Nick Ong* | THERAPIST / MOM / COUSIN CHEN / MATCHMAKER
Nick Ong is an NYC-based actor, originally from the Bay Area. He is extremely excited to be returning to Profile Theatre, after previously making his debut as Actor 1 in King of the Yees. Some other favorite theatre credits include: Lysander/Flute in Midsummer (Tiltyard) at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival; Fedotik/Ferapont in Madeleine George’s world-premiere translation of Three Sisters (Two River Theater), and Henry in Another Revolution (Ensemble Studio Theatre). Nick received his B.A. in Theatre from The George Washington University. He is also a crewneck enthusiast. A romcom lover. A believer in the top button. And a theater aisle sitter. All the love to his teammates. nickong.com

*Appearing through an agreement between Profile Theatre and Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional performers and stage managers in the United States.

Julia Morizawa* | THERAPIST / MOM / COUSIN CHEN / MATCHMAKER
Julia Morizawa (she/her) got her Equity card playing the titular role in MASHA NO HOME by Lloyd Suh at East West Players in Los Angeles. She was a member of the classical theatre company, The Knightsbridge Theatre, where she wrote and produced the play TWENTY-TWO, and played Hermia in A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, Friar Laurence in ROMEO & JULIET: A DISCO DRAG FARCE, Donalbain in MACBEEZY: THE MACBETH HIP-HOPERA, and more. Julia is a graduate of The Second City Hollywood. She is thrilled to be making her Portland stage debut in TIGER STYLE! Other credits include SCANDAL (TV), SEAL TEAM, (TV), JUDAS KISS (film), and THE BRIGHT SESSIONS (fiction podcast). In recent years, she’s been focusing on writing and producing for film. Her animated short film, DRAGONFLY, is available on Prime Video, Samansa, and OTV, and she is in development on her Portland-set feature film, SOMETHING ABOUT THE TIDE

*Appearing through an agreement between Profile Theatre and Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional performers and stage managers in the United States.

Murri Lazaroff-Babin | RUSS THE BUSS / REGGIE / CUSTOMS GUY
Murri (he/him) is an actor, deviser, and writer from Northern California. He’s really stoked to get on stage and mess around a bit (thanks Profile!). This summer concluded the first run of his solo show, Camp Fire Stories – seen at 21Ten, CoHo, and the Atlanta Fringe. Outside of acting Murri enjoys watching and playing baseball, rarely admitting that he’s a Dodgers fan. He’s a self-proclaimed cat whisperer, loves breakfast, and going to the movies. MFA Acting – DePaul.

Heath Hyun | TZI CHUAN / MELVIN / DAD / GENERAL TSAO
A Portland based actor and writer. He holds a M.F.A. in Creative Writing with a focus in playwriting from Goddard College and a B.A. in Theatre with a focus in performance from Humboldt State University. He is thrilled to be back on stage with Profile Theatre having appeared in their 2022 production of King of the Yees, by Lauren Yee. Other Portland credits include appearances with PCS JAW Festival, Lakewood Theatre, Portland Shakespeare Project, Broadway Rose, Shaking the Tree, Northwest Children’s Theatre, Imago Theatre, Oregon Children’s Theatre, CoHo Theatre, and more.

Evangeline Billups* | Jennifer Chen
A Portland native, Evangeline is excited to be making her Profile Theatre debut in her hometown! Evangeline grew up in SE Portland and started doing theater in school productions at Cleveland High School. Evangeline later received her BA in American Studies from Yale University and her MFA in Acting from Columbia University under Ron Van Lieu. Theater credits include Fucking A (Lenfest Center for the Arts), Metamorphoses (Theatre at Schapiro), Everybody (Studio at Schapiro), and Double Happiness (Museum of Chinese in America). Many thanks to her Portland community, her mom, & Roberto. Instagram: @evanbillups, evangelinebillups.com

*Appearing through an agreement between Profile Theatre and Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional performers and stage managers in the United States.

by Darleen Ortega, arts columnist

Profile Theater’s current production of “Witch” deserves the critical praise it is receiving.  The performances are all fantastic, Josh Hecht’s direction mines Jen Silverman’s witty, sharp play for all the shrewdness tucked into its humor, and a nimble design team helps us imagine the play’s particular world set in the 17^th century but resolutely planted in today’s vernacular.  Each interaction between the various characters crackles with energy—fury, ambition, revenge, anguish.  And each of the players channels that energy fantastically, culminating in Charles Grant’s furious dance choreographed by Adin Walker. 

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But what I loved most are the play’s central insights about where untapped hope and power reside.  Elizabeth, the most isolated character, deemed a witch by the community and the person who apparently has the least to lose, is the one hardest to persuade to sell her soul and the one most capable of the sort of reframe that might pull the rest of the players–including the devil himself–out of their endless conflicts.  

The scruples of each of the other characters fall easily; the devil Scratch (a canny Joshua J. Weinstein) deftly spots their vulnerabilities, always linked to self-interest and their sense of who or what stands between them and their due. Not Elizabeth.  As brilliantly embodied by the always fantastic Lauren Modica-Soloway, Elizabeth is the one capable of spotting the emptiness of Scratch’s logic and the collective trap in which everyone else is caught.  She is the only person capable of moving Scratch to question his purpose, to compel him toward the bigger questions that he otherwise wouldn’t see.  And without the energy that persuades people to abandon their scruples, what might be possible?  Of course it is the outcast who would be capable of such imagination; when will we learn to examine the pattern of wisdom discarded?  Who are we throwing away and why are we doing so?  What does the outcast see that others miss?  Silverman’s play—offered with consummate skill in this production—lifts up such questions.