(NEW YORK, NY) -- TheatreC & Rhyme Combinator announced the complete cast for Co-Founders, a new hip hop musical about the two most unlikely partners in Silicon Valley, that will have a one-night-only concert on Saturday, April 9th at 7:00pm at Joe’s Pub (425 Lafayette Street). The cast will feature Broadway regulars Alysha Deslorieux, Tyler Hardwick, Christina Sajous, Wesley Taylor, and Alex Wyse, who will be joined by Co-Founders creators Adesha Adefela, Ryan Nicole Austin, and Beau Lewis.
Co-Founders is the hilariously inspiring story of two unlikely partners chasing impossible entrepreneurial dreams. Esata, a black woman from Oakland, and Conway, a small-town college dropout, take on the most competitive start up accelerator in Silicon Valley - where the privileged make a killing while the people across the bridge grind to survive. Co-Founders is a vulnerable comedy that will make you laugh out loud, squirm in your seat, and then turn up on your tabletop. Whether you’re from the city or the town.
Co-Founders is written by Ryan Nicole Austin, Adesha Adefela, and Beau Lewis; with music by Josh Karp ‘Budo’, Will Randolph, Brian ‘Deep’ Watters, and Cava Menzies. Carlos Armesto is the Director, Lola Lopez Guardone is the Associate Director, Henry Hanson is Executive Producer, and Lucila Brindisi is Marketing Director. Casting is by Eisenberg/Beans Casting (Daryl Eisenberg, CSA, Ally Beans, CSA). CO-FOUNDERS is produced by Anthony Veneziale, Beau Lewis, theatreC, and Rhyme Combinator.
Co-Founders began in 2016 as part of a weekly freestyle rap session hosted by Beau Lewis, where entrepreneurs come together to vent about their startups. Following live performances at San Francisco’s The Lab in 2017 and Folsom Street Foundry in 2018, Co-Founders received staged readings at ODC and ACT in 2019, and was selected for the 2020 National Alliance for Musical Theatre’s (NAMT) Festival of New Works in NYC.
Tickets to the concert, beginning at $25 with an additional 2-drink or $12 food order minimum per person, are available for purchase online.
ADESHA ADEFELA (Writer/Actor). Billboard-charted independent singer/songwriter who has starred in musicals and community theater in her Oakland, CA hometown since she was 5.
RYAN NICOLE AUSTIN (Writer/Actor). Grammy-nominated MC, Poet & Activist from Oakland, CA; Playwright-in-Residence at NYC’s Public Theatre BARS workshop with Daveed Diggs.
ALYSHA DESLORIEUX (Actor) was most recently seen starring as Zainab in the world premiere of The Visitor at the Public Theater, where she was also a member of the original Broadway and off-Broadway companies of Hamilton. You can catch her on Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building,” Season 3 of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, “Younger,” Season 7, and NBC’s “Lincoln Rhyme: The Hunt for the Bone Collector.” Broadway: Hamilton (Peggy/Maria), Once on This Island (Andrea, Original Revival Cast), Beautiful: The Carole King Musical (Original Broadway Cast), and Sister Act. National tours: Hamilton, Chicago (Eliza Hamilton), Sister Act. Regional: FOUND (Denise), Philadelphia Theatre Company, St. Louis Muny, Marriott Lincolnshire.
TYLER HARDWICK (Actor). Broadway: Once On This Island (Storyteller OBC); Motown the Musical (Eddie Kendricks). Tours: Once On This Island (Daniel); Dreamgirls (C.C. White); Motown the Musical (Norman Whitfield). New York: The Tempest (Ferdinand); Bliss (Toby); Popstar (Robby); New York, New York (Featured ensemble). Regional: Hair (Claude); Marie, Dancing Still (Gilbert). TV/Film: “Pose” on FX; NBC’s “The Blacklist”.
BEAU LEWIS (Writer/Actor/Producer). Emmy-winning writer, producer, viral media expert, and serial entrepreneur; Co-founder of GoldieBlox & Founder of Rhyme Combinator.
CHRISTINA SAJOUS (Actor). Broadway: SpongeBob SquarePants (Sandy Cheeks), Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark (Arachne), American Idiot (Extraordinary Girl), Baby It’s You! (Shirley), Tupac Shakur’s Holler If Ya Hear Me. Regional: Paradise Square (Berkeley Rep), The Prince of Egypt (TheatreWorks), Carmen: an Afro Cuban Musical (TecTonic Theatre Project), Romeo & Juliet (Baltimore Symphony Orchestra), Disgraced (Denver Center of Performing Arts). TV/Film: “SpongeBob SquarePants The Musical Live on Stage” as Sandy Cheeks (Nickelodeon), “Run the World” (Starz) “Chicago Med” (NBC), “Blue Bloods” (CBS),“Jesus Christ Superstar Live” (NBC), “Alpha House”(Amazon), “One Life to Live” (ABC), “Broadway Idiot” (Netflix). Christina attended NYU: Tisch School of the Arts, and the International Theatre Wing in Amsterdam.
WESLEY TAYLOR (Actor). Theatre World Award Winner, Chita Rivera Award Winner, Outer Critics Circle Award nominee. Original Broadway Casts: SpongeBob SquarePants (Plankton); The Addams Family (Lucas); Rock of Ages (Franz). CSC: Assassins (Zangara); Kennedy Center: The Who’s Tommy (Cousin Kevin); MCC: Alice by Heart (Mad Hatter); Denver Center: An Act of God (God); Signature Theatre: Cabaret (Emcee); 2nd Stage: Little Miss Sunshine (Joshua); American Conservatory Theater: Tales of the City (Michael). TV: "Smash" (26 episodes), "The Good Wife," "The Tomorrow People," "One Life to Live," "Looking," "I'm Dying up Here," "Difficult People,“ “The Tony Awards.” Film: The Surrogate; Lucky Stiff; The SpongeBob Musical, Live on Stage! Co-writer/director of upcoming feature film, Summoning Sylvia. Co-writer/director of Emmy-nominated “Indoor Boys,” (Indie Series Awards for Best Writing, Directing, and Comedy series) and “It Could Be Worse” (acquired by Participant Media/Hulu). BFA in Drama: Univ. of North Carolina School of the Arts.
ALEX WYSE (Actor) is the co-writer/star of off-Broadway’s A Commercial Jingle For Regina Comet, co-creator/star of the Emmy-nominated “Indoor Boys,” and co-writer/director of the upcoming feature film, Summoning Sylvia. As an actor, he has appeared on Broadway in Waitress, Spring Awakening, and Lysistrata Jones, on tour in Wicked, off-Broadway in Ride the Cyclone, Bare, Triassic Parq and Lysistrata Jones, and regionally at Hartford Stage, Wallis Annenberg, Paper Mill, Cleveland Play House, Maltz Jupiter, Huntington, and the Lyric Stage Company of Boston. TV credits include "The Other Two," "Iron Fist," "Masters of Sex," "NCIS: LA,” “The Bold and the Beautiful," “Switched at Birth,” "Modern Family,” “A to Z,” “Bad Judge,” and “Bored to Death;” film includes X/Y and Dating My Mother. He was a co-producer on What the Constitution Means to Me and How I Learned to Drive. BFA: Boston University.
CARLOS ARMESTO (Director) is the Producing Artistic Director of theatreC, a company dedicated to creating unique theatrical experiences, as well as the CEO/Lead Producer of PITCHBLACK Immersive Experiences, an international company that creates sensory theatre in complete darkness. He has worked as a director and producer on festivals, plays, musicals, concerts, and events around the country. Mr. Armesto was an Associate Curator at the inaugural Pittsburgh International Festival of Firsts and Associate Artistic Director at The Ensemble Studio Theatre (EST). Through theatreC, which celebrated its 11th anniversary last November, he has created over 50 theatrical works. Notable credits include The Who's Tommy (Best Director, Star Ledger's NJ Tonys 2010), Binding (Best Choreography, Solo Performance and Performance Art Piece - Innovative Theatre Awards 2010), Echoes of Etta at Joe's Pub (MAC Award for Outstanding Cabaret Act 2014), and Odd Man Out (The Flea Theater). He has directed, taught, and consulted for several university programs, including Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, Rutgers Theater Company, Fordham University, NYU's Drama Department, the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program and Sarah Lawrence Graduate Theatre program. Currently under development: Odd Man Out (with PITCHBLACK and Repertorio Español), Dimes, and The Rite. He is also Creative Director for Theatre C's LGBTQ+ Party Series RETRO FACTORY. MFA Directing Carnegie Mellon. BS Chemical Engineering & Theatre MIT. SDC. Princess Grace Award
JOE’S PUB. Named for Public Theater founder Joe Papp, Joe's Pub at The Public opened in 1998 and plays a vital role in The Public's mission of supporting young artists while providing established artists with an intimate space and superior acoustics to perform and develop new work. Joe's Pub consistently presents the best in live music and performance nightly, continuing its commitment to diversity, production values, community and artistic freedom. In addition, Joe’s Pub features seasonal dinner and bar menus from acclaimed Chef Andrew Carmellini. As part of The Public's programming downtown at its Astor Place home, Joe's Pub showcases talent from all over the world, hosting approximately 800 shows and serving over 100,000 audience members annually. Joe’s Pub also offers unique opportunities like New York Voices, an artist commissioning program that provides musicians (Allen Toussaint, Ethan Lipton, Toshi Reagon, Bridget Everett and more) resources and collaborators to develop new theatrical works; and Joe's Pub Working Group, the venue’s artist development program.
