The Team

Founding Artistic Director

CRISTINA ANGELES

Cristina is an Afrolatina director, writer, and theater maker, whose mission is to create empathy and conversation by directing new plays and musicals, as well as socially conscious adaptations of classics that place women of color at the forefront. Her work challenges the preconceived notions of what the American Theater can be, while confronting the intersections between our public, private, and political selves.

Cristina holds a BA in Theatre from Barnard College at Columbia University. She has been awarded the 2019-20 Roundabout Directing Fellowship, a Drama League Directing Fellowship, and has served as an Associate Director both on and Off Broadway. Cristina was recently named one of the Broadway Women’s Fund’s “Women to Watch” of 2022, and her recent directing credits include Hilary Bettis’s QUEEN OF BASEL at Theaterworks Hartford and overseeing the North American productions of SIX: THE MUSICAL.

Today, Cristina is the Associate Resident Director at Roundabout Theatre Company, and the Founding Artistic Director of Checkmark Productions, an NYC based company dedicated to developing new work by artists of the global majority, while paying everyone involved the New York City Living Wage of $26/hour. Checkmark most notably produced Eliana Pipes’s play, DREAM HOU$E (2019 Leah Ryan Prize, 2019 O’Neill Finalist), at Ars Nova’s ANT Fest, and reopened after a four-year hiatus by producing a reading series of three new plays in the Summer of 2024.

Up next, Cristina will be directing an evening of short plays at Classic Stage Company and a production of Aaron Posner’s STUPID FUCKING BIRD at Montclair State University.

Website: http://www.cristinaangeles.com/ 

Instagram: @cristinaangeles

Consulting Producer

AYANA PARKER MORRISON

Ayana (she/her) is a creative producer in theater, live events, and across digital platforms. After graduating from NYU Tisch School of the Arts with a degree in Acting and a minor in Africana Studies, she shifted her focus to develop new projects that speak to the spectrum of stories from the African Diaspora. Ayana was the inaugural Producing Fellow with New York Theater Workshop’s 2050 Administrative Fellowship and an alum of the WP Producer’s Lab 21-22' cohort. As Manager of Artistic Production at MCC Theater, she produced many groundbreaking pieces including Bees & Honey, Wet Brain, and NY Times Critic’s Pick, Wolf Play. Currently, as a creative producer at Checkmark Productions, she develops work and cultivates community amongst the industry’s most exciting emerging artists of the global majority. Select freelance producing credits include TENDER NAPALM at HERE Arts Center; SAINTS OF FAILURE, a solo show performed in Fort Greene’s Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church; and NY Times Critic’s Pick, EUREKA DAY with Colt Coeur. She is currently the Associate Artistic Director at WP Theater, and producing SELF-PORTRAITS by Phillip Howze with The Bushwick Starr. Ayana is also a public speaker sharing her philosophy on culturally responsive producing, and her expertise as an industry leader, on various platforms nationwide.

Instagram: @parkermorrison_