CURRENT Artists-in-residence
Antonio Edwards Suarez in Antonio’s Song / I was Dreaming of a Son at The Goodman Theatre
ANTONIO EDWARDS SUAREZ
Antonio Edwards Suarez is an actor, writer, director, and educator–well-known to audiences for his extensive work on Stage and Screen.
Select stage credits include David Mamet’s American Buffalo on Broadway (Directed by Robert Falls); John Guare’s Chaucer in Rome at Lincoln Center (Directed by Nicholas Martin); The international tour of The King Stag (Directed by Andrei Serban and Julie Taymor); Multiple Off-Broadway credits, including productions at Phoenix Theatre Ensemble, INTAR, National Black Theatre, and Chashama; A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest, and Julius Caesar (Commonwealth Shakespeare Company); Havana is Waiting (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park); Spinning into Butter (Repertory Theatre of St. Louis); and Idiots Karamazov (American Repertory Theater).
His one-man play, Antonio’s Song / I Was Dreaming of a Son (co-written with Pulitzer Prize-nominee Dael Orlandersmith) was produced at Contemporary American Theater Festival, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, and The Goodman Theatre (all directed by Mark Clements, with choreography by Alexandra Beller). The performance earned him a Jeff Award Nomination. Antonio’s vast television credits include Law & Order, The Endgame, Elementary, Royal Pains, Person of Interest, House of Cards, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Good Wife, Flight of the Conchords, One Life to Live, and As the World Turns, among others.
He has been teaching at the Graduate and Undergraduate levels, as well as private coaching, for over 20 years. He is a certified Lucid Body teacher, and has taught at many respected institutions, including Brooklyn College (MFA), American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Princeton University (master classes), MMC (now Northeastern), Hunter College, and City College. He is currently on faculty at The Freeman Studio in NYC.
Antonio received his MFA from MXAT/Harvard.
Most recently, his work as an actor was featured in Alexandra Beller’s new book, The Anatomy of Art: Unlocking the Creative Process for Theater and Dance (2026).
His artist residency is centered on the development of a new play, currently entitled, Every Wednesday, serving as director and dramaturg. The play follows five suburban men—stay-at-home fathers and working professionals alike—whose weekly meetings force them to confront society’s views and expectations of adult men, male friendship, domestic stability, and modern masculinity.
For Suarez, the residency represents an opportunity to expand a distinguished career primarily centered on acting and education into sustained work as a director and dramaturg.
Photo credit: Benjamin Lerner by Nick Burchard, courtesy Old Mill Road Media
BENJAMIN LERNER
The Great-grandson of Irving Berlin (composer of such iconic tunes as “God Bless America” and “White Christmas”), Benjamin Lerner is a Vermont-based Rapper, Composer, Writer, Recovery Advocate, Radio Host, and Viral Content Creator with over 550,000 followers across social media platforms and almost 1 billion total video views on his recovery content.
Benjamin started his musical career as a classical piano prodigy. By his early twenties, he was an IV fentanyl, heroin, and crack cocaine addict. Now sober since June 13, 2016, he journals his journey in addiction and sobriety in his signature piano-raps, which combine classical piano and Hip-Hop elements. Benjamin credits his continued success in recovery to his ability to express his emotions through word and song.
Benjamin has had the pleasure of performing for the National Academy of Medicine, The Aspen Institute, Barrington Stage Company, and at Carnegie Hall as part of the Indie Collaborative.
His debut album, CLEAN, was released in February 2020 and produced by Old Mill Road Recording. Since then, he has released several singles and 2 EPs, Keep Moving Forward (2024) and Run Towards the Truth (2025), all produced at Old Mill Road. The Third EP in the trilogy, Don’t Quit Before the Miracle Happens, is in the works, as is his second full length studio album.
The inspiration behind the EP names is rooted in the sign-off from Benjamin’s CLEAN Column, a serialized, autobiographical recovery column that ran in the Vermont News Guide from January 2020 through January 2025:
“Keep Moving Forward. Run Towards the Truth. Don’t Quit Before the Miracle Happens.”
In June 2026, Benjamin celebrated his 10th year of sobriety with CLEAN Jam 2026, marking the first-ever 24-hour LIVE broadcast in WEQX 102.7 FM history. Inspired by the Jerry Lewis charity telethon model and reimagined for the modern social media era, CLEAN Jam 2026 blended music, celebrity appearances, recovery conversations, audience interaction, giveaways, and community fundraising into one continuous multi-platform LIVE experience and served as a fundraiser for both 1761 Arts and The Wilson House. The massive undertaking featured TONY®, EMMY®, GRAMMY®, and OSCAR® Winners, Politicians, Recovery Advocates, Healthcare Providers, Musicians, and Social Media Figures all sharing their stories of–and relationships to–addiction and recovery. CLEAN Jam 2026 received generous support from The National Basketball Association, The Stratton Corporation, and The MARGARET Fund.
Most recently, Benjamin has been flooded with invitations to speak and perform across the country. In August, Benjamin headlined Recovery in the Park in Augusta, Maine, in collaboration with HFGC Recovery. In September, Lerner traveled to Port Huron, Michigan, to perform at BWROC’s RecoveryFest alongside Christian pop vocalist and social-media superstar Bear Bailey of Maverick City Music. In November, he will perform at SoberFest in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, alongside nationally-recognized recovery advocate Jimmy McGill (of Next Step Recovery) and faith-and-recovery artist CLEAN Slate Muzik. Additional (not-yet-announced) engagements are scheduled for December 2026 and beyond.
In February 2026, Benjamin received the “Jack Barry Communications Award” from the Vermont Association for Mental Health and Addiction Recovery; in September 2026, he was recognized by Living in Recovery (a Pittsfield, Massachussetts-based recovery organization) with the “Beacon of Hope Award”; and The Vermont Association of Broadcasters honored WEQX with the prestigious “Alan Noyes Community Service Award” for hosting Benjamin Lerner’s CLEAN Jam 2026.
Benjamin is the host of the weekly recovery rap radio show, CLEAN Jams, on the legendary Vermont alternative radio station 102.7 WEQX, and is a proud voting member of the Recording Academy.
Photo credit: Jack Schlandt by Nick Burchard, courtesy Old Mill Road Media
JACK SCHLANDT
Jack Schlandt is a multi-instrumentalist (guitar, drums, and the electric bass), audio engineer, musical arranger, and producer. His greatest passion is facilitating creativity and helping musicians achieve their dreams.
Jack graduated from American University in 2021 with a masters degree in Audio Technology, where he won an award for outstanding work in Digital Production and Mixing. Since then, he’s honed his skills as an engineer, producer, composer and arranger for Old Mill Road Recording, and has worked with a wide variety of talent from across the industry. Jack specializes in taking artists' concepts and realizing them as fully instrumentalized, orchestrated, and produced arrangements.
In July 2026, Jack was named Artist-in-Residence by 1761 Arts, expanding the scope of his creativity with a focus on game design and development. Schlandt is creating the underlying rules, objectives, initial game components, gameplay systems, prototypes, design documentation, and flow diagrams for a new digital card game and is conducting extensive playtesting, refining the concept in response to participant feedback. The residency will also allow him to define a practical minimum viable scope for the project and establish the creative and technical foundation necessary to eventually transform the concept into a polished digital experience.
Schlandt is simultaneously developing the game's broader audio and musical identity, connecting his new creative exploration with his established expertise in sound.