DTC Announces New Diane And Hal Brierley Resident Acting Company Member

2017 Regional Theatre Tony Award Recipient Dallas Theater Center (DTC) announced that Christopher Llewyn Ramirez will be joining the Diane and Hal Brierley Resident Acting Company at the beginning of the 2018-2019 season.

Ramirez is a 2013 graduate of Baylor University where he received his BFA in Theatre Performance. He has performed on stages across Dallas-Fort Worth, including recent DTC productions of Hood: The Robin Hood Musical Adventure, Hair and Public Works Dallas's production of The Tempest. Ramirez is a former participant in DTC's Project Discovery, an award-winning educational program that provides in-depth theater experience for thousands of teenagers in north Texas at no cost to the school (including tickets, teacher training, study guides, workshops and buses). Finally, he has served in the education departments at DTC, AT&T Performing Arts Center, Junior Players, and Cara Mia Theatre Co.

"I am thrilled to welcome Chris Ramirez into the Brierley Resident Acting Company," said DTC Enloe/Rose Artistic Director Kevin Moriarty. "For the past several years I have enjoyed his work onstage at theaters throughout our community and onstage at DTC as Friar Tuck in Hood: The Robin Hood Musical Adventure, Woof in Hair and in our Public Works Dallas production of The Tempest. Chris's acting is filled with passion; he has a lively sense of humor, is a skilled singer and is a brave and bold collaborator who works from a place of joy. As a former DTC Project Discovery student and, years later, a teaching artist in our education programs, Chris has an up close, in person connection to the work we do both on stage and off. His commitment to artistry, education and community make him the perfect match for our acting company."

"Joining the Brierley Resident Acting Company is honestly a childhood dream come true," said Ramirez. "Not having much access to professional theatre growing up, it was through DTC's Project Discovery program that I was able to see professional work for the first time, and decide then and there what my career choice would be. At the age of 15, I would sit in the Kalita Humphreys Theater and actually say the words, 'I'm going to perform on that stage one day for future PD kids.' Now, knowing that I will have the opportunity to share the stage and learn from the company members that I grew up idolizing is truly humbling. As an educator, I am so honored and thankful to partake in a Tony Award-winning company that provides not just great art, but more importantly, incredible outreach and education programs that I know will impact people the way DTC impacted me all those years ago!"

Moriarty formed DTC's Brierley Resident Acting Company in 2009 to develop and nurture professional actors within the community, expand DTC's artistic profile and create ongoing collaborative relationships with artists. Ramirez will be joining fellow Brierley Resident Acting Company members Ace Anderson, Kieran Connolly, Chamblee Ferguson, Tiana Kaye Johnson, Liz Mikel, Sally Nystuen Vahle, Alex Organ and Steven Michael Walters.

Christopher Llewyn Ramirez received his BFA in Theatre performance from Baylor University in 2013. His stage credits include Hair, Hood: The Robin Hood Musical Adventure, Public Works Dallas's The Tempest (Dallas Theater Center). Elliot, A Soldiers Fugue, The Great Distance Home (WaterTower Theatre). Empathitrax (Second Thought Theatre) It Shoulda Been You, Titanic (Uptown Players); Zoot Suit, blu, Crystal City 1969 (Cara Mía Theatre Co.) Hands on a Hardbody (Theatre Three); The Winters Tale, Pericles, The King's Face (Shakespeare Dallas); South Pacific (Lyric Stage); and assistant director of RENT (Junior Players). Chris is represented by the Kim Dawson Agency. He taught high school theatre for three years at the Jack E. Singley Academy in Irving, TX where his UIL one act play team advanced to the 6A state meet with "Shipwrecked! An Entertainment, the Amazing Adventures of Louis De Rougemont (As told by himself)" in 2016. Chris currently teaches in the DFW area for theatres such as Dallas Theater Center, AT&T Performing Arts Center, Junior Players, and Cara Mia Theatre Co.

Diane and Hal Brierley have been deeply involved with Dallas Theater Center - as generous donors and as immensely dedicated volunteers - for more than 25 years. Diane has served on the Board of Trustees, the Executive Committee of the Board, Chair of the DTC Guild, Chair of CenterStage Gala, Chair of the 50th Anniversary Gala and a member of numerous committees. Diane and Hal have deep admiration for Dallas Theater Center's artistic work and for the talent represented on stage. In the fall of 2009, the Brierleys made a significant commitment to support the vision and future of the Theater with a gift to name the Diane and Hal Brierley Resident Acting Company. In addition to their support of Dallas Theater Center, the Brierleys remain very active in the community. Their main endeavors have been the arts (AT&T Performing Arts Center, Shakespeare Dallas, The Dallas Opera, Dallas Symphony Association, TACA, Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden, Dallas Black Dance Theatre), animals (the Dallas Zoo and the SPCA), and healthcare (American Cancer Society, Baylor Medical Center, UT Southwestern Medical Center), and to United Way of Metropolitan Dallas. They devote many hours of service as board members and volunteers and give generously across the City.

ABOUT Dallas Theater Center:

One of the leading regional theaters in the country and the 2017 Regional Theatre Tony Award Recipient, Dallas Theater Center (DTC) performs to an audience of more than 100,000 North Texas residents annually. Founded in 1959, DTC is now a resident company of the AT&T Performing Arts Center and presents its Mainstage season at the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre, designed by REX/OMA, Joshua Prince-Ramus and Rem Koolhaas and at its original home, the Kalita Humphreys Theater, the only freestanding theater designed and built by Frank Lloyd Wright. DTC is one of only two theaters in Texas that is a member of the League of Resident Theatres, the largest and most prestigious non-profit professional theater association in the country. Under the leadership of Enloe/Rose Artistic Director Kevin Moriarty and Managing Director Jeffrey Woodward, DTC produces a seven-play subscription series of classics, musicals and new plays and an annual production of A Christmas Carol; extensive education programs, including the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award-winning Project Discovery, SummerStage and partnerships with Southern Methodist University's Meadows School of the Arts and Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts; and many community collaborations. In 2017, in collaboration with SMU Meadows, DTC launched Public Works Dallas, a groundbreaking community engagement and participatory theater project designed to deliberately blur the line between professional artists and community members, culminating in an annual production featuring more than 200 Dallas citizens performing a Shakespeare play. Throughout its history, DTC has produced many new works, including The Texas Trilogy by Preston Jones in 1978; Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men, adapted by Adrian Hall, in 1986; and recent premieres of Miller, Mississippi by Boo Killebrew; Hood: The Robin Hood Musical Adventure by Douglas Carter Beane and Lewis Flinn; Bella: An American Tall Tale by Kirsten Childs; Clarkston by Samuel D. Hunter and Moonshine: That Hee Haw Musical by Robert Horn, Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally. Dallas Theater Center gratefully acknowledges the support of our season sponsors: Texas Instruments, American Airlines, Lexus and NBC 5.

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