Parade

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Alfred Uhry

Book Writer

Mr. Uhry has the distinct honor of being the only American writer to win a Pulitzer Prize, an Academy Award and a Tony Award. A graduate of Brown University, Uhry left his native Atlanta for the bright lights of New York City as a newlywed in 1959 to become a lyricist. Struggling to make ends meet for almost twenty years, he hit success in 1976 with The Robber Bridegroom—a bawdy Southern fairy tale based on a Eudora Welty story for which he received a Tony Award nomination for Best Book of a Musical. (The Tony Award went to the writers of A Chorus Line.) Ten years later he wrote his first play, the smash hit, Pulitzer Prize-winning Driving Miss Daisy. He would later win an Academy Award for the movie adaptation starring Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman. Soon after, the Olympic Games’ Cultural Olympiad commissioned Uhry to write a play for the Summer 1996 Olympics in his hometown of Atlanta. Thus the Tony Award-winning Last Night of Ballyhoo was born. Known for writing charming, engaging yet somewhat quirky Southern characters, Mr. Uhry’s latest endeavor, Parade is a darker look at the nuances and history of the South. This chilling true-life story of the lynching of Leo Frank won a second Tony Award for Mr. Uhry as Best Book of a Musical in 1999.

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Jason Robert Brown

Composer and Lyricist

Jason Robert Brown is a composer, lyricist, conductor, arranger, orchestrator, director, and performer. The Chicago Tribune called him “one of Broadway’s smartest and most sophisticated songwriters since Stephen Sondheim.” As a composer and lyricist, he wrote the complete scores for the Broadway musicals Parade (Tony Award for Best Score), 13, The Bridges of Madison County (Tony Awards for Best Score and Best Orchestrations), and Honeymoon in Vegas, and contributed songs to Urban Cowboy (which he also served as conductor and arranger) and Prince of Broadway (where he was musical supervisor and arranger). He made his professional debut as a composer and lyricist Off-Broadway in 1995 with the song cycle Songs for a New World, which has received hundreds of productions around the world.

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Harold Prince

Original Director

Harold Prince is an American theatrical producer and director who was recognized as one of the most creative and innovative figures on Broadway in the 20th century. The son of a New York stockbroker, Prince majored in English at the University of Pennsylvania (B.A., 1948) and began his theatrical career as an apprentice and stage manager for the noted producer and director George Abbott. In 1953 he began producing musicals (initially in partnership with Robert E. Griffith) and was highly successful in his first outing, The Pajama Game (1954). Prince received his first Tony Award when the production was named best musical. Over the next decade he had a string of hits that included Damn Yankees (1955), Fiorello! (1959), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), and Fiddler on the Roof (1964), all of which garnered the Tony for best musical. During this time, he also produced the hugely popular West Side Story (1957). In 1962, with A Family Affair, Prince began directing musicals. He won directorial Tony Awards for Cabaret (1966) and Company (1970), both of which were also named best musical; Follies (1971; directed with Michael Bennett); Candide (1974); Sweeney Todd (1979); Evita (1979); The Phantom of the Opera (1988), which became Broadway’s longest-running musical in 2006; and a revival of Show Boat (1994). He also directed Zorba (1968); A Little Night Music (1973), another winner of the Tony for best musical; Kiss of the Spider Woman (1993); Parade (1998); and LoveMusik (2007). The popularity of his productions was evident by the number of their revivals. In 2017 he helmed the revue Prince of Broadway. Prince also directed the film Something for Everyone (1970). In addition, a number of his stage musicals were adapted as TV movies and films, the latter of which included A Little Night Music (1977), which he also helmed. In 2006 Prince won a Tony Award for lifetime achievement. Contradictions: Notes on Twenty-Six Years in the Theatre (1974) and Sense of Occasion (2017) were memoirs.

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Joel Greenberg

Director

For Studio 180: Our Class, The Overwhelming, Stuff Happens, Blackbird, The Arab-Israeli Cookbook, The Passion of the Chris & The Laramie Project. A co-founder of Studio 180, Joel is a Chalmers and Dora award–winning playwright and director who has directed productions across Canada. Elsewhere: Ain’t Misbevain‘, What the Butler Saw, Taking Sides, Vanities, Bells Are Ringing, Second City (Toronto and Chicago), Dames at Sea (too many times), Tonight at 8:00…8:30 in Newfoundland (all three editions), The Foreigner, Alice, Drink the Mercury and The Nuclear Power Play. Joel taught at Humber College Theatre School from 1984 to 1989 and the Drama Department at the University of Waterloo from 1991 to 2014, also serving as the Chair of each department.

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Paul Sportelli

Musical Director

For Studio 180: debut. Paul Sportelli has been the music director of the Shaw Festival since 1999. Musical director credits there include Sunday in the Park with George, Follies: In Concert, Happy End, Floyd Collins and Merrily We Roll Along, and credits composing for plays include Belle Moral, Saint Joan, The Crucible, Man and Superman and The Madras House. Paul has co-written six musicals to date: Little Mercy’s First Murder (Tarragon Theatre, 2003, seven Dora Awards, including the award for musical direction; Touchstone Theatre, 2005; Ground Zero Theatre, 2006), Tristan (Shaw Festival, 2007), Step Right Up! (Theatre Orangeville, 2008), Nobody Told Me (Berkeley Street Theatre, 2009), Oracle (work-in-progress) and Maria Severa. Other musical director credits include The Light in the Piazza (Arena Stage); The Threepenny Opera (Soulpepper); two shows at Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People; four shows at Canadian Stage, including The House of Martin Guerre; Beauty and the Beast (Dora Award for musical direction) and Miss Saigon (Princess of Wales Theatre); Les Miserables (Broadway and US/Canadian tour); Aspects of Love (Broadway, Citadel Theatre and Elgin Theatre). BM, Eastman School of Music; MM and DMA, Manhattan School of Music.

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Brenley Charkow

Assistant Director

For Studio 180: debut. Brenley is a director/actor/playwright whose work has taken her across Canada and throughout the United States. Most recently, she wrote and directed The Waves (Patron’s Pick, Factory Theatre/Best of Fringe Selection). Other credits include A Streetcar Named Desire (Grand Theatre); Warbrides (Theatre Aquarius); Jasper Station, The Buddy Holly Story, Oklahoma! (Drayton Entertainment); Stellaluna (US Tour/King Cole); Emily, Anne of Green Gables (Charlottetown Festival). Brenley holds a BFA from the University of Alberta and is the founder/artistic director of Harley Dog Productions. www.brenleycharkow.com

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Lily Ling

Assistant Musical Director

For Studio 180: debut. Credits elsewhere include One Touch of Venus and Intern Musical Director (Shaw Festival); Little Women (Randolph Academy for the Performing Arts); the Canadian premieres of High Fidelity, Jerry Springer: The Opera and Reefer Madness (Hart House Theatre); and Nine and Cabaret (UC Follies). Lily holds a Bachelor in Piano Performance from the University of Toronto.

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Neil Barclay

Officer Ivey/Luther Rosser/Mr. Peavy

For Studio 180: debut. Neil was born and raised in Montreal and graduated from the National Theatre School of Canada in 1988. He moved to Toronto the following year and his credits here include Romeo and Juliet (Toronto Free Theatre), Rigoletto and the English-language premiere of Lilies (Theatre Passe Muraille), The Comedy of Errors (Canadian Stage), The Legend of the Avro Arrow (National Arts Centre/Canadian Stage), The Widow Judith (Glen Morris Studio) and Little Mercy’s First Murder (Tarragon Theatre – Dora Nomination). Since 1990 he has been a member of the acting ensemble of the Shaw Festival where some of his favourite roles include Rodrigo Quast in Lulu, Jack Chesney in Charley’s Aunt, Henry Stirling in Will Any Gentleman?, Boris Kolenkhov in You Can’t Take It with You, “A” in Village Wooing, The Chairman in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, John Reid in After the Dance, Johnny Bolton in Star Chamber, Boris Pischik in The Cherry Orchard and Stanley in One Touch of Venus, Alfred Doolittle in My Fair Lady and Father Manuel in the world premiere of Maria Severa.

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Jessica Greenberg

Mary Phagan

For Studio 180: Our Class, Blackbird, Offensive Shadows & The Passion of the Chris. Jessica (she/her) is Studio 180’s Director of Youth and Community Engagement, a co-creator of the IN CLASS program, and a core member of the company since 2004. She is a Dora-nominated actor and a leader in drama education with a passion for promoting youth empowerment and building community through theatre. As an actor she has performed on stages across Canada and the US, including Studio 180, Canadian Stage, Crow’s Theatre, Mirvish Productions, Project: Humanity, Magnus Theatre, YPT, The Citadel, MTYP, Passe Muraille, Thousand Islands Playhouse, Theatre New Brunswick, Willow Cabin Theatre and Theatreworks/USA. She has appeared on The Handmaid’s Tale, Murdoch Mysteries and Being Erica as well as the animated series Fish ‘n Chips. At Studio 180 Jessica oversees all education and Beyond the Stage programming including the creation of study guide resources and the curation of lobby exhibits, chats, panels, talkbacks and other special events. She worked as Education Coordinator for ARCfest: Toronto’s Human Rights Arts Festival, as the Director of Child Engagement for the Child-ish Collective, and is an NTS Drama Festival adjudicator and an instructor at Centennial College’s Theatre Performance program. Jessica holds an Honours BA in political science and women’s studies from McGill University and completed her classical acting training at Circle in the Square Theatre School in New York and as an apprentice at the Actors Theatre of Louisville in Kentucky.

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Sarite Harris

Essie

For Studio 180: debut. Credits include The 3rd Degree (Chicken Coop Productions), Olive in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Fallenrock Productions), Roberta in Debbie Does Dallas the Musical (Ghostlight Projects), Doria Hudson in Smile (Bathurst Theatre), Linda in Les Belles Soeurs (Annex Theatre), and ensemble roles in Beauty and the Beast, West Side Story and Meet Me in St. Louis (Orpheus Musical Theatre Society).

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Daren A. Herbert

Newt Lee/Jim Conley

For Studio 180: debut. Born and raised in Bermuda, Daren has worked on stages and sets in Canada, the US, Bermuda, Korea and Japan. He earned a 2010 Dora Nomination for his work in The Toxic Avenger Musical and won an LA Drama Critics Circle Award, as well as an NAACP Theater Award nomination, for work in the West Coast premiere of LaChiusa’s The Wild Party. Selected theatre credits include Romeo and Juliet (Waterspout Theatre Co.), A Chorus Line (Royal City Musical Theatre), Songs for a New World (NAMC), Lobby Hero (Dirty Manhattan) and Glengarry Glen Ross (Arts Club Theatre Co.). Some film and TV credits include Dreamgirls, 2012, Cole, Hot Tub Time Machine, Smallville, Kyle XY, Close to Home, Sanctuary and Stargate Universe. Daren holds a BFA in Theatre Arts from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, as well as an MFA in Drama from the University of California, Irvine.

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Alana Hibbert

Minnie

For Studio 180: debut.

 

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Jeff Irving

Young Soldier/Frankie/Guard

For Studio 180: debut. Other credits include Romeo and Juliet, The December Man (L’homme de Decembre) (Canadian Stage); Sweeney Todd (Citadel Theatre); Robin Hood (Ross Petty Productions); The Diary of Anne Frank (Theatre Aquarius); The Sound of Music (Mirvish Productions); Hotel Peccadillo, Mack & Mabel, High Society, Invisible Man, Gypsy, Ah, Wilderness!, Man and Superman, Harlequinade, Happy End, Widowers’ Houses (Shaw Festival); West Side Story (Arts Club); Baby (Skycorner Productions); For Pops… (DRI Collective). Jeff is a graduate of the Canadian College of Performing Arts.

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Gabrielle Jones

Mrs. Phagan

For Studio 180: debut. Gabrielle has spent 11 seasons with the Shaw Festival, where selected credits include Charlotta in The Cherry Orchard, Mrs. Kramer in One Touch of Venus, Dame Rose in Star Chamber, the Nurse/Harriet in Sunday in the Park with George, Follies, A Little Night Music, Tristan, Wonderful Town, Mack & Mabel, Gypsy and Happy End. Stratford Festival credits include Camelot, Romeo and Juliet, Oedipus Rex and The Boyfriend. Other recent credits include Muriel in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Jessie nomination) and Drowsy in The Drowsy Chaperone (Vancouver Playhouse), Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast (Grand Theatre), Edith Frank in The Diary of Anne Frank (Persephone), Fraulein Schneider in Cabaret (Stage West), Golde in Fiddler on the Roof (Stage West) and national tours of Mamma Mia! and Les Miserables. Gabrielle is a graduate of Studio 58, Langara.

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George Masswohl

Old Soldier/Judge Roan/Guard

For Studio 180: debut.

 

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Mark McGrinder

Hugh Dorsey

For Studio 180: Our Class, Stuff Happens, Offensive Shadows, The Arab-Israeli Cookbook, The Passion of the Chris & The Laramie Project. Mark is the Artistic Director of Studio 180 Theatre. His Studio 180 performing credits include Oslo, The Nether, You Will Remember Me, Clybourne Park and Stuff Happens. He has been a director and/or dramaturg(e) for many of Studio 180’s IN DEVELOPMENT projects and, as the program’s coordinator, has worked to connect creators with the appropriate collaborators required to bring their visions to the stage. He adapted and directed Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish for PANAMANIA, directed Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays and worked as Associate Director for Blackbird, God of Carnage and Studio 180’s 10th Anniversary reading of The Laramie Project. Mark was a member of the acting ensemble at the Shaw Festival for five seasons and he performed in several reviews with The Second City’s National touring company. He has been head or co-writer on several collective creations (Single and Sexy, That Artz Show and The Berlin Show) and his play MacHamlet was presented as part of the Alumnae Theatre’s New Ideas Festival. As an artist educator he has worked with high school, college and university students in and beyond the GTA and is continually inspired by the passion and vision of the young artists he has had the good fortune to connect with.

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Tracy Michailidis

Lucille Frank

For Studio 180: debut. For Mirvish: Piaf/Dietrich. For Musical Stage Company: Life After (Dora Award), Parade, The Light in the Piazza. During Covid times: Into the Woods (Talk is Free Theatre, Dora nomination), Divine Interventions (Corpus Theatre). Just before the world shifted, Tracy played Aurora in Eclipse Theatre’s inaugural production of Kiss of the Spider Woman at the Don Jail, for which she received a Dora nomination, and she spent the Spring touring Europe with Theaturtle’s production of Charlotte: A Tri-Colored Play. She has spent seasons at the Shaw, Stratford, and Charlottetown Festivals. Favourite roles include Sarah Brown at the Segal Centre in Guys and Dolls, Harper in WJT’s Angels in America, Jenny in Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play (Outside the March), and Bella in Lost in Yonkers (Theatre Northwest). A proud graduate of Queen’s University, Tracy is also a teaching artist who runs her own private studio and is on the faculty for both The Performing Arts Project and MTCA in New York City. Upcoming: directing The Other Place for Talk is Free Theatre.

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Paige Robson-Cramer

Monteen

For Studio 180: debut. Credits include The Producers (Stage West Mississauga); workshop and first recording of My Side of the Country (ScriptLab); Brigadoon, A New Brain, Urinetown (Theatre Sheridan); 42nd Street, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Little Shop of Horrors (Theatre Mt. Douglas). A native of Victoria, BC, Paige is a proud graduate of the Music Theatre Performance Program at Sheridan College.

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Jordy Rolfe

Iola Stover

For Studio 180: debut. Jordy most recently appeared at Canada’s Wonderland in their Halloween children’s show Charlie Brown’s Trick or Treat and this summer in Rock Band Live (RWS and Associates). Other credits include Titania in Oberon, Anything Goes, Lili in Carnival, Big Time Operator (Theatre Sheridan) and Maria in West Side Story (Grand Theatre’s High School Project).

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Michael Therriault

Leo Frank

For Studio 180: debut. Theatre credits include Peter Pan, Dangerous Liaisons, Quiet in the Land, the Henry VI series, Twelfth Night, The Seagull, Oscar Remembered, As You Like It, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Alchemist, The Miser and Camelot (Stratford Shakespeare Festival); The Tin Pan Alley Rag (Roundabout NY); Fiddler on the Roof (Broadway); The Lord of the Rings (Toronto and London’s West End – Dora Award); The Producers (Mirvish – Dora Award). Film and TV: The Englishman’s Boy, Prairie Giant: The Tommy Douglas Story (Gemini Nomination) and the film If I Were You.

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Jay Turvey

Governor Slaton/Britt Craig

For Studio 180: debut. Credits at the Shaw Festival include the title role in Floyd Collins, Happy End, Major Barbara, Merrily We Roll Along, The Magic Fire and She Loves Me. Other acting credits include Zazu in The Lion King, Marius in Les Miserables, Miss Saigon (Mirvish Productions); Mendel in Falsettos (Followspot Productions – Dora Award); A Little Night Music (Grand Theatre/Canadian Stage); Side by Side by Sondheim (Canadian Stage); Cats (Marlene Smith); and two seasons at the Stratford Festival. As a writer, Jay was co-composer for Little Mercy’s First Murder (Shaw Festival/Tarragon co-production – seven Dora Awards including best new musical and best score), and co-writer of Tristan and Maria Severa, (Shaw Festival) co-written with Paul Sportelli.

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Mark Uhre

Officer Starnes/Tom Watson

For Studio 180: debut. Selected theatre credits include The Cherry Orchard, Sunday in the Park with George, Star Chamber, A Little Night Music, Follies: In Concert, Overruled, Mack & Mabel, Tristan (Shaw Festival); Sky in the Toronto production of Mamma Mia! (Mirvish/Royal Alexandra Theatre); The Last Five Years (Grand Theatre); Fiddler on the Roof (Manitoba Theatre Centre); Oklahoma! (Drayton Entertainment); Just So (Globe Theatre); Relatively Speaking, Automatic Pilot, Joni Mitchell: River (Festival Antigonish); Night Light (Sudbury Theatre Centre/Theatre Orangeville); Cabaret (Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, UK). www.markuhre.com

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Robert Harding

Stage Manager

For Studio 180: Our Class,Stuff Happens & Blackbird. Credits elsewhere include Divisidero: A Performance, This Is What Happens Next (Necessary Angel); Side by Side by Sondheim (The Grand Theatre); “Master Harold”…and the boys (Thousand Islands Playhouse); Happy Days (Theatre Columbus); Another Home Invasion, Communion, A Beautiful View, How It Works, Past Perfect (Tarragon Theatre); Festen, Marion Bridge, A Whistle in the Dark (Company Theatre); British Invasion!, British Invasion 2: America Strikes Back! (Charlottetown Festival); Seussical (YPT); Carmela’s Table (Centaur Theatre); and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Resurgence Theatre).

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Liz Campbell

Assistant Stage Manager

For Studio 180: Our Class, The Overwhelming & Stuff Happens. Other credits include Wife Begins at Forty, Hotbed Hotel, Not Now Darling, The Sensuous Senator, The Odd Couple and The Long Weekend (Upper Canada Playhouse). As Apprentice Stage Manager, The 39 Steps (Thousand Islands Playhouse); Another Home Invasion, The Black Rider, Alias Godot (Tarragon Theatre); Cash on Delivery, Wrong for Each Other, Perfect Wedding, Out of Order, The Affections of May, Wally’s Café, A Gift to Last (Upper Canada Playhouse); Suessical (SilverMist Productions); and Mambo Italiano (Bellweather Productions at The Sudbury Theatre Centre). As Company Manager, High School Musical 2 (SilverMist Productions at The Niagara Centre for the Arts).

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Michael Gianfrancesco

Set and Costume Designer

For Studio 180: Set, The Overwhelming, The Arab-Israeli Cookbook & The Laramie Project. Set & Costumes, Stuff Happens & Blackbird. Michael’s set & costume design credits for theatre, opera and dance include A Few Good Men (Citadel/MTC); Trouble in Tahiti, In Good King Charles’s Golden Days (costumes), One Touch of Venus (costumes) (Shaw Festival); Caroline or Change (set, Acting Up Stage/Obsidian); Jack and the Giant Beanstalk, The Wizard of Oz, Seussical (set) (YPT); Romeo and Juliet, The 39 Steps, White Christmas (set), Fiddler on the Roof (costumes) (MTC); The Drowsy Chaperone (set, MTC/Theatre Calgary); Rodin/Claudel, Kaleidoscope (set) (Les Grands Ballets Canadiens); Svadba, Beauty Dissolves in a Brief Hour, The Midnight Court – presented at the Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House at Covent Garden (Queen of Puddings Music Theatre); In Colour (National Ballet of Canada); A View from the Bridge (set, Segal Theatre); Rock ‘n’ Roll, It’s a Wonderful Life, Little Shop of Horrors (set) (Canadian Stage). Michael has spent nine seasons at the Stratford Festival and most recently designed the scenery for You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. He was the 2008 recipient of the Virginia and Myrtle Cooper Award in Costume Design from the Ontario Arts Foundation, and received the Brian Jackson Award from the Stratford Festival.

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Kimberly Purtell

Lighting Designer

For Studio 180: Our Class, The Overwhelming, Stuff Happens & Blackbird. Kimberly is a Toronto based lighting designer for theatre, opera and dance and is thrilled to be working with Studio 180 once again. Her designs have been critically acclaimed across Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Prague, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Moscow and Mongolia. She has designed for the Stratford Festival, Shaw Festival, Canadian Stage Company, Soulpepper Theatre, Mirvish Productions, National Arts Centre and the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Pacific Opera Victoria, Opera Philadelphia, Arena Stage in Washington DC, Tapestry Opera, Hamilton Opera, Edmonton Opera, Theatre Calgary, Manitoba Theatre Centre, Citadel Theatre, Place des Arts, among many others. She has also designed productions for the Pan Am Games and the Vancouver and Beijing Cultural Olympiads. Kimberly has received three Dora Mavor Moore Awards, the Pauline McGibbon Award, a Sterling Award, and a Montreal English Theatre Award. She is the Vice President of the Associated Designers of Canada and IATSE ADC659.

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Nathaniel Kennedy

Production Manager

For Studio 180: Our Class, The Overwhelming, Stuff Happens, Blackbird & Offensive Shadows. Nathaniel has worked in theatre production across Canada and internationally. Most recently he has worked with Tarragon Theatre, Necessary Angel and Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People. Nathaniel is currently a Special Events Supervisor for the City of Toronto.

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