Aurora Theatre Company Announces New O+G Commission, Showcase Planned For Late November/Early December

Aurora Theatre Company announces the company's 2023 Originate+Generate (O+G) commission, Bay Area hip hop music and theater collective Felonious, comprised of members Carlos “Infinite” Aguirre, Keith Pinto, Tommy Shepherd (a.k.a. Emcee Soulati), and Dan Wolf. 

As part of their commission, Felonious will create a new, original hip hop musical made specifically for Aurora stages, and the group will receive financial support in the form of a $5,000 grant and access to various Aurora resources.

Additionally, Aurora will present six evenings of hip hop theatre and spoken word in FELONIOUS MIXTAPE: An Evening of Hip Hop with Carlos Aguirre, Tommy Shepherd, and Dan Wolf, including music by Keith Pinto, a special limited engagement show featuring Felonious in early December. 

All four Felonious members participated in Tell Tale Hearts at Aurora as the last cabaret performance before the pandemic, with a sold-out run in December 2019 that led to a second sold-out run in February 2020. Because of their imagination and artistry, Aurora engaged Felonious to write a new hip-hop composition for the company's 2022/2023 Originate+Generate commission. For FELONIOUS MIXTAPE, the group will workshop some songs from this commission, as well as perform a few Felonious favorites.

FELONIOUS MIXTAPE runs Nov. 30-Dec. 2 and Dec. 7-9.

Featuring Bay Area artists Carlos Aguirre (aka Infinite), Keith Pinto, Tommy Shepherd (aka Emcee Soulati), Dan Wolf, hip hop theater collective Felonious has been a force in the Bay Area theater and music scene for more than 25 years, often merging the two mediums to create intelligent, socially and politically-conscious, community-minded projects and productions that tell the stories of marginalized people and communities. From live hip hop musical performances to award-winning theater productions such as Angry Black White Boy, Stateless, and Beatbox: A Raparetta, this collective of rappers, actors, beat boxers, musicians, dancers, and writers are known to turn hip hop shows into ass-shaking musical theater.

Join Felonious for an evening of exhilarating hip hop theatre, some of which you may already know, and some that might be new to you. Aurora Theatre Company is thrilled to present this performance that will fuse the power and traditions of theater, music, dance, and education.

Aurora Artistic Director Josh Costello said about the group: “I'm so proud that Aurora will present Felonious as our cabaret performance this December –  and I'm so excited to share this experience with our community. Each member of Felonious is a talented theatre artist and musician with a deep affinity for hip hop. When they come together as Felonious, they find a kind of alchemy that gets the blood pumping.

The group's origins date back to 1994, when members Dan Wolf, Tommy Soulati Shepherd, and Keith Pinto met at PCPA TheaterFest. They met Carlos Aguirre (aka Infinite) in 1996, and later formed Felonious on January 1, 1998 after recording their first demos together. Eventually Felonious developed its first play Beatbox: A Raparetta, which was the first time they married their theatrical work with live hip hop. They quickly became known for this unique approach to live musical performances.  

Hip hop is one of the most accessible and prominent modes of activism and communication for young people and people of color. From its inception, Felonious' mission has been to utilize hip hop, and theater, to share and tell the stories of marginalized people and people of color. Committed to pushing the culture and elements of hip hop through the development of live hip hop theatre, music, performance, and training – and because they are  a multi-cultural collective – Felonious' work fosters expression that is deeply reflective of the communities they serve. 

Past theatrical projects include:  

• Stateless, a hip-hop and beatbox infused theatrical collaboration between Grammy award winner Tommy Soulati Shepherd and Dan Wolf, balancing German and Jewish history with the problems of racism and the African American experience. Stateless has been produced in San Francisco, New York, and Hamburg, Germany. 

• Angry Black White Boy, based on the novel by Adam Mansbach, premiered at Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco and was named Top Ten Best Theater Plays by the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner. 

• Beatbox: A Raparetta has been produced in San Francisco, Oakland, Petaluma, Germany, and at the New York Hip Hop Theater Festival. “Beatbox” is published by TCG in the Hip Hop Theater anthology “Plays from the BoomBox Galaxy”. 

Felonious' studio work includes the new single “Fiend” and albums “Fight For Light”, “The List”, “Bust-a-Nursery Rhyme”, “Produce Section: Vol 1”, “Up To Something” and “Live City”. Felonious has shared the stage with The Roots, De La Soul, Big Daddy Kane, DJ Premier, Black Eyed Peas, Zion I, and Living Legends.

From the group: “Felonious was born out of a need to create a voice for our generation and to encourage the next generations to do the same. We are a critical contemporary method for sharing history, news and information and for reflecting the lives of people who are often marginalized. We believe that hip hop permeates other performance elements and can be brought together to create a unique hybrid of work and training that goes far beyond the sum of its parts. Felonious is committed to creating inspirational work with a truly independent spirit, fusing the power and traditions of theater, music, dance, education, and outreach.”

Carlos Aguirre (he/him) is an actor, musician, vocal percussionist, and educator who has been performing and educating in the Bay Area for years. Aguirre (aka Infinite) has shared the stage with the likes of The Roots, Eryka Badu, Black Eyed Peas, Mary J. Blige, Jam Master Jay, and L.L.Cool J, and has recently been guest starring with Lin-Manuel Miranda's Tony Award-winning show Freestyle Love Supreme. He is also currently producing his original rap and beatbox adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe's The Tell Tale Heart, as well as recording and releasing new music. Aguirre shares his experience by teaching at various schools and at-risk environments throughout the Bay Area.

Keith Pinto (he/him) is a multi-disciplinary artist from the Bay Area's peninsula. He is a graduate of the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts and is on the faculty at San Jose State University and Ohlone College. As an actor, choreographer, director, and musician, he's worked all over the Bay Area and in New York. He toured Europe and North America in Fame the Musical.

Pinto's Bay Area acting credits include A.C.T., San Francisco Playhouse, TheatreWorks, San Jose Stage Company, Campo Santo, CenterRep, 42nd Street Moon, Shotgun Players, Hillbarn Theater, Jewish Theater SF, and The Retrodome. He received a Critics Circle award for his role as Bill in Me and My Girl at 42nd Street Moon, as well as Theatre Bay Area awards for his role as The Emcee in Cabaret at Hillbarn Theater.

As a choreographer his work has been featured in Mamma Mia! at San Jose Stage; Altar Boys at CenterRep (TBA Award); Colossal (Critics Circle Award) and Dogfight at San Francisco Playhouse; Angry Black White Boy and Block by Block with Campo Santo; Stateless: A Hip Hop Vaudeville Experience at Jewish Theater SF & Joe's Pub (NYC); Beatbox: A Raparetta at Theater Artaud (now Z Space) and the Hip-Hop Theater Festival (NYC); Stand Up Tragedy at PCPA Theaterfest; and Jesus Christ Superstar with Urban Street Players.

Pinto is a member of the Bay Area Theatre Cypher, and is a graduate of the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts.

Tommy Shepherd (he/him/they) is an internationally renowned actor, playwright, author, composer, educator, rapper, drummer, beatboxer, and music producer. Shepherd (aka Emcee Soulati) is co-founder of the Grammy-winning family hip hop collective the Alphabet Rockers. He is a longtime member of the performance group Campo Santo, as well as Oakland-based hip hop acapella supergroup Antique Naked Soul.

Shepherd has composed, performed, and toured internationally with Marc Bamuthi Joseph, collaborating on Scourge; the break/s; Spoken World; red, black and GREEN: a blues; and /peh-LO-tah/. Shepherd won a 2018 Isadora Duncan Award for his composition work, and was given a key to the City Of Oakland in September 2023.

Dan Wolf (he/him) is an artist who works with rap, theater, personal narrative, and history to give voice to the broken world we live in. His performances combine conventional theater techniques with the music, language, and aesthetics of the hip-hop generation. His multi-sensory work draws its power from years of experience writing, teaching, and performing with Felonious, a critically acclaimed hip-hop music and theatre company, and Sound in the Silence, a remembrance project that creates live performances on-location at memorial sites connected to the Holocaust. His projects have traveled all around the world from theaters and concert halls to museums, schools, and memorial sites where he engages history as a prompt to make vital music and theater that can only live in this moment.

His play Stateless, a hip-hop and beatbox infused theatrical collaboration with Grammy award winner Tommy Shepherd, balances German and Jewish history with the problems of racism and the African American experience, and has been produced in San Francisco, New York City, and Hamburg, Germany. His play Angry Black White Boy, based on the novel by Adam Mansbach, premiered at Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco and was named Top Ten Best Theater Plays by the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner. His play Beatbox: A Raparetta (co-authored with Tommy Shepherd) has been produced in San Francisco, Oakland, Petaluma, Germany, and at the New York Hip Hop Theater Festival. Beatbox is published by TCG in the Hip Hop Theater anthology “Plays from the BoomBox Galaxy”. 

Studio work with Felonious includes the brand new single “Fiend” and albums “Fight For Light”, “The List”, “Bust-a-Nursery Rhyme”, “Produce Section: Vol 1”, “Up To Something” and “Live City”. 

Wolf is the co-founder of the Bay Area Theatre Cypher, a collective of multi-hyphenate hip hop artists that live at the intersection of theater and hip hop as a means to dismantle the traditional power structures found within the theater-making process by channeling the Hip Hop Cypher as a conduit for inclusive storytelling. He is a board member of the Playwrights Foundation, and a member of the Recording Academy and Actors' Equity Association.

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