Karen Alvarado is a theater artist from south Texas with Latina and indigenous ancestry. Alvarado works as an actress, director, producer, and college instructor. She received her MFA in acting from the conservatory at Rutgers Mason Gross. Her artistry draws on Meisner-based acting, Ping Chong + Company methods of devising, Williamson movement, as well as culturally rich and history inspired storytelling. Alvarado has been an instructor of acting at Rutgers University, George Street Playhouse, NJPAC, Luna Stages, Poetic Theatre Productions and CoLAB Arts. As an actor, she recently appeared in repertoire as Thea Elvstead in Hedda Gabler and Camillo in Winter’s Tale(Bedlam/Irondale Center), Mistress Quickly in BEDLAM: the Series, and Johnna in August: Osage County (Delaware REP). As the co-artistic director of Thinkery & Verse she has produced award-winning plays at Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the critically acclaimed Thou Shalt Not in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Learn more at www.karenalvarado.com and www.thinkeryandverse.org.

Debjani Banerjee has been a theatre practitioner in New Jersey for over 16 years. She was one of the guiding committee members who helped shaped ICS Theatre, a South Asian Theatre company based out of Middlesex County, New Jersey. She possesses a strong understanding of different acting techniques, dramaturgy and various aspects of stagecraft and is adept at both proscenium and black box theatre. She has played lead roles in plays directed by Mahesh Dattani and Dr. Farley Richmond and local directors like Dan Swern (Co-lab Arts), Catherine Le Moreux (Dragonfly Arts), Subhashis Das (Epic Actors’ Workshop) and Indranil Mukherjee and has traveled to various theatre festivals in the US. She has attended several workshops by Shakespeare Theatre NJ, Bond Street Theatre (NYC), National School of Drama (Mumbai), OffBeat Theatre (India), Mahesh Dattani and Antu Yacob. Debjani was also associated with South Asian Theatre Festival (NJ) in different capacities from 2015 through 2017. Debjani holds a Masters' degree in Applied Psychology and works in the non-profit sector.

Chantal Jean-Pierre is thrilled to be working on this amazing project with coLAB Arts. She has graced the stages of several reputable regional theaters around the country performing classics as well as contemporary works such as the title role in both Cincinnati Shakespeare Company and Orlando Shakespeare Theater productions’ of “Antony and Cleopatra”, Hostess Quickly and Alice in “Henry V” at Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey.  She performed in the west coast premiere of “Fairview” at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, the critically acclaimed Haitian-Cuban production of “Our Town” at Miami New Drama, "A Raisin in the Sun" at Crossroads Theatre Company, “Sheila’s Day” at Hartford Stage, “King Lear” at the Folgers in Washington DC with Andre De Shields in the title role and a many more. She has guest starred on a number of television shows such as: The Blacklist, FBI: Most Wanted, Blue Bloods, New Amsterdam, The Good Fight, Law & Order: SVU...etc.  Chantal is soon to be featured in the new series, Diara From Detroit on BET+.  Find out more about her: https://www.chantaljean-pierre.com .

Melissa Madera, MST, MA, PhD Originally from Washington Heights, New York, Dr. Melissa Madera is a queer, first generation Dominican-American. She is the founder and Jill of all trades at The Abortion Diary (the only audio archive of abortion stories), which she was inspired to create by her own abortion experience as a teenager. Since beginning the project in July 2013, she has listened to and recorded over 300 people share their reproductive experiences. Melissa is also an independent consultant, who has worked as a special projects consultant at Plan C Pills, a public health campaign that normalizes the self-directed option of abortion pills by mail. She is also an Affiliated Researcher on Project SANA (Self-managed Abortion Needs Assessment), an interdisciplinary research group at The University of Texas at Austin that researches self-managed abortion in the United States. An expert on abortion story-sharing and listening, she works to center the voices of people who have had abortions and end abortion (an all SHRH related) stigma in all facets of her life.