Callender has appeared at MTC in The Whipping Man (San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award winner for best ensemble and best production), Circle Mirror Transformation, Seven Guitars and My Children! My Africa!, as well as the Diablo Actors’ Ensemble production of Driving Miss Daisy. Named Bay Area Theater’s “Most Valuable Player” of 2014 by the San Francisco Chronicle, he most recently appeared in Pygmalion at Cal Shakes and Breakfast with Mugabe at Aurora Theatre Company. Callender is the artistic director of African-American Shakespeare Company in San Francisco and an associate artist at Cal Shakes, where he has acted in over 20 productions. His Bay Area credits include roles at A.C.T., Berkeley Rep, Brava!, Magic Theatre, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, San Jose Rep, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, TheatreWorks and San Francisco Symphony. In New York, Callender appeared on Broadway in Prelude to a Kiss and Julie Taymor’s The Tempest at Classic Stage Company, as well as in roles at the Manhattan Theater Club, New York Shakespeare Festival and Circle Rep. Other regional theater credits include Virginia Stage Company, Arena Stage, The Rep in Milwaukee, Pittsburgh Public Theater, Cincinnati Playhouse, Syracuse Stage and Pennsylvania Stage Company. Callender has appeared in the films Sweet November, Dr. Doolittle, The Kite Runner and voiced characters in The Nightmare Before Christmas. He trained at the Juilliard School.