Category: Class of 2023

Jonah O’Hara-David is a proud multi-state-southerner-turned-midwesterner-turned-east-coast-ambassador. His current home base is on the east side of St. Paul, Minnesota, where he spends a good deal of time walking around lakes, protecting other dogs from the wrath of his own, and ginning up business for various qualities of restaurant with his well practiced server-smile. He’s had a bad romance with theatre going strong since his first viewing of Geoff Sobelle’s The Object Lesson at age 14. Since then he’s submerged himself in arts school not once, but twice in order to assuage his parents worry that he might study philosophy. Before Rutgers, Jonah attended the St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists. Through the connections he made there, he worked at performance companies across the twin cities including Children’s Theatre Company, Fishwife, Huge Improv, Youth Performance Company, and Young Artists Council. Acting at Mason Gross has been a blessing, and the credits that couldn’t fit on his incredibly formatted resume include Eurydice with Young Artists Council and Hotel LaFleur with Children’s Theatre Company. His hobbies include skating (poor), beatmaking, yoga, improv, running, reading short fiction, dancing (good), advising his parents on professional subjects, and losing important objects (proficient)

Amaya Montañez (she/they) is a proud Puerto Rican born and raised in the great city of Jersey City, NJ. In high school, they were part of a youth theater company called Developing Artists who introduced her to her passion for social justice and collaboration with other artists. Since then, she has made it her life’s goal to not only be a source of representation for artists of color but also to de-center whiteness in creative spaces. Outside of acting, she writes, coaches, and performs spoken word poetry. They are curious about screenwriting and how they can mesh their love for acting with their love for language. Some of their credits include O.G. Howland/ Tsauwiat in Men on Boats, Cleopatra in The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra at The Shakespeare’s Globe Theater in London, and LAByrinth’s Barn Series at Cherry Lane Theater.