HTBAF: Back to School
As summer ends and the air fills with the scent of fresh notebooks (fresh ipads?) and old anxieties, we’re heading “Back to School.” Not just the kind with desks and detentions. We’ll be thinking about all the different ways life educates us: awkward firsts, harsh wake-up calls, sweet surprises, and those moments when the universe handed out a pop quiz with no study guide. Whether it happened in a classroom, a kitchen, a bus stop, or a breakup, we’ve all been schooled somehow.
Storytellers:
Anjun Jia is a television writer, creative producer, and occasional comedian born and raised in Toronto, Canada. His sitcom BOHO TEA CO. is currently in post-production, his first ever stand-up comedy set will premiere at the Upright Citizens Brigade 14th Street Theatre this September, and you can read his daily writing sprints at Anjun Jia dot substack dot com. He graduated this May from NYU Tisch School of the Arts with a Bachelors’ of Fine Arts in Dramatic Writing with a Television Writing focus, and his Instagram is at J I A dot A N J U N.
Born in Spain, Irene Aguilar studied acting in Paris, Madrid, and New York. She is currently training at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (New York) and this summer she made her debut with Times Fool Company as Gertrude in Hamlet. She recently participated with a guest role in the Acorn TV series Hidden Assets and has performed in several theatrical productions such as Don Juan Tenorio, The Comedy of Errors and La Strada, for which she was nomintated to an HOLA Award in New York. For her leading role in the short Mr Dentonn, she was awarded for best actress at the Sick Chick Film Fest and Geek Out Film Fest (USA). She was a dancer, singer and actress in the musicals Coco and Tribute to Encanto which she also choreographed. She is also a passionate pianist and composer and holds a bachelor’s degree in Veterinary Medecine. What she likes the most about the craft? To tell stories and move the audience with them.
Kelli Dunham, a comic, nurse, and author whose work has appeared on Showtime, NPR, and Time. She co-founded Queer Memoir and tours nationally with her show Second Helping, speaking on LGBT health, grief, and caregiving.
Robin Bady is a storyteller working nationally and internationally with children and adults. She tours her one woman show – Nancy Drewinsky and the Search for the Missing Letter – How the Red Scare came to the Jersey Shore – to fringe festivals, theaters, and now, with two years of funding from the Brooklyn Arts Council, to senior centers. Robin’s ongoing projects include: the BADYHouse Storytelling Concert series and No, We Won’t Shut Up! – a showcase of a diverse group of women speaking truth to power.
