Our Team
Kelley nicole girod
Executive Director & Founder
Kelley Nicole Girod is the founder and Executive Producing Director of Obie Award winning, The Fire This Time Festival. She is a 2008 graduate of Columbia's MFA playwriting program where she was a Stein and Liberace Fellow, as well as a John Golden Fellow. Her plays reflect the rich world of her native Louisiana and include Ambrosia, Straight on til Morning, Poetics of the Creative Process, Parabolas, and Watching. She was named Nytheatre.com Person of the Year for her work on TFTT, and is a part of the Indie Theatre Hall of Fame. As a producer her credits include Israela Margalit's Get Me A Guy, and Night Blooming Jasmine (both at Horse Trade Theater); Louisiana Mon Amour (Women Center Stage at Culture Project); Thais Francis's Outcry (Horse Trade Theater, Jack). She is a mother to two beautiful daughters, Penelope Evelyn and Noelle Anamaria.
Cezar Williams
Artistic director
Cezar Williams is an award-winning director. Recent credits include the Off-Broadway premiere of Dancing on Eggshells (Billie Holiday Theatre), Till: A Musical (American Theater Group), Crowndation: I Will Not Lie to David (National Black Theatre), The Hunting Season (Planet Connections Festivity, Award for Best Direction), You Wouldn’t Expect (American Bard Theater), How To Be Safe (The Dirty Blondes in rep at the Kraine Theater), directing all seven short plays in the 8th Annual (The Fire This Time Festival), Free Will (The Arthur Seelen Theatre), Ghost Town and Tailypo (Detroit NY Festival), Lunchtime in Heaven (48 hours in Harlem), Nightfall and Slow Gin Fits (The Fire This Time Festival 2013 & 2014). He has worked at venues including The Actor’s Studio, Williamstown Theater Festival, 59 e.59th Street Theater, La Mama, The Cherry Lane, and the Bleeker Street Theater. Cezar is a graduate of New York University where he was the recipient of the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship. Cezar Williams is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. For professional inquiries contact him at cezar@cezarwilliams.com.
A.J. MUHAMMAD
Associate Producer & Co-Director of TFTT new works lab
A.J. Muhammad has a background in audience development, arts administration, dramaturgy and library public services. He has dramaturged many productions directed by the educator, activist and director Dr. Daniel Banks in New York City, regionally and internationally. Along with Neyda Martinez he co-developed and implemented the pilot phase of the New Audience Project, an initiative to develop and train Latina cultural ambassadors in support of Latino arts institutions through arts immersion, workforce development and micro-entrepreneurism. The New Audience Project received a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and was incubated at The Fire This Time Festival's East 4th St. neighbor Teatro Circulo. A.J. also completed the Artist Manager Program (AMP) training program at The Field.
Julienne Hairston
Producer
Julienne L. Hairston was born in Kenitra, Morocco. She lives and writes in New Rochelle, New York. She received her BA in Creative Writing from Hunter College, NY. She was selected to participate in Hunter College’s inaugural MFA in Playwriting with Tony Nominated Playwright Tina Howe. She has written for Our Men Productions and The Mission Herald. Her plays have been featured in Hunter’s Playwrights festival; Project Y’s Racey Play Festival; Obie award winning The Fire This Time Festival (season six); Project Y’s Techno Plays; Project Y’s Parity Plays; NY Indie Theater Annual one- minute Play Festival; Project Y’s Women in Theater Festival; Madness Theater Ten Minute Festival. Julienne was a member of Project Y’s 2015-2017 Playwright Group. She was commissioned to write for WIT The Hrosthwitha Project 2017. She was a contributing member with Athena Writes 2017 fellowship. In 2018 She became a company member playwright with NYMadness. She is the founder of Lift as You Climb, Inc, a theater company dedicated to inspire and lift African American children through the experience of live theater, in Westchester County, New York.
Cynthia Grace Robinson
Co-Director of TFTT new works lab
Cynthia Grace Robinson’s work has been produced throughout the U.S. and internationally. She uses her platform to amplify the stories of women, centering the voices of characters and narratives rarely portrayed on stage and screen. Plays include: THE BLACK PEARL (Coastal Carolina Theatre Dept.); LETTERS FROM LORETTA (“Not a Moment, But a Movement” Center Theatre Group Commission); IN THIS LIFE (Finalist, Rhinebeck Writer’s Retreat); FREEDOM SUMMER (North Carolina Black Rep); DANCING ON EGGSHELLS (Billie Holiday Theatre); WHEN NIGHT FALLS (Semi-finalist, Eugene O'Neill Theater Center Playwriting Conference); PEOLA'S PASSING (New Perspectives Theatre; Festival de Teatro Alternativo, Bogotá); ASCENSION (National Black Theatre Festival/NYC Fringe); THUNDER: A MUSICAL MEMOIR (NYC Fringe); WHAT IF...? (Bishop Arts Theatre Center); BREATH(E) (Negro Ensemble Company); GOLD STAR MOTHER (EstroGenius Festival). Honors include: Playwrights of Color Summit/Quick Silver Theatre; Rising Circle/INKTank Residency; Nominee, AUDELCO for Excellence in Black Theatre; Finalist, Samuel French OOB; Winner, Tribeca All-Access Open Stage Inaugural; Nominee, Best New Play, Independent Reviewers of New England (IRNE); State University of New York Chancellor’s Award for Excellence; Calvin B. Grimes Scholar-in-Residence at New York University. Publications include: Tiny Scripted (tinyscripted.com); HOLY GROUND: Plays from The National Black Theatre Festival (Theater Communications Group); SHE PERSISTED. Monologues from Plays by Women Over 40 (Applause Theatre & Cinema Books); The Book of EstroGenius 2012: A Celebration of Female Voices (Manhattan Theatre Source); We’re Not Neutral: Reset Series 2020: Collected Short Plays (Conch Shell Press). Cynthia serves as Co-Director of The Fire This Time New Works Lab, and is a Member of The League of Professional Theatre Women, The Dramatists Guild of America, Inc., Honor Roll Playwrights, and Alpha Kappa Sorority, Inc.
CynthiaGraceRobinson.com