Brown/Trinity Rep MFA Programs Present SHE KILLS MONSTERS and HOW WE GOT ON this May

The Brown/Trinity Rep MFA Programs end their 2018-19 season with two plays in rep, How We Got On by Idris Goodwin, and She Kills Monsters by Qui Nguyen. She Kills Monsters, directed by Tatyana-Marie Carlo ('20) tackles grief through one of the most popular role-playing games, Dungeons & Dragons. How We Got On, directed by Josiah Davis('20), is a coming-of-age story for three young hip hop artists in the suburbs growing up alongside a new genre of music. All performances will take place in rep from May 3 - 19 at thePell Chafee Performance Center, 87 Empire Street, Providence. Tickets are on sale now at Trinity Rep's box office, by phone (401) 351-4242, or online atwww.TrinityRep.com/MFAShows.

Both set in the suburbs of the Midwest, these shows send their characters on a journey of self-discovery, but through vastly different circumstances. These plays are directed by second-year directing class and feature the Brown/Trinity Rep MFA class of 2020 acting students. This marks the Rhode Island premiere of How We Got On and the first production ofShe Kills Monsters at Brown or Trinity Rep, an exciting prospect to Providence audiences.

She Kills Monsters is a story of loss, love, and lore told through one of the world's most popular role-playing games, Dungeons & Dragons. When Agnes loses her younger sister, Tilly, in an untimely car accident, she discovers a new side of her sister's life in her role-playing notebook. After enlisting the help of a "Dungeon Master" named Chuck, Agnes must play through Tilly's campaign with her team of mighty warrior women in an imaginative and action-packed saga to preserve Tilly's memory.

Performances for She Kills Monsters are May 3, 5, 6, 11, and 17 at 7:30 pm, with 2:00 pm matinee performances on May 12 and 18.

Tatyana-Marie Carlo is a theater director from Miami, FL and the former Associate Director of Seminole Theatre, a performing arts center that she helped to reopen after a 40 year closure. Previously, she was the Artistic Director of Microtheater Miami, where she integrated bilingual productions in Spanish and English and spearheaded the Micro Theater for Kids, a children's theater initiative. She continues to dedicate herself to Latinx theater performance, spending much of her time with Rhode Island Latino Arts and Trinity Rep's summer programming, Teatro en El Verano. Teatro en El Verano produces bilingual productions of Shakespeare that are free to the public, touring throughout Rhode Island and Southern New England.

The second part of the rep is Idris Goodwin's How We Got On. Hank, Julian, and Luann are three talented musicians hoping to become the next big hip-hop stars of the 1980s. Their suburban community isn't suited to fulfill their dreams, though. They must endure the pangs of high school, rivalries, and family dysfunction in order to chase their dreams of making music. A break beat DJ narrates while she spins their lives on stage in this coming-of-age story about the roots of rap.

Performances for How We Got On are May 4, 10, 12, and 18 at 7:30 pm, and 2:00 pm matinee performances on May 5, 11, and 19.

Josiah Davis is a Los Angeles based director, choreographer, and actor from Dallas, TX. He is a graduate from the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television, a current Brown/Trinity MFA Directing Candidate 2020, and is the Associate Artistic Director of On The Verge Repertory Theatre in Santa Barbara onthevergefest.org. Josiah's work melds expressive movement, live music, emerging technology, and ancestral ritual to give new life to physical storytelling. He also does work in projection, video editing, sound, and lighting design. His recent production of Outcry by Thais Francis, a collision of Emmett Till, Trayvon Martin, Amadou Diallo addressing police brutality and being black in America, was featured at the Creative Artist Agency in Los Angeles. His directing credits include: Sweet Child by Roxie Perkins, From White Plains by Michael Perlman,Trouble In Kind by Caridad Svich. At Brown/Trinity Venus by Suzan-Lori Parks, Mirage by Kyla Searle, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, and How We Got On by Idris Goodwin. Upcoming, he will be directing Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage at Theatre at Monmouth. He also works in production at The Geffen Playhouse (Assistant Directing under Rainn Wilson/Oliver Butler on Thom Pain by Will Eno, William Friedkin on The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter, John Rando on Big Sky by Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros, and Tyne Rafaeli on Actually by Anna Ziegler), the Walt Disney Concert Hall REDCAT Theatre, The Los Angeles Theatre Center, and Steppenwolf West. He has also appeared on Transparent (Amazon), Glee (Fox), Idiotsitter, (Comedy Central), Killer Kids(Lifetime), and Buzzfeed.

The Brown/Trinity Rep MFA Programs provide a three-year professional training program for eighteen students under the auspices of an Ivy League university and Rhode Island's Tony Award-winning theater company. Brown University's Department of Theater and Performance Studies is internationally recognized for the quality of its faculty and instruction. Trinity Rep, with its deep tradition of resident artists, provides powerful artistic assets and creates a firm foundation for a new generation of theater artists.

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