Keynotes 

Opening Keynote
Friday, November 5th at 7:30pm (EDT)

Chil Kong began his career in theater garnering multiple awards for his innovative reimagining of American classics and developing groundbreaking new works as artistic director of theater companies in Boston, San Diego, Seattle, and in Los Angeles as the Co-Artistic Director of the critically acclaimed Lodestone Theatre Ensemble. After a successful career in theater, Chil was tapped as the creative director of a film fund which focused on English based stories for the Asian market. He has returned to his hometown serving as the Artistic Director of Adventure Theatre MTC in Glen Echo Maryland.

Alvaro Saar Rios is a Texican playwright living in Chicago.  His plays have been performed in New York City, Hawaii, Chicago, St. Louis and all over Texas.  His award-winning play Luchadora! is published by Dramatic Publishing. He is a veteran of the US Army and co-founder of The Royal Mexican Players, a national touring performance troupe. Alvaro teaches playwriting at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and is Playwright-In-Residence at Milwaukee's First Stage.  He is currently adapting Matt de la Peña's Carmela Full of Wishes, a co-commission for Chicago Children's Theatre and Omaha's Rose Theater. www.alvarosaarrios.com  Twitter/Insta: @realCrazyMex 

Closing Keynote Panel
Saturday, November 6th at 4:30pm (EDT)

Omi Osun Joni L. Jones' work is committed to exploring strategies for promoting healthy communities through personal and communal Joy. She employs Black Feminist aesthetics and theatrical jazz principles in her performance work, her pedagogy, her ethnographic research, and her facilitation. She has performed at The New Black Fest (NYC), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), and Links Hall (Chicago), and has served as a workplace facilitator with Thousand Currents (International), NoVo Foundation (NYC), and Solidaire (Bay Area). Her dramaturgical work includes August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean and Shay Youngblood’s Shakin’ the Mess Outta Misery—both under the direction of Daniel Alexander Jones, as well as Sharon Bridgforth’s con flama under the direction of Laurie Carlos.  Among her ethnographic works are Searching for Ọ̀ṣun—a performance installation derived from Spiritual and academic research surrounding the Divinity of the River; and Theatrical Jazz: Performance, Àṣẹ, and the Power for the Present Moment (Ohio State University Press)—a communal ethnography focusing on the work of three major theatrical jazz practitioners.  Her scholarship has appeared in The Drama Review, Obsidian, and Theatre Journal as well as solo/black/woman and Blacktino Queer Performance. Her training includes activist art with Robbie McCauley, theatrical jazz with Laurie Carlos, and a Ph.D. in Educational Theatre from New York University. She is Professor Emerita from the African and African Diaspora Studies Department at the University of Texas at Austin.

Lisa L. Biggs, Ph.D. is an award-winning actress, playwright and performance studies scholar whose artistic work, scholarship and teaching all investigate the role of the arts and performance in movements for social justice. A former member of the Living Stage Theatre Company, she has appeared in productions at Cultural Odyssey, Links Hall, the African Continuum Theatre, the Kennedy Center, Woolly Mammoth theatre and many more. In 2017, the Knight Foundation supported the production of her most recent play, After/Life, about the experiences of women and girls during the1967 Detroit rebellion. Dr. Biggs's research has been published in Theatre Journal, Solo/Black/Woman, Applied Theatre and the Criminal Justice System, and Black Acting Methods. Beyond Incarceration, her forthcoming book with the Ohio State University Press, is based on more than 10 years of detailed ethnographic fieldwork into the practices of theatre programs for women incarcerated in the U.S. and South Africa. Dr. Biggs currently serves as the John Atwater and Diana Nelson Assistant Professor of the Arts and Africana Studies at Brown University.

Toya Lillard is Executive Director of viBe Theater Experience. She has directed plays, developed curricula, led advocacy efforts and implemented innovative teaching artist training programs both in and out of New York City schools. Prior to joining viBe, Toya served as Director of. School Programs for The New York Philharmonic’s Education Department, where she helped to develop its nationally recognized School Partnership Program. In addition to leading viBe, Toya is a facilitator of “difficult conversations” around racial equity and inclusion; most recently having served as a reflection facilitator for The National Guild for Community Arts. Education’s Anti-Racism as Organizational Compass Series. Toya is part-time faculty at The New School, where she teaches Collaborative Theatre Practice, and serves on the Cultural Change Taskforce. Toya serves on the Board of the New York City Arts in Education Roundtable, where she is Chair of the TaskForce on Equity and Inclusion. Toya is also an Affiliate Representative on the Board of the Downtown Brooklyn Arts Alliance. Toya holds a B.A. from Vassar College, and an M.A. from New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study.