OFF Stage: the West Village Fragments 2006

AISLING ARTS, INC. Bryn Manion is a co-founder of Aisling Arts, Inc., the Astoria-based theater company. Her recent directing credits include the first two parts of her Forcetrilogy, Me & Ruth, The Beggar’s Opera, When the Levee Breaks, Macbeth, A Few Hallelujahs, Love’s Labour’s Lost and Twelfth Night. As a performer, Bryn has performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and The International Performance Arts Symposia. Favorite roles include Rosaura in Life’s a Dream,Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, Mephistophiles in Dr. Faustus, Betty in Cloud Nine,and Wheeler in Angel City. Bryn teaches acting at the Drama Studio in Springfield, MA when not busy with her commitments with Aisling Arts in NYC. Wendy Remington, co-founder of Aisling Arts, oversees much of the planning and development of the company. In addition to her acting work off-off Broadway, she has acted and designed extensively with the company and recently adapted and directed their production of Life is a Dream. She coordinated the tour for Aisling Arts’ Free Shakespeare Project, an initiative to bring free performances of Shakespearean comedies to low-income communities in Massachusetts. Wendy graduated with honors from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst where she studied theater and elementary education. She studied acting with Deborah Kampmeir and clown with Jim Calder at the Michael Howard Studios in NYC, completed the Shakespearean acting program at the London Academy of Performing Arts and studied the LeCoq movement technique with David Gaines.
TIM CUSACK is the co-artistic director of Theatre Askew. This past season he conceived, co-adapted and co-directed (with Jason Jacobs), choreographed, and appeared as Caligula in Askew's critical and popular success, I, Claudius Live. Previously with the company, he appeared as Ariel in The Tempest and originated the role of Tim Jackson-Smith in the GLAAD Media Award-nominated Bald Diva! In the upcoming season, he will be appearing as Konstantin Stanislavsky and Masha (among other characters) in Askew's workshop adaptation of The Seagull and as "1" in the premiere of Jason Schafer's I Google Myself.
MARK FINLEY is an artistic director, playwright and director for TOSOS II. His directing credits there include: Young Stowaways In Space; three Chris Weikel plays, Speaking Parts, Gareth and Lynette and Penny Penniworth; four Doric Wilson plays, A Perfect Relationship (2003 oobr Award), Street Theater (Eagle NYC), The West Street Gang (LOOK AGAIN! Series) and a reading of Now She Dances!; and Kevin Brofsky’s Dancing Straight. TOSOS II LOOK AGAIN! plays-in-concert series: Robert Patrick’s T-Shirts and Robert Anderson’s Tea and Sympathy. LISTEN UP-The Robert Chesley/Jane Chambers Playwright Project: Felice Picano’s The Bombay Trunk and Garet Scott’s Roll with the Punches. EAT (Emerging Artists Theater) directing credits: Jonathan Reuning's Crewneck (PSNBC at HERE); Ted LoRusso's Not I (Samuel French Festival); Bill McMahon's Pearls and Dignity (Samuel French Festival); Mark Lambeck's Tuna and Jack* and Kevin Brofsky's I Came to New York to Dream* (*finalists in the Turnip 10-minute play competition at the American Globe Theater.) Other NYC directing credits include working at Abingdon Theatre, the Neighborhood Playhouse and with the NativeAliens Theater Collective. As a playwright, his TOSOS II include: How Do We Get Her In The Water? (Movie Lover) and The Mermaid, directed by Barry Childs. He is currently working on a film adaptation of his play Civilized. Mark is a graduate of the North Carolina School of the Arts.
JULIE HAMBERG has done the majority of her most recent work with Vital Theatre Company’s Main Stage where she was Associate Artistic Director. In addition to producing extensively, she directed six new plays, her passion, as well as the first NYC production since ‘52 of Sherwood’s anti-war comedy Idiot's Delight. Hamberg has also worked in NYC with The Public, EST, MTC, Peculiar Works, New Georges, Reckless, Circle Rep Lab, Six Figures, FringeNYC and others. For the LCT Directors Lab, she directed Simon Fill's full-length Post Punk Life. She is a Drama League Fellow and a four-time alum of the LCT Directors Lab.
JILLIAN HARRISON's directing credits include: The Loveliest Afternoon of the Year and JUMP (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Reckless (Theatre Outlet), On the Pier (TSI Inc.), Celebration and Lucy Stiff (Stagedoor Manor), What the Butler Saw, A…My Name is Alice, and A Funny Thing…Forum (Lehigh University’s Dept. of Theatre). Assistant Directing Credits: An Evening With Family (Glory Sims Bowen, Dir. /Havel Festival/The Brick Theater), Lucy and the Conquest (Suzanne Agins, Dir. /Williamstown Theatre Festival), Our Country’s Good (Alexis Chamow, Dir. /NHSI Theatre) Other Credits: The Mistress Cycle (production assistant – AWOL Productions/NY Musical Theatre Festival).
JEFF JANISHESKI became Associate Artistic Director at Classic Stage Company this summer, as a recipient of the TCG New Generations/Future Leaders Fellowship. At CSC, Jeff will continue to produce artistic and educational events, from the On the Verge emerging artist program to the new high school workshop series. Jeff most recently directed Animals That Live in the Mirror (an adaptation of a Jorge Luis Borges short story) at CSC and Sam Shepard’s A Lie of the Mind at Riverside Church. He has also directed at a variety of venues in New York (Chashama, the Cherry Lane Alternative Theatre and GAle GAtes), in Massachusetts (the KO Festival and Thornes Theatre), and at several theatres in Tokyo. He trained in Japan in butoh and noh and in 2003 he launched the biennial, international New York Butoh Festival. In 2003, Jeff worked with Mark Hall Amitin to organize Visions for a Changing Theatre, an exhibition and series of panels hosted by NYU to celebrate experimental theatre from the 1960s to the 1990s. Currently an adjunct lecturer at Dowling College’s Department of Drama, Jeff has taught theatre at Fordham University and Smith College.
ANNA MCHUGH has spent the last year producing, directing and choreographing for Body Temple, creating original interactive theatrical experiences synthesizing technology with live performance. She is the founder of Vital Experience, a unique theatrical production company that creates original performances to raise funds and awareness for environmental and educational organizations. She recently directed The Ecstatic Night produced by Body Temple at the Brooklyn Lyceum; conceived, directed and performed Freedom Break, part of PWP’s [Banned] Burlesque at Collective: Unconscious; choreographed and performed Illumination at The White Wave Dance Festival; directed No Such Roses part of 2004 Fringe Festival; and was assistant director to Swetnam The Woman Hater, part of the Shakespeare Project’s 2004 Play Outside! Festival.
CASEY McLAIN is originally from Colorado; she received her BA in Theatre from Eastern Illinois University. She currently works for Dixon Place as their Technical Associate. She just finished directing in the Lucky 13 Festival at 13th Street Theatre, where she is also a resident director and lighting designer.
CHRIS MIRTO is an NYU graduate with a BFA in Theatre and English Literature. Directing: Tough (Sightlines); The Lovers, Pterodactyls, and Women: TBA (Stella Adler Acting Studio); Six Characters in Search of an Author (Collective Unconscious). Staged Readings: Dutchman, Dionysus in 69 (Peculiar Works Project); Jacqueline Wright's Bing and Eat Me; and Polaroid Stories by Naomi Iizuka (Evidence Room, LA). He is recently workshopped the first ever revival of Dionysus in 69, produced by Richard Schechner and East Coast Artists. Coming up, Chris will be performing under Richard Foreman's direction in his newest film/theatre project in spring of 07.
KAY MITCHELL is a graduate of the Theatre School DePaul University. She has worked with a number of companies in Chicago and Nashville, TN, including Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Chicago Opera Theatre, Darkhorse Theatre and Nashville Shakespeare Festival. Current projects include the MadShag collaboration Significant Blur.
ELAINE MOLINARO recently founded Culture Connection Theater through which she directed and produced Opera Buffoonia at the Play Outside Festival in September 2005. She directed a workshop of Prometheus Bound for the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab, the premiere of The Longshot for Circle East at chashama and As You Like It for Marist College. Selected other directing and choreography credits include: Black by Joyce Carol Oates, The Gingham Dog, Stop Kiss, Orphans and A MidSummer Night’s Dream as well as two original creations, Facing Open Fields and Be Silent Be Still, originally produced by Peculiar Works. She assistant-directed and choreographed After Sorrow for Ping Chong and Co., Censored!!! for Brian Jucha’s Via Theater and The Seagull for the George Street Playhouse. Elaine has been an adjunct theater professor at Rutgers University and has taught acting for the Westfield Young Artists’ Cooperative Theatre and Voice & Vision theater company. She earned her MFA in directing from Rutgers University, her BA in theater from Northwestern University and studied theater and dance at the Sorbonne in Paris. She was also member of the Mid-Hudson Ballet Company.
RENEE PHILIPPI is Co-Artistic Director of Concrete Temple Theatre. Her work has been seen in numerous venues in and around New York City as well as at the Palace Theatre, CT; Guadalupe Arts Center, TX; Southern Theatre, MN; Williamstown Theatre Festival, MA; Atlanta Arts Festival, GA; Deutsche Theater, Berlin; Tuchfabrik, Trier; The Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh. She has been an Artist-in-Residence at the Arts at St. Ann’s Puppet Lab, Mabou Mines’s, the Playwrights Center of Minneapolis’s, St. Bonaventure University, and the Directors Company’s New Adaptations for the Stage. She has been awarded several Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Grants and an Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science and Technology Project Commission.
GABRIEL SHANKS is a partner in MadShag, a performance collaboration with Shannon Maddox. Recent NYC credits include Edward II (Bank Street Theatre), Fall of the House of Usher (Creative Mechanics), Southern Gothic Novel (Red Room, national tour), and works staged at HERE, Dixon Place, Present Company, Arthur Seelen Theatre, OHIO Theatre, CHARAS/El Bohio, Judson House, and five collaborations with Peculiar Works. Regionally, he has directed for companies in Washington, Baltimore, Atlanta, Dallas, Philadelphia, Tampa, Chicago, Vienna and Budapest. He is the recipient of the Southern Playwrights Award, the Mazumdar New Play Award, and the Theatre Project Honor for Outstanding Vision in the Theatre. Upcoming directing projects include Angels In America (October, Baltimore) and the MadShag original work Significant Blur (2007, NYC).
DAVID VINING is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and attended Wadham College at Oxford University. Most recently David directed and co-wrote Wuthering High at the 14th Street Y Theater. He wrote and directed both Cracked and The Last Menagerie at HERE and Angry Rants of the Disenchanted Foreigners as part of Extreme Exchange at TALR; wrote and directed The Curse of the Smart Kid and Blue Puppies at the Ontological; Blue Puppies in Hell at the Hell Festival and also directed the premiere of Arthur Sainer’s The Burning Out of ’82 at Theater for the New City. David was a member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab 2003 and is an affiliated artist and producer for Cagey Productions. His Blue Puppies Cycle will continue its development throughout 2005.
MIRIAM WEINER's recent credits include: Wildwood Park by Doug Wright and Fifth Planet by David Auburn (Williamstown Theatre Festival Workshop), Bronx Express by Osip Dymov (lyrics by Glen Berger, Joseph Goodrich; music by Jonathan David) presented at the FringeNYC Festival, Throwing Your Voice by Craig Lucas (Drama League Directors Fest), A Suit to Please the Lord by Glen Berger (Six Figures Theatre Company and Workshop Theatre), Blue Surge by Rebecca Gilman (Workshop Theatre), Disorder by Joe LaRue (Tobacco Bar), The Little Matchgirl by Lynn Nottage (Whitebird Productions), the critically praised Off-Broadway production of Nighthawks by Lynn Rosen (Willow Cabin Theatre Company); Fearless and Sunlight in a Cafeteria (Ensemble Studio Theatre OctoberFest). Assistant-directing credits: Mark Brokaw on Tartuffe (New York Shakespeare Festival), Barry Edelstein on both All My Sons (Roundabout Theatre Company) and The Misanthrope (Classic Stage Company) and Roger Rees on Anything Goes (Williamstown Theatre Festival). Miriam is a recipient of a Princess Grace Honorarium (2004), a Drama League Directing Fellowship (2002) and a Joel Zwick Memorial Scholarship from Brooklyn College (2004).
Cast List and Bios