Cast
Raife Baker
Tom
Raife is happy to be working with Stolen Chair again! He most recently worked with Stolen Chair as Dirry Moir in The Man Who Laughs. His New York performances have included roles in As You Like It, Hamlet, Plunge, The House of Yes, andChocolates on the Pillow. He has also appeared in the New York International Fringe Festival and workshopped the new musical Beyond Measure with The Slant Theater Company. He has appeared regionally in Twelfth Night and Richard III (California Shakespeare Theater), A Christmas Carol and The Government Inspector (American Conservatory Theater), King John and Measure for Measure (Chicago Shakespeare Theater). He is a graduate of The American Conservatory Theater (MFA, Acting), and Emory University (BA, Theater Studies and Philosophy)
Liz Eckert
Andi
Liz has performed in Stolen Chair productions The Bachelors’ Tea Party,Stage Kiss, Commedia Dell’ Artemisia, Kinderspiel, and Quantum Poetics. Also in New York, she’s collaborated with PL115, North American Cultural Laboratory, Faux-Real Theatre Company, Cloud of Fools, and Ensemble Studio Theatre. Outside the city, she’s been seen at The Peterborough Players (NH), Flock Theatre (CT), The Colonial Theatre (RI), Miryang Theater Festival (Korea) and SIBIU International Theatre Festival (Romania). MFA Columbia University.
Jon Froehlich
Mr. Forth
Jon loved stealing chairs last year too, as Ursus in The Man Who Laughs. Co-founding member of the experimental physical theatre company, Cloud of Fools Theater Company. With Cloud of Fools: The Whistling Mortician (also writer and director), Theater IATI’s PAM premiered as part of Teatro IATI’s 5th annual Performing Arts Marathon (PAM). Selected favorites include: A Raisin in the Sun (The Arkansas Rep), Cho H Cho(Mabou Mines), and Waiting for Godot (Chimera Theatre Company), among others. Jon loves thieving with every one of these amazing Chair-Stealers—many thanks.
Natalie Hegg
Charlie
Natalie is awfully excited to be working with Stolen Chair again after appearing last year in The Bachelors’ Tea Party. Other favorite credits include Rock ‘N’ Rolland A Christmas Carol at the American Conservatory Theater; Plunge with The Crook Theater Company;Twelfth Night at the Great River Shakespeare Festival; workshop ofCollapse at the New Harmony Project; readings of new work at Primary Stages, Playwrights Horizons, and Extant Arts Company. Natalie is an Artistic Associate with Hunger and Thirst Theatre Collective and composed the music for their inaugural production Ivanov. She is currently writing music for their new play,The Seagull Project. Natalie received her MFA from the American Conservatory Theater and B.S. from the University of Evansville.
www.nataliehegg.com
Molly O’Neill
Emma
Molly is thrilled to be doing another show with Stolen Chair! She was Dea in Stolen Chair’s production of The Man Who Laughs last year. Other credits include He and She with the East Lynne Theater Company, Uncle Vanya at the Pell-Chafee Center, and Cabaret at Trinity Rep Theater. Molly is a graduate of the Brown University/Trinity Rep MFA Acting Program and a founding member of Broken Box Mime Theater.
Noah Schultz
Jim
Noah had his first acting role in Kindergarten and has been acting ever since. Noah is a graduate of The American Musical and Dramatic Academy of New York and is certified by the United Stuntmens Association in Seattle. Noah has performed with Stolen Chair Theatre Company over the past 6 years in The Man Who Laughs, Quantum Poetics,Theatre is Dead and So Are You, Stage Kiss and The Accidental Patriot. Noah has performed in live stunt shows at Six Flags America in Maryland and at Universal Kingdom in Chennai India. Most recently Noah was seen on the silver screen towards the end of the feature film,The Wolf of Wall Street and on the boob tube being kicked in the face by a horse for a national television commercial for St. George’s University.
David Skeist
Phillip
David has appeared with Stolen Chair in Kinderspiel and Theatre is Dead and So Are You. Other work includes Richard Foreman’s Old-Fashioned Prostitutes (Public Theater), David Gordon’s Uncivil Wars (Peak Performances), Beginning of the End of the…(Joyce Soho), and Shlemiel the First (TFANA, Folksbiene), Doris Mirescu’s Paris Belongs to Us and L’Amour Fou (The Brick), Elizabeth Swados’ Political Subversities (Joe’s Pub), and collaborations with The Representatives, PL115, Shira Milikowsky, Tommy Smith, Adam Rapp, and Len Jenkin. David is the Associate Artistic Director of Caborca with whom he has premiered four original plays by Javier Antonio González including Open Up, Hadrian (Magic Futurebox) directed by Meiyin Wang and the upcoming Zoetrope (Pregones) directed by the author. David has composed vocal music for productions by Niky Wolcz, Kristin Linklater, and Cloud of Fools. Film and TV: Law & Order: SVU, All My Children, Memorial Day. MFA, Columbia.
Creative Team & Crew
Jon Stancato
Director
Jon has co-created and directed all of Stolen Chair’s productions since he co-founded the company in 2002. He has trained at the Grotowski Workcenter, with Anne Bogart & the SITI Company, and with the Royal Shakespeare Company, as well as in the techniques of Jacques Lecoq. He teaches commedia dell’arte and other physical theatre techniques at Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Yale, Bard, and schools throughout the tri-state area and is the Artistic Director of the NYC Student Shakespeare Festival. He holds a Theatre Studies BA from Swarthmore College.
Kiran Rikhye
Playwright
Kiran is the resident playwright and Co-Artistic Director of Stolen Chair, for which she has written fifteen plays over the past eleven years. Her work includes plays in rhyme, plays in verse, and plays with no spoken words at all. It has been presented at an academic conference, served up alongside high tea at a Victorian tea salon, critiqued by a panel quantum physicists, and nominated for a Drama Desk Award (The Man Who Laughsfor Unique Theatrical Experience, 2013). Her plays Kinderspiel and Kill Me Like You Mean Itwere published by United Stages in 2007, and the 2005 script for The Man Who Laughs was published as part of NYTE’s anthology Playing with Canons (Ed. Martin Denton: 2005).
Sean Cronin
Music
Sean was born in Invermere BC to a very musical family. At age four, Sean began piano and recorder lessons, and has since embarked on a life in music, eventually learning guitar, ukelele, saxophone, drums, and finally, bass. After playing in Punk, Folk, Country, and Pop bands throughout high school, Sean decided to focus on acoustic Jazz bass as his main pursuit. He moved to Vancouver in 2000, where he attended the Capilano College Jazz Studies Program. He received the Fraser MacPherson Scholarship in 2002. In 2003 he took a short break from school to go on the road with the musical Red Rock Diner, but in 2004 he resumed study in Denton, Texas at the University of North Texas Jazz Program. After moving back to Vancouver in the summer of 2004, Sean became one of Vancouver’s most successful Jazz bassists. As a Jazz musician, he has played alongside Jimmy Cobb, Dave Douglas, Clarence Penn, Seamus Blake, Kenny Werner, Cedar Walton, Han Bennink, Avishai Cohen, and Kurt Elling. He attended the prestigious International Jazz and Creative Music Workshops at the Banff Centre in 2007. Sean has also formed several of his own bands, including the ShhEnslemble, Shift, Too Big To Care Marching Band, and Sean Cronin’s Very Good (winner of 2010 Galaxie Rising Star Award in Vancouver). Sean now resides in Brooklyn NY, where he is in demand playing various forms of sophisticated popular music; from Jazz of the 20s and 30s to Doo Wop of the 50s to his own modern Avant Guarde rock music with Sean Cronin’s Very Good.
Beth Goldenberg
Costume Designer
Design credits include the little match girl passion and Stabat Mater (Glimmerglass); My Daughter Keeps Our Hammer (The Flea);Quantum Poetics (Stolen Chair); What It Means To Disappear Here… (Ugly Rhino); The Play About My Dad and All Girls (Collaborationtown); K.M.T. and Trouble In Mind(NYU/Tisch). MFA, NYU/Tisch. www.bethgoldenberg.com
Aviva Meyer
Props & Graphic Design
Aviva is Stolen Chair’s Media Director. Aviva graduated from Swarthmore College as a biochemistry major and received a Masters in Public Health from Columbia. Her endeavors include origami, knitting, photography, genealogy research, web and graphic design, and being a political operative. She brings her eclectic interests and skills to the tasks of props & ‘propturgy’, and graphic design.
Daniel Winters
Lighting Design
Daniel is thrilled to return to Stolen Chair after his last collaboration with them designing The Man Who Laughs, which was nominated for a Drama Desk Award (Outstanding Lighting Design), and Kinderspiel and Stage Kiss in rep. Daniel’s work has also recently been seen at Dixon Place, Sarah Lawrence College, New York Shakespeare Exchange, North Carolina State University and Burning Coal Theater Company. He holds an MFA in lighting design from Ohio University and is co-founder of the NYC based Burnside Design Studio.
Jaclyn Schaefer
Makeup
Jaclyn is a professional makeup artist in New York City. She is a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art and currently works in film, photography, and theatre. After working with Stolen Chair on The Man Who Laughs, Jaclyn is thrilled to be a part of the Potion crew.
Brooke Bell
Stage Management
Brooke is a South Carolina-born director, writer, performer, and stage manager. She is the artistic director of Virago Theater Productions and an associate member of Coborca Theater. Her original performance pieces, which she writes, directs, and performs, include Dancing Boobies (16mm short film with live performance, IPA at The Brooklyn Museum BEAT Festival, Mono No Aware; available at http://vimeo.com/51997909), Machine (WOW, Live Arts),Virgin vs. Virago (WOW, Emily Dickinson Theater), Betsy Rose (Emily Dickinson Theater), and The Inevitable (In Your Own Write second-place winner at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival, Dock Street Theatre, The Garden Theatre). She recently directed La Liberata ( Virago Theater Productions/Dixon Place). She has assistant directed for Niky Wolcz in Replikas of Apocalypsis Cum Figuris & The Constant Prince (Nu Classic Theatre/Undergroundzero Festival at PS 122, II Festival Internacional de las Humanidades), and for Rachel Dickstein inSeptimus & Clarrisa: Workshop (Ripe Time/ART NY South Oxford Space). She recently performed in Paris Belongs to Us(Dangerous Ground/The Brick) Zoetrope Part 1 Workshop (Coborca/Pregones),Experiment #23b Brooklyn Museum (IPA/BEAT Festival), Experiment #17 DUMBO (IPA),L’amor Fou(Dangerous Ground/The Brick), Money Thinks I’m Dead (RAP Mabou Mines), and Laura Trager’s 16mm short film Rising Tide (available at http://vimeo.com/48719777).Some stage management credits include Open Up, Hadrian (Coborca/Magic Future Box),Cho H Cho (One Eighth/ RAP Mabou Mines, Undergroundzero Festival), Fire Throws (Ripe Time/3LD), and Before Your Very Eyes (Rabbit Hole Ensemble/Flamboyan). She has a B.A. from Hampshire College and a Certificate from the Yale School of Drama’s Summer Conservatory for Actors.
PEOPLE Lounge
PEOPLE Lounge began like many bars and lounges: a passing thought over cocktails between friends one late Manhattan night. The concept was to build a place where all New York City pretenses were left at the door, where there would be no velvet rope. The clientele would be diverse, fashionable, and professional. We chose the name PEOPLE to reflect the principle that the space should be secondary to the clientele that would occupy it. Our thoughts soon developed and became reality: after months of planning and construction, our doors opened in 2003. Since then we have hosted events for birthdays, non-profit charities, special interest groups, live bands, stand-up comedy, television shows, commercials, video releases, and independent movies, as well as holiday and corporate parties. Our “passing thought” has served our clients very well for over 10 years and will continue to do so. For more visit http://peoplelounge.com/