Distinctive Voices
Joann Yarrow
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Voice Over, Production Consultant
Joann Maria Yarrow is a Professional Speaker and Creative Consultant who shares her experience as a director and producer with international institutions to bring to fruition powerful stories, global communication strategies, and projects that provide positive impact to humanity. Some of her key areas are:
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Performance Coaching
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Story Development: Directing / Producing
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Consultant for Influencers, Executives, and Creatives
With over 30 years of experience in the entertainment industry, Joann is dedicated to engaging and empowering artists and executives by bridging creativity with productivity and storytelling with executive strategies. Know your audience and get your dream project in front of the world.
Brad Beckman
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Voice Over, Writer, Narrative Consultant
Brad Beckman has practiced and taught theater for over 30 years. He has a background in playwriting, dramaturgy, directing, translation, producing, and production management as well as voice-over and acting. Key areas are:
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Script doctor and breakdown
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Story Development: Writer / Director
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Voice over talent
He is an award-winning playwright as well as developing the scripts for podcasts, animated series and feature films internationally. He works regularly as a director and actor and is an NMCA Certified teacher of the Michael Chekhov Technique.
Esther Banegas Gatica
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Translator, Voice Over, Director
Esther Banegas Gatica has worked in bi-lingual production both fully in Spanish, English, and a mix of both languages. She translates scripts from English to Spanish and vice versa. In addition, works in developing new work with writers and via commissions.
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Develop pitch deck and story bible for film and television
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Translation for theatre super-titles, film subtitles and full scripts for production
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Story Development Writer / Director
As a playwright and dramaturg, Esther has written/directed several of her own one-act plays. She is a graduate of the Prometeo Conservatory and obtained her MFA in Playwriting/Screenwriting at the University of California, Riverside, where she collaborated with the Latinx Play Project and the Gluck Foundation.
Vernice Miller
Stage Direction, New Work Development, Performance Coaching
Vernice Miller is a Jamaican born, Afro-Caribbean theater artist who is passionate about the arts as the most universally accessible agent for positive social change. Directorial highlights from Miller’s career include long-term collaborations with; Pulitzer Prize-winning jazz musician Wynton Marsalis, opera diva Jessye Norman, HBO comedienne Hazelle Goodman and Hip-Hop legend Malik Work. International credits: Three Women (Break the Silence) by anthropologist Dr. Omotayo Jolaosho for South Africa’s Market Theatre Lab (a performance about women finding their voices amidst gendered repression of their bodily and sexual autonomy); Nomansland (performed/co-directed) with Seth Baumrin’s Subpoetics International in Slovenia, Ukraine and Poland. Network television: Shadowed director Felix Alcala on the CBS series Madam Secretary throughout filming of season 6 episode 9 Carpe Diem. Miller directed both the inaugural and revived productions of Bee Trapped Inside the Window by Saviana Stanescu for Heartbeat Ensemble, the Romanian Cultural Institute and Ithaca’s Civic Ensemble. Commissioned by Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr. Bee is a work that explores the effect of modern-day slavery on the lives of three ethnically different American women living in CT. She co-founded A Laboratory for Actor Training Experimental Theatre Company with Joann Maria Yarrow, to evolve work they began with Roberta Carreri at Eugenio Barba's Odin Teatret in Denmark.
Godfrey L. Simmons Jr.
Stage Direction, New Work Development, Performance Coaching
Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr. is an award-winning actor, producer, director, and playwright who has spent over thirty years amplifying the voices of marginalized people and communities. He is the new Artistic Director for HartBeat Ensemble in Hartford, CT. In 2012, he co-founded Civic Ensemble, a regional theatre in Ithaca, NY. For Civic, he directed Eugene O’Neill’s All God’s Chillun Got Wings, The Next Storm, and Baldwin vs. Buckley: The Faith of Our Fathers and appeared in Judy Tate's Fast Blood and Athol Fugard's My Children! My Africa!. Godfrey was a Producing Artist for Off-Broadway’s Epic Theatre Ensemble for four years, appearing in a dozen plays, including Macbeth, The Winning Side, A More Perfect Union, Widowers’ Houses (which Godfrey co-adapted with Ron Russell), and A Hard Heart, among other plays. Also for Epic, he co-wrote and starred in a documentary play about the election of President Barack Obama, Dispatches From (A)mended America. Godfrey and his colleague Brandt Adams, traveled throughout the American South interviewing 100 Southerners about the election. He won the 1999 Audelco Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in John Henry Redwood's Old Settler opposite Leslie Uggams at Primary Stages. He appeared in award-winning productions at Playwrights Horizons (Betty's Summer Vacation, Obie Award-Best Play) and Round House Theatre (Home, Helen Hayes Award-Best Production), as well as other regional theatres up and down the Eastern Seaboard. Godfrey develops and facilitates anti-racism workshops, projects and trainings grounded in theater practice and somatic awareness for clients such as Fairfield University, UConn, Greater Hartford Academy for the Arts, and SUNY Orange. His radio show The Griot Hour appeared from 2015-2019 on the Ithaca, NY Community Radio station WRFI. Godfrey is a 2012 TCG/Fox Fellow, TCG/SPARK Leadership Fellow and a lifetime member of Ensemble Studio Theatre.