Meet the Team
We are a passionate group of people that believe in a mission.
We believe that art can transform lives.
Co-Artistic Director
DESEAN KEVIN TERRY
Desean Kevin Terry is a graduate of The Juilliard School. He is an actor and director. Previous works include Suzan Lori Parks' Father Comes Home from the Wars, where he replaced Emmy winner Sterling K. Brown; A Street Car Named Desire at the Boston Court, and Les Blancs at Rogue Machine Theatre, for which he received the 2017 Ticket Holder award for Best Actor in a play. Television credits include Scorpion, Southland, Shameless, ER, Monk, Harry's Law, The Night Shift, Sleeper Cell, House, Grey's Anatomy, NCIS Los Angeles and more. Film credits include Post Grad, God's Army, Somebody's Mother, States of Grace, Bolden. He has been twice nominated by the NAACP for his stage work and was privileged to work with Cicely Tyson, Vanessa Williams, and Blair Underwood on a Tony winning production The Trip to Bountiful, directed by Michael Wilson. As a director, he helmed Behind the Mask: a compilation of plays from the Negro Ensemble Company, James Baldwin's Blues for Mr. Charlie, George C Wolfe's The Colored Museum, Suzan Lori Parks' Imperciptible Mutabilities in the Rhird Kingdom, and more...
Co-Artistic Director
KEIANA RICHÀRD
Keiana Richard is a native of Nashville, TN. She received her MFA from the University of California, San Diego. Since graduating, Keiana has had the honor of working with some of the country's top theatre companies. Her New York credits include Lincoln Center’s Tony nominated Broadway production of Dividing the Estate, The Pearl Theatre Company’s Ghosts, The McCarter Theatre’s Eclipsed, and The Public/Sundance Lab’s reading of Forgotten World. In Los Angeles, Rogue Arts Ensemble’s Wood Boy Dog Fish, The Hudson Theatre’s Good People, and Center Theatre Groups The Trip To Bountiful. Keiana has also had the pleasure of working on-camera in film and TV, with projects such as Mid-City Blue, Adult Swim’s Delocated, and NBC’s The Player. She also has a passion for using art for education and social change for numerous outreach programs such as The Unusual Suspects Theatre Company and The Young Storytellers. She is thrilled to help bring these incredible stories to life.
Dramaturg / Producer
ARIANE HELOU
Dr. Ariane Helou is a Lebanese American dramaturg and theater scholar, and a CAB company member since 2019. She is a former faculty member in literature, theater history, and French at UCLA and UC Santa Cruz. In addition to her work with CAB, she has been a dramaturg with LA Opera (The Anonymous Lover), Santa Cruz Shakespeare (The Winter's Tale, Romeo and Juliet, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Hamlet, The Liar, The Mandrake), and the Jewel Theatre Company (Master Class). She is the co-editor, with Julia R. Lupton, of Romeo and Juliet, Adaptation and the Arts (The Arden Shakespeare / Bloomsbury, 2022). Ariane is a performing artist whose background spans theater, early music, and opera, and Artistic Producer of the Pasadena-based choral ensemble Artes Vocales.
Marketing Manager/Producer
CRISTIAN KRECKLER
Cristian Kreckler is a marketing professional, designer & photographer, born in Argentina, currently living in Los Angeles. He hates writing about himself in third person, but will do it for the sake of this project. As a marketing professional, he loves putting ideas in motion through critical and creative thinking to bring people together and is passionate about sharing stories and getting messages out into the world to connect with people. Cris’ love affair with photography began with feeling it's better to go through life searching for beauty around him, and the fact that he loves the sound of the shutter of a camera. He loves evocative, dramatic, unusual images. More is more as far as Cris is concerned. His superpower is his overwhelming curiosity, and Cris’ mother is his hero. Other things he loves: videogames (Nintendo fan), meditation, brunch, politics, his pets, and his partner. Find him on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/cristiankreckler
Managing Director
BAILEY J. KOCH
Bailey J. Koch is an alum of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and CSU Long Beach. Bailey has experience as a director, dramaturg, and casting director, among other credits. She has previously worked with Center Theatre Group, The Theater @ Boston Court, Playwrights Horizons, California Repertory Company, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and the Incubator Arts Project, as well as NBC Universal, Showtime, and Warner Brothers studios. She currently works at Capacity Interactive, a consulting firm that specializes in digital marketing for nonprofit arts organizations. Through her role as a Senior Analyst, she has collaborated on marketing strategy with companies such as Carnegie Hall, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Two River Theater, and many others.
Producer
TARINA POUNCY
Tarina Pouncy enjoys sharing stories through acting, directing and producing but is no stranger to rolling up her sleeves and being a production assistant when needed. Hailing from Detroit, MI, she earned a Bachelor's degree from South Carolina State University and an MBA from Wayne State University, all the while performing in plays, doing sketch comedy and even being an on-air radio personality. On stage, she has performed in such classics as A Raisin in the Sun, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and The Old Settler for which she won an NAACP Theatre award. TV credits include Star Trek: Picard, Queen Sugar, Criminal Minds and NCIS. On the silver screen she went toe-to-toe with Denzel Washington in Roman J. Israel, Esq and can be seen in the spoof comedy Something Like a Business starring Kevin Hart. When not performing, she's flying around the world, eating ice cream and volunteering with animal and arts organizations.
our members & Staff
board members
Damali Navarro
Lysa Myles
Quonta Beasely
staff
Desean Kevin Terry
Keiana Richard
Ariane Helou
Cristian Kreckler
Bailey J. Koch
Bruce Lemon
Tarina Pouncy
Associate artists
William Baker