Explore every episode of the podcast EST Re:Members

Welcome to the final episode of season 1 of EST Re:Members! What a journey it's been. For our grand finale, host Rachel Lin speaks with two booked and busy members of EST: William Jackson Harper and Brian Quijada. Notably, both Brian and Will have graced the EST stage as actors AND playwrights, and they've both been nominated for Emmy awards...coincidence? We think not. Join as our dynamic trio talk about their humble beginnings, the low lows that can come with being an actor in New York, and how they made it through it all.

WILLIAM JACKSON HARPER  Broadway: Uncle Vanya, All the Way. Off-
Broadway: After the Blast (LCT3), Travisville (Ensemble Studio Theater); Primary Trust (Roundabout, Obie Award); A Family for All Occasions (LAByrinth); Modern Terrorism (Second Stage); The Total Bent, Titus Andronicus, Measure for Measure (The Public Theater); Placebo, A Cool Dip in the Barren Saharan Crick (Playwrights Horizons); and Queens Boulevard, Paradise Park (Signature). Ruined (MTC) Film: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Landscape with Invisible Hand, We Broke Up, Jodie, Dark Waters, Midsommar, Lost Holiday, Paterson, TV: “The Resort,” “Love Life” “A Man in Full,” “The Underground Railroad”, “The Good Place.”

BRIAN QUIJADA is an Emmy-nominated playwright, actor, and composer. Quijada has spent most of his career acting in Off-Broadway and Regional Theaters including The Public Theater, Roundabout Theatre Company, MCC, Playwright’s Realm, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Victory Gardens, and Actors Theatre of Louisville. He is also a member of Lucille Lortel winning group, The Pack. 

His live-looped hip hop solo show Where Did We Sit on the Bus? has been produced at Teatro Vista (Jeff Award), Ensemble Studio Theatre (Drama Desk Nomination), Geva Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville (Drama League Nomination), Denver Theatre Center, City Theatre Pittsburgh, and many more. His play Kid Prince and Pablo, received its World Premiere at The Kennedy Center Fall of 2019. His Cumbia, Hip Hop musical Somewhere Over the Border made its rolling World Premiere at Syracuse Stage, Geva Theatre, and Teatro Vista, garnering 6 Jeff Award nominations, winning 3 including Best Musical. His live-looped hip hop musical MEXODUS played to sold-out audiences at Baltimore Center Stage and Mosaic Theatre in DC.    Producer & Host: Rachel Lin Sound Designer & Engineer: Caroline Eng Artwork: Harrison Densmore

Listen in as EST Member Artists and Youngblood alumni Lloyd Suh and Leah Nanako Winkler speak with our host Rachel Lin about their trajectories as writers. From the early years of figuring out their place in the New York City theater scene to the current state of the playwriting landscape, Lloyd and Leah share their perspectives on the challenges and joys of writing for the American Theater. Press play to hear their takes and the lessons they've learned along the way.   This fall, the New York premiere of Lloyd's play, Franklinland, directed by Chika Ike, will begin performances at EST on October 9th, 2024. Tickets will become available HERE.   Lloyd Suh is the author of plays including The Heart Sellers, The Chinese Lady, The Far Country (Pulitzer Prize finalist), Bina’s Six Apples, American Hwangap, and others, which have been produced at the Atlantic Theater Company, Public Theater, Alliance Theatre, Ma-Yi Theatre Company, the National Asian American Theatre Company, and Ensemble Studio Theatre among others, including internationally at the Cultural Center of the Philippines and with PCPA in Seoul, Korea. Awards include the Steinberg Playwright Award, Guggenheim Fellowship, Herb Alpert Award, and Horton Foote Prize. A resident playwright at New Dramatists and a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre, he was elected in 2016 to the Dramatists Guild Council. His play Franklinland will have its NY premiere at EST this fall.   Leah Nanako Winkler is an award-winning playwright from Kamakura, Japan and Lexington Kentucky. Her plays include God Said This , Two Mile Hollow, Kentucky, Hot Asian Doctor Husband, and The Brightest Thing in the World, as well as many short plays all produced Off-Broadway and regionally. Accolades and fellowships: Yale Drama Series Prize, Mark O’Donnell Prize from The Actors Fund and Playwrights Horizons, Audible’s Emerging Playwrights Fund, Jerome New York Fellow at the Lark, Francesca Primus Prize, and a Steinberg Playwright Award . She is published by American Theater Magazine, Nanjing University’s Stage and Screen Reviews, Yale University Press, Backstage, Smith and Krauss, Samuel French and Dramatists Play Service.  TV credits include  A24’s Ramy, where she along with the other writers won a Peabody Award, Love Life on HBO MAX,  Schmigadoon!, among others. She is currently a co-executive producer and writer on Elsbeth. Upcoming: Crazy Rich Asians the musical.   Producer & Host: Rachel Lin Sound Designer & Engineer: Caroline Eng Artwork: Harrison Densmore

Obie Award winners Lois Smith and Stephanie Berry join host, Rachel Lin, to discuss their decades-long careers in the theater. Together, they have over a century of experience combined! The two esteemed performers talk: self-doubt, motherhood, and the differences in their paths as journeyman actors. Thanks for joining us for the very first episode of EST Re:Members!   STEPHANIE BERRY recently appeared in GEM OF THE OCEAN at the Two River Theater and STAFF MEAL at Playwrights Horizon and as Olivia in Classical Theatre of Harlem’s production of Malvolio. She is the 2023 recipient of an Obie Award for Performance, for her role in On Sugarland at the New York Theatre Workshop, and an Obie Award for her solo show, The Shaneequa Chronicles. She is the recipient of an AUDELCO Award for Lead Actress, and she was nominated for the 2023 Drama League Distinguished Performance Award for a bandaged place, which premiered at the Roundabout Theatre. Select theater credits include Sugar in Our Wounds at the Manhattan Theatre Club, Trouble in Mind, Fences, Iced Out, Shackled and Chained: Still Looking for the North Star, and Wild with Happy. Select film and TV credits include “Fantasy Island,” O.G., Delivery Man, No Reservations, Finding Forrester, “The Last OG,” “Bull,” “Blue Bloods,” “the Blacklist.” She is the recipient of the 2022 New Professional Theatre’s Award for Activism, and the 2021 League of Professional Theatre Women’s Lee Reynold’s Award.    LOIS SMITH recently appeared at the Barrymore Theater on Broadway in Matthew Lopez’s play THE INHERITANCE, for which she won a Tony Award.  She appears in Greta Gerwig’s film LADYBIRD, and played onstage in Jordan Harrison’s play MARJORIE PRIME at both the Taper in LA and Playwrights Horizons in NYC, and in Michael Almereyda’s film adaptation. She also appeared at the Signature in Annie Baker’s JOHN, for which she received a Lucille Lortel nomination; Tony Kushner's THE ILLUSION; and Horton Foote's THE OLD FRIENDS and THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL, winning many awards for the latter. Other favorite stage roles include THE GRAPES OF WRATH and BURIED CHILD (Tony nominations for both), Broadway productions originating at Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago, and Amy Herzog's AFTER THE REVOLUTION at Playwright's Horizons.  Her first film was EAST OF EDEN.  Many others followed, including THE FRENCH DISPATCH, UNCLE FRANK, THE COMEDIAN, FIVE EASY PIECES, MINORITY REPORT, TWISTER, DEAD MAN WALKING, HOW TO MAKE AN AMERICAN QUILT, FOUR FRIENDS, and PLEASE GIVE. Numerous television credits include, most recently, RAY DONOVAN, MOM, SNEAKY PETE, YOUNGER, THE VILLAGE, ON BECOMING A GOD IN CENTRAL FLORIDA, THE SON, THE BLACKLIST, THE AFFAIR, THE AMERICANS, and TRUE BLOOD.
Producer & Host: Rachel Lin Sound Designer & Engineer: Caroline Eng Artwork: Harrison Densmore