Production Acknowledgements

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

NY Classical’s performances of New York Classical Loves New York are made possible by the New York State Council on the New York Classical Loves New York Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. February 11 to 14, 2021

an evening of scenes and stanzas celebrating how close we feel to our community

We gratefully acknowledge support from The New York Community Trust’s NYC COVID-19 Response & Impact Fund We wish to express our gratitude to the Performers’ Unions: for generously helping us to maintain ACTORS’ EQUITY ASSOCIATION operations during this crisis. AMERICAN GUILD OF MUSICAL ARTISTS AMERICAN GUILD OF VARIETY ARTISTS SAG-AFTRA through Theatre Authority, Inc. for their cooperation in permitting the Artists to appear on this program.

Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare Board of Directors Adapted and Directed by Lisa Wolpe Robert Staffaroni, Chair Sharon DeLevie, Secretary Chipo Chung ...... Cleopatra Maura Harway, Treasurer Victoria Omoregie ...... Charmion Stephen Burdman, Artistic Director Dreya Weber ...... Antony

Melissa T. Astudillo Lisa Wolpe (Adapter and Director) has performed at Andrew Carlon PlayMakers Rep, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Utah Elaine Gamble Shakespeare Festival, TheaterWorks, Orlando Melissa Kuklin Shakespeare Theater, Berkeley Repertory Company, Steven Perlstein and more. A Shakespeare expert, she has directed at Sid Ray California Shakespeare, Colorado Shakespeare, Sedona Shakespeare, Shakespeare & Company, Prague Nick Salamone Shakespeare Company, and many universities. She founded the all- Jeremy Schiffres female, multi-cultural Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company in 1993, and produced, directed, and performed in many iconic all- Jon Lukomnik, Chair Emeritus female productions. Favorite roles: Hamlet, Richard III, Angelo, Leontes, Romeo, Shylock, and Iago. Her hit solo Shakespeare and the Don Mayo, In Memoriam Alchemy of Gender, directed by Laurie Woolery, has toured internationally.

Dreya Weber (Antony): was the first graduate of the Indianapolis Performing Arts High School, and she competed for Hunter College in diving and gymnastics. She designed and choreographed aerials for all of Chipo Chung (Cleopatra): Chipo spent her first few Pink’s record breaking international tours and her aerial years as a refugee in Mozambique during the choreography has been featured on the MTV VMA’s, struggle for Zimbabwean Independence. She started BET Awards, AMA’s, the Kids Choice Awards and the performing with CHIPAWO (Children’s Performing televised Inaugural Ball for President Obama. Dreya has directed, Arts Workshop) and Over the Edge Theatre written, produced, and performed in feature films including Raven’s Company – the first mixed race theatre company in Touch, The Gymnast and A Marine Story; web series including Zimbabwe. Chipo trained at the Royal Academy of Caesar’s World for Funny or Die; and circus arts productions with Dramatic Art (RADA) and now sits on the RADA Council. Teatro ZinZanni. Her theatre credits include Orson’s Shadow (West Previously, Chipo graduated with a BA cum laude from Yale Coast Premiere, winner Garland, Ovation, and LADCC awards), University, double majoring in Theatre and Fine Art. Her professional Comedy Of Errors (NY Shakespeare Festival), Inadmissible Evidence work includes Talking to Terrorists at the Royal Court Theatre and (Roundabout), and Macbeth (Circle in the Square). The Overwhelming and Phedre at the National Theatre (UK); television work includes playing Mary Magdalene in the NBC A.D. “I loved you first: but afterwards your love” The Bible Continues, and The Master in AMC’s Into the Badlands. by Christina Rossetti Chipo helped to start the British charity S.A.F.E. (www.safekenya.org). She also helped to start a peace-building Read by Barbara Kingsley organization in Zimbabwe called Envision Zimbabwe Women’s Trust. Chipo sits on British Equity’s International Committee for Barbara Kingsley: The Rivals, Three Sisters, and It Artists’ Freedom (ICAF). She is a founding member of Rising Can’t Happen Here with New York Classical Theatre. Women Rising World (www.risingwomenrisingworld.com). Barbara is a multi-tasking theater artist whose stage credits include over two hundred productions – from Broadway, (August: Osage County) Off-Broadway Victoria Omoregie (Charmion): is a student at Boston (Life Sucks), (Uncanny Valley) to theaters large and University’s School of Theatre in the College of Fine small across the country: Significant Other, The Rivals, Arts. Highlights include Emilia in Othello and “In The Gertrude Stein and a Companion, The House of Blue Leaves, The Red and Brown Water” Part 1 of The Brother/Sister Glass Menagerie, A Skull in Connemara, Uncle Vanya, and many Plays by Tarell Alvin McCraney. She has been more. She has appeared in an array of films, including: Honeydew, awarded for her performance in the National August Playing with Matches, Boarding School, Best Man Down, Ticket Out, Wilson Monologue Competition. Older than America, The Straight Story, and Sweet Land. Television appearances include: The Flight Attendant, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, Jessica Jones, The Path, Law & Order: SVU, and Time After Time. Barbara’s play, Under This Roof, premiered at the Guthrie Theater in 2018.

Dan Domingues (Adrian): NY Classical Artistic Norna, or the Witch's Curse Associate. Off-Broadway: The Public (The Tempest, Adapted from Little Women Wild Goose Dreams, Fidelis, The Great Immensity), by Louisa May Alcott Gingold Group, Sheen Center, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Abingdon Theatre, BAM, 59E59 Theaters, Adapted and Directed by Vivia Font INTAR, Atlantic Theater, Cherry Lane Theatre. Regional: Alley Theatre, White Heron Theatre Dan Domingues ...... Adrian Company, Arena Stage, The Guthrie, Goodman, NY Stage & Film, Brooke M. Haney ...... Leonore Hangar Theatre, Studio Theatre, Cape Playhouse, Weston Playhouse, Kansas City Rep, Rep of St. Louis, Pioneer Theatre, Long Wharf, Florida Stage, Portland Stage, George Street Playhouse. Film: Run All Vivia Font (Adapter and Director): NY Classical Night, Future ’38, In Stereo. TV: “5A5B,” “West 40s,” “The Artistic Associate. Vivia is an actress and theater Blacklist,” “Royal Pains,” “Law & Order.” MFA: A.R.T. Institute for collaborator. Recently, she worked on NY Classical’s Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard. Associate artist: The 2020 King Lear and 2018 Romeo & Juliet; the PlayOn! Civilians. Creator and co-host of Hot Date, a podcast for movie fans. Festival at Classic Stage Company; Recent Alien Abductions (SoHo Rep) and villa (The Wild Project), Brooke M. Haney (Leonore): Brooke (they/she) is a both produced by PlayCo; underneathmybed New York based actor who has worked internationally (Rattlestick); and worked with The Atlantic Theater, The Public, The and regionally. They have a passion for classical text Vineyard, Ensemble Studio Theatre, SOL Project, Primary Stages, and new play development. Favorites include: Romeo LABrynth, The Lark, and others. Her regional credits include Oregon and Juliet and As You Like It with Barefoot Shakes, Shakespeare Festival (2 seasons), The Old Globe, Cincinnati Pride and Prejudice at Orlando Shakespeare Theater Playhouse, The Denver Center, and McCarter Theatre. As a director, (four seasons); Winter’s Tale with Last Leaf Vivia has worked on multiple Shakespeare plays and recently Productions (three seasons); 1 Henry 4 at Lexington Shakespeare. collaborated with writer/actor Matt Zambrano on Finding Mowgli, a Brooke is a member of the acting company of Only Make Believe, an one-man show. Font has various writing projects in the works, Adjunct Professor of Acting at Marymount Manhattan College. including a bilingual (Spanish) pilot about first-generation Latinos in Adaptor/Actor of Kiss Me or Cut Off My Head which was the US, an identity which she shares. She received a BFA from NYU workshopped in the Philippines, at Sarah Lawrence College, at Most Tisch (Playwrights Horizons) and MFA from USD/The Old Globe. Wanted Fine Arts Gallery in Pittsburgh and had its World Premiere in She is a member of The Actors Center. www.viviafont.com NYC at Soho Photo Gallery directed by Tracy Bersley. Artistic Producer and Director of the Apprentice Program for Daughters of Troy.

Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand

Directed by Jon Lawrence Rivera Love’s Philosophy by Percy Bysshe Shelley Nick Salamone ...... Cyrano Clay Storseth ...... Roxane Read by L. Peter Callender Jon Lawrence Rivera (Director): NY Classical L. Peter Callender is the Artistic Director of African- Artistic Associate. Jon directed Oedipus El Rey by Luis American Shakespeare Company in San Francisco, Alfaro at The Theatre @ Boston Court (and its original California. His extensive theater credits extend from 2008 workshop at the Getty Villa). Other recent works Broadway to the Bay and many stops in between. A include The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown multi-award winning actor, director, now, his very first (with an Asian-American cast at East West Players), venture as a playwright, Strange Courtesies, will be Miss Saigon, Tragically Rotund by Boni B. Alvarez, presented at San Jose Stage (February, 2021). He is Laws Of Sympathy by Oliver Mayer, The Joy Luck Club by Susan currently rehearsing Satchmo at the Waldorf (playing Louis Kim, Sea Change by Nick Salamone (2009 LA Weekly Award for "Satchmo" Armstrong) for American Stage Company in St. Direction), The Third From The Left by Jean Colonomos (2008 NY Petersburg, Florida, where he’s been a resident actor/director for the Fringe Festival), Hillary Agonistes by Nick Salamone (2007 NY past 6 years (Jitney, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, A Raisin in the Fringe Festival Award for Outstanding Direction), Havana Bourgeois Sun, Pipeline, Skeleton Crew, and played Walter “Pops” Washington by Carlos Lacamara (2008 GLAAD nomination), Dogeaters by in Between Riverside and Crazy. More on Mr. Callender can be found Jessica Hagedorn (Center Theatre Group’s Kirk Douglas Theatre), at www.lpetercallender.com. Songs for a New World (Rubicon Theatre), Conjunto by Oliver Mayer, References To Salvador Dalí Make Me Hot by José Rivera, the Sondheim/Lapine musical Into The Woods, and Barefoot Boy With Shoes On by Edwin Sanchez. A four-time Ovation Award nominee, he is the founding artistic director of Playwrights’ Arena, and his productions have garnered over 100 local and international awards.

Stephen Burdman (Founding Artistic Director): Stephen has directed and produced over half of Nick Salamone (Cyrano): NY Classical Artistic Shakespeare’s canon for NY Classical Theatre. Associate: King Lear (2020, 2009), Romeo & Juliet, Favorite productions include: The Importance of Being The Rivals, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Taming Earnest (Two Ways), Romeo & Juliet (with 6 actors), of the Shrew, As You Like It, The Tempest, The Seagull, The Rivals, Measure for Measure, A {15-Min!} Twelfth Night, Playing Moliere, Henry V, The School Christmas Carol, The Seagull, Playing Moliere, Henry for Husbands, Much Ado About Nothing, Richard III, V (New York Times Critic’s Pick), Hamlet, King Lear, Misalliance, Hamlet. New York: Macbeth 3 (Here); Hillary Agonistes (Bleecker and Mary Stuart. MFA University of California, Irvine; National Street); Nightshift (Westbeth); Preggin and Liss (Raft); We Bombed Theater Institute. Member of Stage Directors and Choreographers in New Haven, Lorca (Art/Work Ensemble). LA: Billy Boy, Red Hat Society since 1994. Stephen is the former Chair of the Artistic & Tales, Riffs & Credos (Playwrights’ Arena); Glengarry Glen Ross Committee of the Shakespeare Theatre Association. He has also been (Egyptian); Dogeaters (Kirk Douglas); The Tempest (Taper a panelist with the National Endowment for the Arts, NYC Amphitheatre); Coriolanus (Strasberg); Arturo Ui, The Libertine Department of Cultural Affairs, ART/New York, and the Stage (Classical Theatre Lab). Regional: Medea (Boston Court); Find Your Directors and Choreographers Foundation. Way Home (Alley Theatre); 2 (ICT). UK: Sherlock Holmes, Macbeth (Edinburgh). Award Nominations: British Stage, LA Weekly, 4 Matthieu Chapman (Literary Director & Backstage West Garlands. Nick is a published playwright and a Dramaturge): Matt earned his MLitt in Dramaturgy and member of the Board of New York Classical Theatre. MFA in Acting from Mary Baldwin College’s Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature in Clay Storseth (Roxane): NY Classical Artistic Performance Program and his Ph.D. in Theatre History, Associate: The Importance of Being Earnest (Two Theory, and Criticism from the UC San Diego Ways), Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Department of Theatre and Dance. He has acted on the American Dream, Measure for Measure, As You Like It, The Shakespeare Center’s Blackfriar’s stage and served as a dramaturg for Tempest, Twelfth Night, Henry V, Richard III, Hamlet, San Diego Repertory Theatre and worked for the La Jolla Playhouse, King Lear, Cymbeline, Love’s Labour’s Lost. New as well as dramaturged and directed numerous university productions. York: Moscow (Chekhov Now/NY Original Cast CD). Regional: His research focuses on ontological structures of blackness in the Corpus Christi (I Am Love Tour); Measure for Measure, Oh! Early Modern World. His monograph, Antiblack Racism in Early Pioneers (A Noise Within); Joined at the Head (Laguna Playhouse); Modern English Drama: The Other Other is available from Routledge Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Musical Theatre West); Song of Singapore Press. He has also published articles in Medieval and Renaissance (ICT). LA: Richard III, Cymbeline (Will & Co.); Sea Change (LA Drama in England, Theatre Topics, TheatreForum, and Early Weekly Award Nom.); King Lear (dir. Patsy Rodenburg); Into The Theatre. He has presented at numerous national and international Woods (Actor’s CoOp); All Souls Day (Playwright’s Arena); Chess conferences, including the Renaissance Society of America, the (Blank). Edinburgh: Dierdre (Queen’s Hall); Moscow (Assembly, American Society of Theatre Research, the American Comparative Fringe First & Audience Favorite Award); Macbeth (Greyfriar’s Literature Association, the Mid-America Theatre Conference, and Kirkyard); Riffs & Credos, Whale Watchers, Weho (French Institute). others. Other research interests include: Contemporary Black TV: “Star Trek: Voyager.” MFA Cal Arts. Theatre, Cross-Cultural and Trans-National Adaptations of Shakespeare, and the Dramaturgy of Black Bodies.

Kristal Mosley (Video Editor): Kristal Mosley is an independent content producer and editor who has worked with brands including Viacom, Comedy Artists make New York a vibrant place to live. Central, TLC, and the Discovery Channel to create Your gift to NY Classical secures their future here. compelling, diverse content that has reached millions of viewers across the globe. Her work as a filmmaker and Your “e-basket” donation today pays our actors, directors, cinematographer has been featured on PBS, AOL, and ITunes. She designers, and technicians. founded iCreateTV as a vehicle for networks, production companies, and independent producers to distribute their work. For more about Please contribute in support of NY Classical’s artists— Kristal’s projects, click www.alignmentpictures.com. professionals who earn a living wage, health insurance, and

pension funds—in crafting classical theatre for everybody. In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, they need your NY Classical’s mission is to create and reinvigorate audiences for the philanthropy now more than ever. theatre by presenting all-free productions of popular classics and forgotten masterpieces in public spaces throughout New York City. Our talented multi-ethnic ensembles range in age from 20- Somethings to Senior Citizens. These artists have lost months of We believe that everyone—regardless of social, economic, or income from their jobs being canceled, and they remain deeply educational background—should have the opportunity to enjoy live concerned about their high risk for COVID-19 infection. They professional theatre together as a community. Since 2000, NY rely on you, generous NY Classical patrons, to continue their Classical has presented over 700 free performances for more than life’s work. 250,000 New Yorkers. We have produced extensively in non- traditional settings: outdoors in Central Park at West 103rd Street, The Battery at Castle Clinton National Monument, Carl Schurz Park, Our artists are still serving our community, as they have year and Brooklyn Bridge Park at Pier 1 and indoors in Brookfield Place, after year, at no direct cost to our audiences. We hope you enjoy Roosevelt Island’s Tata Innovation Center, and the Church of the this special online benefit performance—and give the gift of Epiphany. classical theatre to your neighbors, friends, and family during our 2021 season. By producing at no direct cost to our audiences, we reach every demographic in our urban community. To date, we have staged 42 all- nyclassical.org/give free productions by classical playwrights including Shakespeare, Molière, Chekhov, Shaw, and Wilde.