team

for Measure Back: a rehearsal for the end of war (2015)

Written and performed by T. Ryder Smith
Featuring Angel Uwamahoro

ANGEL UWAMAHORO (Performer, 2015) Angel is an actress, poet and activist, born in Rwanda, currently completing her BA at Fordham University in NYC. She has performed her own poetry around the world, most recently at the U.N. for the 20^thcommemoration of the Rwandan Genocide, and is the proud recipient of a Rwanda Presidential Scholarship to study in the U.S. In 2014, she made her Off-Broadway debut at Signature Theatre in the world premiere of Katori Hall’s Our Lady of Kibeho. Other theatre in the US includes Bishop (Fordham/Primary Stages, NYC), and Africa’s Hope (USC Bovard Theatre, CA). International theatre: Les Os que Craquent (Teatre de Poche, Belgium.) Film: Un Plain Parfait (Dir. Pascal Chaumeil), Shake Hands with the Devil (Dir. Roger Spottiswoode).

T. RYDER SMITH (Playwright, Performer, 2015) has appeared on Broadway in War Horse, at Lincoln Center, and in the 2009 revival of Equus, opposite Daniel Radcliffe. His work Off-Broadway work includes Sarah Ruhl’s Dead Man’s Cell Phone and Passion Play; the world premieres of Katori Hall’s Our Lady of Kibeho, Richard Foreman’s The Gods Are Pounding My Head, and King Cowboy Rufus Rules the Universe; David Greenspan’s She Stoops to Comedy; Anne Washburn’s Apparition and I Have Loved Strangers, and Glen Berger’s Underneath the Lintel, for which T. received a Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Solo Performance. T. shared a 2007 Drama Desk award for Outstanding Ensemble Cast as part of the 3-actor, 30-character Lebensraum, by Israel Horowitz. His regional theatre work includes productions at The Old Globe, La Jolla Playhouse, American Repertory Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville and The Goodman in the world premieres of plays by Doug Wright, Tanya Barfield, Charles Mee, and Jeffrey Hatcher. T. won a Craig Noel award for Outstanding Lead Performance in the world premiere of John Strand’s Lincolnesque at The Old Globe. Film and TV work includes appearances on The Blacklist, Elementary, Damages, Nurse Jackie, Blue Bloods, The Good Wife, Law & Order SVU, White Collar, and the PBS series The Abolitionists, and in the experimental films Horrible Child, by Lawrence Krauser, The Dollar General, by Daniel Fish, Monuments, by Redmond Entwistle, and The Ontological Cowboy, by Marie Losier. As a voice actor, T. performs as Sander Cohen in the Bioshock videogame series, as Baron Underbheit in the TV series The Venture Brothers, and as an award-winning narrator for many audiobooks, including works by William Burroughs, Chekov, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. He tours with Outside the Wire/Theatre of War, and is part of the rotating cast for Pacifica radio/WBAI’s annual Bloomsday readings of James Joyce’s novel Ulysses. www.trydersmith.org

MARK CARMOUZE (Stage Manager) Born and raised in Miami Fl, Mark studied at Florida School of the Arts and Greensboro College. Since moving to NYC in 2014 he has worked for Manhattan Theatre Club and at Signature Theatre Co as carpenter and crew on their productions of Kung-Fu and Our Lady of Kibeho.

DEREK SPALDO (Stage Manager) Derek most recently stage managed Christina Masciotti’s Social Security, at the Bushwick Starr, as well as the European tour of her Vision Disturbance, for the New York City Players. He has worked with artists Zishan Ugurlu, Peter Jacobs and Gillian Walsh. His plays Playground premiered last year at The Brick in Williamsburg, and Pitch, at La Mama in 2012. His work as a writer/director has also been seen at The Chocolate Factory, Dixon Place, and Theatre for a New City. He writes music and performs as a solo artist and as a member of the band Guitar Center. http://derekspaldo.tumblr.com

RAFAEL TASCA (Designer) Theatre: Artaud’s Blood Jet (Teatro Carpeneto, Italy); Robert Musil’s The Enthusiasts (Warwick Rep, England), Brecht’s Jungle of the Cities (The Sunblistered Hole, Australia). Installations by Irahu To, Felix Guy, and Anne Marie McGillicutty. Performance: This is How Nicole Does Not Respond, by Q. Liz Reagan.

for: Measure Back: a rehearsal for the end of war (2014)

Written and performed by T. Ryder Smith

Video: Rafael Tasca

for: Measure Back: a theatre event (2013 productions)

Written by T. Ryder Smith

Produced by Christopher McElroen

Directed by Christopher McElroen and T. Ryder Smith

Cast: Dionne Audain, Felicia Cooper, T. Ryder Smith, Caitlin Wells.

Stage Manager: Sunny Stapleton

Video Design by Simon Harding

Sound Design by Matt Kraus

Costume Design by Nick Vaughan

PR Designs by The Hinge Collective

Venue Production/Pittsburgh: Rob Long

Venue Production/Duke University: Jen Rogers

WHO’S WHO IN PAST PRODUCTIONS

RAFAEL TASCA (Video Design, 2014) Theatre: Artaud’s Blood Jet (Teatro Carpeneto, Italy); Robert Musil’s The Enthusiasts (Warwick Rep, England), Brecht’s Jungle of the Cities (The Sunblistered Hole, Australia). Installations by Irahu To, Unguru Muzaphele, and Anne Marie McGillicutty. Performance: This is How Nicole Does Not Respond, by Q. Liz Regan.

DIONNE AUDAIN (Performer: Briseis, 2013) has toured nationally with The John F. Kennedy Center in Alice, appeared off-Broadway at Urban Stages, The Queens Company, (Twelfth Night), Roundtable Ensemble, Target Margin Theater (Zora Neale Hurston’s Cold Keener), and worked regionally at Arena Stage (Yellowman), African Continuum Theatre Company, (A Lesson Before Dying) Folger Theatre, (Much Ado About Nothing, Julius Caesar), Theatre of The First Amendment, Shakespeare & Company and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. Dionne also has numerous local, regional and national commercials and print campaigns. Film credits include Sex and the City 2, Salt, Rocket Science, Twelve, Toe to Toe. TV credits include The Wire, Law & Order SVU, Starved, All My Children, and America’s Most Wanted.

FELICIA COOPER (Performer: Briseis 2/Pittsburgh, 2013) is a senior musical theater major, and pursuing a minor in psychology with a focus in children, at Point Park University in Pittsburgh. Originally from the Poconos, she has lived along the east coast for the past three years, most notably working as a company member of the Pittsburgh Playhouse Jr, the oldest established children’s theater company in the country, as well as musicals and plays in Wilkes-Barre, Scranton, and Hawley, as the senior theater and dance counselor at Allen’s Lane Arts Center in Philadelphia, and as a character performer in Walt Disney World, Orlando, FL. She has sung with the Northeast Pennsylvania Philharmonic, the Pennsylvania Choral Society, and District Choruses, and with jazz and several folk bands.

CAITLIN WELLS (Performer: Briseis 2/Duke, 2013) was raised in North Carolina and has lived in Minnesota, Brazil, and Spain. She recently co-produced and acted in Caridad Svich’sIphigenia Crash Land Falls on the Neon Shell That Was Once Her Heart with the Delta Boys Theater Company. Film/TV/web credits include preposterous pictures’ Nadia (for which she also designed costumes), Murderbird Media’s I’m Leaving You and the regional Emmy-winning series centralXpress.com (WRAL-TV5). Upcoming credits include the world premieres of The Man Who WasThursday and Tarantino’s Yellow Speedo with Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern, as well as Amadeus with Leviathan. She holds a BA in Latin American Studies from Macalester College.

SUNNEVA STAPLETON (Stage Manager, 2013) Off Broadway: Roadkill Confidential (Clubbed Thumb), Signs of Life (Amas Musical Theatre), Creature (New Georges/Page 73 Productions), Beebo Brinker Chronicles (Harriet Leve), Trouble in Paradise (Hourglass Group). Other NYC Credits: Rated P (MidDirect Repertory), Untitled Feminist Multimedia Tech-nology Show (YJLTC), Zero Hour (13P), Samuel & Alasdair: A Personal History of the Robot War (Mad Ones), The Magic of Salsa Kingdom (Amas Musical Theatre), I Have Been to Hiroshima Mon Amour (Voice & Vision/Crossing Jamaica Avenue),Frequency Hopping (Hourglass Group), Serenade (Jaradoa Theater).

SIMON HARDING (Video Design, 2013) is a Set and Video Designer for theatre, dance and film. He has an MFA in Scene Design, Video Design and Integrated Media from CalArts, where he studied with Chris Barreca and Peter Flaherty, among others. Simon began in the theater as an actor and director, and attended Swarthmore College and Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris. He then joined the collective creation ensemble SaBooge Theatre, and designed sets and lighting for all of their productions including the critically acclaimed shows Hatched, Fathom, and Every Day Above Ground. During this time, he also worked as a set and lighting designer for 10 years. Simon was production designer on the film What to Bring to America, which has been selected for the DGA student awards. He has also worked as a design assistant for Chris Barreca and Derek McClane.
www.simonhardingdesign.com

MATT KRAUS (Sound Design, 2013) Broadway: Kathy Griffin Want’s a Tony, Liza’s at the Palace…! Other productions include; Classical Stage Company-Caucasian Chalk Circle, Paper Mill/ Bay Street –Lend Me a Tenor, New World Stages- Forever Dusty, Walnut Street- The Buddy Holly Story, Fat Camp- The Musical, Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas- Absinthe, The Voca People, Lone Star Love, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park- Ain’t MisBehavin’, Classical Theatre of Harlem –Macbeth and Trojan Women (AUDELCO nominations). Matt also has the pleasure of designing sound for Liza Minnelli wherever the world takes us.

NICK VAUGHAN (Costume Design, 2013) is a New York based visual artist and scenographer. Recent productions include La Boheme, 7 Deadly Sins, L’Enfant et les Sortileges, Il Trittico, Soldier’s Tale, Master Peter’s Puppet Show, Turn of the Screw, Albert Herring, The Beggar’s Opera, & The Rape of Lucretia with the Castleton Festival. Additional projects include Mission Drift, Architecting and Particularly in the Heartland (the TEAM) Sounding (HERE) The Obie award winning Lily’s Revenge (HERE/Taylor Mac) POOM2 and POONARC (Yoshiko Chuma) The Marriage of Figaro and L’Ormindo (Curtis Institute of Music), HALT, Weddings and Beheadings, Blind Spot and Le Petit Mort (Palissimo). He received the following awards for his set and stage designs: 2005 NYC Fringe Award, the 2005 USITT Oren Parker Award, the Lloyd Weninger Award and was a selected artist to participate on the US exhibit at the 2007 Prague Quadrennial. Nick maintains an ongoing performance/installation art collaboration with Jake Margolin and they are currently developing A Marriage: 1 in residence at the HERE Arts Center in NYC.
www.nickandjakestudio.com

MEERA KUMBHANI (Performer/Rehearsal Briseis 2, 2013) New York City credits include Richard II (The Pearl, u/s), As You Like It, Twelfth Night (Classic Stage Company), Yes WeCan (Walkerspace), and Phoenician Women (dir. Karin Coonrod). Film/TV credits include Offliners, “NYC 22,” “The Late Show.” She holds a BA in Neurobiology from UC Berkeley and an MFA in Acting from Columbia University.

CHRISTOPHER MCELROEN (Producer, Co-Director, 2013) most recently co-produced and directed the world premiere stage adaptation of Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man at the Court Theatre in Chicago, the Huntington Theatre in Boston, and the Studio Theatre in DC, where he received a 2013 Helen Hayes Award. He co- founded the Classical Theatre of Harlem (named “One of 8 Theatres in America to Watch” by the Drama League) where between 1999 and 2009 he produced 41 productions that yielded 18 AUDELCO, six Obie, two Lucille Lortel Awards, and a Drama Desk Award. He has directed over thirty productions including The Cherry Orchard, an original adaptation of Richard Wright’s novel Native Son, Marat/Sade, The Blacks: A Clown Show (four 2003 Obie Awards, one of the ten best Off Broadway productions of 2003 by The New York Times), and the world-premiere of 51st (dream) State, the final work of poet, musician, and activist Sekou Sundiata (BAM’s Next Wave Festival, international tour). Alongside visual artist Paul Chan and Creative Time, Mr. McElroen co-produced and directed Waiting for Godot in New Orleans, a community development through the arts initiative that staged Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot outdoors in the Lower Ninth Ward and Gentilly communities of post-Katrina New Orleans (NYT top 10 national art events of 2007). The production archives are now part of the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art. He has directed or guest lectured at Stanford University, Duke University, Purdue University, New York University, Pace University, Dartmouth College, University of Iowa, University of North Carolina, The Contemporary Arts Center Boston, The Walker Arts Center, and The Museum of Modern Art, among others. His work has been recognized with the American Theatre Wing Award (Outstanding Artistic Achievement), Drama Desk Award (Artistic Achievement), Edwin Booth Award (Outstanding Contribution to NYC Theatre), Lucille Lortel Award (Outstanding Body of Work), and two Obie Awards (Sustained Achievement and Excellence in Theatre).
www.ChristopherMcElroen.com