Zewiditu Jewel is a writer and recording artist. She is a fourth generation native Washingtonian, storyteller, mental health and youth advocate. Zewiditu has dedicated over 12 years of service to working with the youth of New York, Jamaica and Washington; teaching Creative Writing, Jewelry Design and Theater Arts. She is a graduate of Duke Ellington School of The Arts (DC) and Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts (NYC).

Zewiditu's first audiobook, Zewidituisms: X (2018), is a coming of age story of a young black woman navigating through the world, as told by her, in her twenties. This audiobook highlights conversations around relationships, family dynamics, womanhood, trauma and mental health.

Zewiditu is currently working on her first capsule jewelry collection, which will speak to mental health as wearable art, highlighting statement pieces such as mood rings, name plate necklaces and more. Zewiditu hopes to continue the conversation of mental health in communities of color, by sharing her story. "I tell my story, so she can tell her story, he can tell his story. The rest is history. These are our stories, our histories.”

Cecilia Rubino has written, devised and directed theater pieces which have performed at Lincoln Center, The New Victory @ 42ndStreet, Jefferson Market Playhouse, the New York Fringe and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals. Her documentary, Remembering Shakespeare, which explores new ways of thinking about memory and Shakespeare’s words in our digital age screened at the New Haven Documentary Film Festival in August, 2020.

She has just completed a documentary play called The Beatrice Six which will be part of an HBO series directed by filmmaker Nanfu Wang (One Child Nation) about an infamous case which instigated the largest group DNA exoneration in US history. She also recently directed Selected Monologues at the Irene Fornes marathon at the Public Theater and ‘O’Neill in the Village’ at the Washington Square Hotel.

Rubino wrote and directed From The Fire, which won the UK/Music Theater awards for best music, production and new musical at the Edinburgh Fringe Theater Festival.

She is an Associate Professor of Theater at Eugene Lang College, the director of the Lang Arts in Context Program and remains committed to coordinating the I HAVE A DREAM/Lang Tutoring program. She will also teach a course this fall called ZOOM PLAYS: THEATER & ECO JUSTICE EDUCATION to connect Lang students with NYC elementary school students online through the fun of theater and new media in the important space of afterschool. 

www.ceciliarubino.com