James Rutherford (director, co-creator) 

James is the founding artistic director of M-34.  Last year he directed Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis and Franz Kafka’s Letter To My Father at Brooklyn’s Magic Futurebox, remounting productions originally presented at the AXA in Action festival in Prague, Czech Republic.  Past projects include As You Like It (Classic Stage Company) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Riverside Theater), assisting Romanian director Andrei Serban on a Hungarian Hedda Gabler in Transylvania, and directing student productions at the Stella Adler Conservatory.  James has studied with Richard Foreman (Ontological/Hysteric), Włodzimierz Staniewski (Gardzienice) and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London.  MFA in Directing: Columbia University.  He directed the original workshop of The Importance of Being Ernest Hemingway.

                                              

Elliot B. Quick (dramaturg, co-creator) 

Elliot received an MFA in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism from the Yale School of Drama, where he served as Production Dramaturg for sixteen productions at the Yale Rep, YSD, and the Yale Cabaret. He was the Resident Dramaturg and Associate Artistic Director for the 2011 Yale Summer Cabaret Shakespeare Festival and the Associate Artistic Director for the Yale Cabaret's 43rd Season. His work as a director has appeared at the Yale Cabaret, HERE Arts Center, Electric Pear’s Synesthesia Festival, The Brick, and the NYC Fringe Festival. He also served as a Literary Associate at Playwrights Horizons, the Yale Rep, and Page 73. Elliot is an Associate Artist of the Brooklyn-based performance ensemble Piehole (www.pieholed.com) and a founding member of Shakespeare on the Vine, a Shakespeare festival based in Napa Valley. He received a BA in Theatre and Performance Studies from Brown University and played Jack in the original workshop of The Importance of Being Ernest Hemingway.

 

Leighton Bryan* (Laetitia Prism)

Leighton lived, acted and raised a kitten with a lot of these crazy folks in a giant undergrad house at Brown.  Recent alum of NYU's Graduate Acting program.  Broadway: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Margaret/Mae understudy (performed); Easter Bonnet 2013.  Regional: Present Laughter, Joanna (Two River Theater).  NYU: Safeword (dir. Tea Alagic), Henry Box Brown Play (dir. Mark Wing-Davey), Orpheus Descending (dir. Tazewell Thompson), The Emperor Antony (dir. Victor Pappas), Ruby Sunrise (dir. Pamela Berlin), Macbeth (dir. Janet Zarisch), The Rivals (dir. Alex Harvey), Dabda, PA (co-created with Rachel Mewbron, Colin Baker, Brendan Titley).  RADA: Death of Kings (dir. John Adams).  Brown University (undergrad): Much Ado About Nothing, City of Angels, You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, Psyche.  To Mom and the tribe: plwiw-ily5

 

Alex Clifford (original music)

Alex is a composer, pianist and upstanding gormandizer based in Brooklyn.  Previous scores include A Midsummer Night's Dream (Riverside Theatre), Telephone/Landscape (Target Margin), Uncle Vanya (Columbia Stages), My Girlfriend's Abroad (Single Serving Films) and the original production of The Importance of Being Ernest Hemingway.

 

Ross Cowan* (Algernon Moncrieff) 

Ross previously collaborated with Mr. Rutherford on productions of Satre's The Flies, Ionesco's Macbett, and the original workshop of The Importance of Being Earnest Hemingway. Based in Brooklyn, when not acting he pursues carpentry, backpacking and whitewater kayaking. He holds an MFA from NYU's Graduate Acting program. More info at www.RossCowan.com.

 

Michael Costagliola (sound design)

Michael is a Brooklyn-based sound designer and composer. He studied music at Brown University, where he received the Weston Award for Music Composition. He is the resident composer for the AntiGravity Theatre Project. Credits include Yermedea Raw (Antigravity at La MaMa), What it Means to Disappear Here (UglyRhino, NY), The Beckett Cycle (Brick Theater, NY), Angelina Ballerina the Musical (Vital Theater, national tour), sixsixsix (Antimatter Collective, NY), The Inexplicable Redemption of Agent G (Vampire Cowboys, NY), El Extranño Viaje (El Reló, Madrid), and Bernarda's Backstage (Winged Cranes, Madrid).

 

Oona Curley (scenic/lighting design) 

Oona is a New York-based lighting and scenic designer. She has designed productions of theatre, dance, and devised work at La MaMa, Theater for the New City, The Ontological-Hysteric, The Studio at Cherry Lane, and Magic Futurebox. She has also worked in Philadelphia (with Charlotte Ford, Mark Lord, Meredith Rainey, Kate Watson Wallace/anonymous bodies, The Bearded Ladies Cabaret, Inis Nua Theatre Co., Team Sunshine Performance Co., Theater Horizon) and Providence (at the Gamm Theatre, the Perishable Theatre, Brown University, Trinity Consortium). Oona’s designs have earned her the Zonta Award for Theatre Arts and Brown University’s Weston Fine Arts Award for Theatre Design. She received her AB from Brown University in 2010, and is an MFA candidate at NYU Tisch class of 2016.

 

Nikki Delhomme (costume design)

Nikki is a freelance costume designer whose recent designs have been presented in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles at companies that include: Yale Repertory Theatre, CalArts University, Disney’s RedCat Theatre, A Noise Within, Maltz Jupiter Theatre, Los Angeles Theatre Center, Avant Musical Festival, Theatre at the Center Indiana, Light Opera Works, Piven Theatre Ensemble, Strawdog Theatre, Evanston Dance Ensemble, and the Appletree Theatre. Her work has been showcased at the Praque Quaddrenial. She is the recipient of the Donald and Zorka Oenslager award for Stage Design, the Elizabeth Schrader Award, and was nominated for a Joseph Jefferson Equity award (2008) and a Garland award (2010).  MFA Yale University, BFA Carnegie Mellon University. www.nikkidelhomme.com

 

Charlotte Graham* (Cecily Cardew)

Charlotte is a graduate of Brown University and the Brown/Trinity Rep MFA Program in Acting. Favorite theater credits include Three Sisters (Chautauqua Theater Company), Beast (New York Stage & Film), Camelot (Trinity Rep), The Threepenny Opera (Brown/Trinity Rep). She can be seen on Gossip Girl, Law & Order: SVU, and the upcoming film The Hot Flashes, directed by Susan Seidelman and starring Brooke Shields. Charlotte played Cecily in the original production of The Importance of Being Ernest Hemingway.

Charise Greene* (Augusta Bracknell)

Charise was recently seen playing Arkadina in the NYC premiere of Tennessee Williams’ The Notebook of Trigorin at The Flea. In NYC, Charise has also played Joanna in Inadmissible at Canal Park Playhouse, Jo in a staged reading of Canary at New York Theatre Workshop (directed by Rachael Chavkin), the title role in Psyche at Ensemble Studio Theater, Sharon in Versailles at Emerging Artitst, and the title role in Darleen and Trent at the Living Theatre. She teaches undergraduate acting at Barnard and Columbia (Chekhov, Advanced Acting, and more) and is the resident voice and dialect coach for productions at NYU’s Stella Adler Studio. She directs at Adler and coaches privately. Charise holds an MFA in Acting from the Brown/Trinity Rep Program (Stephen Sondheim Fellow), and she earned her bachelor degrees in Theater and Political Science from UC Berkeley. www.charisegreene.com

 

Timothy Hassler* (Jack Worthing)

Timothy is excited to be making his New York debut in The Importance of Being Ernest Hemingway. He has appeared regionally in Hamlet, featuring Paul Giamatti, and The Winter's Tale (Yale Repertory Theatre). Some favorite recent credits include Angels in America, Cloud Nine, and All's Well that Ends Well (Yale School of Drama). He is also co-conceiver of the off-the-wall short play Cat Club, in which he played a rock-n-roll, TV-show-host kitty cat. He received his BS from the University of Evansville and his MFA from the Yale School of Drama.

 

Anne Huston

Anne is thrilled be jumping feet first into this production. The Flea Theater: a cautionary tail, #serials@TheFlea, The Shakes: Romeo and Juliet, I Hate Fucking Mexicans. New York: Ludic Proxy (The Play Company), R/evolution (Tisch School for the Arts), Curmudgeons in Love (EST Marathon), As You Like It (New School), Staging Success (Atlantic Acting School). Regional: Avenue Q, Chicago, 39 Steps, Boeing, Boeing (Mason Street Warehouse).

 

Ned Riseley (Lane)

Ned is a NY-based actor/musician. Recently wrote and performed original music for a new play, Nicky Park Memorial Park at the Boston Playwrights Theater. NY credits: Loveplay (The Farm Project), A Man's a Man (Piehole), Central Park (The Brick), Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights (3LD). Ned has also appeared and sung onstage at Williamstown and Brown University.

 

Alexander Salamat (Frederick Chasuble, fight choreography) 

Alexander recently received his MFA from the NYU Graduate Acting Program. Over the years he has been involved with numerous productions. Noteworthy roles include Bob Hedges in Restoration (dir. Mark Wing-Davey), Lopakhin in The Cherry Orchard (dir. Victor Pappas), and the  titular role in Macbeth (dir. Tazewell Thompson). He is also a writer. Most recently he co-wrote and starred in GREEN which premiered at the NYU Grad Acting Freeplay Festival. He can next be seen performing in Until Next Time at the New York Clown Theatre Festival.

 

Wheaton Simis (Merriman)

Wheaton lives in Brooklyn and works internationally as an actor, director, and writer.  Credits include: Fulgurances (Louvre Museum), It Starts with a Rumour and Racinelle (Le Gros Bellec, Paris), ATM or this is [not] New York (Monty Arts Center, Antwerp), and Si! Mi Piace l'Auto! at Galapagos Art Space.  He is a member of the French theater collective Compagnie 38, whose show Ne Parlez Jamais avec des Inconnus premiered at Ariane Mnouchkine's Théâtre du Soleil in Paris.  Training: École Lecoq. Wheaton tends bar at Boulton & Watt on Ave. A and Houston street.  You should come in.  www.wheatonsimis.com

 

Anne Troup* (Gwendolyn Fairfax)

Off Broadway: Ivanov (Classic Stage Company). Other credits include: No One Finer Than Frank Shiner (FringeNYC), The Medicine Showdown (Flying Carpet), The Seagull (Studio Tisch) and Oliver Twist (A Noise Within, Los Angeles). Anne is a graduate of Brown University and NYU’s Grad Acting program where credits included: The Wild Duck (dir. Paul Mullins), HAIR (dir. Chris Bayes), Katzlemacher (dir. Robert Woodruff), Camino Real (dir. Shana Cooper). Anne also works as a producer and director. For more information visit: www.annetroup.com

 

David Gibbs/DARR Publicity (press rep)

David’s clients include M-34, The Amoralists, Company XIV, Ice Factory Festival, La MaMa, The Mad Ones, New Ohio Theatre, PTP/NYC, The Queen’s Company, The Riot Group, terraNOVA Collective, Two-Headed Calf and Wakka Wakka Productions. David has publicized shows at Rattlestick, Peter Jay Sharp Theater, Atlantic Theater, Playwrights Horizons, Theatre Row, New World Stages, The Flea, Walkerspace, HERE, PS 122, Soho Playhouse, The Town Hall & the NY Int’l Fringe Festival. His clients have won Drama Desk and Obie Awards. www.darrpublicity.com

 

*Appears courtesy of Actors' Equity Association