of Plays by the Women’s Project Playwrights Lab, Volume 1, 2010) was originally developed in part with the support of Voice & Vision Theater ENVISION Retreat for Women Theater Artists at Bard College where she was selected to be one of 2008’s core artists. Quiver, set in Chattanooga, Tennessee, was later selected to be a part of Voice and Vision’s 2008 Play Development Showcase at the Ohio Theatre. Currently in the works is Muddy the Waters, which was originally showcased as a short piece at the World Financial Center in collaboration with the Women’s Project and River to River Festival 2009 (Dir. Heide Carlsen), but is currently in development with Rising Circle Theater Collective, and for which Charity is a recipient of the NYSCA Individual Artist Award. Her other works include The Great InActor Fantastic: Memoirs of a Blactress (Screenplay), Pete the Girl (Dir. Donya Washington), which was showcased in the 2010 PlayRISE Festival, and the second play in the Quiver cycle, The Deep Things of God. She is also the author of Little Strong Girl (Screenplay) and Anniversary. Charity’s vast television and stage credits include Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Rescue Me, Guiding Light, and Dance Mania Fantastic (Dir. Sasey Sealy. Winner of the 2004 Tribeca Film Festival –Short Film Category). Her stage credits include the American premiere of Luminosity (PlayMakers Repertory Theater, Dir. David Hammond), in which she won the 2004 Triangle Theatre Award for Best Actress in a Drama, Caesar and Cleopatra (PlayMakers Repertory Theater, Dir. David Hammond), Grace (Nandita Shenoy, Studio Tisch), The Serpent Woman (Dir. Ruben Polendo, Theater Mitu/ NYU) and many, many others. Charity has conducted actor coaching and workshops on playwriting using critical approaches to language performativity and the utilization of the complete actor instrument at institutions such as Bard College and others. Charity received her Master’s in English with a concentration in Renaissance Literature and Psychoanalytic Theory from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, and a Master’s of Fine Arts in Acting from New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, where she studied under Master Teachers such as Ron Van Lieu and Debra Hecht . She is a member of the Screen Actors Guild, AFTRA, the Women’s Project Playwrights Lab, and is a friend to Voice and Vision Theater. To learn more about Charity Henson-Ballard’s literary works or to review her stage, commercial/VO and TV/film credits, visit www.charityhensonballard.com

Catherine Jhung (Collective Member)

Catherine Jhung is a Brooklyn-based actress, dancer and teacher who joined the Collective in 2003, where she originated roles in Rising Circle plays Pulling the Lever (Dir. Rod Bowen) and American Family Project (Dirs. Sanjit De Silva & Deepa Purohit). Catherine has appeared on television on ABC’s One Life To Live and All My Children. For Rising Circle, Catherine has directed several pieces, including but not limited to Nancy Kim’s original solo performance piece, How To Find My Inner Asian and PlayRISE’s Veil’d by Monet Hurst-Mendoza. As a professional dancer, Catherine appeared as a featured performer and royal wife in The King and I on the First National Tour of the Tony Award winning Broadway revival and at the Westchester Broadway Theater. Modern dance credits include Bill Young and Dancers, New York City, Silesian Dance Theatre, Bitom, Poland and the New Dance Ensemble, Minneapolis where she had the pleasure of performing in the works of notable choreographers, including Bill T. Jones, Bebe Miller, Douglas Dunn and Ralph Lemon. In Minneapolis, she also performed with the Minneapolis Children’s Theatre Company and Theater Mu (Mu Productions). Catherine served as a movement director for Rising Circle’s American Family Project (Dirs. Sanjit De Silva & Deepa Purohit). Catherine teaches outreach education workshops to students of all ages in the New York City area, most recently for American Ballet Theatre and Queens Theatre in the Park. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, Catherine graduated from Sarah Lawrence College. She completed The Actors Center conservatory program and is a member of the Actors’ Equity Association and AFTRA.

Nancy Kim (Collective Member)

Nancy Kim, actor and emerging playwright, has been a part of Rising Circle Theater Collective since 2004. Nancy performed in Rising Circle’s American Family Project and was a co-Associate Producer for Pulling the Lever. Her solo show, How to Find My Inner Asian (Dir. Catherine Jhung) was developed and presented by Rising Circle Theater Collective and showcased in Rising Circle’s inaugural Q-Up as the impetus piece for the curriculum. Nancy’s passion for the arts sparked the development of Rising Circle’s Q-Up program, which is designed to inspire Asian and South-Asian females in the Queens borough to use theater as a means of self-expression and tool for building self-esteem. Nancy’s other original works include The Oriental Village and The Byung Sisters American Vaudeville Tryout. She has also worked with various theatre companies both on and off stage throughout New York City as well as assisted in producing numerous documentary and non-fiction programs for television.

Kareem Fahmy (Core Member)

Kareem Fahmy is a Canadian-born director of Egyptian descent. In Montreal he directed the Canadian premieres of Suzan-Lori Parks’ Venus and Naomi Iizuka’s Language of Angels as well as Constance Congdon’s Tales of the Lost Formicans. In New York he has developed and directed work with New York Theatre Workshop, Second Stage (Van Lier Fellow), Sundance  Institute Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre and numerous independent companies. NYC  directing credits include  Love Dr. Mueller (also adaptor), Don Juan Does New Jersey (adapted from Moliere), David Freeman’s A First Class Man, Judith Thompson’s Lion in the Streets, Michael Ondaatje’s The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, Brecht’s Drums in the Night , Shepard’s  Curse of the Starving Class and many new plays. He has been an Assistant Director on several Off-Broadway productions, including Tony Kushner’s The Illusion (Michael Mayer, director) at Signature Theatre, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s Good Boys and True (Scott Ellis, director), and William Saroyan’s The Cave Dwellers at The Pearl. He is the recipient of a Drama League Classical Fellowship with which he assisted on Red Bull Theater’s workshop production of Margaret: A Tyger’s Heart. He is a 2011-2012 Emerging Artist of Color Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop. He is a proud member of The Claque and Rising Circle Theatre Collective. MFA: Columbia University. To learn more about Kareem and his past projects, visit www.KareemFahmy.com

Sevan K. Greene (Collective Member)

Sevan Kaloustian Greene is a Lebanese-Armenian/Pakistani/American actor, writer, and singer living and working in New York City. Originally born and raised in Kuwait, Sevan escaped with his family to America during the first Gulf War in 1990. He moved to NYC in February of 2007. A native speaker of four languages, Sevan comes from a family of performers. His mother was an actress in Lebanon and at one time was offered a full scholarship to the Boston Conservatory of Acting – family obligations barred her from going. His older brother spent his high school years on the stage in comedies, but Sevan, an active viewer of American TV sitcoms and movies, wanted to be in front of a camera. A supportive best friend and a summer theatre casting in his first musical (Little Shop of Horrors as Mr. Mushnik) sparked his interest and growing love of the stage and singing. Sevan spent four years performing in every single show he could, sometimes working behind the scenes. Sevan was accepted into the University of South Florida where he spent 9 years obtaining several degrees (moreso out of a need to stay in the country than a nerdy status quo). Sevan holds two B.A.s (English and Public relations), a minor in Journalism, and two M.A.s (Literature and Rhetoric & Composition). During those 9 years he continued performing in community and regional theatre productions. To survive and pay the bills, Sevan worked as a professor of writing and literature at several post-secondary institutions before finally making the decision to move to New York City to pursue theatre, TV and film full-time. In the fall of 2009 Sevan embarked on a career as a playwright at the urging of an acting peer. What began as writing a short sketch for the Arab American Comedy Festival has burgeoned into a deep passion for writing for the stage and screen. Sevan currently resides on the Upper West Side in Manhattan as he pursues work in theatre, TV, film

Monet Hurst-Mendoza (Core Member)

Monet Hurst-Mendoza is a playwright, director, and a So. Cal transplant. Her plays include The Annex (Bare Bones Ensemble, 2010 Work(s) In Progress Festival), In The Waiting Line, Shangri-L.A., Lilia, and Jane’s Room (Looking Glass Theatre, 2010 Spring Writer/Director Forum). Her latest play, Veil’d, was originally developed as part of Rising Circle Theater Collective’s 2010 INKtank (a play development lab for artists of color), and received a staged reading as part of their PlayRISE 2010 Festival in July of that year. Directing credits include Little Murders (La Salle High School’s Performing Arts Conservatory), Mud, Springtime, The Distance From Here, Rabbit Hole, A Month in the Country, and 365 Days/365 Plays at Marymount Manhattan College; assistant direction/dramaturgy for The Women (dir. Bob Goldsby), Richard III (dir. Armin Shimerman), and The Young Idea Project with The Antaeus Company. Monet holds a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Marymount Manhattan College and was awarded the 2009 Gold Key for Excellence in Theatre Arts, Writing for the Stage. She was a finalist for Hangar Theatre’s 2010 Playwriting Residency, Youngblood’s 2009 and 2010 play development group at Ensemble Studio Theatre, and the 2011 Old Vic New Voices T.S. Elliot US/UK Exchange. She currently works for Women’s Project and is a member of Rising Circle Theater Collective. She blogs: angrypatrons.wordpress.com

RC History

Background

Founded in 2000, Rod Bowen and Deepa Purohit, both artists of color and educators, created Rising Circle Theater Collective to address the lack of stories and roles on stage that represent the diverse cultural communities of New York City. Rising Circle was born as a home for artists of color seeking to create and lead the development of new, original work for the theater. Rising Circle investigates, creates, and develops original plays that specifically draw from the stories and experiences of people of color. Rising Circle also actively envisions ways in which theatre can have a greater impact on various communities represented in and affected by our plays.

Board of Directors

Rod Bowen, President
Founding Principal of The Dreamyard Preparatory School

Nandita Shenoy, Vice President
Actor, Writer, Director

Sean Hickey, Treasurer
Composer; National Sales & Business Development Manager, Naxos of America, Inc.

Fiona Lin, Secretary
National Director, Research & Evaluation, The New Teacher Project

Thanya A. Polonio Provine, Esq., Board Member
Artist, Writer, J.D. Columbia University

Deepa Purohit, Board Member
Artistic Director, Rising Circle Theater Collective