Greg Anderson (T’04) appears this spring in the Goodman Theatre’s production of Rock ‘n Roll by Tom Stoppard. Following, he will perform in Les Liaisons Dangereuses and will assistant direct Fugard’s The Island with Remy Bumppo Theatre Company where he is an Artistic Associate. The Lake at Evening, an independent film by Duncan Riddell (son of Richard Riddell, Vice President and University Secretary at Duke) in which Greg appeared, was screened last month. He begins work on another indie with Duncan in April.
Michael Ayers (T’07) will be Bobby Pepper in Chicago’s first production of Kander and Ebb’s Curtains The Musical at the Drury Lane Theatre (March-May).
Dana Berger (T’05) is currently living and acting in NYC. This past summer she completed a 22-performance run of the one-woman show Washing Machine at the Sanford Meisner Theater in Chelsea and was nominated for a NY Innovative Theater Award for her performance. The show will be coming to Manbites Dog Theater in Durham in June 2009! She also played Sophie Scholl in Stars in a Dark Sky in the 2008 NY Fringe Festival, directed by Duke Alum Melanie Moyer Williams (T’00). Dana will be working with Syracuse Stage during March and April of 2009.
Marshall Botvinick (T’06) will receive his M.F.A. in dramaturgy this spring from the A.R.T./MXAT Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University. Recently, he worked as the production dramaturg on Communist Dracula Pageant, a world premiere play by Anne Washburn and directed by Obie-Award winner Anne Kauffman. This past year he has also functioned as the American Repertory Theater’s liaison to public schools, and this coming summer he will once again be teaching Theater Arts to gifted teenagers in the Duke Talent Identification Program.
Greg Carter (T’89) is Artistic Director of Strawberry Theatre Workshop (Strawshop) in Seattle, which has recently initiated the Fair Share Theatre program in that city. Fair Share is a recognition that a professional company is spending 50% of its budget on fees for actors, directors, designers, and technicians. Since 2004, Strawshop has been dedicated to bringing attention to labor justice issues through its business and its art. The company is in the midst of a series of plays portraying the lives of radical real people: Life of Galileo, Breaking the Code, The Elephant Man, The Great White Hope, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill, The Laramie Project, Saint Joan, and This Land: Woody Guthrie.
Cheryl Chamblee (T’97) is currently co-writing a new play with Tamara Kissane (T’95) exploring themes of abundance among Durham community members. She and Tamara are co-artistic directors of both hands theatre company, and their most recent script, up styx creek, was the inspiration for a new theater piece by Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern. Cheryl is also a playwriting and theater instructor with the Carrboro Arts Center’s ArtsCenter AfterSchool and Youth Performing Arts Conservatory.
Nicholas de Wolff (T’92) has decided, after four years as Chief Marketing Officer of Entertainment and Media Technology Company, Thomson (parent company to Technicolor, MPC, RCA, and others), to take time off to return to supporting the creative side of things. He was recently honored to accept the role of Chairman of the Advisory Board for the National Film Festival for Talented Youth (www.nffty.org), and is working with the organization’s executive team to prepare for this year’s upcoming festival to be held in Seattle from April 24th - 26th. If any Duke folk plan to be in Seattle at that time, he hopes to see you at the festival!
Delicia Dunham (T’93) performed the role of Baybay in Shay Youngblood’s Talking Bones at the eta Creative Arts Foundation in Chicago. The show ran every Thursday through Sunday from January 29, 2009 through March 22, 2009.
Marjorie Strauss Flink (T’83) has a murder mystery theater business – It’s A Mystery. It was featured in the November 2008 issue of Southern Living Magazine (in a special bonus section for Carolina readers). www.itsamysterync.com
Russell Hainline (T’07) directed Oleanna for a Theater Studies senior’s distinction project this winter. He will be finishing his thesis and his M.A. in Theatre History, Literature, and Criticism for The Ohio State University in the fall. Finally, he was recently commissioned to write film criticism for an online indy art journal, and continues to maintain his film criticism blog, http://thepasswordisswordfish.wordpress.com, regularly.
Madeleine Lambert (T’08) is completing her first year of the M.F.A. in Acting Program at the Brown University/Trinity Rep Consortium. In February she played the role of Jackie in The Hot L Baltimore at the Consortium. In March she is performing her own work in the Consortium’s Playwriting Festival. She will be acting in a Consortium production of Saint Joan of the Stockyards in May. She has also been accepted to the summer training residency at The School at Steppenwolf in Chicago.
Aaron Lazar (T’98) is back on Broadway in Impresssionism, a new Broadway play by American playwright Michael Jacobs, directed by Jack O’Brien and starring Joan Allen and Jeremy Irons. It opened March 12 for a limited 18-week run.
Adia Morris (T’01) is living in Brooklyn, New York, and will be performing in The Less We Talk at the Ontological-Hysteric Theatre in April. Alec Duffy (T’98) directs.
Kerry O’Malley (T’91) appeared once again as Mary-Kate in Season 3 of Showtime’s acclaimed drama series Brotherhood. She also played Betty Haynes (the Rosemary Clooney role) in Irving Berlin’s White Christmas on Broadway this last holiday season. She is currently working on a revised version of The Unsinkable Molly Brown (book by Dick Scanlan, direction by Kathleen Marshall, arrangements and musical direction by Michael Rafter) at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts’ New Play Summit. She will play Abigail Adams in 1776 at Papermill Playhouse in New Jersey in the spring.
Rob Painter (T’05) will be clerking for Chief Judge Danny J. Boggs of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Chief Judge Boggs sits in Louisville, Kentucky.
Kevin Poole (T’98) played the role of Samuel in Handler at the Dairy Center for the Arts in Boulder, Colorado in January. He is currently working on a workshop of Chuck Mee’s Big Love which will be showing in May with the Naropa MFA alumni collective he co-founded.
Charles Randolph-Wright (T’78) wrote from Rio de Janeiro where he is directing the musical They’re Playing Our Song - in Portuguese!
Brian Charles Rooney (T’99) played Piers Gaveston in Edward the King Off-Broadway at TBG Arts Center in 2008, and later won the Outstanding Individual Performance Award for his portrayal of Dionne Salon in the new musical Bedbugs!!! by Drama-Desk nominated composer Paul Leschen & librettist/lyricist Fred Sauter, which was a part of the 2009 New York Musical Theatre Festival. (Bedbugs!!! will begin a commercial run Off-Broadway in the Spring.) Brian played one of the two lead roles in the workshop of Allies, a new musical using the songs of the rock-group Heart. He will portray one of the featured leads in a workshop of the new Peter Gabriel musical, So... in the spring. Brian was approached by the NY Mid-Town International Theatre Festival to develop a solo-show for inclusion in their 2009 program. www.briancharlesrooney.com
Adam Smith (T’98) finished a highly successful run of Three Sisters at the historic Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. He played Tuzenbach, alongside Desperate Housewives’ Ricardo Antonio Chavira’s Vershinin. This was the inaugural production of Chalk Rep, and it received rave reviews from the LA Times. Last fall, he assistant-directed former Duke Theater professor Rafael Lopez-Barrantes at CalArts in an original “balagan” type of show, and has since substitute-taught some of his classes there.
Stacy Moscotti Smith (T’00) performed at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire in 2008 as Medina Faá, Russian Gypsy. She fought with swords, was dunked in a tank, did a 25-foot head-first high fall and performed with the female a capella singing group The Sultry Sirens of Sin. This past October, The Sirens released their newest CD, “Passing Notes” and raised over $1000 for the Make a Wish Foundation. Stacy was voted “Hottest Female on the Shire” by PARenfaire.net. Her husband Todd was first runner-up for “Hottest Male on the Shire.” Stacy recently performed at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia as part of its Broadway Series in the world premiere musical Give My Regards to Broadway. She is still owner of her online travel business VenturesandVoyages.com and will be returning to the PA Renaissance Faire as Medina Faá, Spanish Gypsy, this summer, utilizing the Flamenco dancing skills she learned at Duke. As always, check out StacyMoscottiSmith.com for the latest updates.
News from Summer '08
Greg Anderson (T’04) received his Equity card in February. This summer he shoots The Lake at Evening, an independent film by Duncan Riddell (Richard Riddell's son). Following, he'll perform in The Marriage of Figaro for Remy Bumppo Theatre Company in Chicago where he is an Artistic Associate.
Cheryl Chamblee (T'97) recently co-wrote and directed @ liberty, which was performed at Durham's historic Liberty Warehouse in celebration of the tenth anniversary of both hands theatre company. Cheryl co-founded the company with Tamara Kissane (T'95). Cheryl and Tamara are currently writing up styx creek, an adaptation/re-telling of four Greek myths to be produced in association with Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern. Cheryl is Greenfire Development's artist-in-residence in downtown Durham.
Maura Farver (T’05) will be directing Martin Zimmerman's (T’07) play Three Movements in NYC at Theatre Row October 17th-26th, 2008. More info will be posted on www.heiressproductions.org.
Russell Hainline (T’07) will be directing Oleanna at Duke University in January 2009. He is receiving his M.A. in Theatre History, Literature, and Criticism from The Ohio State University in June 2009, and independently shooting his first feature-length film in the summer of 2009.
Daniel Karslake (T’87) will be in London on July 14th for the UK premiere of his film For the Bible Tells Me So at Queen Elizabeth Hall as part of the London Literature Festival. Sir Ian McKellen will introduce the film and following the screening, McKellen will interview Karslake and Bishop Gene Robinson, the openly gay bishop from New Hampshire who stars in the film.
Steve Kovacs (T'98) lives in Hong Kong, where he is the director of online content for a small international company. He continues to serve as the lead developer at hillmancurtis.com and the consulting developer for savorycities.com.
Aaron Lazar (T'98) recently performed in concert with Marvin Hamlisch, Rachel York and Christiane Noll at the NJ State Theater annual gala. He played the role of Major Eric Fenton in a reading of Maury Yeston's Death Takes a Holiday with Brian Stokes Mitchell (dir. Doug Hughes) and the role of Terry Connor in a reading of Roundabout Theater Company's musical Sideshow (dir. Bill Condon). He will be originating the role of Charles Darnay in the new Broadway musical A Tale Of Two Cities (opens in September).
Kevin Poole (T'98) toured his 2-man show Hello Penis: a man-ifesto to Durham in October and to Seattle in March, thanks to assistance from the Duke Theater Studies Department and Manbites Dog Theater Company. After presenting papers the previous two years, he will be working behind the scenes at the upcoming 2008 ATHE Conference in Denver where he now lives with his beautiful wife, Agnieszka McCort.
Kat Cross Potter (T’99) is the VP of Finance and Marketing for Broadway China Ventures, the Nederlander family's venture to bring Broadway tours to mainland China. She is based in the NY office. In personal news, she got married last fall and changed her last name to Potter. She and her husband Colin are expecting a baby boy in late September of 2008.
Vanessa Rodriguez (T’06) is currently serving as the Production Coordinator at About Face Theatre and also as the Production Assistant at Lookingglass Theatre Company in Chicago. In July, she will step in full time at Lookingglass Theatre Company as the Assistant Production Director. For the past year, she has served as the Production & Company Manager at About Face Theatre also in Chicago.
Stacy Moscotti Smith (T'00) recently performed at the Media Theatre in The Full Monty as Georgie Bukatinsky. She will be choreographing their production of Grease there this July. She recently taught her first audition workshop this spring and will be continuing her seminar series. She will be filming two films, Crossroads and The Nail in Philadelphia this June and will be performing with her husband at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire from August through October. Her travel business VenturesandVoyages.com is booming and she has launched a second business, CanceltheCommute.com for folks sick of these escalating gas prices and looking to work from home.
Melanie Moyer Williams (T’00) is a Founder and the Executive Director for the Red Fern Theatre Company (www.redferntheatre.org). They just completed their 2007-2008 Season which included productions of The Exonerated by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, Who Will Carry the Word? by Charlotte Delbo, and A Piece of My Heart by Shirley Lauro. Melanie directed all three productions, and Kendall Rileigh (T’02) was a cast member for the last two productions. Melanie is currently working on a new play with Shirley Lauro and Ensemble Studio Theatre and will direct Stars in a Dark Sky by R.E. Vickers with Dana Berger (T’05) in the New York International Fringe Festival this summer.
News from Winter '08
Greg Anderson (T’04) recently performed at Chicago’s Court Theatre (Arcadia), Next Theatre (The Busy World is Hushed), and IO Theatre (in Duke grad Seth Weitberg’s A Moment Alone). In January he completed a run of The Philadelphia Story with Remy Bumppo Theatre Company in Chicago. An Artistic Associate with the company, he returns in the spring for Bronte and On The Verge. He joins Actors’ Equity in February.
Dana Berger (T’05) has been living and acting in NYC since graduating from Duke. She is in rehearsals for a production of Diversey Harbor by Marisa Wegrzyn, which will run at The Kraine Theater as part of the Frigid Festival in February and March. Last summer she performed Fist in the Pocket’s world premiere of the one-woman show Washing Machine.
Greg Carter (T’89) is the Artistic Director of Strawberry Theatre Workshop in Seattle. Strawshop was the recipient of the 2007 Genius Award for an Organization, chosen by the Stranger newspaper. The award follows several individual awards for some of the city’s most recognizable actors who have appeared at Strawshop in the past few years. The company—which is known for activist political work—produced Life of Galileo by Bertolt Brecht in collaboration with drama students at Seattle University in October 2007. Carter continues to teach at Cornish College of the Arts, where he is also lead negotiator for the faculty labor union.
Jenn Chambers (T’01) will be working for the Virginia Arts Festival in Norfolk, VA as the Public Relations Specialist. In addition to the festival, which runs from April 18-May 26, they host year-round performance events and educational programming.
Cheryl Chamblee (T’97) is writing a new script with Tamara Kissane (T’95) for both hands theatre company’s 10th anniversary show early in 2008. Tamara and Cheryl’s recent original script, the parent project, was just recognized by The Independent Weekly as one of the Triangle’s Best Original Scripts of 2007. Cheryl’s other recent work has included directing both hands’ production of holding pattern at Manbites Dog Theater, leadership of the writing and arranging of a children’s play titled You Just Never Know What the Future Will Bring, and teaching movement and writing workshops in the Triangle area.
Colin Crowe (T’06) moved to Charleston, SC where she is currently pursuing her MD at the Medical University of South Carolina, after a year teaching Biology and Drama at Colegio Bilingue New Horizons in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
Nicholas de Wolff (T’92) has been made Chief Marketing Officer for one of the three divisions of his company, Thomson (parent to RCA, Technicolor, mp3, and a host of other brands). He guesses this finally makes him an honest to goodness “suit.”
Maura Farver (T’05) directed a staged reading of a new play, Sympathetic Division, with Sweeter Theater Productions, a group she co-founded last year. This spring she’ll be directing the NYC premiere of Affluenza by Chicago-based playwright James Sherman, that will run at The Lion at Theatre Row in NYC, March 13th-April 6th, 2008, produced by Heiress Productions.
Julie Foh (T’02) is a first-year candidate in ART’s Voice and Speech MFA Program. There, she has coached student productions of Gray City by Keith Huff, Expats by Heather Lynn MacDonald, and Trigger by Kyle Jarrow. This spring, she will coach the world premiere of Cardenio by Charles Mee and Stephen Greenblatt and directed by Les Waters. She continues to dramaturg and perform remotely in TheBest, a NYC-based multimedia rock show conceived by fellow alum, Eamonn Farrell (T’00).
Daniel Karslake (T’87) continues to be involved with his documentary, For the Bible Tells Me So, that was recently screened at Duke, with him on hand. It made the short list of the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and the DVD was released on February 19th.
Talya Klein (T’02) is busy working as a writer and director, splitting her time between NY and LA. In addition to spending her free time on the WGA picket line, Talya will be directing the West Coast Premiere of Rinne Groff’s Orange Lemon Egg Canary playing at LA’s Theatre Row February through April, 2008. She sends her best wishes to Duke Theater people everywhere and would love to hear from or catch up with any alums in the LA area! (talyaklein@yahoo.com).
Lisa Kopitsky (T’06) has been hired full-time as the Literary Assistant at The Public Theater after a year of interning. She also continues to study and pursue stage combat and spent this past semester assistant-teaching classes with Combat Inc. in Manhattan and at Adelphi University on Long Island.
Steve Kovacs (T’98) is the lead developer for hillmancurtis.com, a digital design studio located on the Brooklyn waterfront.
Aaron Lazar (T’98) spent the fall in LA and began working with Greenlight Management. He’ll be performing with The New York Pops at Carnegie Hall on April 4th.
Kate McCormick (T’05) is living in Pittsburgh after completing her Masters in Arts Management at Carnegie Mellon and is working for Elliott Marketing Group, a database marketing company that specializes in the arts.
Kevin Poole (T’98) is taking his show, Hello Penis: A Man-ifesto,to Seattle in March.
Charles Randolph-Wright (T’78) has been in San Francisco directing the Athol Fugard play Blood Knot at the American Conservatory Theatre in collaboration with Tracy Chapman, who is composing music for this production. It opened in early February. His new play The Night is a Child premieres at Milwaukee Rep in March. He then directs Emergency at the Geffen Theatre in Los Angeles, opening in April.
Kendall Rileigh (T’02) played Charlotte in the national tour of Charlotte’s Web and Miranda in The Tempest in NYC (starring Joan Darling as Prospero). She will appear in Who Will Carry the Word? directed by Melanie Moyer Williams (T’00). Kendall’s one-act Taking Toll will run at Wings Theatre in New York in March.
Vanessa Rodriguez (T’06) moved to Chicago after graduating and began working as a freelance stage manager. In her first year there, she worked with companies including Lookingglass Theatre, About Face Theatre and Victory Gardens Theatre. She has now turned her work with About Face Theatre into a more full-time endeavor as their Production & Artistic Coordinator. About Face Theatre is the driving force behind some incredible new works as well as long-loved treasures, such as I Am My Own Wife, The Little Dog Laughed and the acclaimed Hip-Hop musical Clay.
Brian Charles Rooney (T’99) portrayed Mother’s Younger Brother in a new production of Ragtime, working with creators Ahrens, Flaherty, McNally, and director Sidney J. Burgoyne at the new White Plains Performing Arts Center in February. He originated the role of Tom “Tennessee” Williams in the new biopic-musical, Becoming Tennessee, at the Eugene O’Neill Memorial Theatre Center this past summer, and reprised the role in a workshop production in December of 2007 at the Emelin Theatre. This spring, he will portray Piers Gaveston in a production of Edward the King, a new play by David Brendan Hopes. The play will open at The Barrow Group, Off-Broadway, in Manhattan, in May of 2008. www.briancharlesrooney.com
Brian Schroeder (T’05) is taking a year off from Harvard Law School to travel, journeying through southeast Asia, the east coast of Africa and Europe. He has enjoyed theater and opera performances in several languages.
Stacy Moscotti Smith (T’00) performed at the Weathervane Theatre in seven different productions last summer, including the roles of Peter Pan in Peter Pan, Georgie in The Full Monty, and The Mistress in Evita. She has also launched her own online travel business, venturesandvoyages.com, which is doing very well and allows her to pursue her craft more freely and without the constraints of an office-bound or restaurant-bound day job.
Adam Smith (T’98) recently appeared in the world premiere production of Matter of Honor by Michael Chepiga and directed by Scott Schwartz at the historic Pasadena Playhouse. Earlier this past year he appeared in the feature film Zombie Strippers, a campy horror adaptation of Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, starring Robert Englund and Jenna Jameson. He played the unfortunate/fortunate victim of Ms. Jameson.
Preston Whiteway (T’04) spent 10 days in Moscow in the fall observing the undergraduate training program the O’Neill Center has with the Moscow Art Theater School, and building upon the partnership the two theaters have. He is also preparing for the upcoming 2008 summer season at the O’Neill.
News from Summer '07
Carmen I. Abrazado (T’00) is an Assistant Stage Manager with the Broadway company of The Lion King, and continues to complete post-baccalaureate coursework at Columbia University in preparation for her second career as a large-animal veterinarian. She recently purchased a house in Phillipsburg, NJ and has joined the ranks of the commuting throng.
Greg Anderson (T’04) most recently performed in Arcadia at Court Theatre. This summer he'll take part in the remount of a folk music rendition of Oklahoma! for Theatre on the Lake followed by an understudy gig at Next Theatre for The Busy World is Hushed. In April Greg was invited to become the eighth Artistic Associate at Remy Bumppo Theatre Company. Having appeared in their productions of Power and The Best Man, he'll return to play Sandy Lord in their winter production of The Philadelphia Story.
Michael Ayers (T’07) is performing as Jimmy in Thoroughly Modern Millie and as one of the three performers in Complete History of America Abridged with the Mcleod Summer Playhouse in Carbondale, Ill. He will be returning to Duke to dance with the Duke Dance Department in November Dances and the Ballet School of Chapel Hill on scholarship until December. Then in December he will begin a 10-month acting contract with The B Street Theatre of Sacramento.
Bridget Bailey (T’06), spent the last 10 months in Moscow studying acting, after touring her thesis show, Child of Hungry Times to Seattle. She just closed the international premiere of Child of Hungry Times, directed by her master teacher Igor Lisov. Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, the author upon whose work she based the show, attended the premiere. She will study acting with Anne Bogart and Tadashi Suzuki's SITI Company in their summer workshop in Saratoga, New York.
Dana Berger (T’05) has returned to NYC and has been working as an actor since graduation. She appeared in Roadside, Maryland (2006 NY Fringe Festival), Fallen (NY Theatre Experiment), and The Elephant (Ignite Festival) as well as others. In June she opened in Washing Machine, a one-woman show in which she plays eight characters.
Danny Bischoff (T’07) is acting in A Streetcar Named Desire in Durham with The Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern. He will then go to Italy to study Commedia dell’Arte.
Marshall Botvinick (T’06) worked as an assistant to Tony Award Winner Gene Saks on his production of The Underpants at Playmakers Repertory Company, directed Martin Zimmerman’s (T’07) play Three Movements at Duke, and performed in both hands theatre company’s acclaimed production of the parent project. This July he will begin studying to receive his M.F.A. in dramaturgy from the A.R.T./M.X.A.T. Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University.
Greg Carter (T’89) was chief negotiator for a new Collective Bargaining Agreement at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, where he teaches Scenic Design and Stage Management. He was recently interviewed on the subject in the newsletter of Theatre Puget Sound <http://www.strawshop.org/interview3.htm>. Carter’s professional company, Strawberry Theatre Workshop, is producing Bertolt Brecht’s Life of Galileo at the former home of Empty Space Theatre on the campus of Seattle University in October.
Cheryl Chamblee (T’97) is Co-Artistic and Managing Director of both hands theatre company in Durham. She recently directed a new both hands original, the parent project. the parent project was co-created with Tamara Kissane (T’95), and featured work by Marshall Botvinick (T’06), Alberto Mendoza (T’06), Cynthia de Miranda (T’91) and Adam Sampieri (T’03). Cheryl is preparing to direct a new play for both hands this fall.
Colin Crowe (T’06) has been living in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic teaching at Colegio Biling üe New Horizons since August 2006. When she wasn’t relaxing on tropical beaches, she taught Biology, Ecology, and Drama to 9th-12th graders. She directed her students in a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and in a showcase of student-written monologues called Voices From the High School. She is starting the pursuit of her MD at the Medical University of South Carolina in the fall.
Dani Berthiaume Davis (T’88) reports that at half pint productions they are absolutely buried in work. They have been joined by recent Duke alumna, Lauren Rodman (T’07), who is bringing invaluable energy and initiative to the work.
Nicholas de Wolff (T’92) has recently traveled to China, Hawaii (Oahu and Kauai), and France on business. He is still working at Thomson <www.thomson.net> as VP of Marketing and Communications. His daughter, Catherine, turns 2-years-old soon, and he says all is well in Denmark…uhh, Burbank, California.
Alec Duffy (T’98) has started a theater company, Hoi Polloi, based in New York. Members of the company include Amy Laird Webb (T’96) and Adam Smith (T’98). Hoi Polloi combines music and theater to create quirky and whimsical performance pieces. Their inaugural production, Dysphoria, was selected by the Ontological Theater for their Summer Residency and will be produced there in August 2007. Alec has been selected as a finalist for the TCG/NEA Career Development Program for Directors.
Maura Farver (T’05) co-founded Sweeter Theater Productions, a non-profit theater group that supports emerging female talent in the world of live theater. Maura directed their debut production of The House of Yes in June and, prior to that, had her NYC directing debut in April at Theatre Row with the show Lunch Hour. This summer she will be in the directing program at Williamstown Theatre Festival.
Julie Foh (T’02) begins the Voice and Speech MFA Program at ART in July. While in Cambridge, she will continue to participate remotely in The Best, an episodic, multi-media rock theater project based in NYC.
Russell Hainline (T’07) is working in Jacksonville, FL at the Jewish Community Alliance Theater Camp while also taking on the roles of Rick and Lorraine in Bat Boy: The Musical at Players-By-The-Sea Theater at Jacksonville Beach. He will begin pursuing his Masters in Theater Studies at The Ohio State University in the fall.
Matt Hooks (T’06) is finishing up a run of The Lottery at the IO theatre in Chicago. <http://iochicago.net/s_lottery.php>. He was chosen randomly to be part of an improv group composed of IO students. He has been performing as part of a group called Atilla that he started with some fellow students.
Daniel Karslake (T’87) has had great success with his feature documentary, For the Bible Tells Me So, which looks at the intersection of religion and homosexuality. In January, the film had its world premiere at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. It was screened in Berlin and then at the 10th Annual Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham where it won the Katherine Bryan Edwards Award for Human Rights. At the Seattle International Film Festival, it won the Audience Award for Best Documentary and in the Provincetown International Film Festival, it won the HBO Audience Award for Best Documentary. The film is the “centerpiece” documentary in OUTFEST: The Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. He has signed a distribution deal with First Run Features for an October release. For listings see <www.forthebibletellsmeso.org>.
Lisa Kopitsky (T’06) is continuing her internship at The Public Theater in New York,
She has been supplementing her experience there by assisting the fight directors on shows like In Darfur, for which she also co-coordinated the volunteer advocacy effort against the genocide, and is currently working with Rick Sordelet on the fights for Romeo and Juliet for Shakespeare in the Park - including choreographing phrases for the opening brawl. She will be returning to the National Stage Combat Workshop in Las Vegas to continue her training.
Aaron Lazar (T’98) was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical and a Broadway.com Audience Award for Favorite Featured Actor for his work in Les Miserables. This summer he is playing Billy Bigelow in Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel for the Boston Pops, led by Keith Lockhart. He will join Marvin Hamlisch and the National Symphony Orchestra at Wolf Trap in Vienna, VA for Hollywood to the Great White Way. He will play Joe Cable in the concert version of South Pacific at the Hollywood Bowl opposite Reba McEntire and Brian Stokes Mitchell on August 3, 4 and 5.
Kerry O'Malley (T’91) is busy shooting Season 2 of Brotherhood for Showtime, on which she plays Mary-Kate, sister to the “brothers” of the title. She will be filming M. Night Shymalan’s latest film, The Happening, in August. She completed filming Paramount Pictures’ Case 39 opposite Renee Zellweger in early winter 2006, and it is slated for a February 2008 release. She performed in her second year of Irving Berlin's White Christmas this past winter at St. Paul's Ordway Center for the Performing Arts.
Kevin Poole (T’98) recently graduated with an MFA from Naropa University in Theater: Contemporary Performance. He will be performing his thesis project, Hello Penis: A Man-ifesto, with his colleague Joe Baker at Manbites Dog Theater in Durham in conjunction with the Theater Studies Department in October.
Charles Randolph-Wright (T’78) is directing the film Mama, I Want to Sing from his screenplay based on the Off-Broadway musical. It stars Ciara, Lynn Whitfield, Patti LaBelle, and Billy Zane.
Kendall Rileigh (T’02) is appearing in Julius Caesar and Spartacus with Inwood Shakespeare Festival this summer. Her plays Some Fatal, Some Fortunate and Marginalia were produced in April and May at the Lodestar and Beckmann Theaters in NYC.
Brian Charles Rooney (T’99) was awarded the Lys Symonette Award for Dramatic Excellence in the 2007 Lotte Lenya Singers Competition administered by the Kurt Weill Foundation. He debuted a highly successful, sold-out concert at The Zipper Factory in April 2007 - performing original pop-rock songs co-written with Paul Leschen (composer and arranger for the Scissor Sisters) and will repeat the concert in July of 2007 - info at <www.briancharlesrooney.com>. In May 2007, he portrayed Piers Gaveston in Edward the King, a new play by Pulitzer & National Book Award nominee David Brendan Hopes, which has just been optioned for an Off-Broadway production. He will portray a young Tennessee Williams in the new musical Becoming Tennessee at the Eugene O'Neill Memorial Theater Center in August 2007, with a NYC production to follow in the fall or winter.
Brian Schroeder (T’05) has begun an internship at a law firm in San Francisco, where he had the great fortune of reuniting with former Theater Department administrator Kristen Jacoby. At the end of the summer, he will postpone his final year of Harvard Law School to take an opportunity to backpack around the world.
Adam Smith (T’98) played lead roles in both a workshop of the new play Matter of Honor at the Pasadena Playhouse and a workshop of Brief History of Penguins and Promiscuity at GTC in Burbank. He also recently shot his first horror feature film, Zombie Strippers, as a lapdance victim to a stripper-turned-zombie, played by porn sensation Jenna Jameson (Adam adds, “this is NOT a porn, just a very campy horror movie”). Finally, as a playwright, his first full-length play W=S (co-authored with renowned physicist Ivan Schuller) received a reading at the Magic Theater in San Francisco.
Stacy Moscotti Smith (T’00) recently made her New York choreographic debut with Victor/Victoria at the Gallery Players. Andrea Davey Gislasson (T’00) was featured in the cast. Stacy has been regularly appearing on QVC as a product specialist for Barielle, most recently this past May. She is also currently working on writing and mounting her first one-woman show entitled Dresses I've Only Worn Once to be performed later this year in New York City. She has been cast as Peter in Peter Pan, The Mistress in Evita, and in six other shows at the Weathervane Theatre’s Summer Repertory Season in Whitefield, NH.
John Vickery (T’07) took a trip to Eastern Europe (Albania, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, etc.) after graduating and is starting work for Oliver Wyman (Management Consulting) in Boston.
Melanie Moyer Williams (T’00) lives in New York City and recently founded the Red Fern Theatre Company (www.redferntheatre.org) which will begin its second season this fall. For the company, she produced and directed Patient A by Lee Blessing, The Long Christmas Ride Home by Paula Vogel (which also included choreography by Andrea Davey-Gislason (T’00), and Found a Peanut by Donald Margulies. She also directed a reading of a new play entitled Stars in a Dark Sky, which featured Dana Berger (T’05) and will have another reading this fall.
News from Winter '07
Charles Aitken (T’01) played Joe Buck in a dramatization of Midnight Cowboy at the Edinburgh Festival on its way to the West End in London. He has received rave reviews for his performance in the London papers.
Greg Anderson (T’04) lives in Chicago. Following Power and a revival of Gore Vidal's The Best Man with Remy Bumppo at Victory Gardens, he's now working with the American Theater Company in a folk music production of Oklahoma!. This spring he'll understudy at Steppenwolf in The Diary of Anne Frank.
Cheryl Chamblee (T'97) recently co-created and performed both hands theatre company's exactly what t(w)o do with Tamara Kissane (T'95) and Adam Sampieri (T'03) as part of Manbites Dog Theater's Other Voices Series. She is currently creating both hands' next original work, the parent project, with Tamara and many other both hands theatre company artists and friends. She is proud to be Greenfire Development's downtown Durham artist-in-residence.
Vinny Eng (T'03) continues to work at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco as the Producing Associate, where they just started studio rehearsals for their main stage production of Hedda Gabler, of which John Gromada (year?) is designing sound and composing original music. And across the hall, Charles Randolph-Wright (T'78) is developing a few projects with their MFA students.
Maura Farver (T’05) just finished working as a production assistant on the new Broadway musical Spring Awakening and this spring she will be directing Lunch Hour by Jean Kerr which will be performed at The Lion Theater at Theatre Row in NYC April 26th-May 20th.
Michael Quixote Fellmeth (T’92) was recently named Vice President at Dramatists Play Service, Inc., in New York City, where he has been Director of Publications for the last eight years. He has recently served on panels on play publishing and the use of copyrighted intellectual property in plays at the Dramatists Guild of America and has established a new agency representing theatrical artwork at www.theatrelogos.com. At the Play Service, he is delighted to be in the process of publishing two new plays by former Duke playwriting professor Yussef El Guindi, Back of the Throat and two one-acts, Such a Beautiful Voice is Sayeda’s and Karima’s City.
Julie Foh (T’02) is in her second season working at Playwrights Horizons as Assistant to the Artistic Director. Last summer she traveled to Australia with fellow alums Eamonn Farrell, Andrea Davey, Jim Iseman, Jesse Belsky, and Sunil Soman to perform their episodic, multimedia rock theater show The Best in the Brisbane Festival. You can find clips from their Aussie shows at www.bellyofthebest.com.
Matt Hooks (T’06) has moved into an apartment in Chicago and gotten a day job while he looks for an agent/auditions. In the meantime he’s been taking improv classes at iO (www.iochicago.net) and is planning on creating an improv troupe with a few classmates.
Daniel Karslake’s (T’87) feature documentary about the intersection of religion and homosexuality in America called For the Bible Tells Me So was just accepted into the US Documentary Competition of the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. Check out www.forthebibletellsmeso.org to find out more about the film.
Lisa Kopitsky (T’06) has been asked to stay on at The Public Theater in New York for a second semester of her internship. She is shifting from the Associate Producer's office to the Literary office, where she will continue to work closely with the artistic staff. She is also continuing her stage combat
education, having officially passed the certification tests to become an Actor
Combatant in the Society of American Fight Directors, and will be working with several instructors in the area, both as a student and an assistant. She also recently stage-managed an Off-Off-Broadway production.
J. Steve Kovacs (T'98) completed an MSc in Design and Digital Media at the University of Edinburgh, where he also received the Aart Bijl Award for Outstanding Leadership. He currently works for New York University.
Jody Kyler (T’06) is currently in her second semester at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, working towards her J.D.
Jacqueline Langheim (T’06) just finished her first New York performance. She was in an Off-Off-Broadway new musical called Beware: Bernadette. She played Val, a Budweiser-drinking civil engineer, and sang and tap danced around in a short curly-haired wig and a tie. This March she will be
understudying Kathy, in an Off-Broadway production of The Last Five Years and following that will be playing Woman 2 in an Off-Broadway production of Songs for a New World. In the meantime, she’s auditioning every day, working on her craft, and helping a friend start a musical theatre company.
Kat Cross (T’99) has just started a job at Nederlander Worldwide, doing financial management and marketing for a new venture to bring Broadway shows to China. She is recently engaged and will be getting married in September 2007 in seacoast New Hampshire.
Aaron Lazar (T’98) is currently originating the role of Enjolras in the Broadway Revival of Les Miserables at the Broadhurst theater. He played the lead role of Prince Henry in the first reading of a new musical Ever After directed by Doug Hughes.
Allan Maule (T’04) since graduating from UNC-CH with an MA in Performance Studies, works as a creative content writer and voice-over director for Icarus Studios, a computer games company in Cary, NC. He continues to write and perform in Triangle area theater productions, and will assistant-direct the premiere stage production of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress this June.
Janet Menaker (T’97) recently accepted a position as Director of Marketing for Plum Benefits, an employee benefits service and direct marketing company. Plum Benefits partners with entertainment events (Broadway, Sports, Family Events, Comedy, Music, Opera, Cultural Attractions, etc.) to create valuable private offers provided exclusively to corporate employees in 25,000 NYC metro area corporations as a work/life benefit. Janet has joined the company to help develop strategic plans for an expansion into new categories of entertainment and additional cities nationwide. Chicago is first on the list for 2007 - if you're located there, please get in touch!
Michael J. Norman (T'’02) has completed graduate coursework in Spanish Literature. He now heads a Spanish program at a private school in Pinehurst, NC and teaches Theatre Arts courses, too. Michael most recently appeared as Drosselmeyer in Terpsichore Dance Studio's Nutcracker and is currently in early rehearsals for the role of Sergeant Trotter in Agatha Christie's Mousetrap. Other recent theater experience includes the role of John P. Worthing (Jack) in The Importance of Being Earnest as well as directing A Midsummer Night's Dream and Romeo and Juliet and assistant-directing The Odd Couple (female version). Michael would like to hear from other alums as he will be in the NYC area in the near future.
Kerry O'Malley (T’91) continues her run as Betty Haynes (the Rosemary Clooney role) in Irving Berlin's White Christmas. Last year she played the role at the Wang Center in Boston and this year at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul, MN. She recently completed filming the Paramount Pictures feature film Case 39 opposite Renee Zellweger. It should be released in fall of 2007. She played Nellie Forbush in South Pacific at the Sacramento Music Circus this summer, and played a memorable role as a pregnant rape victim in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit this fall. She will continue filming her role as Mary-Kate in the Showtime series Brotherhood when it begins shooting its second season in April.
Kevin Poole (T'98) worked with an ensemble this past summer on an improvisational performance form based in dharma art called The Red Square at The Boulder International Fringe Festival. He is currently working on two new works, one on masculinity and the other on The Coral Castle, as well as a workshop of Tennessee Williams' Camino Real. Kevin will be completing his MFA in Theater: Contemporary Performance from Naropa University in May.
Andrew Rein (T'92) is appearing Off-Broadway in A Midsummer Night's Dream with Theater by the Blind ( www.tbtb.org).
Kendall Rileigh (T'02) is excited to be in the first national tour of Great Expectations this spring. She moved to NYC and recently appeared in the premiere of Mac Wellman's Before the Before and Before That at The Flea Theatre, where she is a company member. Her short play Marginalia will be produced in April in NYC.
Brian Schroeder (T’05) just finished a production of The Wild Party (the Frank Lippa version) for his law school's drama society, in which he co-produced and played the part of Oscar.
Preston Whiteway, (T’04) who has been serving as general manager at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut, has been appointed executive director of the theater complex (at age 25!).
News from Summer '06
Carmen I. Abrazado (T'00) is very excited to be joining the Broadway company of The Lion King as an assistant stage manager.
Bridget Bailey (T'06) is currently working on a Seattle production of Child of Hungry Times with funding from her Benenson Award. She looks forward to working with Jay O'Berski, the director of the original production, who will be directing the new and improved version of the show she created for her Senior Distinction Project in Theater.
Heidi Blickenstaff (T'94) is appearing in one of the most popular new musicals of the season called [title of show] , which has extended its run three times Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre.
Anne Butler (T'04) is currently working as a Barter Player at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia. She is acting and singing in two shows on Barter's mainstage and in several children's theater pieces on Stage II.
Maggie Chambers (T'06) is working for an educational consulting firm in Hampton, Va. making films for its math tutorial program and voiceover recordings for computer programs. She'll also be directing for a theater summer camp in Norfolk, Virginia. She moves to Chicago at the end of August to live with Vanessa Rodriguez (T'06) and will study at Act One Studios for the summer intensive program, funded by her Benenson Award.
Cheryl Chamblee (T'97) and partner-in-crime Tamara Kissane (T'95) are directing their original play brooms-a play about saying yes , a both hands theatre company project at Durham's Manbites Dog Theater in July. Cheryl and Tamara are also currently doing public readings of newly created texts-in-progress for upcoming both hands shows. After directing the December 2005 run of both hands theatre's piece~meal at Manbites Dog, Cheryl appeared in Manbites Dog Theater productions of The Last Two Minutes of the Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen and The Fall to Earth (in which she was so happy to be directed by Jeff Storer for the first time since her Duke days!). She is glad to be a Durham Arts Council Emerging Artist, company member of Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern, and co-artistic and managing director of both hands theatre company.
Kat Cross (T'99) graduated with an MBA from the Yale School of Management in May of 2005 and is now working as the General Manager of the Flea Theater. The Flea is an Off-Off-Broadway theater in Tribeca (in New York City), which is about to enter its 10th anniversary season.
Alec Duffy (T'98) celebrated the publication of his play, The Top Ten People of the Millennium Sing Their Favorite Schubert Lieder , in the book Plays and Playwrights 2006 . This is the seventh volume in an annual series of new plays by emerging playwrights from beyond Broadway. It includes a dozen plays from the past season in NYC .
Jim Findlay (T'96) and Ari Fliakos (T'94) continue their work with The Wooster Group. [see alumni profiles on page 7]. In addition, Jim is doing a set design for a David Lang/Mac Wellman opera based on Ambrose Bierce's short story, Difficulty of Crossing a Field, and he will co-design sets, lights, and video for Must Don't Whip 'Um which has already been booked in Minneapolis, Seattle, Philadelphia and New York. His company, Collapsable Giraffe, is starting to work on its next performance piece, tentatively called Pee-Pee-Maw-Maw . Ari continues film and television work outside The Wooster Group and appeared last year in Law and Order "Ghosts," Law and Order: Criminal Intent "False-Hearted Judges," and a short film called Pills .
YoonHye Grace Ha (T'05) is working as a paralegal in Chicago and is looking toward going to law school in 2007 or 2008.
Caroline Kessler (T'03) has just returned from filming Visions in Rome, a psychological thriller in which she plays a young under-cover FBI agent. The film she finished last fall, Oliviero Rising with Vincent Gallo, should release for the holidays.
Talya Klein (T'02) is working as a writer and director in NYC, and is thrilled to announce that she directed the American Premiere of Clocks and Whistles by Samuel Adamson, in NYC. Adamson, whose latest play, Southwark Fair , is running currently at the National Theatre in London, was visiting professor of playwriting at Duke in 2000. Clocks and Whistles was produced by the renowned Origin Theatre Company, in a co-production with Elizabeth V. Newman Productions. In her spare time, Talya helps coordinate the weekly meetings of Scriptworks NY, a playwrights' collective featuring the talent of many Duke Theater Alums, including: Sarah Bagley T'03, Caroline Kessler T'03, Faran Krentcil T'03, CK Swett T'04, and Julie Foh T'02.
Jody Kyler (T'06) is serving as Dance Instructor for the Summer Youth Theatre Camp at the Jewish Community Alliance in Jacksonville, Florida and is attending law school at The Ohio State University in the fall.
Aaron Lazar (T'06) played Fabrizio in The Light in the Piazza through closing July 2nd. PBS aired a nationwide broadcast of Piazza on Live from Lincoln Center in June. He'll be performing as a guest artist with Peter Nero and The Philadelphia Pops Orchestra in August and will be "creating" the role of Enjolras in the Broadway Revival of Les Miserables this fall.
Allan Maule (T'04) After the successful February production of his latest original play, Framing the Shot , by Wordshed Productions, Allan was happy to see this play produced again alongside his earlier comedy The Laundry Bastard at the Carrboro Arts Center this April. Since finishing his MA in Performance from UNC-CH, Allan has taken a job as a creative content writer at Icarus Studios, a computer games company in Cary, NC.
Kerry O'Malley (T'91) just completed a new film called The Flying Scissors , had a featured role on Law & Order SVU "Confrontation" which will air in the fall, and recently appeared in an episode of My Name is Earl . She is playing Nellie Forbush in South Pacific at the Sacramento Music Circus this summer, and her Showtime series Brotherhood began airing July 9th.
Kevin Poole (T'98) finished his first year of the MFA program in Theater and Contemporary Performance at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. He will be performing in the Boulder International Fringe Festival in August and completing his final year of the MFA by May 2007.
Charles Randolph-Wright (T'78) spoke to the graduating theater studies majors this spring and was featured at the Festival of the Book literary festival held at Duke. He appeared with Craig Marberry, whose book, Cuttin' Up , he adapted into a play by the same name. The play premiered at Arena Stage in Washington, DC. His directorial debut film, Preaching to the Choir, came out in April and swept the feature film prizes at the ninth annual American Black Film Festival. It features such luminaries as Patti LaBelle, Eartha Kitt, and Ben Vereen.
Andrew Rein (T'92) recently completed a run of A Thousand Clowns at the Bickford Theatre in New Jersey and a production of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia in New York City at The Greenwich Street Theatre. He stars in the indie romantic comedy short Menage a Trois , which has been in well over a dozen festivals in the past 12 months and has garnered numerous awards. He is shooting a TV demo, Domestic Bliss , for producer/director Danny Salles. Visit him online at www.andrewrein.com .
Kendall Rileigh (T'02) recently appeared in a revival of The Melting Pot at the Metropolitan Playhouse and in The Lonesome West at Stoneleaf Festival. She choreographed three pieces for ChoreoCollective's most recent production.
Brian Charles Rooney (T'99) will finish his critically acclaimed run as Lucy Brown in the Roundabout Theater Co.'s Tony Nominated revival of The Threepenny Opera , costarring Alan Cumming, Cyndi Lauper, Jim Dale, Ana Gasteyer, and Nellie McKay. He has been asked to participate in the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center 2006 National Music Theater Conference as a guest artist, performing in workshops of two Broadway and one Off-Broadway bound musicals. His cabaret act, I Enjoy Being a Boy will premiere in New York as part of the Ars Nova Broadway Spotlight in late summer or early fall.
Brian Schroeder (T''05) just finished his first year of Harvard Law School. He recently performed in the Parody , an annual student-written musical satirizing life and the law, and will be co-producing the HLS Drama Society's fall show, The Wild Party .
Adam Smith (T'98) was awarded the 2006 Emmy Award for Outstanding On-Camera Talent/Performer (Pacific Southwest Region) for When Things Get Small . WTGS is a whacky science-based TV program that he starred in, and it has received widespread attention on CNN.com, the National Science Foundation website, and in Science Magazine and Popular Science .
Stacy Moscotti Smith (T'00) recently played the role of Roberta in a reading of a new musical called Temps , directed by Melanie Moyer Williams (T'00). She will be directing Disney's Beauty and the Beast and The Dinosaur Musical this summer in Philadelphia. Her husband, Todd, will serve as the Technical Director for both shows. Stacy was on QVC as the spokesperson for Barielle on July 1st.
News from Winter '05
Charles Aitken (T'01) recently played the role of Claude in Hair at the Gate Theater in London, and he guest taught in the Duke Program in London last summer.
Greg Anderson (T'04) appeared in Three Days of Rain and Western Civilization: The Complete Musical (Abridged) in Chicago. In May and June of next year he'll be in Remy Bumppo's U.S. premiere of Power by Nick Dear at the Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago.
Ashley Carlson (T'05) is doing Teach for America in the Rio Grande Valley, ten minutes from the Mexico border. She teaches 8th grade English and History and hopes to be able to start a theater club or produce a show with her students this year.
Greg Carter (T'89) is the Artistic Director of Strawberry Theatre Workshop [Strawshop] in Seattle, which debuted in 2004 with This Land: Woody Guthrie , a piece he designed and directed. This year he was the Scenic Designer for The Awakening at Book-It Repertory Theatre and Pride and Prejudice at Portland Center Stage. He is slated to design David Mamet's Boston Marriage at Seattle Public Theatre in January. Meanwhile, Strawshop is producing Fellow Passengers , a three-person telling of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol , which he adapted (opening night will include a group from the Duke Alumni Club of Puget Sound). Greg has also just received a grant to develop an adaptation for puppets and actors of Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey , which will open at Strawshop in September 2006.
Jenn Chambers (T'01) just hit her one-year anniversary at the Kennedy Center in the Education Department. For the second year she'll be running the Dance Theatre of Harlem Residency Program for about 70 pre-professional students from the DC Metro area. Two of last year's graduates are dancing professionally: one at Alvin Ailey, the other at the Dance Theatre of Harlem.
Cheryl Chamblee (T'97) directed and co-wrote