Loft Theatre Stages Tom Stoppard Classic
November 19, 2008
You never thought you could laugh so hard about the meaning of existence.
(Oakdale, N.Y.) - Weekends, NOVEMBER 28—DECEMBER 14, the professional LOFT THEATRE on the campus of DOWLING COLLEGE will present TOM STOPPARD’S hilarious and enlightening existential romp ROSENCRANTZ & GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD.
With aerial acrobats, clowns, and a TONY-award winning script, the production follows the fate of two hapless minor characters from Shakespeare’s HAMLET, as they try to figure out why they were sent for and where they’re headed.
The cast, led by JARED WARNER of Murderfist (Upright Citizen’s Brigade, Brooklyn Sketch Festival) and GREG LA PROTO, features some of New York City’s and Long Island’s most promising young talent. Aerial acrobatic feats performed by FRANCIS STALLINGS and HEATHER MEAGHER. LARISSA LURY (Ensemble Studio Theatre, McCarter Theatre’s Youth INK!, Passage Theatre) directs.
Founded as “The Thespians” in 1960 by the renowned critic and director, Arnold Rood, the Loft Theatre was from its very beginning devoted to academic literary theater and to the development of the actor. In Spring 2004, Andrew Karp, Prof. of English at Dowling, took over as Artistic Director and has since maintained an emphasis on bringing simultaneously rigorous and entertaining works to Suffolk County. The productions during his tenure include: Euripides’ Bacchae: The Disarmers, Dario’s Fo’s Can’t Pay! Won’t Pay, Shakespeare’s 12th Night, a brilliantly ambitious production of Mary Zimmerman’s Adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey, and an original choreographed production of the West African Epic of Sunjata. Under Karp’s leadership, the Loft has dedicated itself to presenting classic, thought-provoking, ensemble-based works that both entertain and educate, utilizing the intimacy of the Loft space to expand the relationship between audience, actors, and material. In every instance, the Loft has tried to remain faithful to Rood and Bobkoff’s visions and produce entertaining plays of both academic and literary excellence.
Whether you are a HAMLET junkie or completely unfamiliar with Shakespeare, the Loft Theatre’s production of ROSENCRANTZ & GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD will have you laughing all night and thinking all the way home.
CAST AND PRODUCTION TEAM
Thom Christensen (Claudius & Tragedian) is honored to be making his debut at The Loft Theatre. He has trained in New York and Chicago allowing him the opportunity to play many exciting roles in his career.
John Kupres (Alfred & Horatio) is proud to be making his Loft Theatre debut. He is a member of the Arena Players Reperetory Company as well as their children’s theater company. Some favorite past credits include: Adam Baum and the Jew Movie, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Broadway Bound, The Pied Piper, The Pirates of Treasure Island, and the Legend of Sleep Hollow.
Greg LoProto (Rosencrantz) is happy to be returning to the stage after a much–needed hiatus and is even happier to be sharing it with such an amazing cast.
Heather Meagher (Tragedian & Corde Lise Artist) was last seen in St. Jean’s Players’ production of A Little Night Music. Other recent productions include Arms and the Man (Foolish Mortals Productions), In the Schoolyard (Theater for the New City), Murder Uncensored (Wings Theatre), Walls Came Tumbling Down (Makor Arts Festival), A Little Night Music, Jake’s Women, and Pack of Lies (Paper Moon Players), and Topgirls (Samuel Beckett Theatre, Dublin). Heather is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and the Atlantic Theatre Company School.
Kate Murray (The Player) received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting from the Conservatory of Theatre Arts and Film at SUNY Purchase. She was most recently seen as Rosalind in the Dark Lady Players’ Production of As You Like It, at the Midtown International Theatre Festival. She would like to thank her family, and the cast and crew, and the Long Island Railroad, for all their hard work and support.
Clare Rose Patterson (Ophelia & Tragedian) is excited to be a part of this production with the Loft Theatre. A member of the Workshop Theater Company in NYC, she recently appeared in their production of Weird by Ben Alexander, as well as Chekhov: Collected Stories and The Tragedie of Macbeth. Other New York credits include Chloe in Time Went By at the Players Theatre. Clare has a BA in Drama from Vassar College, where she appeared in The Invention of Love, Las Meninas, Anouilh’s The Rehearsal, and as Nina in The Seagull (dir. Everett Sprinchorn). Training: Lee Strasberg Institute, Linklater Center for Voice & Language.
Brian Peters (Hamlet & Tragedian) This is Brian’s second production at the Loft. Last year he played Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing. Brian has played over a dozen Shakespearean roles including Romeo, Claudio, Tranio, and Touchstone. He is co-founder of the inVerse Players, a theatre company based in New York City. Brian received his BFA in Acting from Adelphi University.
Francis Stallings (Tragedian & Trapeze Artist) While earning degrees in sculpture and art education at the University of Georgia, Francis started learning static trapeze in the evenings. Upon moving to New York in 2003 to pursue her career in art, she became more seriously interested in circus arts. For Francis, the circus merges performance, costume/fashion, and athleticism. Much of Francis artwork expresses an interest in these three and, like the circus, can suggest fantasy and transformation from the ordinary to the absurd. She has been training in aerial acrobatics in Brooklyn for two years and has performed aerial and hula hoop shows. She also collaborates with performance artists and dancers in assembling costumes and installations.
Christine Sullivan (Gertrude & Tragedian) recently played the role of Cavale in a seven-month run of the Michael Chekhov Theatre Co.’s production of Sam Shepard’s Cowboy Mouth at the 45th Street Theatre. Prior to that, Christine appeared on the MCTC stage in Goldberg Street and “Out West.” Additionally, Christine played multiple roles in Figment Theatre’s “Robot Uprising,” a collection of 4 short original plays concerning robots that was produced last month at Urban Stages in NYC. Christine has also appeared in many community and regional theatre productions throughout Long Island. Her favorite regional credits include “Proof,” “Picasso at the Lapin Agile,” “Fuddy Meers,” “Everything in the Garden,” “A House Divided,” “See How They Run,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Othello.” Christine was a member of the cast of “Happy Hour” at the Big Little Theatre on the Lower East Side, and moved on to co-write, co-produce and perform sketch comedy with fellow HH alumni as “Dysfunctional Sandwich.” She has also directed William Kevin McCauley’s “Hatchet Job” at TSI, Elaine May’s “The Way of All Fish” with Ivy Lane / Universal Players, and “Invalid Entry” by Jason Ellis. Christine studied at the William Esper Studio, and leads a double life in which she is known in some circles as an actress and in others as a trial lawyer. www.christineannsullivan.com.
Jared Warner (Guildenstern) holds a BFA in Acting from Florida State University. He studied in London as a participant of the FSU London Theatre Experience. Theatre credits include Macbeth, The Crucible, Closer, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, The Guernica Project, Much Ado About Nothing, The Big Funk, Six Degrees of Separation, The Philadelphia Story, A Flea in Her Ear. Film credits include Neighbors of Mass Destruction, Reverse Psychology, and Death of a Salesman, directed by Burt Reynolds. Jared is also a writer/performer of New York based MURDERFIST Sketch Comedy, seen at The P.I.T., Soundfix Lounge, The International Fringe Festival, and the Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theatre. Upcoming projects include MURDERFIST’s The Apartment web series.
Andrew Karp (Polonius & Player Troop; Producing Artistic Director) is Professor of English at Dowling, specializing in Shakespeare and Homer, with a Ph.D. from NYU. He studied acting at Shakespeare and Co., Stella Adler, and the Actor’s Center, and has performed in the city and regionally. With the Loft, he has produced and performed in numerous plays. In 2002, he co-wrote an original dramatization of Shakespeare’s Sonnets Two Loves I Have and in Spring 2008 he co-wrote and produced the original Epic of Sunjata. He took over as Producing Artistic Director of the Loft in Spring, 2004.
Larissa Lury (Director) is a director, actor, acrobat and teaching artist. She is happy to be back at The Loft, after playing Athena here in Mary Zimmerman’s The Odyssey. Regionally, she has directed new works for McCarter Theatre’s Youth Ink! Program, Passage Theatre in Trenton, and for the D.C. Fringe Festival. In New York, her recent projects include: Asking for Trouble at Ensemble Studio Theatre, So She Said at The Abingdon Theatre and the work-in-progress showings of Detritus (The Combustibles’ grotesque/bouffon tale about waste) for the Prospect Theatre’s Dark Nights Series and Six Figure’s Artists of Tomorrow festival. In 2005, she was given an AREA Award for Project Development from chashama for the site-specific Porch Plays. She has assistant directed for Emily Mann, Kenny Leon and Michael Unger. Larissa is a volunteer director for The 52nd Street Project, a Director in Residence at Ensemble Studio Theatre and an Affiliated Artist with New Georges. She received a B.S. in Theatre from Northwestern University.
Jeffrey Van Velsor (Set Design) has been The Loft Theatre’s resident set designer since 2004’s Euripides’ The Bacchae: the Disarmers. Past favorites at The Loft include Julius Caesar, The Odyssey, What the Butler Saw and last spring’s Epic of Sunjata. When not out on the Island, Jeff spends his days in Princeton, NJ as the Technical Director at Princeton Day School. Previously, Jeff had worked as McCarter Theatre Center’s Props Carpenter/Artisan. Most recently, he designed the set for the fall 2007 Princeton University production of The Winter’s Tale directed by Tracy Bersley. Other Princeton credits include Music Man and Oklahoma for Westminster Choir College. Favorite NY Credits: Marriage of Figaro and Cosi Fan Tutti for Jade Opera, On the Verge (Joint Stock Productions), This is Not a Pipedream (Paddywack Players), The Awful Rowing (Ontological Theatre Blueprint Series).
Ciera Wells (Costume Design). Before returning to New York City in 2005 to complete her MFA in costume design at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Ciera spent four years in Antwerp, Belgium and Nagoya, Japan designing costumes for theater, dance and film and teaching. Most recently she’s been designing for film, dance, and theater in NYC including several NYU thesis and short films, In Continuum’s Romeo and Juliet in Florence Italy (soon to be remounted at NYC’s Classic Stage Company), Green Girl (dir. Wendy McClellan, part of Summer Play Festival at the Public Theater), New York Classical Theater’s Misalliance, The Winter’s Tale (dir. Jonathan Rosenberg), Angels in America (dir. Benny Sato Ambush), Bluemouth’s What the Thunder Said, various projects for the 52nd Street Project, and works by choreographers Cherylyn Lavignino and Christopher Williams. This is her first time working with the Loft.
Grant Wilcoxen (Light Design). Grant’s recent credits include Associate Lighting Designer for LCT3’s production of Clay at the Duke on 42nd St. and SoHo Playhouse’s production of Mindgame. Previously he has designed The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui and As You Like It with the SUNY Purchase Repertory Theater. Other design credits include a new opera adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. He assisted designer Jennifer Schriever in the Epic of Sunjata production at the Loft.
Kristin Young (Aerial Choreographer). Just like everybody else, young Kristin learned to pick herself up, fall down, and repeat. 25 years later she’s still at it, but higher off the ground and with a little more grace (or at least with more intention). Her favorite aerial apparatuses include corde lisse, tissu, and bungee. She recently choreographed and performed aerial works for Above the Belt at the Zipper Factory Theater and the NYC Aerial Dance Festival. As a dancer, she has performed with Movement in C, Steve Koplowitz, Noemie Lafrance, and the physical theater troupe Red Metal Mailbox.
Gordon Rowe (Stage Manager): This is Gordon’s third production as Stage Manager with the Loft Theatre and he is once again delighted to be part of bringing a meticulously crafted and professional production to stage. Gordon is a Financial Aid administrator for Dowling College where he councils students on how they might make a college education more affordable.
Ashton Bell (Crew) is a sophomore at Dowling majoring in English and Secondary Education. He has worked on stage and behind the scenes on numerous productions at his high school and on the spring production of the Epic of Sunjata.
James Sullivan (Asst. Stage Manager) is a senior at Dowling majoring in Communication Arts. His work at the Loft, the first theatrical production James has worked on, is part of his major internship. He hopes to gain experience as well as have some fun. In his spare time, James wrestles with various groups.
Brandon Sweet (Light Technician) is working on his fourth production with the Loft. He is a senior at Dowling majoring in Communication Arts with a minor in Digital Art Design. Brandon plans on becoming a director or a director of photography for film. He is currently working on two independent short films.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard
November 28 – December 14, 2008
Fridays & Saturdays @ 8pm; Sundays @ 2pm
Special Saturday Matinee, December 6 at 2pm
The Loft Theatre
A professional non-equity theatre company
Performing Arts Center, Dowling College
(Idle Hour Blvd, Oakdale, NY)
Tickets: $15; $10 for students, kids & seniors;
$12 Dowling staff, faculty and alumni
TheatreMania.com or 631-244-5037
For more information visit: www.dowling.edu/loft
Posted by News LI Editor · Filed Under Entertainment
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