Staff + Board
Meet the Team
Staff
Charla Booth | Artistic Director
Charla Booth is a performing arts educator, advocate, and playwright whose creative works highlight the strengths of families within the African American diaspora. She currently serves as a Dual Credit instructor at Crispus Attucks High School (IPS), where she teaches musical theatre, speech, and debate.
A trailblazer in Indiana’s arts education, Charla was a founding staff member of the Emerson School for the Visual and Performing Arts in Gary in 1982—the state’s first public performing arts school. She also played a pivotal role in developing the city-wide speech curriculum for Gary Community Schools. Her extensive leadership and teaching experience includes serving as an educator and Auditorium Manager at Broad Ripple Magnet School for the Arts and Humanities, as well as Technical Director and Youth in Arts Summer Camp Director for the historic Madam Walker Theatre.
An OnyxFest-winning playwright, Charla has directed and staged theatrical productions throughout the region, including at the New Regal Theater in Chicago. She has served as the Artistic Director of “TRUE COLORS” at Indiana University (Bloomington and Indianapolis), a presenter for ARTI’s CenterStage Theatre Workshop, and a choreographer for the Miss Black Expo Scholarship Pageant. Additionally, she is an accomplished writer with published children’s books, plays for Black theatre, a children’s operetta, and a featured short story in Autism Parenting Magazine.
Charla holds an MFA in Playwriting from the Naslund Mann Graduate School of Writing and an MEd in Curriculum, Instruction, and Adolescent Literacy from Concordia University. She actively serves on the Heartland Films Board of Directors and is a proud member of the Indianapolis Association of Black Journalists, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., and the Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation.
Trent K. Hawthorne-Richards | Program Director
Trent K. Hawthorne-Richards, also known professionally as TKHR, is a multi-hyphenate artist and entrepreneur from Indianapolis, Indiana. He has a list of credits that extend over 30 productions in film, theatre and new media. Hawthorne-Richards has received training from IU-Indianapolis, Jim Dougherty’s Actors Academy, Second City: Chicago, and Jolene Moffatt‘s Meisner Technique. He got his start with the now-closed Indy Apollo Theatre through Demarco Plays & Ivy League Productions.
Board
Dr. Khaula Murtadha | Associate Vice Chancellor for Community Engagement
Dr. Murtadha is a mother and educator, having taught preschool, elementary, middle school science, undergraduate and graduate classes. Dr. Murtadha’s PhD is in Educational Leadership, from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.
She is the former Executive Associate Dean of the IU School of Education, and now serves as Associate Vice Chancellor for the IU Indianapolis Office of Community Engagement. She is also a faculty member of the Educational Leadership and Policy Studies program in the School of Education. She serves on the Indianapolis Public Library Board of Trustees, as well as that of the Christamore House and the Indiana Council for Continuing Education.
Dr. Murtadha has served as either PI or Co-PI for externally funded research and programming grants in excess of $5 million. Some of Murtadha’s awards include the Center for Leadership Development Madame C. J. Walker (Outstanding Woman of the Year) Award; the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Indianapolis Chapter-Breakthrough Woman award; the Father Boniface Hardin Award and the Indianapolis chapter of the National Council of Negro Women Leadership in Education Award.
She has published in the Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education; the Education Administration Quarterly; the Yearbook of the National Council of Professors of School Administration; in Urban Education; the Journal for Research in Mathematics Education; and the Encyclopedia of Educational Leadership and Administration. She serves as the editor of the ENGAGE! journal, focused on community engaged research.
Her current research includes ethics in community-university partnerships; African American women in educational leadership and effective leadership in urban schools.
Regina Turner | IU-I DUE Faculty, Bridge/First-Year Seminar Instructor School of Liberal Arts
Regina Turner joined IU Indianapolis University College faculty in 1998 and served as the campus-community liaison working with churches, high schools and families to raise awareness and interest in higher education.
Through a joint appointment with communication studies, she created a course that combined three of her life’s passions –theater, higher education and social justice –and focuses on the internal motivations that can lead to student attrition. Specifically, she has worked collaboratively with the School of Education to create scripts to be performed in the community to encourage children’s interest in STEM disciplines.
Her research interests include uses of theatre to bridge the gap between high school and college, the impact of student culture on educational achievement, and the development of a stronger relationship between academic and student affairs to encourage student retention. Turner presented more than 50 full-length productions that focused on the intersection between the lives of students and higher education, covering issues such as romantic relationships, challenges in government regulations and intolerance of religious pluralism
Abdul-Khaliq Murtadha | Auburn University Assistant Professor & Co-Director of Mosaic Theatre Company
Abdul-Khaliq Murtadha has taught theatre and filmmaking in a variety of settings, including K-12 schools, universities, private workshops, summer camps and independent master classes. He’s been a dialect and voice coach, guest lecturer, professional mentor, and advised and instructed MFA conservatory students. His work as an independent producer and writer has led him to collaborate with artists and entrepreneurs in varied areas including story development, marketing, and advertising
As a director, AK has led play productions, play readings, and classic and contemporary scene-study workshops. His research and process stem include study of Stanislavski, Meisner, Adler, and Strasberg’s acting methods as well as the voice work of Linklater, Berry, Rodenburg, and many others. His work with different theatre companies has used techniques from Ann Bogart’s Viewpoints as well as Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed to devise productions for schools, prisons, and corporate settings based on social, health, and educational issues.
He is an active member of both the Actor’s Equity Association and SAG-AFTRA and has enjoyed various classical and contemporary roles in regional and repertory theatres across the country. A few of his most recent acting roles include: Duke Vincentio in Measure for Measure at the Ensemble Theatre Company, (Santa Barbara),playing Claudius and the Ghost in Hamlet for the Indianapolis Shakespeare Company , Orsino in Twelfth Night at both the South Dakota Shakespeare Festival and Pioneer Theatre Co.(Salt Lake City), Martin Luther King, Jr. in Mountaintop at WBTT (Sarasota, FL) , James T in Barbecue at the Phoenix Theatre (Indianapolis), for Ensemble Theatre Co. (Santa Barbara), and Martin Luther King, Jr. in the LBJ plays – All the Way and The Great Society , as well as Dr. Prentice in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner at Asolo Rep in Sarasota.
Some of his TV and Film credits include: NCIS-LA, All My Children, Raising the Bar, The Unit, Medium, Numb3rs, and the current streaming feature – 8989 Redstone. (Amazon Prime). Awards include Best Actor – New Orleans Short film festival – In the Wind; NAACP Award: Best Ensemble – All My Sons (playing Chris Keller) at The Matrix Theatre in Los Angeles. Dr. Abdul-Khaliq Murtadha is formerly an associate professor of Africana Studies at IU Indianapolis. He was a Featured Guest Artist and founder of the Africana Repertory Theatre of IU Indianapolis where he directed The People Speak/ Voices of the African Diaspora. He is an ensemble member of the Fonseca Theatre Company in Indianapolis, a member of the artistic ensemble at Crescent City Stage in New Orleans, and his interactive multimedia play The American Muslim Project was the resident umbrella project for the 2019 Indy Convergence in Indianapolis, Indiana.