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PLAYBILL
Thank you for joining us for our Scratch Night, where one play will be chosen to join the line up of free, professional theatre this summer as part of our 10th Anniversary Season! Tonight is a partnership between Pinkhouse Productions and the Scranton Shakespeare Festival.
Heidi Gardner
Host
Heidi Gardner is a current cast member on Saturday Night Live. She hails from Kansas City, Missouri.
SUNDAY NIGHT AT JANE'S
Written by
Emily Powers
Directed by
Sonny Nightingale
What would happen if you invited all of your exes over for a dinner party and then never showed up? Sunday Night at Jane’s is a comedy that follows five guests and one bisexual ex and the chaos that ensues. Each guest has their own motives for coming to dinner. In flashbacks, we see each relationship play out. All of these memories collide to create an idea of Jane. It’s a self portrait of a woman who doesn’t matter and possibly doesn’t exist but more on that later.
Cast
Ben Wilfred Moeschter
Samantha Jennifer Dufton
Carey Gil Hamel
Craig Ryan Falconer
Heather Jasmine Cabanilla
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Emily Powers
Emily Powers is a queer Canadian-Californian playwright. She has won the Robertson Davies Playwriting Award twice for her plays Tinsel Town Bartleby and Outstretched. Her writing has been published with Hart House Literary, The Goose, Rudderless Mariner, The Humming, Rinky Dink Press, and Demeter Press. She loves pesto sauce and springtime.
Sonny Nightingale
Sonny Nightingale is a 22 year old Toronto-based director, producer and interdisciplinary artist. She is passionate about theatre, film and working with her friends. Her go to Starbucks order is a venti iced guava black tea lemonade if you would like to get her something.
CONVERSION RATE
Written by
Sergei Burbank
Directed by
NJ Agwuna
An aspiring journalist thinks he’s found the motherlode: a retired and possibly crooked New York City cop whose tainted caseload might have put untold numbers of innocent men behind bars. But is the target as frail as he seems? Is his own journalistic record as spotless as he claims? And are the police -- the spear’s tip of society’s criminal justice system -- solely responsible for the consequences of the overwhelming job with which they’ve been tasked? Conversion Rate examines questions of ethics, humanity, and collective responsibility for the three-strikes, prison-industrial complex that now encumbers American society.
Cast
Phil Conor McGuigan
Frank Corey Allen
Sergei Burbank
Sergei Burbank is a playwright, performer, audiobook narrator, and producer in New York City. He has been published by Indie Theater Now, NYTheaterNow, Parabasis, Howlround, fwriction:review, and Baseball Prospectus. He is literary manager for Conch Shell Productions, resident playwright with Quick Silver Theater Company, member of Actors’ Equity Association, and has an MFA in Playwriting from the Writer's Foundry at St. Joseph’s College. Website: boisterous-eremite.com
NJ Agwuna
NJ Agwuna is a director of theatre and film who most recently directed scenes for ABC Discovers talent and a hybrid production of Polaroid Stories by Naomi Iizuka at LIU Post. She has worked on a national and international scale exploring classic text, developing new plays, devising theatrical experiences through myth and spectacle. Selected credits: The Lover (DirectorFest 2020), Till: A Musical (won Best Direction), Freedom Train (TWUSA National Tour ‘18, ‘19). A Drama League alum and a teaching artist with Tectonic Theatre Project. Directing MFA - Columbia University; SDC - associate. www.njagwuna.com
STRANGE, AMERICA
Written by
Edward Precht
Directed by
Dunya J. Karam
In Strange, America , a young couple finds themselves stranded in a mysterious town in the Pacific Northwest. Their uneasy relationship is about to become the least of their worries. This magical, dark, funny new work explores the tall tales we tell others, the lies we tell ourselves, and the monsters that lurk behind us all.
Cast
Rosemary Harrison Becca Ballenge
Frau Trude Boeman Rew Starr
Anders Boeman Curtis Jackson
Abraham Eldritch Kevin Gay
Edward Precht
Edward Precht is a South Carolina-born playwright. His works include BREAD & CIRCUSES (KCACTF multiple award-winner), DOWN SOUTH, and STRANGE, AMERICA, and have been performed everywhere from Upstate NY to Las Vegas, NV. Frequent contributor to The Broadway Beat. MFA: Fordham University. This is his first Zoom reading – he apologizes in advance for the state of his room.
Dunya J. Karam
Dunya J. Karam (she/her) is a New York based freelance theatre artist/director. She is more than thrilled to be working with Edward Precht on his piece Strange, America! She has also been honored to work with “Standby for Places” a podcast focused on theatrical storytelling through radio plays! For more credits/information, visit her website www.dunyajkaram.com or IG: @directordunya
SHEOL
Written by
Matthew Martinez
Directed by
Kimille Howard
A crew of five are tasked with watching a mysterious pit in the middle of a desert. Chaos ensues when the crew that is supposed to replace them never shows up, leaving them with a deadly choice between staying and risking their sanity, or leaving and risking their lives.
Cast
Emery Daniel Holme
O'Brien Alec Anderson-Currasco
Reese Ania Upstill
Matthew Martinez
Matthew Martinez is an actor, singer, and playwright from Houston, Texas. Matthew is 22 years old, and he is currently finishing his BA in Theatre Performance at the University of North Texas. After graduation, Matthew plans to attend grad school for playwriting, as well as moving to New York City!
Kimille Howard
Kimille Howard (Director): Recent directing credits: In The Open (WCSU), Soil Beneath (Primary Stages/59E59), $#!thole Country Clapback (Loading Dock Theatre), The Fellowship Plays (Lucille Lortel Theatre Foundation), Low Power (EST), Skeleton Crew (TheatreSquared) and TRIGGERED (Cherry Lane Theatre). Broadway: Ain’t Too Proud (Assistant Director) Met Opera: Porgy And Bess (Assistant Stage Director) Recent Fellowships: NYTW 2050 Fellowship, MTC Jonathan Alper Directing Fellowship
The Judges
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.
The Team
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.
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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
Special Thanks
Mirrorbox Theatre
Playbill
TimeOut New York
Broadway World
Scranton Times Tribune
Mirrorbox Theatre presents Iowa premiere plays as dramatic reflections on contemporary culture. Now in its fourth season, Mirrorbox has presented Iowa premieres by Ike Holter, Rebecca Gilman, Lucas Hnath, Basil Kreimendahl, Adam Szymkowicz, and more. Mirrorbox's nationally recognized online series, "Out the Box," a weekly presentation of fresh play readings, brings professional performers (William Jackson Harper, Pearl Sun, Peter Mark Kendall) into collaboration with talented Iowa artists