Welcome to Our Bar
"MOXIE"! 

This Month's Team:

Showrunner: Amanda Nicastro

Assistant Showrunner: Lauren Roth-Shaw

Jury Foreperson: NJ Agwuna

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Bartender: Lauren Roth-Shaw

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NJ Agwuna: NJ Agwuna is a freelance theater and film director, hailing from the ‘burb’s of central Maryland. She spends her days coaching audition techniques, devises new pieces, performing musical Improv, and assists with casting shows. She is thrilled to be acting with the amazingly talented folks at Our Bar. www.njagwuna.com

 

Battles: Originally hailing from West Virginia, Battles attended Interlochen Arts Academy and the Hartt School of Music. Favorite roles include Helina (Windfall, audio drama podcast), Mattie Earp (I Married Wyatt Earp), and Jenny (Significant Loss, best in show Offline Film Festival). During lockdown, she founded the WineBox Players, a collective that meets weekly to read fresh, new works from up-and-coming playwrights.

 

Elizabeth Bays: ​​New York Theatre: The Tower (HERE Arts Center,) Photoluminescence (New York Theatre festival,) Persephone (New York Fringe Festival,) Angelina Ballerina the musical (Off-Broadway.) Elizabeth has a residency at the swanky Penny Jo’s where she hosts, produces, and performs in her monthly burly- Q show "Bitsy's Bits.” She has developed a film series based on her burlesque persona. @ebays_

 

Alyssa Beatty: Alyssa mostly writes speculative short fiction, and her work has appeared in several anthologies. She often kills her characters, but she tries not to do that for Our Bar. Someday she’ll write a novel and then she’ll never shut up about it. 

 

Tara Bopp*: is thrilled to have her debut at Our Bar with the “Moxie” crew! She studied Shakespeare at RADA and Theatre/Film at AMDA. Her most recent films have garnered some wins in the festival circuits and she is headed to SXSW next week to join her cast in the celebration.

 

Lisa Cheong: Lisa Cheong was once called a “writer-director-producer” by a psychic. Her sketches and films have played at Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival, NYC SketchFest, SOLOCOM, and That Asian-American Film Thing.  Lisa believes puns are jokes and will fight anyone who says otherwise. Hit her up at @lisiepeasie. 

 

CNK: Writer, actor, and perhaps one day: bio submitter.  Until then, feel free to ask her more about herself after the show!

 

Mahnaz Damania*: Heard of Delhi and Mumbai? Well, Mahnaz is from Ahmedabad. She left her film and theatre career in India for  "The American Dream" (which soon turned into our Collective Pandemic Nightmare) As much as she misses her crazy community back home she is ecstatic to have found a similar bunch of loonies at OurBar and feels right at home again. Thank you for coming tonight and being a part of her all American Masala.

 

Alexandra Gellner: Hailing from the Pacific Northwest and now based in Brooklyn, Alexandra is an actor, teaching artist, and Murderino. Theatre: Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing (Hudson Valley Shakespeare), Warhol for Senate (The Tank), Casca in Julius Caesar (The Brick), Rosalind in As You Like It (Cradle Theatre & Brimstone Creek Productions). Regional: Wait Until Dark (Ferndale Rep). Film: "Adherence" (Best Actress in a Short, First Glance Film Festival). Education: MFA, New School for Drama. Cheers to the Our Bar family and friends! www.alexandragellner.com

 

Whitney Haasé: Whitney is an actor/writer/singer/Shakespeare lecturer. She attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and the Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute. Credits include A Midsummer Night’s Dream (The Kraine Theater), Alien’s Exist(Manhattan Repertory Theater), Comedy of Errors, Merry Wives of Windsor, Two Gentlemen  of Verona (Shakespeare Festival at Tulane), The Fantasticks (Rivertown Theaters for Performing Arts). Thank you, Our Bar for such a fun opportunity! 

 

Rebecca Kopec: Rebecca is an actor and writer with a big belty voice, a heart of gold, and a scar on her face from the time she dropped a puppy on it.  She has been part of this crazy team since 2011 and has loved every second of it. Other than walking the boards of various pubs throughout the city (both for OUR BAR and to enjoy a fine bourbon), Rebecca has performed in everything from downtown experimental theatre (Perfect Disgrace Theatre's A Crucible), to musical theatre, to various feature films. www.rebeccakopec.com

 

Amanda Marikar: Selected credits: Mein Uncle (3 Voices Theatre), Cadence: Home (co-writer. NYC and Straz Center in Tampa. FL), At War: American Playwrights Respond to Iraq (Bleeker St. Theater), Everything's Whispered (For Now) (co-writer, Culture Project), Quake (UK Premiere. Finborough Theatre).Training: Maggie Flanigan Studio, Moscow Art Theatre, Chautauqua, BADA, graduate of Barnard College. Co-founding Member: FRESH PRODUCE'd Theater Co. www.amandamarikar.com

 

Erin McMahon: Erin is very excited to be performing in an Irish bar! She’s technically only half Irish but fits many Irish stereotypes. Her first name means Ireland and her last name starts with a “Mc,” she has 9 siblings, randomly finds 4 leaf clovers on a regular basis, and she really really loves potatoes.

 

Amanda Miller: Amanda is a Brooklyn-based writer and actor. She’s toured her solo shows nationally and internationally, her writing has appeared in various journals, and she produces the literary/performance series Lyrics, Lit & Liquor. Amanda also wrote a memoir, serves on PEN America’s Prison Writing Awards Committee, and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School and a BFA in Acting from NYU. She's hyped to be a part of the positive, talented crew that is Our Bar!

 

Amanda Nicastro: Amanda is an award-winning writer, actor and comedian from New York City who has entertained sold out crowds at the International Edinburgh Festival Fringe and at theaters and comedy clubs across the United States. After a brief detour making sourdough during a global pandemic, she’s proud to return to Our Bar as part of the leadership team. She lives in the Bronx with her husband and her television. She loves them both very much. @TheLastAmanda

 

Lauren Roth-Shaw: Mom to boy and dog, Muppet stan, and low-amateur baker. Lauren was a California Raisin once for Halloween. Favorite NYC credits: Play Nice! (59E59th), Reckless (The Gallery Players), Sex and Violence (Mint Theater), Lavender Lizards and Lilac Landmines: Layla’s Dream (New Federal Theater), Land Escaping (The Flea), Billy Carver and the Children in Mind (Manhattan Theatre Source NYIT Best Performance by a Supporting Actress nod), Rhinoceros (UglyRhino).  TV: 30 Rock.  MFA Acting, University of Florida. Barbarian since 2011.

 

Vin Scialla: Vin has traveled the world performing shows and creating tv/film soundtracks. NYC performances include musician/actor in off-broadway musicals, TV/Film roles on HBO, Netflix, CBS, Amazon, NBC. Vin is the creator of music mockumentary, We are the Prototypes. Vin studied at HB Studios, Upright Citizens Brigade, The Hartt School, Brooklyn College, and Boston University. He is thrilled to be part of the BARbarians! www.imdb.me/vin

 

Lexie Showalter: Lexie  is a NYC based actor with a passion for comedy. An opportunity to make someone smile or laugh is a gift and she is grateful! Past credits include Helena in Midsummer Nights Dream, Mabel in The Pajama Game, and Barb in Hope and Gravity. www.lexieshowalter.com

 

KL Thomas: KL is best known from Hosting Sketch Block's monthly live show and bio-weekly Podcast. She has also Hosted WeMakeTheFunny's Podcast: Let's Chat Comedy, and has been a special guest Host on PITcast, covering The PIT Sketchfest. KL's other credits:  The Improviser short film, Robots Vs Dinosaurs Podcast, Clip Show sketch troupe, the play (I Am Not An Allegory), GigaHoes web series, Drafts Short Play Festival, MITF Short Play Festival, Santa Isn’t Real music video, The Fridge’s Canucks Cabaret, Papaya Brother’s comedy Enemy Party and Charlie’s on Parole short film.

 

Peter Turo: Peter likes to write, preferably with the aid of whiskey. Other works include The Bradfords (Open Bar Theatricals, original music by Blake Pfeil), Salt (40th Annual Samuel French OOB Festival), Love Mom and (semi-finalist, Wide Eyed Productions Winks Series), Always Be Ready (MITF), Aerosmith for Slow-Dancing (TinyRhino), All Fall Down (The Tank), Up and Down (TCTC Rep), Sam Dawson and What Could Be, and The Novelist. He is a committee member for the Young Professionals of the Actors Fund, is an Aquarius, and enjoys long, romantic walks to the fridge.

 

Jordan Wall: Florida Man by way of LA, Jordan recently transferred to The Big Apple, which is evident in him calling it The Big Apple. His exceptional talent is only untapped with copious amounts of beer. Regional: Bad Jews (Theatre of Note), Dangerous Corner (Crown City), Elijah (Victory Theatre) and several other inconspicuous black boxes. TV includes: A&E's The Glades (series regular), The Purge, Harry's Law, Netflix's upcoming Monster. 

Bimini Lee Wright: Bimini (rhymes with the famous anthropomorphic cricket) grew up in the humid tropical rainforests of Cairns, Australia -if you can’t hear the accent, get a few drinks in her and see what happens.  Bim attained a double degree in Theatre and Russian Studies from Stetson University, before moving to NYC to study at the William Esper Studio.  She stole her pet rabbit from an evil clown, and has no regrets. Yay OUR BAR!

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*denotes members of Actors' Equity