GUADALÍS DEL CARMEN (Playwright, she/her/ella) is a playwright, performer and screenwriter from Chicago, based in NYC. She’s an Ars Nova Resident Artist, a 2020 Steinberg Playwriting Award recipient, and Artistic Associate of Black Lives, Black Words. She is the Founder and Co-Artistic Director of the Latinx Playwrights Circle NYC. Her plays include Not For Sale, My Father’s Keeper, Daughters of the Rebellion, A Shero’s Journey or What Anacaona and Yemayá Taught Me, Blowout. She was a Co-Producer of Atlantic Theater Company’s African Caribbean MixFest 2021. She’s worked on projects with HBO, FX, and Amazon. Guadalís has performed as an actor in Chicago, NYC, and St. Louis. Bees and Honey had its first staged reading with SOL Project’s SOLFest 2018.

MELISSA CRESPO (Director, she/her/hers) is a director of new plays, musicals, and opera. Upcoming: Yoga Play by Dipika Guha (Geva Theatre Center), and Sheepdog by Kevin Artigue at the Contemporary American Theatre Festival. As a playwright, her play Egress, co-written with Sarah Saltwick, recently had a rolling world premiere at Salt Lake Acting Company and Amphibian Stage. Melissa received her M.F.A. in Directing from The New School for Drama. She is a Founding Editor of 3Views on Theater and is the Associate Artistic Director of Syracuse Stage. https://www.melissacrespo.com

Maribel Martinez is a multi-hyphenate artist, proudly Black-Latina, with Dominican and Puerto Rican roots.  She’s been involved with Bees and Honey since its first staged reading at SOL Project’s SOLFest in 2018, and is honored to bring Johaira to life for its world premiere. She’s an Artistic Producer for the Dominican Artists Collective; she wrote and performed in DAC’s “The Cooking Project,” presented by New York Theatre Workshop’s Artistic Instigators virtual series in 2021. She’s part of The Latinx Playwrights Circle community and considers it one of her favorite artistic homes. Credits include Off-Broadway: Will You Come With Me? (PlayCo); Julius Cesar (New York Shakespeare in the Park). Select Regional Theatre: Mushroom (People’s Light); Vanity Fair (Shakespeare Theatre Company, American Conservatory Theater); Christmas at Pemberley (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park); Henry V P 1 (Folger); Black Joy Project (JAG). Film / Television: Evil (CBS), New Amsterdam (ABC), The Watcher (Netflix), Sacrifice (BET+), Dr. Death (Peacock). MFA, UC Irvine.

Xavier Pacheco has been an actor his entire life. In 2013, he won the English-Speaking-Union National Shakespeare Competition. That summer he studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and played a lead role in a Public Works’ production of Shakespeare in the Park, at only 16 years old. In 2015 he graduated from his performing arts high school as Valedictorian of his class. Xavier went on to receive a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre at Muhlenberg College. Last year he received his MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Acting Program, where he was also the youngest in his class. He is excited to be making his
debut with MCC. Credits include: The Public Theater: Richard III. Public Works:
The Tempest. NYU Graduate Acting: Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead, Romeo
& Juliet. Epic Theatre Ensemble: Hamlet & Ophelia, Much Ado About
Nothing. New York Classical Theatre: The Winter’s Tale. Bay Street Theater: The
Teeming Autumn. Film: Romeo & Juliet (2021).