Creative Team
MELODY BROOKS (Co-Creator/Producer), founder and Artistic Director of NPTC, is an award-winning producer, director and dramaturg who has been working in the professional theatre and various educational institutions for 40 years. She has developed and directed a number of notable and award-winning original scripts and innovative classical productions with NPTC. She served as dramaturg and co-director for NPTC's OOBR award-winning production of The Taming Of The Shrew, and dramaturg for She Calls Me Firefly by Teresa Lotz, co-produced with Parity Productions and winner of OUTSTANDING SHORT PLAY in 2018 from the NY Innovative Theatre Awards. Brooks was also Producer and Dramaturg for How to Melt ICE by Amalia Oliva Rojas, co-produced with Boundless Theatre Company, which received 4 LATA Awards, including Best Play and 3 HOLA Award nominations, including Best Production. Brooks recently received the Lee Reynolds Award from the League of Professional Theatre Women, for a theatre woman "active in any aspect of theatre whose work for, in, about, or through the medium of theatre has helped to illuminate the possibilities for social, cultural, or political change." She received a "Trailblazing Women and Arts Institutions Award" from Rhythm Color Associates and a "Spirit of Hope Award" from Speranza Theatre for her career-long support of women theatre artists.
KATRIN HILBE (Co-Creator/Director) is an award-winning Director/Dramaturg working both in Opera and Theatre, in the US and in Europe. In the US, her production of R. Strauss’ Salome for New Orleans Opera won “Best Opera Production” and her production of Julia Pascal´s St Joan won the Hilton Edwards Award for best direction and adaptation at the Dublin Gay Theatre Festival. Select theatre credits: Extrawurst, All Is Plush, Identity Europe, Shooter, Fägfüür, In Bed With Roy Cohn, Breaking The Silence, A Midsummer Night´S Dream, Danton´S Death. Select opera credits: Die Zauberflöte, Die Fledermaus, Hänsel Und Gretel, Falstaff, Pelléas Et Mélisande. Hilbe is a past President of the League of Professional Theatre Women and the President of the IG Kunst und Kultur in Liechtenstein, a Board member of the International Theatre Institute Switzerland, member of SDC, DG, the Playwright Directors Unit of The Actors Studio, and Theater Resources Unlimited.
TESS HOWSAM (Co-Creator/Production Designer) is the Artistic Director of Culture Lab LIC and an accomplished international curator and director with over a decade of experience contributing to NYC's artistic landscape. Known for her innovative approach and cross-disciplinary collaborations, Howsam’s work explores themes of gender, audience engagement, and global artistic dialogues. Her theatrical work has earned a New York Times Critic’s Pick and a feature in New Yorker Magazine; in 2023, she was honored with The League of Professional Theatre Women’s Lucille Lortel Award. As Artistic Director, Howsam has spearheaded numerous exhibitions that walk the line of performative and visual. Highlights include “Instrumental: A Retrospective on the Life & Work of Ken Butler” (2024), “Luminous: The Art of Neon” (2023) and The Inevitability of Absence (2023), presented alongside “The Incomplete Collection” by Linked Dance Theatre bridging visual and theater arts. Deeply committed to international collaboration, she co-curated The Search for Utopia (2024) with Slovakian art center Malý Berlín and served as a jury member for Artiade: The Olympics of Art in Basel, Switzerland. In 2025, Howsam is thrilled to co-curate two exhibitions that foster creative exchange across borders. Art Exchange: America x Italy celebrates cross-cultural artistic collaboration and [Un]Framing Gender: From America to Pakistan explores gender identity and representation through a transnational lens.
SUSAN QUINN (Co-Creator) is the author, most recently, of Eleanor and Hick: The Love Affair That Shaped a First Lady. Among her previous works are A Mind of Her Own: the Life of Karen Horney and Marie Curie: A Life. Her work has been supported by grants from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. Her book Furious Improvisation:How the WPA and a Cast of Thousands Made High Art Out of Desperate Times (Walker Books, 2008) provided the inspiration for a joint undertaking with her husband, Daniel Jacobs. Together, they wrote early versions of what has become It CAN Happen Here!
DANIEL JACOBS MD (Co-Creator) is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, where he served as President and as Director of the Hanns Sachs Library and Archives. He is currently Director of the Center for Advanced Psychoanalytic Studies at Princeton, N.J. He has authored over forty publications that include three essays on Tennessee Williams and a novel, The Distance from Home. It CAN Happen Here! is his first play.
GABY FEBLAND (Puppet & Props Design) is a writer, puppeteer, and illustrator born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. She is the co-founder of Foreshadow (@foreshadow.co), an experimental shadow puppetry company that has performed macabre shadow plays at the 2024 La MaMa Puppet Festival, Carnegie Hall's Weimar Festival, Green-Wood Cemetery, Dixon Place, the Jim Henson Carriage House, and the Puppet Showplace Theater (Boston). Foreshadow's original play, The Spinner, received a 2024 Jim Henson Foundation Workshop Grant. Gaby was a 2024 Emergence Artist Residence at Culture Lab LIC, where she wrote and puppet designed a rat pageant play, The Undercity. She also designed puppets for the U.S. premiere of Simon Longman's Gundog for Silencio Theatre Projects. Her plays have been produced off-Broadway and at Northwestern University, her alma mater. Her writing has been published in McSweeney’s and Spider Magazine. You can find her illustration work in American Libraries Magazine, Sixty Inches from Center, and South Side Weekly, as well as on gabyfebland.art. In her spare time, she enjoys building paper-maché floats for the Coney Island Mermaid Parade. Thank you to Tess, Clio, and Cam.
ERWIN FALCON (Projection Design) is an actor, editor and producer. As a long-time NPTC Companie member, Erwin acted in NPTC's mainstage productions of Romeo & Juliet (Romeo), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Puck), Macbeth (Donalbain), and the OOBR Award-winning Taming of the Shrew (Bartholomew). Erwin has also performed with NPTC’s World Voices, Shakespeare Made Simple, and the Women's Work Short Play Festival. Screen credits include HBO’s Mildred Pierce and CBS’ Blue Bloods. As an editor, Erwin has worked on narrative films, documentaries, and videos for nonprofits and corporations. He is a co-producer and post-production supervisor for the documentary Who We Become on Netflix, and edited multiple videos for NPTC;s Theatre From the Streets series, among other projects. When not acting, editing or producing, Erwin's time is spent fulfilling the whims of his eleven-year-old daughter. Thanks MPH! Love to Lisa & Elise.
CAT GILLESPIE (Production Stage Manager) is a Brooklyn-based stage manager and creative. After graduating from AMDA NYC in 2019, they earned a 2023 Theater Performance BFA at the New School. Their work includes stage-managing The Climate Fables: Ogallala (The Torch Ensemble), the 2024 Meganne George Women’s Work Short Play Festival (NPTC), Tomorrow We Love (Proud Image Theater Company), The Moonshot Tapes & A Poster of the Cosmos (Deep Flight Productions), Summertime (TNS), The Outside and The Moors (TNS), and Forever After (The Other Side of Silence). She has served as assistant stage manager for many innovative companies including Emerging Artists Theatre Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance! They would like to thank their family and friends for their love and support.
JOSH IACOVELLI (Technical Director ) has over 20 years of experience in theatre and television His roles span from production design, art direction and scenic design. PM credits include Romeo and Bernadette, and The Gospel According to Heather at Theatre 555. Favorite design credits include: Broadway and The Bard starring Len Cariou, The Office a Musical Parody, Friends the Musical Parody, The Zero Hour, Hit Her with the Skates, Disaster the Musical and The Book of Merman. Other notable credits include long-running Off Broadway hits such as Danny and Sylvia, Dietrich and Chevalier starring Robert Cuccioli, Cougar the Musical, Sistas the Musical and Missed Connections. Josh received his BA in Theatre and Direction from Stockton College and his MFA from the Actors Studio Drama School at New School University. Joshiacovelli.com
PENELOPE ROSE DEEN (Choreographer/Movement Director) has loved to dance and move ever since she could walk. Growing up as a dancer and dance captain for many productions in her youth, she then officially became a choreographer post getting her degree in Dance, Theatre & Gender Studies at Hunter College. Mostly choreographing musicals and working as a dance teacher for schools and theatres around NYC & Westchester like the Sandbox, Penelope’s movement direction has just recently hit the NYC Indie Theatre Scene in the upcoming Needs More Work Production’s ANTI-GONE & Torch Ensemble’s The Green Apple Play, where Thinking Theater described her work as “fantastically staged." Penelope has worked with NPTC since 2021, currently as an Assoc Program Manager. She has enjoyed contributing her artistic creativity to this production in a new capacity with NPTC.
LISA RENEE JORDAN (Costume Design). Selected design credits include: Fetes de la Nuit (Ohio Theatre);* Drama Desk Nomination–Outstanding Theatrical Experience; World Premiere-Jose Rivera’s The Hours Are Feminine (INTAR Theatre); *HOLA Awards Nomination–Outstanding Achievement–Theatrical Design; Or/Born with Teeth (Santa Fe Playhouse); Theatre Will Not Prepare You For Death (La MaMa); World Premiere-Jose Rivera’s Lovesong, Imperfect (Theater at 14th St Y); Shesh Yak (Rattlestick); Ominous Men, Temple of the Souls, Comida de Puta (MultiStages); Romeo & Juliet (Bryant Park Shakespeare); Boy in the Bathroom, Castronauts (NYMF); Witching Hour/Triangle (Williamstown Theatre Festival); Neglect, and Thicker than Water (EST); Lysystrata (Edinburgh Fringe); Film/TV Credits include: Assistant Costume Designer for "Greatest Beer Run Ever" (Film), "Plot Against America" (HBO Series) Member of United Scenic Artists Local 829. http://www.lisareneejordandesigns.com
SARA GOSSES (Lighting Design) designs with light and space for live performance, events, and visual displays. She’s designed for over 35 world premieres and new adaptations at venues including Lincoln Center, MoMA PS1, Circus Smirkus's Big Top, HERE Arts Center, Studebaker Theater, and houses on Governors Island. At Saks Fifth Avenue, she designed lighting for brands including Chanel, Gucci, Bottega Veneta, Ritz Carlton, Valentino and Off-White, among others. She holds an MFA in Stage Design from Northwestern University and is currently an Assistant Professor at Ithaca College.
ANDY EVAN COHEN (Sound Design/Projections Programming) is a NYC composer, designer, and freelance multi-media artist. Credits include New Light Theatre Project’s The Greatest Hits Down Route 66 (Drama Desk Awards nominee for Orchestrations), The Lights Are On (Henry Hewes Design Awards nomination for Sound Design), (a)loft modulations (Audelco Awards nomination for Sound Design), and many other off-Broadway and regional productions, including Forbidden Broadway: Merrily We Stole A Song and In Bed With Roy Cohn. Andy is currently an adjunct professor at BMCC and CUNY Kingsborough. IG @andyevancohen
Cast
MAX BANK (Ensemble/Harry Hopkins et al.) is a New York City-born, raised, and based actor and improviser. Recent credits include Tad in The Best Seats in the House (New Perspectives Theatre), Juror Eight in Twelve Angry Men (City Gate Productions), and Max in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) (Hudson Classical Theatre Company). He also played Chase in Le Parrot, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival last year. He co-hosts Cage Match, New York's third-longest-running improv show, at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre every Thursday at 10 p.m. and performs with his improv team, Clippy, every other Tuesday at 10 p.m. (also at UCB). Find him online at maxwellbank.net or on Instagram at @thatmaxperson.
ALLIE BELTRAN (Ensemble/Congressman Thomas et al) Credits include NYC: Golem Owned a Tropical Smoothie (Assistant Choreographer). Regional: 42nd Street (Maltz Jupiter Theatre), August: Osage County (Palm Beach Dramaworks), Billy Elliot (Maltz Jupiter Theatre), Fireflies (Hippodrome Theatre), A Christmas Carol (Hippodrome Theatre), I Miss All My Entrances (Hippodrome Theatre), Michael Feinstein and the Palm Beach Pops (Kravis Center), and Our Town (Palm Beach Dramaworks). You also may have seen her in some play readings at the Actors Studio! Film: Picturesque, Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Val and Taylor’s F*ck It List, and Haunts. Thank you to this wonderful team. Love you, Betty. Hi, Donna! IG: @allie.beltran.
DJ DAVIS (Ensemble/Fred Flanagan et al.) is an actor, writer, director, and producer with a passion for storytelling that entertains, challenges, and inspires. You may have seen him in productions such as Stupid F*cking Bird, The Bridge, Pride and Prejudice, and many more. As the founder of Outside Entertainment, DJ is dedicated to creating bold, original work that sparks conversation and pushes creative boundaries. He’s thrilled for you to experience this new and inventive show. “The atmosphere in our world is not conducive to a stress-free life. So, for the next hour or so, I hope you can sit back, relax, enjoy the show, and walk away feeling just a little different than when you came in. I love you, God loves you—namaste.”
EMMA SARAH DAVIS (Ensemble/Eleanor Roosevelt et al.) is an actor and theatre maker with a BFA from Emerson College. She just finished the run of the NYC premiere of her show Roominate (previously in The Philadelphia Fringe Festival ‘24). She is beyond grateful to NPTC and Culture Lab LIC, and would like to thank Melody and Katrin for trusting them to tell this story. Emma also extends her gratitude to every actor in this ensemble for their creativity and dedication. A big thank you to her parents and brothers for their constant loving encouragement. She also thanks her partner and friends for keeping her afloat and filling her days with joy. This play is about the fight for art in times of hardship—even when the government may be against you, never stop creating truthful art. “Don’t just watch—witness… speak up, interrupt power.” —Adrienne Maree Brown
CHASE LEE (Ensemble/Phil Davis et al.) is delighted to be making his debut with NPTC. Recent credits include Macbeth (Shakespeare in the Woods), Romeo & Juliet (Arachne Theater Co., and The Shylock and The Shakespeareans (Untitled Theater Company No. 61). He also recently starred in the short film Echo and in the vertical miniseries My Billionaire Ever After. Chase has trained at Trinity University and the Atlantic Acting School. To check out more of his work, visit chaseleeacts.com and follow him on Instagram @chaseleeacts.
MEGAN LOMAX (Ensemble/Jill et al.) is thrilled to be a part of this collaboration! She was seen on Broadway in the Tony award winning show Skin of Our Teeth at the Vivian Beaumont. Other theater credits include: Small Town Icons (The Tank), No Good Things… (A.R.T/New York) Best Seats in the House and The Great Bluffer (NPTC), 24 Hour Plays: Nationals, Rosie Revere, Engineer (TheaterWorks National Tour) Kudzu (Alabama Shakespeare Festival). T.V: City on a Hill (Showtime). Instagram: @megan_lomax_
JOMACK MIRANDA (Ensemble/Congressman Starnes et al.) is a Brooklyn-bred actor who studied in Europe. His interest in Hallie Flanagan began in 11th-grade history, where he was inspired by her vision of a world where regular artists are paid a living wage—much like a bus driver would be—ensuring legitimate pay for those who hold the mirror to society. He is very happy to be part of this talented ensemble and deeply commends the writing team for curating this experience. He thanks Melody Brooks for always being in his corner, Katrin Hilbe for her precise and free direction, and his family for putting up with him. Love. @jomackmiranda.
NICK RADU-BLACKBURN (Ensemble/Martin Dies et al.) is an Ohio-born actor, writer, director, teaching artist, and all-around collaborator living in Queens, NY. Nick has been busy teaching, acting and playwriting to students ranging from eight to eighteen years old in schools and studio classes with Speranza Theatre Company, where he is also the Education Coordinator. He has been working on new musicals with Across A Crowded Room at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. He is currently working on his musical Lonely Moon and is hard at work on his board game, Nekérwin's Revenge. Nick is excited to be back on stage and is grateful to Katrin, Melody, Tess, and everyone at NPTCand Culture Lab, LIC, for allowing him to play and stretch his acting muscles. And, as always, Nick is most thankful for his Cutie.
THERESA ROSE (Hallie Flanagan) Theresa Rose is grateful to be a part of this vital piece of theater history. Past credits include Buzzkill, Katoya, Adults Only, From the Mixed-Up Files of My Background Check, The Deciders, The Street, Daddy Was the Biggest Stagemother in Texas, and Love and Class in Connecticut. She would like to Thank the cast and creative team for making her feel so welcome in this new space.
CHEYENNE SPRINGETTE (Ensemble/Rose McClendon et al.) is a Pittsburgh-born actor, writer, and filmmaker who currently resides in New York City. She loves all things comedy, lyrical, and brings her knowledge of the craft everywhere she goes. Co-founder of Dartboard Production Company, a non-profit producing new work that aspires to inspire with each coming season, Cheyenne always brings her sense of community and individuality to any role she plays. She takes pleasure in turning nothing into something and believes that now, more than ever, is the time to innovate. This ensemble is full of thinkers who wish to incite change, and Cheyenne couldn’t be happier to be a part of it. Thank you to all producers and creatives of It CAN Happen Here. Special shoutout to Anna Weinstein, PK Delay, and the ones she calls family! She hopes to meet you, color with you, and find inspiration together.