Ariel is an actor, singer, producer, and Founder/Executive Board Member of Leviathan Lab, a creative studio for Asian American performing artists. From 2009 to 2016, he was a member of the Executive B ...Show More
Ariel is an actor, singer, producer, and Founder/Executive Board Member of Leviathan Lab, a creative studio for Asian American performing artists. From 2009 to 2016, he was a member of the Executive Board of Voices of Gotham, an international award-winning avocational men's chorus.As an actor and singer, Ariel has performed on television, film, commercials, industrials, new media, and on, Off, and Off-Off Broadway. You can visit his IMDB page here and download his resume here.As the immediate past Executive Director of Leviathan Lab, he has produced acting and writing salons, cabarets, fund raising events, staged readings, showcase productions, and short films - including a critically acclaimed 2011 production of TWELFTH NIGHT, starring Obie-award winning actor Jojo Gonzalez, and directed by Nelson T. Eusebio III (Assistant Director under Daniel Sullivan, The Public/NYSF 2011; Lincoln Center Directors Lab), with music by Jason Ma (Broadway: MISS SAIGON, THE SLY FOX, SHOGUN THE MUSICAL). In 2012, Ariel served as Executive Producer for Leviathan Lab's multiple-award winning short film TWO WEEKS (Featured Film, 2013 Screen Actors Guild Shorts Showcase; Winner, 2013 Film Festival Flix Short Film Competition; Winner, Best Ensemble, 2013 Asians on Film Festival; Award of Merit: Asian American, Best Shorts Competition (December 2013); and Official Selection, 20th Annual Filipino American Cine Festival, (December 2013). Ariel also served as Executive Producer on Leviathan Lab's short film YIELD (Official Selection, Planet Connections Film Festival (June 2014).Ariel is a graduate of the Broadway League's Commercial Theatre Institute Fourteen Week Program: Advanced Topics for Commercial Producers and Managers under Tom Viertel.As a grant writer, Ariel has secured four consecutive grants (2012-2015) from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council for his work with Leviathan Lab, as well as for the international award-winning men's barbershop chorus Voices of Gotham (2013, 2014) and for Empire City Men's Chorus (2013). Ariel served as both a performer and Executive Producer of Leviathan Lab's first LMCC-supported project, MIGRATION NATION, which took ten new short plays inspired by the experiences of Filipina overseas contract workers, and assembled them into a three day, site-specific, immersive theatre event at the Tribeca brownstone/artists collective Space on White. For Leviathan's second and fourth LMCC-supported project in 2013 and 2015 respectively, Ariel served as Executive Producer, Assistant Teaching Artist, and Performer for their Chinatown Kids' Playmaking Project titled JOURNEY TO THE WORLD OF PLAYWRITING, which took plays created through a 10-week workshop with the 5th grade students of P.S. 124, and produced them using the adult professional actors and directors of Leviathan Lab. In 2014, Leviathan secured their 3rd consecutive LMCC award for their GHOST STORIES project, featuring original 10-minute musicals inspired by Asian ghost stories, curated by Robert Lee and directed by Tony Award-winner B.D. Wong. In 2015, Ariel secured two grants from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs-Cultural Development Fund for both Voices of Gotham and Empire City Men's Chorus. He also serves a a freelance grant writer Letter of Marque Theater Company; as well as for Phoenix Theatre Ensemble, and won PTE an upcoming 2016 New York State Council of the Arts Cultural Service Contract in support of their InFlight Theatre-in-Education Program.In August 2015, Ariel secured his largest funding to date for a not-for-profit arts organization, with a grant from the Barbershop Harmony Society in support of Voices of Gotham's Arrangers' Lab.Through Ariel's development and community engagement work, Leviathan was also a 2011 resident artist at Space on White, and was a 2013 and 2014 resident artist at the Performance Project at University Settlement.Ariel is also an accomplished Fortune 500 and Inc. 5000 level communications designer. To view his design portfolio, please visit arielestradadesign.com. Hide
