PERFORMERS

JAMES BARTELLE MARK ANTONY

James was recently seen in the Shakespeare Festival at Tulane’s production of Romeo & Juliet (The Prince). Previous Festival credits include Hamlet (Horatio), Macbeth (Thane of Ross), Tempest (Gonzalo), Two Gentlemen of Verona (Speed), Importance of Being Earnest (Jack), Merry Wives of Windsor (Sir Hugh Evans), Romeo & Juliet-2013 (Mercutio), 12th Night-2011 (Fabian), and As You Like It-2008 (Orlando). James has also been seen in several Shakespeare productions with The NOLA Project including A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Bottom), The Winter’s Tale (Antigonus/ Old Shepherd), 12th Night (Orsino), and As You Like It (Jaques).

ERIN CESSNA* CASSIUS

Erin Cessna is thrilled to return again to the New Orleans Shakespeare Festival stage, and with the same play that marked her festival debut all the way back in 2011, Julius Caesar! Since then, she’s appeared in Nola Shakes’ Cymbeline, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Hamlet. Other favorite credits include Henry IV Pts. 1 & 2 (Connecticut Rep - CRT), Shakespeare in Love (CRT), A Doll’s House (Monomoy Theatre), The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Le Petit), and A Christmas Carol (Crescent City Stage). Erin earned her MFA in Acting at UConn, and holds a BFA in Theatre Performance from Tulane.

SILAS COOPER* JULIUS CAESAR

Mr. Cooper’s Festival credits include: Henry IV Pt.1, Much Ado, Two Gents, All’s Well, The Tempest, The Illusion, Cymbeline, Romeo & Juliet, and Julius Caesar. Recent local stage work: Cat On A Hot
Tin Roof, Dividing The Estate and Our Town at Le Petit, Orphans at the Always, and SPILL at Swine Palace. Silas has toured nationally in Noises Off and has performed in Moscow, London, and New York. Regional credits include Baltimore Center Stage, Delaware Theatre Company, Dallas Rep, and Utah Shakespeare Festival. TV/Film: The lead role in Snakeskin Jacket, and roles in The Highwaymen, Assassination Nation, A Violent Separation, Think Like a Dog, The Big Short, The Green Lantern, Columbiana, Chameleon, Multiplicity, NCIS New Orleans, The Astronaut Wives Club, Treme’, Justice for Natalee, Head of the Class, Acceptance, House of Secrets, Back to the Batcave, Jag, and Dr. Vegas. He serves as the President/CEO at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts.

MONICA R. HARRIS CALPURNIA

Monica R. Harris is a Black Filipina stage/screen/voice actor
and occultist with a BA, Theatre Arts from Loyola University. Native to Angeles City, Luzon, Republic of the Philippines, she has lived in New Orleans since 2003 and serves as Interim Managing Director of The NOLA Project. Julius Caesar marks their 6th New Orleans Shakespeare Festival production since 2018! Recent credits include: Tempest: Reimagined (The NOLA Project), Mother Catherine & The Temple of the Innocent Blood (Mudlark Puppeteers, New Orleans Giant Puppet Festival), Romeo and Juliet (New Orleans Shakespeare Festival), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (The NOLA Project), Vieux Carré (Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theatre Festival), Bare: A Pop Opera (Guest Artist, Whitman College), Birth of a Culture (Director, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra), and The Conductor’s Spellbook (Narrator, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra). Monica will join The Tennessee Williams Theatre Co. for The Remarkable Rooming House of Madame Le Monde in the titular role this fall.

RYAN HAYES DECIUS

Ryan Hayes recently relocated to New Orleans after 23 years in San Francisco and over 50 plays, musicals, films and commercials. Recently, he played James Tyrone in A Moon for the Misbegotten and Long Day’s Journey into Night with the Eugene O’Neill Foundation in California and Ireland, where he’ll be returning in October to act in The Eugene O’Neill International Festival of Theatre. Ryan has directed and written short plays and created a one man show he adapted from the poetry of Walt Whitman entitled Boys Together Clinging, which he performed extensively in San Francisco and beyond. Most recently, he acted as Don Kirshner in Beautiful - The Carol King Musical at Le Petit Theatre where he also acted in Let the Right One In & The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Instagram: uncle_ryry

JUSTICE HUES CINNA

Justice is thrilled to be debuting with the New Orleans Shakespeare Festival. Credits include: Night of the Iguana (Tennessee Williams Theatre Company), Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (Le Petit Theatre), and The Upstairs Lounge (Melange Dance Co).

JOHN JABALEY LIGARIUS / SOOTHSAYER

John is delighted to be making his NOSF debut. After more than a decade away from the stage, he recently appeared as Otto Frank in The Diary of Anne Frank at the WWII Museum. Los Angeles credits include The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, Shakespeare Festival/LA, Theatre Banshee, Pasadena Shakespeare, the Ark Theatre Company and more. Film/TV credits include Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Treme, Queen Sugar, Preacher, NCIS: New Orleans, Blackbird and Into the
Wild. John received his BA from Millsaps College and MFA from CalArts.

ARIA JACKSON

MESSELA / ARTEMIDORUS / SOOTHSAYER

Aria Jackson is a New Orleans-based actress who holds her Bachelor’s degree in Theatre Arts from Loyola University New Orleans. Her recent credits include Topsy, Woman, Lady in The Colored Museum, Paulina in School Girls; or the African Mean Girls, Maggie in Craigslisted with The NOLA Project,

The Strongness in The Defiance of Dandelions with No Dream Deferred NOLA, TK in The Actor’s Apothecary’s Inner Child and Callie in Loyola’s production of Stop Kiss. Aria recently directed a staged reading of I Sell Windows and assistant-directed Loyola’s production of Everyone & Everything. When not working on stage, you can find Aria as a hostess, or at your local vibe around the city. Aria is thrilled to make her New Orleans Shakespeare Festival debut in the cast of Julius Caesar.

MARY LANGLEY METELLUS CIMBER
Mary is thrilled to be joining her first production with the New Orleans Shakespeare Festival! Mary holds a BA in Theatre and Performing Arts from The American University in London where she also studied at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and The Globe Theatre. She previously served as a Resident Artist with New Hampshire Theatre Project, and is a member of New Orleans-based theatre company, Intramural Theater. Mary’s favourite credits include the devised piece Clean Body (The American University in London); Men on Boats and Two Gentlemen of Verona (NH Theatre Project); For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls (Tennessee Williams Theatre Company of New Orleans); and The Cuck (Intramural Theater).

WENDY MIKLOVIC* BRUTUS

Wendy Miklovic is a member of Actor’s Equity Association and is excited to be back performing with The New Orleans Shakespeare Festival at Tulane. Local credits: Let the Right One In, Treasure Island, The Henchman, The Wolves, An Act of God, Dividing the Estate, Merrily We Roll Along, Equus, Romeo and Juliet, Let Freedom Swing, I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change. Regional credits: Silent Sky, Steel Magnolias, Evita, Cabaret, Closer Than Ever, Oklahoma!, Crimes of the Heart. Film credits: Hard Matter, Lisa Frankenstein, Ender’s Game,The Book of Love, God’s Not Dead, Bending The Rules. T.V. Credits: Interview With the Vampire, The Purge, Preacher, Claws, Queen Sugar, NCIS: New Orleans, Common Law, Breakout Kings. wendymiklovic.com

MATTHEW RAETZ LUCIUS / SOOTHSAYER

Matthew Raetz is a New Orleans native and NOCCA drama alumnus. Matthew went to Southern Methodist University for his BFA, and owns/operates YellowBoxCircus LLC, a performance troupe that specializes in bringing Circus to private events, corporate events, and birthday parties. A Big Easy theatre award nominee, Matthew has performed in dozens of shows in New Orleans some highlights being - Demetrius in A Midsummer Night’s Dream with The Nola Project, Jim O’Conner in The Glass Menagerie & Dick Miles in Spring Storm with The Tennessee Williams Theatre company, and Touchstone in As You Like It & Tybalt in Romeo & Juliet with the New Orleans Shakespeare fest.

STEVEN ROSE PENDLETON

POPILIUS / TITINIUS / SERVANT / SOOTHSAYER

Steven Rose Pendleton (they/he/she) is a local artist and recent graduate of Loyola University’s Theatre & Dance Department. Recent credits include 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Barfee) and NOLA Shakespeare Festival’s Twelfth Night (Curio).

LEPIDUS / PINDARUS / SERVANT / SOOTHSAYER

NOCCA Alumnus and Loyola Theater Arts First-Year Enne Samuel is a horse-fearing Sagittarius with a penchant for organized chaos and spicy perfume. Their fondest credits include Tulane’s New Orleans Shakespeare Festival’s staged reading of Taming of the Shrew (as Tranio), and DePaul University’s Spirits To Enforce (as the ever so cavalier Wayne Simon). Born in the midst of a blizzard in Chicago, IL, he is indeed quite warm: an open book without a hook to spew. Some would describe her as a “loose canon,” an actor-director- playwright whose wish is merely to gift you a memory.

DAVID SELLERS CASCA

David is excited to be back with the Festival. Previous roles at the festival include Friar Lawrence in Romeo and Juliet, Don John in Much Ado About Nothing, and Cornelius in Cymbeline. In New Orleans he has been with Le Petit as Reverend Tooker in Cat on A Hot Tin Roof and played with Southern Rep in Song of a Man Coming Through a Harry Bishop. His Chicago credits include Sirens of Titan at Lifeline Theatre, and Claudius in Hamlet at Chase Park. David Has an MFA from LSU.

JOE SIGNORELLI TREBONIUS

Joe is so excited to back with the The New Orleans Shakespeare Festival at Tulane! A New Orleans born and raised actor, he has most recently been seen in the festival’s Romeo and Juliet (Paris) and The NOLA Project’s Dracula (Holmwood), Raising Hell’s The Wedding Party Experience, Fat Squirrel’s production of Macbeth (Lennox/Young Siward), Rivertown’s Peter and the Starcatcher (Peter), Goat in the Road’s Play/Write festival, and the New Orleans InFringe Festival as part of The Non-Prophet Theater Company. He is a graduate of Centenary College of Louisiana and East 15 Acting School.

ZARAH HOKULE`A SPALDING

OCTAVIUS / SOOTHSAYER

Zarah was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawai`i and went on to become a BFA Acting graduate of SUNY Purchase Theatre Arts Conservatory. She has also trained classically in various institutions across London and New York and was the national champion for the ESU Shakespeare Competition at Lincoln Center (2015). They have most recently appeared in the NOLA Project’s production of The Tempest (Ferdinand).

KRISTIN WITT PORTIA

Kristin is thrilled to be back in NOLA and is very excited to work with the New Orleans Shakespeare Festival for the first time. Originally from New Jersey, she has been an ensemble/ alumni member of The NOLA Project theatre company since 2009. New Orleans credits include A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo & Juliet, Twelfth Night, Balm in Gilead, The Winter’s Tale, Grey Gardens, The Wedding Singer, Pride & Prejudice, Stage Kiss, and Detroit. A proud member of SAG-AFTRA, her film & TV work includes roles on American Horror Story: Freak Show, NCIS, and The Blacklist. Kristin attended New York University and trained at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting for four years, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Drama from NYU’S Tisch School of the Arts. She has also studied Shakespeare at the McCarter Theater in Princeton, NJ.

*appearing courtesy of Actors' Equity