The Summer of the Swans - JoeCalarco.net

"...excellent drama...superior acting...
The performances...are uniformly excellent....
Those who see this show can count them-
selves among the fortunate."
The New York Times
click for full text of review

"a poignant story of loyalty and love between 14-year-old
Sara and her disabled brother, Charlie"

based on the Newbury Award-winning novel by Betsy Byars

directed by
Joe Calarco
(Shakespeare's R&J and Sarah, Plain & Tall)

with
Angela Bullock (HBO's OZ), Bethany Butler,
Greg Shamie (Shakespeare's R&J), Dustin Sullivan,
Kate Wetherhead (Sarah, Plain & Tall), and John Lloyd Young (Sarah, Plain & Tall)

Lucille Lortel Theatre
121 Christopher Street, NYC
(betw. 7th Avenue and Hudson)

Cast and Crew Bios

ANGELA BULLOCK (Aunt Willie): New York Theatre: Living in the Wind - American Place Theatre; June and Jean in Concert - Signature Theatre Company; Washington Square Moves - Primary Stages; The Five Hysterical Girls Theorem - Target Margin. Regional Theatre: An American Daughter - Pioneer Theatre Company; The Cherry Orchard - Guthrie Theatre; The Cure at Troy - Yale Repertory Theatre; Fires in the Mirror - Arizona Theatre Company.

BETHANY BUTLER (Wanda) is proud to be making The Summer of the Swans her Off-Broadway debut. A graduate of New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, where she doubled majored in Theatre and English, Bethany also trained in Los Angeles and in London at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. New York stage includes: The Moon of the Caribbees (Flea Theatre), Finding Grafenberg (Blue Heron Arts Center), and Richard III (American Globe Theatre).

GREG SHAMIE (Frank) recently returned from LA, having played Casca in Julius Caesar, a co-star on "Six Feet Under," and a role in the film Levity with Billy Bob Thornton and Holly Hunter. He originated the role of Romeo in Joe Calarco's Shakespeare's R&J and is very excited to be working with Joe Calarco, again, along with this wonderful cast.

DUSTIN SULLIVAN (Joe Melby, Charlie u/s) is an '02 graduate of Ithaca College with a BFA in Acting. Since coming to NYC, he has appeared in several readings for New York Theatre Workshop as well as performances in Two Parties at the 78th Street Theatre Lab and Karaoke: A New Cabaret Comedy.

KATE WETHERHEAD (Sarah) appeared as Anna in last summer's production of Sarah, Plain & Tall (Lucille Lortel Theatre). Other New York credits include A Christmas Carol (TWUSA) and The Golem Analysis (Expaned Arts). Regionally, Kate has appeared in The Spitfire Grill (Skylight Opera Theatre) and The Love of Three Oranges (Williamstown). Most recently, Kate completed filming an independent short entitled Staple Girl. www.katewetherhead.com

JOHN LLOYD YOUNG (Charlie): Off-Broadway: Sarah, Plain & Tall (Caleb), Lucille Lortel Theatre, dir. Joe Calarco. Other NY appearances: the Obie-winning Target Margin Theatre, Cherry Lane, John Houseman, Jose Quintero, "Moritz" in Spring Awakening (Expanded Arts). Regional: McCarter, Kennedy Center. TV: computer tech "Cooper" - "Law & Order," "Saturday Night Live." Graduate: Brown University. www.johnlloydyoung.com

CHRISTOPHER SCOTT FULLER (Frank/Joe Melby u/s) hails from Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He is a graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy and studied drama and musical theatre at the University of Cincinnati (CCM). Chris has performed at the Juilliard School, Mountain Playhouse, Ivoryton Playhouse, Seven Angels Theatre, St. Patrick's Cathedral and St. John's the Divine. Favorite roles include: Our Town (George), Caught in the 'Net (Gavin), and The Fantasticks (Matt).

EMILIE MADISON (Sarah/Wanda u/s) Emilie is a 2003 BFA graduate of the Acting Conservatory at SUNY Purchase College, where favorite roles include "Mary Lou Bolton" from No Place To Be Somebody, and "The Heron" from Peter Brook's Conference of the Birds. She has also trained at the Public Theater / NYSF's Shakespeare Lab, and the British American Drama Academy. Emilie is thrilled to be making her professional debut with such a wonderful cast.

VANESSA SHAW (Aunt Willie u/s) Before gracing the stage as both playwright and star of Welcome Home Marian Anderson, Vanessa Shaw has performed leads in several Broadway shows, both regional and local theatres, and in national touring companies. Also, theatres and concert stages across Europe. She joined Actors Equity at the tender age of nineteen.

JULIA JORDAN (Author) has four plays being produced in New York this season. They are St. Scarlet at the Ontological, directed by Chris Messina, Tatjana in Color at the Culture Project, directed by Will Pomerantz, The Summer of the Swans at The Lortel, directed by Joe Calarco, and Boy at Primary Stages in the spring, also directed by Joe Calarco. Boy received the Honorable Mention from the Susan Smith Blackburn Award committee. It was commissioned by South Coast Repertory and included in their Pacific Playwrights Festival, 2002. Tatjana in Color was included in Women Playwrights, The Best Plays of 1997 published by Smith and Kraus, received the Francesca Primus Prize and was short-listed for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award. Tatjana was produced by Arthur Penn and the Actor's Studio Free Theatre 1998 and at the Contemporary American Play Festival in 1999. She was also the librettist working with Larry O'Keefe (composer) and Nell Benjamin (lyricist) on the one-act musical The Mice, which was produced as part of Harold Prince's 3hree at the Prince Musical Theatre in Philadelphia, 2000, as well as at the Ahmanson in Los Angeles, 2001. The musical's book was reviewed by the New York Times as having "details too delicious to divulge." She worked with the same team on a second musical, an adaptation of Sarah, Plain & Tall that ran at the Lucille Lortel in 2002. Her short film, The Hat, which she wrote and directed, premiered at Sundance in 2000 and is currently showing on IFC. She has had two ten-minute pieces produced at The Actors Theatre of Louisville, Mpls./St. Paul, a Heideman Award winner in 1999 and Nightswim in 1998 and 2002. Both will be published by Vintage this fall. She has written the book for the Moscow Circus's Winter Queen show in 2002. She has been commissioned by: Manhattan Theatre Club, South Coast Repertory, the NEA in association with Primary Stages, GeVa Theater, the Sloane Foundation, Theatreworks/USA and the Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Program of West Virginia. Her plays have been workshopped at The Sundance Institute, The Playwrights Center of Mpls., GeVa Theater, The Cleveland Playhouse and Manhattan Theatre Club. She was a playwriting fellow at Juilliard from 1995-97 and at Manhattan Theatre Club from 1999-2000. She received her Master of Philosophy in Creative Writing from Trinity College, Dublin. She is a member of New Dramatists and the Dramatist's Guild.

JOE CALARCO (Director): click for bio

ROBIN D. CARUS (Casting Director): is the Casting Director for Theatreworks/USA where she is knee-deep in casting its fall season. Current projects include: The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen (Abingdon Theatre); Daddy Kathryn and Strange News From Another Planet (Fringe); Sarah, Plain and Tall. She has cast many inceptions of the musical Like You Like It which has workshopped at NAMT, ASCAP, BMI, and the Musical Mondays series at the Century Center For The Performing Arts. Off-Broadway: Sarah, Plain & Tall (check it out at the O'Neill Festival this summer!)and Romeo and Juliet (Lucille Lortel Theatre). Off-Off Broadway: City of Dreams (EST, Midtown International Theatre Festival), First In Flight (EST), Roadicide: the Album (American Living Room Festival). Regional credits include: Queen Esther (Forum Theatre, NJ). You can check out her website at www.robindcarus.com. Graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

OBADIAH EAVES (Music) Credits include F***ing A, References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot and Hamlet at the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theatre, Oedipus at Classic Stage Company, Blues Clues Live at Radio City Music Hall, and work for the Acting Company, Blue Light, Women's Project, and LaMama ETC, among others. Obadiah's music for television can be heard on HBO Family, Nickelodeon, and Noggin. He has appeared as an acoustic and electric violinist in numerous film and television scores, and his band Big Hair has released two nationally distributed CDs.

JAMES WOLK (Scenic Designer) Gold Rush for TWUSA, Daisy in the Dreamtime at the Abingdon Theatre, Parker Family Circus and Private Battles by Jan Buttram, Boys' Life at Lincoln Center, Fun and Nobody, Three Sisters, all directed by William H. Macy, Dangerous Corner, directed by David Mamet, Milk and Honey, directed by Richard Sabellico, Born Guilty, directed by Jack Gelber. Director for Zona, the Ghost of Greenbrier, Bruno Hauptmann Kissed my Forehead. In Germany: Gypsy for Theater Magdeburg, My Fair Lady and West Side Story for the Staedtische Buehnen Augsburg, Funny Girl for the Staatstheater am Gaertnerplatz (Munich). Regional credits: The Steward of Christendom at Huntington Theatre, The Importance of Being Earnest at Cincinnati Playhouse, A View From the Bridge at The Pioneer Theatre, Pericles at NJ Shakespeare Festival.

AMELA BAKSIC (Costume Design) New York City credits include productions at 2econd Stage (...in the absence of spring...), Playwrights Horizons (Light Years), New York Theatre Workshop (What You Get and What You Expect and A Streetcar Named Desire), Variety Arts (Endpapers), WPA, McGinn/Cazale, Actors Studio, Ensemble Studio Theatre. Regional work: Hartford Stage, Hangar Theatre, GeVa Theatre, Milwaukee Rep, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Signature Theatre, VA, Stratford Festival of Canada; also Shakespeare's R&J at Bath Shakespeare Festival, written and directed by Joe Calarco. Awarded NEA/TCG design fellowship.

ERIC SHIM (Sound Designer) also designed the last two TWUSA productions at the Lortel: Sarah, Plain & Tall and Romeo + Juliet. Recent projects include Romeo and Juliet for the Great Lakes Theatre Festival, Lee Blessing's Black Sheep at Barrington Stage, and Rattlestick Theatre's production of Adam Rapp's Faster.

MONICA HENDERSON (Assistant Director) grew up in Philadelphia and attended city public schools. She graduated from Harvard in 1999. Henderson has also assisted Emily Mann, Regina Taylor, Lisa Peterson, Doug Wright, and Tina Packer. In March, she assisted Calarco on his brilliant Romeo and Juliet adaptation, Shakespeare's R&J which received rave reviews at the Bath Shakespeare Festival, England. She was a 2002-2003 Van Lier Directing Fellow at Second Stage Theatre and is currently a Directing Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop.

EMILY N. WELLS (Stage Manager) NYC Credits: Electra and Swan Lake (B'way productions); Sarah, Plain & Tall (last year's TWUSA production at the Lucille Lortel). Also Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story (national tour) and regional and stock theatres all over the country. Directing: The Art of the Stalker (Premiere, NYC), Now, After the Party, Jason & the Argonauts (TWUSA).

THEATREWORKS/USA, founded in 1961, is America's foremost professional theatre for young and family audiences. Its mission is to create imaginative and sophisticated shows that are educational, entertaining, and thought-provoking. Theatreworks' honors include a Drama Desk Award, Off-Broadway's Lucille Lortel Award, the Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation Award, the William M. Dawson Award for "Programmatic Excellence" given by the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, and the Medal of Honor from the Actor's Fund of America. www.theatreworksusa.org

THE LUCILLE LORTEL THEATRE FOUNDATION was created by Lucille Lortel in order to foster and encourage excellence and diversity in the arts. The Foundation is committed to faithfully preserving the rich history of the theatre community and support its continued prosperity. Along with programs such as the Lucille Lortel Room of the Theatre on Film and Tape Archives at Lincoln Center and the Playwright's Sidewalk (NYC's only tribute to the international roster of playwrights whose works have been produced Off-Broadway), the Foundation launched its first grant program in April 2002, providing two-year general operational support to 49 non-profit theatre companies in NYC. The Foundation also launched the Internet Off-Broadway Database (www.iobdb.com), allowing users to search any show or person credited Off-Broadway. Since 1999, the Theatre has been used by companies ranging from Theatre for a New Audience and Manhattan Theatre Club to the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, AIDS Theatre Project and Community Board 2. The Lucille Lortel Theatre hosts the annual Lucille Lortel Awards for Outstanding Achievement Off-Broadway. The ceremony, produced by the Foundation and the League of Off-Broadway Theatres and Producers, has honored such theatre greats as Uta Hagen, Jason Robards, Edward Albee, Arthur Miller, Eileen Heckart and Jane Alexander. For a complete listing of the Foundation's programs, a history of the Lucille Lortel, and links to many philanthropic and theatre-related sites, please visit www.lortel.org.

ACTORS EQUITY ASSOCIATION, founded in 1913, represents more than 45,000 actors and stage managers in the U.S. Equity negotiates wages and working conditions, providing a wide range of benefits, including health and pension plans. Equity seeks to foster the art of live theatre as an essential component of our society. www.actorsequity.org