Yuri Lane was born in Holland and raised in the Haight-Ashbury. A classically trained actor, Yuri learned the art of human beatbox in his neighborhood. He stars in live beatbox plays in which every character has his/her own soundtrack and rhythm. He has performed the plays Soundtrack City and The Making of a Human Beatbox in Chicago, New York and San Francisco and toured internationally with the play From Tel Aviv to Ramallah to much critical acclaim. From Tel Aviv to Ramallah tells the story of the daily lives of two young men living on opposite sides of the Green Line and reflects years of artistic dialogue with multimedia artist Sharif Ezzat.

After relocating to Chicago, Yuri got the blues and began combining beatbox and harmonica. This fusion led to his beatbox harmonica video that ran as the number one rated video on YouTube and led him to play Google parties and shoot international commercials before the global economy crashed. Yuri remains a YouTube presence; a beatbox harmonica video featuring the sounds of Chicago dropped in fall of 2009.

Yuri’s debut beatbox album, Yuri Lane: Human Beatbox, features his signature theatrical style. He is currently at work on a new show to debut in 2010 as well as a second album.

Rachel Havrelock is a Bible scholar and professor of Jewish Studies and English at the University of Illinois at Chicago. After earning a B.A. from the University of California, Santa Cruz and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, things came full circle when this native Detroiter returned to the Midwest with her husband from the Haight-Ashbury. Teaching Jewish Studies at an urban university has led to her participation in various interfaith projects, including co-founding the UIC Jewish-Muslim Initiative.

Rachel’s first book, Women on the Biblical Road, considers the notion of a female journey in the Hebrew Bible. She continues to teach and publish about gender, sexuality and religion. She also works on the interpretation and political reception of the Bible. Her next book, River Jordan: The Myth of a Dividing Line, considers the long, contested history of the Jordan River as a border.

An early love of theater was rekindled when Rachel met Yuri and began working as the writer and director of his plays. The script of From Tel Aviv to Ramallah reflects the years that Rachel spent as a student of Hebrew and Arabic at Tel Aviv and Bir Zeit Universities. She has been in front of the camera in the History Channel’s documentary on the book of Joshua and as a co-host of the 2009 Discovery Channel series Who Was Jesus?