The Words Will Come at Shaking the Tree Theatre

Amy Driesler (she/her) is an actor and writer. She’s excited to be a part of The Words Will Come. The Sugar Hole, a play she’s co-writing with Virginia Baeta, was a part of Portland Center Stage’s JAW Festival in July 2025. She’s a proud RACC grant recipient and Equity member. As a performer, she has worked with Third Rail Repertory, Island Stage Left, Portland Center Stage, Profile Theatre, Book-It Repertory, Harlem Shakespeare Festival and many others. Art is Resistance.

Alex Abdelwahed is a Minnesota-native turned Portland-local actor, making her debut in the Portland theatre scene since graduating from the University of Minnesota-Duluth in 2024, where she completed her acting training. Since moving to Portland in 2024, she has continued to grow her love for hiking, cooking, mending clothing, reading, and making friends everywhere she goes. During the day, her K-2nd grade Sped students call her "Ms. Alex" at a local elementary school. Her most previous roles include #00 in The Wolves, Schwoopsie in FireBringer, Wednesday in The Addams Family Musical, and Gloria in Wait Until Dark.

Kelly Saunders is an actress and singer from San Diego. Her recent credits include Zoot Suit and Death of a Salesman at Shakespeare Orange County, the 413 Project’s production of Jane Eyre, and New Match Collective’s Screwing Around with Shakespeare. Her passion for theater stems from her appreciation of its ability to create empathy through storytelling, give voices to those otherwise unheard, and bring together a community through entertaining live performance

Melody Erfani is a theatre creator, director, and the founding artistic lead of LES Shakespeare Co. Her work combines movement, immersive design, and collaborative storytelling to explore themes of belonging, memory, identity, and language. Recent projects include Bee زنبور, inspired by her Iranian grandmother and presented in New York and Portland, and 97 Orchard Street, a performance piece exploring immigrant women’s histories on the Lower East Side. A dyslexic artist, Erfani created The Words Will Come from both personal experience and a desire to reimagine how neurodivergence is represented onstage. She holds an M.F.A. in Directing from the Actors Studio Drama School and is an alum of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab. www.melodyerfani.com