The Mondragons

Kyoung’s Pacific Beat creates work with a team of “Mondragons,” a diverse ensemble of outstanding resident performers, visual artists, theater designers, choreographers, and musicians, who collaborate in the devising of our productions following our peace-oriented mission and core values. Mondragons are invited into the company for their unique artistic voices, commitment to our company’s mission, and their willingness to take risks. For our Alumni Mondragons, click here.

	Claudia Acosta Claudia Acosta is a bilingual actor, producer, director, writer and teaching artist. Off-Broadway: Seven Spots on the Sun (Rattlestick Playwright’s Theater), The Architecture of Becoming (Women’s Project), Dance for a Dollar (INTAR), Don Cristobal Billy Club Man (HERE Arts Center). Regional: Guadalupe (Chautauqua Theater Company), Electricidad (Rose Marine Theater), Hotel Juarez ‘Taboo Theater: Sex and Violence on Stage’ (Cogella). Claudia created and co-produced the first-ever Rose Marine Latino Film Festival in Fort Worth, Texas and produced a short documentary of with Academy Award Winning Director, Nigel Noble. Ms. Acosta is a teaching artist for Lincoln Center Education, MTC, and New York Theater Workshop. Claudia performed “Two Arms and a Noise”, a one-woman piece developed at New York Theater Workshop by Elena Araoz in the 2016 Bucharest International Theater Platform in Romania. Claudia is co-founder and collective member of the Sol Project
	Raquel Almazan Raquel Almazan is an interdisciplinary artist, facilitator and activist. She holds (B.F.A. in Theatre – U. of F. / M.F.A. in Playwriting – Columbia University). Her original work has participated in New York City- including Off-Broadway, throughout the United States and internationally in Greece, Italy, Colombia, Chile, Guatemala and Sweden. Almazan has been performed in over 100 venues, including Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, The Actors Studio, City Center, La Mama, Repertorio Español, BRIC Arts, INTAR, Pregones, and in independent films that screened at Cannes, HBO NYLIFF, Canada International, Honolulu, Mexico, and Philadelphia International Festivals. Select TV roles: Alicia Watkins on Limitless opposite Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Maricela on Law & Order: SVU, as Rosa Heredia opposite James Spader on The Black List, Rita Campos on White Collar, a Cuban exile opposite Cristina Ricci in PAN AM. Additional roles on Blue Bloods and the Michael J. Fox Show. www.raquelalmazan.com
	Veracity Butcher Veracity Butcher is a performance artist born, raised, and based in downtown New York City. With over a decade of experience on Off-Broadway, she has performed as an actor at venues such as Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Abingdon Theater, INTAR, The Flea, St. Ann’s Warehouse, The Public Theater, The Gene Frankel Theater, Dixon Place, 45 Bleecker, La Mama, and Atlantic Theater. Veracity has performed as a singer for her band, VIOLETS, at venues including PIANO’S, DROM, Leftfield, FAT BABY, LIT Lounge, Pete’s Candy Store, Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Matchless, COCO 66, SIGNAL Gallery, and NuBlu. Since graduating Middlebury College with a BA in Acting and Arabic, she has participated in over 50 developmental workshops and readings. She is a member of José Rivera’s writing circle and pens stories, poetry, lyrics, plays, and screenplays. www.veracitybutcher.com
	Chuan-Chi Chan Chuan-Chi Chan is a lighting designer, originally from Taiwan. She is a 29th Helen Hayes Award Nominee for Outstanding Lighting Design, Resident Production. Chuan-Chi was recently invited by National Taiwan University, Drama and Theatre Department to join its faculty as an adjunct instructor of lighting design for the performing arts. Work: Twelfth Night (National Taiwan University, Drama and Theatre Department, 2014), August: Osage County (Greenray Theatre Company, 2014), The Servant of Two Masters (Seattle Repertory Theatre, 2013; Arts Emerson, 2013; Guthrie Theater, 2012; Shakespeare Theatre Company, 2012; and Yale Repertory Theater, 2010), Next To Normal/ Pterodactyls (Red House Art Center, 2014), Peter Pan (Red House Art Center, 2013), Caucasian Chalk Circle (Stella Adler Studio of Acting, 2013), Instant Vaudeville: Breaking Bamboo (2nd Generation, 2012), TALA workshop (Kyoung’s Pacific Beat, 2012), and God of Carnage (Shanghai Dramatic Art Center, 2011). www.ChuanChiChan.com
	Yadira De La Riva Yadira is a theater artist from El Paso, Texas/Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. She is an alumna of UC Santa Cruz and NYU where she wrote, performed and produced One Journey, a one-woman show exploring US/Mexico border identity, which she toured throughout the U.S. and along the U.S./Mexico border. Her recent credits include: LINES (Theatre LILA), I, Migration (Falconworks Theater), Zoongoro Bailongo (New York Children’s Theater), Papo’s Variety Store (LATEA Theater), La Negra (BRIC), Alonzo (2019 New York Latino Film Festival), Noche de Alebrijes (One Blue Cat and Art VallARTa) and Carla’s Quince (The Voting Project). Yadira is dedicated to empowering and liberating storytelling and thrilled to join Kyoung’s Pacific Beat with such wonderful artists! www.yadiradelariva.com
	Ariel Estrada Ariel Estrada is an actor, singer, arts advocate, producer, and Founder & Producing Artistic Director of Leviathan Lab. As an actor and singer, Ariel has performed on television, film, commercials, industrials, new media, and Off, and Off-Off Broadway. As the founder of Leviathan Lab, he has produced acting and writing salons, cabarets, fundraising events, staged readings, showcase productions, and short films, including its national award-winning film Two Weeks; and through his grant writing, has secured multi-year NYC grant awards and residencies in support of Leviathan’s work. As an arts advocate, he is the current National Coordinator for Diversity & Inclusion at Actors’ Equity Association and Marketing and Membership Director for the Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists. He was designated an Emerging Arts Leader by New York Foundation for the Arts and a Rising Leader of Color by Theatre Communications Group. www.arielestrada.com
	David Gelles David Gelles is best known for his work as Aaron Clover on NBC’s Deception. He also appears in The Blacklist, Law & Order: SVU, and Mercy. Film credits include the award-winning This is It (Alexander Engel), Unicornland (Lucy Gillespie), Creative Control (Benjamin Dickinson), Someone Else’s Heart (Zachary Wigon), and Very Sorry (Sarah-Violet Bliss). On stage, David starred in Lincoln Center’s critically-acclaimed Graceland. Other work includes Romeo & Juliet (Romeo, Shakespeare & Company), Microcrisis (Ma-Yi Theater Company), and featured roles in Photograph 51, Winners, Close Ties, and White People (Ensemble Studio Theatre).
	Daniel K. Isaac Daniel K. Isaac is a queer Korean American actor and writer based in New York City. You can currently see him on the small screen as ‘Ben Kim’ in five seasons of Showtime’s “Billions.” NYC Theatre: You Never Touched the Dirt (Clubbed Thumb), The Chinese Lady (Ma-Yi), The Gentleman Caller (Abingdon), Sagittarius Ponderosa (NAATCO), and Anna Nicole the Opera (BAM). For Kyoung’s Pacific Beat: PILLOWTALK (BRIC Arts), TALA (Performance Project @ University Settlement, HERE Arts & Mabou Mines) and DISORIENTED (Theatre C). Daniel’s full-length plays include FULLERTON (2020 O’Neill Finalist), ONCE UPON A (korean) TIME (2019 O’Neill Finalist), [untitled gay sex and conversion therapy play] (National Endowment for the Arts), and OR OR OR &&& (available as a podcast recording on The Parsnip Ship). Training: UCSD, BADA. www.DanielKIsaac.com
	Andrew Jordan Andrew Jordan is a brooklyn-based artist and costume designer. He has designed for stage and screen with recent forays into opera, ballet, parade, and experimental performance. Andrew experiments with the interplay between various art forms driven by his interest in the relationship of sculpture, installation, and puppetry to the movement and form of the human body. He received his MFA with an emphasis in sculpture from the Cranbrook Academy of Art and his BFA in Fine Arts, with a minor in Media Studies, from the Columbus College of Art and Design. Andrew is also known under the moniker andytoad. www.andytoad.com
	Ash Mayers Ash Mayers is an actress and writer based in Brooklyn, NY. She holds a B.F.A. in Acting from Brooklyn College. Ash has been very fortunate to be involved in numerous new theatre pieces, and she is ecstatic about joining the cast of NERO. In addition to her work onstage, she enjoys storytelling through film and sometimes writes sketches to prove that she paid attention in her UCB classes. Recent theatre: Term of Art (JACK); Woe is Me (Public Theatre); Hair Ye, Hair Ye (Estrogenius Festival). #blacklivesmatter www.ashmayers.com
	Ishmael Thaahir Ishmael Thaahir is a producer, performer, and educator born in Harlem, NY. Ishmael is a trained actor who earned his B.F.A. in Theatre from North Carolina A&T State University in 2019. Ishmael was both an actor and assistant director in NERO, KPB’s latest production, performed in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Triad Stage) and toured with KPB’s PILLOWTALK (Victory Gardens). Ishmael has worked as an educator both for high schoolers (North Carolina Governor’s School West) and middle schoolers (Hunts Point Alliance for Children) and has trained actors, built reading and writing comprehension, and facilitated discussions with students on how to bridge gaps between perceived differences. He served as Producing Director at Kyoung’s Pacific Beat and was KPB’s Associate Artistic Producer and Intern starting in 2018.
	Kaila Saunders Kaila Saunders is a Panamanian Afro-Latina performer, arts administrator, songwriter, and audio engineer born in Connecticut and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina. Kaila is a graduate of the Presidential Scholar program at Brooklyn College where she received a BFA in Acting. Kaila is also a graduate of Labyrinth Theater Company’s Summer Intensive Ensemble. More recently, she graduated from the Studio Engineering program at the Blackbird Academy, where she earned a full ride scholarship through She is the Music. Her acting work can be seen in several productions such as Young Jean Lee’s Lear (Don Buchwald Theater), Mac Wellman’s The Lesser Magoo (Don Buchwald Theater), Heloise Wilson’s La Folie (Black Lady Theater), and Ben Gassman’s 40s and Chestnuts (New Workshop Theater). Kaila also served as Marketing & Development Associate at Kyoung’s Pacific Beat and as an audio engineer and actor for KPB’s NERO (Pregones/PRTT).
	Lawrence Schober Lawrence Schober is a New York based sound designer. New York: Kingdom Crosses Over, tiger tiger, Pillowtalk, Come Back Up, TALA, Woyzeck: The Human Experiment, No One Asked Me, The Mormon Bird Play. Regional: For the Lulz, Songs for a Future Generation, Sarah, Five Times in One Night. University (Fordham): Agamemnon, ANTIGONE, God’s Ear.
	Imran Sheikh Off-Broadway: American Dreams (Working Theater), Confidence and the Speech (Theatre Row). NYC/Regional: Disgraced (Milwaukee Rep, Florida Rep), The Invisible Hand (ACT/ Artists Rep), I Like to Be Here (New Ohio), The Myth Project (Noor Theatre/New York Theatre Workshop), Carousel of Progress (Queens Theatre), Brahman/i (Crowded Fire), Disconnect (San Jose Rep), The Girl with Her Hands in the Sand & Radio Mara Mara (FringeNYC), Chaos Theory (Crossroads Theatre), Why We Left Brooklyn (Blue Coyote). Television: Guy Code (MTV, Comedy Central), Blue Bloods (CBS), Big Dogs (Amazon). Follow @imransheikhinfo
	Isaac Winston Isaac Winston is a native New Yorker and community-based stage manager, lighting designer, and technical director. He is currently working as an adjunct professor for Borough of Manhattan Community College as well as their lighting designer for their mainstage production of Project Sankofa by Karl Williams at Tribeca Performing Arts Center. He is also working as a stage manager for Greenwood by Celeste Walker scheduled for March 2023 in Beaumont, Texas. A few of his past credits for stage managing includes A Streetcar Named Desire, My Mama the Super Action Hero both directed by Kenthedo Robinson. His lighting design includes Dreamgirls, Fame, A Raisin in The Sun, Fences, Piano Lesson; (ArtsConnection), “The Jungle Book” Broadway Jr., “Willy Wonka” Broadway Jr., “Seussical” Broadway Jr.; (Maria Fusté Assistant lighting designer), “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”, “Madame Butterfly”, “In the Heights”, “Abigail”, and “Newsies”. He received his B.F.A. in technical theater and production with a concentration in Lighting design from Brooklyn College.
	Helen Yee Helen Yee is a violinist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, currently violinist for the eclectic string trio, Trio Tritticali. Helen was a 2011 fellow at Music Omi International Musicians Residency and has composed and performed music for plays including Miss Julia (2014: Festival Iberoamericano de Teatro in Bogotá, Colombia and Cádiz, Spain, and festivals in Manizales, Medellín, Napoli), Harry’s Christmas, Krankenhaus Blues and Manon/Sandra (NY Fringe). For ten years she was a founding member of Invert, a string quartet that released three CDs with roots in rock, jazz and world music. She enjoys exploring and collaborating with artists in multiple art forms.
	Marie Yokoyama Marie Yokoyama is a New York-based lighting and set designer. Work: TALA (The ToRoNada Theater), vanya (Paisley in Blue), Dream Babies (Riant Theatre), American River (Lesser America), Baudelaire La Mort (Pan Asian Rep), The Turn of the Screw (Opera Moderne), Faust (Curtis Institute of Music), Hamlet/Hamyut (La MaMa), Barriers (Desipina & Co.), Compulsion (Yale Repertory Theatre), We in Silence Hear a Whisper (Red Fern Theatre), and lobby installation design for Haunting the Reynosos (Theatro IATI).