About the Artists
Cast
LISA WILLIAMSON | Catherine Hiatt
Lisa Williamson has forged a diverse career in opera, musical theater, and concert throughout the world. Her roles include Amalia Balash (She Loves Me), Eliza Doolittle (My Fair Lady), Eileen Sherwood (Wonderful Town), Maud Dunlop (The Music Man), Laurie (The Tender Land), Bessie Coleman (Bessie and Ma) *world premiere, The Flamingo (The Lion, the Unicorn and Me) *world premiere, The Rose (The Little Prince), Suor Angelica (Suor Angelica), Cendrillon (Cendrillon), the soprano (The Little Match Girl Passion), Virginia Creeper (The Difficulty of Crossing a Field), Musetta (La Boheme), and Adele (Die Fledermaus) with Washington National Opera, The Glimmerglass Festival, Portland Opera, Opera Theater of Connecticut, Hartford Opera Theater, Hartford Symphony Orchestra, New Haven Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi. She was the soloist with United States Coast Guard Band from 2005-2010. She holds degrees from The Peabody Conservatory, Yale School of Music, and UConn.
Watch an interview with Lisa here!
Watch an interview with Lisa here!
RYAN BLOOMQUIST | Jamie Wellerstein
Ryan Bloomquist is a NYC-based performer and writer and is thrilled to be back at The Ivoryton Playhouse working with Brief Cameo Productions. Most of all, he’s just thrilled to be back on a stage and is grateful to everyone who worked to make this possible! At Ivoryton he’s appeared in The Fantasticks, An Ivoryton Playhouse Christmas Hour, and All Shook Up. He’s also performed in theaters across the country in shows such as Les Miserables, Show Boat, The Robber Bridegroom, It Should Have Been You, and Jekyll and Hyde. Recent NY credits include The Imbible at New World Stages and a one night concert of Bombshell on Broadway from the NBC show "Smash” along with appearances at concert venues including 54 Below, Joe’s Pub, Green Room 42 and Don’t Tell Mama. He is a graduate of NYU Tisch’s New Studio on Broadway and is a proud Connecticut-native having grown up in Branford. Ryan also recently published his first book with Harper Collins, Riverdish: the Unauthorized Case Files of Riverdale a companion piece to his successful podcast Riverdish. For more information visit www.ryanbloomquist.com
Production Team
ALAN PIOTROWICZ | Director & Projection Designer
Alan makes his home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where he has designed for several companies including All In Productions, Cooperative Performance, Danceworks, Falls Patio Players, First Stage Children’s Theatre, In Tandem Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, Next Act Theatre, Renaissance Theaterworks, Theatre Gigante, Theater RED, Umbrella Group Milwaukee, and Windfall Theatre. Recent work also includes TITAN Theatre Company in New York City and Hope Summer Repertory Theatre in Holland, Michigan. His directing credits include Some Enchanted Evening - The Songs of Rogers & Hammerstein (Falls Patio Players), Dead Man's Cell Phone (Pink Banana Theatre Co.), Rocket Man (Soulstice Theatre), The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs (The World's Stage Theatre Co.), and A Midsummer Night's Dream (Village Playhouse). He received his training at UW-Madison and The Santa Fe Opera. Proud board member of Cooperative Performance and Brief Cameo Productions. www.alanpiotrowicz.com
Watch a video message from Alan here!
Watch an interview with Alan here!
Watch a video message from Alan here!
Watch an interview with Alan here!
JILL BRUNELLE | Musical Director, Keyboard
Jill Brunelle is a repertoire pianist at Yale University, working with Yale Opera, Yale School of Drama, the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, and Yale College. Her recent music directing credits include The Fantasticks at Ivoryton Playhouse, and The Addams Family and Violet at Southern Connecticut State University. At Yale School of Drama Ms. Brunelle directed Steven Sondheim’s Passion, The Apple Tree, Trouble in Tahiti, and The Medium. As Yale Opera Chorus Master she has prepared ensembles for Eugene Onegin, Hänsel und Gretel, Die Zauberflöte, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Le Nozze Di Figaro and La Bohème. Ms. Brunelle recently celebrated five years as Music Director at the renowned Foote School Summer Theater. Her 2019-2020 season includes Fun Home at the Yale School of Drama, Ragtime with Brief Cameo Productions at the Ivoryton Playhouse, and the world premiere of the new opera Salt. Ms. Brunelle has served as faculty/staff at Boston University, New England Conservatory, Tufts University, Hartt School of Music, Connecticut Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, and Opera Boston. As a collaborative pianist Ms. Brunelle is highly sought after as a recital partner, performing internationally as well as at Carnegie Hall and Jordan Hall, and has performed world premieres at numerous festivals, including the celebrated Bang on a Can festival in New York City. Ms. Brunelle also collaborates frequently with area companies and ensembles, including Orchestra New England and Long Wharf Theater.
Watch Jill (with some of our musicians) share "Tales from the Pit" here!
Watch Jill (with some of our musicians) share "Tales from the Pit" here!
LLOYD HALL | Costume Designer
Lloyd is thrilled to be joining the creative team for Brief Cameo Productions’ second production! He works as both a costume designer and fashion designer in the northeast, creating fun garments (and hats) for every occasion. Recent costume design credits include The Comedy of Errors (Shakesperience Productions), The Normal Heart (Little Theatre of Manchester), The Dixie Swim Club (Little Theatre of Manchester), and Kiss Me, Kate! (Simsbury High School). www.lloyd-parker-hall.com
CRAIG GEHR | Lighting Designer
RAY SMITH | Sound Engineer
HOLLY PRICE | Stage Manager
JIM CLARK | Producer
Jim's credits include serving as a teaching artist, director, actor, or stage manager for Ivoryton Playhouse, Long Wharf Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Foote Summer Theater, Synapse Theatre Ensemble, Columbia University, Roebling and Driggs Productions, Yale Opera, The New York Financial Writers’ Association’s annual Financial Follies, New Haven Theater Company (including the first community production of Paula Vogel's A Civil War Christmas), The Hugo Kauder Society, Act II Theatre, Grassroots Theater Company, Sacred Heart Academy, New Haven Ballet, Fairfield University and the Chancel Opera Company.
Watch a video message from Jim here!
Watch a video message from Jim here!
Musicians
VICTORIA WEPLER | Violin
NANCY MATLACK ELLIGERS | Cello 1
HILLARY EKWALL | Cello 2
MORGAN BROWN | Guitar
Morgan Brown is a guitarist and multi-instrumentalist from Connecticut with a devotion to music who regularly teaches and performs in the Tri-State Area. He received his M.M. in Guitar Performance at The Hartt School in West Hartford, Connecticut and his B.A. in Music from Eastern Connecticut State University, studying with Richard Provost and Daniel Hartington respectively. His performance experience ranges from solo classical guitar concerts, including being featured on WINY radio and debuting a number of premieres, to many performances in theater and musical pits. Throughout his career he has played at The DiMenna Center, The Ivoryton Playhouse, TheaterWorks, Playhouse on Park, The Charter Oak Center, The Governor’s Mansion, The Little Theater in Manchester, various locations as part of the West Hartford Summer Arts Festival, and various other locations throughout the tri-state area. Additionally, during his time in the Hartt School Guitar Quartet he had the opportunity to perform in the world premiere of La Perla del Pico by Frank Wallace and A Growing Absence Lisa Coons. He also had the honor of being a semifinalist in the CMFONE International Competition in Boston, Massachusetts as part of the Nebula Duo with Natalia Kaminska-Palarczyk. Morgan has performed in masterclasses for Oscar Ghiglia, Scott Tennant, Andrew York, Jason Vieaux, Frank Wallace, and Antigoni Goni. Morgan is also a member of a classical guitar collective named the “Guitar Squad,” which aims to bring classical guitar to the public in a more accessible and fun way. Guitar Squad has performed at local breweries, street festivals, and improv clubs in the Greater Hartford area. In addition to his classical and theater work, Morgan plays in the Rhode Island band “Glory Bound,” which recently released their first self-titled album. He currently teaches guitar at Miss Porter’s School in Farmington, Connecticut, and piano and guitar at Company n’ Tempo in Cromwell, Connecticut.
DAVE DADDARIO | Bass
Dave Daddario is a versatile Professional Bassist, Drummer, Multi-Instrumentalist, and Music Arranger. A retired Public School Music Educator and Band Director of over 41 years spending his last 37 years teaching in Middletown, CT, Dave is an active musician and has performed with many bands, orchestras and ensembles of all sizes and has a huge resume of performing with notable musicians, vocalists, entertainers and celebrities in a variety of venues in Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Florida.
About the Author
JASON ROBERT BROWN | Book, Music, and Lyrics
Jason Robert Brown is the ultimate multi-hyphenate - an equally skilled composer, lyricist, conductor, arranger, orchestrator, director and performer - best known for his dazzling scores to several of the most renowned musicals of our time, including the generation-definingThe Last Five Years, his debut song cycle Songs for a New World, and the seminal Parade, for which he won the 1999 Tony Award for Best Score.
Jason Robert Brown has been hailed as "one of Broadway's smartest and most sophisticated songwriters since Stephen Sondheim" (Philadelphia Inquirer), and his "extraordinary, jubilant theater music" (Chicago Tribune) has been heard all over the world, whether in one of the hundreds of productions of his musicals every year or in his own incendiary live performances. The New York Times refers to Jason as "a leading member of a new generation of composers who embody high hopes for the American musical." Jason's score for The Bridges of Madison County, a musical adapted with Marsha Norman from the bestselling novel, received two Tony Awards (for Best Score and Orchestrations). Honeymoon In Vegas, based on Andrew Bergman's film, opened on Broadway in 2015 following a triumphant production at Paper Mill Playhouse. A film version of his epochal Off-Broadway musical The Last Five Years was released in 2015, starring Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan and directed by Richard LaGravenese. His major musicals as composer and lyricist include: 13, written with Robert Horn and Dan Elish, which opened on Broadway in 2008 and was subsequently directed by the composer for its West End premiere in 2012; The Last Five Years, which was cited as one of Time Magazine's 10 Best of 2001 and won Drama Desk Awards for Best Music and Best Lyrics (and was later directed by the composer in its record-breaking Off-Broadway run at Second Stage Theatre in 2013); Parade, written with Alfred Uhry and directed by Harold Prince, which won both the Drama Desk and New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards for Best New Musical, as well as garnering Jason the Tony Award for Original Score; and Songs for a New World, a theatrical song cycle directed by Daisy Prince, which has since been seen in hundreds of productions around the world since its 1995 Off-Broadway debut, including a celebrated revival at New York's City Center in the summer of 2018. Parade was also the subject of a major revival directed by Rob Ashford, first at London's Donmar Warehouse and then at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. Jason conducted his orchestral adaptation of E.B. White's novel The Trumpet of the Swan with the National Symphony Orchestra, and recorded the score for PS Classics. Future projects include a new chamber musical created with Daisy Prince and Jonathan Marc Sherman calledThe Connector; an adaptation of Lilian Lee's Farewell My Concubine, created with Kenneth Lin and Moisés Kaufman; and a collaboration with Billy Crystal, Amanda Green, Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel on a musical of Mr. Saturday Night. Jason is the winner of the 2018 Louis Auchincloss Prize, the 2002 Kleban Award for Outstanding Lyrics and the 1996 Gilman & Gonzalez-Falla Foundation Award for Musical Theatre. Jason's songs, including the cabaret standard "Stars and the Moon," have been performed and recorded by Ariana Grande, Audra McDonald, Kristin Chenoweth, Billy Porter, Betty Buckley, Renée Fleming, Jon Hendricks and many others, and his song "Someone To Fall Back On" was featured in the Walden Media film, Bandslam.
As a soloist or with his band The Caucasian Rhythm Kings, Jason has performed concerts around the world. For the past four years (and ongoing), his monthly sold-out performances at New York's SubCulture have featured many of the music and theater world's most extraordinary performers. His newest collection, "How We React and How We Recover", was released in June 2018 on Ghostlight Records. His previous solo album, "Wearing Someone Else's Clothes", was named one of Amazon.com's best of 2005, and is available from Sh-K-Boom Records. Jason's 2012 concert with Anika Noni Rose was broadcast on PBS, and he was the featured soloist for a live episode of Friday Night Is Music Night, broadcast live from the London Palladium and featuring the BBC Concert Orchestra. His collaboration with singer Lauren Kennedy, "Songs of Jason Robert Brown", is available on PS Classics. Jason is also the composer of the incidental music for the Broadway revival of You Can't Take It With You, David Lindsay-Abaire's Kimberly Akimbo and Fuddy Meers, and Kenneth Lonergan's The Waverly Gallery, and he was a Tony Award nominee for his contributions to the score of Urban Cowboy the Musical. He has also contributed music to the hit Nickelodeon television series, The Wonder Pets as well as Sesame Street. Jason spent ten years teaching at the USC School of Dramatic Arts, and has also taught at Harvard University, Princeton University and Emerson College.
For the musical Prince of Broadway, a celebration of the career of his mentor Harold Prince, Jason was the musical supervisor and arranger. Other New York credits as conductor and arranger include Urban Cowboy the Musical on Broadway; Dinah Was, off-Broadway and on national tour; When Pigs Fly"off-Broadway; William Finn's A New Brain at Lincoln Center Theater; the 1992 tribute to Stephen Sondheim at Carnegie Hall (recorded by RCA Victor); Yoko Ono's New York Rock, at the WPA Theatre; and Michael John LaChiusa's The Petrified Princ" at the Public Theatre. Jason orchestrated Andrew Lippa's john and jen, Off-Broadway at Lamb's Theatre. Additionally, Jason served as the orchestrator and arranger of Charles Strouse and Lee Adams's score for a proposed musical of Star Wars. Jason has conducted and created arrangements and orchestrations for Liza Minnelli, John Pizzarelli, and Michael Feinstein, among many others.
Jason studied composition at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., with Samuel Adler, Christopher Rouse, and Joseph Schwantner. He lives with his wife, composer Georgia Stitt, and their daughters in New York City. Jason is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and the American Federation of Musicians Local 802. Visit him on the web at www.jasonrobertbrown.com.
Jason Robert Brown has been hailed as "one of Broadway's smartest and most sophisticated songwriters since Stephen Sondheim" (Philadelphia Inquirer), and his "extraordinary, jubilant theater music" (Chicago Tribune) has been heard all over the world, whether in one of the hundreds of productions of his musicals every year or in his own incendiary live performances. The New York Times refers to Jason as "a leading member of a new generation of composers who embody high hopes for the American musical." Jason's score for The Bridges of Madison County, a musical adapted with Marsha Norman from the bestselling novel, received two Tony Awards (for Best Score and Orchestrations). Honeymoon In Vegas, based on Andrew Bergman's film, opened on Broadway in 2015 following a triumphant production at Paper Mill Playhouse. A film version of his epochal Off-Broadway musical The Last Five Years was released in 2015, starring Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan and directed by Richard LaGravenese. His major musicals as composer and lyricist include: 13, written with Robert Horn and Dan Elish, which opened on Broadway in 2008 and was subsequently directed by the composer for its West End premiere in 2012; The Last Five Years, which was cited as one of Time Magazine's 10 Best of 2001 and won Drama Desk Awards for Best Music and Best Lyrics (and was later directed by the composer in its record-breaking Off-Broadway run at Second Stage Theatre in 2013); Parade, written with Alfred Uhry and directed by Harold Prince, which won both the Drama Desk and New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards for Best New Musical, as well as garnering Jason the Tony Award for Original Score; and Songs for a New World, a theatrical song cycle directed by Daisy Prince, which has since been seen in hundreds of productions around the world since its 1995 Off-Broadway debut, including a celebrated revival at New York's City Center in the summer of 2018. Parade was also the subject of a major revival directed by Rob Ashford, first at London's Donmar Warehouse and then at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. Jason conducted his orchestral adaptation of E.B. White's novel The Trumpet of the Swan with the National Symphony Orchestra, and recorded the score for PS Classics. Future projects include a new chamber musical created with Daisy Prince and Jonathan Marc Sherman calledThe Connector; an adaptation of Lilian Lee's Farewell My Concubine, created with Kenneth Lin and Moisés Kaufman; and a collaboration with Billy Crystal, Amanda Green, Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel on a musical of Mr. Saturday Night. Jason is the winner of the 2018 Louis Auchincloss Prize, the 2002 Kleban Award for Outstanding Lyrics and the 1996 Gilman & Gonzalez-Falla Foundation Award for Musical Theatre. Jason's songs, including the cabaret standard "Stars and the Moon," have been performed and recorded by Ariana Grande, Audra McDonald, Kristin Chenoweth, Billy Porter, Betty Buckley, Renée Fleming, Jon Hendricks and many others, and his song "Someone To Fall Back On" was featured in the Walden Media film, Bandslam.
As a soloist or with his band The Caucasian Rhythm Kings, Jason has performed concerts around the world. For the past four years (and ongoing), his monthly sold-out performances at New York's SubCulture have featured many of the music and theater world's most extraordinary performers. His newest collection, "How We React and How We Recover", was released in June 2018 on Ghostlight Records. His previous solo album, "Wearing Someone Else's Clothes", was named one of Amazon.com's best of 2005, and is available from Sh-K-Boom Records. Jason's 2012 concert with Anika Noni Rose was broadcast on PBS, and he was the featured soloist for a live episode of Friday Night Is Music Night, broadcast live from the London Palladium and featuring the BBC Concert Orchestra. His collaboration with singer Lauren Kennedy, "Songs of Jason Robert Brown", is available on PS Classics. Jason is also the composer of the incidental music for the Broadway revival of You Can't Take It With You, David Lindsay-Abaire's Kimberly Akimbo and Fuddy Meers, and Kenneth Lonergan's The Waverly Gallery, and he was a Tony Award nominee for his contributions to the score of Urban Cowboy the Musical. He has also contributed music to the hit Nickelodeon television series, The Wonder Pets as well as Sesame Street. Jason spent ten years teaching at the USC School of Dramatic Arts, and has also taught at Harvard University, Princeton University and Emerson College.
For the musical Prince of Broadway, a celebration of the career of his mentor Harold Prince, Jason was the musical supervisor and arranger. Other New York credits as conductor and arranger include Urban Cowboy the Musical on Broadway; Dinah Was, off-Broadway and on national tour; When Pigs Fly"off-Broadway; William Finn's A New Brain at Lincoln Center Theater; the 1992 tribute to Stephen Sondheim at Carnegie Hall (recorded by RCA Victor); Yoko Ono's New York Rock, at the WPA Theatre; and Michael John LaChiusa's The Petrified Princ" at the Public Theatre. Jason orchestrated Andrew Lippa's john and jen, Off-Broadway at Lamb's Theatre. Additionally, Jason served as the orchestrator and arranger of Charles Strouse and Lee Adams's score for a proposed musical of Star Wars. Jason has conducted and created arrangements and orchestrations for Liza Minnelli, John Pizzarelli, and Michael Feinstein, among many others.
Jason studied composition at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., with Samuel Adler, Christopher Rouse, and Joseph Schwantner. He lives with his wife, composer Georgia Stitt, and their daughters in New York City. Jason is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and the American Federation of Musicians Local 802. Visit him on the web at www.jasonrobertbrown.com.
MUSIC THEATRE INTERNATIONAL | Licensing & Materials
Music Theatre International (MTI) is one of the world's leading theatrical licensing agencies, granting theatres from around the world the rights to perform the greatest selection of musicals from Broadway and beyond. Founded in 1952 by composer Frank Loesser, and orchestrator Don Walker, MTI is a driving force in advancing musical theatre as a vibrant and engaging art form.
MTI works directly with the composers, lyricists and book writers of these musicals to provide official scripts, musical materials and dynamic theatrical resources to over 70,000 professional, community and school theatres in the US and in over 60 countries worldwide. MTI is particularly dedicated to educational theatre, and has created special collections to meet the needs of various types of performers and audiences. MTI’s Broadway Junior™ shows are 30- and 60-minute musicals for performance by elementary and middle school-aged performers, while MTI’s School Editions are musicals annotated for performance by high school students.
MTI maintains its global headquarters in New York City with additional offices in London (MTI Europe) and Melbourne (MTI Australasia). www.mtishows.com
MTI works directly with the composers, lyricists and book writers of these musicals to provide official scripts, musical materials and dynamic theatrical resources to over 70,000 professional, community and school theatres in the US and in over 60 countries worldwide. MTI is particularly dedicated to educational theatre, and has created special collections to meet the needs of various types of performers and audiences. MTI’s Broadway Junior™ shows are 30- and 60-minute musicals for performance by elementary and middle school-aged performers, while MTI’s School Editions are musicals annotated for performance by high school students.
MTI maintains its global headquarters in New York City with additional offices in London (MTI Europe) and Melbourne (MTI Australasia). www.mtishows.com