The Rattlestick Core Team

nicHi Douglas is a Brooklyn-based actor, dancer, choreographer, director, playwright and activist.  She has performed all over New York and the country as an actor/dancer in the freelance capacity, in addition to performing nationally with The Dance Cartel and literacy-focused children’s theatre company The Story Pirates. She currently teaches Movement & Choreography and Performance Symposium in the NYU: Tisch Drama Department – Playwright’s Horizon Theatre School studio. She is currently in residence in Fresh Ground Pepper's inaugural In-House Artists program and is an Ars Nova’s Maker’s Lab artist-in-residence for 2018.  Recent stage credits: Primer for a Failed Superpower (Roulette, Choreographer), PharmaBro: An American Douchical (The Players Theatre, Choreographer), Runaways (NY City Center, Associate Choreographer), The Dance Cartel: ONTHEFLOOR (A.R.T./Oberon, Principal Dancer), NOW EVERYONE GO AROUND THE TABLE AND SAY WHAT THEY'RE THANKFUL FOR (NYU/Experimental Theater Wing, Director), decolonizing my vagina (Exponential Festival at JACK, Choreographer) and Black Girl Magic Show! (Ars Nova ANT Fest and JACK, Director/Choreographer/Playwright). Upcoming stage credits: A Time Like This (Carnegie Hall, Stage Director) and Runaways (Public Theater Gala, Associate Director and Choreographer). B.F.A. NYU/ETW; M.F.A. The New School.

Shadi Ghaheri is a director and choreographer from Tehran, Iran. She has directed The Girl is Chained, Death of Yazdgerd, Titus Andronicus, and Wrong River, and choreographed Passion (Yale School of Drama). Other Credits, The Slow Sound of Snow (Yale Cabaret). Shadiwas Co-Artistic Director of Yale Summer Cabaret’s 2017 season, directing The Trojan Women, and Lear. She directed Art and devised a piece called A Stranger Walking in My Room at Tehran’s Shahid Beheshti University. She has also led workshops at Iranian refugee camps for Afghani children fleeing the war in their country. Shadi was a 2016 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow. shadighaheri.com

Kevin Hourigan is a director of plays, opera, music, and devised work. Some of his credits include: Blood Wedding, The Merchant of Venice, The Hour of Great Mercy by Miranda Rose Hall, and Tiny by Sarah B. Mantell (Yale School of Drama); Lake Kelsey by Dylan Frederick, I’m with you in Rockland, a devised work based on Howl (Yale Cabaret); Cenerentola (Curtis Opera Theater); Talk to me about Shame (NYFringe and at the Syrena Theatre in Warsaw, Poland); Sweeney Todd (Performing Arts Institute); Gentlemen of Kentucky by Thomas Daniel Valls (Dixon Place); and Magellanica by A. J. Ditty (Access Theater). As an assistant/associate director, Kevin has worked with directors Rachel Chavkin, Nicky Silver, Christine Jones, Jackson Gay, John Jesurun, Laura Savia, and Mike Donahue.

He is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama, where he was the artistic director of the Yale Cabaret's 2016-2017 season, and has his BFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

Annie Middleton recently received an MFA in Theater Management from Yale School of Drama. At YSD, she served as Managing Director of Yale Cabaret, Company Manager for Yale Repertory Theatre, General Manager for the Dwight/Edgewood Project, and Management Fellow at Roundabout Theatre Company in NYC. Prior to grad school, Annie lived in Los Angeles where she spent a year at WME, followed by two years at Carousel Productions, a film/TV production company led by actor, producer & writer Steve Carell. Annie received a B.S. in Theater from Northwestern University. She grew up in Pelham, NY, and has a passion for singing, guitar, yoga, vegetarian food and dogs.

Zoë Rhulen is a New York born, Colorado grown, playwright. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dramatic Writing, with a concentration in Playwriting, from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Her plays have been workshopped and granted readings at Curious Theater Company, The Lark, New Dramatists, New York University, and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. Zoë joined the Rattlestick community as an intern in 2015 and is thrilled to be returning as a staff member on the ‘Stick team.

Daniella Topol’s world premiere productions include: Martyna Majok’s Ironbound (Rattlestick; Roundhouse; Steppenwolf’s First Look, NY Times Critics’ Pick), Jessica Dickey’s Charles Ives Take Me Home (Rattlestick) and Row After Row (Women’s Project), Cori Thomas’ When January Feels Like Summer (Ensemble Studio Theatre/P73/Women’s Proj; NY Times Critics’ Pick), Rachel Bonds’ Five Mile Lake (South Coast Rep), Sheila Callaghan’s Dead City (New Georges) and Lascivious Something (Women’s Project), Rajiv Joseph’s Monster at the Door (Alley Theatre), Tony Meneses’ Guadalupe in the Guest Room (Two River), Catherine Treischmann’s How the World Began (South Coast Rep and Women’s Project), Lloyd Suh’s Jesus in India (MaYi and Magic).

Topol has been the Artistic Program Director of the Lark Play Development Center, New Works Program Director of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, and Associate Producing Director of City Theatre. She is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon’s Directing Program where she also has a Masters in Arts Management. She has directed readings and workshops for a number of companies and is currently a member of the board of the Lark Play Development Center, has been a grants review panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, NY State Council on the Arts and TCG. She is an NYTW Usual Suspect, member of EST, a Women’s Project Lab alumnus, and a New Georges affiliated artist. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and 5-year old daughter.