CREATIVE

 

TAJLEI LEVIS (Book & Lyrics) most recently wrote book and lyrics for the musical A Time to be Born, based on Dawn Powell’s 1942 novel (with composer John Mercurio).  A Time to be Born had a sold-out run at the Lucille Lortel Theatre as part of the 2006 New York International Fringe Festival. Tajlei is a graduate of Columbia College and NYU Law School. She was a member of the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop and the Commercial Theatre Institute. 

 

JOHN MERCURIO (Music) is the recipient of an award from the Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation and the Gilman & Gonzalez-Falla Musical Theater Foundation for his work in musical theatre.  He wrote the score and co-wrote the book to Diva Diaries which played in Chicago and the Broward and Tampa Bay Performing Arts Centers. Last year, The Riverhaven Book Club premiered at the Lyric Theatre in Florida.  With Tajlei Levis, he composed A Time to Be Born, which was played at the New York Fringe Festival.  He wrote book, music and lyrics for A Tailor’s Tale which was developed at the Eugene O’Neill Music Theatre Conference.  Current projects include a new musical entitled Myth and songs for a new play with music, Arturo’s Window.  John has received degrees from the Eastman School of Music and NYU and was a member of the BMI Musical Theatre Writing Workshop.  www.johnmercurio.com

 

MARC BRUNI (Director) won the 2007 NYMF Directing Award for Such Good Friends. He is currently the Associate Director of Legally Blonde and Grease on Broadway and staged companies of White Christmas for Walter Bobbie this year in Toronto and Boston. He has been associated with Jerry Zaks, Kathleen Marshall, Walter Bobbie and Jerry Mitchell on twelve Broadway productions including the Tony winning revivals of The Pajama Game and La Cage Aux Folles.  He has worked at City Center Encores! on Bye Bye Birdie and 70, Girls, 70 and has also worked at Williamstown, MTC, Goodspeed, NYSF, and LCT Director's Lab. Additional directing credits include Seven Brides for Seven Brothers at the MUNY. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College.

 

DENIS JONES (Choreographer) has been proud, for the past three years, to serve as director of Broadway Bares, benefiting Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Recent projects as choreographer include The Boy Friend for The Maltz Jupiter/Riverside Theaters, Thoroughly Modern Millie for The Cape Playhouse, Meet Me in St. Louis for The Paper Mill Playhouse and Everyone Loves a Winner, A Tribute to John Kander for The Westport Country Playhouse. Denis is the Associate Choreographer to Jerry Mitchell for Broadway’s Legally Blonde and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

 

TED LEFEVRE (Scenic Consultant) Designs: over two dozen Off-Off-Broadway play premieres and Regional musicals apiece.  Las Vegas: revue of Stevie Wonder songs starring Chaka Khan, Associate on Phantom (Venetian), and Spamalot environment design (Wynn). Broadway Associate: The Country Girl, Rock 'n' Roll, Grease, Coram Boy, Sweeney Todd, Hairspray Tour, Invention of Love, Aida. Assistant: Wedding Singer, All Shook Up, Wicked, Sweet Smell of Success, Morning's at Seven, Seagull, Ivanov, Beauty and the Beast, Christmas Carol at MSG, and sixteen Metropolitan Operas. Two seasons each at Williamstown Theatre Festival, Santa Fe and Glimmerglass Operas.

www.ted-lefevre.com

 

DEB GAOUETTE (Props Designer) Prop Credits: props master for 42nd St.  and Cabaret at the Trump Plaza Casino; props coordinator for the national tours Evita, Sound of Music, Crazy For You, and South Pacific for Troika Entertainment, and various off-broadway productions. Set design credits: the workshop of Popera Rain; projects with City Lights Youth Theatre, and productions of Stage Door, She Loves Me, Meet George Orwell, and The Retreat. Currently: assistant props coordinator for New York City Opera.

 

LISA ZINNI (Costume Designer) Associate Designer for the Broadway and national touring companies of RENT; as well as many of the international companies of RENT, including China, Canada, the UK, and the Italian company produced by Pavarotti. Her regional credits include 10 seasons with The Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, The Orlando Shakespeare Festival, Syracuse Stage, The Cape Playhouse, and Bristol Riverside Theatre. NY: Off Broadway, Fringe Festival and NYMF. LisaZinni.com

 

JIM MILKEY (Lighting Designer)  [bio to come]

 

KATIE ROSIN / KAMPFIRE FILMS PR (Marketing/PR) Off-Broadway: Mother Load, Sage Theater; Wasps in Bed, Beckett Theater; Anaïs Nin: One Of Her Lives, Beckett Theater; Triple Threat: 2007 Drama Desk Nominee (mis)Understanding Mammy: The Hattie McDaniel Story, Real Danger & Elephant Girls, Theatre 5; The Monument, Clurman Theater; Don Juan in Chicago, Kirk Theater. Clients include: Ateh Theater Group, Emerging Artists Theatre, The New York Innovative Theatre Awards, Nicu's Spoon, (re:) Directions Theatre Company, T. Schreiber Studios, Woman Seeking...A Theater Company, as well as, various productions at the Midtown International Theater Festival and FringeNYC. Rosin teaches Marketing the Arts at NYU.  www.kampfirefilmspr.com

 

SAMANTHA SCHLUMBERGER (Graphic Designer) founded Boughton Design, a multi-disciplinary design firm in 2002.  Boughton Design's work is based on a philosophy that design should reinforce an emotional connection between clients and their audiences. Commercial graphic design client work includes branding and logotype for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and The Dramatists Guild of America, as well as extensive collateral design for Clear/Registered Traveler, the Animal Rescue Fund, Irvington Institute, Scholarship Chicago and Women in Development. Boughton Design also produces a line of custom stationery.

 

GEOFF JOSSELSON (Casting Director) Current projects: Allan Knee's The Jazz Age (59E59), Nickelodeon’s The Backyardigans Live!, and productions for North Shore Music Theatre and Kansas City Starlight Theatre. Recently, Geoff cast the York Theatre Company’s Musicals in Mufti, The Last Five Years (Denver Center) and the premiere productions of Sympathy Jones, Such Good Friends and Going Down Swingin' for NYMF 2007. With Calleri Casting: the upcoming film, Dragon Ball, and the Ivory Joe Cole workshop. Previously, Geoff worked on the casting of AltarBoyz, West Side Story, Carmen, Mimi Le Duck, Fanny Hill and The Great Game. Graduate of NYU/Tisch School of the Arts.

 

REBECCA A. FRANK (General Manager) Past positions: Event Producer, NYMF; Director of Business Affairs, Dramatists Guild. General Manager: A Time to Be Born (FringeNYC), The Digital Age (WYNE), Golden Prospects (FringeNYC), The Golden Ass (FringeNYC), BOOM (CSC), Sequitur (Pearl Theatre), The Memorandum (WSDP), The House of Bernarda Alba (CU). JD from New York Law School, Editor-in-Chief of Media Law & Policy Journal. MFA in Theatre Management from Columbia University. BA (Honors) from Mount Holyoke College.

 

CARLOS MAISONET (Production Stage Manager) is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts (Playwrights Horizons Theater School, CAP21, and Stonestreet Studios), Carlos's recent credits include Stephe Schwartz's Captain Louie (National Tour), Jihad: The Musical (Edingburgh Fringe Festival), Capture Now (NY Workshop), and The Wild Party (The Culture Project) and currently stage manages Awesome 80s Prom (Webster Hall).

LIZ THALER (Assistant Stage Manager) is a graduate of Wesleyan University, where she ran the Second Stage Student Theater Company. She has interned at the Dallas Theater Center and directed at Barnard College and for The American Story Project. She is co-founder of In Extremis Theater Company.

ANNA STRASSER (Production Intern) is a third year Theater/Psychology double major at Oberlin College. She likes doing theater in the middle of Ohio, but enjoys New York City theater even more!

 

EDITH WHARTON wrote the novel Glimpses of the Moon in 1922. It was an international best-seller at the time and was made into a film in 1923.   The 1922 New York Times review of Glimpses compared it to her previous novel, The Age of Innocence, which had received the Pulitzer Prize in 1920, “I think The Glimpses of the Moon a much better book; it is more interesting, more memorable and closer to the heart of things."