Tijuana Ricks

Tijuana Ricks is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis and the Yale School of Drama where she was awarded the Rebecca West Memorial Scholarship and the Herschel Williams Prize for Outstanding Ability in Acting.
As an actor, she has performed in numerous films, television, and stage productions and is an accomplished voiceover artist with a 2013 Grammy nomination for spoken word for her work as Michelle Obama in the First Lady's audio-book, American Grown.

As a producer, her short film Human Resources: Sick Days Aren’t A Game, in which she also starred as Kendra, screened at SoHo Film Festival, St. Louis Film Festival, HollyShorts, Los Angeles Comedy Festival, St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase and the Atlanta Film Festival where she was named, "A Filmmaker to Watch."

Tijuana made her directorial debut in 2016 with a comedy pilot she co-created, The Vampire Leland. Leland was an official selection of several Oscar-qualifying festivals as a short film as well as the New York Television Festival 2016 and SeriesFest 2017. At SeriesFest, IndieWire singled out The Vampire Leland as one of the festival's "8 great pilots that deserve a network home.” Her next project, Ashes, which Tijuana wrote, produced and directed, was commissioned by Pace University as a final exhibition project for the 2018 class of BFA Film, Television and Commercial Acting students. She has completed post-production on her third short film, Narrator Syndrome, and is readying the piece for the festival circuit in 2019.

In May of 2019, Tijuana completed principal photography on a 6-episode web-series starring the incredibly talented Michael Potts ("Brother Mouzone" on The Wire, True Detective Season 1), created by screenwriter Gwydion Suilebhan, called All Souls about an Episcopal minister who has lost his faith in God. She produced and directed all 6 episodes which will be released online in the fall of 2019.