Marble Rooftop, Emma has Church
by Eliana Theologides RodriGuez
Tuesday, September 26 at 2pm at AMT Theater, 354 West 45th Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues.
It’s September 2019— time for Woodview High Dance Team’s sacred annual sleepover, and these seven dancers can’t wait to partake in the yearly rituals that establish their places in the social hierarchy of the team. But what happens when one girl goes too far to prove herself to the rest? Exploring the divides between sexual performance and sexual agency, peer pressure and systemic pressure, Marble Rooftop explores the implicit conditions of femininity as we know it.
Eliana Theologides Rodriguez is a writer and dancer whose work centers young women in various stages of development grappling with feminism in the digital age, internalized dissonances between sexual performance and autonomy, and the general beauties and traumas of being socialized as a girl. Her plays include Marble Rooftop, Emma Has Church (2023 Writers Intensive with Workshop Theater, 2021 Princess Grace Semifinalist, 2020 John Golden Award for Excellence in Playwriting), Poor Queenie (2021 Writers Intensive with Workshop Theater, 2021 Playwrights Realm Writing Fellowship Finalist, 2021 Goldberg Play Prize Finalist, 2020 Kennedy Center MFA & Undergraduate Playwrights Workshop), JuniPerfect (2021 commission with Adventure Theatre MTC), and Indian Princesses (2022 Workshop with Workshop Theater). She is currently a writing fellow with the Playwrights Realm and is under commission at South Coast Repertory. When she is not writing, Eliana can be found working the box office at Rattlestick Theater, pole dancing, or watching Dance Moms.
Emily Anne Goes, born and raised in East Side San Jose, is a Filipino New York-based performer and pathfinder. She currently co-conspires with The CRAFT Institute as the Director of Marketing and Communications and supports the marketing of CreateEnsemble.com and #BlackTheatreDay. Previously, she proudly served as the Operations Manager for Broadway Advocacy Coalition, and now works as a consultant for their annual Arts in Action Festival. Emily attended New York University Tisch School of the Arts and completed her BFA in Drama in 2020. Emily loves to perform and is a part of the Artist Company of Kinding Sindaw, learning to assert and preserve Filipino indigenous traditions and reflect on the resilience and resistance of the Moro people against centuries of colonization under Spanish rule. Gratefully standing on the shoulders of those before her, Emily sees and feels her family with each breath.
Grace Durham is a recent graduate of NYU Tisch New Studio on Broadway. Stage highlights include 7 (The Wolves), Frau. Kost (Cabaret), and Cinderella (Into the Woods). You may have seen her in commercials for brands like Lululemon, Colgate, Campbell’s, DoorDash, and more! Most recent film credits include Kids in the Night (Pilot) and Más Bowls (Short). Keep up to date at gracecdurham.com!
Maaike Laanstra-Corn’s recent credits include Joan of Arc in a Supermarket… (The Tank), Fullerton (Bedlam), Calf Scramble (Workshop Theater) Button Lake Band Camp (Clubbed Thumb), Ms. Lily (Clubbed Thumb), Me and Who (The Brick/Rough Draft Festival), Grendel’s Mother (Hunter MFA Playwrights Festival), kemps (Brown University) and Your Own Personal Exegesis (Brown University). BA Brown University! @_mcorn
Char Nakashima-Conway is a Bay Area-raised poet, performer, and narrative designer. Her untitled Waifu play was featured in Ars Nova’s ANT Fest in 2022, a mixture of live performance and a staged Reddit forum. Recent performance credits include the national tour of Children’s Crusade (dir. Scott Huffman) and Middle School Play (dir. Daniel Holzman) in Sixth Fest. Love to the team! ^╰(*´︶`*)╯♡
Jennifer Paredes*—Regional Theatre: El Huracán (Yale Rep); American Mariachi, Much Ado About Nothing (DCPA); Hurricane Diane, Twelfth Night (Old Globe); The Straights (The JACK); Waking La Llorona (The Old Globe/La Jolla Playhouse/WoW Festival); The Clean House (Portland Stage); Native Gardens (Florida Repertory); The River Bride (Stages Repertory); Into the Beautiful North, and Rapture, Blister, Burn, Manifest Destinitis (San Diego Repertory); Seven Spots on the Sun (InnerMission); Lydia (Ion). jenniferparedesactor.com, IG — @_jennparedes
Juliana Sass* (she/her) recently played Shelby in the world premiere of Kimberly Belflower’s John Proctor is the Villain at Studio Theater (Helen Hayes nominated for Outstanding Lead Performer, winner for Best Production & Best Ensemble). New York: Erica Schmidt’s Mac Beth (Hunter Theater Project), Julius Caesar (Theater for a New Audience). Selected readings/workshops: The Workshop Theater, Playwrights Horizons, The New Group, New York Stage & Film, Studio Theater. Film: A Call to Spy, Radium Girls, The Sisterhood of Night. Juliana graduated with a BA in Comparative Literature from Harvard University. AEA & SAG
Avis Zane is a Brooklyn-based actor and writer from Kingston, NY. Since graduating from Bard College, she’s performed in plays at theaters around the city such as the Tank, Target Margin theater, and the Producer’s Club. As the producer of Chub Rub comedy group, she’s written and acted in several one-act and sketch shows at the PIT. She’s incredibly excited to join the cast of Marble Rooftop, Emma Has Church for this reading, and highly anticipates anything that comes from the beautiful complex mind of Ms. Eliana Theologides Rodriguez.
*Equity Member appearing with permission of Actors’ Equity Association without benefit of an Equity contract in this Off-Off Broadway reading.