Artist-in-Resident for our 2016-2017 Season

CANDICE D’MEZA is a professional educator, actor, and writer. She is thrilled to be working with 14 Pews for the first time. Previous acting credits include Catastrophic Theatre: The Blackest Shore, Middletown and clean/through. Her other stage credits include The Ensemble Theatre: The Nacirema Society, Blues In The Night, Sanctified; Black Lab Theater: The Submission; HITS Theater: Ragtime. Candice's acting work has been featured in American Theater Magazine and on Fox 26 Houston, and her writing work in elephant journal.  

14 Pews is proud to be the Executive Producer of Ms. D'Meza's first feature film, "Blessed Thieves." The film places women of color at the center of the discourse about depression. The film provides a forum to explore, through filmed interviews, the possible intersections of race, culture, ethnicity, nationality, sexuality, and gender expectations with the experience of depression. "Blessed Thieves" attempts to create a safe place for public discourses about mental illness and de-stigmatize mental illness in people of color. 

14 Pews first began its Artist-in-Residency Program in 2011, to promote and encourage artists by giving them full use of the theater to create new works for an entire year. 14 Pews provides the space and marketing. Since 2011, 14 Pews has selected, supported and promoted 12 talented artists. In 2011, our artist-in-residence was Emily Sloan (performance artist), who created 4 site-specific performances. In 2012, it was Sandy Ewen (visual artist and electronic musician), who created 3 concerts and 2 art shows. In 2013, it was Elizabeth Keel (playwright), who created a full-length site-specific play, performed 2 one-acts and had a reading of her novel.   In 2014, we had Two Star Symphony (8 musicians and composers), who created a live original score to the classic film, "Girl Shy" and several original musical works and a new album called “7 Deadly Sins.”  In 2015-16, our artist-in-resident was the multi-talented actor Greg Dean, who performed the one-man-show, The Fever, written by Wallace Shawn.  In 2016-17 it is the multi-talented actress Candice D'Meza, who has performed in our Dialogues on Grace, created her own monologue and will star in our latest theaterical production Eartha Kitt: Exposed.