UMass at Amherst

UMass Fine Arts Center
151 Presidents Drive,
Amherst, MA 01003 413.545.2511

Becca Blackwell is a NYC-based trans actor, performer, and writer. Existing between genders, and preferring the pronoun "they," Blackwell works collaboratively with playwrights and directors to expand our sense of personhood and the body through performance. Some of their collaborations have been with Young Jean Lee, Half Straddle, Jennifer Miller's Circus Amok, Richard Maxwell, Erin Markey, Sharon Hayes, Theater of the Two Headed Calf, and Lisa D'Amour. Their film and television credits include Untitled Noah Baumbach Project, Shameless, Deadman's Barstool, and Jack in the Box. Blackwell is a recipient of the Doris Duke Impact Artist Award and the creator of They, Themself and Schmerm.

Valorie Curry is a founding member of Los Angeles’ Ovation Award-winning Coeurage Theatre Company, with which she starred in Balm in Gilead and the West Coast premiere of Shakespeare’s Double Falsehood. Additional theater credits include One Day When We Were Young at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The Diviners at The Kennedy Center, and The Diary of Anne Frank at La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts. On television, she has appeared in The Following, Veronica Mars, Psych, CSI: New York, House of Lies, and currently, the Amazon series The Tick. Her film credits include Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Blair Witch, American Pastoral, and the upcoming feature films Inherit the Viper and After Darkness. She is the founder of the production company 26 Films and a current member of New York’s Fundamental Theater Project.

Sam Underwood is the founder and artistic director of New York’s Fundamental Theater Project, with which he produced and starred in One Day When We Were Young by Nick Payne with Valorie Curry at the 2015 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. His New York theater credits include Candida at The Irish Repertory Theatre, The Picture of Dorian Gray at The Pershing Square Signature Theatre, and Equus at John Drew Theater at Guild Hall, in which he starred opposite Alec Baldwin. Underwood’s television credits include recurring roles on Showtime’s Dexter and Homeland, Fox’s The Following, Power on STARZ, and most recently AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead. Underwood is Creative Director of Initiative Productions, with which he has produced and starred in the short film Ophelia, and his one man show, Losing Days. He recently appeared in the musical film Hello Again.

Selected Shorts is produced by Symphony Space in New York City and broadcast on more than 150 stations around the country. The Selected Shorts podcast consistently ranks as one of the most popular podcasts on iTunes, with over 100,000 downloads every week. The series began in 1985 and enjoys sold-out performances to this day. Selected Shorts was conceived with a simple premise: take great stories by well-known and emerging writers and have them performed by terrific actors of stage and screen. Evenings are often co-hosted by writers or involve a special collaboration with literary publications, podcasts, museums, and more. Each Selected Shorts is a unique night of literature in performance. Past readers include Stephen Colbert, Alec Baldwin, Meryl Streep, Courtney B. Vance, Mary Louise Parker, Bryan Cranston, Bobby Cannavale, Angelica Huston, William Hurt, Lance Reddick, John Lithgow, Sally Field, Paul Giamatti, Leonard Nimoy, Edie Falco, Jane Curtin, Sigourney Weaver, Morgan Freeman and many more.