Watch Ollstein’s PANDORA Online:

Fri, Feb 26 at 5:00 p.m. until Fri, March 19, 2021 Pacific Time

Admission: FREE   Register in advance for this online event   (no promotion code required)

Tune in to a virtual reading of writer and director Laurel Ollstein’s new script Pandora, presented by the Getty in partnership with TheatreWorks Silicon Valley.

This theatrical retelling of the first human female to appear in Greek mythology, asks:

What if the first woman was created and dropped into the modern world?  A woman with no preconceived notions of anything— like beauty, love, or violence?

and…

What if the rest of humanity and the gods

could suddenly see the world

through those clear eyes?

Kacie Rogers* (Pandora)
A two-time NAACP Award winning actress, Kacie Rogers, received her classical training at AMDA College and Conservatory of the Performing Arts. You can find Kacie on screen in her leading role in the feature film, LowLow now available on Amazon Prime and iTunes. She’s also worked with several prestigious theater companies in the Los Angeles area including The Robey Theatre Co., Brimmer Street Theatre Co., The Road Theatre Co., Circle X, Theatre40, the Bootleg Theatre, Theatricum Botanicum, Greenway Court, The Getty Villa Museum, Sacred Fools Theatre Co., The Skylight Theatre, and IAMA!

Eden Malyn* (Dynah)
Eden found her way to NYC via LA via Detroit. Television credits include the upcoming Netflix mini-series Halston, as well as Law & Order: SVU, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Orange Is the New Black, The Good Cop, Living with Yourself, American Horror Story, Castle, Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior, and House of Lies. See her in the Sony Pictures Classics feature, The Climb, which screened at the Cannes Film Festival and Sundance and is now available online. Eden has appeared Off-Broadway at the Westside Theatre in Stuffed, and Behind Closed Doors at Theatre 80 St. Marks, as well as in regional theater productions and at The English Theatre in Frankfurt, Germany.

Bernardo Cubría* (Zeus | Po)
Favorite credits: Blue Bloods, Criminal Minds, NCIS Los Angeles, and Queen of the South. Bernardo has acted in over 50 national commercials for brands such as Toyota and Amazon, and has starred in two Superbowl commercials in the last couple of years. He also has voiced roles in the animated series Elena of Avalor and the hit movie Coco.

Neimah Djourabchi* (Epi)

NY Theater: Thieves (The Public, Amerinda), Jesus in India (Ma-Yi, Theatre at St. Clements), The Inexplicable Redemption of Agent G (May-Yi, Vampire Cowboys), Universal Robots, The Honeycomb Trilogy: Sovereign (Gideon Productions), DreamActs (HERE), Bureau of Missing Persons (4th Street Theatre), Action Philosophers, Hack (The Brick), Richard, Jane, Dick and Sally (Baltimore Center Stage), Othello (Oregon Shakespeare Festival, American Repertory Theater), The Lake Effect (GEVA); Film/TV/Podcasts: High Maintenance, Steal the Stars, Blue Bloods, Gotham, Jessica Jones, Imitation Girl, The Answer. Love to Audrey and Mahyar. www.neimah.info

Mary Beth Fisher* (Hes | Professor)
Mary Beth has worked as an actor, director, acting teacher, and coach in Chicago, NYC, and in theaters all over the country. Her TV/Film credits include Saint Frances, Sense8, Chicago Fire, Chicago Justice, Without A Trace, NYPD Blue, Profiler and others. She has received two Joseph Jefferson Awards, Drama Desk, Lucile Lortel and Bay Area Critics Circle nominations, the L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award, and Chicago’s Leading Lady Award from the Sarah Siddons Society. She was a Beinecke Fellow at Yale University and an Inaugural Lunt-Fontanne Fellow at the Ten Chinmeys Foundation. She has been a proud member of AEA since 1978.

MaryRomi Dias* (Phro)
Romi is thrilled to be here! A veteran of stage and television, past favorite credits include Oedipus El Rey at the Magic Theatre and also at The Wooly Mammoth Theatre, Anna in the Tropics at Seattle Repertory Theatre, Tree of Fire at the Center Theatre Group, The Clean House at The Denver Center, and Williamstown Theatre Festival. TV credits include Criminal Minds, Scandal, Major Crimes, 911, Snowfall, Law and Order, Dirty John, Council of Dads, Lethal Weapon, The Newsroom, The Mentalist, Seal Team, Mistresses, and Queen of the South. Romi is a graduate of Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, and is a recipient of The Princess Grace Award for Acting. She is all about #adoptdontshop and advocate for animals. 

Katherine Hamilton (Stage Directions)
Katherine is a Bay Area actress and director, as well as the FutureWorks Fellow at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley. She has recently directed for Monday Night PlayGround and UCSB Launch Pad, and assistant directed for Indiana Repertory Theatre and TheatreWorks Silicon Valley. She is a graduate of UC Santa Barbara and was a directing apprentice at PlayGround.

Laurel Ollstein (Playwright)
Laurel is a playwright/director based in Los Angeles whose produced plays include They Promised Her the Moon, Laughter, Hope and a Sock in the Eye, CHEESE; Esther’s Moustache, OPA! the Musical, Dorothy Parker Is in the Bath, The Dark Ages, Bias Cut, and Showing Our Age. They Promised Her the Moon had a critically acclaimed West Coast premiere production at The Old Globe theater in San Diego, directed by Giovanna Sardelli, and a Northern California premiere at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley. Ms. Ollstein has written commissions for the Getty Villa Museum, About Productions, New Jersey Repertory, and Playwrights’ Arena, and developed plays with The Actors’ Gang and Cornerstone Theatre Company. Laurel is a recipient of Ovation, Garland, and LA Weekly Theater awards, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and California Arts Council. She directs playwriting programs and writing and arts education in schools, and creates plays on social justice themes. She has been a faculty member with CalArts, UCLA, USC, Loyola Marymount, and Otis College of Art and Design. 

Giovanna Sardelli (Director)
Besides Sardelli’s well-received productions with TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, where she is Artistic Associate and Director of New Works, she has directed and developed plays around the country, including many off-Broadway productions over the past decade. She directed the two most recent productions of Laurel Ollstein’s play They Promised Her The Moon (The Old Globe and TheatreWorks). Sardelli’s other directing credits include Rajiv Joseph’s first professional production, Huck & Holden (Cherry Lane), as well as the world premieres of The North Pool (TheatreWorks), and Animals Out of Paper (Second Stage), for which she was awarded the Joe A. Callaway Award for Best Direction, and the recent production of the Obie Award-winning play Describe The Night at Atlantic Theatre. Her West Coast premiere of Mathew Lopez’ The Whipping Man for The Old Globe theater won her an NAACP nomination for Best Director and her production of Rajiv Joseph’s Guards at the Taj for the Geffen Theatre won the 2016 Ovation Award for Best Production of a Play. Sardelli holds an MFA in acting from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and taught in NYU’s graduate acting program as well as its dance department. Before being invited to train at NYU’s prestigious Director’s Lab program, prior to becoming a director, Sardelli worked as a professional actress for a decade in television and theater.

Taylor McQuesten* (AEA Stage Manager)
Taylor has worked internationally since 2004 as a stage manager, production manager, master electrician, properties designer, sound technician, and stuntwoman. From theater to film, music and live events, credits include SF Sketchfest (assistant technical director), Cal Shakes (master electrician), Legion A/V (head of lighting), Playfaire Productions (swordswoman), The Independent SF (lighting designer), Highlander Films (production assistant), ACT, Center REP, Cabrillo Stage, Hillbarn Theatre, the Magic Theatre, and many more. She also trains mêlée weapons at Davenriche European Martial Arts School under master swordsman Sir Steaphen Fick, and looks forward to returning as tour manager of Evan Rachel Wood and Zane Carney’s band, EVAN+ZANE.

*The Actors and Stage Manager employed in this production are members of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.