This Week's Contributors on nytheatre.com
AMY LEE PEARSALL is an acting company and advisory board member of Wide Eyed Productions in New York City. She also serves as the local liaison for the monthly open space gathering of theatre artists known as Devoted & Disgruntled (D&D) NYC. Her writing has appeared in Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review and local travel blog offmanhattan.com. She is currently working on a novel.
ANDREW ROTHKIN is an actor, director, playwright, teacher/coach, and the artistic director of White Rabbit Theatre. Directing highlights consist of contemporary classics, including Hello from Bertha, The Lady of Larkspur Lotion, The Tiny Closet, and Spoon River Anthology; new works, including You Must Have Been Beautiful Baby, Smarty Spice and the Serial Killer, Hitchcock Blonde, and FB; and his own-penned pieces, including Voice, Danny, Love Bites, and Meredith's Ring (Winner - "Outstanding Overall Production of a One-Act Play", The Planet Connections Theatre Festivity, 2009). Some additional playwriting highlights include The Double Date, Paved with Gold, tryin' t' touch the sun and Bubby's Shadow (Winner - "Outstanding Overall Production of a New Drama Play", The Midtown International Theatre Festival, 2008). Andrew is the recipient of three Spotlight On Off-Off-Broadway Awards for acting, for Michael Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Babies with Rabies, and Psychodrama, which he also staged.
ANTHONY P. PENNINO is a playwright, most recently the author for the bilingual play Dia de los Muertos. His plays have been seen here in New York City and across the United States as well as in the United Kingdom, Australia, Spain, Japan, Turkey, and Germany. A number of his plays have been published, including several by Indie Theater Now. Further, Pennino is a founding member of Core Creative Productions. Currently, he is an assistant professor of literature and theatre at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ. He served as Fulbright Scholar at Kadir Has University in Istanbul, Turkey for Fall 2008. He is the recipient of a 2005 Fellowship from the New Jersey Council on the Arts. He won an OOBR Award for his work directing A Soldier's Death. He has written and spoken extensively about the stage. And he contributed a chapter to the book Istanbul: Metamorphoses in an Imperial City, published by Talisman Press. He holds a Ph.D. in Dramatic Literature from the University of London and an M.F.A. in Playwriting from Columbia University.
AVI GLICKSTEIN is a Brooklyn-based writer and actor. He is a frequent collaborator with Object Collection, an experimental theater and music performance group, and an Associate Company Member of Polybe + Seats. He has contributed writing to Polybe's The Charlotte Salomon Project (NFJC New Play Commission, Mabou Mines/Suite Residency & Grant), as well as produced and performed in their week of plays for Suzan-Lori Parks’ 365 Days/365 Plays at nontraditional venues in Brooklyn and at the Public Theater. He also received a commission from them to write Granada, which they then produced at the Access Theater in November 2009. His ten-minute plays include Generator City (NYU/Tisch’s 2008 Ten-Minute Play Festival, selected for the KCACTF, Region II Festival in Philadelphia, Adelphi University’s Ten Minute Play Festival) and Pair and a Spare (NYU/Tisch’s 2008 Festival of New Works). Other full-lengths include Alter Idem (2010 O’Neill Playwrights Conference Semifinalist, 2009 Princess Grace Finalist, developed in Naked Angels’ 1st Mondays reading series) and A Small Tight Voice (2009 wordBRIDGE Playwrights Lab Semifinalist). As a performer, he’s worked with The Chocolate Factory, P.S. 122, HERE, Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Ontological-Hysteric Theater, Studio 42, Bread and Puppet Theater, and the Bridge Theatre Company—among others. BA from Columbia University, William Esper Studio graduate, MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU. Proud member of The Playwrights Center and the Dramatists Guild.
CHARLES C. BALES graduated from Duke University with a B.A. degree in English and Philosophy and from CUNY–Brooklyn College with an M.A. degree in Theater History & Criticism, where he completed his thesis on August Strindberg. Currently working as a copywriter/copy editor for a film advertising agency, Charles continues his work as a theater-maker, co-writing The David Project with Foxy Films' Reid Farrington (Gin & "It," The Passion Project, Dickens), working as a dramaturg on various projects with acting students at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, and writing theater reviews for the website nytheatre.com. He is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association and the International Association of Theatre Critics. In addition, Charles is the Associate Artistic Director of Voyage Theater Company, whose inaugural production, OBAMA 44 by Mario Fratti, premiered at La MaMa E.T.C. in the spring of 2012. VTC is currently rehearsing a production of Aleksei Arbuzov's drama, My Poor Marat, with alternating performances in Russian and English. www.voyagetheatercompany.org
CORY CONLEY is a playwright in New York City. His play The More Loving One was presented in the 2011 New York International Fringe Festival, where it received the Overall Excellence Award for Best Play and was included in the Encores Series at Soho Playhouse. His full-length play The Sunset Party was developed and received staged readings at New York Theater Workshop and at Manhattan Theater Club's creative center. His one-act play Calvin's Island was produced in 2008 at the Linhart Theater. He participated in the 24-hour play festival Trinity @ Trinity, hosted by Ex Libris Theatre, and in the Prophecy Productions Writing Lab, which resulted in a staged reading of his one-act, Between Us. He is a 2006 graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and the Playwrights Horizons Theater School, where he wrote and performed two original pieces, What We Become Is and The Last Days of Autumn.
DI JAYAWICKREMA graduated from Binghamton University with a BA in English/Creative Writing and an MBA in Marketing/MIS. After a few years of putting her MBA to good use in the corporate shark tank, she is relieved to return to her artistic roots. She is an editor, dramaturg, and prose fiction writer. Her work has been published in several literary journals, including The Albion Review.
ED MALIN is a playwright interested in language and history. After interning at The Women's Project in the 90s, Ed has enjoyed the diverse theater scene of New York and beyond. Japanese theater is another favorite. In 2010, Ed was currently the MC of No Shame at The Tank. Plays include The Inconstant Infection, Film Noix, Presumed Retarded, Dog Spelled Backwards Is Krishna, The Pithecanthropist, Vandalusia--A Louvre Story, Bolivar luvs San Martin, L'aardvarcchio, Le Chakra du Printemps, I Shall Not Be Suede, Judge Yuri & Executioner, Sexy Monk, Inversion of the Baby Snatchers, The Addicts, Mesculun-Feminine, The Troubadour Struck by Lightning, and Girl = Mass x Anorexia. His work has been performed at FringeNYC ('97, '05, '06, '09), The Samuel French Festival, Manhattan Theatre Source, the Brecht Forum, Galapagos, the Wicked Ren Faire, and the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Ed edited the Spontaneous Combustion anthology for Manhattan Theatre Source and is a member of the Dramatists Guild. www.temeritytheatre.org.
IVANNA CULLINAN has played a variety of wonderful roles in The Granduncle Quadrilogy, Aunt Fanny in The Magnificent Ambersons with Gemini Collision Works, Thelestris in The Rape of the Lock for Judith Shakespeare, and parts in Reverie Productions' Beowulf. She has directed productions of Bonbons for Breakfast and My Year of Porn for the Brick Theater as well as Henry VI Parts 1, 2, &3 for Judith Shakespeare. Great readings she has recently been part of include new plays for Project Shaw, the Brick Theater, and Oberon Theatre. Ivanna has adjudicated for FringeNYC, the Judith Shakespeare Company, and Reverie Productions. She is 2009 nytheatre.com Person of the Year and proud Master Mason of the Brick Theater.
JUDITH JAROSZ is an actor, producer, director, choreographer, writer, editor, and theater geek. As a performer Judith has had leading or featured roles on Broadway, at the New York City Opera (Lincoln Center and on tour), regionally (including Goodspeed and BAM), and as far off Broadway as The Quester's Theater in London and the National Theater in Taipei. She was an assistant director at the New York City Opera, where she was also on the Principal Soprano roster and was the only person at NYCO to simultaneously hold positions in the artistic and administrative departments. She was an acting company member of Jean Cocteau Repertory where she also served as a marketing and press consultant, and director of their Moonlight Music Series. She has been a grant panelist for the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) and the Manhattan Community Arts Fund (MCAF), and is owner of Poor Yorick Productions, a commercial production entity. She is a member of several performance unions, as well as a charter member of The League of Independent Theater. For more than ten years, Judith was the Producing Artistic Director for Theater Ten Ten, the longest consecutively operating Equity theater company off-Broadway, which, under her leadership, was the recipient of multiple nominations and awards; and is currently Producing Artistic Director of Theater 2020 “Visions for a New Millennium.” She lives in beautiful Brooklyn Heights with her partner in life and fun, David Fuller.
JULIE CONGRESS is co-artistic director of No.11 Productions. With No.11: The Elephant Man—The Musical, Lysistrata, Jet of Blood or the Ball of Glass, We Three, Claire and the Ornithological Shadow. Julie is a graduate of Skidmore College with a BS in Theatre (concentrating in directing and acting) and the Moscow Art Theatre School. Other credits include: Scout's Honor (FringeNYC 2007), Sun, Stand Thou Still (director), Vampire Cowboy Trilogy (director), Aloha Say the Pretty Girls (Wendy), and Killer Joe (Dottie). Julie has been a reviewer with nytheatre.com for more than eight years.
LOREN NOVECK is a dramaturg and the literary manager of Six Figures Theatre Company. Favorite projects include adapting girl blog from Iraq: Baghdad Burning for the stage, with Kimberly Kefgen, which was seen in New York and Dallas, and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2006; producing Deb Margolin's Time is the Mercy of Eternity; curating and co-producing the Artists of Tomorrow Festival (2002-2008), A Fairy Tale Festival and Flashback with Six Figures; and adapting Moby Dick into a solo theater piece with Carlo Adinolfi and Kimberly Kefgen. She has read scripts for Young Playwrights, Playwrights Horizons, New Georges, and the National Playwrights Conference, and is an affiliated artist of New Georges.
MARTIN DENTON is the founder, editor, and chief reviewer of nytheatre.com. He is the Executive Director of nytheatre.com's nonprofit parent organization, The New York Theatre Experience, Inc. (NYTE); the editor of NYTE's annual Plays and Playwrights anthologies, along with the collections Playing with Canons and Unpredictable Plays; and the founding producer of nytheatrecast, NYC's first original, regularly scheduled theatre podcast. He also designs and codes all of NYTE's websites. In 2011, Martin became founding editor and curator of Indie Theater Now, a new website that's being described as "iTunes for plays." Martin received an OTTY (Our Town Thanks You) Award for contributions to the community in 2008; and with NYTE's Managing Director Rochelle Denton, he was honored with the 2008 Stewardship Award from the New York Innovative Theatre Foundation. In addition to reviewing, Martin schedules and edits all reviews published on nytheatre.com; if you are interested in having your show reviewed or have any questions about our reviews, contact Martin.
MATT ROBERSON is a writer, comedic performer, and budding theatre scholar. He has had his work produced by Whole World Theatre in Atlanta, and has performed in Chicago at Zanies Comedy Club, Chicago Underground, and at the It Is It Show and the Knitting Factory here in New York. In addition, Matt is in the thesis stage of his M.A. in Theatre Studies (Hunter College), where his research has focused on 19th/20th century American Theatre and Greek Comedy. He currently lives in Queens, and is a proud member of the Episcopal Actors' Guild, an organization committed to providing financial assistance to actors in need since 1923.
MITCHELL CONWAY is an actor. He is a member of the Village Playback Theatre, improvising personal stories from audiences from socially underrepresented populations; and a founding member of No.11 Productions, creating innovative off-off-broadway theatre. Recently he returned from three months facilitating interactive theatre workshops for community-based dialogue in Medellin, Colombia, through the Colombo Americano, supported by the International Fund of the US Embassy. He is a graduate of Skidmore College with a major in Theatre, and an alumni of the National Theatre Institute.
NITA CONGRESS is an editor and book designer, with a specialty in independent, innovative self-published literature. In addition to editing and laying out all of NYTE's annual Plays and Playwrights anthologies, she has worked on several play anthologies, including Playing with Canons: Explosive New Works form Great Literature by America’s Indie Playwrights, Worthy But Neglected: Plays of the Mint Theater Company, and Unpredictable Plays. She also edits and lays out Gargoyle magazine and numerous literary works, most recently the novel That Paris Year. She consults frequently with NYTE on expanding the limits of the written—and virtual—page to better convey and communicate theatre art. She has been an editor/designer for thirty years, and a playgoer for forty-seven.
PAMELA BUTLER has been involved in New York indie theatre for the past decade plus, as a stage manager, dramaturg, director and producer. She has worked with Gallery Players in Brooklyn, Henry Street Settlement, Nicu's Spoon, and others, and has been thrilled to direct and produce Leslie Bramm's plays as well. She plans to continue to keep her fingers in the delicious dramatic pie, and is happy to be reviewing for nytheatre.com once again.
PJ GRISAR is a young playwright, the current Arts Administration Intern for the Lark Play Development Center, and a rising Senior BFA Candidate in the Dramatic Writing Program at SUNY Purchase. During his tenure at Purchase PJ has studied under playwrights Kathleen Tolan, Dan LeFranc, Sylvan Oswald and director Kip Fagan. He is intermittently prolific and, at the moment, he is writing more plays than he has time for. Some highlights include: a comedy about 19th Century Slum Tourism, a family seriocomedy centered around a painting which may or may not be a spoil of the Second World War, and a farce about an undermanned army regiment that has no other directive but to do laundry all day. PJ spends most of his time spare time sulking, brooding, and exhausting his printing allowance at the school library. He is thrilled to be among the talented reviewing squad covering the FringeNYC for nytheatre.com. Happy reading!
RACHEL MERRILL MOSS is a theatre practitioner, critic, and aspiring dramaturg happily living in Brooklyn. In addition to passionately exploring the gamut of theatrical endeavors occurring throughout the city, she has a penchant for seeking out quality used bookstores, fine succulent collections, and authentic burritos. Rachel is presently pursuing a Masters’ Degree in Theatre History and Criticism at Brooklyn College as well as being part of Barrow Street Theatre in the West Village. She also reviews theatre for the Prospect Heights Patch.
RICHARD HINOJOSA is a playwright and a co-founder of The Kairos! Co. He has produced and directed eight of his 12 plays including Copyright Evil, Fly, Fight or Fuck, 2002's FringeNYC selection Panichorea, and most recently Obsessively, Sam. Richard wrote and acted in the short film Trapped in Freedom, which was an "Official Selection" in the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. He holds a Bachelors degree in Theatrical Direction, and a Master's degree in Educational Theatre from New York University.
THERESA BUCHHEISTER is a founding member of Title:Point, with whom she most recently wrote/performed Destructo Snack, USA with Sarah Graalman at The Incubator. Prior to that, and likely again soon, she directed her original work Gradient Haircuts on the three floors of the Housing Works Bookstore Café in Soho. Her works have been produced throughout NYC, in stores and trucks and theatres, including Incubator Arts, Dixon Place, Chashama, Under St. Mark's, and Lost Horizon Night Market. Beyond working within Title:Point, Theresa has created plays, events, and installations with Jeff Stark, Secret Parks, Harrison David Rivers, Buran Theatre, BE Theatre Company, Cameron Stuart, Under the Table, and Amy von Harrington. Her plays can be found on indietheatrenow.com.
