Planned Guests*
Jeff Goode, Playwright (confirmed for Summer 2008)
Jeff is a director, actor and the author of over 50 plays, musicals and children's shows, including The Eight: Reindeer Monologues, the cult serial Larry and the Werewolf, and the shock-comedy Poona the Fuckdog and other plays for children. His published scripts include THE EIGHT (now available in Dutch!), The Misadventures of Dick Piston, Hotel Detective and The UBU Plays, a children's trilogy based on the Jarry classic. Currently living in Los Angeles, Jeff has written television pilots for Fox, UPN, USA Networks, Canal Plus, and two for MTV, including the pilot for Undressed. For the Disney Channel, he created and executive produced the animated series American Dragon: Jake Long. Jeff is a co-founder of No Shame Theatre, and founding artistic director of No Shame Los Angeles.
Rob Handel, Playwright (confirmed for Summer 2008)
Rob received a 2007 Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Playwrights. His play Millicent Scowlworthy was developed at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference and produced in New York at the 2006 Summer Play Festival (SPF), for which he was awarded a residency and staged reading at the Donmar Warehouse in London. Aphrodisiac was developed at the Public Theater “New Work Now” Festival and produced in New York by 13P, the Obie-winning playwrights collective he created. Aphrodisiac was subsequently produced by Long Wharf Theater (New Haven), Theater Ninjas (Cleveland), and Curious Theatre Company (Denver). Staged readings include Soho Rep and the Royal Court Theatre. He taught playwriting at The New School from 2005–2007. His most recent play, The Knights (after Aristophanes), was produced by Target Margin Theater in October 2007.
Toby Huss, Actor (confirmed for Summer 2008)
Toby Huss is an accomplished and versatile actor whose credits include eccentric stage performances, independent films, major motion pictures, recurring characters on network and cable television shows (like the voice of "Kahn Soupanousinphone" on King of the Hill and "Big Mike" on Reno 911) as well as a playing a principal character for the HBO series Carnivàle. His credits include Werner Herzog's Rescue Dawn, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Venture Brothers, Seinfeld, Harvey Birdman, Beavis and Butthead, Down Periscope, Vegas Vacation, Bedazzled, The Basketball Diaries and many others. As an undergraduate theatre student at the University of Iowa, Huss was one of the original Iowa No Shame truck performers. During that time he created the character "Artie: The Strongest Man in the World" seen on The Adventures of Pete and Pete. He left Iowa for New York, where he would audition for and work with famed avant-garde director Jerzy Grotowski before finally relocating to Los Angeles to facilitate demand for his talent by Hollywood. Toby is also a writer, singer, songwriter and recently a recording artist, performing a Sinatra-esque stage show as Rudy Casoni. Toby continues to work in nearly every artistic medium, including painting, sculpture, poetry, photography, performing, and writing. He is the proprietor of the National Mule studio in Los Angeles.
Celise Kalke (confirmed for Summer 2008)
(Artistic Associate/Dramaturg) joined the staff of the Alliance in 2005 where she manages New Play Development, the Kendeda Graduate Playwright Competition, and is a production dramaturg. In 2006, she curated the Atlanta 365 days/plays project (the shared world premiere of the Suzan-Lori Parks epic) and worked as the co-hub network leader with Lisa Paulsen from Emory and Danielle Mindess, network coordinator. From 2003-2005 she was the Director of the Literary Department at The Public Theater (NYC) under George C. Wolfe working on both new plays and Shakespeare in Central Park (Much Ado About Nothing and As You Like It). In that time she worked closely with playwrights John Guare, Diana Son, Tracey Scott Wilson and Stephen Adley Guirgis as well as producing four New Work Now reading festivals. Celise was also the Resident Dramaturg at Court Theater (Chicago) and the Dramaturg for the Juilliard School Drama Division. She maintains artistic relationships with the Actor’s Express (Atlanta), Next Theater (Chicago) and Independent Art HERE (NYC). Celise graduated as a violist from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and studied dramaturgy at the Prague Academy of Arts and Brooklyn College. She is very proud to have received the 2007 LMDA dramaturgy driven project grant towards writing AN APPEAL FOR MORALITY IN HYPER-REALISM. In 2003, she was the runner up the The Manifesto Competition with her co-writer Brian Bergstrom for THE NEO-ROMANTIC MANIFESTO.
Paul Meshejian, Artistic Director (confirmed for Summer 2008)
Paul Meshejian is the Founding Artistic Director of PlayPenn. Since 1989 he has served as a company member at People’s Light and Theatre (PLTC) outside Philadelphia where he has both acted and directed. In addition to his work at PLTC he has performed with all of Philadelphia’s major theatre companies. He has been nominated for the Barrymore award numerous times. His work has been seen on film and television. In the 1980’s he was the founding artistic director of Stage One: Collaboration, a professional theatre in Minneapolis/St. Paul devoted to new and rarely produced works. Paul is on the Acting Faculty at University of the Arts in Philadelphia, also teaching at Arcadia University. He has a long history of new play development work as both actor and director in his 14-year relationship with The Playwrights Center in Minneapolis. He serves on the Board of Directors of the International Institute for Theatre Research and is a member of LMDA, Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas.
Bonnie Metzgar (confirmed for Summer 2008)
Bonnie Metzgar is a playwright, director, dramaturg and producer who envisioned a radical new grassroots model for theatrical production with Suzan Lori-Parks' epic 365 Days/365 Plays. With the creation of the 365 International Festival, Metzgar launched an event that marked the largest collaborative effort in American theatrical history with over 600 participating theaters sharing in the world premiere. Metzgar was also a member of an American delegation to the 2007 World Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya and promotes the participation of artists in the social forum movement. Metzgar served for eight years as Associate Producer at the Public Theater under George C. Wolfe and was the Founding Producer of Joes Pub. From 2004-2007, Metzgar was the Associate Artistic Director of the Curious Theatre Company in Denver where she was named 2006 Colorado Theater person of the year by the Denver Post. She was also the recipient of the 2006 Paul Green Foundation Award. Metzgar teaches in the Brown University Graduate Playwriting Program and is Artistic Director of the New Play Festival at the Brown/Trinity Rep Consortium. Previously, Metzgar produced performance works at the award-winning BACA Downtown in Brooklyn where she was Artistic Director.
Randy Rollison (confirmed for Summer 2008)
Randy Rollison began his career as an actor in 1970 and is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Acting Program. In the 1980’s, like many actors in New York’s East Village, he began generating his own work and this eventually led to his becoming co-artistic director of Limbo Theatre. Subsequently he was co-founder and served as producing artistic director of HOME for Contemporary Theatre and Art, as well as co-founder and co-director of HERE Arts Center. Providing opportunities for many artist generated projects, he presented the world premieres of many one-person shows including, Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues, John Leguizamo’s Mambo Mouth, Camryn Manheim’s Wake Up, I’m Fat, James Lecesne’s Word of Mouth, and Deb Margolin’s Carthieves! Joyrides!, which he also directed. He is a co-recipient of an Obie for founding HERE, and recently returned to his career as an actor, appearing at Portland Center Stage and Geva Theatre. He resides in Portland, Oregon.
Lucy Thurber, Playwright (confirmed for Summer 2008)
Lucy Thurber is the author of seven plays: Where We’re Born, Ashville, Scarcity, Killers and Other Family, Stay, Bottom of The World and Monstrosity. Rattlestick Playwrights Theater has produced three of her plays, Where We’re Born, Killers and Other Family and Stay. The Atlantic Theater Company opened its 2007-08 season with Scarcity. Bottom of The World was commissioned and work shopped by WET (Women’s Expressive Theater, Inc.) at the Eugene O’Neill, the first Tribeca Theater Festival and The Public Theater. Monstrosity was work shopped at Encore Theatre Company (San Francisco). She was the recipient of the 2000-01 Manhattan Theatre Club Playwriting Fellowship and has been a guest artists at Alaska’s Perseverance Theatre twice, where she helped to adapt both Desire Under The Elms and Moby Dick. She has had reading and workshops at Manhattan Theatre Club, The New Group, Primary Stages, MCC Theater, Encore Theatre Company, PlayPenn, Williamstown Theatre Festival, New River Dramatists and Soho Rep. She was one of three playwrights in residence at The Orchard Project, summer 2007. Her 10-minute play Dinner is published in Not So Sweet, a collection of plays from Soho Rep’s 10 minute play festival. Scarcity was published in the December 2007 issue of American Theatre. Her produced plays are published by Dramatists Play Service. Thurber is a member of New Dramatists, 13P, MCC Playwrights Coalition and Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group at Primary Stages. She is currently writing a new play under commission from Playwrights Horizons.
* Because of the rotating nature of the program, faculty and guests are listed subject to availability. Please check this Web page frequently for updated information.
↑
|
