The Case/Cleveland Play House Graduate Ensemble Class of 2010
Debuts with Arcadia
CLEVELAND (March 3, 2008) -- The Case Western Reserve University/Cleveland Play House Graduate Ensemble class of 2010 will present Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia in the Brooks Theatre, March 12-22, 2008. Directed by program director Ron Wilson, this is the first production from the first year graduate ensemble.
Arcadia spans from 1809 to 1989, and explores the nature of truth, time and the disruptive influence of sex – as Stoppard calls it, “the attraction that Newton left out.” Arcadia is an inventive play that moves back and forth in time between centuries, following two groups of young scholars with such similarities that the line between the past and present is blurred. Amidst all of this, however, is an articulate love story.
“The true attraction of this complex play is how ridiculous love can be,” says Mark Alan Gordon, Associate Director of the Case/Cleveland Play House Professional Actor Training Program.
ABOUT ARCADIA
Arcadia first tells the story of Thomasina Coverly, a young woman studying with her mentors in England in 1809. We are then transported to 1989, where a group of scholars are trying to find out what happened to the people and theories that occupied their house 180 years ago. As the play progresses, time becomes meaningless and everything is mixed together.
ABOUT THE ENSEMBLE
aj cedeÑo (Jellaby/Captain Brice, RN) is a first-year MFA student and is ecstatic to be a part of the CASE/CPH program. He comes to Cleveland fresh out of undergrad where he earned his BA at the University of Notre Dame, double-majoring in Psychology and Film, Television, & Theatre. An avid musical theatre enthusiast, his past credits include Guys and Dolls (Big Jule), Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Joseph), Footloose! (Chuck Cranston) and Man of La Mancha (Pedro and the Barber).
MICHAEL FLOOD (Ezra Chater) recently hails from New York City. He has been in the business professionally for three years, hitting the ground running, learning the ins and outs of the profession with many trials and errors, and garnering some memorable successes. His New York productions include: Two Gentlemen of Verona (Valentine), The Tempest (Ferdinand), Marat Sade (First NY revival produced by the Classical Theatre of Harlem), As You Like It (William and other roles) and has performed in other various contemporary and classical productions. He has also made television and film appearances in “Guiding Light,” American Gangster starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, Bacardi NYC marathon commercial, VH-1, MTV Movie Awards, and other productions. Michael has trained at the Frederick Douglas Creative Arts Center with Petronia Paley and with the NY Stage & Film Powerhouse Theatre Program.
ZAC HOOGENDYK (Septimus Hodge) has performed at the Texas Shakespeare Festival as the Beast in Beauty and the Beast, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival as Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath and Ahab in Moby Dick Rehearsed. Other favorite roles have included Jim in The Glass Menagerie, Joe Keller in All My Sons, and Malvolio in Twelfth Night. He earned his BA from Pepperdine University with emphases in Acting and Production/Design. Upon graduation he was also awarded the Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Award for Outstanding Achievement in Theatre Arts.
LINDSAY IUEN (Thomasina Coverly) is very excited to be a part of the CASE/CPH MFA program. She was last seen at The Crown Uptown Dinner Theatre where she played Miss Scarlett in Clue The Musical and Belle in Beauty and the Beast. Lindsay has also worked for Theatre West Virginia and The Great Plains Theatre Festival. Her favorite roles include Polly Peachum in The Three Penny Opera, Mildred Miller in Ah! Wilderness, and the roles of Miranda, Ariel, Trinculo, and Sebastian in The Tempest. She was part of the pre-professional program at New York University’s CAP21 and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts in Theatre Performance from Wichita State University.
ANDREW LUND (Gus Coverly/Augustus Coverly) is making his debut at The Cleveland Play House and is a freshman studying theater and biology at Case Western Reserve University. Andrew appeared in Case’s recent production of The Shadow of a Gunman (Adolphus Grigson) and has actively participated in high school, community, and college theater in his hometown of Cincinnati.
SARAH NEDWEK (Lady Croom/Chloe Coverly) is a native of St. Louis, Missouri and graduated from Marquette University with a degree in Spanish and Communications Studies. She recently toured with the National Theatre for Children and was seen in the premiere of Memorial Day, a Journeyman Pictures production. Sarah also performed in Uneventful Deaths for Agathon at the New York Fringe Festival, in numerous plays with the International WOW Company and appeared on “Guiding Light” and “All My Children.” She is thrilled to jump into her first year at The Play House and looks forward to working with her new classmates and professors.
TOM PICASSO (Valentine Coverly) comes to Cleveland from New York where he was seen around town in Journeypath (Ontological Hysteric Theater), Three Sisters, Largo Desolato, and the premiere of Veritas (Columbia University School of Fine Arts), The White Rose (New York Musical Theater Festival), and the original play C. Commute (Red Room Theater). Regional credits include Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Hangar Theater), Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Triumph of Love (Timber Lake Playhouse) and in his native Kansas City doing Caught in the Net and Grease (New Theatre). Tom holds a degree in Theater from the University of Kansas.
TOM WHITE (Richard Noakes/Bernard Nightengale) is a first year MFA student in the CASE/CPH Graduate Ensemble. He has appeared throughout Cleveland, working with The Cleveland Play House (Midsummer Night’s Dream, Heartbreak House), Great Lakes Theater Festival (Merry Wives of Windsor), Dobama (Death of Frank, This is Our Youth, Heaven & Hell), Cleveland Shakespeare Festival, Night Kitchen, and Karamu Theater. In 2006, he portrayed Ben Affleck in the Ohio Premiere of the fringe hit Matt & Ben. Tom holds an undergraduate degree from Case Western Reserve University.
LEIGH WILLIAMS (Hannah Jarvis) is delighted to be on stage for the first time as a member of the CASE/CPH Graduate Ensemble. Her regional credits include the Cider Mill Playhouse (Proof, Move Over, Mrs. Markham; Perfect Crime) and four seasons with Riverside Theatre Shakespeare Festival, where favorite roles have included Olivia, Kate, Ariel, Regan and Mistress Page. She also played Miss Havisham in TheatreWorks USA’s first national tour of Great Expectations. Leigh has a BA in theatre arts from Cornell University, and she came to Cleveland from New York City.
ABOUT THE CREATIVE TEAM
tom stoppard (Playwright) was born Tom Straussler in Zlin, Czechoslovakia, July 3, 1937. He moved to England with his parents as a young boy and there began a career as a reporter and free-lance journalist. His theatrical career began with the writing of radio and television plays, but his first international success came with the prizewinning Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966), a retelling of Hamlet through the eyes of two marginal characters. Stoppard’s inventiveness has continued through a long series of plays—including The Real Inspector Hound (1968), Travesties (1974), Night and Day (1979), The Real Thing (1982), and In the Native State (1991)—as well as a novel (Lord Malquist and Mr. Moon, 1966), radio and television plays, and screenplays for a number of movies, which include Brazil, The Russia House, Billy Bathgate, and Empire of the Sun.
RON WILSON (Director and Director of CASE/CPH MFA Program) has directed more than 50 productions, ranging from opera, musical theatre, farce, classical, and mime-clown theatre. He is Chair of the Department of Theater and Dance at Case Western Reserve University, and Case audiences have seen his directorial work in Hurlyburly, Playboy of the Western World, and An Ideal Husband. Mr. Wilson directed Comedy of Errors at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and The Triumph of Love at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. His play The Last Days of Route 66 was featured in The Next Stage Festival of New Plays and, in 1989, was produced at the Hannah Theater by the Cleveland Actors’ Theater Company. His work has been seen at various regional, summer stock, and university theatres across the country. He serves as Resident Fight Choreographer at The Cleveland Play House and has staged and coached hand-to-hand and sword fights, waltzes, period style work, salsa dances, and lizard movement in such productions as A Streetcar Named Desire, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Bright Eyes, I Hate Hamlet, and Frank Langella’s Cyrano, among many others. He has appeared in Cleveland Play House productions of Room Service, The Underpants, The Guardsman, and Infinite Regress of Human Vanity. He also directed Graduate Ensemble production of The Little Foxes.
JILL DAVIS (Scenic Designer) CPH: (Children’s Theatre) The Wind in the Willows, Jabberwocky, Puss in Boots, The Emperor’s New Clothes, Nutcracker, Follow the Seasons; (CASE/CPH Graduate Ensemble) As You Like It, Big Love, Heartbreak House, The Little Foxes, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Triumph of Love, The Real Thing, Hurlyburly, Bus Stop, Twelfth Night, Hayfever CLEVELAND: A Bright Room Called Day, Much Ado About Nothing, Shadow of a Gunman, Glass Menagerie, Case Western Reserve University EDUCATION: MFA, Temple University
KRISTINE L. DAVIES (Costume Designer) CPH: (CASE/CPH Graduate Ensemble) Big Love, The Little Foxes, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Real Thing CWRU: Bright Room Called Day, What the Butler Saw, Shadow of a Gunman OTHER CREDITS: former Resident Designer at Beck Center, other work with Great Lakes Theatre Festival, Cleveland Opera, Lyric Opera, Playhouse Square, Cleveland State University, Phenix Reportory Dance Theater, Groundworks Dance Theater, Boise Contemporary Theater, Idaho Shakespeare Festival EDUCATION: BA, Theater and Sociology, Cleveland State University
Michael Boll (Lighting Designer) CLEVELAND: Colder Than Here, Dobama; From the Mississippi Delta, Karamu; Black Nativity, Cleveland Music Hall; The Wiz, Cain Park (upcoming) OFF-BROADWAY: The Misanthrope, Tartuffe, Scapin, Classic Stage Company; Songs for a New World, George Street Playhouse; Dog Sees God, Soho Playhouse; The Moonlight Room, Theatre Row Beckett Theatre (Associate LD) REGIONAL: CATCO, Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, Fairfield Theatre Company TELEVISION: “60 Minutes,” “48 Hours” OTHER CREDITS: Lighting Supervisor for Opera Cleveland; Lighting Designer / Production Manager for Robert Stark Lighting, a NYC-based Event Lighting company
MIKE POPE (Sound Designer) CPH: (CASE/CPH Graduate Ensemble) Big Love; (Children’s Theatre) The Jungle Book OTHER CREDITS: Top Girls, The Laramie Project, Ohio University; Annie, Damn Yankees, Ohio Valley Summer Theatre EDUCATION: BFA, Production Design and Technology, Ohio University
JON BOOMERSHINE (Stage Manager) CPH: (CASE/CPH Graduate Ensemble) As You Like It, Big Love; (Intern) Enchanted April, Tuesdays with Morrie CLEVELAND: Pillowman, Dobama Theatre; A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, Waiting for Lefty, Charenton Theatre Company; Plans Change, Fourth Wall Productions EDUCATION: BA, Case Western Reserve University
MARK ALAN GORDON (Associate Director of CASE/CPH MFA Program) has been involved with over 200 productions regionally as an actor or director with such theatres as La Jolla Playhouse, Long Wharf Theatre, Syracuse Stage, The Kitchen Theatre, the RoundHouse Theatre, and Arlington’s Signature Theatre. He has served as director for the CASE/CPH Graduate Ensemble’s productions of Big Love (nominated for Best Theatrical Achievement by Northern Ohio Live for 2007), Twelfth Night, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream and had the honor of directing A Bright Room Called Day for the Undergraduate Department at CASE. Mr. Gordon served as Artistic Director for Champlain Shakespeare Festival, an ambitious program that worked through the Bard’s entire canon. He has worked on several original plays, including Romulus Linney’s Ambrosio and True Crimes, and has appeared in Heather McDonald’s When Grace Comes In and Available Light; Chuck Mee’s Wintertime and Big Love; Merchant of Venice with Hal Holbrook (D.C.’s Shakespeare Theatre); Angels in America (Parts I & II); The Dybbuk; and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. TV: “Law & Order,” “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” and MTV’s “Made: Actress.” Mr. Gordon is a founding member of the Signature Theatre Company in New York, where he assisted Michael Kahn in the direction of the Obie Award-winning Sleep Deprivation Chamber by Adrienne Kennedy. He has mentored and directed for the Caymichael Patten Studios, NYU/Playwrights Horizon Theatre School, University of Vermont, and the Hangar Theatre Lab, among others.
Founded in 1915, The Cleveland Play House is the first permanently established professional theatre in the United States. More than 12 million people have attended over 1,300 productions at The Play House – including more than 130 American and/or World Premieres. Today, under the leadership of Artistic Director Michael Bloom and Managing Director Kevin Moore, The Cleveland Play House is an artist-driven theatre that serves the Greater Cleveland community by holding true to its mission:
To produce plays of the highest professional standards that inspire, stimulate, and entertain our diverse audiences, and to conduct training and educational programs that enhance the quality of life for those we serve and help to insure the future of theatre.
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