Pascale Armand

Actress Pascale Armand enjoyed a critically acclaimed career in numerous theater productions, most notably in dramas by playwright Danai Gurira, including "Eclipsed," which earned her a Tony nomination. A native of Haiti, Armand studied acting at Howard University and Georgetown University before earning her master's degree from the Graduate Acting Program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She began her professional career in regional theater before touring Europe with a production of "For An End to the Judgment of God" with Peter Sellars. During this period, she also earned roles in features and on television, including "Kinsey" (2004) and provided voices for several editions of the popular "Grand Theft Auto" series of video games. Her long professional connection to playwright and actress Danai Gurira began in 2009 with a starring role in the Yale Repertory Theater production of "Eclipsed," about three women kept captive by a Liberian warlord. In 2011, she starred in Gurira's "The Convert" as a young African woman who converts to Catholicism to escape an arranged marriage, which earned her a Joseph Jefferson Award nomination during the play's run in Chicago. The following year, Armand made her Broadway debut in a revival of "The Trip to Bountiful," starring Cicely Tyson and Cuban Gooding, Jr., and earned one of her highest-profile television role on "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." (ABC, 2013-) as Akela Amador, a former agent turned super-powered spy for the series' main villains, Hydra. Guest roles on series like "The Blacklist" (NBC, 2013-) soon followed, but theater continued to be Armand's most rewarding showcase: she reunited with Gurira for the acclaimed 2016 production of "Eclipsed," which earned her a Tony nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role.