Heidi Gardner

Host

Heidi Gardner is a current cast member on Saturday Night Live. She hails from Kansas City, Missouri.

April Matthis

Judge

April Matthis is an OBIE-winning performer actor best known for her presence in the New York downtown theater world. She last starred in TONI STONE at The Roundabout Theatre, and is a member of the groundbreaking experimental theater collective Elevator Repair Service. As an actor, Ms. Matthis has premiered work at Playwrights Horizons, The Public Theater, The Signature Theater, New York Theater Workshop, LCT3, Soho Rep, & Clubbed Thumb.Television and film work includes “New Amsterdam” (NBC), “Instinct” (CBS) and the upcoming feature Fugitive Dreams, currently screening in the festival circuit (FantasiaFest, Austin Film Festival, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF), Manchester Film Festival).

Cavan Hallman

Judge

Cavan Hallman is the Founding Artistic Director for Mirrorbox Theatre, where he has directed Exit Strategy, Red Speedo, Luna Gale, There Is a Happiness That Morning Is, Sender, Orange Julius, and The Parking Lot. Trained as a playwright, his writing has been performed at the National WWII Museum, National Czech & Slovak Museum, Strawdog Theatre, Donny’s Skybox, The Artistic Home, RhinoFest, KAPOOT, The Elm, Seattle Fringe, and more. His plays for young audiences have received over 15,000 performances in elementary schools across the country for an audience of over 5 million students and teachers. Cavan is a graduate of Columbia College Chicago and the University of New Orleans (MFA), and a Resident Artist with The CRY HAVOC Company.

Phillippe Cato

Judge

Phillippe is a theatre producer, dramaturg and musician from London. He is interested in creating and developing new work that explores socially relevant and representative stories, and championing underrepresented voices.He studied Music at the University of York and interned at Sadler’s Wells in the Producing & Touring team. He currently works as New Work Associate at touring theatre company, Paines Plough delivering literary & artist development programmes and projects. As a composer and songwriter, Phillippe is writing BLAQ, a project that seeks to explore the intersection of Black and Queer British identities and experiences today.

Jonny Beauchamp

Judge

Jonny Beauchamp is a Puerto Rican actor from New York City known for his work on Showtime's series Penny Dreadful, NBC's Chicago P.D., and The CW’s Riverdale spin-off, Katy Keene. Growing up, Beauchamp attended various performing arts high schools in and around New York City but attributes the bulk of his training to New York's Professional Performing Arts School (PPAS.) It was there that Beauchamp participated in a production of Arthur Miller's A View From The Bridge, which lead him to "understand what it meant to really be an Actor." Beauchamp received his BA in Theatre Performance while dabbling in Gender and Sexuality Studies from Marymount Manhattan College.

Jayne Baron Sherman

Judge

Broadway productions include: It Shoulda Been You, Side Show, HEDWIG and the Angry Inch (Tony), Of Mice and Men (NT LIVE’s first Broadway broadcast), Kinky Boots (Tony) in London, Australia and on tour, A Time To Kill, The Normal Heart (Tony), Elling, 33 Variations, and the Tony Award winning A Raisin In the Sun. Off-Broadway productions include: Curvy Widow. Also, This Is Our Youth (Sydney Opera House) and Carousel (West End). Her film and television credits include The Accidental Wolf (Executive Producer) starring Kelli O’Hara, Lydia Dean Pilcher’s Radium Girls (Executive Producer), Ira Sach’s Love Is Strange (Producer) starring John Lithgow and Alfred Molina, Alex and Ali (Executive Producer), That’s Not Us (Co-Executive Producer), DTLA – season 1 (Associate Producer) and In the Life (Co-Chair). A long term LGBT activist she has served on a variety of boards including In The Life Media (Co-Chair), Lambda Legal (Co-Chair) and Stonewall Community Foundation. She has been involved with and supported numerous other organizations for several decades.

Lawryn Lacroix

Pinkhouse Productions Producer

Lawryn LaCroix is a New York City & London based actor/producer. She received her M.A. in Creative Producing at the Mountview Academy run by Dame Judi Dench and Stephen Jameson and her BFA from Marymount Manhattan College. Lawryn’s background in producing is both domestic to the US and International. Touring shows from New York City (BAM) to Edinburgh (Edinburgh Fringe Festival) to London (Arcola Theatre and more).

Lawryn started her production company, Pinkhouse Productions, in 2018 as a vehicle for theatre and film. Pinkhouse is an interdisciplinary production company dedicated to original and inspiring female and ethnic work. Pinkhouse has both a New York and Los Angeles presence in theatrical and film circles. Pinkhouse has worked with both Tony, Emmy and Golden Globe winners on original productions. Producing recently Golden Globe winner Biran Cox’s (HBO’s Succession) directed play “Sinners” in  London at the Playground Theatre. Led by an all-female team, Pinkhouse strives to empower in the arts and provide the means by which they can assert their individual voices.

Michael Bradshaw Flynn

Scranton Shakes Artistic Director

Michael is a New York City and Scranton based director and producer. Michael’s idea of Scranton Shakes, sparked ten years ago when acting in a snowed out production of Hamlet in Binghamton, NY. Feeling his hometown was entitled to sophisticated programming, he gathered some community members and Scranton Shakes transitioned from an idea to a reality-  having produced 34 free, professional productions.

Michael also had the great pleasure of working as an associate director to Broadway legend Jack O’Brien on the starry Broadway productions of It’s Only a Play, The Front Page, and the national tour of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music. Michael also served as the associate director to Scott Ellis in the Lincoln Center Theatre premiere of Peter Parnell’s Dada Woof Papa Hot. Michael also directed the world premiere of CaMel written by Charly Clive and The First Man by WIll Hart at the Under St. Mark’s Theatre and an off-Broadway production of Dog Sees God produced by MCS Studios, Tessa Faye, and Kevin Martinez.   

Jennifer Jones

Consulting Producer

Jennifer is a Producer based in London and Liverpool. She has worked with the producing teams for Improbable Theatre and the VAULT Festival, has taken sell-out work to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and assisted on work at the Soho Theatre. Recent work includes Patch Plays (2020) a sell-out open air scratch night exploring environmental sustainability; and Her Romeo (Paprichoo, 2020) producing a tour of Shakespeare workshops around schools in Scotland, funded by Edinburgh Fringe Society. 

Jonathan Stephens

Scranton Shakes Managing Director

Jonathan is a multi-disciplined producer of Theatre, TV and Film. A UK native who moved stateside in 2011, Jonathan initially trained at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts before receiving a first class honours degree in Live Events & Television Production from The University of the Arts London

Alongside working with Scranton Shakes for eight of their ten seasons, Jonathan has work on Punchdrunk's sell out show SLEEP NO MORE, New York City's Broadway Encores' production of The Band Wagon, as well as with Warner Brothers Studio and ITV UK. 

Rory McGregor

Production Director

Rory McGregor is a British director currently based in New York. He has worked on Broadway, at The Public Theater, MTC, NYTW, Target Margin, 59E59, Rising Sun Theatre Company, La MaMa E.T.C, The Tank and Origin Theatre. He has assistant or associate directed for the world’s leading theatre directors including Sam Mendes, Julie Taymor, Rupert Goold and Carrie Cracknell.

Kate Macguire

Associate Producer

Kate is a London and North Wales based Producer. She has produced at the 2018 Edinburgh Festival Fringe and assisted on the Off West End production of Sinners at The Playground Theatre in London. Short film credits include Lead Producer for Peckham Stories. During her MA in Creative Producing at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts Kate Co-Coordinated the 2020 Catalyst In The Cloud Festival and produced short film Mira & Her Maker for the programme.

Kate Co-Produced the project Redefine: with Lawryn LaCroix, a series of movement workshops led by Director Daniel Blake and Nick Afoa, converging sport and theatre to challenge stigmas surrounding gender stereotypes, mental health and toxic masculinity. Kate is also an experienced Stage Manager, Performer and Youth Production Director.

Kaitlyn Schirard

Literary Consultant

Kaitlyn Schirard is a New York based artist. She is a passionate and playful storyteller with a penchant for language. If she's not performing Shakespeare, she's searching for "new classics". 

After graduating from Rollins College, Kaitlyn worked regionally with Riverside Theater as a teaching artist and helped them develop their in-school touring program. Since then, she has worked as an actor in New York (BAM, Sheen Center, OTG), regionally (Shakespeare Theater of NJ, SSF), and internationally (Edinburgh Fringe, Arcola Theatre).

When not onstage, Kaitlyn works as a creative consultant, often with a literary focus. She's had the pleasure of working and crafting text with such companies as Pinkhouse Productions and Thistle Dance as well as with individual artists.

Lara Lavi

Pinkhouse Productions Business Affairs

Damien Devenney

Technical Director

Kristen Brooks Sandler

Scratch Night Editor & Pinkhouse Productions Social Media

Luke Antony Neville

Pinkhouse Productions Social Media

Stephanie Schloss

Pinkhouse Productions Marketing Director

Daniel Holme

Scranton Shakes Director of Marketing and Media

Ever Kip

Pinkhouse Productions PR

Literary Team

Rebecca Azenberg

Catriona Cayley

Darren Cementina

Becca Chadder

Willa Farrell

Daniella Finch

Jenna Giordano

Lee Minora

Tyler McMahon

Nicole Nicholas

Alex Tremblay

Kaitlyn Schirard

Beth Wilson

Music from

AceMo