Janet Langhart Cohen: Playwright & Director

Janet is an Emmy¬nominated journalist who began her television career on CBS in Chicago. She has also appeared on ABC, CBS, NBC and BET; hosted ABC’s Good Day in Boston; undertaken special assignments for Entertainment Tonight; and produced several programs, including On Capitol Hill with Janet Langhart. As an overseas correspondent, she covered news in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. She has interviewed many leaders and major newsmakers of the 20th century, including President Bill Clinton, President Jimmy Carter, Margaret Thatcher, Rosa Parks, Mel Gibson, Bill Cosby, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Denzel Washington, Dan Rather and Larry King.

She has also worked as a columnist for the Boston Herald and U.S. News and World Report. She has served as spokeswoman for Avon Cosmetics, a judge for The White House Fellows Program, and an advisor to the Miss America Organization. The wife of former Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, she was known as “First Lady of the Pentagon,” for her active public role while her husband was in office, during which time she spurred several initiatives aimed at improving the well-being of the Defense Department’s employees, including the Military Family Forum, the Pentagon Pops Concert Series, and the Secretary of Defense Annual Holiday Tour. Mrs. Cohen also created and hosted the weekly television program Special Assignment, which was broadcast globally over the Armed Forces Network from 1997–2001. In 2004, she published her first book, a memoir entitled From Rage to Reason: My Life in Two Americas. In 2007, she and her husband published Love in Black and White: A Memoir of Race, Religion, and Romance. Mrs. Cohen is actively involved in the provision of higher education.

Robbie McCauley: Director

An OBIE Award playwright for Sally’s Rape, and a nationally recognized performance artist and director. An AUDELCO award recipient for acting in The Taking of Miss Janie by Ed Bullins, she also appeared in Fences by August Wilson at the Tyrone Gutherie Theater in Minneapolis. Directing credits include the premier of Daniel Alexander Jones’ Belle Canto co-produced with The Theater Offensive and Wheelock Family Theater, which she also directed at the 2000 Sundance Theater Lab; and Kamal Sinclair Steele’s Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome at the New Federal Theater in New York City.

Her recent acting credits include Circles of Time by Shirley Timmerck at the Lyric Theater, and her performance work in progress, Sugar, the center of an extended community residency at Ohio State University. An active presence in the American avant-garde theatre for three decades, she appeared on Broadway in Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf. Ms. McCauley went on to write and perform regularly in cities across the country, striving to facilitate dialogues on race between local whites and blacks. She is anthologized in several books including Extreme Exposure; Moon Marked and Touched by Sun; and Out of Character. In 1998, her Buffalo Project was highlighted as one of the “The 51 (or So) Greatest Avant-Garde Moments” by the Village Voice, a rosterthat included work by artists such as Igor Stravinsky, Pablo Picasso, and John Cage. She recently directed a new interpretation of A Streetcar Named Desire co-produced by Emerson College and Roxbury Community College in Boston. Robbie McCauley is currently Professor at Emerson College Department of Performing Arts in Boston.

Amal Saade: Actress

AMAL SAADE received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Theater from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is a graduate of the Theatre Lab School of the Dramatic Arts’ Honor Conservatory. Recent theater credits include Cinderella and Her Sisters at The Olney Theatre Center, Five Flights at the H Street Playhouse, In To The Outside with The Capital Fringe Festival, Goat Song for Asa Jacobs with The Kennedy Center’s University Playwright’s Workshop, the touring production of The Jeweler’s Shop written by Pope John Paul II, and the workshop production of Anne & Emmett at the Washington District of Columbia Jewish Community Center, Theater J. Saade is honored to be a part of The Anne & Emmett Project and would like to give tremendous thanks to Janet Langhart Cohen, the team at The Theatre Lab School, and the many people who have made this production possible.

Leo Breckenridge: Actor

Leo realized his passion for performance, leadership, and activism at the age of 1 2. It was at that time that he joined a theatre group for teenagers known as Bravo Teens, Inc., where he began to study the art of theatre, film, and improvisation. Dealing with a number of life challenges, he found refuge in the characters he would portray during class, and quickly developed a niche in performing before audiences of all ages, types, and backgrounds.

Leo is a graduate of North Carolina A&T State University (NC A&T) and graduated Cum Laude with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science Engineering. Breckenridge has gone on to become a critically acclaimed independent film performer with lead roles ranging from “Duke Ellington” in the film U Street, DC, the Attorney, “Thomas Cromwell”, in The Servant, and a feature cast member of the hit internet comedy sketch, The Allen Luu Show. For more information on Leo, please visit his web site at www.leob.me.

Joshua Coyne: Composer

He's Simply Jazzical! Joshua Coyne is an exceptionally talented and inspired young musician living in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. An accomplished violinist, he began studying music at age four and has been performing in public since the age of eight. A truly versatile musician who moves between music styles with ease; Josh enjoys classical, jazz, gypsy, opera and Broadway. In addition to violin, Josh plays multiple instruments, including piano, saxophone, mandolin, viola, and guitar, and is very much focused on composing, arranging and conducting as well.

During the last year, Josh composed a piece for violin and orchestra under the mentorship of one of his musical heroes, Mr. Marvin Hamlisch, and looks forward to performing The Latina, which he recently premiered with the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music Accent 2008 Orchestra, with Marvin in the near future.