Artists

Anita Gonzalez directs, devises and writes theatrical works that focus on telling women’s stories and histories. She has written works for American Opera Project, Washington National Opera, Atlanta Opera, Boston Opera Collaborative, Chicago Dramatists, The Vagrancy, Brooklyn Tavern Theatre, and Houston Grand Opera’s Songs of Houston series. Her innovative stagings of cross-cultural experiences have appeared on PBS national television and at Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, The Working Theatre, Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre, New York Live Arts, Tribeca Performing Arts Center, and other national and international venues. Gonzalez believes the art of storytelling connects people to their cultures. Over 60,000 students have taken her massive open online courses Storytelling for Social Change and Black Performance as Social Protest.

Musicals: Kumanana (Gala Hispanic Theater), Ybor City (Brooklyn Tavern Theater), Zora on My Mind (The Woodshed), Ayanna Kelly. Plays& Librettos: Mickey Dee and the Eclipse (Washington National Opera), Forever Entwined and Brathwaite’s Mecca (American Opera Project) Faces in the Flames (Atlanta Opera and Opera America) Courthouse Bells (Boston Opera Collaborative), Finding the Light (Louise Toppin and Opera Ebony), Sunset Dreams (The Vagrancy), Home of My Ancestors (HGOCo). Books: Performance, Dance and Political Economy, Black Performance Theory, Afro-Mexico. Gonzalez is a Professor at Georgetown University and Co-Founding Lead of the Racial Justice Institute. She is a Fellow at the American Opera Project, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab and sits on the Board of Directors of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation. Gonzalez advocates for beautiful art crafted for social activism and consciousness raising.

Dan hails from Old Hickory, Tennessee (just outside Nashville). He began playing piano and composing music at an early age and went on to study composition and jazz piano at Oberlin Conservatory.  Following college, he spent 10 years as a political and union activist working in industrial jobs from steel fabrication to mattress making.  After moving to New York in 2003 to play jazz, he began writing for music theater as well. He spent four years in the BMI Lehman Engels Musical Theater Workshop.  Furman is founder of Brooklyn Tavern Theater, which puts on original musicals in taverns in Brooklyn and beyond.  He is composer/lyricist/bookwriter of “Impossible But True,”  “Joe Hill Revival” and composer and lyricist for “Ybor City” (with Anita Gonzalez, bookwriter) and Sign In the Six O’Clock Sky (with book writer Arnold Schulman).  Dan’s newest show, “Walls and Windows” (with additional lyrics by Kristin Maloney) premiered in 2024 at Brooklyn Art Haus and will return in a new production in 2026.  Dan lives in Brooklyn with neuroscientist Kim Allen and works as a jazz pianist and vocal accompanist at clubs and acting schools in Manhattan.

Maija GarcÍa is a visionary Cuban American artist renowned for her work in theater, film, television, music, dance, and live installations. As Director of the Capri Theater in North Minneapolis, García engages historical narratives to develop innovative work that moves culture forward. Jazz Island, García’s world premiere with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, based on a Caribbean folktale by Geoffrey Holder is currently touring the U.S. Director of Movement for Spike Lee’s Oscar award-winning Blackkklansman, CHI-RAQ, and She’s Gotta Have It on Netflix, García worked alongside Bill T. Jones to choreograph FELA!, the Tony Award-winning musical on Broadway and at the National Theatre of London, and became Creative Director of the FELA! world and FELA! The Concert. As a stage director, García has helmed a range of productions from original musicals like I am Betty at the History Theater to bilingual classics like VALOR by Spanish Golden Age playwright Ana Caro. García’s choreographic works include the first original choreography for West Side Story at the Guthrie Theater, Kiss My Aztec, Snow in Midsummer, Cuba Libre, Another Word for Beauty, Hatuey: Memory of Fire, and Fats Waller Dance Party. She founded Organic Magnetics to generate urban folklore for the future and to develop sustainable solutions through the arts.