Kevin Willmott

Kevin Willmott grew up in Junction City, Kansas and received his BA in Drama from Marymount College in Salina, Kansas. After graduation, he returned home and worked as a peace and civil rights activist, fighting for the rights of the poor, creating two Catholic Worker shelters for the homeless, and forcing the integration of several long standing segregated institutions. He attended graduate studies at New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, receiving several writing awards and his M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing.

The play, T-Money and Wolf, co-written with Ric Averill, which deals with the holocaust and contemporary gang violence, was selected as part of the New Vision/New Voices series produced by the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. The play is published by Dramatic Publishing.

As a screenwriter Willmott co-wrote Shields Green, the Gospel Of John Brown, Civilized Tribes,  Little Brown Brothers, Marching To Valhalla,  House of Getty and The 70's. He is most well known for his work on Ninth Street, The Confederate States Of America, Da Five Bloods, The Battle for Bunker Hill, and his most recent film, The Only Good Indian. 

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He won an Oscar for best adopted screenplay in 2019 for contributions to the film “BlacKkKlansman.” He and two other writers co-wrote the film with Spike Lee.

Deborah Joy Winans

Actor and singer Deborah Joy Winans is best known for her portrayal of Charity
Greenleaf on the award winning drama Greenleaf, produced by Oprah for OWN. In
addition to starring in the series, she is featured on the Greenleaf soundtrack single,
“The Master’s Calling,” which broke the top 20 on the Gospel Billboard Chart two
weeks after release. She also shares the debut single, “Changed”, for season 3 of
the Greenleaf soundtrack with GRAMMY award winning artist, Patti LaBelle.

Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan and growing up with a deeply musical family, her first passion has always been acting. Since Greenleaf, she has starred in films and TV
shows such as Don’t Waste Your Pretty alongside Keri Hilson, The Color of Love on
Lifetime, A Sisterly Christmas on OWN, and The Final Say on BET+. The Anthology
series, Terror Lake Drive, premiered in November 2023. Categorized as a
suspenseful thriller, this latest project demonstrated her ability to lead a cast in a
new genre.

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While her work is primarily on the screen she has not forgotten her theatre roots.
Deborah Joy starred in Born for This during its regional theatre run in Atlanta,
Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles as CeCe Winans.

Deborah Joy holds an MFA from California Institute of the Arts, achieved her BFA from
Wayne State University, and received a certificate of completion from the Moscow
Art Theatre School.

Jason Dirden

This Houston born and raised actor is on a wave of excitement, spanning the globe and captivating audiences with his soul-stirring hypnotic performances. Dirden’s innate
ability to deliver complex characters that are universal to the human experience is
deeply embedded in his pedigree. Growing up watching his father and older brother
engulfed in the arts, prompted his passionate pursuit of storytelling. In an industry
driven by will and determination, a word often intertwined in defining Dirden’s
entertainment footprint is FEARLESS!
He developed an affinity for the arts while in high school and began the journey of
mastering his craft at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. He followed up his
Bachelor of Arts degree with a Master of Fine Arts in Acting from the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dirden’s hard-work, dedication and commitment to the
craft has afforded him an opportunity to work with and star opposite Hollywood’s most
famed actors and actresses.

To date, Dirden has appeared on Broadway in two Tony Award winning productions, A
Raisin in the Sun, and Fences opposite Academy Award winners, Denzel Washington
and Viola Davis. His many performances off-broadway and around the country have
been noticed critically resulting in various awards and nominations. One of note was his lead role in the west coast revival of August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom directed by Phylicia Rashad, earning an Ovation Award.
In addition to his illustrious theatre career, Dirden is making his mark in television and
film. Dirden starred as Pastor Basie Skanks in OWN’s hit original drama series
Greenleaf. He also created the character of Gerald Aims in BET’s original drama,
American Soul, the story of Don Cornelius and Soul Train. Other works include Lifetime’s Robin Roberts Presents: Mahalia, Elementary, Hawaii Five-0, Bosch: Legacy and Raising Kanan to name a few.

Harvey Williams

Williams is the Founder of KC Melting Pot Theatre and a native of Kansas City Missouri, a US Army veteran, Actor, Playwright, Director, and Producer.
 

Williams is viewed as a visionary in the Kansas City arts arena who developed one of
the region’s top talent incubators for African-American artists and actors working in
theater.
 

He holds a BA in Communication studies from the University of Missouri –Kansas City
and has been a member of SAG/AFTRA and Actors Equity for over 30 years.
Williams, a former schoolteacher has been involved in acting since 1978, has been on
the stages Theatre for Young America, Coterie, The Unicorn, MET, American Heartland
Theatre, ), New Theatre, GEM Theatre, The KC Rep, The University of
Missouri/Columbia and Just Off Broadway. He has performed internationally at the
Adelaide Fringe Festival and Palace Theatre in Great Britain as well as appeared in
several movies (Soul of the Game, Kansas City, NBC’s movie of the week, Article 99,
One Good Indian, Negros in Outer Space and CSA), various commercials and industrial films.
 

He is also the author of five stage plays.

Darren Canady

Darren Canady hails from Topeka, KS. His play, False Creeds, was named the winner of the Alliance Theater’s Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition and was also developed at the O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwright’s Conference. False Creeds was also a finalist for the Abingdon Theatre Company’s Christopher Brian Wolk Award and the Goldberg Prize in Playwriting. Another play, Brothers of the Dust, has received recognition in the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Competition, the Theodore Ward Prize for African-American Playwriting, the James W. Rodgers Playwriting Competition and was produced by Congo Square Theatre (Black Excellence Award, Black Theatre Alliance Award, ATCA Osborn Award, Jeff Award nom.). 

How Theo Changed His Name, an opera for which Darren provided the libretto, was premiered through the Pittsburgh (PA) Symphony Orchestra. His play You’re Invited appeared in The Best American Short Plays 2010-2011. His work has been seen at the Quo Vadimus Arts’ ID America Festival, the Fremont Centre Theatre, Chicago’s Congo Square Theatre, and the BE Company.

Darren is an alum of Carnegie Mellon University, New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and the Juilliard School. He is a former member of Primary Stages’ Dorothy Strelsin New Writers Group, and a past participant in the T.S. Eliot US/UK Exchange. He currently teaches playwriting at the University of Kansas.

Marcia Cebulska

For four decades, Marcia Cebulska has enjoyed a critically acclaimed international career writing for the stage and screen. Her award-winning scripts have been performed from Topeka to Turkmenistan. Cebulska has received the Dorothy Silver Award, the Jane Chambers International Award, Kansas Arts Commission Master Artist Fellowships, Indiana Master Artist Fellowships, and other honors. Her plays have been chosen for development by the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Sundance Playwrights Lab, the William Inge Theatre Festival, and Shenandoah Playwrights Retreat and produced at The Georgia Repertory Theatre, HERE, the Phoenix Theatre, Frontera at Hyde Park, Fremont Centre Theatre, The Theatre
Building, Fusion Theatre, Ad Astra and elsewhere. Now Let Me Fly, commissioned for the national celebration of the 50 th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, has been performed internationally at thousands of venues including the National Constitution Center, Rothko Chapel, Topeka Performing Arts Center, numerous churches, schools, and NAACP chapters. Her play Rooted, commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts with music by Kelley Hunt, was produced in collaboration with Cornerstone Theater of Los Angeles, the Greensburg Arts Center, and the William Inge Center for the Arts. Through Martha’s Eyes (screenplay) aired nationally on PBS. She wrote the script for the animated film Ever Since the Bad Thing Happened, a collaboration with visual artist Ronald Markman. Her other scripts
include Dear John, And When the Bough Breaks, and dozens of others. Cebulska has been writer-in-residence at The University of Georgia, Mary Anderson Center for the Arts, Marion College, and The William Inge Center for the Arts. She is a Fellow of the Center for Kansas Studies and is a member of The Dramatists Guild. Cebulska’s publications include her guided journal Skywriting; her novel Watching Men Dance; and her memoir Lovers, Dreamers, & Thieves. She lives in Topeka, Kansas with her husband, historian Thomas Prasch.