Bets Swedis is a theatre artist based in Portland. Born and raised in Philadelphia, East Coast credits include: Emcee in Cabaret, Lumiere in Beauty & The Beast, Chip in …Spelling Bee, and The Nutcracker Ballet. Local credits include: Leaf in …Spelling Bee, Alvin in Band Geeks! [West Coast Premiere], Drew in Troll 2: The Musical, Portland Center Stage’s JAW festival readings of In the Basement and Best Available, and most recently as Margaret Mead in Hair at Portland Center Stage.

Bets is the choreographer of the annual Trans Voices Cabaret: Portland. As a playwright, Bets has a workshop coming up this spring of their play, The Mighty Marching Meerkats. They’d like to thank Brian, diet soda, naps, and their cat, Ostentacia Walláce, for keeping them going. @cool__ghost

is a performer and video designer originally from Cleveland Ohio. He’s been seen on stage in Portland with The Theatre Company (California), Shaking the Tree (Fucking A; The Caucasian Chalk Circle), CoHo Theatre (Found Dog Ribbon Dance), defunkt theatre (Cock; Blasted; Slipping) and Theatre Vertigo (Complex). Clifton also created and performed two solo works: The Squeeze and #doppelganglive. He recently designed projections for Renegade Opera and his interactive video art installations have been presented at Shift Tectonic, Burning Man, GarbageFest and OPAM in Old Town.

He holds a BFA in Acting from Ohio University and has studied with PETE and Dell‘Arte International. Follow his adventures or hire him to mount your TV at www.cliftonconnect.net!

Treasure Lunan, originally from the East Coast, is deeply grateful to be a part of the Pacific Northwest performance community. Some recent performance highlights include Dracula: A Feminist Revenge Story, Really (Portland Center Stage), Sometimes I Think About Dying (Sundance), A Midsummer Night’s  (Portland Center Stage), Chicken & Biscuits Dream(Portland Playhouse), August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean (Portland Center Stage), Barbecue(Portland Playhouse), and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play, and Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley (Portland Center Stage.)

Ashley Song is an actor, producer, writer, and educator in Portland, Oregon. She is the co-owner of Desert Island Studios, an independent film studio dedicated to providing more accessible film resources for independent storytellers. Local acting credits include Dracula: A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really; Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson: Apt 2B; It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play; Rent; Summerfield Estates; The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time; and Redwood (Portland Center Stage), Woman and Scarecrow (Corrib), The Belongings (Chapel), Antigone (Northwest Classical Theatre), Bliss! or Emily Post is Dead (Defunkt).

Ashley received her BFA from NYU, training in The Method at The Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute and film acting from Stonestreet Studios. She’s also a board member of the Oregon Media Production Association, winning the Service & Inspiration Award for her advocacy work. Instagram: @ashleysongofficial @desertislandstudiospdx

(Director) Rebby Yuer Foster (they/them) is a first-generation Chinese-American director, producer, & performer. They are the Associate Artistic Director of Shaking the Tree Theatre. Recent directing credits include, We Wrote This With You In Mind (Shaking the Tree Theatre), In A Different Reality She’s Clawing At The Walls (Shaking the Tree Theatre), MODELMINORITY (Shaking the Tree Theatre), 家人: A Self Portrait (Shaking the Tree Theatre), The Edge (Shaking the Tree Theatre). Acting credits include Forbidden Fruit (Shaking the Tree Theatre), Chick Fight (Shaking the Tree Theatre), Family (Shaking the Tree Theatre), Once (Seacoast Repertory Theatre), We’ve Come to Believe (Humana Festival ‘19), Dracula (Actor’s Theatre of Louisville), & Xiaoyen (Actor’s Theatre of Louisville).

Rebby is a former Acting Apprentice at the Actor’s Theatre of Louisville ‘18-19. They grew up in Seattle, Washington and received their B.A. in Theatre & English at the University of Portland.

Jane Bement Geesman has been a member of Portland’s vibrant theatre community since 1980, and is very excited to be a part of this new-play festival. This will mark Jane’s third time working with Profile Theatre, having appeared in their productions of “In The Wake” and “The Oldest Profession.” A Drammy Award winner, Jane has performed in numerous Portland theatres these past many years, among them ART, Theatre Vertigo, Northwest Classical, defunkt theatre, and Lakewood Theatre…and going way back, Storefront Theatre, triangle productions, and New Rose Theatre. She’s also directed and performed in Bay Area theatres, including TheatreWorks, City Lights Theatre Company, and Palo Alto Players.

Don Kenneth Mason has worked with many Portland theater companies in productions such as Choir Boy at Portland Center Stage, and the ripple, the wave that carried me home at Artists Repertory Theatre. Don previously worked with Profile Theater in Ruined and Mother Courage.

Madeleine Tran is a Vietnamese-American soprano, actor, fight choreographer, and occasional street and festival performer. She has a BA in Vocal Performance from the University of Portland, where she still studies with Dr. Nicole Hanig. Madeleine studies and teaches stage combat and intimacy coordination under the mentorship of Kristen Mun. She is delighted and feels lucky to have been able to work with so many of Portland’s outstanding local theater companies including Artist’s Repertory Theater, Portland Center Stage, Third Rail Repertory Theater, Profile Theater, Shaking The Tree, Portland Opera, Oregon Children’s Theater, and Renegade Opera, with whom she is also a creative company member!

Skyler Verity is an actor and filmmaker based in Portland, Oregon. Skyler was most recently seen on stage in Portland Center Stage’s production of Hair where he played Berger, Profile Theater’s fall production of awe/struck. He also appeared in Profile Theatre’s How To Make an American Son, and Portland Center Stage’s production of Rent where he was in the ensemble and understudied Roger. His film and television credits include lead roles in James Franco’s Memoria, the film Sophie Jones (Showtime), and a recurring role on the TBS comedy Chad. The first short film Skyler wrote and produced, Julia, premiered at the 2022 BendFilm Festival, and was praised by rogerebert.com as a “galvanizing fact-based gem.” Skyler will make his directorial debut with his upcoming short film, Stretch (post production). Skyler’s acting training includes Meisner Technique at Playhouse West (Los Angeles). Skyler would like to thank Profile Theater for the opportunity to return to their stage.

Josh Hecht is the Artistic Director at Profile Theatre. At Profile, Josh has directed awe/struck by christoper oscar peña, The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Diety by Kristoffer Diaz, Gloria by Brendan Jacobs-Jenkins, Paula Vogel’s The Baltimore Waltz and Indecent (co-production with Artists Rep), Lisa Kron’s In The Wake and Well, Anna Deavere Smith’s Let Me Down Easy and the concert staging of Twilight: Los Angeles 1992 and the rotating repertory productions of Quiara Alegria Hudes’ Water By The Spoonful and The Happiest Song Plays Last. Other Portland productions include Mike Lew’s Teenage Dick (Artists Rep). His productions have been seen in New York at MCC Theater, The Cherry Lane, The Duke on 42nd Street, New World Stages, Culture Project, regionally at The Guthrie Theater, the Berkshire Theatre Group, the Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Signature Theatre (DC) and internationally at the Dublin Arts Festival, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and elsewhere. His collaboration with Ping Chong and Company was commissioned by and premiered at The Kennedy Center before touring the northeast.

His directing has received the Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience and Fringe First Awards in Dublin and Edinburgh for Best Production, as well as GLAAD and IRNE nominations; his writing has received the support of the Jerome Foundation. He is formerly the Director of Playwright Development at MCC Theater and the Director of New Play Development at WET and has worked at most of the play development centers across the country including The O’Neill, New York Stage and Film, The Playwrights Center, The Lark, PlayPenn, New Harmony Project, JAW at Portland Center Stage and others. He is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect and an alumnus of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab.

He’s served on the faculty of the New School for Drama MFA Directing program, the Fordham University MFA Playwriting program, Purchase College SUNY’s BFA Dramatic Writing program and has been a guest artist at The Juilliard School, NYU’s Dramatic Writing MFA program, Carnegie Mellon’s MFA Playwriting program, University of Minnesota’s BFA Acting program and others.

Jonathan Cullen has been a professional actor in the UK since 1985, where he performed with most of the major theatre companies. Since arriving in Portland two years ago, he has appeared as the Mayor in Fucking A at Shaking the Tree Theatre and Fezziwig in Fezziwig’s Fortune for Anonymous Theatre. He is currently a guest instructor in the theater department at PSU, teaching Shakespeare.

Sarika Mehta, born and raised in Chicago’s suburbia, has been living in Portlandia for the past 14 years. She played Sonya in the 2017 MediaRites’ staged reading of the rom-com Washer/Dryer. A non-linear path led her to Sign Language Interpreting but you also might recognize her voice announcing for OPB. Since the pandemic era, she’s been fortunate enough to interpret many local stage productions, arts, and literary events. For the past few years, she’s been kind of addicted to learning the ukulele and ‘pro-craft-inating’ with embroidery projects and sock monkeys. Lately she’s been falling hard for the art and craft of literary translation.

Parth R was born and raised in India and now a part of the Portland community, Parth has performed in various productions throughout his career with some of the most recent being “Seeking Mr. Hyde,” “Enchanted April,” and “Shakespeare’s Skull”. Beyond the theater world, he often dedicates his time performing in commercials, movies and podcasts while spending his summers backpacking around the world. A big shout-out to the audience for supporting the art of performance, and a sincere thanks to Ajai, Lauren Yee and the cast for bringing these amazing stories to stage. Cheers to these shared moments under the spotlight!

Cynthia Shur Petts (she/her) is an actor, writer, and teaching artist. She is thrilled to return to Profile, where she last performed a reading of 101 Humiliating Stories during the Lisa Kron season. Locally Cynthia has worked as an actor with Anonymous Theatre, Corrib Theatre, Third Rail Repertory Theatre, and Pulp Stage, and as a teaching artist with PlayWrite, Inc., Portland Center Stage, and From the Ground UP. She spent many years working as an actor and playwright in Chicago storefront theatres, as well as performing as a standup comedian, storyteller, and improviser around Chicago, and at festivals in Portland, Milwaukee, Toronto, and Honolulu. Cynthia is currently pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at Pacific Northwest College of Art.

Joshua Weinstein was born and raised in Tallahassee, FL, Josh (he/him) moved to Portland in 2011 to be a member of the Portland Playhouse Acting Apprentice Company. It’s been an honor to call Portland home ever since. At Profile: Indecent (co-production with ART) and The Baltimore Waltz (Drammy Award).

(DIRECTOR) Ajai Tripathi is an award winning screenwriter, actor, director and educator. He received his BA in Theatre from OSU. In Corvallis he directed No Exit, Doric Wilson’s Street Theater, Rhinoceros,and Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo. In Portland he’s acted for Theatre Vertigo, Salt and Sage, Original Practice Shakespeare, Speculative Drama, and Teatro Milagro where he worked as Education Director and wrote three original touring plays. He’s worked as an education consultant and acting coach at Northwest Children’s Theatre & School where he also performed as Tenali: The Royal Trickster. He served on PDX Playwright’s administrative team and produced his one person show Osho Returns and shadow plays: The Madness of Dionysus and Cosmogonos.

He’s received an MFA in Screenwriting from the David Lynch Graduate School of Cinematic Arts at Maharishi International University. His screenplay The Rainbow Passage was a semi-finalist at the Portland Screenplay Awards and received Best Feature at the Geneva International Science in Fiction Awards, the play version received a reading at Desert Island Studios and the PNMC Festival. His  play Great White Gets Off and its sequel Great White Gives It Up are currently being produced with Fuse Theatre Ensemble. He is now working on his MAT with an endorsement in Drama at Pacific University.

(Cultural Consultant) Subashini Ganesan-Forbes (she/her) is a choreographer, curator, arts administrator, Chair of the Oregon Arts Commission, and former Creative Laureate of Portland (2018 – June 2021). As a contemporary Bharatanatyam artist, her works are deeply collaborative and showcase the nuanced, universal emotive expressions of Bharatanatyam. Her recent works include collaborations with the University of Oregon, Portland Opera, Middlebury College (Vermont), Third Angle New Music, Ten Tiny Dances, and Portland Center Stage, to name a few. In 2012, Subashini founded New Expressive Works, a vibrant performing arts venue that supports diverse independent performing artists through residencies, artist conversations, and performance seasons.