The Clean House Cast & Crew
Dana Block (Lane)
recently completed her MFA under Michael Kahn at The Shakespeare Theater Company and George Washington University, in Washington, D.C. This Fall she appeared as Aphrodite, The Therapist and other roles (including accordion player) in Lost Nation Theater Co's Metamorphosis. Previous regional credits include work on The Bridge Project with Richard Foreman, several roles at Kentucky Shakespeare Festival, Irish Classical Theater, Torn Space and Subversive Theater in Buffalo, NY, San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, Northlight Theater in Chicago. She is the author of several one-woman shows and is currently working on her most recent piece, entitled Queen Kong which she hopes to preview at Festivals summer of 2012. Teaching Shakespeare to teens is her passion, and she has pioneered a project for Teens called "Planet Shakespeare." She thanks Cristina Alicea and VSC!
Alicia Kaplan (Ana)
Studied ballet under the tutelage of Nina Novak, and performed with the Ballet Nacional de Venezuela. Dance studies in New York with Maria Swoboda, Luigi, and Merce Cunningham, and acting with Uta Hagen and Sonia Moore at the Stanislavski Center for Performing Arts. Her acting debut in New York was in the world premiere of Roman Chalbaud's The Terrible Angels at the Henry Street Playhouse. She has performed in the United States, Venezuela, and Mexico in more than 250 productions, including television series, films, theatre, commercials, and broadcasting. She has portrayed Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian, North and South American characters in contemporary and classic comedies & dramas in English & Spanish. OFF-BROADWAY (New York): The Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre, Repertorio Español, The Public Theatre, The Pearl Theatre, The Theater of the Americas, among others. REGIONAL: Gala Theatre (Washington D.C.): Dinner for Two, by Santiago Moncada and Lope de Vega's El Rufian Castrucho. The Zach Theatre (Austin, Texas): The Clean House by Sara Ruhl. Pasadena Playhouse (California): Penetratus by Betty Kaplan. AWARDS: The Association of Latin Critics of New York (A.C.E.), Aplausos, Palmas de Oro, the Latin American Theatre Ensemble, The Screen Actors' Guild's Joseph C. Riley Service Award for her work with the Equal Ethnic Opportunities Committee, and the Medaille D'Argent from the Société Académique D'Éducation et D'Encouragement from France in recognition of her contribution to the acting profession. SAG, AFTRA, AEA, and H.O.L.A. A Founding member of The East Harlem Council for the Arts & Board Member of the Julia de Burgos Latino Cultural Center. Alicia is the Founder & Producing Artistic Director of Danisarte, now in its 19th year, a not-for-profit bilingual theatrical production company whose mission is to develop original productions in English and Spanish (http://www.danisarte.org/.) and showcase the talents of minority artists. Appears courtesy of Actor's Equity Association.
Deanna McGovern (Matilde)
NY Credits: An Impending Rupture of the Belly (Godlight Theatre Co. @ Theatre Row- NYIT Award Winner- Outstanding Actress in a Featured Role), 1984, The Basketball Diaries, Slaughterhouse-Five (Godlight Theatre Co. @ 59 E 59 Theaters), Sweet, Sweet Spirit (Planet Connections Festivity), Birds (First Look Theatre Co @ NYU), Photosynthesis (FRINGE NYC), The Big Funk (Tobacco Bar). Regional: After Ashley (Woolly Mammoth), I Heart Kant (George Street Playhouse 2nd Stage), Dracula, Goody F***ing Two Shoes, Uncle Sam's Satiric Spectacular (Actors Theatre of Louisville/ Humana Festival). The Lost Colony and Guiding Light. BA in Theatre from The University of Tennessee. Thanks and gratitude to Cristina. Love and thanks to my beautiful and supportive parents and friends. Questa performance è dedicato a mia nonna, Iva Centofanti.
Paul Ugalde (Charles)
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.
Ruth Wallman (Virginia)
appeared off- and off-off-Broadway, and has performed in northern Vermont for over twenty years. VSC productions include True West, Inspecting Carol and Prelude to a Kiss. Champlain Theater Productions: Beauty Queen of Leenane, Cripple of Inishmaan, Antigone, Trojan Women and All My Sons. At Lost Nation Theater: A Little Night Music, Collected Stories, Mousetrap, Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and Lost in Yonkers. Lyric: Oklahoma!, Pippin; and for Vermont Shakespeare Company: A Comedy of Errors. Ruth is the Executive Director of the Lake Champlain Islands Chamber of Commerce. Training: MFA Yale Drama School.
Sarah Ruhl (Playwright)
Plays include: In the Next Room, or the vibrator play (Broadway 2009, 2010 Pulitzer Prize Finalist), The Clean House (2005 Pulitzer Prize Finalist; The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, 2004); Passion Play, a cycle (Pen American Award, The Fourth Freedom Forum Playwriting Award from The Kennedy Center); Dead Man's Cell Phone (Helen Hayes Award for Best New Play); Melancholy Play; Demeter in the City (9 NAACP Image Award nominations), Eurydice; Orlando; and Late: a cowboy song. Her plays have been produced at Lincoln Center Theater, Goodman Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, Second Stage, Arena Stage, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Yale Repertory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Cornerstone Theater, The Wilma Theater, Madison Repertory Theatre, and the Piven Theatre, among others. Her plays have also been produced internationally, and have been translated into Polish, Russian, Spanish, Norwegian, Korean, German and Arabic. Originally from Chicago, Ms. Ruhl received her M.F.A. from Brown University where she studied with Paula Vogel. In 2003, she was the recipient of the Helen Merrill Emerging Playwrights Award and the Whiting Writers' Award. She is a member of 13P and New Dramatists and won the MacArthur Fellowship in 2006. She is a recent recipient of the PEN Center Award for a mid-career playwright.
Cristina Alicea (Director)
Cristina has been an arts administrator and director for over a decade. Prior to coming to Vermont Stage Company, she lived in New York for 9 years, directed over 20 plays, a majority of which were new plays by emerging playwrights, and worked with prominent organizations throughout the City including The Ensemble Studio Theatre, The FringeNYC Festival, The Soho Playhouse, and The Culture Project. Cristina is also the co-founder of MTWorks, a New York City based theatre company whose mission is to birth new plays inspired by playwrights and regions outside of New York, and served as its Executive Director for 5 seasons. With MTWorks she directed 5 world premieres and was the creator of their flagship program The National NewBorn Festival. Most recently, Cristina spent a year working as the Assistant to the Managing Director at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, DC. Cristina was a finalist for a Denham fellowship given by the SDC for emerging female directors, is a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab, and is an associate member of the Society of Directors and Choreographers. Cristina has a Bachelor of Arts in Theater from George Mason University.
Tara Lee Downs (Assistant Director)
originally moved to Vermont in 1998 to ski race and study theatre at Goddard College, but took a 6yr academic break to be a mom. She finished her undergrad at Davis & Elkins College in her home state of West Virginia, with a BA in Theatre Arts in 2007. She recently finished her 5th season at Lost Nation Theater Company, serving as Company Manager, Education Coordinator and resident artist. Her most recent directing credits include LNT's Bully, Willy Wonka, Moonlight & Magnolias, Fully Committed, Rose, Alice In Wonderland, and Waiting for Godot. Burlington directing credits include; Orphans, American Buffalo and The Pillowman, which were both picked by the Burlington Free Press in Best Bets-Year in Review: Top Plays for 2009 & 2011 in Burlington. Other favorite directing credits include One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Thom Pain, Macbeth, and Urinetown. She has recently appeared on the LNT stage as Betty, in David Budbill's A Song for My Father, as a Beast in Moxie Productions' world premiere of Sea Room, and will be appearing this winter in the upcoming production of Aunt Dan & Lemon, opening at the Off Center for the Dramatic Arts.
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.
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.
Christine Brauch (Lighting Assistant)
has a BA in Theatre from UVM and is grateful for this opportunity to work on The Clean House. Previous lighting credits include Steel Magnolias, several one-act plays, and co-designing VSC's own Winter Tales. She lives in Burlington, VT, and wants to congratulate everyone on a successful run!
Catherine Vigne (Costume Designer)
is from Monkton, Vermont. She has worked on many shows in many theaters, including the Goodspeed Opera House, North Shore Music Theater, and the Breadloaf School of English. Her previous designs include the Waterbury Festival Players 2009 season, No End of Blame (PTP/NYC), The Five Hysterical Girls Theorem, In the Blood, In a Pig's Valise, Vampire (Middlebury College), and associate design for The Bewitched (Middlebury College). She is excited to be working with Vermont Stage again, after designing costumes for My Ohio and last season's Sylvia.
Jeff Modereger (Scenic Designer)
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.
Sue Wade (Props 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.
Martha Goode (Sound Designer)
Martha's favorite Sound Design credits include: Anaϊs Nin Goes to Hell, The Oath and Barrier Island (MTWorks), The Witlings (Magis Theatre Company), Every Man (winner Samuel French Short Play Festival) To Barcelona! and Eli and Cheryl Jump (Ignited States), Don't Shoot Your Eye Out! (The Brick Theatre), Twelfth Night, As You Like It, Blood Wedding, and No Place To Be Somebody (Boston University), and Photograph 51 (Vermont Stage Company). Martha is the Managing Director of MTWorks, a theater company which produces new plays inspired by playwrights and regions outside of New York, which question the boundaries of our society, humanity, and individuality. http://www.mtworks.org/.
F. Patrick Orr (Technical Director)
Patricia Julien (Composer)
is a jazz flutist and an Associate Professor of Music at the University of Vermont, where she teaches courses in music theory and jazz composition and arranging. She holds the Ph.D. in Music Theory from the University of Maryland, College Park and the Master of Music in Jazz and Commercial Studies from Manhattan School of Music. Julien has composed and arranged works for solo voice and piano, mixed-voice choral ensembles, contemporary chamber ensembles, small jazz combos, big band, concert band, marching band, and orchestra, and she has written original music for several theatrical productions. Julien has compositions published with Imagine Music Publishing.
Paul Besaw (Choreographer)
independent choreographer, has a primary interest in the development of original dance/theatre works and his work has been produced throughout the United States and abroad. With collaboration as a vital goal, he often works in a setting that includes composers, designers, theatre-makers, and visual artists. He is the founder and co-artistic coordinator of The Solo Workshop, a multidisciplinary group of artists exploring the solo mode and premiering new evenings of performance. He is also a founding member of Agnes Table, a performance collective devoted to original, collaboratively devised theatre projects. Paul holds a BA in theatre from Keene State College, and an MFA in dance from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Currently, Paul serves as associate professor of dance at The University of Vermont, where he coordinates the dance program.
Cora Fauser (Costume Assistant)
came to theater at the University of Vermont in 1964 as a navy nurse ... in South Pacific. Returning to Burlington in 1992, she has worked often with Lost Nation Theater, Champlain College, Burlington High School, and several community companies as costume designer, seamstress, and wrangler. The 2011 projects included Champlain College's Antigone, Lost Nation Theater's To Kill a Mockingbird, Woody Guthrie's American Song, Bully, and the annual It's a Wonderful Life. Currently she is working on Champlain College's Humble Boy. She is delighted to be of service to VSC.