He is a Co-Founder of L.A.’s Furious Theatre, where he served as Co-Artistic Director from 2001-2012.  From 2007-2010 he served as Associate Artistic Director of the Pasadena Playhouse, where he directed main stage productions and oversaw programming for the Playhouse’s second stage, including its Hothouse New Play Development Program. He has directed a broad range of new and classic plays including over 20 Artists Rep productions, along with work at the Pasadena Playhouse, Intiman Theatre, South Coast Repertory, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, American Conservatory Theater, Seattle Rep, A Noise Within, The Playwrights’ Center, The Theatre@Boston Court, Odyssey Theatre, The Blank Theatre, The Road Theatre, The Zephyr Theatre and Furious Theatre.

Dámaso is a recipient of the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award, the Back Stage Garland Award, the NAACP Theatre Award, and the Pasadena Arts Council’s Gold Crown Award. He was honored as a Finalist for the Zelda Fichandler Award by the Stage Directors & Choreographers Foundation and was named a Knowledge Universe Rising Star by Portland Monthly. His productions have received or been nominated for dozens of awards including the L.A. Stage Alliance Ovation Award, LA StageScene Award, and the LA Weekly Theatre Award, among others.  He is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.

Current directing projects: Magellanica (Audio Drama) by E.M. Lewis, The Berlin Diaries (Audio Drama) by Andrea Stolowitz, The Vertical City (Audio Drama) by Diana Burbano, Today is My Birthday (Audio Drama) by Susan Soon He Stanton, The Great Divide by E.M. Lewis in development at Artists Rep/Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

Directing credits: Romeo and Juliet at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the World Premiere of We, the Invisibles by Susan Soon He Stanton for the Humana Festival of New American Plays, Kings by Sarah Burgess at South Coast Repertory, the World Premiere of Wolf Play by Hansol Jung, the World Premiere of Magellanica by E.M. Lewis, the World Premiere musical Cuba Libre by Carlos Lacámara featuring the 3-time Grammy nominated band Tiempo Libre, Portland premieres of La Ruta by Isaac Gomez, The Humans by Stephen Karam, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ An Octoroon and Everybody, Nina Raine’s Tribes and David Ives’ The Liar, the Northwest premieres of Carlos Lacámara’s Exiles and Nick Jones’ Trevor, the west coast premieres of Dan LeFranc’s The Big Meal, Charise Castro Smith’s Feathers & Teeth, 1984 by George Orwell adapted by Duncan Macmillan & Robert Icke, and The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart by David Greig;  the U.S. premiere of Dawn King’s Foxfinder, The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder, The Miracle Worker by William Gibson, The Playboy of the Western World by J.M. Synge, at Artists Rep; Ruth & Augustus Goetz’ The Heiress (starring Richard Chamberlain), Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes (starring Kelly McGillis), Austin Pendleton’s Orson’s Shadow (starring Sharon Lawrence) and the reading of Ellen Simon’s Aunt Stossie’s Coming for Five Days (starring Marsha Mason & Mary Steenburgen) at the Pasadena Playhouse; the reading of Steven Drukman’s The Prince of Atlantis for the Pacific Playwrights Festival at South Coast Repertory, Clifford Odets’ Paradise Lost at Intiman Theatre; Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit, Tennessee Williams’ The Eccentricities of a Nightingale, Eugene O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms, Bernard Shaw’s The Doctor’s Dilemma at A Noise Within. Furious Theatre credits include the Los Angeles premieres of Craig Wright’s Grace, Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s Boom and Hunter Gatherers, Bruce Norris’ The Pain and the Itch, Yussef El Guindi’s Back of the Throat, Richard Bean’s The God Botherers, and the world premieres of Alex Jones’ Canned Peaches in Syrup and Matt Pelfrey’s An Impending Rupture of the Belly and No Good Deed, among others.

Elizabeth spends most of her time creating theatre but she has also appeared in the independent films Mercy Street, Girl Before a Mirror, and Kiss of the Killer. She has guest starred on the series The Librarians, In The Vault, and plays The Headmistress in the upcoming film Who are You People, directed by Ben Epstein, currently in post-production. 

As a playwright she has enjoyed critical success in her solo show Not My Revolution.  The play continues to tour and has played in Germany, Portland, New Mexico, New York and will open at Carnegie Stages in Pittsburgh in June 2022.  Not My Revolution was recently included in a new book titled Middle Eastern American Theatre by Dr. Michael Malek Najjar. Her new musical The Shakespeare Café is currently in development in Pittsburgh following an earlier version she directed for Bremer Shakespeare Company in Bremen, Germany in 2018.  Elizabeth also wrote and directed a bilingual Day of the Dead play, Amor Añejo, for Milagro Theatre in 2019. She is currently writing and devising a new theatre project The Sphere of Human Folly. 

Elizabeth has served as Artistic Director or Co-Artistic Director of four classical theatre companies. The Beacon Project in New York, The Classical Theatre Lab in Los Angeles, her international company ICAP in Los Angeles and The Classic Greek Theatre of Oregon in Portland.  

As a director, she is known for her revisionist productions of classical plays.  Some of her projects include: King John, The Tempest, The Trojan Women, The Revenger’s Tragedy, Mary Stuart, Lion in Winter, The Man of Mode, The Two Noble Kinsmen, Iphigenia in Aulis, Troilus and Cressida, Oedipus the King, Ladies Man, The Rope, Merry Wives of Windsor, As You Like it, The Rehearsal, The Roman Actor, Poor Bitos, The Liars. 

 She has also directed or devised contemporary work including: Oedipus El Rey, Watsonville, Some Place Not Here, Night Breath, American Night, The Gift Horse, November, Somewhere Between the Sky and Sea, Landscape of Dreams in Seven Movements, Notes on Drowning, Playing with the Gods, and Amor Añejo.

As an actress Elizabeth has appeared in regional theatres in the United States, and internationally. Last summer she appeared in The Oldest Profession by Paula Vogel for Profile Theatre in Portland.  Other regional theatre appearances include: 9 Parts of Desire (Best Actress award: Raleigh NC), Escaped Alone, Not My Revolution, The Absence of Wanting, We Made Bread, Year of the Rooster, Vanya, Sonya, Masha and Spike, String of Pearls, Iphigenia in Aulis, Phaedra, Evanescence or Shakespeare in the Alley, King Lear, Macbeth, Trojan Women, Hyde Park, Night Breath, The Lucky Chance, Charley’s Aunt, Boston Marriage, Summertime, The Bald Soprano, The Way of the World, and Whale Watchers.

Elizabeth has created an online course Fear of Shakespeare and she teaches and coaches actors in many countries.  She has taught classical theatre at The Lee Strasberg Institute and Theatre of Arts in Los Angeles, The Portland Conservatory and has guest taught a variety of workshops from Shakespeare, Greek Theatre, Restoration, Myths and Masks and The Evolution of Theatre at festivals and schools in the USA and internationally. 

She is a member of SAG/AFTRA, ACTORS EQUITY, SDC STAGE DIRECTOR & CHOREOGRAPHERS, & is a member of MENA (Middle Eastern National Association)

Creative Director of Fela!, Garcia worked alongside Bill T. Jones as Associate Choreographer to develop the Tony award-winning musical off-Broadway (2008), on Broadway (2009), at National Theater of London (2010), and in Lagos Nigeria (2011). As Creative Director of the international touring production of Fela! (2011-2013), she also directed and choreographed Fela! The Concert for the Adelaide Arts Festival in Australia and the Auckland Arts Festival in New Zealand (2015).

Garcia’s stage collaborations include The Legend of Yauna (2013), featuring Zap Mama at BAM Fisher, Fats Waller Dance Party (2011/2012) with composers Jason Moran and Meshell N’degeocello (2011) at The Gatehouse/Harlem Stage, Kennedy Center, San Francisco and Chicago Jazz Festivals; Ghosts of Manhattan, an Organic Magnetics production (2012); Neighbors (2010) directed by Niegel Smith at the Public Theater; Not Wanted on the Voyage (2010) directed by Amanda Dehnert at Northwestern University; YaYa Dreams A Future (2010) and Volcano’s Birthright{s} (2009).

Garcia’s film and TV credits include choreography for Seun Kuti’s music video RISE; Angelique Kidjo’s Move on Up, PBS stations Special and BET Honors; Fela! television commercial; special features on Colbert Report, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, The View and a staging of Fela’s Zombie on So You Think You Can Dance, Canada.

In 2006, Garcia founded Organic Magnetics to engage cross-cultural dialogue and sustainable practice in the arts. She devises original work and produces live installations to generate urban folklore for the future. OM theater arts curriculum engages students in a transformative creative process. Garcia’s work evokes a spiritual connection among artistic collaborators and audiences, encouraging interaction and participation. Co-writer and director of I Am New York: Juan Rodriguez at El Museo del Barrio, she developed the story of New York’s first immigrant as a stage play and is currently adapting I Am New York as a graphic novel.

Garcia is the artistic director of the SBI performing arts program at A. Philip Randolph High School in Harlem, an adjunct professor at CUNY City College Department of Theater and Speech and holds a BA in Sustainable Development from the California Institute of Integral Studies. She is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC).

Michael’s directing credits include The Importance of Being Earnest, The Understudy, Intimate Apparel and both directed and starred in Mistakes Were Made for Artists Rep. For Portland Shakespeare Project: An Educational First Reading of The Winter’s Tale translated by Tracy Young, The Tempest, The Taming of the Shrew, As You Like It and Lear’s Follies and from the Play on! Shakespeare, staged readings of Ranjit Bolt’s Much Ado About Nothing and Jeff Whitty’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. An Act of God (Nebraska Repertory Theatre), Love’s Labour’s Lost (Northwest Classical Theatre Company), Stones In His Pockets (Public House Theatre), As Is (Key Productions), The Meaning of Prayer (Verbatim Productions) and staged readings of Botticelli (Profile Theatre) and Dinner With Friends (Mt. Hood Repertory Theatre).

His acting credits at Artists Rep include Indecent, 1984, Small Mouth Sounds, Magellanica, An Octoroon, Marjorie Prime, Trevor, The Price, also Tribes, The Skin of our Teeth, Blithe Spirit, The Quality of Life, Ten Chimneys, Red Herring and Sherlock in Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Christmas Carol, God of Carnage, The Cherry Orchard, Superior Donuts, Othello, Design for Living, Holidazed, Becky’s New Car, Three Sisters, Eurydice, House,  Garden, Orson’s Shadow, Mr. Marmalade, Theater District and Love!Valour!Compassion! Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night with Portland Shakes. Other local credits include Scrooge in A Christmas Carol with Portland Playhouse and work with Oregon Shakespeare Festival/Portland, Profile Theatre, Miracle Theatre, Northwest Classical Theatre Company, triangle productions!, Tygres Heart Shakespeare, Portland Center Stage, Reader’s Theatre Repertory and New Rose Theatre. New York credits include Revolving Shakespeare Company, Theatre 1010, The Normal Heart (Lincoln Center/Clark Studio Theatre), Genesius Guild and The Barrow Group. Regional credits include work at PCPA Theatrefest, Paper Mill Playhouse, A Contemporary Theatre, Saint Michael’s Playhouse, Penobscot Theatre Company, Arkansas Repertory Theatre, First Stage Milwaukee, Idaho Rep, Attic Theater and Wisconsin, Utah and Berkeley Shakespeare Festivals.

Michael is a proud member of SDC, AEA, and SAG-AFTRA.