Carson Wright is grateful to be working at Amphibian Stage. Select regional credits include Saturn Return (Undermain Theatre); Blood Hammer Girl (Ochre House Theater); The Lion in Winter, Venus in Fur (Theatre Three); Measure for Measure, The Odyssey, King Lear (Shakespeare Dallas); A Charlie Brown Christmas, The Magician’s Nephew (Dallas Children’s Theater); Artemisia (Circle Theatre); One Flea Spare (Second Thought Theatre); Harvey (WaterTower Theatre); and The Thrush and the Woodpecker (Kitchen Dog Theater); indie features: Pagan Face (dir. Richard Bailey) and The Finale (dir. Christie Vela); voiceover: Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, The Wrong Way To Use Healing Magic, and other anime distributed by Crunchyroll. Carson holds a B.F.A. in Theatre from Southern Methodist University and is proudly represented by the Kim Dawson Agency.

Shayan Hooshmand is an Iranian-American actor and director based in New York. Shayan serves as Co-Artistic Director of The Elif Collective, where he develops and directs new interactive plays. Most recently, Shayan directed Elif’s workshop production of GREENHOUSE as part of Off the / Lane’s ColLab program. Previous acting credits include: AJAX (Kambiz, Boise Contemporary Theater), The Thousand and One Nights (First Sheikh/Ali Baba/others, La MaMa), and Windows (Zeezo, Feature Film with Degas Productions). shayanhooshmand.com

Many thanks to Habib, Kareem, and Amphibian Stage for the chance to tell this beautiful story again. And thank you for coming to learn about Iran. This story represents just the first of many ugly U.S. interventions in our beloved homeland. Now is the time to defend ordinary Iranians from further U.S.-Israeli war crimes – and from the Islamic Republic of Iran’s mass executions, torture, internet blackouts, and street massacres of peaceful protesters. Please consider donating to the Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRA) at https://www.hra-iran.org/, whose human rights abuse documentation is crucial in a world of misinformation. #ژن_ژیان_ئازادی #NoWarOnIran #FreePalestine

David Mattar Merten David is a New York based Arab-American artist whose recent credits include An Enemy of the People on Broadway with Jeremy Strong and the recent Off-Broadway productions of Richard II with Michael Urie at Red Bull Theatre and The Beacon with Kate Mulgrew at Irish Rep. David has developed work with 2nd Stage, La Jolla Playhouse, Transport Theatre Group, Clubbed Thumb, Bay Street Theatre, The Flea Theatre, and Cherry Lane Theatre. Education: MFA in Acting from Brown University/Trinity Rep, BFA in Acting from Ball State University.

This is Randy’s first production at Amphibian Stage, and being a part of this incredible show, toward the beginning of its brilliant creative conception, is icing on the cake. He has appeared at many stages across the DFW area. His most recent roles include Tevye in FIDDLER ON THE ROOF at Garland Summer Musicals, Hetchman in THE HATMAKER’S WIFE at Circle Theatre, Monsieur Bouc in MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS at Theatre Arlington, and this coming December he will be reprising his role of Fezziwig in Dallas Theater Center’s annual production of A CHRISTMAS CAROL. Randy is also a voice actor for Crunchyroll, and can be heard in many anime series. Most Notably, he has the honor of voicing both Emporio Ivankov and Markus Mars in ONE PIECE. Randy is a member of Actor’s Equity.

Jovane Caamaño is thrilled to be making theatre with Amphibian Stage again!

Other regional theatres with which he’s worked include Kitchen Dog Theater, Stage West Theatre, Circle Theatre, Undermain Theatre, Theatre Three, Hip Pocket Theatre, Danielle Georgiou Dance Group, Theatre Arlington, and Second Thought Theatre. He also performed in three seasons of the Trinity Shakespeare Festival, multiple readings with MusicalWriters.com, and in Wishing Star Productions’ national tour of Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer the Musical.

Jovane earned his BFA in Theatre with an emphasis in Musical Theatre from TCU. He is passionate about his work teaching theatre and other fine arts at Key School and Training Center in Fort Worth and teaching with Story Stage.

Habib Yazdi is an Iranian-American playwright and filmmaker. His play AJAX, about the 1953 U.S. coup in Iran, was developed at The New Group and Bay Street Theater and premiered at Boise Contemporary Theater earlier this year. It will receive a subsequent production at Amphibian Stage this fall. He is a recipient of South Coast Repertory’s Elizabeth George Commission and a member of The Writers’ Room at Geffen Playhouse.

Habib produced and directed United States of Comedy, a five-part PBS series following emerging comedians around the country. His films have screened internationally at festivals including St. Louis, Brisbane, Brooklyn, Vail, and Pan African, and at institutions including the Barbican Centre, the de Young Museum, and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

Habib is an alum of the Sundance x ISF Building Bridges Fellowship, Warner Bros. Discovery Access Directors Program, Mentorship Matters Writing Lab, New York Stage and Film Workshop, and Gotham Week. He earned his M.F.A. from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, where he received the Oliver Stone Screenwriting Award and the Goldberg Play Prize.

Kareem Fahmy is a Canadian-born playwright and director of Egyptian descent. He received the 2022 Woodward/Newman Playwriting Award (for American Fast), a NYSCA/NYFA Playwriting Fellowship, the Janet Sloane Literature Residency at Yaddo, is a two-time finalist for the National Showcase of New Plays, and was named a Rising Leader of Color by TCG. American Fast is receiving a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere at Artists Repertory Theatre, City Theatre, and InterAct Theatre. A Distinct Society will receive a co-world premiere at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley and Pioneer Theatre. Dodi & Diana (O’Neill NPC Finalist) received a World Premiere at Colt Coeur. Other plays include Pareidolia, The In-Between, and an adaptation of the acclaimed novel The Yacoubian Building. Kareem’s work has been seen at Atlantic Theatre Company, Denver Center, Northlight Theatre, Capital Repertory Theatre, New York Stage & Film, and more. Commissions: Artists Repertory Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre/Sloan, Colt Coeur. Fellowships: The Old Globe, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Sundance Theatre Lab. Co-founder/Chair of the Middle Eastern American Writers Lab. MFA (Theatre Directing), Columbia. www.kareemfahmy.com

Leah Mazur, MFA University of Kansas, is a multidisciplinary scenographer (scenic/lighting/costume designer) and visual artist based in the DFW metroplex.

Select credits include productions at Spinning Tree Theatre, Unicorn Theatre, Kansas Repertory Theatre (Kansas City), Lake Dillon Theatre Company (Colorado), Cape May Stage (New Jersey), Anacostia Playhouse, Scena Theatre (Washington D.C.), Amphibian Stage, Theatre Three, Altar’d Playhouse, SheDFW, Stage West, Undermain Theatre, Circle Theatre, Dallas Theater Center (DFW), Art Haus (New York), RuPaul’s Drag Con (Los Angeles), and Edinburgh Fringe Festival (Edinburgh, Scotland).

Upcoming projects include work at Second Thought Theatre, Amphibian Stage, Dallas Children’s Theater, Everyman Theatre, and Undermain Theatre. She is currently an Associate Professor and head of the Design & Technology BFA program in the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance at the University of Texas at Arlington.

IG: @lmazur
Lmazurdesign.com

David Lanza has been sound designing in DFW for some time now, is excited to still be sound designing, and looks forward to sound designing more in the future. He also loves the Phibs always and forever. Pro-tip: eat half of your cookie now, and save the other half for a late night snack after the show. Follow David Lanza Audio on Facebook or if you want to know what he was up to 10 years ago, go to www.DavidLanzaAudio.com. He thinks he has an Instagram, but isn’t entirely sure how to use it. Or look up the LiveJournal he had in high school. Love to Maggie, Peter, and the Oxford comma.

Kaitlin Hatton is a DFW based stage manager and props designer and is excited to be working with Amphibian Stage again! Recent stage management for Amphibian Stage includes Bull in a China Shop, Rift of White Lies, Rooted, The Handless King, Baba, Spaceman, The Hollow, Egress, Hans & Sophie, She-Wolf, Gutenberg! The Musical!, Babette’s Feast, Lonely Planet, and Artist Descending A Staircase. Kaitlin has previously stage managed or designed for Stage West, Second Thought Theatre, Undermain Theatre, Fort Worth Opera, WaterTower Theatre, and Circle Theatre. Kaitlin holds a BFA in Theatre – Design and Technology from Texas Wesleyan University and teaches Stage Management there. She is a member of Actors’ Equity Association and received the 2019 Live Theatre League Bill Garber Young Artist Award.

Danny King is an award-winning stage magician and mime artist. He has won first place in Stage Magic at the International Brotherhood of Magicians competition and Houdini’s Magic Convention, as well as the People’s Choice Award at the Midwest Championship of Close-Up Magic. He is also a National Champion in Mime through the International Thespians Society. Danny holds degrees in Theater Arts, an MBA, and Computer Science. He is thrilled to contribute his magic expertise to AJAX.

Sherese is thrilled to join Amphibian Stage as Assistant Director of Ajax and grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with this incredible team! She is a director, theatre educator, and acting coach with over a decade of experience creating theatre and developing young artists. She is the founder of Staged Smart, an actor training company, and currently teaches theatre in the DFW area. Sherese holds an M.A. in Educational Theatre from New York University, and is currently pursuing her M.F.A. in Directing at the University of Idaho.