Playwrights Foundation

STAFF

Jessica Bird Beza

Jessica Bird Beza, Executive Artistic Director (she/her) is a Bay Area based director and producer. She has specialized in interim leadership positions including: Interim Associate Artistic Director & Interim Associate Producer at The Old Globe, Interim Associate Producer at La Jolla Playhouse, and Interim General and Producing Manager at Mo`olelo Performing Arts Company. Other select roles include National New Play Network Producer in Residence and Casting Director at San Diego Repertory Theatre as well as multiple consultant positions supporting casting, producing and fundraising.

Throughout her career, she has had a special focus on developing new work, producing multiple new play festivals, and had the opportunity to work, as a director or producer, with living playwrights such as Lindsay Joelle, Kait Kerrigan, JC Lee, BD Wong, PigPen Theatre Co., Laurel Ollstein, Thomas Gibbons, Herbert Siguenza, Inda Craig Galvan, Tom Salamon, and many more. She also served as Associate Director on the current Tony award winning Broadway musical COME FROM AWAY from its world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse in 2015 to Broadway in 2017.

She has developed new work at Theatreworks Silicon Valley, American Conservatory Theatre, The Old Globe, La Jolla Playhouse, San Diego REP, Diversionary Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Ford’s Theatre, NYU Musical Theatre Graduate Program, and Playwrights Foundation. Select directing projects include: a San Francisco based Urinetown: the musical in ACT’s conservatory program, NNPN rolling world premiere of Uncanny Valley at San Diego REP, a surrealist interpretation of God of Carnage at New Village Arts, Car Plays (literally in a car) during La Jolla Playhouse’s Without Walls Festival as well as co-writing and directing the BRAVO award winning one-woman show Woman in the Mirror: A Dancer’s Journey starring Michael Jackson impersonator Devra Gregory. You can visit her directing website at www.jessicabird.net.

Jessica holds a B.A. in Music & Theatre from Point Loma Nazarene University and a Master of Arts in Nonprofit Leadership and Management from the University of San Diego.

Jeffrey Gan

Jeffrey Gan, Literary Manager (he/him) is a dramaturg, performance maker, and arts researcher. He recently completed a PhD in the Performance as Public Practice program at the University of Texas at Austin; his dissertation compared performance practices among Dutch-Indonesian diaspora communities in the Netherlands and California. His research has been published in Situations, Hyperallergic Magazine, and Performance Research. As a dramaturg, Jeff specializes in new work and experimental performance, particularly with Black and Asian American artists tackling issues of identity and audience. He has collaborated with playwrights like travis l. tate and dance makers including Charles O. Anderson and Benjamin Akio Kimitch. He served as dramaturg for Kimitch’s project “Tiger Hands,” a commission by The Shed’s Open Call program which won a Bessie Award for Outstanding Choreographer/Creator. Jeff is an artist working in movement and performance installation, and his work have been presented by Center Space Project and the Cohen New Works festival in Austin, TX and W139 in Amsterdam. Currently, Jeff is a company dancer with Gamelan Sekar Jaya, a Balinese performance ensemble based in South Berkeley, where he is proud to train with master artists and culture bearers like Cok Istri Putri Rukmini and I Made Suteja.

Tessa Saito King

Tessa Saito King, General Manager (she/her) is a Japanese American playwright, poet, and screenwriter. A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, she received her B.A. from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, an MFA from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London, and is currently a PhD Candidate at the University of Leeds. She had her first one-act produced at the age of fourteen and her first full-length produced at seventeen. Since then, her plays and one-acts have been commissioned, staged, and performed throughout America and the United Kingdom. Most recently she was commissioned to adapt her play NOISE for the screen. She is the winner of PlayGround’s Young Playwrights Festival, a two-time finalist in the Marin Young Playwrights Festival at Marin Theatre Company, semi-finalist for the Mu-Tang Clan Residency at Theatre Mu, and longlisted for the Royal Court Writer’s Group at the Royal Court Theatre. Her poems “Testing” and “Killers” both won awards and received publication.

AeJay Mitchell

AeJay Mitchell, Artistic Producer (they/them) is a multi-hyphenated performance artist, scholar, educator, and activist whose work centers the decolonization of the theatrical canon, the black avant-garde, and queer political performance practice. They were recently witnessed in the critically acclaimed Ni¿¿er Lovers at The Magic Theatre and served as the co-director, choreographer, and vocal arranger for the world premiere of Ryan M. Luevano’s Dance Plague. Some of their favorite creative projects include Antigonick and Marisol with The Black Box @ SPA, Priscilla Queen of the Desert and Sister Act with Theatre Rhinoceros, as well as Robert O’Hara’s Booty Candy and American Ma(ul) at the Brava Theatre with BACCE. They are a member of the Black Artists Contemporary Cultural Experience collective, Literary Manager and Dramaturgs of the Americas, and Actor’s Equity.

Abigail Pañares

Abigail Pañares, Communications and Engagement Manager (she/her) is a filmmaker, director, and arts administrator who is proud to call the Bay Area home. With a foundation in theater, she’s held diverse roles including fundraiser and event producer at American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.), general manager at Z Space, and assistant director at Yale Repertory Theater for Today is My Birthday. In 2015 she co-founded BAD REP, a performance group dedicated to providing emerging Asian American artists with spaces to craft original multi-disciplinary works. Previously, she was the production manager for SF Urban Film Fest and remains actively engaged in exploring the intersection of public space and storytelling as a member of the core team. Abigail’s films examine points of transition and the resistance to growing up. Her short film Overdue premiered at CAAMFest 2023, and she is currently developing a coming-of-age feature set in San Leandro in the 90s. She holds a B.A. in Film Studies from UC Berkeley.

Jessica Bird Beza

Jeffrey Gan

Tessa Saito King

AeJay Mitchell

Abigail Pañares

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