Girls Just Wanna Have Fund$

May 16-19, 2007

This world premiere, site-specific production on the theme of women and wealth (or the lack thereof) was commissioned by arts>World Financial Center, created by members of WP’s Labs, and presented for 13 free performances at the World Financial Center from May 16-19, 2007. The production included the following shorts:

Keep the Change by Joy Tomasko and Christina Gorman, directed by May Adrales, produced by Maria Goyanes & Karen Grenke
I Want What You Have by Saviana Stanescu, directed by Gia Forakis, produced by Leigh Goldenberg
Dime Show By Molly Rice, directed by May Adrales, produced by Karen Grenke
Remembrance by Katori Hall, directed by Jyana Gregory, produced by Linda Powell
A Peddler’s Tale: Buttons, Guts, and Bluetooth by Andrea Lepcio, directed by Kim Weild, produced by Patricia McNamara & Amy Kaissar
Song by Addie Brownlee, produced by Maria Goyanes

 

Christina Gorman

(Playwright – Keep the Change) Plays:  Split Wide Open: produced at Summer Play Festival; developed through Ensemble Studio Theatre’s New Voices Program; runner-up, Princess Grace Award (2005).  DNA:  produced at Hangar Theatre and New York International Fringe Festival; FringeNYC Award for Playwriting Excellence.  The Torture Project (collaboration):  fellowship, Drama League New Directors/New Works Program; presented in Six Figures Theatre Company’s Artists of Tomorrow Festival.  Other:  The Juilliard School, Lark Theatre Center, Hallie Flanagan Play Series/Women at Wings.  Current member of the Women’s Project Playwrights Lab.

Katori Hall

(Playwright – Remembrance) is an award-winning playwright and performer. This fall, her play, Hoodoo Love, will have its world premiere at the Cherry Lane Theatre, where it was developed under Lynn Nottage as part of the theatre’s 2006 Mentor Project. Hoodoo Love received three 2006 AUDELCO nominations (Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, August Wilson Playwright Award), winning for Best Supporting Actress. Hall is a 2007 winner of the Fellowship of Southern Writers Award in Drama, 2006 NYFA Fellow, and a 2006 writing workshop resident at the Royal Court Theatre.

Andrea Lepcio

(Playwright – A Peddler’s Tale) Andrea Lepcio’s plays have been developed and presented at Epiphany, Manhattan Theatre Source, Lady Cavaliers, New Shoe, Shalimar Productions, Titans, Williamsburg Art Nexus, Women’s Project, and Vital Theatre and in NY, and at Trustus, Hangar, Bloody Unicorn and Provincetown Theatre Company, regionally.  Her plays have been published in Plays and Playwrights, Estrogenius, lichen and by Smith & Kraus.  She directs the Dramatists Guild Fellows program. M.F.A. Carnegie Mellon University, M.B.A. UC Berkeley, and B.A. in Human Ecology, College of the Atlantic.

Molly Rice

(Playwright – The Dime Show) Molly’s work is nationally produced/ published. Residencies:  Missoula Colony; Voice and Vision; Hangar Theater. Awards: Weston Award; nominee, Outstanding Original Short Play, New York IT Awards. A two-time finalist for New Dramatists and the Heidemann Award, a finalist & semifinalist for the O’Neill, a finalist for the Jerome, and a three-time semifinalist for PlayLabs, Molly holds an MFA from Brown where she teaches playwriting, and will be replacing Wendy MacLeod for 2007-8 as Visiting Assistant Professor (playwriting) at Kenyon College.

Saviana Stanescu

(Playwright – I Want What You Have) is a Romanian-born playwright. Her plays have been produced in Europe and US. Recent New York productions include Waxing West and YokastaS at La MaMa Theater, Lenin’s Shoe at The Lark, and Aurolac Blues at Here Arts Center (published in Plays and Playwrights 2006). Fellowships/Awards: 2007 NYSCA playwright-in-residence with Women’s Project, TCG, Fulbright, Goldberg, Antoine Vitez, Best Romanian Play of the Year 2000. MA in Performance Studies, MFA in Dramatic Writing, NYU, Tisch School of the Arts.

Joy Tomasko

(Playwright – Keep the Change) A member of the Women’s Project Playwright’s Lab, Joy’s play Unfold Me will be produced this July at the Summer Play Festival in NYC directed by Linsay Firman. A recent MFA graduate of CalArts’ Writing for Performance Program, Joy previously worked at The Public Theater/NYSF for six seasons. With a wanderlust of her own, Joy never met a dime she didn’t like.

May Adrales

(Director – Keep the Change) is thrilled to be a part of The Women’s Project Directors Lab.  She is a Drama League Directing Fellow and a Directing Associate at the Lark Play Development Center.  May received a Van Lier Directing Fellowship and an SDCF Observership.  She is a member of the SoHo Rep Writers/Director’s Lab ‘06-07.  She also received a New York Theatre Workshop Directing Fellowship for 2006-07. May is an Artistic Associate at The Public Theater.  MFA, directing, Yale 2006.

Gia Forakis

(Director – I Want What You Have): recent credits: Inge’s Picnic, The Bay Theatre, Annapolis, MD., Sheridan’s The Rivals, Hudson Valley Shakespeare, Cold Spring, NY., Acts of Mercy, by Michael John Garcés, Rattlestick Playwright’s Theater, NYC. , Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, Milwaukee Shakespeare, WI. Gia holds a BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and an MFA from Yale School of Drama. She is a member of the Women’s Project Director’s Lab, an affiliated director The Lark Play Development Center, and a member of SSDC.

Jyana S. Gregory

(Director – Remembrance) runs the NYC-based theatre company ACTIVE EYE with whom she is currently creating a séance. Most recently she directed Iphigenia at Aulis at City College of New York.  Jyana spent 2 seasons at Cleveland Public Theatre as a Future Leaders grant recipient from Theatre Communications Group during which time she directed works by Suzan-Lori Parks, Wallace Shawn, and Adam Rapp.

Kim Weild

(Director – A Peddler’s Tale) New York premiere of Charles Mee Jr.’s Fetes de la Nuit, Uncle Vanya (Prague Quadrennial 2007), Paradise Now, Eccentricities of a Nightingale, Endgame. Assistant director: Michael Blakemore on Deuce, Roger Rees and Rick Elice on Double Double. Artistic Director of Collective Intelligence Arts, dedicated to the creation and development of new work, dynamic re-imaginings of the classics and the training of artists.  Extensive background in Suzuki/Viewpoints and Composition. .For more information:www.kimweild.com MFA Directing-Columbia University.

Brian H. Scott

(Set Design – A Peddler’s Tale) With SITI Company; Radio Macbeth, Hotel Cassiopeia, Death and the Plowman, bobrauschenbergamerica Systems/Layers, War of the Worlds Radio Play, With Rude Mechanicals: How Late It Was Late, Lipstick Traces, Big Love, El Paraiso, Cherrywood, Matchplay. Classic Stage Company: Hamlet, Richard II.

Brenda Abbandandolo

(Costume Designer – Remembrance) Most recently Brenda assisted William Ivey Long on the Broadway show Curtains.  She has also been assisting on various productions on and off Broadway.  Brenda earned her Bachelors degree from Northeastern University and will begin earning her M.F.A. in Costume Design from New York University in the fall.

Lisa Renee Jordan

(Costume Design – A Peddler’s Tale) Lisa Renee Jordan’s costume design credits include Suicide, Anyone? (Off-Broadway) The Witching Hour and Triangle (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Neglect, and Thicker than Water (Ensemble Studio Theatre), Dr. Faustus: Occult Remix, Collected Works of Billy the Kid, Uncle Vanya, A Dream Play, Eccentricities of a Nightingale,(Off-Off Broadway) Nights at the Circus (NYC Fringe Festival). Assistant design credits include Bernarda Alba (Lincoln Center Theatre), Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life (Broadway). She received her MFA in Costume Design from Carnegie Mellon University.

Christian Frederickson

(Sound Designer – A Peddler’s Tale): violist, composer, and sound designer, is a founding member of Rachel’s, an instrumental band with six albums on Touch and Go Records.  Recent projects: Hanjo at Japan Society; Fetes de la Nuit at Columbia Stages NYC; King Lear at Point B Productions, Nashville, TN; The History of the World in Saratoga Springs, NY.  Other credits: The Water Project at Bowdoin College, ME; Violent Delights at the Public Theater; Christina Olson: American Model at P.S. 122.  Love to Tara.

Leigh Goldenberg

(Producer – I Want What You Have) is a founding member and managing director of Stone Soup Theatre Arts, a socially conscious theatre company for whom she has been producing since 2001. She has also worked with Clubbed Thumb, Young Playwrights, Primary Stages, MCC and spent three years with The Pearl Theatre Company. Currently, she is the Finance Associate at HERE Arts Center. Leigh is a proud member of the Women’s Project Producer’s Lab and a graduate of Marymount Manhattan College’s Producing and Management program.

Maria Goyanes

(Producer – Keep the Change and Song)joined the full-time staff at the Public Theater as an Artistic Associate in August of 2004.  As a freelancer, she is the Producer for the Obie-winning 13P, also known as 13 Playwrights, Inc. Previously, she was the Associate Producer at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, RI.  She is co-chair of the Soho Rep Writer/ Director Lab, and proud to be a member of the Women’s Project Producer’s Lab under the guidance of incredible Julie Crosby.

Karen Grenke

(Producer – Keep the Change and The Dime Show) founded the production company Cagey Productions. With Cagey she has produced at HERE, Theatre for the New City, the Ontological, chashama, Metropolitan Playhouse, BAX, The Brick and The Palace of Variety.  She has also produced for Shumka Dance/Theater and The Bridge Collective, both in NYC and on tour.  She began her career at New York Theatre Workshop and is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College.  Cagey’s ongoing project The Blue Puppies Cycle culminates in winter 2007 at The Chocolate Factory.

Amy Kaissar

(Co-Producer – A Peddler’s Tale) Amy Kaissar is the Producing Director of Epiphany Theater. Directing Credits: Searching for St. Anthony (Samuel French Festival), If You Know You’re Shallow . . . ? (Funny Woman Festival), Pennsyltucky, and Another Round (Epiphany Theater), Crossing Over (Pittsburgh Public Theatre Workshop), You Don’t Miss What You Never Had (WQED). Author of Theater Subscriptions in a Changing World (published in US and Australia). Amy has also worked with NYTW, The Roundabout, and Classic Stage. BFA Carnegie Mellon, MFA Columbia.

Patricia McNamara

(Co-Producer – A Peddler’s Tale) Patricia has produced (with Etcetera Theatre Company) and directed Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls at the American Theatre of Actors; produced, again with E.T.C., George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession in repertory with Mrs. Weinberg’s Profession at Creative Place Theatre. Recent directing credits: Stripped, Starstruck & Monkeys Theatre Company; The Irish Wake, Samuel French Theatre Festival. Patricia is a board member of ShakespeareNYC and is also an actress.

Linda Powell

(Producer – Remembrance) is founder of Eliza’s Daughter Productions which is dedicated to staging provocative, engaging, and soulful theater from a diversity of American voices.

Chriselle Almeida

(Performer – I Want What You Have) received a BFA in Acting from the University of Connecticut. Off Broadway:  A First Class Man, Raisins Not Virgins, Abortion and The End of the Apurnas. Selected Regional: Shakespeare on the Sound: The Tempest, Connecticut Repertory Theatre: Featherless Angels – director David Esbjornson, Exit the King, Love’s Fire, Lover’s and Executioner’s, Trojan Women, and Flattery Will Get You, as well as New Day Repertory Theatre: Twelfth Night, Valley Song and Shaking the Mess Outta Misery

Addie Brownlee

(Composer and Performer — Song) is thrilled to be working with the Women’s Project. Brownlee is an Americana songwriter and singer who performs in NYC at such venues as The Living Room, The Cutting Room and The Bitter End as well as touring internationally. She has also worked as an actor off-Broadway. www.addiebrownlee.com

Davina Cohen

(Dime – Keep the Change): Upcoming performances include 365 Days/365 Plays with SITI at the Public Theater and a night of Ken Urban with Theatre 1050.  Add’l: Berkeley Rep, SF Opera, Magic Theater, SF’s infamous Trannyshack.  Member, foolsFURY Theater Co; frequent collaborator with the Lark and Bay Area Playwrights Foundation.  AEA/AGMA, BA Columbia U.

Ginger Eckert

(Clown – The Dime Show) Ginger Eckert’s favorite works include The Whore of Sheridan Square (LaMaMa) and The K of D a one-woman play by Laura Schellhardt (Kennedy Center). With Trinity Rep: A Pound on Demand with Brian Dennehy, The Long Christmas Ride Home, and The Imaginary Invalid. In San Francisco: Magic Theater, Marin Theater Company, Theatre Rhinoceros. MFA, Brown/Trinity Consortium.

Edwina Findley

(Actor – Remembrance) is an NYU alumna.  Her credits include two seasons on HBO’s The Wire, Law and Order, One Life to Live and plays with the Atlantic Theatre Company, the Shakespeare Theatre, the Kennedy Center, and the Cleveland Playhouse.  As a singer, she has toured the U.S., Europe, and the Caribbean. www.edwinafindley.com

LeeAnne Hutchison

(Performer – I Want What You Have) Selected: Mother/Death in Vacant Lot (DiVL!) @ 15 Nassau Street (developed at Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center), Mary Brenham/Our Country’s Good (Culture Project), Bertha Dorset/Innocents (Ohio Theater), Stephen Wadsworth’s Don Juan (McCarter), Helena/A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Hamptons Shakespeare Festival), Euridice/Orpheus (HERE), Crystal Dawn/Full Bloom (Vital Theater), Esther Robziemsky/Embracing Freedom (Ellis Island), Artistic Associate, Voice & Vision Theater.

Khris Lewin

(Performer – A Peddler’s Tale) Khris Lewin has performed, in the past year, in Chuck Mee’s  Fetes de la Nuit (d. Kim Weild), in Jules Feiffer’s Knock! Knock!, in  the world premiere of the new translation of Brecht’s Private Life of the Master Race.  This summer, he’ll be performing the title roles in  the twin Elizabethan plays Hamlet and Antonio’s Revenge at  Theatreworks in Colorado Springs.  Training: BA in drama from Duke  University; MFA in acting from the National Theatre Conservatory in  Denver, Colorado.  www.khrislewin.com

Anthony Manna

(Henry – Keep the Change) New York: The Hasty Heart (Keen Company), Mickey Mouse is Dead (59E59 Theatre/East to Edinburgh), Romeo and Juliet (ShakespeareNYC), Fucking Ibsen Takes Time (SoHo Playhouse/NYFringe).  Regional: Black Snow (dir Evan Yionoulis), The Taming of the Shew (dir Mark Lamos), and You Never Can Tell (dir Stan Wojewodski, Jr.), all at Yale Repertory Theatre.  Film: Being Jonah and Devolving (Best Actor in a Leading Role, 2004 Sundeis Film Festival).  Training: MFA Yale School of Drama.

KK Moggie

(Performer – A Peddler’s Tale) KK Moggie is a recent graduate of the MFA acting program at Columbia University. A native of New Zealand and Malaysia, she is thrilled to be working with Women’s Project on A Peddler’s Tale. Many thanks to Khris Lewin and Kim Weild.

Sara Moore

(Clown – The Dime Show) Comedienne and playwright Sara Moore has worked for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, The Krofft Puppets, and The Pickle Family Circus, among others. She has been awarded fellowships from The Pew Charitable Trusts, The McKnight Foundation, and The Jerome Foundation. She is currently writing The Supers, an eccentric opera.

Dominique Morisseau

(Actor – Remembrance), a proud Detroit native, is an actress/writer with a BFA in Theatre from the University of Michigan. Her favorite credits include: The Wedding Band (dir: Michelle Shay), The Bridge Party (w/Ruby Dee), Unspeakable (SoHo Rep) and Breath Boom (MCC Theatre).  She is currently an Actress-In-Residence at the Creative Arts Team.

Sarah Murphy

(Maggie – Keep the Change) is a founding member of Bakerloo Theatre Project, a classical company based in NYC and Troy, NY. With Bakerloo she has appeared in Antigone, Love’s Labour’s Lost and Twelfth Night among others. Sarah has also worked with the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey and the Human Race Theatre Company.

Tamilla Woodard

(Performer – I Want What You Have) most recently wrapped shooting THE PROJECT. In the last 365 days or so: Performance: The Faith Project: Beyond Belief , Center Stage/Genesis Salon; Black Snow, Yale Rep; Huntington Theatre’s Breaking Ground Festival; After All, Hudson Stage; Slovaks!,Galapagos Art Space. Directing: Toni Morrison at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Fresh Play Festival, Manhattan Class Company, Here.This.Now at NY International Fringe Festival and Symphony Space; Mr. Hoover’s Tea Party, Off World Theatre, Valiant, Greenway Arts/Los Angeles, Impact Festival/Culture Project and Urban Stages.

Taibi Magar

(Assistant Director, The Dime Show, Keep The Change) Directing credits include: Louder Than Words (Kids With Guns), Chuck Mee Challenge (Six Figures), Orson’s Shadow (Outrageous Fortune), HAMLET/machine (Blue Rose Theatre), Frankie & Johnny…(Otterbein College). She frequently stage manages for LAByrinth and the Public Theater. A graduate of Otterbein College, and a member of Lincoln Center Director’s Lab.

Howard S. Klein

(Production Stage Manager) Howard is an Actors Equity Association Stage Manager.  He is the Production Manager and Lighting Designer for the dance troupe, Galumpha.  Howard is also a founding member of newFangled theatreR, an ever-evolving ensemble theatre company dedicated to the production of affordable, audience-centric and provocative theatrical events. www.galumpha.com; www.myspace.com/newfangledtheatrer

Hilary Austin

(Assistant Stage Manager) recently returned from the Perseverance Theatre in Juneau, Alaska where she stage managed the world premier of Raven Odyssey.  She is an Adjunct Artist with Theater Mitu and is a recent graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Colleen Jasinski

(Production Assistant – I Want What You Have) is thrilled to be a part of such an exciting project. As an actor, she was most recently seen as The Stripper in the critically acclaimed American premiere of Hanoch Levin’s Job’s Passion, presented by Theatre for the New City last fall.Some other favorite roles include Julie in Le Wilhelm’s Bubbling, Suzanne Gold-Stein in Twilight of the Golds, and Mariette in Neil Simon’s The Dinner Party. Colleen is currently a student at Weist-Barron Studios, and a member of the 2006-2007 New Perspectives Theatre Apprentice Company. She holds an MFA in Stage Management from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and a BA in Theater from SUNY New Paltz. Thanks to Leigh for the opportunity!

Dan Dinero

(Production Assistant – Remembrance) is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Performance Studies at New York University. Dan has produced and directed several shows in New York City, and has also assisted Jeff Calhoun on the Broadway productions of Big River and Brooklyn. He is excited to be working with Jyana again.

Sorrell Sanders

(Production Assistant – A Peddler’s Tale) Brand new to town and a veteran of the stage, Sorrell is thrilled to be involved with Women’s
Project. A graduate from Savannah College of Art and Design film and theater departments, Sorrell loves to tell a story. Look for her in lights – she’ll be there
someday.