Creative Team:

Jesse Bush
"Alan"

Jesse is proud to return to the Kitchen Theatre Company stage where he has performed some of his favorite roles in such titles as Red Light Winter, The Mystery of Irma Vep,Precious Nonsense, Angle of the Sun, Tony and the Soprano, The Glass Menagerie and Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love. He has also appeared locally at the Hangar Theatre, where he is an Associate Artistic Director and Head of Education. Hangar performances include The Trip To Bountiful, Ever So Humble, November, Beauty and the Beast, South Pacific, A Few Good Men, and Sweeney Todd (also performed at the Goodspeed Opera House). His work as a director has been seen locally with productions at the Kitchen (The Brother’s Size, The Santaland Diaries, The Drawer Boy, Two Rooms, Orphans, Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me, The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me) and the Hangar (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Once on This Island, Les Miserables: School Edition). He has also appeared on the TV shows One Life To Live and All My Children. He received his B.F.A. from Ithaca College. This performance is, as always, dedicated to the other three members of his favorite quartet: Cecelia, Harper and Lulu.

Michael Samuel Kaplan
"Elliot"

Brendan Powers
"Dorian"

Alison Scaramella
"Grace"

Alison is beyond excited to be returning to The KTC, having previously performed in Circle Mirror Transformation (Lauren), boom (Jo), and Speech & Debate (Diwata). Recent NYC credits include: The new musical Salamander Leviathan (Joe’s Pub and Ars Nova), Girl/Group- A Daughter’s Tale (La MaMa ETC), Adapting (Bleecker Street Theater, Best Actress Award- Planet Connections Theatre Festival), A Girl Wrote It (Wide Eyed Productions), Murder in the Cathedral (Hoi Polloi), Invader? I Hardly Know Her!, (SoHo Playhouse/FringeNYC), A Frontier, As Told By The Frontier (New York Theatre Workshop/The Cherry Pit/Columbia Stages), and Pink! (DownPayment Productions/Workshop Theatre). Film: Underneath (Stag Nation Productions) and Honeysuckle (Breakfast Pictures Productions). Training: Connecticut College, The British American Drama Academy, and The Lee Strasberg Institute for Theatre and Film. Sincere thanks to everyone at The Kitchen for creating such a loving and fulfilling artistic home. Love to my wonderful family and friends.

Alexander Thomas
"Carl"

Alexander is thrilled to be back so soon at the Kitchen after last Spring’s production of Broke-ology. Kitchen audiences also know him from After Ashley (2007), his solo show Throw Pitchfork fresh off its off-Broadway debut at New York Theater Workshop (2002) and Black Stuff co-written and performed with LeVan D.Hawkins for the Kitchen Counter Culture series (2005). In the U.K. he was in the West End production and tour of Budd Shulberg’s stage adaptation of his screenplay for On The Waterfront directed by noted director Steven Berkoff. On The Waterfront won London’s “What’s On Stage Award” for best Ensemble. One of his biggest thrills was meeting the 95-year-old Budd Shulberg before his death in 2009, who generously shared stories about working with Marlon Brando and the cast of the movie, something he’ll never forget. He currently lives in Berlin, Germany where he performed at the English Theater of Berlin (ETB) in Utopia/Dystopia, and just days before coming here, a staged reading of Brandon Jacob-Jenkins Neighbors for ETB’s Color Blind Series, a series of staged readings in response to the controversial use of blackface by two major German productions last season. When he returns, a reading of a draft of his own play tentatively titled: Schwartz Gemacht (How Klaus Found His Blackness and Outlived the Nazis) will be staged for that same series.

Rachel Lampert
Director

Rachel is a playwright, director and choreographer. Her work at the Kitchen includes: Playwright: Main Stage Musicals Book & Lyrics for Waiting for Spring, Bed No Breakfast, Comfort Food, Tony & the Soprano, The Angle of the Sun and Precious Nonsense. Main Stage Non-musical plays: Losing Myself, The Trial, The Book Club, Frankenstein and The Soup Comes Last. Main Stage Movement Pieces: In the Company of Dancers and Summers at Rock's Edge. Family Fare: I Have a Song to Sing O!, Scoot, Sizzle & Slide, The Mozart Mystery, The Odyssey parts 1 & 2, A December Suite, and A Christmas Carol, among others. Director: Broke-ology, Red Light Winter, The Mystery of Irma Vep, Mary’s Wedding, Gutenberg! The Musical!, Secret Order, Last Train to Nibroc, The Glass Menagerie, The Price, Master Class, A Delicate Balance, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Swimming in the Shallows among many others. For the 2012-13 season she will direct Frankie & Johnny in the Clair de Lune, Opus, and Crooked and will premiere in May a new piece And, Lately... in collaboration with composer/pianist Richard Montgomery.
She is proud to have been involved in the building of the new theater and, after two years in the new space, continues to be awed by its possibilities and always grateful to everyone who supported this amazing project.
Rachel is active in the Ithaca arts community beyond the Kitchen, having directed and choreographed at the Hangar Theatre (director: Sweeney Todd, Falsettos, The Sisters Rosensweig; choreographer: 2007 production of Hair) Other collaborations include: Rounds for Orchestra with the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, A Soldier's Tale with Ensemble X, and dance pieces with Music's Recreation. Her play Bet You Can't Catch It? was commissioned by AIDSWORK of Tompkins County as part of an educational program for teens, and toured Central NY for three years.
Directing and theatrical choreography credits outside Ithaca include productions at Cal Rep, Arkansas Rep, Portland Stage Company, New York's Public Theatre, Mill Mountain Theatre and Hawaii Opera Theatre. Her concert dance works have been in the repertories of numerous dance companies in the U.S. and abroad.
Her trip to China in 1997 to stage West Side Story resulted in her writing The Soup Comes Last, produced off-Broadway at 59E59 Theaters in Fall 2004. The Angle of the Sun (written by Lampert & Pressgrove) was selected by the New York Musical Theatre Festival to be presented in NYC in September 2007. Rachel is a 4-time recipient of NEA Choreography Fellowships and a CAP Individual Artist Grant. She received a SALT Award for Best Actress 2004. She attended Mount Holyoke College and has a BFA and MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Raised in Brooklyn, she moved to Ithaca as a trailing spouse right behind her husband David Squires in 1995. They enjoy a wonderful house, two terrific dogs, and the joy of having family join them in Ithaca and friends always visiting. This is her 16th season as Artistic Director – a job that is always exciting.

Lisa Boquist
Costume Designer

Lisa has designed and coordinated costumes for a number of previous productions at the Kitchen Theatre, including last season’s Circle Mirror Transformation, Irma Vep, Red Light Winter, Broke-ology and Waiting For Spring. Also at the Kitchen she has designed Mary’s Wedding, Bed and Sofa, Last Train To Nibroc, I Become A Guitar, Nine Parts Of Desire, Precious Nonsense, and others. She runs her own studio, where she designs and constructs prototypes, mascots and custom clothing for film and public appearances. She has been the Textiles Coordinator and Design Associate for MacKenzie-Childs, Ltd., and presently runs the costume shop at Cornell University. There she is responsible for training students in all aspects of costume construction, and has designed costumes for Picasso At The Lapin Agile, Beat Box Bard, Bedroom Farce, and Drama, Dance And The Disco Of Desire, among others.

Linda Case
Music Consultant

Linda is the concertmaster of the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra where she performs regularly as an orchestra member as well as a chamber music player. Linda maintains a private studio in Ithaca where she enjoys teaching students of all ages. As an internationally recognized clinician, she is a teacher trainer for the Suzuki Association of the Americas and a certified Consultant and Instructor for Brain Gym International. Linda has performed in two previous Kitchen Theatre productions: Summers At Rock’s Edge and In the Company of Dancers. Helping the actors for Opus has been lots of fun for me. It has been exciting to see part of the inner theatre process at the Kitchen!

Megan Gerber
Properties Designer

Megan is currently serving as a production intern here at The Kitchen Theatre, and she is thrilled to be afforded the opportunity to design the properties for this production. This is Megan’s first opportunity to design on a professional level, her previous props experiences include working as a prop artisan for the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts in Santa Maria, CA (Summer 2012) and filling the role of props master for 4 years at Whittier College from whence she graduated in 2010. Some of her Whittier College credits include Pride and Prejudice, Urinetown, and Wonder of the World, which earned her Meritorious Achievement honors from the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival.

Lesley Greene
Sound Designer

Lesley has been a member of the Kitchen Theatre staff since 2003. She has degrees in physics, geology, and atmospheric science from Cornell University. It wasn't until a chance encounter with Rachel Lampert & Dancers in 1997 that she knew she was destined for a career in the arts. In addition to her producing responsibilities, Lesley’s work at the Kitchen has included composing music (Science Fair, Winter Tales, Emmett & Ella's Big Apple Escapade and others), playing flute, and acting. She also serves as the Kitchen Theatre's in-house sound and projections designer. Lesley is co-founder of Porchfest, a music festival held on the porches of Fall Creek. Her husband is Robbert van Renesse – Ithaca's only computer scientist/unicyclist/ukulele player. They have two wonderful daughters, Anneke and Tanya, and this year a Dutch exchange student named Bink as well!

Tyler M. Perry
Scenic & Lighting Designer

Tyler is a recent graduate of Ithaca College where he received a BFA in Theatrical Production Arts with concentration in Lighting and Scenic Design. Past Kitchen Theatre credits include: Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, Waiting for Spring, The Mystery of Irma Vep, In the Company of Dancers (Lighting Designer), Brokeology (Properties Designer), Bed and Sofa (Assistant Scenic Designer). Ithaca College credits include: The Magic Flute (Scenic Designer), The Light in the Piazza, How I Learned to Drive (Lighting Designer), The Little Prince (Assistant Lighting Designer), among others. His work has also been seen with Running to Places Theatre Company where he spent the season as Resident Designer: Oklahoma, Noises Off, Oliver, Cinderella (Scenic Designer) Hairspray, Joseph and...Dreamcoat (Scenic and Lighting Designer), Urinetown (Lighting Designer). He also has extensive work as an assistant/associate designer to Steve TenEyck with such companies as Ithaca College, Kitchen Theatre Co., Hangar Theatre, Merry-Go-Round Playhouse, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Florida Grand Opera, Mill City Summer Opera, and the Herson Group Ltd. www.tylermperrydesign.com

LaShawn Keyser
Production Stage Management