ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Marc Bamuthi Joseph (Creator & Writer) is a 2017 TED Global Fellow, an inaugural recipient of the Guggenheim Social Practice initiative, and an honoree of the United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship. He is also the winner of the 2011 Herb Alpert Award in Theatre, and an inaugural recipient of the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award. In pursuit of affirmations of black life in the public realm, he co-founded the Life is Living Festival for Youth Speaks, and created the installation “Black Joy in the Hour of Chaos” for Creative Time. Joseph’s opera libretto, We Shall Not Be Moved, was named one of 2017’s “Best Classical Music Performances” by The New York Times. His evening length work, /peh-LO-tah/, successfully toured across North America for three years, including at BAM’s Harvey Theater as a part of the 2017 Next Wave Festival. His latest piece, “The Just and the Blind” investigates the crisis of over-sentencing in the prison industrial complex, and will premiere at Carnegie Hall in March 2019. Formerly the Chief of Program and Pedagogy at YBCA in San Francisco, Bamuthi currently serves as the Vice President and Artistic Director of Social Impact at The Kennedy Center.

Michael John Garcés’ (Director) previous work with the Living Word Project, in collaboration with Bamuthi, Stacey Printz, Tommy Shepherd (aka Emcee Soulati) and many other collaborators, includes directing red, black and GREEN (a blues) and the break/s. He is the Artistic Director of Cornerstone Theater Company in Los Angeles where recent directing projects include Urban Rez by Larissa FastHorse, California: The Tempest by Alison Carey and Plumas Negras by Juliette Carrillo, as well as writing Magic Fruit and Los Illegals. Other recent directing credits include Wrestling Jerusalem by Aaron Davidman (various venues, including the Guthrie Theatre, Mosaic Theatre and The Cleveland Public Theatre), District Merchants by Aaron Posner (The Folger Theatre), and The Box by Sarah Shourd (Z Space). He is a company member at Woolly Mammoth Theater Company in Washington, DC, where projects he has helmed include Lights Rise on Grace by Chad Bekim and The Convert by Danai Gurira. Other theater companies where he has worked include New York Theater Workshop, Second Stage, The Cherry Lane, INTAR, South Coast Repertory, The Humana Festival and A Contemporary Theater. Garcés is the recipient of the Princess Grace Statue and the Alan Schneider Director Award.