Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist Cast & Crew

Libby Belitsos (Oliver Twist)

11, appeared as Annie in Annie at the Chandler Center in Randolph and as Brigitta in Stowe Theater Guild's The Sound of Music last summer. She's played Molly, the littlest orphan in Annie (twice!) - with STG and at Northfield Elementary School, and drama camp productions include Really Rosie, The King & I, Peter Pan, The Jungle Book and HMS Pinafore. More recently she performed in the Montpelier Theatre Guild's musical revue and VSC's Winter Tales. Once Oliver Twist is over, she plans to learn to snowboard. Libby lives in Northfield and is a fifth-grader at River Rock School in Montpelier. She would like to thank her music teachers and directors, past and present, for their guidance and encouragement.

Ethan T. Bowen (Fagin)

is very happy to return to Vermont Stage for his twelfth show with the company and second with Jason Jacobs. Ethan was seen last season at VSC as Louis de Rougmont in Shipwrecked, Elliot in Opus, and in Winter Tales 2009 reading Kathy Blume's "Coming to Town, Part II" which featured Gonzo, the Elf.  An Artistic Associate with VSC, previous productions include the Moss Hart Award winning play Mad River Rising by Dana Yeaton, Midwives, O'Carollan's Farewell to Music, Piano Stories, Amadeus, and Someone Who'll Watch Over Me, among others. With an MFA from the Graduate Acting Program at New York University, he has worked with such theaters as: The Joseph Papp Public Theater, The Acting Company, Lost Nation Theater, St. Michael's Playhouse, and more recently in Washington DC at Woolly Mammoth Theater, Olney Theater Center, The Shakespeare Theatre, Roundhouse Theater and Theater J. A board member of the White River Valley Players, Ethan also directs, (including last fall's world premiere of RANSOM) teaches, and is a long-time artist-in-residence with the Vermont Stage Young Playwrights Program. Ethan lives with his lovely wife, Courtney, in central Vermont.

Jack Bradt (Mr. Brownlow)

Jack Bradt has been doing this theater thing for an awful long time. This is the first time, however, that he's encountered a director who could see--finally--his potential to be one of the STONES of HELL. Thank you Margo!

Bruce Campbell (Mr. Bumble)

has appeared in the VSC productions of Photograph 51, Oliver Twist, and Winter Tales, and in the Stowe Theater Guild production of Doubt. A member of the Dramatists Guild, his one-act Hooker’s Night Off was the inaugural production of the Indiana Playwrights Festival, and his feature film Knowing Lisa won the Silver Medal at the Houston International Film Festival.

Chris Caswell (Nancy)

Chris Caswell is a playwright and performer who gets her kicks playing cross-gender roles. She most recently directed Seth Jarvis' ICON. With VSC, she performed in Oliver Twist, Shipwrecked, Well and Winter Tales (thrice). She co-founded Heat & Hot Water Productions (heatandhotwater.com) with whom she creates and performs. Chris is humbled to be part of this wonderful cast and would like to thank Jason and Cristina for the opportunity.

Kevin Christopher (Mrs. Sowerberry/Mr. Fang/Toby Crackit)

last appeared as an actor in Maura Campbell's Wild Geese with the Green Candle Theatre Company.   He is also a founding member of the Saints and Poets Production Company and served as director, co-producer, puppet designer and puppeteer for their recent inaugural production of The Rocky Horror (Puppet) Show.  Kevin studied theatre at West Virginia University and film at the University of Texas at Austin.

Patrick Clow (Mr. Sowerberry/Mr. Grimwig)

lives in Williston, is a native Vermonter, and by day is a manager at LPA Design in South Burlington. This is his 5th VSC production - thank you Jason and Cristina! He was seen most recently in FlynnSpace during Winter Tales. His last appearance on the Flynn mainstage was as 'Smee' in Lyric Theatre Company's Peter Pan. Patrick directed Lyric's recent production of Hairspray. The Full Monty was 2009: he both directed it for Lyric and played 'Jerry' in Stowe Theatre Guild's production! He will be returning to the Stowe stage this summer as Sweeney Todd. Love to 7-year-old Elliott who endures daddy's wacky theatre schedule, and thanks to Elliott's mom, Kristen, for enabling such.

Emma Gonyeau (Violinist)

graduated from UVM in 2008 with a BA in Music Performance.  Her parents, Burlington music-scene pioneers Rachel Bissex and Stephen Goldberg, encouraged Emma to play and perform from an early age.  She has spent the past 16 years evolving her own sound and style on the violin and has recently been developing her teaching studio and performing opportunities.  Over the past few years, Emma has played in numerous Lyric Theater productions, been a member of the Montpelier Chamber Orchestra, and performed with multiple bands and singer-songwriters.  Currently, she spends much of her time teaching privately and in the Burlington Afterschool Strings Program.  Emma performs regularly in two bands: Frayed - an old time country/fiddle music trio, and Pink Fury - an all new Riot-Grrrl band where she rocks on electric violin and writes some of the group's original music.

Jordan Gullikson (Bill Sikes)

 is an actor, playwright and glass blower. Recently, he played Touchstone and Oliver in VT Stage's As You Like It and Michel in Saints and Poets's The Pillowman. Jordan studied at The Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City.

Seth Jarvis (Noah Claypole/Charley Bates)

is pleased to be making his first appearance with the Vermont Stage Company.  He has been seen recently in The Rocky Horror Puppet Show (Saints & Poets), Seeking... (Heat & Hot Water), An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein (Small Potatoes), Strawberries in January (Champlain Theatre), Much Ado About Nothing (Shelburne Players), and American Machine (Starry Night).  He is currently performing in a web series called /devs and finishing his new play, Icon.  Seth would like to thank Adrienne for her spark and vision.

Taryn Noelle (Charlotte/Tom Chitling/Rose Brownlow)

is absolutely thrilled to be a part of this phenomenal team and cast.  Taryn is a local dance teacher and choreographer, as well as being a Jazz vocalist and an actor.  She also has recently entered the Front of House world, as the new House Manager for the Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center, in Stowe. www.sprucepeakarts.org

David Symons (Accordionist)

a musical autodidact, founded and led the Eastern-European oriented bands Black Sea Quartet, Inner Fire District, The Salt Wives, and currently leads an activist street band, Burlington Brass Balagan. He is a former company member of Burlington's Spielpalast Cabaret, of which he was Co-Musical Director for several years. He has taught klezmer music at the Summit School in Montpelier, and gives accordion lessons to anyone who wants them. He is a proud street accordionist, and has inverted his hat all over America and Europe. He has appeared as an actor in a number of plays, including several by Burlington playwrights Stephen Goldberg and Mark Pekar, and as Hades in Anais Mitchell's folk opera Hadestown. He has directed and acted in two plays by Wallace Shawn, Marie and Bruce and The Fever, the latter being a two-hour monologue, which he performed in living rooms, bars, and restaurants around Vermont. He works as a taxi driver, and resides in Burlington in a crumbling house filled with antiquities, musical instruments, and scholarly housemates.

Robbie Tann (John Dawkins, "The Artful Dodger")

is thrilled to be making his VSC debut.  New York: Much Ado About Nothing (New York Classical Theatre), The History of War (NYMF), Horatio Rise (Theatre Askew) and Henry V (American Globe).  Regional: Heist!: Humana Festival, Dracula, and The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later at the Actors Theatre of Louisville.  Cinderella (Plano Repertory Theatre).  Robbie would like to thank everyone involved with the process!  Love to family and friends!

Syndi Zook (Mrs. Corney (later Mrs. Bumble))

has been singing, acting and directing in Vermont for over 30 years and is thrilled she still has a "first" left, as this is her initial collaboration with the Vermont Stage Company.  Having received her degree in acting from Emerson College, she has performed with almost every Vermont company, from the Danville Summer Singers to Lost Nation Theater, and has taught acting to students ages 5 to 88 through The Open Stage and Rice High School. Syndi is the Executive Director of Lyric Theatre Company and where she has directed or acted in upwards of 20 productions, most recently directing La Cage aux Folles on the Flynn Mainstage. Syndi also performs with the Queen City's premiere Drag Troupe, The House of LeMay, and played the titular role of Betsy in Dana Yeaton's play To Bed with Betsy on a tour of Yaroslavl, Russia.  Syndi gives many thanks to the inspirational Oliver Twist cast and artistic team and to her husband, Bones, for holding down the home front and holding fast her heart.

Neil Bartlett (Adapter, Original Director)

Oliver Twist was Neil Bartlett's twenty-first show at the Lyric Hammersmith since he became artistic director in 1994; others include productions of Wilde, Shakespeare, Shaw, Balzac, Somerset Maugham, Genet, Britten, Rattigan, Robin Maugham, Marivaux and Kleist, plus five Christmas shows.  Neil has also made work at, amongst others, the Drill Hall, the ICA, the Vauxhall Tavern, the Derby Playhouse, the Royal Court, the National Theatre, and at the Goodman, Chicago.  He was a founder-member of the music-theatre company Gloria, with whom he made thirteen new pieces of work including Sarrasine, A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep, and Night after Night.  Bartlett left the Lyric in November 2004.  Since then, he has resumed his career as an independent theatre-maker and freelance director, creating work for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the American Repertory Theatre, The Abbey in Dublin, the Aldeburgh Festival , The Brighton Festival, the Manchester International Festival and the Royal Vauxhall Tavern - amongst others. His translations and adaptations are performed widely across the English-speaking world, and his third novel, Skin Lane, was nominated for the Costa Book Award in 2007. In 2008 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Brookes University Oxford in recognition of his body of work and of his pioneering and continuing commitment to gay culture and civil rights.  In 2010 he created a new theatre piece for London's National Theatre, Or You Could Kiss Me, in collaboration with Handspring Puppet Company, the creators of Warhorse on Broadway; details of Neil's current projects can be found on his website, http://www.neil-bartlett.com/.  Photo by Camilla Broadbent.

Jason Jacobs (Director)

directed VSC productions of Oliver Twist, Opus, The Boycott and Vanya/Vermont. Regionally he directed Kathryn Blume's The Accidental Activist at the Kitchen Theatre in Ithaca. He was identified as a "2007 Person of the Year" by NYTheatre.com for his work as co-founder of Theatre Askew in New York City, for whom he directed: Bald Diva!, i google myself, The Tempest, The Tale of the Good Whistleblower of Chaillot's Caucasian Mother and Her Other Children of a Lesser Marriage Chalk Circle, and co-adapted/co-directed the episodic show, I Claudius, Live! Other New York productions include: Post Modern Living and the upcoming sequel, Lost In Staten Island, at La Mama's Club, Lavender Songs for TOSOS II (Bistro Award for special cabaret event), The Boycott, and Mario and the Magician for Center for Contemporary Opera. His play Another Horatio Alger Story was recently presented at the Metropolitan Playhouse's Horatio Alger Festival. As a guest artist at Long Island University he directed Bat Boy: The Musical and his first As You Like It. Jason is a teaching artist with Roundabout Theatre Company. MFA from Columbia and BA from Yale.

David Symons (Composer, Musical Director)

a musical autodidact, founded and led the Eastern-European oriented bands Black Sea Quartet, Inner Fire District, The Salt Wives, and currently leads an activist street band, Burlington Brass Balagan. He is a former company member of Burlington's Spielpalast Cabaret, of which he was Co-Musical Director for several years. He has taught klezmer music at the Summit School in Montpelier, and gives accordion lessons to anyone who wants them. He is a proud street accordionist, and has inverted his hat all over America and Europe. He has appeared as an actor in a number of plays, including several by Burlington playwrights Stephen Goldberg and Mark Pekar, and as Hades in Anais Mitchell's folk opera Hadestown. He has directed and acted in two plays by Wallace Shawn, Marie and Bruce and The Fever, the latter being a two-hour monologue, which he performed in living rooms, bars, and restaurants around Vermont. He works as a taxi driver, and resides in Burlington in a crumbling house filled with antiquities, musical instruments, and scholarly housemates.

Jenny C. Fulton (Costume and Scenic Designer)

Jenny designs space, objects and clothes for stage and film.  She has designed regularly for Vermont Stage since 2001, most recently Oliver Twist and The Glass Menagerie.  In NYC she's designed for Salt Theatre, Anne Kaufman and Clubbed Thumb, The Women's Project, as well as the NY premier of Kathryn Blume's The Boycott.  Regionally, American Repertory Theatre, Yale Rep, Philadelphia Shakespeare, Virginia Shakespeare, North Shore Music Theatre, Northern Stage, Lost Nation, St. Mike's Playhouse, and others.  Film design credits include indie films and PBS Channel 13's The American Novel.   She is also an educator and has held guest artist appointments at Hunter College, Mt. Holyoke, Bates College and is presently adjunct faculty at Keene State.  She holds degrees from Brandeis and Yale Drama, is a member of USA Local 829, and divides her time between drafty Vermont farmhouse and small Brooklyn apartment.   Love and thanks to Prof. Henry Fulton for the ties. 

John B. Forbes (Lighting Designer)

has previously designed the lighting for Photograph 51, Oliver Twist, The Glass Menagerie, Opus, My Ohio, King Lear, Inspecting Carol, Woody Guthrie's American Song, True West, Copenhagen, The Foreigner and The Drawer Boy at Vermont Stage Company.  In addition he has designed the lighting for productions at the Old Globe Theatre, the San Diego Repertory Theatre, the Center Repertory Company, and the Ensemble Theatre Company, all in California.  He has also designed lighting for Theatre Aspen in Colorado; the Riverside Shakespeare Company and Theatre Matrix in New York; the Arizona Theatre Company, and Saint Michael's Playhouse, the Big APE Dance Company and Lost Nation Theatre in Vermont.  He is the winner of three L. A. Dramalogue awards for his designs at the Old Globe Theatre and three Shelley Awards for his designs with the Center Repertory Company.  He is the faculty lighting designer at the University of Vermont in the Department of Theatre, and his lighting design for UVM's production of Metamorphoses was displayed in the Gallery Exhibit at the World Stage Design Exhibition in Toronto.  He has also taught at San Diego State University and the University of San Diego, and while at U.S.D., he also managed Shiley Theatre.  In that capacity he served as the technical liaison between the University and the Presidential Debate Commission for the final Presidential Debate of 1996 held there.

Jamien Lundy Forrest (Stage Manager)

Jamien is thrilled to return for another season with Vermont Stage Company.   Previous VT Stage stage management credits include Sylvia, Underneath the Lintel, Oliver Twist, Winter Tales, Quilters, and Vanya/Vermont.  While living in New York City, Jamien worked as the full time Technical Associate for Lincoln Center Institute, and stage managed The Gazillion Bubble Show off Broadway.  She has also designed lights for Wallis Knot Productions and New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts.  A 2001 UVM Theatre graduate, Jamien is happy to be back in Burlington with her husband and little boy.

Ellen O'Brien (Assistant Stage Manager)

Ellen is delighted to be working on her sixth VT Stage show.  As a teenager, she studied dance at the Banff School of Fine Arts, then went on to graduate from Colby College with a BA.  She danced with the University of Iowa Dance Company until she attended dental school and graduated with a DDS.  Since then she has been dividing her time between family, dentistry, and the performing arts.  Favorite past theater endeavors include Lyric Theater's South Pacific, Liz Lerman's Hallelujah Project, Circle in the Square Theater School's summer musical theater program and cabaret, and Bill Reed Voice Studio's summer musical theater intensives and cabarets. Ellen has choreographed and taught dance at schools in Vermont and for the VSA Arts program. She's currently a member of VSA's Awareness Theater Company. Ellen thanks Cristina Alicea for this great opportunity.  Thanks Tim, Alice, George, and James, for your love and support.

Sue Wade (Properties Coordinator)

is, as always, delighted to be working with Vermont Stage once again.  Knowing that she has to find many bushels of apples and a full-sized yew tree gives her a reason to get up on a cold morning.  

Dana J. Baker (Properties Assistant)

spent 20 years working in theaters from Cleveland to New Haven (including some time on Broadway, off-Broadway, and Off-Off Broadway) before moving to Vermont 10 years ago. He has been an actor, singer, dancer, company manager, producer, director, stage manager, scenic designer, go-fer, and properties master. He now spends his days bringing light into people's lives at the Lighting House in Shelburne. Previous productions with Vermont Stage include King Lear, True West, Doubt, and Virginia Woolf.

John D. Alexander (Dialect Coach)

John began acting in NYC, moved to Burlington in 1982, and returned to the boards in 1993. Since then, he has appeared in over 40 stage productions, aside from film/television/radio work. This year, he has performed in the one-man show, Bully! An Adventure with Teddy Roosevelt, as Feldzieg in The Drowsy Chaperone, Tom, Leslie, and Phyllis in Sylvia (VT Stage), and Treat in Orphans at Off Center for the Dramatic Arts, a venue that he co-founded. Favorite roles: Teach (American Buffalo); Prospero (The Tempest); Pozzo (Waiting for Godot [VT Stage]); Arthur Goldman (The Man in the Glass Booth); and Johnny Pateen (The Cripple of Inishmaan). Mr. Alexander has taught acting and dialect since 1996, and is a member of both SAG and Actors' Equity. He is glad to return to VT Stage for this, his seventh production, and to be with old and new friends in the cast and production team. *Actor appears courtesy of Actors' Equity Association.

Paul Ugalde (Fight Choreographer)

makes his 8th appearance with Vermont Stage Company having worked under the guidance of all three VT Stage Artistic Directors. He appeared in Amadeus, Our Town, The Miracle Worker, The Foreigner, King Lear, Prelude to a Kiss, and most recently played Charles in The Clean House. Paul has also staged various fight sequences and bits of violence for four VT Stage productions.

F. Patrick Orr (Technical Director)

Jeff Modereger (Scenic Artist)

is currently chair of the UVM Department of Theatre; 2012 marks Jeff's nineteenth year at UVM and tenth as chair. With 400 professional productions to his credits, his work as scenic designer/painter has been seen across the country in regional theatres, operas, national and international tours, educational institutions, as well as Broadway and Off-Broadway and the silver screen. Jeff is currently represented by the National Holocaust Museum's exhibit: Remember the Children: Daniel's Story. Jeff is a proud to be an original family member of the Vermont Stage Company: The Drawer Boy, Sylvia, Proof, Art, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Last Station, The Tempest, Amadeus, Glass Menagerie, Jacques Brel..., I Am My Own Wife,  Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Inspecting Carol, Souvenir and My Ohio. Jeff was also scenic artist for Opus, Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, and Sylvia.

Marta Pauer-Tursi (Costume Assistant)

is a former writer and editor at The New Yorker magazine where she covered the arts scene for Goings On About Town for more than ten years. She is currently working on a novel set in her native Budapest.

Suzanne Kneller (Costume Assistant)

transplanted herself to Vermont in '76 after earning a theater education degree and has been active in the local community theater scene since. She has designed lights, sets and costumes for Lyric Theatre and others.  Most recently she was costume designer for Steel Magnolias presented by Girl's Nite Out Productions. She lives and works in Hinesburg and is lucky to have great support from her family.