Mika J. Nakano is a Baltimore-based first generation Japanese American multi-disciplinary artist born and raised in Los Angeles, CA. She is excited to be part of this staged reading as the way Karen Li wrote From East, Like the Sun reminds her of growing up and navigating through her own challenges and curiosity toward her racial and generational identity.

Mika is a Core Creator for Submersive Productions and you may have seen her work ranging from performance on stage to set and prop designs in shows at Submersive Productions, Strand Theater, Single Carrot Theatre, Cohesion Theater, Everyman Theatre, Mercury Theatre, and Annex Theatre.

Eric Panuela: After receiving his Bachelor’s degree for Acting and Performance from Towson University, Eric Panuela has been focusing in the past year on starting his Voice Over career as well as Private Acting lessons alongside performances. He is absolutely thrilled for his introduction to Baltimore theatre and hopes to perform in more works here. Special thanks to Horticulture Playwright’s Workshop for this amazing opportunity, the legendary Karen Li, and especially to his mother Daisy.

Theodore Sherron III: Theodore is a Maryland-based actor working in the Baltimore area! Previous performances include: A Midsummer Night's Dream(CSC), Macbeth(CSC), R & J(Strand Theatre Co.), Complete Works of William Shakespeare(CSC), She Kills Monsters(UMBC).

Aparna Sri is delighted to stage-read a home-brewed play, brainchild of an inventive writer, and nurtured by Sisters Freehold, in the heart of Baltimore. She was most recently spotted around Maryland in That Woman - The Monologue Show at the 2024 Charm City Fringe Festival, in Tiny Beautiful Things, in Baltimore's 20th Annual 10-min Play Festival with Rapid Lemon, as Siobhan in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Lady Mac in Macbeth, Sandra in The Play That Goes Wrong, Elizabeth Darcy in Miss Bennet - Christmas at Pemberley, Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Heather in Gideon's Knot, Mrs. Alfieri in A View from the Bridge, and Kay Strange in Towards Zero. She draws enormous strength from her sweet dude and Aces^3. You’re in for a heartwarming treat ~ enjoy the show!

Breanna Stewart (she/hers) is a Baltimore interdisciplinary artists. For the last six years she has been working with fellow artist on development of new theatric pieces. She has performed with the Fells Point Corner Theatre, she's participated as a stage direction reader in the Horticulture Workshop, and was a company member with The Oven Theatre Company.

Susan Stroupe is a Baltimore-based theater maker, with a focus in collaboratively devised pieces; scripts that challenge norms of race, gender, and genre; theater in nontraditional spaces; and critically examining and expanding the collective mythology of the dominant narrative.

She has worked in the Twin Cities, LA, NYC, Albuquerque, Baltimore and her hometown Atlanta as a director, performer, writer, puppeteer, teaching artist, dramaturg, and deviser, In Baltimore, she works as a freelance director for independent companies, and she is a founding member and Artistic Associate for Submersive Productions, serving on the core creative team for The Mesmeric Revelations! Of Edgar Allan Poe, H.T. Darling’s Incredible Musaeum, The Institute of Visionary History, and MASS/Rabble.

She is a long-time member of the Teaching Artist team at Baltimore Center Stage, and a continuing associate of Philip Arnoult’s Center for International Theatre Development. She received her BA from Macalester College and MFA in Theatre Arts from Towson University, and has worked as an adjunct professor at Towson University, the University of Baltimore, and UMBC.

Mohammad Rohaizad Suaidi, MFA, is a performer and director whose work has been seen in Honolulu, Kuala Lumpur, Micronesia, New York, Singapore, as well as Baltimore, a city he has called home since 1997. After working abroad teaching English and Theatre for more than ten years, Rohaizad returned to Baltimore in 2015. He has worked with Single Carrot Theatre on several productions as a performer/collaborator. As an adjunct professor at Towson University’s Department of Theatre Arts, Rohaizad teaches courses in Acting and Cultural Diversity in Contemporary Theatre. Rohaizad is also an ESL teacher, working with refugees and immigrants who are speakers of Arabic, French, Spanish, and Mandarin Chinese. A founding member of the Asian Pasifika Arts Collective, a non-profit organization that uses art to advocate the representation of Asian Americans and Pacific Indigenous Americans, Rohaizad’s art-making is informed by his experiences living in America as an immigrant, Muslim, brown Southeast Asian, and queer cisgender man. Rohaizad is dad to an eight-year-old who he loves very much, and every day they laugh and do silly dances together.

Tevis Tsai: Tevis's entry into Baltimore theater came in 2022, with the Baltimore Rock Opera Society's production of "Love and Roar." He went on to do design for BROS's "Gold Night" (2023) and joined the cast of "A Computer that Loves" (2024); he's also a design lead for the upcoming "Ceremony of the Faceless." He previously served as choral director of the Baltimore Gamer Symphony Orchestra.

This is Tevis's first show portraying an Asian American character.