PEOPLE
Michole Biancosino is the Co-Founding Artistic Director of Project Y Theatre Company,
where she has developed and directed new work in Washington, D.C., New York City and
internationally for over 25 years. With Project Y, she has led various professional
productions, as producer, director, creator and writer. Credits included the long-running
shows, Trump Lear (co-created and directed) and the award-winning, David Carl’s Celebrity
One-Man Hamlet (co-created and directed), both of which toured regionally and performed at
Edinburgh Fringe, as co-productions with Richard Jordan Productions (UK), The Pleasance, and
Underbelly. She directs solo artist Peter Michael Marino’s long-running solo shows, Show
Up! and Show Up Kids! which is now running in Spanish- and Japanese-language versions.
Other work includes both the digital and on-stage versions of the Infallible Award-
winner PLANET OF THE GRAPES LIVE FROM NYC (Zoo Venues, Edinburgh 2021), the cosmic raga
opera, Waves of Gravity with Neel Murgai (LaMama CultureHub), and David and Katie Get Re-
Married, which is headed to Edinburgh Fringe this summer. As a performer, Michole has spent
the last two years acting as Jillian in Lia Romeo’s Yoga With Jillian, in NYC, regionally, and
abroad.
Michole is a producer of Project Y’s yearly Women in Theatre Festival. She has been featured
by Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, and The Brooklyn
Rail. Recipient: SDC Gielgud Fellowship for classical directing. Her work has been supported by
grants from The Puffin Foundation, ART/NY, NY Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA), The
Dramatists Guild, and New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). She holds an MFA in
Directing from Rutgers University, Mason Gross School of the Arts. She is an Associate of
Theatre at Middlebury College. For more information: www.micholebiancosino.com
Andrew W. Smith is the Co-Founding Artistic Director of Project Y Theatre Company, where he has developed and directed new work in Washington, D.C., New York City and throughout the United States and internationally. With Project Y, he has served as Producer, Company Manager, Director, Technical Director, and Actor over the 25-year producing history of the company. He is a professional Actor and Director whose work has been seen throughout New York City, regionally, and internationally. Selected regional acting work includes: Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Pittsburgh City Theatre, Quantum Theatre, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Arena Stage, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Roundhouse Theatre, Potomac Theatre Project, Ars Nova, Studio Theatre, and Olney Center for the Arts. He toured with The National Players on their 50th anniversary as Cyrano in Cyrano de Bergerac. Filmwork includes Lucid, Shooting Script, Death of a Nation (Winner: Best Short, IndieFest 2011; Best in Show, Best Shorts Competition 2011), Under-Ground. Television work includes American Rust, GONE, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, One Life to Live, As the World Turns, Guiding Light. Directing: Yoga with Jillian, world premiere in New York City as a part of the Women in Theatre Festival and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2023 and 2024 at the Pleasance Courtyard. With Project Y, he has received grants funding for work from New York State Council on the Arts, New York Department Cultural Affairs, Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York, Brooklyn Arts Council, and The Puffin Foundation. He was an invited guest and Master Teacher at the Summer Theatre Academy, in Sozopol, Bulgaria, in 2019. He is currently an Associate Professor of Acting at the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama. He is also graduate of the MFA Acting program at the University of California, San Diego, from which he received the Teaching Excellence Award upon graduation. www.smithandrewwilliam.com.
Lia Romeo is a recent graduate of the Juilliard playwriting program. Her plays have been
developed at the O’Neill, La Jolla Playhouse, the Lark, and elsewhere, and have
been produced at companies such as Colt Coeur, Dorset Theatre Festival, Laguna
Playhouse, Unicorn Theatre, Project Y Theatre, and New Jersey Repertory Theatre. Four
of her plays have been recognized by the Kilroys List. Her plays are published by TRW,
Broadway Licensing, and Broadway Play Publishing. She is the associate artistic director
of Project Y Theatre, a company member with Colt Coeur, and the co-founder of the
Parent-Caregiver Playwrights Group. She teaches in the M.A. program in creative writing
at Fairleigh Dickinson University.
Antu Yacob was born in Dire Dawa, Ethiopia and raised in San Francisco and Minnesota. She is an actor, filmmaker, playwright and producer. As an Associate Producer with Project Y Theatre, she curates All Hands on Deck, a commission series of new plays by female writers of the African diaspora.
Her film Love in Submission was part of the Full Spectrum Features’ collection: Our Right to Gaze: Black Film Identities. The collection served as a case study in the diversity in Hollywood forum at Sundance 2021. The film screened in various festivals including New York African Film Festival, Women of the Lens (UK) and received an Honorable Mention in the Black Muslim Girl Fly Festival.
As a playwright, Antu’s play On My Deen, will premiere at InterAct Theatre (Philadelphia) in June 2025. She is a cohort of The Fire This Time Festival’s New Works Lab Cycle 4. Her plays have been produced by Kampala International Theatre Festival (Uganda), United Solo Theatre Festival, Project Y Theatre, Theatre167 and Mile Square Theatre.
As an actor, her on screen credits include Rob Peace (written/directed by Chiwetel Ejiofor), Jelly (2023 ABFF/HBO Short Film Award winner), Night Comes On, “Inventing Anna”, “The Other Two”, “Daredevil”, “Gypsy”, “Law & Order: SVU”, Adieu Lacan, Signs of Aging, Brooklyn Park, Conjure. Her stage credits include work with The Fire This Time Festival, American Slavery Project, Primary Stages, Sheen Center, Crossroads Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Luna Stage, North Carolina Black Repertory, Peterborough Players, Cincinnati Playhouse, Philadelphia Theatre Co, Mixed Blood Theatre, Pangea World Theatre and Pillsbury House Theatre. Her voice can be heard on the Druid Hills episode of Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History and the audiobook Addis Ababa Noir by Maaza Mengiste.
She earned an MFA in Acting from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.
Qinyi Hua is a recent graduate from Middlebury College Theatre Major. As a theatre practitioner who has worked in both U.S. and China, she has experience in producing, scenic design, and stage management. She had worked in Sleep No More Shanghai, off-broadway Potomac Theatre Project, Shanghai Young Theatre and Harmonia Theatrical.