Our Utopia Workshop

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Cast Bios

Kymberli Colbourne (she/her)

Kymberli Colbourne, she/her (Aurora) - Kymberli graduated from Scripps College with a BA in Theatre Performance and immediately "took her show on the road" touring full-time with the National Theatre Of The Deaf. After two years of performing across the US, she set her sights on the Pacific Northwest, working with The Seattle Shakespeare Festival, Book-It Rep, Seattle Civic Light Opera, Oregon Cabaret Theatre, The Seattle Children's Theatre and Oregon Children's Theatre among many others. You may also have seen her onstage locally at The Broadway Rose most recently in Once (as Baruska) and with Third Rail Rep in The Music Man (as Mayor Shinn, Mrs. Shinn and others) Kymberli is also a resident artist at Bag&Baggage with her first show being Moby Dick Rehearsed! (as Ahab). Other Bag&Baggage favorites include Spinning Into Butter (as Sarah) where she was onstage with playwright Carlos-Zenen-Truillo; The Graduate (as Mrs. Robinson); Dickens Writes A Christmas Carol (as Scrooge); Peter/Wendy (as Hook/Mrs. Darling) and The Island In Winter, or La Isla En Inveirno (as Ma). When not onstage, you can find her in her booth working as a voiceover actor, kayaking on the nearest body of water or camping in the woods with her husband and energetic new puppy!

Taya Dixon (she/her)

Taya Dixon
Columbia

Taya Dixon (she/her/hers) (Columbia) – Taya received her B.F.A in Acting and Performance from Southern Oregon University. This is Taya’s second time performing at Bag&Baggage. You may have seen her in The Crucible in 2014 (as Sarah Good/Girl of Salem). Other roles include: The Muskrat (as Bee); 12 Angry Indians (as Juror 12); and Butterfly (as Ket) for the Yale Indigenous Playwright Festival. Also Hedda Gabler (as Aunt Julia); Love's Labour's Lost (as Berowne); Silkworms (Teresa); and Into the Woods (as Jack’s Mother) all at the Oregon Center for the Arts. Taya is currently working in education at South Meadows Middle School, as an education assistant, and absolutely loves it. Taya loves singing, playwriting, photography, and improv/sketch comedy, as she loves making people laugh and telling them meaningful stories. She would like to acknowledge her family, and thank them, for always telling her to reach for her dreams, even if it means watching her talk to herself all day long, and or quote movies and TV shows that she deems “the peak of comedy”.

Stan Brown (he/him)

Stan Brown (Grove)– Stan holds a Master of Fine Arts in Acting from the University of Idaho and a Bachelor of Arts from Washington State University. You may have seen him in Bag&Baggage’s production of Twelfth Night of the Living Dead (Andrew Aguecheeck). Other companies Stan has worked with include Idaho Rep Theatre, Post Five, OpsFest, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Favorite roles include: Twelfth Night (Malvolio); The Tempest(Stephano) A Doll House (Torvald) and Crimes of the Heart (Doc).. Stan would like to thank his very supportive family .

Sarah Glasgow (she/her)

Sarah Glasgow (she/her)- Sarah holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Performance from Southern Oregon University. This is her first project working with Bag&Baggage and she couldn’t be more thrilled. Other companies Sarah has worked for include The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Ashland New Plays Festival, and The Imposters Theatre Company (Chicago). Sarah is currently working on her M.S. in Speech Language Pathology at Pacific University and looks forward to serving clients across the lifespan.

Gwen Librach (she/her)

As a “seasoned” actress from the South Florida theatrical community, Gwen is proud to join this cast and be a part of a phenomenal original production. A graduate of Emerson College, Boston, with a BFA in Theatre, Gwen has been an actor for the past 30 years. Having recently relocated to Portland she is excited to make her stage debute with Bag&Baggage. Credits include Shaindle in Fiddler On The Roof, Marta, in Company, Edna (Prisoner of 2nd Ave.), Evie (Stop The World I Want To Get Off), Blanche (Broadway Bound), Mabel Cantwell (The Best Man), and various roles in Les Miserables, Bye Bye Birdie, The Mikado, Jekyll and Hyde, Picnic, Oliver, and Marvin’s Room. She is also a performer at various Renaissance Festivals across the country, as The Lady Gwendolyn, Sirena Of Avalon.

Orlando Reyes Cabrera (he/him)

Orlando Reyes Cabrera He/Him/His (Sequoia) – Orlando holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting from Southern Oregon University, and was a member of the Season 14 Apprentice Company at the Portland Playhouse. You may have seen Mr. Cabrera in Portland Playhouse's last season in Titus Andronicus (as Martius).

Orlando is excited for his first performance with Bag&Baggage's Vault Theater. In his spare time he's taking care of his beautiful dog Malia, taking walks through parks, and kicking a soccer ball. He would like to give gracias to his mama y papa, his hermanos y hermanita, and his friends for their continued love and support. Que disfruten el show!

Crew & Production Team Bios

Carlos-Zenen Trujillo (they/them), Playwright

Carlos-Zenen Trujillo
Playwright

Carlos-Zenen Trujillo (they/them) was born in Bejucal, Cuba, and has lived in Oregon since 2006. Carlos acknowledges that they live and work on the ancestral lands of the Kalapuya peoples. Their writing work includes: The Island in Winter or La Isla en Invierno(Inaugural Problem Play Project Commission); Abundancia (Reading; Matchbox Theatre); Christmas, Contigo (Oregon Cabaret); and The Image of the Black Madonna (OSF Writers Group Reading). Their acting work includes: Alfie Byrne in A Man of No Importance; Tutor in Elektra; and Teacher in Small Mouth Sounds (Oregon Center for the Arts at Southern Oregon University); Patrick Chibas in Spinning into Butter (Bag & Baggage Productions); Nurse/Prince/Sampson in Romeo y Julieta (Seattle Shakespeare Company); Letter Writer Three in Tiny Beautiful Things (Rogue Theatre Company); and OSF Acting Company Trainee 2020. Their honors include: ANPF New Voices 2021 Retreat Participant, Certificate of Merit in Dramaturgy (The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui); Irene Ryan Award nominations (A Man of No Importance; Elektra); Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF) ASPIRE Leadership Fellow 2019, KCACTF John Cauble Award. They are also a KCACTF Directing Fellow 2020. Carlos-Zenen has a BFA in Theatre Arts from Southern Oregon University.

Jackie Apodaca (she/her), Director

Jackie Apodaca
Director

Jackie Apodaca (Director) earned her MFA in Acting from the National Theatre Conservatory at the Denver Center Theatre Company and her BFA in Theatre (with high honors) from UC Santa Barbara. She is the Artistic Director of Ashland New Plays Festival and a Professor of Theatre and the Head of Performance at Southern Oregon University. Jackie has worked as an actor, director, and producer in theatre, film, and media, with companies such as Roundabout Theatre Company, Denver Center Theatre Company, National Geographic, Modern Media (Head of Production), Venice Theatre Works (Associate Artistic Director), and Shakespeare Santa Barbara (Producing Director). She is the author of the book Answers from the Working Actor, published by Routledge, and spent more than a decade at Backstage Newspaper, where she was a Contributing Editor. She is grateful to Carlos-Zenen Trujillo for inviting her into this process, and to Bag&Baggage for the warm welcome.

Mandy Khoshnevisan (she/her), Stage Manager

Mandy studied literature, theater, and history (and improvisation) at Stanford University, where she earned a B.A. and M.A. in English. Past B&B appearances include Romeo & Juliet/Layla & Majnun (Lady Capulet), Death and the Maiden (Paulina), Deathtrap (Helga), La Isla en Invierno (Doris), and Much Ado About Nothing (Margaret/Dogberry). Pre-Portland, favorite scripted roles include Into the Woods (Baker’s Wife); My Fair Lady (Mrs. Eynesford-Hill); favorite un-scripted roles include 10 years with the Un-Scripted Theater Company in San Francisco. In Portland, she’s recently been in such shows as Trail to Oregon (Son), The Rocky Horror Show (Eddie/Dr. Scott); Reefer Madness (Mae Coleman); Die Hard: The Musical Parody (Mother Gruber/Inga); and Back to the Future: The Musical Parody (Biff). Mandy also wears numerous backstage hats. Recently, she costumed Body Awareness (Twilight Theatre); and The Mystery of Irma Vep and Heathers, the Musical (Funhouse Lounge). She also directed the bilingual touring production of Judge Torres for Milagro Theatre, and Triassic Parq: the Musical at the Funhouse Lounge. Since moving to Portland in 2013, she has taught at Northwest Children’s Theater, and improvised on mainstages all around town. Recently, she published her first book, Managed Mischief, about improvisation and creativity. At home, she maintains an excess of books, art supplies, and impractical musical instruments.

Melory Mirashrafi (they/she), Dramaturg

Melory Mirashrafi
Dramaturg

Melory Mirashrafi (they/she) is a first-generation Iranian-American theatre artist raised in Hillsboro, Oregon. Melory is the Artistic & Producing Associate at Artists Repertory Theatre and Huntington Playwriting Fellows Co-Facilitator at the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston, Massachusetts. Previous work with Bag&Baggage includes Sequestered Soliloquies 3 & 4; Romeo&Juliet (Leyli&Majnun). Selected directing credits: English (SpeakEasy Stage Co); The God Cluster (Fuse Theatre Ensemble); The Music Man (Assistant Director, Third Rail Repertory Theatre), Shahmaran (Shaking the Tree Theatre). Selected dramaturgy credits: <<when we write with ashes>> (National Queer Theatre); Layalina (NQT). Melory’s writing can be found in the Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays and Routledge’s Troubling Traditions: Canonicity, Theatre, and Performance in the US.

† = B&B Company Artist, sponsored by Linda Morrisson and Andrew Hoffmann

About Bag&Baggage

Mission Statement

The mission of Bag&Baggage Productions is to unpack the stories we carry with us — from anecdotal to epic; from original to classic — using these as the groundwork to create transformative theatrical experiences that explore our shared humanity. Our home base is The Vault Theater in Downtown Hillsboro, and we are proud to be part of the vibrant community in our corner of Washington County.

The Ground We're On...

Bag&Baggage is a predominantly white institution, located in a state that was founded on anti-Indigenous and anti-Black practices; it is crucial to acknowledge we are here today as a result of the sacrifices forced upon the lives and narratives of these people. We particularly reflect on the original inhabitants and caretakers of the land on which The Vault Theater now sits: the Atfalati Kalapuyans, also called the Tualatin people, who today are members of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. In addition to occupying their land, we have been complicit in erasing their stories. We recognize the land itself, with gratitude for the way it supports and sustains us - past, present, and future. We also recognize the stories of those who have been enslaved, marginalized, and colonized in the name of building wealth; their oppression has allowed institutions like our theatre to exist today. In remembering these communities, we honor their legacy, their lives, and their descendants.

If you’d like to learn more about the history of what is now Hillsboro, please visit our friends at Five Oaks Museum and their virtual exhibit, This IS Kalapuyan Land.

If you’d like to help redistribute resources back into indigenous communities, please consider making a donation to Native Arts and Cultures Foundation (NACF) or Native American Youth and Family Center (NAYA).

Show Details

Bag&Baggage Staff