
CAMILLE SIMONE THOMAS
SWEET BLOOD
This performance is a part of JACKLABS resident artist series
Written by Camille Simone Thomas
Directed by Raecine Singletary
Produced by Camille S. Thomas, Renee Harrison & Jordan Powell
Assitant Directed by Jordan Powell
Scenic Design by ezekial Clare
Lighting Design by Ethan Feil
CREATIVE TEAM
Camille Simone Thomas (Playwright, Producer) is a 5th generation Detroiter through her father’s side and a first generation Jamaican through her mothers. It’s important for her to name this because her work most often interrogates cultural legacies, familial healing, spirituality + ancestral wisdom, and the general kicking and screaming of how Black folks get free despite the oppressive forces of colonialism, capitalism, and white supremacy. She’s a multi-hyphenate playwright-producer-performer-educator. Her plays have been workshopped and performed at The Connelly Theatre, MCC, New York Theatre Workshop, Playwrights Horizons, Sanguine Theatre Company, Blackboard Playwriting series, Lime Arts Theatre company, American Slavery Project, The Obie Award-winning Harlem9 and Detroit Public Theatre Company, Dixon Place, Workshop Theatre, Barter Theatre Company, The National Women's Theatre Festival, The Brick, and more! She was a 2023 Broadway Advocacy Coalition Artivism fellow. A 2024 finalist for the Eugene O’neill NPC for her play “At God’s Back”. A 2023 New Harmony Project finalist, 2023 Hedgebrook Writers retreat finalist, 2023 Catskills Creative Residency finalist. She was in the 2024/2025 Civilians R&D Group, 2024/25 Artistic Research Fellow at The Folger in DC, and is currently the 2024/25 JACKLabs Artist.
Raecine Singletary (Director) is a Jamaican American director and Baltimore native. She works to cultivate art that centers, celebrates, and uplifts the revolutionary joy that continues to shine specifically through Black women and youth; igniting an upswell of healing through unrelenting joy. She has worked as a director with Mercury Store, Broadway Advocacy Coalition, Playwrights Horizons New Works Lab, Baltimore Center Stage, Pittsburgh Classic Theatre, Lime Arts Productions, The Hansberry Project, City Theatre, and Point Park University. She has collaborated as an assistant director alongside numerous directors including Rebecca Martinez, Dustin Wills, Jenny Koons, Pam MacKinnon, Awoye Timpo, etc. She was a Robert Moss Directing Fellow at Playwrights Horizons and a former member of the New Georges Jam. Raecine holds a B.A. in Theatre Arts with a concentration in Directing from Point Park University.
Jacques Matellus (Sound Designer) is an actor and sound designer based in Brockton MA and is excited to be working on this project! His most recent sound credits include NO CHILD.. at Gloucester stage company, NAWFSIDE at the Tank, and Ain't no Mo at speakeasy stage as an assistant to the sound designer. He has studied music production and audio mixing at Berkelee College of Music. Thank you God, always
Renee Harrison (Co-producer) is a Jamaican-born, New Jersey-raised, and Los Angeles-based actor and creative producer. She is the founder of Black Girls Do Theater, a social impact organization connecting Black girls and women with the works of our past, present, and future. Through this platform, Renee has produced dynamic programming in New York City, creating spaces that honor legacy while fostering innovation. A natural storyteller at heart, she marries her love for performance with a passion for intentional, authentic, and creative mediums—now bringing that same vision and commitment to Sweet Blood, her first theatrical production as a producer.
Jordan Powell (she/her) (Co-producer/Assistant director) is a Jamaican American director, writer, filmmaker, designer, and educator. Her work as a writer and director is to bring together black women so we can, as a community, excavate our past and retell these stories through our bodies, voices, and new technological devices that help us archive these stories. Her work archives and documents the present so that we can be represented in the future. She has written and directed a film, Cutie, that was developed in the Nine Muses Lab taught by Bryce Dallas Howard. She has assistant-directed and directed plays at The Public’s Under the Radar Festival, The Wild Project, The Brick, and the New York Theater Festival. Jordan often spends her studio sessions devising new imaginings. She was recently the creative producer and founder of The Archive: New Works by Black Women, a staged reading series that celebrates black women’s voices in theatre.
ezekiel Clare (Set Designer) is a set designer and photographer interested in examining and documenting our relationship to metaphysical thoughts and gender. Ezekiel was born and raised in New York City holding a BFA in Film from SUNY Purchase and is currently pursuing their MFA in set design from NYU. She has been working as a set designer for 4 years and 10 years as a photographer. Her work can be described as playful, direct, contained and minimal. Ezekiel loves solving problems and deconstructing things to their simplest which has led them to be guided by the philosophy “less is more”. Curiosity and play are at the forefront of her process from doing self portraits in her room to working with other artists in a theater. With any given space she tries to create a playground that fosters experimentation and learning as those are the foundations for all of their collaborative work. Set Design credits include:Tell Them My Dreadful Name (2025) at NYU, Fugue/State (2025) at NYU, Can't Make An Omelette (2025) Columbia University, Mud; or when things get messy and how we live with it for the SheNYC festival Off-Broadway at the Conelly Theatre (2024), Ghetto Alchemy:A Lunchroom Survival Guide at The Tank (2024), Lia Del Mar at Columbia University 2024, Powerline Road Art/NY(2023) The Fire This Time Festival at Wild project(2023) , Christians(2022), Marisol(2022), and How I Learned To Drive(2021) all at SUNY Purchase.
eric Cipriaso (Prop Design) is an illustrator and craftsman from the Bronx. Their work encompasses many different mediums and is why they're so excited to work on the props for this show! They're so honored to work with such talented folx and bring creative ideas to life with purposeful props to tell compelling and inspirational stories. Their previous credits include Prop design for Richard II and Henry V (Smith Street Stage).
Ethan Feil (Lighting Designer) is a New York City based lighting designer from Washington, DC. He has done designs all across the city including Royal Family Productions’ Lunchtime Theater, Women on Fire: Fair is Foul, & Upta Camp, Ice Berg Productions’ Orion & The Goatman & Elegies: A Song Cycle, The 24 Hour Plays: Nationals, Joshua Piper’s Cafe Americano, and more! His work has been featured in the Fresh Fruit Festival at Wild Project, NYC Fringe at the Chain, & The New York Theater Festival.
Luke Pearlberg (Fight Choreographer) is an NYC based member of the Society of American Fight Directors, action performer and stunt artist. Previous fight direction credits include: The Pillowman (Heights Players), Macbeth (The American Theater of Actors), Sleepy Hollow (The Players Theater) TurnOver (IRT Theater), Letterhead (New York Theater Festival), Raw (Court Square Theater), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Algonquin Arts Theater). Currently: She Kills Monsters (Hillsborough Arts). Thanks to Josh at False Edge Armory, and to the entire Sweet Blood team.
Francesqa Santos (Stage Manager)
CAST
Brianna Johnson (Ris)
[she/they] is an Afro-Caribbean lover of story and song, hailing from Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and McDonough, Georgia. Brianna's work as an actor seeks to purposefully illuminate the intricacies of the human condition. Brianna's work often centers Black life and artistic expression, and they are so thankful to use their body as a vessel to represent a multitude of lives and histories of people from the African Diaspora. She has earned a BA in Africana Studies and Theatre from Barnard College. Acting credits include: BELLY: An American Love Story by Dr. Haile Eshe Cole (The Good Girl/#4, Connecticut State College), SugarHill (Reading) by Kyra Davis (Alvalee, Playwrights Horizon Downtown), and Breath of Life by Goldie E. Patrick (Toni, Columbia School of the Arts).
Amanda Hunt (Tanama)
is an actor, playwright, and filmmaker from Spanish Town, Jamaica, now based in Queens, NY. A Howard University BFA graduate, she has worked across stage and screen with credits including Saint X (Hulu), Beneatha in A Raisin in the Sun, Amali in Form of a Girl Unknown, and Mamie in Marys Seacole.Passionate about telling stories rooted in Jamaica and the immigrant experience, Amanda created and starred in the web series Manda, which earned the NYC Women’s Fund grant, and produced two award-winning independent films: April Again (2019) and The Sound of Southside (2024). She is also a published playwright who values self-sufficiency and resourcefulness in her art.A proud descendant of the Jamaican Maroons, Amanda is grateful to share this story. Connect with her at @nalasoul and amandamhunt.com. Isaiah 60:1
Whitley Armstrong (Caona)
is an NYC- based multi hyphenate artist (actor, singer, songwriter) born in Kingston, Jamaica, raised in South Florida. Her recent affairs include: recently graduating from NYU where she received her BFA in Drama, starring in the South Florida premiere of the play All The Natalie Portmans by C.A. Johnson, and the release of her first single Cloudy back in May. Whitley is very excited to be apart of the stunning cast of Sweet Blood, playing a character that’s very close to home. Big thanks to Mommy, Sissy, and Chris for your unwavering love and support. @whitleyaarmstrong whitleyaarmstrong.com
Calaway Swanson (Cyrus)
is an actor based in LA and NYC. He recently graduated from Yale University and was trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) in Shakespeare performance. While at Yale he performed in Angels in America: Millennium Approaches (Roy Cohen), Natasha, Pierre, & The Great Comet of 1812 (Balaga), Spring Awakening (Hanshen), Pirates of Penzance (Major General), RENT (Mark Cohen), and Cabaret (Ernst Ludwig). In his spare time, Calaway loves to watch old movies and sing opera.
Adrian Lamont Caldwell Jr. (Khosi)
is ecstatic to be making his professional debut with Sweet Blood! He is an AMDA Conservatory Graduate. He sends warm wishes to his lovely family and friends. @montrfication
Daniel Shevlin (Joseph)
has made a multi-skilled career as both an actor and cellist, having appeared Off-Broadway in the Sandbox (written and directed by Edward Albee), in national and international productions of Cabaret and Rent, and regionally both as an actor and cellist in many theaters including the Arvada Center (CO), the Maltz-Jupiter Theater, Riverside Theater (FL), and Mason Street Warehouse (MI). He presented his solo show Totally Plucked in NYC at Birdland, The Brick, and The Green Room 42, as well as at the Art House in Provincetown. Most notably, he is the cellist of Well-Strung, the singing string quartet, who have performed in various venues across the world and have been seen on the Today Show, The Amazing Race and Watch What Happens Live! @danieljshevlin
Development History
The Brick Interrobang Festival Spring 2024
Folger Library Artistic Research Fellowship "Whose Democracy" fellow 2024/2025
North American Cultural Laboratory 2024
JACKLabs Fellow 2024/2025
This program is made possible by support from the Jerome Foundation