Show Teachers the Love!

Cocomama “brings it,” creating a sound that is fierce and beautiful! A virtual United Nations of women, Cocomama’s musicians hail from five countries on four continents and the group’s musical influences include Afro-Cuban, classical, jazz, Latin American, soul, R&B, and beyond. Playing their own kind of world Latin music, Cocomama has enchanted audiences at the United Nations, Central Park, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York City Marathon, Joe’s Pub, Studio 54, the Exit Zero Jazz Festival, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Spoleto Festival USA, and the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, and has served as musical ambassador for the US State Department in Latin America.

Darius de Haas is an award-winning singer and actor whose career has spanned from Broadway, to television, to concert stages around the world. His recordings include his debut Day Dream: Variations on Strayhorn, Quiet Please with Steven Blier, and many original cast and soundtrack recordings. In addition, de Haas is a founding member of Black Theatre United, which serves to educate, empower, and inspire through excellence and activism in the pursuit of justice and equality for all black artists.

Liza Donnelly is an award-winning cartoonist and writer for The New Yorker, and contributor to The New York Times, Washington Post, and others. The author of eighteen books, her most recent is Very Funny Ladies: The New Yorker’s Women Cartoonists, with a foreword by David Remnick and Emma Allen. Liza’s TED talk was translated into forty languages and viewed online 1.5 million times. The innovator of digital visual journalism, she live-draws the Oscars and political/cultural events for major news outlets. Liza lives in New York.

Amari Frazier (he/him) is from Chicago, Illinois and graduated from the Chicago Academy for the Arts in 2019. He went on to study at The Juilliard School to obtain a BFA in dance. He has attended summer programs at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Springboard Danse Montreal, and Nederlands Dance Theatre. He also worked with Ballet Collective during the summer of 2021 and has done many projects with the company since. Amari is now a fourth-year and looking forward to a career as a performing artist and choreographer.

Bonnie McFarlane made her national breakthrough on NBC’s Last Comic Standing, and has made multiple appearances on both The Late Show and The Tonight Show. Her comedy specials have aired on HBO and Comedy Central. McFarlane directed the 2014 documentary feature Women Aren’t Funny and published the memoir You’re Better than Me in 2016. McFarlane is cohost (with her husband, comedian Rich Vos) of the popular podcast My Wife Hates Me.

Keith Nelson learned to juggle and eat fire at Hampshire College in 1989. He moved to New York City and almost instantly devoted his life to the circus. He is co-founder and executive director of Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, one of the longest-running circus and variety arts companies in New York. Keith has been featured on Late Night with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Late Late Show with James Corden, and HBO's OZ. For the past two years, he has produced Bindlestiff's Flatbed Follies, a rolling free circus show playing to neighborhoods across New York.

Rosie’s Theater Kids (RTKids) was founded in 2003 to address the dearth of arts education for underrepresented New York City public school students. RTKids enriches the lives of children who otherwise would lack the opportunity to experience musical theater, positively changing the trajectory of their lives by providing comprehensive classes in music, dance, and drama; thoughtful mentoring; and structured academic guidance.