The Schoolhouse Theater
Westchester's "Favorite Local Theater"!
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The Schoolhouse Theater
goes viral with
The Pandemic Players
WHEN COVID SHUT DOWN LIVE THEATER, The Schoolhouse Theater’s Pandemic Players replaced it with an unprecedented series of Zoom Matinees. Throughout the Pandemic we presented no fewer than 130 LIVE performances every Saturday afternoon: something we feel sure no other company in America (and probably the world) can claim!
And although our return to live performances has paused these Zoom productions, they are shortly to return: bigger and better than ever! While you won’t have the thrill of fighting over the armrests in a theater, you will still have the transformative experience of a live performance.
What are the Pandemic Players? Well, in the time of Covid19 they were the Schoolhouse Theater’s slightly cheeky, slightly rude fist in the face of all we fought against and continue to fight. So many gifted artists have come through the doors of the Schoolhouse and many of them agreed to regroup informally as a sort of theatrical Woodstock to celebrate what makes theater irreplaceably great. First and foremost, the Pandemic Players are a family. We are happy to bring our family to you.
The Pandemic Players take you through the history of plays: Comedy and tragedy, farce and intrigue, politics and romance, and much more. Every week professional Broadway actors perform a cold reading: unrehearsed and for the first time LIVE. The viewer experiences the charm, the uncertainty and the dynamic creative energy that gifted actors go through on the first day of rehearsal in what is known as The First Reading.
At the end of each reading/rehearsal/performance, Artistic Director Owen Thompson and Producing Director Bram Lewis talk with the actors about their experience, and then open up the microphone and camera to the audience so their voices can be heard and so that they can share in the curtain call.
NOELIA ANTWEILER has been delighted to be a part of the Schoolhouse Theatre’s Pandemic Players! NYC Credits include: Leah, The Forsaken (Metropolitan Playhouse, NY Times mention), Grassroots Solutions (WOW Company, Josh Fox dir.), The Tempest, Hair (The Secret Theatre), and Dark Passenger: The Musical (Studio 54). Regional Credits Include: The Comedy of Errors, A Midsummer Nights Dream, A Christmas Carol, Cinderella (Alabama Shakespeare Festival), Sleep Rock Thy Brain, Dracula (Actors Theatre of Louisville), Romeo & Juliet (Idaho Rep), I’m Gonna Pray For You So Hard, The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence (Relative Theatrics). Noelia is also an accomplished aerialist (silks, lyra, trapeze, harness). Endless gratitude to Owen, Bram, and the Schoolhouse team Thanks for supporting the arts! Follow me on Instagram @noelia.antweiler
ESTELLE BAJOU is a NYIT-winning Actor, Drama Desk-nominated Composer, Visual Artist, and Educator based in Harlem. Broadway: Once. TV: “Boardwalk Empire”; Ken Burns’ “Prohibition”. Film: Charming the Hearts of Men (opposite Anna Friel); Spielberg’s The Post; Chaplin of the Mountains; Fireworkers; Beneath Disheveled Stars. Shorts: Glimpses, klutz., Starring Austin Pendleton; Lullaby for Ray; Henry Buys a Hat. Theatre: Labyrinth Theater Co, PS122, Edinburgh Fringe, LaMaMa, 59E59, One Year Lease Theater Co, 14th St Y, New Ohio, NJ Rep, FringeNYC, A.R.T. (Boston), Barrow Street, three National Tours. At nineteen years old, she earned a BA in Theatre and Creative Writing from Bard College at Simon’s Rock. She then earned an MFA in Acting from the School of Drama at The New School. Member: SAG-AFTRA, AEA, American Federation of Musicians, and the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition. www.estellebajou.com
DAVID BECK is an actor, filmmaker, and pianist. Catch him on the History Channel’s upcoming season of The Food That Built America. On stage, David appeared at ART/NY, 59E59, Cherry Lane, La Mama, and regional theaters in everything from Shakespeare and Chekhov to Rajiv Joseph, Neil LaBute, and experimental theatre. Writer, actor, and composer of the award-winning short films For Francis and Backup Plan (the latter which he also directed), his films have appeared in festivals worldwide including Cannes, Athens, Cinequest, SOHO, NYShorts, and Out on Film Atlanta, as well as schools and universities. He is the creator of the Streamy nominated web series Spring Street and the founder of the film company The Great Griffon, Inc., which “tells tales of the underdog” within the LGBTQ+ community. His first feature film Regarding Veronica is currently seeking funding. He has composed music for numerous staged readings, podcasts, and films; he has recorded a dozen audio books for the NY Public Library for the Blind. While still a theater student at Marymount Manhattan College, he interned for River Rep, where he met Artistic Director Owen Thompson, and is grateful to be working with him and company today. linktr.ee/davidbeck
MATT BIAGINI is honored to have appeared on the Schoolhouse stage on multiple occasions; he’s been thrilled to be part of the Pandemic Players as well! He is a NYC-born, bred, and based actor. Favorite credits include Measure for Measure(Barefoot Shakes), The Misanthrope(Performance Space 122), How to Bury a Saint (world premiere, Schoolhouse Th.), Exquisite Potential (NY premiere, Project Rushmore, Theater 71), Galileo (Urban Stages), Learning Russian (NY premiere, The Flea), The Enlightenment of Mr. Mole(world premiere, Schoolhouse Th. and off Bway at Sheen Center, NYC), As You Like It (Yale Summer Cabaret Shakespeare), and a workshop of an ASL/English adaptation of Cyrano (New York Theatre Workshop, starring Troy Kotsur, Samira Wiley, and Paul Raci). Matt is a graduate of Brown University and the Yale School of Drama (Geffen). Thanks to Bram as always for the wonderful opportunities to play.
SARAH BIERSTOCK is delighted to be a part of the reading of “Whose Life is it Anyway?” She is an actor, singer, playwright, mother of two toddlers, drinker of wine, eater of too much ice cream, and an attempter of laughter and humanity through all things pandemic and beyond. www.sarahbierstock.com
CHARLES BLACK (Richard Stanley, "The Man Who Came to Dinner"), Rev. Tooker, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, The Doctor, STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, Medvedenko, SEAGULL’69, Mud Actors Lab,. Montegue, ROMEO & JULIET, The Greenhouse Theatre, Scar Tissue, MARISOL, The Denizens Theatre Company, Private Dean, BURY THE DEAD, HB Playwrights Foundation, George Murchison, A RAISIN IN THE SUN, New Day Repertory, recently online Piet Wetjoen, THE ICEMAN COMETH, David, A CONVERSATION WITH MY BROTHER, both Caroline Grace Productions and Poverty, THE WAY OF THE PHOENIX, Trinity Movement Choir. Member SAG-AFTRA, AEA
TODD BUTERA (Dr. Thomas Stockman, An Enemy of the People) Butera’s theater credits include Fault Lines (Eddie) at The Kraine, Funeral Games (Fury/Paris) at The Public Theater, Macbeth (Mac Duff) at Frog and Peach Theater, Much Ado About Nothing (Benedick) and As You Like It (Jaques) at the Hudson Warehouse. He has performed at both the NY Fringe Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Film/TV: All My Children, Redrum, Orson Wells Sells His Soul and A Death in Bethay. Member of SAG-AFTRA-Equity. www.bmgtalent.com
NATHANIEL P. CLARIDAD Off-Broadway/NYC credits include Here Lies Love (The Public Theater), Taylor Mac's 24-Decade History of Popular Music (St. Ann's Warehouse), The Awesome 80’s Prom, work with NYShakespeare Exchange, NYMF, PS122, N.A.A.P.; International: Laser Beak Man (Dead Puppet Society/Brisbane Festival & tour - Sydney Opera House, HOTA, & Melbourne Arts Centre), Taylor Mac’s…(The Forum, Melbourne Festival); National Tour: Alice (The Kennedy Center); Regional: The Kennedy Center, PlayMakers Repertory Company, Folger Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Florida Studio Theatre, Cape Fear Regional, Imagination Stage, Hangar Theatre, Barrington Stage. Directing credits include Southern Rep, The One Minute Play Festival, ShakesBEER, The Drama League. MFA: UNC-CH.
NATALIA CUEVAS: BA, University of Notre Dame. MFA, University of Connecticut. Theatre credits: The Crucible, Alice in Wonderland, Rabbit Hole, Enron, Provenance, Antígona Furiosa, Big Knife, Intimate Apparel, Blood Wedding, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear, Henry IV, Henry VI, Richard III, Much Ado About Nothing, Measure for Measure, A Comedy of Errors, Sense and Sensibility, Lysistrata, Yerma, La Casa de Bernarda Alba, The Laramie Project, Simona’s Search, Waiting for Lefty. Television credits: Love Life, The Deuce, Amarte es Imposible.
MICHAEL DALY is an actor (and semi-pro props maker) who has worked with Artistic Director Owen Thompson since before the earth cooled (or since 1996, whichever makes more sense). Regionally, he has worked at the Florida Studio Theatre, having performed in The Compleat Works of William Shakespeare… Abridged as well as the two-actor comic version of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Other credits include Pericles and Greater Tuna (Utah Shakespeare Festival), Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey), Peter Pan and Windy City (Walnut Street Theater) and the title role in Macbeth (Southwest Shakespeare in Mesa, AZ). Other regional favorites include Capitol Rep in Albany, NY, as well as several seasons at the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival and the Orlando Shakespeare Theatre. TV credits include HBO’s The Undoing, and Warner Brothers’ young Batman series Gotham. Michael holds a BFA in Acting from Ithaca College, and a certificate from the British American Drama Academy in Oxford, England.
LISA ANN GOLDSMITH is an actor and director with many New York and regional credits, including Kate in the World Premiere of Windfall directed by Seinfeld’s Jason Alexander (Arkansas Rep); Louisa in the American Premiere of Oscar and Walt (Kinetic at City Theatre); Audrey in As You Like It and The Courtesan in The Comedy of Errors (Pittsburgh Public Theater); Kate in Brighton Beach Memoirs, Laurel in Torch Song Trilogy, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth and Mame in Mame (Human Race Theatre Company); Macbeth in Macbeth 3 and Sasha/Marmaduke in Orlando (Unseam’d Shakespeare); ten years as Mrs. Cratchit in A Musical Christmas Carol (Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera); Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Tulsa Shakespeare in the Park); Veronica in God of Carnage (Theatre by the Sea); Cassius in Julius Caesar (Pittsburgh Shakespeare in the Parks); Gretchen in Boeing, Boeing (CLO Cabaret); Mrs. Staunton in The Speckled Band and The Woman in The Father (Kinetic Theatre) and many others. Lisa Ann is the co-host of the internationally known podcast The Bardcast: "It’s Shakespeare, You Dick!" with listeners in six of the seven world continents!! On Apple, Google, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon, Pandora, or wherever you get your podcasts!! She teaches her Shakespeare First Folio Technique Workshop all over the country, from university students in BFA programs to professional actors at schools as Point Park Conservatory, Carnegie Mellon, Fordham University, Indiana University, Youngstown State, Pitt, and Slippery Rock University.
GINGER GRACE: is delighted to be working with the Pandemic Players! Work with the Schoolhouse Theater includes Eleanor Roosevelt in Eleanor Roosevelt: Her Secret Journey, by Rhoda Lehrman, and The Color of Light, by Jesse Kornbluth (both directed by Bram Lewis). Other credits include: National Tour: The Presidents (opposite Rich Little). Off-Broadway: The Glass Menagerie (Top Ten Best Revivals of 2019, TheatreScene.net, directed by Austin Pendleton & Peter Bloch, at The Wild Project); The Saintliness of Margery Kempe (Perry Street Theatricals); Miss Julie (The Pearl), and Faust, and Aeschylus’s Elektra (CSC Repertory) (all 3 productions directed by Christopher Martin). NY Theater: New Perspectives Theatre, Mother of Invention, Mississippi Mud. Regional: The First Ladies Coalition (written by Ms. Grace; directed by Austin Pendleton) most recently performed at the Bridge Street Theatre, Catskill, NY; and in the W.H.A.M. Festival, NYC; Inside Emily Dickinson: Her Poetry & Her Life (written by Ms. Grace); The Belle of Amherst; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Penobscot Theater, directed by Mark Torres); Doubt (WSCC). New plays in New York: Jason Jung’s PANIC!, Jenny Lyn Bader’s In Flight, Fengar Gael’s Devil Dog Six, Deborah Savadge’s The Favor. Film: Wedding March (WINNER: Hollywood International Moving Pictures Festival, 2019), 6-minute Mom, Frat Star, SHEER.
JASON GUY has suffered terribly in over 70 professional productions ranging from Shakespeare to tap dancing (sometimes both at once), and everything in between. He was poisoned (as Hamlet) and beaten (Malvolio) with the National Shakespeare Co.; betrayed (Brutus) and beheaded (Buckingham) at the American Shakespeare Center’s Blackfriars Playhouse; and flogged, twice, (as both Dromios) by the Hamptons Shakespeare Festival. Seeking solace in plays by living authors, Mr Guy lost his faith (“Doubt”), his friends (“Art”), his wife (“Time Stands Still”), and finally his scene partners (“I Am My Own Wife”); it was the loneliest thing he’s ever done. Turning to musicals in hopes of lighter fare, he was fired daily ("42nd Street"), punched repeatedly ("West Side Story"), and soaked nightly (Don Lockwood in "Singin' in the Rain”). In total, this litany of maltreatment has covered four continents, fifteen countries, and all 50 of the United States. Mr Guy was born on the pinky of Michigan, grew up on the coast of Maine, and lives in New York City.
JASON GRIFFITH Over two decades, Jason has worked with directors such as Don Cheadle, Phillip Noyce, Ethan Cohen, Rupert Holmes, Kimberly Pierce, Doug Liman, David Simon & Ovi Vargas. Notable voice work includes Sonic the Hedgehog and Shadow the Hedgehog for all things SEGA, Cilan in Pokemon, Tony Stark in Iron Man: Extremis, and Usopp in One Piece. TV credits include Blue Bloods.
ANTHONY (“TONY”) BURRILL HAIRSTON Formerly, a Human Resources practitioner, Tony found acting and the theater when he joined the theater’s Board in 2015. Since then, he served as the Assistant Stage Manager for The Schoolhouse Theater’s presentation of The Color of Light in 2019 (under his unofficial stage management name, “Goes Bang in the Dark”). In 2020, Tony joined the theater’s on-line Zoom troupe, The Pandemic Players, and has since played Judge Wyler in Who’s Life Is It Anyway; the Night Court Judge in Vieux Carre; Mr. Stanley in The Man Who Came to Dinner; Dalton, the stable owner, in Equus, Argante in Scapino!, and recently, a Woodcutter in Blood Wedding.Apart from his roles at The Schoolhouse Theater, Tony does background work in TV and films. He is a member of both the Screen Actors Guild and Actors Equity.
ALINCA HAMILTON (pronounced uh-LINK-uh) is a first generation American and native New Yorker. Her artistry ranges from being an actor, to going behind the scenes producing, writing and directing. Her favorite acting credits include: Calphurnia in Julius Cesar, Classic Stage Company; Philly in Someone Dies at the End, Edinburgh Fringe Festival; Sorin in The Seagull, Columbia University; and the title character in Melody June Cooper: Actress* for Hire, which she conceived and produced. She earned a B.B.A. in Entrepreneurship from Baruch College (CUNY) and holds an MFA in Acting from Columbia University. www.alincahamilton.com
DAVID H. HAMILTON An actor for more than forty years some favorite roles include A Man For All Seasons (Thomas More), Uncle Vanya (Dr. Astrov), The Real Inspector Hound (Moon), Black Tie (Curtis) for the Triangle Theatre; A Midsummer Night's Dream (Theseus), Museum (Guard), Ripcord (Benjamin) for The Snarks. The Foreigner (Ellard), A Flea in Her Ear (Etienne), Ten Little Indians (Marsten), Lost in Yonkers (Eddie) for The River Rep. David has also appeared regionally in dozens of musicals and was a member of The Fanfare Theatre Ensemble, musical theater for young audiences, for thirty years.
MEREDITH HANDERHAN: is happy to have been found by the Schoolhouse! Working predominantly in Film and TV, I always value my theater roots. Thank you to Bram for finding and keeping me! Schoolhouse credits include Gladstone Hollow:The Farm Play and the recent Pandemic Player reading of The Female Odd Couple. Selected Theater credits include Fool for Love, FlyGirls and Miss Witherspoon. Selected film and TV credits include The King of Staten Island (Dir. Judd Apatow), The Last O.G, Law and Order:SVU, and The Detour. (AEA/SAG/AFTRA) meredithhanderhan.com
MARK HOFMAIER came to New York from neighboring Philadelphia where he was an early member of the Philadelphia Theater Company. He studied acting with Wynn Handman, Michael Howard, Paul Austin, Tim Phillips, and Nikki Flacks; and acted in a variety of Off-Broadway productions, including plays by N. Richard Nash, Hugh Wheeler, John Ford Noonan, and Diane Kagan. and leading roles in network television dramas such as “Law and Order” and “Monsters”.
He has been a member of, and active participant for many years with a New York repertory company of actors, playwrights, and directors called the Workshop Theatre Company. He has performed, among other roles, Agamemnon in a modern adaptation of Iphigenia, by P. Seth Bauer, and in original work by Donald Steele (Graceland, winner of New York Fringe festival) and Kathy Chetkovich (She Said, She Said).
Recently Mark portrayed Jerry in Pinter’s Betrayal and the “other” half of Gurney’s Mrs. Farnsworth – the husband, as well as the first Mate Molloy in a musical adaptation of Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi. Mark is married with two children to actress/director Susanna Frazer.
KEITH HOWARD is a translator/editor. Former Director of Auditions, Actors’ Equity Association (8+ years). National tour: Kiss Me, Kate w/Rachel York. Four European tours, including Jesus Christ Superstar (Caiaphas), Phantom (Cholet). Regional: My Fair Lady (Cincinnati Playhouse, Rep Theatre St. Louis), Fiddler on the Roof (Tevye), etc. Off-Broadway: Folksbiene, WPA Theatre. Classical solos: Mahler’s 8th (Carnegie Hall), Lincoln Center, multiple US orchestras. Opera: Bartolo (Figaro/Deutsche Oper am Rhein), Sarastro (Die Zauberflöte/Spain tour), Opera Company of Boston, many others. Yuka is Everything.
TIM JEROME. I have been performing professionally on-stage since 1968 with 18 Broadway shows (one Tony nomination) and 12 feature films to my credit. I have also performed in regional theaters and on tour throughout the country exclusively in principle roles. In 2019, I played Henri Matisse in The Schoolhouse Theatre production of Jesse Kornbluth’s THE COLOR OF LIGHT.
In 1983, I founded a company, National Music Theater Network, Inc., with a mission to encourage the development of new theatrical musicals. Under my presidency, the company founded the New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF). In 2010, I founded MainStreet Musicals, Inc., to expand new works development into regional communities and colleges around the U.S. In 2017, we launched an on-line performance competition – MainStreet CALLBACKS - for young performers transitioning from college into the profession. I have served as an elected Councilor (Board Member) for Actors Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild, and as 1st Vice President of the American Guild of Musical Artists.
ALLIE KLEIN New York theater credits include The Magic Hole (St. Marks Theater), Thom Paine (HB Studio), True West (HB Studio), Andromeda Speaks (Actors Studio), Gruesome Playground Injuries (HB Studio), and The Devil Tree Part II: Just Desserts (Players Theater). He also performed in Trainspotting at the Unicorn Theater in Pittsfield, MA. Web work includes The Chosen Family Show, The Thing About Brooklyn and Sh#t Show (Currently in production). Klein appeared on the television program, AXS TV Standup House.
ALVIN KEITH has played memorable roles on Broadway, Off Broadway, at the Apollo and many of the country's leading theaters. He was last on stage in Sweat at Huntington Theater in Boston and Off-Broadway in Novenas for a Lost Hospital. At the Apollo Theater he was in March On! and Unspeakable: Inspired by the Life of Richard Pryor. He did the world premiere of Ellen McLaughlin’s The Orestia (Michael Khan, dir.) at the Shakespeare Theatre of DC. His favorite stage roles are August Wilson’s Boy Willie and Levee, Tony Kushner’s Belize, John Guare’s Jacques Cornet, and Shakespeare’s King Oberon. Alvin also enjoys working on camera. Later this year he will be featured in the Netflix film Don't Look Up. His screen credits include Amazon's Modern Love, Blue Bloods, Fosse/Verdon, The Blacklist, and Mr. Robot. Alvin is a proud graduate of Morehouse College and has a MFA in Classical Theatre and Classical Acting (U of A/Alabama Shakespeare Festival). He was also a member of The Public Theater’s Shakespeare Lab (Barry Edelstein, dir.).
MARK EDWARD LANG Theater and corporate training events have taken him to 35 U.S. states and around the world; including trips to Malaysia and Tanzania. Favorite roles include Alfred Lunt in the two-actor biographical drama Lunt and Fontanne: The Celestials of Broadway (New York International Fringe Festival and Classic Theatre of San Antonio; also playwright), Captain Robert Scott in Terra Nova and Jack in The Importance of Being Earnest (Hilton Head Playhouse), The Actor in The Guardsman (East Lynne Theater Co., with wife Alison J. Murphy), seven roles in the Irish comedy Stones in his Pockets (Open Stage of Harrisburg), Kosti in Welcome Home Marian Anderson (Off-Broadway and tour, including Clinton Presidential Center in Arkansas); and many other plays with East Lynne Theater In Cape May, NJ; including Biography, Zorro!, The Poe Mysteries, Dulcy, Butter and Egg Man and You and I (Best Actor Jacoby Award, 2007). He’s performed Shakespeare, Molière and new works in NYC and on tour; as well as theater workshops and directing (including Anna Christie in NJ and Othello in NYC). Graduate of Vassar College (Kazan Prize recipient). Member AEA, SAG-AFTRA. markedwardlang.com.
PATRICK LAWLOR has acted, directed and/or choreographed stage combat for Regional companies from coast to coast, including Riverside Shakespeare Company, San Jose Rep, Laguna Playhouse, American Players’ Theatre, San Jose Stage Company and Milwaukee Chamber Theatre as well as Shakespeare festivals in California, Utah, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Virginia. Favorite roles include Vindice in The Revenger's Tragedy for The Protean Theatre Company at the Hudson Guild Theatre, Tranio in The Taming of the Shrew at the Riverside Shakespeare Company, Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream at the New York Renaissance Festival (Featured with pop singer Bjork in a photo shoot in Rolling Stone Magazine - the 9/16/93 one with Janet Jackson on the cover…yeah, THAT one) and King John in King John at the Actors Gang Theatre in Los Angeles. Patrick is also an accomplished audiobook narrator, having recorded over 550 books, in every genre. Patrick currently lives in Austin, TX, making him the most remote of the Pandemic Players.
BRIAN LINDEN has read with the Pandemic Players in Tartuffe, Twelfth Night, and Great Catherine. In New York City, his experimental theatre and performance art work includes collaborations with Joshua Kaufman at the Unchilding Project, Liliana Porter and Ana Tiscornia at the Kitchen, Randall Sharp at Axis Company, and Pablo Helguera at BAM Next Wave Festival and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. In London, he performed at the Cockpit Theatre in David Edgar’s Iron Curtain Trilogy with Burning Coal Theatre Company, and also with them in Raleigh, North Carolina, in Athol Fugard’s The Road to Mecca, Tom Stoppard’s Darkside based on Pink Floyd‘s The Dark Side of the Moon, as Dali in Hysteria, and as Oppie in The Love Song of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Regionally, he has also performed at Shakespeare festivals in Nebraska, Pennsylvania, San Francisco, and Idaho. On television, has appeared on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (NBC), Conan at the Apollo Theater (TBS), and as Abraham Lincoln in four episodes of Mysteries at the Museum (Travel Channel). He is a member of Actors’ Equity Association. He is online at brianlinden.net. He sends his love to his companion VRS and in memory of CBX.
DANIEL MARCUS For Bram Lewis’s Phoenix Theatre at SUNY/Purchase, “Comedians” by Trevor Griffiths and “Sonya” opposite Julie Harris. Broadway: “The Pirates of Penzance”, “1776”, “Pal Joey”, “A Christmas Carol”, “The Woman In White”, “The Apple Tree” for Encores/City Center and “Urinetown” in which he originated the role of Officer Barrel. Off-Broadway includes “The Golem” and “La Boheme” (both for Joseph Papp’s Public Theatre) and “Adding Machine” and “Our Town” directed by the brilliant (and MacArthur ‘genius grant’ awardee) David Cromer. TV and Film includes “Law and Order: SVU”, “You Don’t Know Jack” and a recurring role as Maury Tuttlebaum the guy who runs the morgue in Marvel's “Jessica Jones” on Netflix.
For more amusement, visit Daniel Marcus’ Gilbert & Sullivan overtures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLt3mODH--MDItZeua4TA8oBkToBrGGAbt
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SqFFZixytU&list=PLt3mODH--MDIGIaz0zKYsc3Ps7Dag3s4V&index=2&t=0s
SHARON MCCUNE is delighted to join The Schoolhouse Theater’s Pandemic Players and has delighted audiences as Titania/Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Three Ghosts in A Christmas Carol, Gertrude, Lady Macbeth; Lady Capulet in Romeo & Juliet, and Jocasta in Oedipus Rex. Her extensive experience in the classic canon and passion for education led her to her role as PICT’s first Associate Producer and Curator of the inaugural Expand the Canon series.
Ms. McCune is a mainstay of Pittsburgh theater, having performed most recently in Jay Ball’s World Premiere adaptation of An Odyssey for Quantum; ZOOM productions of TJ Parker Young’s The Inseparables (a “loose” adaptation of Dumas’ classic The Three Musketeers) and Lysistrata with the Pittsburgh Public Theater’s PlayTime series; Pittsburgh Public Theatre (*Artistic Director Marya Sea Kaminski’s all female The Tempest); Bricolage Production Company, The REP, and Pittsburgh Shakespeare in the Parks as Brutus in Julius Caesar (**the first all-female cast). Regionally, Ms. McCune has worked with Barter Theater, Ensemble Theater of Cincinnati, First-Stage Milwaukee (*World Premiere of Burgess Clark’s adaptation of Island of the Blue Dolphins), Phoenix Theater(*Viola in Twelfth Night directed by Bram Lewis and the legendary John Barton), Stage One, New Harmony Theater, American Players Theater working with the legendary Randall Duk Kim, Native Voices at the Autry, Academy for New Musical Theater, Theater Neo, and the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, where she is a co-founding company member.
Her educational experience includes teaching ESL to students of all ages in China; a member of the Standarized Patient Program at the University of Pittsburgh, and an adjunct faculty member at Point Park University, teaching…Shakespeare. She has a smattering of television/film credits including The Last Witch Hunter, Downward Dog, and the board game, SpyQuest. You can find her audiobook, Wicked Dangerous by Julie Kriss on Audible, guest narration for the SFWA’s Nebula Awards, narrating news articles on Curio, and a climate fiction short story https://grist.org/fix/imagine-2200-climate-fiction-seance-in-the-anthropocene/.
CAROLE MONFERDINI: Appeared last spring in The Schoolhouse Theatre’s production of The Color of Light as the Mother Superior. Other theatre highlights include long runs in: The Club at the Circle-in-Square, directed by Tommy Tune (OBIE award for performance); Charles Busch’s record-breaking hit, Vampire Lesbians of Sodom; & playing Diana Vreeland in Mary Louise Wilson’s one-woman show Full Gallop, off-Broadway at the Westside Arts Theatre & in the national tour, among others. On Broadway she stood by for Dame Diana Rigg in the National Theatre of G. Britain’s production of The Misanthrope and appeared with Anne Jackson and Eli Wallach in the national tour of Waltz of the Toreadors. She has appeared in regional theatre in 24 states. Film work includes Next Stop, Greenwich Village; The Bell Jar, The Brass Ring; Hank Boyd is Dead and Love, Repeat (currently in post-production). She is a member of Actors Center and Ninth Floor.
AMANDA MCCALLUM has worked regionally and Off-Off Broadway and is a graduate of North Carolina School of the Arts.
MARC MORITZ is thrilled to be making his first appearance (albeit Virtual!) for The Schoolhouse Theater. Marc originated the role of Talk Show Host in the Broadway production of the Stephen Sondheim / Hal Prince Musical, Merrily We Roll Along. Other Shows/Roles include: Twelfth Night (Grumio) Boy (Barnes) , Diary of Anne Frank (Otto), Amadeus (Emperor Joseph) Scottsboro Boys (Interlocutor), Into The Woods (Mysterious Man) , Sunshine Boys (Lewis) Theaters : Pittsburgh Playhouse, Goodman , Long Wharf, New Harmony, Dobama, Karamu, Porthouse, Off The Wall , Idaho Shakespeare, Riverside Shakespeare, Cleveland Playhouse, Great Lakes Theatre Festival. Marc was the Founder / Director of Cleveland's successful Improv Troupe - GIANT PORTIONS and has taught Improv at ImprovOlympic and Second City in Chicago. Marc has taught acting at AMDA and CAP 21 in NYC and is the Midwest Affiliate for MainStreet Musicals (http://www.mainstreetmusicals.org) , a NY -based Non-Profit organization committed to nurturing new works regionally. Marc was in the Returning Professional Program at Kent State University where he received his MFA. He has two beautiful children - Sarah and Joseph.
DARA O’BRIEN is a playwright and actress based in New York City. Her acting work includes the New York premiere of “Gidion’s Knot” by Johnna Adams, directed by Austin Pendleton at 59E59 Theatres, and Lady Capulet in “R&J” for Web Series Shakespeare. Other appearances include Varvara in Summerfolk at HB Playwrights Theatre, also directed by Austin Pendleton; The Painters Project directed by George Bartenieff at The Cherry Lane Theatre; and performances with Urban Stages, Abingdon Theatre, and Ego Actus. She is also a playwright and the recipient of the Thomas Barbour Playwrights Award for her play “Early Sunday Morning,” which had a staged reading featuring Melissa Errico by The Schoolhouse Theater and was featured in the Naked Angels Tuesdays@9 Reading Series. Dramatists Guild of America, SAG-AFTRA, AEA. www.daraobrien.com
Katherine Puma (she/her) has been delighted to work with Schoolhouse’s Pandemic Players over the past year in Twelfth Night and The Importance of Being Earnest. US Tour, Off-Broadway and NYC: Taming of the Shrew; Othello; Pudd’nhead Wilson; The Three Musketeers (The Acting Company); Richard III (Gallery Players) Candide, Arturo Ui (CSC). Hamlet. Regional: Blithe Spirit, An Empty Plate in the Café de Grande Boeuf, (Riverside Theatre); Anna Christie (ELTC); As You Like It; Tartuffe (Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival); Dancing at Lughnasa (Hilton Head Playhouse); The Odd Couple (Carousel Dinner Theatre). Int’l: Burn This (Tokyo International Players, Japan) TV: Law & Order: SVU, CI, & TBJ; One Life to Live, As the World Turns, 30Rock and Nurse Jackie. Katherine is also a teaching artist and acting coach, primarily focusing on Shakespeare, she has developed programs for K-12, college, teacher professional development, and audition coaching. AEA, SAG/AFTRA.
www.pumakat.com
CARTER REDWOOD Cater Redwood has appeared in two other Schoolhouse Theater Zoom readings: Vieux Carré and in Whose Life is it Anyway? Theater: Fences and Gertrude Stein Saints!, Film/TV: Blue Bloods, The Good Wife, Madam Secretary, The Yellow Birds, Mafia, The Transfiguration, and The Recall.
LOIS ROBBINS is a native New Yorker and an accomplished actress. In New York, she starred in Daryl Roth's revival of Cactus Flower at the 43rd St. Playhouse. Most recently, Ms. Robbins was seen in the independent film The Aspern Papers, alongside Vanessa Redgrave, Jolie Richardson and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. She also stars in the film Shepherd, directed by Lynn Roth. In August 2019, Ms. Robbins starred in her self-penned off-Broadway play titled L.O.V.E.R, at The Pershing Square Signature Center. Directed by Karen Carpenter, the play is a riff on childhood, adolescence and finally adulthood from a grown-up woman’s point of view. In 2018, L.O.V.E.R. had its Los Angeles stage premiere at the Zephyr Theatre and was also accepted into the United Solo Festival in NYC, playing to sold out audiences. She's been at The Schoolhouse Theater in three productions. In 2017, L.O.V.E.R. had its world premiere at The Schoolhouse, where audiences will also remember seeing her in Maltby & Shire's A Time for Love, directed by Joel Silberman and earlier still, she appeared as Anne in Steve Tesich's powerful anti-war play The Speed of Darkness. To learn more visit https://www.loisrobbins.com
ELISABETH S. RODGERS (Florence Unger, The Odd Couple and Catherine, The Great Catherine) Regional credits include: Antony & Cleopatra, The Winter's Tale, Love's Labour's Lost, and Romeo & Juliet in rotating repertory (Blackfriars Theatre); All My Sons and How the Other Half Loves (River Rep); Jesus Hopped the A Train (Stageworks/Hudson); The Pavilion (Merrimack Rep); A Christmas Carol (Virginia Stage); A Comedy of Errors and A Midsummer Night's Dream (Saratoga Shakespeare Company); Miracle on 34th Street (NYSTI); Fields of Ambrosia (George Street Playhouse); and Macbeth (NJ Shakespeare Festival). NY credits include: King Lear (Hip to Hip); Women Without Men (Mint Theater); Great Catherine (Protean Theatre Co.); When We Dead Awaken (Century Center); The Richard Foreman Trilogy (Ontological/St. Mark's); and White Water (The Performing Garage). Her television credits include: Another World, Knights of Prosperity and Law & Order: SVU; and she has been seen in a few very independent films. As an audiobook narrator, she has recorded over 150 titles for such publishers as Audible, Blackstone, Brilliance, Hachette, Harper and Recorded Books.
BENJAMIN RUSSELL is thrilled to be with the Pandemic Players. Benjamin recently played Hal in Proof for Schoodic Arts in Winter Harbor, ME. He also appeared as Gooper in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at Gallery Players in New York, Mark Livingstone in The Poor of New York at Metropolitan Playhouse and John Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility with Bedlam Theater Company at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, MA. Other credits include Fred Graham in Kiss Me Kate, Jim O’Connor in The Glass Menagerie and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing at Annapolis Shakespeare Company. For more information and media please visit www.benjaminlrussell.com
DOMINIQUE SALERNO Dominique Salerno is an actor, writer, and improviser. Her award-winning solo show, “The Box Show,” (where she plays 30 characters inside of a cupboard) received rave reviews from The New York Times and has been performed across the country and won some awards along the way, including The Fringe NYC Overall Excellence for Solo Performance Award, The Fringe Encores Series Award, and United Solo Theatre Festival Best Comedic Script and Best Set.
Salerno also writes and performs musical sketch comedy with her comedy duo “Feminarchy.” “Feminarchy’s” viral videos have been featured in HuffPost, The New York Times, NowThis, and more.
Dominique Salerno recently created a web series, “Characteristically,” which can be found at www.characteristicallyseries.com. Her recent acting credits include: “The Color of Light” (The Schoolhouse Theatre), “PussySludge” (Here Arts Center), and “Love and Information” (A.C.T.). Keep in touch with her at: www.theboxshow.org, www.dominiquesalerno.com
FRANK SHINER is an actor trained in both modern and classical techniques. He holds a degree in theater from Kings College and studied for 6 years with Joel Friedman who was the founding director of Joseph Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival. Frank has appeared in many soap operas, plays, and original musicals. He is also a singer with two album releases and a musical show which has played in NYC at 54 Below, Iridium Jazz Club and The Cutting Room, among others. Frank is the winner of the LA Music Award for “The Real Me” and his sophomore album, “Lonely Town Lonely Street“, was in consideration for a Grammy award in seven different categories.
Frank would like to thank The Schoolhouse Theater’s Bram Lewis for all he does for artists and for the arts.
LINDSAY SHINER is a senior BFA acting major at Baldwin Wallace University in Ohio. She plans on moving to LA after she graduates in May 2021 to begin the pursuit of her career in TV and film. Some of her favorite roles include Adriana in The Comedy of Errors, Ismene in The Burial at Thebes, The Maid in American La Ronde, and Actor 4 in Painting Vincent. She enjoys ceramics, binging Netflix series, pumpkin ice cream, and every dog that ever lived. She had an absolute blast reading as Cécile de Volanges in The Pandemic Players’ Dangerous Liaisons. She is beyond grateful to be part of this and she thanks Bram a thousand times for this opportunity.
ALAN SKLAR (The Lady with the Lapdog). Sklar has been a professional voice actor for over 25 years. His career primarily consists of narrating videos for corporate, medical, and financial clientele. His voice can be heard of TV and radio commercials. He has narrated 200 audio books, most of which are available in thr Westchester Library system. Sklar has been on The Schoolhouse Theater Board since 2015. He confesses that his dreams is to be an opera singer (Italian repertoire, please!). He can often be head honing his bass-baritone operatic skills in the upstairs shower of his Westchester home. www.alansklar.com.
STEVE TAYLOR spent most of the 1980s doing musical theatre on any East Coast stage that would have him. He also appeared in the ABC-TV daytime drama Loving and in the very first season of the original Law & Order. He then settled into a 25-year career in technology at international law firm Sullivan & Cromwell. Nowadays he combines both interests, working with theaters, churches and non-profits as a technical consultant, videographer and performer. He is the current president of the board of the Elmwood Playhouse in Nyack.
JACK UTRATA is a Manhattan based actor, videographer/editor, owner of Utrata By Design Productions videography and editing services. Credits include: The Schoolhouse Theater: The Color of Light, The Dog in The Dressing Room; Off-Broadway/New York: Like Money in the Bank (Theater Row), Pillars of New York (St. Lukes Theatre) Twelfth Night (Access Theater); National Tour: Paw Patrol Live: Race to The Rescue; International: Taylor Mac's 24 Hour Decade History of Popular Music (Australia), Paw Patrol Live (Canada); Regional: Cabaret (Playmakers Rep), Recent Tragic Events (CAST), A Tuna Christmas (CAST); Film: Law of Attraction (Upcoming); Education: BA UNC at Chapel Hill.
More at www.jackutrata.com; Follow @jackutrata.
DIANA VAN FOSSEN is delighted to be working with favorite actress Carole Monferdini. Diana has appeared on London’s West End as Dietrich in Piaf, Phyllis Fontaine in Once In A Lifetime, and in Children of the Sun with the Royal Shakespeare Company and in British rep at Exeter, York, Peterborough, Sheffield, Newcastle, Bristol and on British National tours. Films include: Imaginary Crimes with Harvey Kietel, Valentino with Nureyev, Communal Flat with Shirley Booth and Paul Savorino, Wicker Man, She Devil. Off-Broadway premiers: Ronee Progress (Hudson Guild), Mary Stanley Nightingale (Vineyard) and in the regions: Amy Grace (Portland Rep), Sylvia Weapons of Happiness (Buffalo). Diana recently completed twelve seasons with the Alabama Shakespeare Festival as an Associate Artist Director and Actress, playing Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest, Mrs Fezziwig/Mrs Dilber in A Christmas Carol, Lettice in Lettice and Lovage, The Queen in Cymbeline, Celeste in Thinking of You and directing productions of Shakespeare and new plays. She has acted at Williamstown, Folger, McCarter, BoarsHead, Meadow Brook (Audience Choice Best Actress), Jewish Ensemble Theatre (Detroit Free Press Best Actress), New Rose, Portland Rep, Virginia Stage, Peterborough, Cincinnati, Pioneer Theatre, Alaska Rep, St. Louis, and Indiana Rep. Diana trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and is a Thomas J. Watson Fellow.
OVI VARGAS (Director/Dramaturge/Writer/Actor/ Choreographer) Is an Award-winning, Actor, Director, Choreographer and Playwright. A graduate of the BostonConservatory and a veteran of over 300 shows. He has also worked nationally and internationally as an actor, director, choreographer, playwright, dramaturge, and has served as artistic director of Stoneham Summer Theatre, Mission Hill Theatre Company in Boston and the Glove Theatre in up state New York. Ovi has also served as the resident director at the Third Eye Repertory, the Westside Repertory in New York, Madmen and Dreamers in New York and Millbrook Playhouse in Pennsylvania. Recent projects include; the off-Broadway productions of CHILDREN OF CHILDREN and FERRY TALES, the first New York revival of URINETOWN, he wrote and directed the independent film COBRA’S WISH, and wrote and directed the off-Broadway stage productions of LATIN HEAT and SEX! THE MUSICAL. His award winning play RED HOOK was optioned for Broadway. Selected past New York directing credits include: A LIE OF THE MIND, THE DINNING ROOM, THE BIG FUNK, LEADED, STEEL MAGNOLIAS, THE NERD, GODSPELL with Stephen Schwartz and the thirtieth anniversary production of HAIR in New York just to name a few. Recently, Ovi took the prize for best director and best choreographer for the production of INSOMNIA at the MIDTOWN INTERNATIONAL THEATRE FESTIVAL. Until recently, Ovi was the Artistic Director of THEATRE BY THE BAY in New York and is currently Director in residence at THE PHOENICIA THEATRE.
NIK WALKER is an actor, cinephile and theme park nerd. Currently leading the Broadway cast of Ain’t Too Proud (after 3 years as Aaron Burr in the Broadway and touring companies of Hamilton), he’s also been seen in Motown the Musical, Peter and the Starcatcher, and on TV in Law and Order SVU. A writer and content creator, he is the playwright behind The Bloody Boston Trilogy, cohost of the talk show The Chaos Twins on BroadwayWorld, and his movie podcast, Little Justice, is streaming with the Broadway Podcast Network. Nik is also an adjunct professor, teaching contemporary scene analysis at NYU. @nikkywalks
GEORGIA WARNER wears many hats in the entertainment industry. As a stage actor, her credits include Broadway's All My Sons, starring Annette Bening and Tracy Letts; the LA premiere of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, directed by David Hyde Pierce; the world premiere of Lyle Kessler’s House on Fire, in which she originated the role of Lane; Guild Hall's acclaimed production of Equus, in which she co-starred as Jill Mason alongside Alec Baldwin; and over a dozen other distinguished regional theatre productions. She recently guest starred as Megan Mills on Blue Bloods, with other notable TV appearances on The Blacklist, Law & Order: SVU, The Deuce, Younger, Madam Secretary, Gravesend, and The Other F Word, plus a slew of indie films, commercials, video games, and comedy sketches. Her directing work includes the 5-episode web series Two-Mara, the music video Where All the Lovers Go for viral sensation Mikey Shyne, and the sold-out world premiere of LIGHTHOUSE: An Immersive Drinking Musical at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In addition to acting and directing, Georgia also works as a producer, freelance casting director, arts & culture journalist, script consultant, enigmatologist, and acting coach by way of Georgia Warner Studios. Twitter/IG: @GeorgiaWarnerrr
KARL O'BRIAN WILLIAMS Off-Off Broadway: The Tempest, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, The Fairytale Project, Antony & Cleopatra, Open Heart, Positive, Pecong, Everyman, Murder in the Cathedral, The Exonerated, Woyzeck, Alphabet City II, Fashion, Salome Reversed. Film: One Love, On The Rocks, Betta Mus Come. International: Private Lives, Moses (Jamaica Actor Boy Award - Best Supporting Actor) Guys & Dolls, After Mrs. Rochester, As You Like It. Education: Certificate in Acting Shakespeare, Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, MA in Educational Theatre, NYU. Karl is a multiple award-winning actor, playwright and educator involved in arts education and theatre for social justice and transformation. He was nominated for a 2021 Audie Award in the category Literary Fiction & Classics for his narration of Maisy Card’s These Ghosts Are Family. His play, Not About Eve was produced at the National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 2013 and garnered three AUDELCO Nominations for excellence in Black Theatre in New York City, including one for playwright. Williams currently coordinates the theatre program in the department of Speech, Communications and Theatre Arts at BMCC/CUNY, and is the Artistic Director for Braata Productions, a non-profit Caribbean Arts Organization.
