THE CHOICE

Seven plays about the rise and fall of ROE V WADE

Who’s Who in the Cast and Crew

Who’s Who In The Cast And Crew

  • Ellen McLaughlin (playwright, prologue, an excerpt from her adaptation of Lysistrata) is best known for having originated the role of the angel in Angels in America. Her plays and adaptations include Tongue of a Bird, The Oresteia and Ajax in Iraq. Producers include New York Theater Workshop, The Public Theater, The Guthrie Theater, Mark Taper Forum, and Almeida Theater, London. This is her second collaboration with Remote Theater, the first being her role in the premiere of Billy Aronson’s Complete Unknowns.

  • James Carpenter (Magistrate in prologue from Lysistrata, and John in Solitaire) is one of the Bay Area’s most celebrated and beloved theater artists with extensive credits in both regional and local theatre. One of his most recent outings was in the Berkeley Rep’s acclaimed production of Wintertime, directed by Les Waters. This is his fourth production with Remote Theater, including the company’s inaugural production of Naomi Wallace’s One Flea Spare at the beginning of the pandemic. Among his many awards and honors, he is a 2010 Lunt-Fontaine Fellow. ACT's former artistic director Carey Perloff described him as "...one of the finest American actors anywhere.”

  • Stacy Ross (Lysistrata in prologue) happily returns to Zoom and Remote Theater, having played Mrs. Dan Quayle earlier this year in Insurrection. Other favorite (live, in-person) roles include Leni Riefenstahl (Aurora Theatre) Benedict (California Shakespeare Theatre) Hanna Arendt (San Jose Rep) and Stacy Ross herself (American Conservatory Theatre).

  • Giovanni Rodriguez (director of The Choice anthology and playwright of Muñeca and Solitaire) is an award-winning writer, director, and producer of online and offline media. He is co-founder and artistic director of Remote Theater, a project born at the beginning of the pandemic with the goal of helping to make professional theater more relevant, affordable, and accessible to new audiences. Back in the 1990s he had the honor of restaging the trial of Lizzie Borden which featured the real-life Justices Rehnquist and O'Connor. Ms. Borden was acquitted by a live audience of 2,000-plus jurors. A fervent believer in human agency, Rodriguez likes to think he had something to do with that outcome.

  • Len Shaffer (Doctor in Muñeca) has appeared as an actor, singer, and piano/keyboard player throughout the Bay Area. Favorite roles have included Tony in West Side Story, Curly in Oklahoma, George in Same Time, Next Year, Brady in Inherit the Wind, and Tito in Lend Me a Tenor. Len has appeared on keyboards and vocals with the rock bands Invazion, OCD and Nine Lives, and was a longtime member of the a cappella doo-wop group The Starry Knights. This is his first collaboration with Remote Theater.

  • Princess Washington (Girl in Muñeca and Cassandra in A GxD that Bleeds) fell in love with theater in high school and is a 2011 graduate of Solano College's ATP Conservatory. She is represented by MDT Agency of San Francisco through her film, television, and stage work. She is a 2022 Theatre Bay Area RHE artistic fellowship nominee and proud member of Campo Santo. This is her first collaboration with Remote Theater.

  • Wilma Bonet (Mother in Muñeca) is a veteran stage and film actress who evolved her unique style and energy on the stages of El Teatro Campesino and the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Recent credits include Romeo y Juliet at Cal Shakes and Don’t Eat the Mangos at the Magic Theatre, for which she was honored by the Bay Area Critics Circle. Other theaters where has worked: Playground, Ubuntu Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Mark Taper Forum, the Denver Center Theatre Company, American Conservatory Theatre, Campo Santo, Aurora Theater, Marin Theatre Company, Dallas Theatre Center. Film/television: Nona, Coco, What Dreams May Come, 8mm, Underwraps, Jack, Radio Flyer, Midnight Caller, and Nash Bridges. This is her second collaboration with Remote Theater.

Prologue, by Ellen McLaughlin, from her adaptation of Lysistrata

  • Debra Gipson (playwright and actor in The Talk) is a screenwriter and the award-winning podcast host of Dear Michelle, a series of heartfelt letters addressed to Michelle Obama. Her recent screenplay, The Quiltkeeper’s Son, is currently being workshopped in Hollywood. A recent untitled work about her experiences in the Army will be included in Literary Cleveland’s Veterans’ Voices Prose Anthology. This is her first collaboration with Remote Theater.

  • Amy Resnick (Floyd and Flowers in Roe Redux). is an actor from LA and NY, and native of Oakland. She has appeared in more than 60 theatrical delights around the country and sometimes around the world. She toured with the original Laramie Project with Tectonic Theater Company, a landmark theatrical production about the reaction to the 1998 murder of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming. Earlier this year, she played in Remote Theater's Insurrection, an anthology of plays about the attack on the nation's capital.

  • Julia Brothers is an actor and writer who has appeared on Broadway, Off-Broadway and Regionally, Julia’s latest and most fun credits include: I Was Right Here, a commissioned solo piece filmed onstage at SF Playhouse and released during the pandemic; Arthur Miller in Salesman at Laguardia Center for the Performing Arts; God in the rock opera Weightless at ACT, Z Space and The Public Theatre's Under The Radar Festival; Women In Jeopardy at Arizona Theatre Company and lots of new play workshops regionally on Zoom. This is her first collaboration with Remote Theater.

  • Leontyne Mbele-Mbong has been working at Bay Area theaters as an actor and production manager since graduating from Macalester College. A founding member of the Actors Reading Collective (ARC), she has enjoyed the raw beauty of the reading of a good play. She recently played the role of Goneril for the critically-acclaimed Cal Shakes production of Marcus Gardley's Lear. In 2021, she played in Remote's online reading of Caridad Svich’s The Book of Magdalene.

  • Tanya Marie (Sarah Weddington in Roe Redux) is a Boston native and recent transplant to the Bay Area from Paris, France. She has worked internationally in film, television, radio, voice-over and theater. Regional credits include: August: Osage County, Persuasion and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (San Jose Stage Co.); Oskar (TheatreWorks); Oslo (Los Altos Stage Company); Henry V (African-American Shakespeare Company); and Café Winnipesaukee (directed by Academy Award winner, Ernest Thompson). This is her first collaboration with Remote Theater.

  • Tanya Shaffer (playwright, Roe Redux). Remote Theatre Co-Founder Tanya Shaffer’s plays have been produced by Berkeley Repertory Theater, TheatreWorks, San Diego Repertory Theater, A Contemporary Theater, and others. She hosts the podcast Off-Leash Arts: Conversations on Creativity and leads online workshops in a liberating practice called Off-Leash Writing. She splits her time between Michigan and the San Francisco Bay Area.

  • Lynne Kaufman (playwright, Kids) is the author of four novels and two dozen full-length plays. Her plays have won multiple awards including Best New Play in San Francisco, Best New Play in California, NEA/Kennedy Center Best New Play. Her latest novel Divine Madness was published in May and her new play Poetic Justice opens at The SFMarsh Theatre in January. This is Kaufman’s second collaboration with Remote Theater, the first being her 2021 online premiere of Magician’s Choice starring Anthony Fusco and Stacy Ross).

  • Nancy Madden (Mother, Kids) most recently performed Lynne Kauffman’s Exposing Margaret Mead for The Marsh International Solo Festival. She last appeared on stage, pre-COVID, in Training Wheels in New York’s Rave Festival. Her last film project, Generations, in which she co-stars and served as Associate Producer, won awards in film festivals worldwide. This is her first collaboration with Remote Theater.

  • Anita Gonzalez (playwright and Marta in Waterfall) develops art crafted for social activism and consciousness raising. Musicals: Ybor City, Zora on My Mind. Plays & Librettos: Courthouse Bells, Finding the Light, Sunset Dreams, Home of My Ancestors. Books: Performance, Dance and Political Economy, Black Performance Theory, Afro-Mexico. She is a professor at Georgetown University. This is her first collaboration with Remote Theater.

  • Carla Gallardo (Eloisa in Waterflow) is a Bay Area actor and is always looking for the next story to tell! Recent credits include Las Azurduy (La Lengua Theater), References to Salvador Dalí Make Me Hot (Custom Made Theater), The Tempest (Oakland Theater Project), The Box (Pulitzer Center/Marin Shakespeare), and Retablos (Word 4 Word). This is her first collaboration with Remote Theater.

  • Ashley Smiley (playwright, A Gxd That Bleeds) is a writer, artivist and emerging theologian. Currently serving as the program manager for the Bayview Opera House in San Francisco, Smiley – as she is more commonly known – is also a leading member of Campo Santo, a resident artist of the Magic Theater, and is in her second year of her PhD at the Graduate Theological Union. She is a proud and unapologetic AfroFranciscan encouraging those around her to see Black womxn for the Gxds they are. This is her first collaboration with Remote Theater.

  • Ayodele ‘WordSlanger’ Nzinga (GxD in A GxD that Bleeds) is the inaugural Poet Laureate of Oakland. She a multi-hyphenated artist and a cultural architect, working at the intersections of cultural sovereignty, transformation, and change, Nzinga a member of the Alameda County Women’s Hall of Fame, founder of Oakland’s premiere North American African theater company, the Lower Bottom Playaz, and the producer of BAMBDFEST International Biennial. This is her first collaboration with Remote Theater.

  • Princess Washington (Girl in Muñeca and Cassandra in A GxD that Bleeds) fell in love with theater in high school and is a 2011 graduate of Solano College's ATP Conservatory. She is represented by MDT Agency of San Francisco through her film, television, and stage work. She is a 2022 Theatre Bay Area RHE artistic fellowship nominee and proud member of Campo Santo. This is her first collaboration with Remote Theater.

  • James Carpenter (Magistrate in Remedy from Lysistrata, and John in Solitaire) is one of the Bay Area’s most celebrated and beloved theater artists with extensive credits in both regional and local theatre. One of his most recent outings was in the Berkeley Rep’s acclaimed production of Wintertime, directed by Les Waters. This is his fourth production with Remote Theater, including the company’s inaugural production of Naomi Wallace’s One Flea Spare at the beginning of the pandemic. Among his many awards and honors, he is a 2010 Lunt-Fontaine Fellow. ACT's former artistic director Carey Perloff described him as "...one of the finest American actors anywhere."

  • Anthony Fusco (Sam in Solitaire), a card-carrying actor since 1983, has performed on and off Broadway, and at theaters across America, mostly in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was a company member at A.C.T. where he performed in nearly 50 productions. He’s honored to be part of this project! This is his second collaboration with Remote Theater.

  • Catherine Castellanos (Sonia in Solitaire) is a nationally renowned theater artist with an extraordinary depth of experience in both classical and contemporary theater. She appeared in the 2016-2020 seasons with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Bring Down the House, Parts I and II; Mother Road, La Comedia of Errors; Destiny of Desire, The Book of Will; The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Odyssey; Roe (Helen Hayes nomination), and Richard II. Regional credits include A.C.T., Magic Theatre, Shotgun Players, San Jose Repertory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, La MaMa, Arena Stage, Portland Center Stage, Yale Repertory Theatre, Arizona Theatre Company. This is Catherine’s fourth collaboration with Remote Theater, including the world premiere of Tanya Shaffer’s Manatee on Mars.

Muneca, by Giovanni Rodriguez

The Talk, written and performed by Debra Gipson

Roe Redux, by Tanya Shaffer.

Kids, by Lynne Kaufman

Waterflow, by Anita Gonzalez

Gxd That Bleeds, by Ashley Smiley

Solitaire, by Giovanni Rodriguez

Composers: Paul Dresher and Rinde Eckert.

Directed by: Giovanni Rodriguez; edited by Steve Agnos

Dramaturg: Philippa Kelly

Production Assistance: Isabel Yourman and Isaac Rodriguez

About THE CHOICE

On January 6, 2022, Remote Theater took a turn in its programming by staging an anthology of original plays to explore the many dimensions of a topic that has divided Americans: the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. The success of that anthology – entitled Insurrection – got us thinking. What issue might we explore next? It came to us suddenly, and we began the process of developing The Choice, an artistic response to the US Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs, which we were betting would overturn Roe v. Wade. With twice as many playwrights as in Insurrection – and with a 30+ member cast and crew – The Choice faced a number of fresh challenges. But through those challenges, we have renewed our commitment to this new form of political theater that we believe might ultimately provide a forum for citizens everywhere to comment and reflect on the values that bind us, rather than on the issues that divide us.

This is Remote’s 12th production since we first launched near the beginning of the pandemic with the mission of making theatrical drama more relevant, accessible, and affordable to new audiences. If you enjoy and are moved by tonight’s production, please write to us at info@siliconvalleystorylab.com to talk about how you can support our mission.

We would like to thank Iana Elledge, a Ukraine-born healthcare entrepreneur, and Breakaway Communications, a women-owned communications agency, for their generous contributions, which helped to underwrite tonight’s production. If you would like to make a tax-deductible contribution to this or future productions, please visit our donations page!

With gratitude,

Giovanni Rodriguez, Co-Founder and Artistic Director, Remote Theater