2025 High School One-Act Competition

Sara Hymes

Sara is a multi-hyphenate artist, director, and educator. She has composed and directed music, and performed in productions with regional and international theaters like Gateway Playhouse, Southwest Shakespeare Company, and The Show Must Go Online. Select theatre performance credits include Ensemble Studio Theatre, Great Lakes Theatre, and two seasons as a resident actor and six years as an educator at The American Shakespeare Center. Sara has appeared in national commercials for Invisalign and the CIA, and spent seven years as a passionate ensemble member with Hedgepig Ensemble Theatre, where she worked with the company as an actor and educator to reimagine the classics while creating a legacy of storytelling with gender equity at its core. She has developed and facilitated virtual and in-person professional leadership programming, and has taught and directed young actors in camps and educational programs at American Shakespeare Center, Mary Baldwin University, and Elm Shakespeare Company. Sara truly believes in the power of live performance to develop and promote empathy, imagination, and community. She earned her BFA in Musical Theatre Performance from Kent State University, her MFA in Acting from Wayne State University, and a Certificate of Advanced Training from the Moscow Art Theatre School.

Jamal James

Jamal James is an actor, writer, and educator who has performed all over the country! Born in VA, Jamal currently lives in sunny LA exploring Hollywood and its vibrant community. Always willing to talk about God, Star Wars, and Superheroes at any given time, he has worked in voiceovers, television, features and short films, improv and is currently working on writing his own projects. Some of his recent favorite productions include: The Royale, Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, Sense & Sensibility, American Players Theatre; Feeding Beatrice, Forward Theatre; The Color Purple, National Broadway Tour; Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, A Christmas Carol, Lyceum Theatre; Jedi Trials, Walt Disney World; Beauty and The Beast and Violet: The Musical, Barter Theater; TV/Film Credits: Blue Bloods, GOTHAM, City on a Hill, FBI: Most Wanted, Hit Me, Power Out, Lost Time

All love to God, Sara, Greg, his family, his friends, and all who fight for a better world.

TheJamalJames.com

Gregory Phelps

Gregory is an Actor-Musician based in Brooklyn, NY. Credits include:  NYC- Hedgepig Ensemble Theatre: All’s Well That Ends Well (Parolles), The Secret in the Wings (Ensemble); Snorks and Pins: As You Like It (Oliver/Amiens); Opening Doors: I Love My Wife (Ensemble). REGIONAL - Virginia Shakespeare Festival: King Lear (Edmund), Measure for Measure (Pompey), and As You Like It (Silvius). Gateway Playhouse: As You Like It (Touchstone/Amiens), Murder on the Orient Express (Abuthnot/Ratchett). Heritage Theatre Festival: Woody Guthrie’s American Song (Woody). St. Michael’s Playhouse: See How They Run (Clive), The Mousetrap (Giles). American Shakespeare Center: 86 productions, including Henry V (King Henry), Pericles (Pericles), Romeo (Romeo and Juliet), Troilus and Cressida (Troilus). TV - The Food That Built America (History); Evil Lives Here: Shadows of Death, Dead of Winter, Shattered (Investigation Discovery); Shakespeare Uncovered: The Tempest (PBS). He has a B.A. in Theatre Arts from the University of Vermont, and has studied Shakespeare at Mary Baldwin University in Virginia and Middlesex University in London.