Creative and Performing Artist

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Rayne (formerly and forever Angela Bey) is a Black, Non-Binary performer, writer, director, and designer from Southwest Philadelphia. Across mediums, Rayne tells stories of transformation that center Black folx.

 

Rayne is the founder of Upstream Performance Collaborative, a Barrymore-Award-Winning Philly-based theatre company that specializes in boundary-breaking new works by underrepresented, emerging artists. They have a passion for new work, devised, and community-driven processes.

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Rayne's work and artistic philosophy is informed by their personal experience as a private-school-scholarship-kid who grew up in the hood. They craft stories for the most disenfranchised Black "girl" on their block, consistently investigating intersections of race, class, and Queerness with radical compassion, honesty, humor, and play. Rayne's plays intimately capture the interior vocabularies of folxs with more segregated, stratified lives. They believe it is the artist's mission to build the Utopia we may not live to see. Their artistry bridges gaps of empathy between different worlds. This is Rayne's superpower. 

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Since childhood, Rayne has professionally contributed to over sixty arts and culture organizations nationwide, working across mediums as a performer, writer, director, and designer. They are an Independence Foundation Fellowship in the Arts recipent, F. Otto Haas Award finalist, Wayne F. Milward '57 Prize winner, six-time Barrymore Award nominee, Barrymore-Award winner (Upstream Performance Collaborative; “Outstanding Original Production” for COMET), Leeway Foundation Art & Change Award recipient, and "one of 18 young Philadelphians shaping the future of the city's creative class" (PhillyVoice). Featured in several publications such as NPR, The Inquirer, Mouthful, Token Theatre Friends, Grid Magazine, MetroPhilly, and Philly Gay News, Rayne’s work continues to resonate nationwide. They pay this forward as an arts educator, having taught at University of the Arts, Bryn Mawr College, Friends Select School, The Colored Girls Museum, and more. 

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Rayne is a dynamic and versatile performer with over thirty professional roles across stage and screen.  They thrive in complex, layered roles, known for their depth, range, and commanding presence. Praised as “mesmerizing” and “multi-dimensional", Rayne's recent work in COMET, a one-person show about a daughter’s troubled relationship with her father, earned a Barrymore Nomination for "Outstanding Leading Performance in a Play"and a Barrymore Award for "Outstanding Original Production". ​In The Light, Rayne's portrayal of "Genesis" also earned a nomination for "Outstanding Leading Performance in a Play". Other laudable roles include "Undine" in Fabulation and "Kila-T" in the world-premiere of Young Money, which won an ATCA/Steinberg New Play Award Citation. In film, Rayne was part of the Actor’s Ensemble at Sundance Directors Lab, collaborating with Tayarisha Poe and Jharrel Jerome. Rayne's performance in LP as “Brenda” won the Carl Lerner Award for Social Significance, and their portrayal of “Emma” in Bracelet won the film "Best of the Fest" at the San Francisco Independent Short Film Festival.

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Rayne's playwriting has garnered attention through commissions and development opportunities from notable institutions like Shakespeare in Clark Park, Christ Church Preservation Trust, Elevate Theatre, The Painted Bride, Azuka Theatre, Museum for the American Revolution, Temple University Institute on Disabilities, and the National Constitution Center. Rayne is a proud member of Ring of Keys and New Pages at Azuka Theatre. Works such as On Buried Ground (Christ Church Preservation Trust; “Fringies” Honorable Mention) and A Soft Landing (Elevate Theatre Company), reflect Rayne’s commitment to telling intimate stories of Black experience in both speculative and historical contexts. Rayne's plays explore the resonance of the past in our present moment, reinforcing the idea that we are constantly building our future.

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Rayne is a lover of vampire lore, collector of vintage jeans, and often smells of geraniums. 

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“Though we do not wholly believe it yet, the interior life is a real life, and the intangible dreams of people have a tangible effect on the world” - James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name, 1961

 

Affiliations:

Ring of Keys and New Pages (Azuka); [former] Rising Writers (Azuka Theatre), Playwrights Cohort (PlayPenn), Echoes (Primary Stages), Emerging Playwrights (Strides Collective), Directors Gathering, and Jouska PlayWorks (Simpatico).

 

Selected Credits:

[design] sandblasted (Theatre Horizon) and A Hit Dog Will Holler (Azuka)

[roles] Actors Ensemble at Sundance Directors Lab (Sundance Institute) and “Genesis'' in The Light (Theatre Exile)

[words] Comet (Upstream Performance Collaborative) and On Buried Ground (Christ Church Preservation Trust)

[direction] Judy's Life's Work (Naptown African American Theatre Collective) and Water By the Spoonful (Eagle Theatre)

 

​“Progressive art can assist people to learn not only about the objective forces at work in the society in which they live, but also about the intensely social character of their interior lives. Ultimately, it can propel people toward social emancipation.” -Angela Y. Davis, Women, Culture, Politics, 1990

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Commissions

[words] new heaven, new earth (Shakespeare in Clark Park)

[words & lyrics] Ever (Azuka & Shakespeare in Clark Park with We Are the Seeds)

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"Even with the rest belated / Everything is antiquated / Are you writing from the heart?
/ Are you writing from the heart?" -Sufjan Stevens, Come On! Feel the Illinoise!, 2005

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"Baby, I'm a star!" - Ƭ̵̬̊, Prince and the Revolution, 1979