DC, I Love You: First Dates

Katherine Harroff is a playwright, producer, director, and actor and Artist-in-Residence at the Folger Shakespeare Library where she also serves as the Director of Engagement. She is the former Associate Director of Arts Engagement at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, Ms. Harroff has pioneered documentarian and community-based performance, developing stories, teaching everyday artists, and sharing the tools of storytelling and professional theater with myriad communities. In addition to documentary theater, her work has included installation experiences, site-specific performances, as well as intimate and large-scale community focused events celebrating the stories, lives, traditions, and interests of the community she is engaged in.

Savina Barini (A) Folger Theatre: Romeo and Juliet. Theater Alliance: Look Both Ways, A Protest in 8 (Featured Playwright); The Kennedy Center: Look Both Ways; ArtsCentric: for colored girls…; Rorschach Theatre: ¡nails!: A Happy Gay Latinx Play; Monumental Theatre Company: Head Over Heels; Adventure Theatre: ¡Luchadora!, Everyone Poops. Regional: Moxie Arts New York: one drop cool; Sun Valley Shakespeare in the Park: Rapture, Blister, Burn; The Spot (Sun Valley): Cabaret, Pippin, The Revolutionists, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Pass Over (Co-Director). Savinabarini.com. @savinabarini

Jordan Brown (Mitch) Folger Theatre: debut. Chesapeake Shakespeare Company: As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing; Washington Stage Guild: My Children! My Africa!, How He Lied to Her Husband; Rorschach Theatre: Sometimes the Rain, Sometimes the Sea, She Kills Monsters; Perisphere Theater: Time Is On Our Side; Powerhouse Theater: As You Like It; Brave Spirits Theatre: King Henry VI Part I; InterAct Story Theatre: Bobtail Bong Bong; Theatre Prometheus: The Wolf You Feed; Unexpected Stage Company: Nothing to Lose; Catholic University: The Ties That Bind; Stevenson University: The Importance of Being Earnest, Eurydice, The Shape of Things, Red Death.

Alicia Grace (Cindy) Folger: debut. Keegan Theatre: Webster’s Bitch (u/s); Kennedy Center: Because, A Wind in the Door, She A Gem, The Watsons Go To Birmingham: 1963. University of Maryland College Park. 

Dominique Gray (Bobby/ Man 3) Folger: debut. Keegan Theatre: Hand to God, Apropos of Nothing (forthcoming); Imagination Stage: 10 Seconds, The Last Martyr (regional tour). Regional: Unstrung Harpist Productions: Richard II. Training: The National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts, where he performed in numerous productions, including WitchBeth, Thank You, The In-Between, Fishtown, Jack and Melissa, Twelfth Night, and more

Ixchel (B/ Tour Guide/Narrator 1) Folger: debut. Ixchel is a local actor, singer-songwriter, stand-up comic, and storyteller born and raised in the DC area.  Kennedy Center Theatre for Young Audiences 2025 National Tour: Look Both Ways; GALA Hispanic Theatre: Frida Libre; Theater Alliance: Poetry for the People: The June Jordan Experience; Rorschach Theatre: Human Museum (director); NextStop Theatre Company: In the Heights; Constellation Theatre Company: Incognito. She has been featured for her comedy, music, and storytelling for Grassroots Comedy, Improbable Comedy, Comedy Loft, Callback Comedy Productions, Busboys and Poets, The Washington Roast, Spit Dat in Residence at Woolly Mammoth, The Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum, Rhizome DC, and 7DrumCity. 

Miss Kitty (Lex) Folger Theatre: Metamorphoses. Spooky Action Theater: Agreste; Avant Bard Theatre: Suddenly Last Summer, Illyria or What You Will, She Speaks!; Prince George’s Shakespeare in the Parks: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing; Capital Fringe Festival: Brunch with the Boys; Imagination Stage: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Film: A Brighter Tomorrow: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging (WILL Interactive), S.P.I.E.S. and S.P.I.E.S. 2 (Imagination Stage/Leapfrog Productions), Shine (ISA Group/Redmon Group Inc.), and the PSA Open to All – Three Words (76 Words/Movement Advancement Project).  

Raghad Makhlouf (Janet). Folger Theatre: Hamlet (Reading Room Festival). Theater Alliance: American Fast; Mosaic Theater: The Art of Care;  Spooky Action Theater: Agreste, Sonnets for an Old Century; Signature Theatre: Selling Kabul (u/s); Shakespeare Theatre Company: Timon of Athens (u/s); The Welders: In This Hope. Regional: Shakespeare in the Woods (VT): Hamlet/The Tempest Rep. International: Syria: The Damascus Opera House: Wretched Dreams, AB Negative, Russian Cultural Center: The Poster,  Al-Hamra Theatre: Tactic; Denmark: Masnedo Fortress: Venus Labyrinth. Raghad appeared in over 400 hours of films and drama TV shows in Syria and Lebanon. She is a two times Helen Hayes nominee for outstanding ensemble. Education: MFA: Academy for Classical Acting; BFA: The Higher Institute of Drama, Syria. @raghadmakh

Sedona Salb (Tanya/Trivia Host/Tour Guide/Assistant Director) Folger: debut. She is a recent graduate of American University’s Theatre Program and was most recently seen in AU’s productions of Dance Nation and As You Like It: The Musical. Aside from acting, she is passionate about directing and playwriting. She is so grateful to be able to work with Nadia Guevara again after working with her on AU’s productions of Fefu and Her Friends and Spring Awakening. @sedonasalb

O’Malley Steuerman (Janet) Folger Theatre: Romeo and Juliet (u/s). 1st Stage: Quilters (Helen Hayes nomination, Outstanding Ensemble); Baltimore Center Stage: Our Town, Tiny Beautiful Things, Life Is A Dream. omalleysteuerman.com @omalleysteuerman

Kevin E. Thorne II (Dwayne) Folger: debut. Arena Stage: Tempestuous Elements; Lyric Repertory Theatre: The Mountaintop;  Mosaic Theater Company: Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine; Keegan Theatre: N; Spooky Action Theater: I Killed My Mother: Synetic Theater:  The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (u/s); Pointless Theatre Company: Imogen; Discovery Theater: Nation We Build Together, Cramton 1961, Going The Distance. BFA in Acting, Howard University. @kj_nation

Nadia Guevara (she/her) is a director based in DC and NYC. She has worked across the country at The Kennedy Center, La Jolla Playhouse, Dallas Theatre Center, New York Stage and Film, Red Bull Theatre, The Old Globe, and Keegan Theatre, among others. She has been a guest director for American University, Texas Tech University, and Johns Hopkins University. Upcoming projects: Cinderella: A Salsa Fairy Tale (Imagination Stage), Spring Awakening (American University), Cell (Keen Theatre/Drama League DirectorFest), The Survival (National Queer Theatre/PACNYC) She is the 2022-2024 recipient of The Drama League Stage Directing Fellowship. In 2018, Nadia was named Actor of the Year, San Diego Critics Circle, and has since retired from acting. www.nadiaguevara.com

Sedona Salb (Tanya/Trivia Host/Tour Guide/Assistant Director) Folger: debut. She is a recent graduate of American University’s Theatre Program and was most recently seen in AU’s productions of Dance Nation and As You Like It: The Musical. Aside from acting, she is passionate about directing and playwriting. She is so grateful to be able to work with Nadia Guevara again after working with her on AU’s productions of Fefu and Her Friends and Spring Awakening. @sedonasalb