Donna Benedicto: A New Generation of Actors

Focusing outside of yourself helps you thrive in this industry and helps you deal with so much and all the obstacles we face.

I’m a Filipina-Canadian singer-turned-actress who switched careers in order to champion Asian representation in film. I want to challenge the status quo and show the next generation of ethnically diverse artists that they can dream bigger than what the world tells them they can do.

Donna Benedicto is a Filipina Canadian actress and singer born and raised in Vancouver, BC. Growing up as an ethnic minority, Donna decided to make a switch from full-time singing to pursue acting in 2013 because she saw a gap in Asian representation. Since then, she has gone on to become the first Filipina lead in multiple TV movies, including Incendo’s Farmer Seeking Love, as well as guest starring on NBC’s The Good Doctor, and booking recurring roles on CW’s Supergirl and ABC’s A Million Little Things

In addition to acting, Donna is currently working on her first original album and recently released two singles that appear in the Lifetime original movie Wrath. She is also an avid boxer and kickboxer, having trained for 4 years at various MMA gyms in metro Vancouver.

Mustering the courage to be true to their own feelings, no matter what types of emotional and mental obstacles they face in their lives, can be a challenging process for everyone, especially those who are living in a society that expects them to suppress their sentiments. But actress Anna Maguire’s protagonist of Anabel is doing just that with the help of her best friend and colleague, actress Donna Benedicto’s character of Casey, in the new sci-fi comedy-drama, With Love and a Major Organ.

Donna explained the reason why she thinks it’s important to reflect on how technology dictates how people live in modern society, and how the film serves as an important piece of social commentary: “I think movies are made to make you take a look into your life and how much we rely on social media. Without giving too much away, it shows how feelings are important, and it’s great not to suppress them,” she noted.

“You see the big contrast between the two characters of Casey and Anabel. Anabel is all about feelings, to the extreme, and Casey is not about feelings, to the extreme,” Benedicto emphasized. “So, I think it’s very important to showcase that; it helps us reflect on ourselves, and how we deal with these new apps and AI coming out,” the actress added.

She also is in Lifetime’s Pride: A Seven Deadly Sins Story, starring Stephanie Mills. It’s the story of Bertie, an aging matriarch and reality television star whose carefully constructed world starts to crumble–like the baked goods that catapulted her to fame–when family secrets are brought to light. To see the truth and salvage her legacy, Bertie must let go of the pride that estranged her from her late college-dropout daughter. A pride that prevents Bertie from seeing her son Gabe as the thieving opportunist he is and her granddaughter Ella as just a lost twenty-something trying to build up her life after some missteps–not someone to hold in contempt. Pride brought Bertie up the climb, but it also made her blind–it’s time for her to see or face the consequences. Stars Keeya King, Stephanie Mills, Thomas Miles, Lucia Walters, and Jaime M. Callica (2023).

Instagram: @donna_b4real

FB: Donna Benedicto – Actor/Singer 

Tiktok: @donnabenedicto0
Website: donna.benedicto.com

Avra Sidiropoulou: Addressing an Age of Upheaval

Karen [Malpede’s] use of the play [Troy Too] happens in a most amazing and in a structurally brilliant way. She puts two goddesses that appear to teach us a lesson about how lives need to be re-configured. She also uses the story of The Trojan Women, a story of one nation turned against another, to tell us that even in these circumstances that we’re living in, these really turbulent times, there is a sense of solidarity that needs to be built among these women and these people, in general, who have been forced to leave their homes, be exiled, who have suffered the violence of the authorities…In a very subtle and beautifully poetic way The Trojan Women and the words of Euripides come together and blend with the rhythms of today’s world and of the city of New York, that has had its own share of violence, misfortune, tragedies, in the 21st century.
 

My work has always been about bringing people together, forging new transcultural and transnational artistic relationships, and combining research with theatre-making in order to explore and extend the limits of creativity.

Avra Sidiropoulou is a theatre director and academic. She is the Artistic Director of Persona Theatre Company. She has published extensively on directing theory and practice, contemporary performance and dramaturgy and is the author of Directions for Directing. Theatre and Method (Routledge 2018) In 2020 she was nominated for the Gilder/Coigney International Theatre Award by the League of Professional Theatre Women.

She is also the co-editor of Adapting Greek Tragedy. Contemporary Contexts for Ancient Texts(CUP 2021) and editor of Staging 21 st Century Tragedies: Theatre, Politics and Global Crisis (Routledge, 2022) In Spring 2023 she will be a Visiting Scholar at the School of the Arts of Columbia University in New York.

Avra holds a PhD degree in Theatre Studies (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece), an M.F.A. in Directing (Columbia University), an MPhil in American Literature (Cambridge University) and an M.A. in Text and Performance (King’s College London). Her main areas of scholarly specialization include directing theory, the ethics of adaptation, contemporary dramaturgy and practice as research. She was a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University, the Martin E. Segal Centre at CUNY, MIT, the Universities of Leeds and Surrey, the Institute of Theatre Studies at Freie University, the Berlin and a Japan Foundation Fellow at the University of Tokyo.

Theater Three Collaborative in New York and Persona Theater Company in Athens, two companies known for their social justice work, will present the world premiere of Karen Malpede‘s Troy Too, a poetic play in dialogue with Euripides’ The Trojan Women and the current crises of Covid, climate change, and racism. Directed by Avra Sidiropoulou, Troy Too’s multiracial cast features one of Greece’s finest classical actresses, Lydia Koniordou, who brings a modern and ancient Hecuba to life in English and ancient Greek.

This limited engagement runs May 11-21, 2023 at HERE (145 Sixth Avenue, Manhattan). Tickets are now on sale at HERE Arts Center 

Crafted in the heat of 2020 from language found on the streets during the protests for racial justice, in hospitals during the Covid lockdown, and from the mouths of endangered fish in the sea, Troy Too is an enraged and poignant play of what we have survived, and a poetic elegy for those who did not. Greek director Sidiropoulou, known for her innovative multimedia staging of modern and classical texts, brings Troy Too shockingly alive in an international production that cuts across languages and cultures. The play, one of the first to tackle the Covid pandemic, is an angry yet beautiful communal lament, one that has been lacking from public life.

Persona is a state of mind, a heart that beats with inspiration, a body that balances harmoniously but also irregularly, a team that experiments, adapts and transcends, simultaneously centrifugal and centripetal. It is a small hub of talent which was established in Athens several years ago as a way to keep us all connected to what is going on in the arts internationally.

Persona Theatre Company Fund Raising Campaign

Avra Sidiropoulou: https://persona.gr/en/people/avra-sidiropoulou/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/avrasid

Persona Theatre Company:  https://persona.gr/en/

Youtube Persona Theatre Company: https://www.youtube.com/@personatheatercompany4935

Pamela S.K. Glasner: Fighting for Fairness

Getting my Masters at Harvard at age sixty-nine, I hope that I’m inspiring other women that there are no limits. There’s absolutely no limits except for those you place on yourself. I never actually wrote a screenplay and now all these Film Festivals think I’m such a great writer.. . There’s always a first time for everything. Why not me?

“If you want to reach people—REALLY reach them—you have to touch their hearts. Art is what does that. And my art is my writing.”

Pamela S. K. Glasner is a critically acclaimed published author of fiction and non-fiction, a filmmaker, a playwright, a social advocate. She is also a proud member of the Writer’s Guild of America, the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, the Connecticut Historical Society and Grace Episcopal Church. Additionally, she is a Registered Reader at both the Royal Society of London and the British Library.

As the daughter of two senior citizens who were exploited and abused by a stranger who insinuated himself into their lives for the sole purpose of embezzling their life savings, Glasner produced Last Will and Embezzlement, her ground-breaking and award-winning documentary. Starring Hollywood’s icon, the late Mickey Rooney, the film explores the financial exploitation of the elderly. In Glasner’s frustrating and ultimately futile struggle to obtain justice for her parents, she learned how prevalent these crimes are and how safe from prosecution and conviction the perpetrators are. For that reason, Glasner lectures nationally on the topic, teaching people how to protect themselves and those they love and/or care for from the countless vultures who are always waiting in the wings.

Hollywood icon, the late Mickey Rooney, was an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He was awarded one Oscar (“In recognition of his 50 years of versatility in a variety of memorable film performances”) and was nominated for four others. He won several other awards including a Golden Globe and an Emmy. Working as a performer since he was a small child, Mickey had one of the longest careers of any actor, spanning almost 90 years. Before he passed away in April of 2014, he was the last surviving male star from1930s Hollywood.

On March 2, 2011 Mickey testified before the United States Congress when they were considering legislation meant to curb elder abuse. He told the members of the special Senate committee that he was financially exploited by a family member, though he refused to publicly name his abuser. Not long after, Mickey’s finances were permanently entrusted into the hands of a Conservator in order to protect what remained, and to attempt to recover the missing money, which was a considerable amount. Sadly, in the end, after a protracted legal battle, his perpetrators returned a tiny fraction of what they had stolen.

Glasner’s non-fiction book, Silver and Gold, the companion piece to Last Will, was written in honor of her deceased parents and released on what would have been her father’s 93rd birthday.
She is also the bookwriter and co-composer/co-lyricist of Empty Rooms, a musical play which was endorsed by Joey Nederlander (of the world-famous Broadway producers). In his Detroit home he told her, “Your work is as good as anything I’ve ever heard on the strip.”

Her other advocacy work centers around Finding Emmaus, her historically and factually accurate novel which explores the treatment and mistreatment of the mentally ill over the course of about 350 years, and how society marginalizes and victimizes those deemed to be ‘different’ (aka ‘less than’).

Glasner earned her Bachelor’s Degree as a Dean’s List student from Eastern Connecticut State University and received her Masters in Creative Writing and Literature from Harvard University. She attributes her love of architecture and antique restoration—two aspects of her life which are woven into the fabric of Finding Emmaus—to her grandfather who, after emigrating to the US from Austria in the 1920’s, became an iron worker and joined the ranks of those who left their legacy in the form of New York City’s incomparable skyline. But her real hero, though gone more than forty years, is still her grandmother, whose strength, courage and unfailing faith taught her that “nothing and no one can keep you from your heart’s desire without your permission and your cooperation.”


Presently, Ms. Glasner resides in rural Connecticut where she continues working on several new projects and advocating for those who don’t always have a voice of their own.

Ms. Glasner’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pamela.glasner

Ms. Glasner’s Huffington Post Page: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/pamela-glasner

IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4127649/

“Full Moon Dog Festival” official website: http://www.fullmoondog.com/

Naomi McDougall Jones: Defying Gravity

I truly believe we are in an apocalyptic culture shift ; truly, an historical, multi-century, multi-millennial shift and in the last gasp of the white-supremacist patriarchal society. We are living through that moment…So, what I focus on these days more than railing against what has been, we had to tear the scales from people’s eyes: ‘Hey, wake up everybody! This is what’s been happening and you need to look!’ But the moment has shifted now and now we have to build on what’s going to happen next. And what is already happening. And that is what I spend my days doing.

Naomi McDougall Jones is an award-winning storyteller, and thought leader for bringing gender parity to cinema. A long-time advocate for bringing parity to film, both on and off screen, she has spoken at film festivals and conferences around the world and written extensively on this subject.

Naomi’s TEDTalk on these issues and what to do about them, “What it’s Like to Be a Woman in Hollywood,” has been viewed over a million times and produced a global outpouring of support for the women in film movement. Her follow-up TEDxTalk, which she gave with fellow media maker and activist, Sarah Springer, “How to Become a True Agent of Change,” examines the journey each of us must take to unravel white supremacy and patriarchy in our own minds. 

Naomi teamed up with former CFO of the City of Chicago, Lois Scott, to found The 51 Fund, an investment fund to finance films written, directed, and produced by women. Through The 51 Fund, Naomi became an Executive Producer of the documentary feature film, Cusp, which premiered in the US Documentary Competition at Sundance 2021 and received a global release and awards campaign through Showtime, where it now also available to stream.

​In 2021, Naomi launched Avalon: Story — a center of practice designed to incubate and birth a new media ecosystem born out of two questions: 

  • What does Story need to be to build us a bridge to a more beautiful future? 
  • What are the business structures of Story that can serve as vehicles for the same?

The inaugural Avalon: Story program was Constellation Incubator, which over the summer of 2021 brought together 60 filmmakers to participate in an 8-week incubator designed to scale innovation within the independent film industry and apply design thinking to re-imagine a more equitable and sustainable ecosystem – from development, film finance, production, to marketing and distribution. She co-founded this initiative alongside Abeni Bloodworth, Angela Harmon, and Liz Manashil. The final presentations from the participants of the incubator – 12 fully redesigned independent film ecosystems can be found on YouTube.

​Avalon: Story launched its second program, The Avalon Fellowship, in Fall 2021, bringing 6 of today’s most pioneering cinematic storytellers to The Big Lost Campus in Ketchum, Idaho, for a week-long retreat during which they explored and innovated around the question, “What does Story need to be to build us a bridge to a more beautiful future? “

Naomi is currently at work on her third feature screenplay, Hammond Castle, a magical realism film that explores themes of identity, legacy and gender through a modern-day seven-month pregnant woman’s unexpected interaction with the brilliant, eccentric and deceased inventor John Hays Hammond, Jr., for which Naomi received the honor of being the first artist-in-residence at Ernest Hemingway’s final home in Sun Valley, Idaho. Naomi can be seen in this PBS documentary speaking about that experience and, alongside, Sheryl Strayed, unpacking Hemingway’s complicated relationship to women. 

Naomi wrote, produced, and starred in the 2014 indie feature film, Imagine I’m Beautiful, which took home 12 awards on the film festival circuit including 4 Best Pictures and, for Naomi, 3 Best Actress Awards and The Don Award for Best Independently Produced Screenplay of 2014. The film was named as #8 of OscarWorld’s Top 10 Films of 2014 and was distributed theatrically and digitally by Candy Factory Films. The film is now available on AmazonPrime.

Naomi’s second feature film, Bite Me, is a subversive romantic comedy about a real-life vampire and the IRS agent who audits her. The film premiered at Cinequest, won Best Feature Film at VTXIFF, and then went on to the innovative, paradigm-shifting Joyful Vampire Tour of America, a 51-screening, 40-city, three-month, RV-fueled eventized tour that involved Joyful Vampire Balls, capes, a docu-series and a whole lot of joy. The film is currently available on BluRay, as well as VOD streaming platforms all over the world, including AppleTV, Amazon, and GooglePlay

Naomi’s first book, The Wrong Kind of Women: Inside Our Revolution to Dismantle the Gods of Hollywood, is now available wherever books are sold in hardcover, audiobook, and e-book. It debuted as the #1 New Release on Amazon in the Entertainment Industry and received an electric response from reviewers with Booklist and Kirkus Reviews calling it “bold,” “convincing,” “passionate,” “well-written,” “urgent,” and “necessary,” and Publishers Weekly writing, “Film viewing will never be the same after reading Jones’ insightful look at the reality of being female in Tinseltown.” Rose McGowan said of the book, “We need truth. The curtain must be pulled back, and Naomi McDougall Jones has done just that.” It has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, NPR, BBC, Playboy, Ms. Magazine, Salon.com, among many other national and international media outlets. 

​She is the co-creator and showrunner for the scripted, short fiction podcast, The Light Aheadwhich united over 120 creatives from entertainment with next-economy activists and social justice leaders to explore the question, “What would 2030 look like if the USA had an economy that truly worked for everyone?”, which is now available wherever you get your podcasts.

​​She was a writer for season 1 of Amazon’s original series, The New Yorker Presents, based on the world’s most award-winning magazine, which premiered at Sundance, for which she wrote the teleplay adaptation of Miranda July’s short story Roy Spivey.

A pilot Naomi wrote, The Dark Pieces, was named on the 2016 WriteHer List as one of the top 16 unproduced pilots by a female screenwriter and is now in development for TV in Canada.

​During the early days of Covid-19, Naomi was invited to write an episode of Day by Day, a podcast of short, narrative radio plays exploring “stories from our new normal.” Her episode, Carry Me Home, was the series premiere.​

​Naomi is currently at work on her second book, Vivisection of a White Woman (by the Ghost of Ernest Hemingway and a Whole Host of Ancestors).

​Naomi grew up in Colorado, before attending Cornell and The American Academy of Dramatic Arts for College. Following graduation, she lived in NYC for another 13 years, spent a brief stint in Atlanta, and now lives in Hailey, Idaho with her husband, Stephen.

BAB On 3 Productions: Acknowledging Our Authentic Selves

We can acknowledge that we’re all damaged, we’re all broken. That doesn’t mean that we’re destroyed because beautiful things can grow out of damage. ~ Gina Dobson

I’m exploring a me that I would have never known before. Women wear so many hats. How about wearing the hat that I want to wear! ~ Carla Kelly Turner

I started to get the idea that it’s possible to do what you really want to do — no matter what age you are. [My mother] led by an example for me. It’s not IF this is possible — it’s more WHEN am I going to do this. ~Jennifer Pyle

We are a film production company on a mission to inspire, empower and light a fire! Not just for women (left to right):

Jennifer Pyle Actor, Dancer, Model, VO artist. Content creator/creative collaborator. MCAS warrior. Dedicated to carpe diem & inspiring others!

Carla Kelly Turner author, actor, activist whose personal motto is Uplift the community by enriching and impacting individual lives.

Gina Dobson Writer, actress. Mischief maker, wine drinker, and marshmallow roaster extraordinaire. Survivor.

Jennifer Pyle and Gina Dobson were friends from their previous work as ongoing characters on the comedic podcast Fine In Dandee. They joked about writing their own script for something so they could have the roles they wanted. Carla Turner and Gina have been friends for over a decade performing on stage together many times. They joked one day about the funny things that have happened during auditions, and Carla suggested to make a show about this. So, the trio got together, and they started writing…

They realized that they worked well together (each with a different strength to bring to the table) and formed BAB on 3 Productions and went in search of a dynamic crew to round out our team. They wanted a predominantly bad ass team to create a series about 3 actresses over 40 who are aging out of the industry and are fighting to breakdown the stereotypes and take the roles they feel they’ve been deprived of. It’s comedy for sure, but with social commentary built in. The pilot is “in the can” and they will be searching for financial backing for upcoming episodes.

Getting ready to shoot our pilot episode of BAB on 3! A comedy about 3 actresses aging out of the film industry who bond with the mission of showing the world they are still Bad Ass Bitches.

Jennifer P. co-producer and Porsha Brown director

#redsyte#femaledirectors#smallbusiness#indiefilm#setlife

From the series, they are working on a spin-off podcast to feature inspirational and empowering stories from real life BABs. CALLING ALL BAD ASSES!! Do you know someone who has defied stereotypes/challenges and is kicking them in the posterior? Know anyone who is fearless, rewrites the rules, and/or inspires people to reach for their dreams despite obstacles? BAB on 3 Productions is looking for nominations for guests on our podcast currently in development so we can help tell their stories to the world! Please DM us with nominations

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