Jamil A.C. Mangan

Jamil A.C. Mangan is an actor, director, teaching artist and native of Newark, New Jersey. He received a degree in Theatre Arts from the University of the Arts (UARTS) in Philadelphia. As a youngster, Jamil was a concert chorus member at the Newark Boys Chorus School. While a member, he toured the East Coast, Prague, Czechoslovakia, and performed for former President Bill Clinton’s 1992 Inauguration. Mangan attended Newark’s Arts High School, the oldest performing arts high school in the U.S After graduating from Arts High, Jamil studied theatre arts at the University of the Arts (UARTS), the first conservatory for the arts in the U.S. While at UARTS, he performed in several theatre productions including The Colored Museum as Junie, Piano Lesson as Boy Willie, and Mojo as Teddy. He also studied musical theatre at Syracuse University, piano with the late jazz pianist, Duke Anderson, and was a member of the National Speech and Debate Forensics League.

Mangan as MLK In “The Mountaintop” at TheaterWorks Hartford (2013)

The independent feature Head Trauma is a psychological thriller in which Mangan co-stars as Julian. Head Trauma premiered at the Tribeca Cinema. Other films included the FBI agent in A Dangerous Place (starring Kristen Dalton), and as Thelonious Monk in Thelonious Hands currently in production.  He has worked on commercials and voice-overs for Klondike, Inc., Comcast Sportsnet,Verizon Fios, Dorito and Eli Lily Medical Group

He made his directing debut at Newark Symphony Hall with the production of Gospel at Colonus. The Star-Ledger critic Peter Filichia said, “Jamil A.C. Mangan staged the show with precision.” Mangan would later travel with Dramatic Adventure Theatre to produce and direct two shows in Ecuador, South America that were then performed at Teatro Iati and the Richmond Shephard Theatre (NYC). Jamil has directed productions and readings for institutions such as Young Playwrights of New Jersey and Summer Music Institute.

Jamil A.C. Mangan has been a teaching artist for several years working for many arts organizations throughout the tri-state area. He taught Acting for Film for Big Picture Alliance (Philadelphia), an organization that teaches teens how to produce independent films. Jamil has been a teaching artist for the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Playwrights of New Jersey, Steve Adubatos Stand and Deliver and other organizations including Restore Kidz, Inc., Playwrights of Philadelphia, UARTS summer arts program and African Globe Theatreworks.

Jamil was featured in the Billie Holiday Theatre production of What Would Jesus Do? for which he won an Audelco Award for Best Supporting Actor. He recently performed with song stylist Janie Jones in the Juneteenth blues cabaret at the Nuyorican Poets Café in New York City and performed in playwright Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer prize-winning play, Ruined, in Philadelphia (Spring 2011). He  later played Capt. Treville in the Connecticut Free Shakespeare’s Equity production of The Three Musketeers and later in Romeo and Juliet as Friar Laurence (Summer 2012). He is recently completed a stint as a Teaching Artist in New York City under the auspices of the City University of New York (CUNY). Jamil is currently co-starring (with Courtney Thomas) as Martin Luther King, Jr.  in the TheaterWorks production (Hartford, CT) of The Mountaintop for which he received the “Outstanding Actor in a Play” nomination going up against Paul Giamatti for Hamlet and Mikhail Baryshnikov for Man in a Case and other renowned performers.