Main- stage Richard Hopkins, Producing Artistic Director Rita Rehn and Jo Twiss. Photo by Matthew Holler. Sponsored in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture. THE ROOMMATE by Jen Silverman CAST (in order of appearance) Sharon...........................Jo Twiss* Robyn............................Rita Rehn* Scenic & Costume Designer Lex Liang Lighting Designer Mike Wood Assistant Lighting Designer Ryan Finzelber Stage Manager Roy Johns* Director Gavin Cameron-Webb Season Underwriters Georgia Court, Dennis & Graci McGillicuddy, Anne Nethercott Setting: Iowa City Time: Present - Late Summer/Early Fall Special Thanks: Terry Layman The Roommate will be presented in two acts with a fifteen minute intermission. World premiere in the 2015 Humana Festival of New American Plays at ACTORS THEATRE OF LOUISVILLE. The Roommate is produced by special arrangement with United Talent Agency. The videotaping or other video or audio recording of this production is strictly prohibited. * Denotes member Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. ARTIST PROFILES JO TWISS (Sharon) This Purchase. He has directed new plays and old is Jo’s FST debut. She has plays, American classics like The Glass Menag- performed extensively in erie, English classics like Man and Superman, regional theaters through- French classics like The Imaginary Invalid, and out the country and many even German classics such as Love and Intrigue. years in NYC with the And a lot of Shakespeare, including Hamlet and world renowned Circle Rep I Hate Hamlet. Currently he makes his home in Theatre Company, and on Broadway in Cat on Irvine, CA with his wife, Jane Page, [FST: Rabbit a Hot Tin Roof. She is a “repeat offender” on all Hole] who is head of the directing program at the Law and Order’s, and can be seen on the UCI. His daughter, Madeleine and her family live first season of House of Cards. She can also be in Brighton on the English south coast. She is a seen on the web series The Weirdness. jewelry designer. RITA REHN (Robyn) Flor- ROY JOHNS (Stage Manager) is pleased to be ida Studio: Over the River back for another season at FST. He has had an and Through the Woods, In exciting and varied career both on stage and the Book Of, Sylvia, Always behind the scenes from Tokyo Disneyland to Patsy Cline. Broadway: The the White House. Past credits at FST include Royal Family with Rose- The Fabulous Lipitones, Alabama Story; Outside mary Harris, Nine, A Chorus Mullingar; One Man, Two Guvnors; The Hound of Line, A Tale of the Allergists Wife with Valerie the Baskervilles; Chapatti; Hairspray; and Taking Harper. Off Broadway and Regional: Marsha Shakespeare. Norman’s Last Dance (with Jo Beth Williams), LEX LIANG (Scenic & Costume Designer) Lex’s John Patrick Shanley’s Defiance, Charles Busch’s work includes design for theatre, film, dance, Our Leading Lady, The Deep Throat Sex Scandal, and special events. NYC/Off-Broadway credits: Call Me Waldo, A Little Night Music, Misalliance, 50+ productions, including Secrets of a Soccer Hamlet, As Bees in Honey Drown (BestActress,N- Mom (directed by Judith Ivey), The Yellow Wood JTheatreCritics), And the World Goes Round (directed by BD Wong), The Shape of Metal, and (Best Featured Actress, NJ Theatre Critics). Made in Heaven. Regional: Alliance Theatre, Humbug (first female Scrooge). Catch Me If You Cleveland Playhouse, Portland Stage, Paper Can (with Jamie Farr). Mill Playhouse, La Jolla Playhouse, and Denver GAVIN CAMERON-WEBB (Director) is delight- Center, among others. Lex is the Principal at ed to return to FST where, last summer, he had LDC Design Associates, an NYC-based company the pleasure to stage The Hound of the Basker- specializing in the design and production of villes. Gavin has been working as a professional creative events. Clients include Robert Verdi, director for over 40 years. He has directed across Sears, Kelly Osbourne, and the Kardashians, and the country and abroad; he has served as artis- they recently produced the décor for the 2015 tic director for theatres in Boston and Buffalo Tony Awards Gala. Lex has won multiple design and has taught at the Juilliard School and SUNY awards, is a member of United Scenic Artists, ARTIST PROFILES Local 829, and is a graduate of NYU, Tisch JEN SILVERMAN (Playwright) is a New York- School of the Arts. www.LDCdesign.com based playwright. Her work has been produced MIKE WOOD (Lighting Designer) is a theatrical off-Broadway by the Playwrights Realm lighting designer whose work has been seen (Crane Story), off-off Broadway by Clubbed throughout the country. He is currently the di- Thumb (Phoebe in Winter), at Actor’s Theatre rector of technical theatre at Collegiate School of Louisville (The Roommate, Humana 2015), in New York City. Awards: ‘13, ‘14, ‘15 Theatre and The Moors is upcoming at Yale Rep. She Tampa Bay Awards for Outstanding Lighting is a member of New Dramatists, a Core Writer Design: Of Mice & Men, The Burnt Part Boys, The at the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis, and Tempest: Esta Isla es Mia. 2014 BroadwayWorld has developed work at the O’Neill, Playpenn, Regional Awards, Return to the Forbidden Plan- SPACE on Ryder Farm, Williamstown, New et, The Burnt Part Boys, 2015 Creative Loafing York Theatre Workshop, Portland Center Stage, “Best of the Bay” best lighting designer. Proud the New Harmony Project, Fusion Theatre in member, United Scenic Artists USA-829. @ Albuquerque, and the Royal Court in London mikewoodld / www.mikewoodld.com among other places. The Hunters was selected for the Cherry Lane Mentor Project (mentor RYAN FINZELBER (Assistant Lighting Design- Lynn Nottage) and Still won the Jane Chambers er) is a lighting designer based in Tampa who Award, the Yale Drama Series Award, was pub- has assisted Mike on several projects since early lished by Yale University Press, and produced as 2015. Ryan also serves as the Resident Lighting a mainstage at the Juilliard School. She is the Designer for both Urbanite Theatre and freeFall recipient of a Lilly Award and the Inge Center’s Theatre. Recent lighting design credits of his Otis Guernsey New Voices Award for The Moors, own include Dry Land, The Drowning Girls (Ur- and the 2015 Helen Merrill Fund Award as an banite Theatre), and The Light in the Piazza, Mr. emerging playwright. She is currently working Burns, a Post-Electric Play, Our Town (freeFall on commissions for South Coast Repertory Theatre). Visit www.finzelberdesign.com for Theatre, Ars Nova, Partial Comfort, and InterAct additional information and production photos. Theatre in conjunction with PAPAYA (PA Per- forming Arts for Young Audiences.) Education: Brown, Iowa Playwrights Workshop, Juilliard. www.jensilverman.com Follow us on Social Media for all the latest happenings! LIKE US! FOLLOW US! Facebook.com/ Twitter.com/FSTSarasota FloridaStudioTheatre SEASON UNDERWRITERS GEORGIA COURT I love great theater and FST skilled in their craft. The values of the theater delivers that. FST is among the best theater and its leadership, as reflected in its mission, companies I have seen, but it is more than a and as manifested in its work, whether it be theater company. It is an organization that on the main stage, in the cabaret, and in its recognizes it is part of the greater community- education and community outreach programs, -and it reaches out to that community in are values that we so strongly believe in. As a positive, productive ways. Having FST so consequence, it is a privilege for us to be a part accessible adds to the joy of living in the of, and supportive of this great theater. fabulous arts community that is Sarasota. ANNE NETHERCOTT When asked to define DENNIS & GRACI MCGILLICUDDY FST giving, Anne said: “My mother used to say, is important to us because we believe so ‘The best way to find you is to lose yourself, by strongly in the transformative power of the focusing on the needs of others rather than arts. For close to 30 years now, we have been on oneself.’” So, giving has always been an so fortunate to experience first-hand how important family value, which in childhood that transformative power works its magic was reinforced by the community experience of in the hands of an organization that is not surviving The Depression. Anne is proud to be a only experienced and dedicated but so highly supporter of FST. “FST IMPROV ROCKS” -SRQ Daily “HILARIOUS” -Sarasota Herald-Tribune EVERY SATURDAY AT 7:30PM TICKETS ONLY $15, full menu & bar (941) 366-9000 | floridastudiotheatre.org FST FORUMS Memorable Female Friendships in TV & Movies Lucy & Ethel A true classic! The bond between Lucy and Ethel is essential to the plot of almost every episode of I Love Lucy. Both characters may have been stay-at-home housewives, but while their husbands were away at work, Lucy and Ethel didn’t just hang around the house - they got into trouble. Their wildest successes and wackiest failures always happened side-by-side. Mary & Rhoda Mary Richards broke TV boundaries in 1970 with her depiction of a single working woman on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Though she had many boyfriends over the show’s run, her true partner was upstairs neighbor Rhoda Morgenstern. With her headscarves and her brash New York attitude, Rhoda was the perfect foil for polished Midwestern Mary. These two were TV’s original BFFs, and are the reason many of the other relationships and characters on this list exist. Thelma & Louise In the ultimate friendship movie, Thelma and Louise are bonded together in their desire to live life on their own terms. Real heroines who would kill or be killed for each other, they are icons of freedom and friendship.