Photo by Ryan Jensen

April Yvette Thompson's (co-writer & actor) Liberty City has been nominated for a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Solo Show and April received Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Broadway.com Audience and AUDELCO nominations for Best Solo Performance for the world premiere of Liberty City at New York Theatre Workshop this past spring.

April has appeared Off Broadway in the New York premiere of The Exonerated (dir. Bob Balaban) which ran for a year and half and was named best play of the year; the world premiere of Tanya Barfield & Lynn Nottage's The Antigone Project at The Women's Project (dir. Annie Dorsen & Liesl Tommy); the world premiere of Kia Corthron's Light Raise the Roof (dir. Michael John Garces) at NYTW; the world premiere of Zakiyyah Alexander's SICK??? (dir. Daniella Topol) at The Summer Play Festival, Susan-Lori Parks' 365 Plays/365 Days (dir. Liz Diamond) at NYTW & The Public Theatre, The Acting Company's The Rivals (dir. Nicky Martin), Macbeth (dir. Anne Justine D'Zmura) and The Merry Wives of Windsor (dir. Matt August). A Classical Theatre of Harlem company member, April has received AUDELCO nominations for her work in Medea (dir. Alfred Preisser) and Macbeth and has also appeared in productions of King Lear with Paul Butler and Jean Genet's The Blacks (dir. Christopher McElroen).

A great supporter of new work and the classics, April has played the leads in the workshops of Tanya Barfield's Of Equal Measure (dir. Leigh Silverman), Tracey Scott Wilson’s The Good Negro and Marcus Gardley’s the road weeps, the well runs dry (dir. Leah Gardiner) at The Lark Play Development Center.

FILM & TELEVISION
In theatres this winter, April appears in the films Phoebe in Wonderland with Felicity Huffman & Bill Pullman (dir. Daniel Barnz) and Accidental Husband with Uma Thurman (dir. Griffin Dunne). Other features include Bernard & Doris with Ralph Fiennes & Susan Sarandon, The Exonerated with Danny Glover, Aidan Quinn, Delroy Lindo & Susan Sarandon (both dir. Bob Balaban) and the independent film I am Ali at Sundance (dir. Dream Hampton). April's television work includes Third Watch, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, The Dave Chappelle Show, Guiding Light and As the World Turns.

REGIONAL THEATRE
Recently April co-starred with Wendell Pearce in Nathan Jackson's Broke-ology (dir. Thomas Kail) at Williamstown Theatre Festival. April won a Seattle Footlights Award for Best Performance in Wine in the Wilderness at Seattle ACT, A Raisin in the Sun at Hartford Stage (dir. Seret Scott), the world premiere of Seret Scott's Second Line (dir. Regge Life) at Passage Theatre Company, the world premiere of Kia Corthron's The Venus De Milo is Armed (dir. Valerie Curtis-Newton) at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, A Raisin in the Sun (dir. L. Kenneth Richardson) at Dallas Theatre Center & Great Lakes Theatre Festival, A Christmas Carol (dir. James Bundy) and From the Mississippi Delta (dir. Kaia Calhoun) at GLTF & Merrimack Repertory Theatre and The African Company Presents Richard III (dir. Hal Scott). April has workshopped her solo play, Liberty City at 651 Arts, Hartford Stage, New York Stage & Film, Seattle ACT, The Daryl Roth Theatre and The Mark Taper Forum.

INTERNATIONAL THEATRE
april received critical acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for her portrayal of Sunny Jacobs in The Exonerated. She toured the US and Zimbabwe with From the Mississippi Delta which she performed at the Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA).

EDUCATION
Bachelor of Arts, English from Vassar College
Master of Fine Arts, Theatre from Rutgers University

 



Photo by Hoebermann Studio

Jessica Blank (co-writer & director) is an actor, writer and director who has appeared in film, television, and theater. Film credits include The Namesake (dir. Mira Nair), The Exonerated (dir. Bob Balaban, for Court TV), You’re Nobody til Somebody Kills You (prod. Spike Lee), and the indies Undermind and On the Road With Judas (Sundance 2007), as well as acting work for the 2006 Sundance Filmmakers Lab. Her television credits include the upcoming miniseries The Bronx is Burning; Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Rescue Me, Guiding Light, and One Life to Live. She has acted in theaters throughout New York City, both Off- and Off-Off Broadway; and internationally at the Dublin Theater Festival. She is co-Artistic Director of THE FIRE DEPT, a new Off-Broadway theater company.

Jessica (with her husband Erik Jensen) is author of The Exonerated, a play based on interviews they conducted with over 40 exonerated death row inmates. In spring 2002, Ms. Blank and Mr. Jensen co-directed The Exonerated at Tim Robbins' Actors' Gang Theater. That production was nominated for five Ovation Awards and 3 NAACP Awards; it won the Ovation for Best World Premiere Play and has toured universities nationwide. Bob Balaban's production of The Exonerated ran for over 600 performances Off-Broadway, toured nationally, was made into a movie for Court TV starring Brian Dennehey, Danny Glover, Delroy Lindo, Aidan Quinn, and Susan Sarandon, and played to sold-out houses in Dublin, Edinburgh and London. The Exonerated won the Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle, Fringe First, and Herald Angel Awards, and was nominated for the Dramatists’ Guild Hull-Warriner Award and the John Gassner Playwriting Award. It has also received awards from Amnesty International, the American Bar Association, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and Death Penalty Focus. The Exonerated was listed by Time Magazine and the New York Times as one of the best plays of 2002, and has been translated into French, Spanish, Italian and Japanese.

Jessica’s writing has been published in magazines and journals including The Believer, The Dramatist, Anothermagazine, and Theatre History Studies. Living Justice, Blank and Jensen’s book on the making of The Exonerated, was published in 2005 by Simon and Schuster.

Jessica’s first novel, Almost Home, was released October 2007 by Hyperion; she and Erik Jensen are currently adapting it into a feature film for Jon Bon Jovi’s new production company.