THE COMPANY
OUR MISSION
The Duende Collective is a group of classically trained actors, dancers, musicians and visual artists who strive to produce compelling, socially relevant live compositions for the local and national community. The Duende Collective merges the art of dance, music and spoken word to form a cohesive theatrical experience for the audience’s total being.
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‘THE PERSIANS’ – OCTOBER READING CAST
RAMÓN DE OCAMPO (CHORUS LEADER) - Among his favorite New York credits include the Off Broadway, regional, and international hit the Romance of Magno Rubio, for which Ramón won an OBIE Award. Other favorite NY credits include: Dogeaters (New York Public Theatre, directed by Michael Greif), Middle Finger, (Ma-Yi), Letters From Cuba (Signature, dir: Maria Irene Fornes), Taming of the Shrew (Bartholomew/Biondello, NYSF- Shakespeare in the Park), Birth Marks (EST Marathon). Favorite Regional credits include: Romeo and Juliet (Romeo, Kennedy Center), the Taming of the Shrew (Kate, Yale Rep, dir Mark Lamos), Shakespeare’s R&J (Juliet, NCSC), The Merchant of Venice (Lorenzo, NJSF), Love! Valour! Compassion! (Studio Theater), Spinning Into Butter (Pittsburgh Public), Dogeaters (Kirk Douglas), Pera Palas (as part of the Garland Award winning Best Ensemble), and Tonight at 8:30 (with Antaeus), and 2 years at the O’neil Playwrights conference, and Ojai Playwrights conference. Film credits include: Happy Endings (dir: Don Roos), XXX: State of the Union, and Hamlet (Campbell Scott), among others. Television credits include: recurring roles on “the West Wing”, “Killer Instinct”, and “Medium” as well as guest starring on “Brothers and Sisters”, “Grey’s Anatomy”, “Lie to Me”, “CSI,”, “CSI:NY”, “Saving Grace”, “Bones”, “Law and Order”, “Cosby”, and “Now and Again” among others. Besides acting on stage and screen, Ramón has narrated dozens of audiobooks, including the Audiofile Magazine Earphone Award Winning “Summer of Riley”, and the New York Times Bestselling “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series. Ramón graduated from Carnegie Melon University’s School of Drama, and is a member of the Antaeus Theater Company. He is currently performing in “As White as O” at the Road Theater (dir: Sam Anderson.) For more information, visit www.ramondeocampo.com
MAX FAUGNO (CHORUS) - Max Faugno is an actor and screenwriter in Los Angeles. He is a native New Yorker where he has performed extensively in the theatre. Max’s film/t.v. credits include The Royal Tenenbaums and Malcom In The Middle. He would like to thank Jo, Rose, the Faugnos and of course, Josh.
DAVE FOLSOM (THE MESSENGER) - David Folsom is excited to be working with the Duende Collective on this project. Other theaters include Portland Center Stage, Artists Repertory Theatre (Portland, OR), The Fulton Opera House, The Guthrie Theatre, New York Collective for the Arts. Television: Guiding Light, As The World Turns. Training: MFA University of Washington, and Carnegie Mellon.
DAVE METZ (DARIUS) - Dave Metz has appeared most recently in Dario Fo’s The Devil with Boobs with The Open Fist Theater Company, where he also performed Threepenny Opera and “The Droitwich Discovery”. He likes people to know that he was in The Black Dahlia Theater Company’s very first production, Measure for Measure.
In his free time, Mr. Metz enjoys sailing with his friends and training his pet African Grey parrot to say “EEMA KUKA-VAY-A” (”I’m an owl”, in Greek). Dave trained at Carnegie Mellon.
ANGELA MILTON (ATOSSA) - Angela is a classically-trained actress who studied acting at Mountview Theatre School, London and ArtsEd, London. She is also a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts New York Company, the oldest acting conservatory in the English-speaking world. She has performed outdoor Shakespeare, including Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream in New York; spent a season as part of the Instant Shakespeare Company and was one of the initial founders of Bare Shakespeare.
She has worked with Lisa Milinazzo of the Littlewood Group who directed her as Meg in Pinter’s The Birthday Party, and Sister Mary Kate in Shanley’s Beggar’s in the House of Plenty. Performances for the New York Irish Center include Juno in Juno and the Paycock by Sean O’Casey and Moll in ‘Moll’ by John B Keane. She also has two independent films in the pipeline! Originally from Scotland, in 2008 she was granted an O1 visa, awarded to aliens of extraordinary ability. Angela is delighted to have the opportunity to continue her incredible American journey with the creatively-driven Duende Collective.
ADRIAN RIEDER (XERXES) - Adrian is grateful to be working with such a talented group and excited to be part of the Duende Collective’s inaugural presentation of The Persians. He most recently appeared as the Duke in Measure for Measure here at the Write Act Rep. Other credits include Law & Order, Sex And The City, All My Children, As The World Turns, as well as the plays Deathtrap, If Memory Serves (Off-Broadway), and Paper Doll with Marlo Thomas, Dixie Carter, and F. Murray Abraham. He wrote and directed the independent feature A Noise of Many Waters, which was awarded First Place in the Red Inkworks Screenwriting Competition. He also received the Level One Award in Theatre by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, and performed at the Kennedy Center as a Presidential Scholar in the Arts. He has trained with Anne Bogart and the SITI Company, and is a graduate of The Juilliard School.
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JOSHUA POHJA – ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, CO-FOUNDER
Joshua is a native of Southern California and began his performing career singing Willie Nelson’s “On The Road Again” on 80’s show Solid Gold at the age of four. A performance he’s happy to forget, but a good lead in for a company bio. He is a writer, director, choreographer and actor. At seventeen, he was awarded the Inner City Cultural Center’s New Playwrights Festival Best Director and Best Play award from C. Bernard Jackson for his play Silhouettes Against The Moon. During that process, he is proud to have created everlasting creative friendships with choreographers Victor Quijada, Alex Escalante, Kimberly Spencer and, actor, Jesse J. Perez whose influence continues to inspire his writing and directorial pursuits. He met Adrian Rieder training with Anne Bogart and the SITI Company in Saratoga Springs and formed an artistic alliance that shaped The Duende Collective. He is thankful for all his teachers, friends and family for their support and inspiration. He has written three plays; Silhouettes Against The Moon, Prince of the Raindrops and the recently completed Potters Field.
Regional: The Acting Company/Los Angeles Shakespeare Festival (dir. Eve Shapiro): Richard III; Guthrie Theater: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Dir. Joe Dowling); Old Globe: Broadway workshop of the The Full Monty with Roger Bart and Dana Reeve (dir. Jack O’ Brien); Alley Theatre: A Christmas Carol; Paradise Theater and Judson Church: Faustus in Doctor Faustus Lights The Lights; HERE Arts Center, Cheap Thrills; Mean Street Ensemble @ Raleigh Studios: Crossing Over; Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama: Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, A Flea in Her Ear, Pre-Paradise Sorry Now, Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Intruder. Film: Company K, Catcher in the Rye and The Orchard. He’s also appeared in numerous regional and national commercials.
Training: Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama B.F.A. Acting; Los Angeles County High School for the Arts Acting, Directing and Playwriting; Saratoga International Theatre Institute (SITI) under the guidance of Anne Bogart and the SITI company. He has taught Viewpoints, Movement for the Actor and Acting Shakespeare at the Guthrie Theater and The Acting Company On-Tour Education Programs.
He looks forward to the collaborative development of The Duende Collective with this assembled fellowship of peers. He is equally inspired to discover intelligent and innovate ways of telling extraordinary stories.
ADRIAN RIEDER – ASSOCIATE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, CO-FOUNDER
Adrian was born in Vienna, Austria and raised in Richmond, Virginia, where he began acting at the age of six. In 1995, he was awarded the Level One Award in Theatre by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, and subsequently performed at the Kennedy Center as a Presidential Scholar in the Arts later that year.
While training at the Juilliard School in New York, Adrian appeared in such plays as Twelfth Night, The Cherry Orchard, and Aeschylus’ The Oresteia. He also trained with Anne Bogart and the Saratoga International Theatre Institute (SITI), and it was there that he and Joshua first collaborated together.
Over the next six years in New York, Adrian worked on numerous short and experimental films and videos, as well as appearing in both television and theatre, including Law & Order, Sex and the City, All My Children, and As The World Turns, as well as the plays Deathtrap, Paper Doll, and If Memory Serves. In 2006, he left New York and moved to the Blue Ridge Mountains, where he began work on his first independent feature, A Noise of Many Waters, which he wrote, produced, and directed.
Adrian is pleased to be part of this wonderful collective and grateful to once again collaborate with Joshua, mining the possibilities that Viewpoints training offers.
VICTOR QUIJADA – ARTISTIC ADVISER
The remarkable path of choreographer Victor Quijada began in Los Angeles, where from a young age, he was deeply influenced by Hip Hop culture. His introduction to formal dance and theater at L.A. County High School for the Arts was a small awakening that brought questions concerning the possibilities and potential of the Hip Hop art form. A protégé of Judson Church performance pioneer Rudy Perez, Quijada adapted postmodernism to his Hip Hop ideals. During three years of working with dance icon Twyla Tharp, he applied choreographic know-how to those ideals. Strongly attracted to the classical ballet technique, he worked with Eliot Feld and later joined Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal, experiences that further influenced and re-shaped his long-standing relationship with Hip Hop.
In 2002, after years of exploring dance and theater from urban, classical and contemporary angles Quijada formed RUBBERBANDance Group. He has created seven full-length works for RBDG that examine humanity and human relationships through a unique movement language. Touring throughout Canada, the U.S., in Europe and in Japan, RBDG was the resident company of Usine C (Montreal) for the 2003-04 and 2006-07 seasons. Since September 2007, RBDG Co-Artistic Directors Anne Plamondon and Victor Quijada are the Resident Artists of Cinquieme Salle at Place des Arts de Montreal. www.rubberbandance.com
Quijada has directed short dance films, adapted dance for televised broadcasts, and created work for Pacific Northwest Ballet, Ballet Met, Jeune Ballet du Quebec, Peter Boal & Company (NYC), Transitions Dance Company (London), Chamber Dance Project, and notably Self Observation Without Judgement for Scottish Dance Theater, which won the 2004 National Dance Award for Best Modern Repertory. He has received the Peter Darrell Choreography Award (UK), Bonnie Bird North American Award (UK), Choreography in Media Honors, and was nominated for an American Choreography Award. In 2008 he was among 25 international choreographers invited to attend the Big Intensive on Directing Dance at the Sadler’s Wells in London; and in 2009, Quijada won the OQAJ/RIDEAU Prize for his work Punto Ciego.
JESSE J. PEREZ – ARTISTIC ADVISER
Off- Broadway; Barrio Girl (SPF), Triple Happiness (Second Stage) Recent Tragic Events (Playwrights Horizons), In the Penal Colony (Classic Stage Company), Up Against the Wind (New York Theatre Workshop).
Regional and International Theatre; Hard Weather Boating Party (ATL: Humana Festival 2009),
Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare on the Sound), Arabian Nights (Berkeley Rep), Argonautika (Lookingglass Theatre Co.), Celebrity Row (Portland Center Stage), Pericles (Goodman Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Co.), The Cherry Orchard (Yale Rep.), Hamlet (McCarter Theatre Center),
Midsummer Night’s Dream (A.R.T.), Taming of the Shrew (Yale Rep.), Mary Stuart (The Court Theatre), Romeo and Juliet (Great Lakes Theatre Festival). Peter Sellar’s The Love Cloud (Venice Biennale Festival 2003), Lucia di Lammermoor (Metropolitan Opera,dir. Mary Zimmerman)
Television and Film; Life on Mars, Law & Order, Law & Order Special Victims Unit, Third Watch, The Job, Kazaam, Playing God, and
American Splendor (Sundance, Grand Jury Prize).
Jesse J. Perez is a graduate of Juilliard . He was in the in the Los Angeles production written and directed by Joshua Pohja of Silhouettes Against the Moon at the New Ivar Theatre in Hollywood. He has also choreographed the Ten Ring Cycle of the Greeks directed by Brian Mertes at the Juilliard School and the Lake Lucille Chekhov Project.
KEVIN R. THOMPSON – ASSOCIATE PRODUCING DIRECTOR
Kevin Remón Thompson was born and raised in Evanston, IL. At age 12 he spent a year in Rome at which point he developed a taste for living abroad. Kevin has since spent extensive time in Spain, including graduating from NYU in Madrid’s Master’s program in Spanish Literature. He moved to Los Angeles in 2003 to attend the USC School of Cinematic Arts, during which time he gained familiarity with the many aspects of filmmaking. In 2005 he was awarded the Fotokem Grant for his thesis film, The Orchard, and in 2007 was invited to teach at the Royal Film Commission’s Digital Filmmaking Workshop in Amman, Jordan. Kevin now pursues filmmaking both as a writer and director in addition to working as a freelance picture and sound editor. Kevin has directed several music videos, short films and webisodes, as well as sound edited the feature film, Mr. Sadman. His thesis film, The Orchard, recently debuted at the 2009 Newport Beach Film Festival. Kevin is currently working on a behind the scenes documentary following the creation Sandeep Bhatt’s upcoming funk/soul album, Soul Wide World; producing a grant-winning short film, A Crossroads Called Manzanar; and pursuing multiple experimental photography and video projects that he routinely posts on his website kevinremonthompson.com. Kevin is also a proud stay-at-home dad.
KIMBERLY ANNE SPENCER – MOVEMENT/CHOREOGRAPHER
Kimberly Anne Spencer, owner of Focus Pilates, is a certified Pilates instructor through Long Beach Dance Conditioning with over 10 years of teaching experience. Introduced to Pilates 19 years ago, it became an integral part of her dance training.
Ms. Spencer graduated with a scholarship from the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, where she met and worked with Joshua Pohja in his award-winning play, Silhouettes Against The Moon. She graduated with experience in ballet instruction, choreography, performing professionally, and incorporating dance in theater.
She became a soloist with State Street Ballet in Santa Barbara where she continued to teach ballet and choreograph at the company’s school, as well as teach Pilates at a private studio. Kimberly returned to Los Angeles in 2002 where she became an integral part of an outpatient Physical Therapy clinic and Pilates studio expanding her knowledge working with patients and Physical Therapists. Utilizing her unique skills, experience, knowledge and exceptional attention to postural alignment and fine detail Ms. Spencer specializes in training dancers, high performance athletes, pre and post natal women and injury rehab/prevention. In addition to Pilates instruction, Kimberly is a dance coach for competitive gymnasts and has appeared in several fitness DVD’s. She truly marvels in the abilities of the body and the mind, and enjoys the challenge of working with people of all ages and the limitless possibilities of creativity and communication.
CHRISTOPHER DALLMAN – MUSIC SUPERVISOR
Christopher Dallman is a native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 2004, Christopher released his debut album Race the Light. The eleven song arc brought listeners through the mending of a broken heart and the finding of one’s identity in a city full of strangers. He spent two years tirelessly promoting the album- touring colleges, clubs, theaters, and living rooms in this country and abroad. The album was nominated for Best Debut Male in the 2005 Outmusic Awards and yielded the fan favorite, Over my Head, which built on Christopher’s loyal following after being featured on MTV’s “The Real World”.
In the five years following Race the Light, Christopher delved deeper into songwriting, exploring the intricacies of his experiences through his music. A long distance move, a death, and a new love took him far from his roots, yet somehow brought him closer to himself. He is now armed with an explosive stockpile of new songs- songs that touch on transformation, discovery and loss, and that familiar fear of letting go of your dreams to hold onto reality.
Ready to chronicle his own revival, Christopher is at long last hard at work on his follow-up with Producer Barrie Maguire (Amos Lee, The Wallflowers, Natalie Merchant) and engineer Rachel Russell (Birdie Busch, Pink, Katy Perry) at Redstar Studios in Silverlake, California. Look for new music and a definitive new voice in 2009. www.cjdmusic.com
MATTHEW FLETCHER – MANAGING DIRECTOR
Matthew has spent his creative career producing television, theater and events. His most recent work has been in experiential marketing which has included developing live events and strategic campaigns for a variety of clients. He has developed a number of Walmart’s stadium-sized corporate meetings, including the scripting and directing of both live and video components. These shows have included a roster of talent like Ben Stiller, Michael Jordan, Smokey Robinson, Jack Black, Queen Latifah, and the Radio City Rockettes. He also launched Gwen Stefani’s Harajuku perfume line in NYC by creating a fully immersive Tokyo experience for the press. He has worked with pharmaceutical companies launching new medicines, as well as developing the marketing campaign for the US Census 2010.
He worked as a producer at MTV, creating trailers for upcoming programming as well as network identity spots. His latest solo video adventure was winning an online commercial writing contest for Sabra Hummus. Opa!
In theater, Matthew produced several Off Broadway shows . He revived Nicky Silver’s comedy The Maiden’s Prayer and collaborated on producing the award winning premier of Day of Reckoning. In the downtown NYC theater scene, Matthew blended the worlds of theater and multi-media, when he created the long running show Kick Ass Karaoke. A fully interactive karaoke, it was hosted by a rotating cast of characters, morphing into a late night dance club event.
Matthew graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.