Michelle Dowd is thrilled to be working with Ms. Gardner, Ms. Braha, cast, and crew at The Nora Theatre Company. Ms. Dowd has performed with many Boston Theater companies over the years. For regional mainstage experience, she has worked on productions of The Amen Corner, Nomanthemba, and A Streetcar Named Desire (The Huntington Theater); she has also understudied  for Seven Guitars, To Kill a Mockingbird, A Raisin in the Sun, and From the Mississippi Delta. She has performed in Crowns (Lyric Stage); the Brother Sister Plays (Company One); and Violet (SpeakEasy Stage Company). In addition, she has worked with the Zeitgeist Theater Company, winning an IRNE Award for Best Actress in Edward Albee’s New England premiere of the three-act version of Seascape, and Best Supporting Actress for The Story. She was also part of the cast for IRNE award winning productions of Brother Sister Plays and Spring Awakening. She was last seen in Distracted (Underground Railway Theater), and in a stage reading of Danny Bryck’s new play The River and The Sea (New Rep). Ms. Dowd also provides voice-over talent in the Boston area.  When not on stage, Ms. Dowd is a seasoned Boston banker and avid traveler (38 countries and counting). Michelle thanks her father, Fred, and mother, Anne, for her lifelong passion for play.

Kerry A. Dowling Boston credits: Clybourne Park; Next to Normal; The Drowsy Chaperone; Nine; The Great American Trailer Park Musical; Reckless; Jerry Springer – the Opera; The New Century; The Mystery of Edwin Drood; Parade; The Women; Bat Boy: The Musical; Company (IRNE Award); Elegies; A New Brain; Triumph of Love; Floyd Collins; Lips Together, Teeth Apart; Songs for a New World (SpeakEasy); Nicholas Nickleby, Follies (Lyric Stage); Into the Woods (New Rep); A Man of No Importance (Súgán/SpeakEasy); Steel Magnolias, Pal Joey (Stoneham);The Most Happy Fella (Gloucester). Kerry is the recipient of the 2010 SpeakEasy Stage Company Outstanding Artist Award.

Brandon Barbosa is honored to be making his debut at Central Square Theater  with Distracted, and so excited to be a part of this amazing cast that brings this unique, funny, and poignant story to life. Brandon is a fifth grader in Revere and would like to thank his teachers for their ongoing enthusiasm and support. His past performances has included the North Shore Music Theatre production of A Christmas Carol (2010-2012), The King and I, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat; Speakeasy Stage Company’s Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson; and Boston Children’s Theatre’s Legally Blonde and HONK!

Chantal Bilodeau is a New York-based playwright and translator originally from Montreal, Canada. Her play Sila recently won the Woodward International Playwriting Prize as well as First Prize in the Earth Matters on Stage Ecodrama Festival and the Uprising National Playwriting Competition. She is the recipient of a Jerome Travel & Study Grant and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.

Productions include Hunger (Bated Breath Theatre Company, 2011), The Motherline (New York International Fringe Festival, 2009), Pleasure & Pain (Magic Theatre; Foro La Gruta, Teatro La Capilla and Festival de Teatro Nuevo León in Mexico City, 2007), and the English translations of Blue-S-cat and Bintou by Koffi Kwahulé (The Invisible Dog, 2012 and The Movement Theatre Company, 2010) and Abraham Lincoln Goes to the Theatre by Larry Tremblay (Alberta Theatre Projects, 2010).

Her work has been read and developed at the California Institute of Technology, 3rd Kulture Kids, Golden Thread, the Neanderthal Arts Festival (Vancouver), Carnegie Mellon University, Underground Railway Theatre, University of Connecticut, New York Theatre Workshop, Consortium for Peace Studies (Calgary), Mo`olelo Performing Arts Company, Lark Play Development Center, Play Company, Howard University, York University (Toronto), Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal, hotINK International Festival, Berkshire Theatre Festival, University of Miami, Teatro Lo Spazio (Rome), Williamstown Theatre Festival, Philadelphia Dramatists, and Met Theater.

Her translations include over a dozen plays by contemporary playwrights Julien Mabiala Bissila (Congo), Sébastien David (Quebec), Mohamed Kacimi (Algeria),  Koffi Kwahulé (Côte d’Ivoire), Étienne Lepage (Quebec) and Larry Tremblay (Quebec).

She is affiliated with the Dramatists Guild, NoPassport Theatre Alliance, the League of Professional Theatre Women, Playwrights Guild of Canada, Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal and The Fence.