BA in Drama, University of Puerto Rico. In 1999, Casiano premiered her first one-woman show, Qué me trajiste: Cabaret Boricua, about the political relationship between United States and Puerto Rico, which traveled to Puerto Rico, Cuba, Ecuador, Perú, Chile, Argentina and New York.
In 2000, she obtained grants from the National Endowment for the Arts grant (through the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture) and the State Legislature to present her second solo show, Colonia 2007 o el cabaret de los días terribles, a futuristic play with music and video set in Puerto Rico, also seen in Ecuador and New York.
In 2006, as the leader of La Criatura Theater (and thanks to the sponsorship of The Field and to grants awarded by The Esther B. Kahn Foundation and the Puffin Foundation) she premiered her first full-cast, site-specific play, Silence Is Health/Silencio es Salud, about the issue of public indifference towards the issue of torture. In 2008, Casiano produced her third solo work, the theatrical concert about migration, Rootless: La No-Nostalgia, presented at chashama on 42nd Street, the Gerald W. Lynch Theater of CUNY’s John Jay College and, in August 2009, in the X Encuentro de Performance y Política for NYU in Bogotá, Colombia. In 2010, Rootless will play at P.S.122 in New York City as part of the soloNOVA festival, and in Mexico City as part of the VIII Festival Internacional de Cabaret at the renowned Teatro Bar El Vicio and the alternative space A Poco No in the Teatro de la Ciudad Esperanza Iris.
Casiano has collaborated with The Flying Machine, International WOW, Spanish Repertory Theater and the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, among other New York theater companies.
In film, she has appeared in the TV series Law and Order, and, in Ecuador, in Pasado y Confeso, as well as in multiple independent short films in the United States, including The Love Bite, winner of the 2004 Galway Film Fleadth in Dublin, Ireland.
In Spain, she has trained with Juan Carlos Corazza and José Olmo. In South America, Casiano has trained with Yuyachkani (Perú) and Malayerba (Ecuador.) In New York, with Austin Pendleton (acting,) Paul Gemignani (musical theater,) Norman Taylor (physical theater,) Penny Templeton, (camera acting,) Carolann Page (singing,) David Mamet’s Atlantic Theater Company (acting,) The Second City (improvisation) and the Michael Chekhov Acting Studio (acting,) among many others.
More information, photos and videos of Casiano’s work at www.karinacasiano.com.
Photo by Marius Chira. www.zbabam.com
Daniel Irizarry http://www.daniel-irizarry.com/Actor, director, and movement and acting instructor. Irizarry is currently part of the faculty in Eugene Lang College at The New School for Liberal Arts in New York City, where he teaches Acting. This Fall, he will join the faculty at Columbia University’s MFA Acting program. Irizarry is a Mabou Mines RAP 2011 Artist in Residency.
His work has been praised in the United States and internationally, including Japan, the Canary Islands, Eastern and Western Europe and the Caribbean. He holds an MFA in Acting from Columbia University (the first Puerto Rican student to be accepted into the program) and a BA in Drama from the University of Puerto Rico (Presidential Scholarship.)
Irizarry was also a Resident Artist with Mabou Mines in 2008 (Woyzeck.) In Puerto Rico, he received the Best New Actor award by the Theater Critics’ Circle in 1999.
His collaborations as an actor and director include Eduardo Machado (Crocodile Eyes;) Mabou Mines’ Terry O’Reilly and Jane Catherine Shaw (Peter and the Wolf;); Andrei Serban, Niky Wolcz and James Levine for the Metropolitan Opera House (Benvenuto Cellini, Faust;) Rachel Dickstein (Betrothed;) Javier Gutiérrez (Rashomon, Mosca;) and P.S. 122’s Undergroundzero Festival (The Proposal) in New York. In Japan, the Ichikawa Citizens Cultural Network (Momotaro, Safari.) In Puerto Rico, Gilda Navarra, Rosa Luisa Márquez (Historias para ser contadas) and Teatro del Sesenta.
In film, Irizarry has worked with Rania Ajami (Asylum Seekers, CineVegas Film Festival, 2009; Internet Sensation 2; A Dangerous Idea, finalist, One Nation, Many Voices Link TV Short Film Contest;) Antonio Méndez (Yanira, Televisión Española, 2007;) Niky Wolcz (Los Auf Melos Grenzelos, Sfiftung Weimarer Klassik Exhibition, Germany;) and Elvira Carrizal (Ignacio’s Keys and Mariposa, HBO Presents Latino Film Festival shorts series.)
Irizarry has offered acting and movement workshops internationally (New York, Germany, Romania, Japan.)
Photo by Marius Chira. www.zbabam.com
Jorge Dieppa
Born in Caguas, Puerto Rico, Dieppa moved to New York City in 2002. A founding member of La Criatura and the Set designer for The Orphans, he holds an MFA in Set Design from Brooklyn College-CUNY (where he is currently Adjunct Professor for the Theater Department) and a degree in Mechanical Engineer from the prestigious Mayagüez college of the University of Puerto Rico. In 1993, Dieppa won the the first prize in the nationwide ImagiNations design competition sponsored by Walt Disney’s Imagineering.
Among his set design credits are: The Taming of the Shrew, Sight Unseen, Urinetown, The Crucible, La Celestina, Into the Woods, City of Angels, The Snow Queen, Lysistrata, and the New York premier of Five Kinds of Silence by the playwright Shelagh Stephenson for Boundless Theater Company.
In film, has worked as Art Director for the feature Civil War epic Legged Red Devils and the TV pilot Accidental Heroes, both for C-Squared Productions.
A multifaceted artist, he is also an experienced actor with credits in theater, film, television and radio. His credits include dozens of plays and TV series in Puerto Rico. In 1996, Dieppa won the New Actor of the Year award granted by the Theatre Critics’ Circle of Puerto Rico. As a radio actor, he worked for the Public Broadcasting Corporation of Puerto Rico for several years.
In New York, Dieppa has collaborated as an actor with Karina Casiano in her independent projects ¿Qué me trajiste?: Cabaret Boricua and Colonia 2007 o el cabaret de los días terribles at HERE Arts Center, and has appeared off- Broadway at Repertorio Español in The Dog in the Manger. Along with Casiano, Dieppa originated the germinal idea for The Orphans in 2003. He also starred in the feature film Reasons for Exxxile by Juanma Calderón.
Dieppa is also involved with Spaeth Design, where he collaborates in the design of the world-renowned Holidays windows for Macy’s, Lord & Taylor and Sak’s. He is currently Resident Set Designer at the Elisabeth Irwin High School.
Collaborators
Miguel Belmonte
Born in Spain. Co-founded La Criatura in 2005. He began his theatre education at Institut del Teatre in Barcelona, and later graduated from the Nancy Tuñón Studio with a degree in Drama.
He appeared regularly on Spanish television in the series Secrets de Familia and Laberint D’ombres for TV3 Productions and was chosen to appear in the play OBS by the renowned theatre group La Fura Dels Baus.
Upon receiving a scholarship, Belmonte headed to Milan, Italy, where he studied Commedia dell’Arte at the Filodrammatici di Milano.
Following a brief period in London, England, doing voiceover work, he came to New York and has studied the Meisner Technique with Ted Bardy. Belmonte has appeared in plays such as the OOBR Award-winning production of Tango Masculino, directed by Jeffrey Corrick at the Wings Theatre; The Odd Couple with the Stage East Ensemble; and a staged reading of The Adventures of Don Quixote with The Dramatists’ Guild under the direction of Diógenes Grassal.
He has collaborated with the off-Broadway theatre company Repertorio Español, where he appeared in Federico García Lorca’s Blood Wedding, directed by René Buch.
Belmonte’s film credits include the leading role in The Kiss, directed by Joshua Cody. He has also appeared in Zero Hour by Marcio Venturi, and co-starred in The Love Bite by Macdara Vallely (2004 Best Irish Short at the Galway Film Fleadth in Dublin, Ireland).
Belmonte was seen on film at the Museum of Modern Art’s P.S. 1 in the art exhibit Birds of Paradise, which was chosen to be a part of the ARCO, the International Contemporary Art Fair, in 2004. He continues to work as an actor in New York City.
Miguel Ángel Reyes Santos
With almost two decades of experience as a stage and production manager, Reyes Santos’ wide-ranging education combines the sciences and the arts. He has studied and trained in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, France, Italy and the United States.
As a Stage and Production Manager, he has collaborated with groups such as the National Theater Company in Puerto Rico (1993-2005) and La Criatura Theater (2006-2008) and The Blackfriar’s Repertory Theater (2006) in New York. He is Stage Manager and Production Assistant in actress Karina Casiano’s projects. Reyes Santos is a Staff performer for the Metropolitan Opera House, and has appeared in several of their productions since 2007.
In 1994, he co-founded Colectivo Diversión theater company. The same year, he started the C.O.R.O.N.A. Project to bring theater education to underserved communities throughout Puerto Rico, which ran for 10 years. Recently, he also offered workshops for youths for the New York City Housing Authority Theater Training Program and for Communities in School (Resident Artist) and Cooperative of After-School Enrichment (CASE) Southwest Schools programs in Houston, Texas. He was Production Manager for NYC’s Dance Makers for their 2010 Gotta Dance show in Manhattan.
Antonio Pantojas
A pioneer of transgender solo shows in Puerto Rico, Pantojas has a four-decade career as an actor, dancer, director, producer, writer and teacher.
He has extensive experience as a television actor and hosted his own show for several years on Puerto Rican TV.
A seasoned night club varieté entertainer, Pantojas made waves beginning in the seventies in the Puerto Rico night club scene with his musical shows full of incendiary political satire and his gender-bending characters.
A versatile thespian, he has played roles as diverse as “Estragon” and “Pozzo” in Waiting for Godot, “Juliet” in El Público (The Audience) by Federico García Lorca (in its world premiere in Puerto Rico in 1978,) and originated the small-time, street-wise narrator in The True Story of Pedro Navaja, based in the Three Penny Opera and one of the longest-running plays in Puerto Rico’s history.
Pantojas produced, directed, taught, written and performed for more than 12 years for the National Theater Production Company in Puerto Rico. With them he staged plays such as his own version of Alexandre Dumas’ Camille, Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba, Jules Tasca’s An American Comedy, Venezuelan Isaac Chocrón’s The Revolution and Chilean Marco Antonio De la Parra’s The Secret Obscenity of Everyday Life, as well as the theatrical versions of Weekend at Bernie’s and The Full Monty. He has also played “Zaza” and “Albin” in La Cage Aux Folles, and “Buzz” in Love, Valor and Compassion. Pantojas gave life to "Padre Amado" in the Spanish version of Silence is Health/Silencio es Salud for La Criatura Theater in 2006.
As a playwright, he has trained in New York and Florence, Italy. He has written over 20 shows which he has taken throughout Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, the United States, Mexico and Perú.
Pantojas is currently based in New York, and is the director of the New York City Housing Authority Theater Training Program in the Lower East Side.
Other La Criatura Theater collabotarors have included composer/musician José "Chenan" Martínez and actors José Acevedo, Elodián Barbosa and David Storck.