ARTISTIC LEADERS
GABRIEL SHANKS
GABRIEL is a director, writer, producer, and Artistic Director of The Drama League of New York (dramaleague.org). His latest film, INTRE, is in post-production and will premiere in late 2026. Gabriel created and directed the television series EXTRA ROOM and the films THE LEAST UNTRUE, ONE MORE THING, THE DAMNABLE DEPRIVATION OF DMITRI, and HEYBABE; they have been seen at the Madrid International Film Festival (Best Director and Series Nominations), Love and Hope International Film Festival (Best Short Film and Best Director Nominations), Stockholm Film Festival, Harlem International Film Festival, New Masculinities Festival (Opening Night Film), QFlix Philadelphia, Sicily WebFest, AltFest, New Faces New Voices, and more. His television script, THE RECIPE, created with Nilan, was selected for the Orchard Project Episodic Lab and was a Semi-Finalist at the New York Film & Television Festival. Onstage, Gabriel has directed over sixty productions; he was one of the directors of Peculiar Works Project’s VILLAGE FRAGMENTS (OBIE Award), and his work has been seen at LaMaMa, HERE, The Bushwick Starr, Ars Nova, Downtown Art, LPAC, BGSQD, New Ohio, CAP21, Abingdon, Labyrinth, Peculiar Works Project, New Georges and Judson Church (NYC) and venues in Seattle, Baltimore, Washington DC, Atlanta, Dallas, Philadelphia, Chicago, Vienna, Bucharest, Sofia and Budapest, among others. He has taught and lectured on directing across the country.
CHERRYE J. DAVIS
An award-winning actor, poet, playwright, educator, and MC, CHERRYE is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts (PHTS). Theatre: THE NATIONAL PASTIME (Syracuse Stage), HOW TO MOURN AN AMERICAN (Little Island, LPAC), SWEET CHARIOT (New York Stage & Film), AND SHE WOULD STAND LIKE THIS (TMTC/ART-NY Theaters), #BARS (Public Theater), AND THEN I WOKE: A VICARIOUS CATACLYSMIC EVENT (ACS/Downtown Art), THE TROJAN WOMEN (Access Theater), MANNA HATA: THE WONDER CITY (Peculiar Works Project), CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA (Workshop Theater Company), HOPE SPEAKS (TMTC), IMMORTAL: THE GILGAMESH VARIATIONS (Bushwick Starr), BINTOU (TMTC), THE CRUCIBLE (PHTS, NYU), FOR COLORED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE... (NYU). TV/Film: COVERED (Writer/Director, Best Lockdown Film Bridgeport Film Festival), EXTRA ROOM, SCRIBBLES, RAIN, KITTY BAINBRIDGE IS DEAD (Reel 5), FOR FLOW (25 to Life/HBO), COLD APRIL (Burning Clown). Cherrye is the playwright of original works HOW TO MOURN AN AMERICAN, SOLD!, and DREAMS IN SCAR SPACE. Her full- length choreopoem TAPES was presented in The Movement Theater Company’s Ladder Series. She is well-known as a musician and lead vocalist for the acclaimed roots-blues experience The Nervous and the hip-hop/funk outfit DeathrowTull, as well as part of Tony & The Kiki.
CATALIN STELIAN
Homepage | Instagram @catalinmedia
Born in Bucharest and based in New York City, CATALIN won a 2021 Bessie Award for the film collaboration Steel Standing, produced by the Brooklyn Academy of Music. As an editor and producer, his film and television projects include BRUTUS, SEASONS TO TASTE, STAN THE MECHANIC, and BEAR CITY 3, as well as all of A Certain Something’s projects, including EXTRA ROOM, for which he was nominated for Best Editing at the Madrid International Film Festival. As the director of his own media company, CatalinMedia, he has created music videos for Tony & The Kiki, Tom Goss, Eddie Wayne, The Bottom Dollars, and more; his clients include Dallas BBQ, Tony Di Napoli's, New York Pride, Skyy Vodka, Downtown Art, and Josh Cellars. As an actor, his screen work includes the television series NOBODY’S PERFECT, which ran for three acclaimed seasons across Europe, and the films BEARISH, THE DAMNABLE DEPRIVATION OF DMITRI, SKELETON CREW, EXTRA ROOM, HEY BABE, DESPERATE GHOSTS, CHOSEN, and HORSE POWER, which won the 2014 Cottbus Film Festival and was a Golden Paladino Nominee at the Locarno International Film Festival. He is a former company member of the National Jewish Theatre of Romania, and the author of many plays including THE PASSION OF THE DRAMA. Catalin's photography has been seen in galleries and private art collections worldwide.
NILAN (IN MEMORIAM)
Our beloved friend and collaborator Nilan passed away on January 4, 2026.
Nilan was an award-winning writer, director, actor, producer, and leader whose work centered on intersectionality, queer life, and the multiplicity of human experience. As a writer, Nilan’s work includes the plays Heaven, Hell, Or Carolina, A Rock and a Hard Place, FOLKtales: Stories of the Black Diaspora, Endangered Species, Our Precedent, Willie Richard Johnson, We Like To Party, the teleplay The Alphabets, and adaptations of Miss Julie and An Enemy of the People. His play Shadow in the Corner was published in Harlem 9’s OBIE Award-winning 48 Hours In Harlem anthology. He co-authored And Then I Woke (A Vicarious Cataclysmic Event) with Cherrye J. Davis and Gabriel Stelian-Shanks, the pilot Renaissance with Travis LaMont Ballenger, and The Recipe with Gabriel Stelian-Shanks. Nilan co-wrote and starred in Extra Room, the short film Popsicles, the upcoming Intre, as well as the streaming PSA campaign Consent Is Sexy. He was a 2025 recipient of Life Jacket Theatre Company’s Writer’s Room, and was part of CITD’s 2025 delegation to Poland. As a performer, Nilan’s work was seen at PlayMakers Rep, National Black Theatre, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Harlem International Film Festival, Madrid International Film Festival, Miami International Film Festival, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, The Orchard Project, Downtown Art, Bedlam MadLab, Redfern Theatre, New York Shakespeare Exchange, Playback Berlin, Recklinghausen Ruhr Festival, Pridefest, and others. He was a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association, SAG-AFTRA, and the Black Theatre Network. For nine years, he was the Associate Artistic Director of The Drama League of New York. Nilan earned a B.A. from California State University, San Bernardino, and an M.F.A. in Acting from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
AFFILIATED ARTISTS
Erik C. Bruce, Nathaniel P. Claridad, Damion Clark, Alisha Espinosa, Marc Jablonski, Jeffrey James Keyes, Muck McGlade, Brandon Meeks, K.T. Peterson