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Katherine Elliot (SAG-AFTRA) Cofounder/Actor/Producer-Wild Banshee. Former producer/performer-The Tempest Ladies (The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night's Dream). Off-Broadway producer/performer (Sammy's Bowery Follies, Dog Sees God). Producer/performer (Paulette Goddard) Hannah, Can You Hear Me? - Best Arts Film, Cannes Festival. Director-The One And Only Amanda Palmer...,45 Coffee Dates, The Deed Is Done). Served on the Board of Directors for The League of Professional Theatre Women.
Sharon Barnett, who wrote the lyrics and co-wrote the music and book with Michael McFrederick and Adam Shorsten, respectively, told Playbill.com that she has a very personal connection to the old club, which stood at 267 Bowery, today the site of a German restaurant. “My father, Mark Barnett, was one of the emcees. The emcees would always wear top hats. My father was a singer and a dancer, told jokes, and often also did the scenery. My sister Marcelle and I grew up in this club. As children we also sometimes performed as a sister act, doing show tunes and such, and we often sang with my dad. We were children, and we loved it.”She put all those memories into her show, Sammy's Bowery Follies, which she described as ”a new feel-good musical, set in the 1940s, about a young man who returns from the war seeking fortune, and his name in lights at the renowned nightclub Sammy's Bowery Foll
On tonight's Determined Women Coni Koepfinger Interviews Mary Ellen Ashley/ Star of Broadway Stage, film and television. Mary Ellen Ashley is an Actress, Singer, Dancer, and Pro- ducer of Broadway, Television, and Film, has been rec- ognized as a Distinguished Professional in her field through Women of Distinction Magazine. Mary Ellen Ashley will be featured in an upcoming edition of the Women of Distinction Magazine in 2016.
LINDA S. NELSON is an Actor, Director, Dramaturge and Producer. As an actor, Ms. Nelson has predominately been seen on stage, including Off Broadway, Off-Off Broadway, Regional Theatre, and with companies such as Whitehorse Theatre, Oberon Theatre Ensemble, Boomerang Theatre and NJ Rep. Her Film and TV credits include “Imaginary Heroes” with Sigorney Weaver, "Orange Is The New Black", “Seven Deadly Sins” and the award winning short film “Lipstick Ladies”. In addition to directing dozens of readings, short plays and 24-Hour Festivals for companies such as Boomerang, TRU, Oberon, and New Light Theatre, her New York directing credits include Toast, Boast or Roast – A Tribute to Austin Pendleton featuring Olympia Dukakis, Louis Zorich, F. Murray Abraham, Dylan Baker and Becky Ann Baker at the Players Club, produced by Oberon Theatre Ensemble; Tongue of a Bird by Ellen McLaughlin; The Necessary Disposal by Bob Ost; and the Backstage Bistro Award winning Three Tenors in Search of an Act. She also directed and produced the World Premiere and Tour of Missa Solemnis or The Play About Henry by Roman Feeser; the North American Premiere of The Choice by Claire Luckham; and two interactive murder mysteries The Art of Murder and Delicious Death, both of which she co-wrote. As a dramaturge Ms. Nelson has worked with dozens of writers including playwright/novelist, Cailin Heffernan; Screenwriter, Michael Lee Stever; and playwrights, Cyndy Marion at Whitehorse Theater Company, Stu Richel, Roman Feeser, Bob Ost, and Phil Olson on his popular musical series, Don’t Hug Me. Founder of Shotgun Productions, she served as its Producing Director for 19 years and produced theatre, dance, opera and classical concerts throughout the New York area and in Europe. Since leaving Shotgun she has independently produced plays in NYC and on tour throughout the US. She was an Associate Producer on the Off Broadway production of “Silence” the musical parody of “Silence of the Lambs”. Currently she represents the multi-award winning “Sweet Texas Reckoning” by Traci Godfrey and the solo performance “Vietnam…through my lens” written and performed by Stu Richel. With “Vietnam…” she started as its dramaturge, then produced and directed the NYC Premiere in 2014 and has continued as its producer/director of the tour, which has been running since then. “Vietnam…” was also made into a film last summer by Two Seas TV, on which she worked as the AD to the Emmy Award winning director, Tony Ceglio.
Karen Hartman is a writer, voice over performer, singer, actress, comedienne, composer, lyricist librettist and designer. (Catch your breath)She started out as an opera singer, winning the prestigious Metropolitan Opera Auditions on the West Coast. Unable to keep a straight face with opera, she wrote a stand up act and decided to get into the comedy world. While at world famous Comedy Store in Los Angeles, she developed a one-and-a-half woman show, Diva Takes a Dive, which she toured around the country.Karen has written and performed musical theatre, comedy material, music and lyrics for several musicals, HBO Comedy Specials, Showtime, and nationally syndicated television. She has appeared and starred in many movies and television series. She has also written and composed for the Emmy Award-winning children's television show Zoobilee Zoo, in which she starred as a half human cockatoo with Ben Vereen. Karen a proud member of The Dramatists Guild, National Board of Review, Actors’ Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. She is also the honored winner of Caroline’s Comedy Competition as “The Funniest Woman in America” and L.A. First Class as “The Best of the Best”! Karen lives loves and laughs with her husband in New York City, and is currently developing a new rock 'n opera fusion musical inspired by her true story, Rock Me Mama.
Mary Tierney started her professional acting career in 1971 in Dublin at Ireland’s National Theater, The Abbey’s experimental wing, The Peacock and from that continued to work for five years in Ireland; culminating in Dublin’s first rock musical, Stephanie by Emerson college graduate, Russell Mason. Upon returning to New York, her role as Josie, in Walter Macken’s Home is the Hero which ran for six months as the Irish Arts Center. The success of that play has a ripple effect; Moss Cooney, Cork city immigrant restaurant entrepreneur, built a theater above his BillyMunk restaurant on 45th Street just off Second Avenue for the play; redirected by Barbara Loden, thus starting the BillyMunk, non-for-profit resident company.At the suggestion of Barbara, Mary started directing there; a Sean O’Casey One Act Play Festival. From there she branded out to create New York’s first Lunchtime Series at the Quaigh with The Sea Plays of Eugene O’Neill starring William Hickey, Brian Dennehy and Jim DeMarse. Lunchtime continued until 1982 with the highlight being Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape with Billy Hickey. Also at the Quaigh, Mary earned her Actor’s Equity Association membership with British author David Pownall’s Livingston & Sechele in 1983.On a personal note marriage to Dublin born UN peacekeeper in 1985 created a nearly 20 year hiatus in theater as Life became visiting war zones and having the privilege of being in the historic dismantling of apartheid in South Africa; where she lived on and off for two years while the UN sponsored elections made Nelson Mandela President 1994. To witness the effect of post war and democratic elections; 1989 -1990 in Namibia, then South Africa and finally in 1999, East Timor’s struggles and a dramatic defeat, by the UN election team, of Indonesia’s attempt at total sabotage was well worth intermittent acting/directing work. The UN world & the theater world happily collided with her husband’s final mission, UNFICYP, in Cyprus. There, Mufflon Bookshop and The Weaving Mill, brought the newly discovered and published Tennessee Williams collection of short plays, Mister Paradise; a series of one act plays handwritten by a young author, found in the Greek section of a library in Virginia by a Cypriot scholar. A performance of several plays by the British Young Vic Shakespearean touring company in Nicosia 2005. Returning to NYC full time and working with the City of New York’s Department for the Aging Time Banks NYC brought theater work full circle. Theater for the New City (TNC) produced the artistic side of Time Banks NYC and led to today’s Tierney TNC Theater Workshop sponsored by Bloomberg Philanthropies since 2013. Unencumbered by war zones; theater life has been abundant with TNC Workshop as a base she’s been able to work in independent films and showcase productions of new plays these last half a dozen years.NEW YORK, NY
Theo Herghelegiu is a theatre director, playwright, scriptwriter, lyricist, drama tutor and translator resident in Europe – Romania, Bucharest.She graduated the University of Bucharest - Philology in 92 and the National University of Theatre and Film – Theatre Directing in 98. She also has a MFA in Film Aesthetics, 2013.She directed over 55 shows and she wrote many plays, some of them being staged, either by her or by other Romanian, or foreign directors. She also performed in films and on stage, being awarded for Best Feminine part in The Angel, by Radu Dragomir, 1998. She worked in the field of journalism, acting coaching, scriptwriting and literary translations from English. In 1998 she founded the TEATRUL INEXISTENT private theatre company, which was the first and most active (at the time) independent company in the Romanian post-communist era. She led the company in partnership with a couple of colleagues until 2011 and directed over 20 performances with this company, which were a true avant-garde artistic statement of the decade. She also directed plays by important contemporary authors, like Sibylle Berg, Ronald Schimmelpffening, Lukas Baerfuss, Thomas Bernhardt, Claudine Galea etc, but also Shakespeare, or John Cromwell.She is a fun of Tim Roth and Glenn Close. She loves interacting with people and always considered the performative arts to be about sharing joy – the joy of the togetherness; of discovering those truths that last for maximum 2 seconds… J
Hosted by Coni Koepfinger and Brandy ChapmanJoan Kane (director/producer/dramaturg/writer/actor) is the founding Artistic Director of Ego Actus.Selected workJoan Kane directed Sycorax at HERE, Play Nice! at 59e59 theaters, I Know What Boys Want at Theatre Row, Six Characters in Search of an Author in Oslo, Norway and Kafka’s Belinda in Prague. She also directed both Safe and what do you mean at 59e59 theaters and in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, getting four star reviews for each.Awards and honorsJoan was awarded Best Director in the 2016 United Solo Festival where she has directed six pieces. Joan was named lone of the 2011 People of the Year in honor of her contributions to the NY theatre scene and inducted to the Indie Theatre Hall of Fame by nytheatre.com. Her shows have been nominated for 61 awards, winning 21Selected other workJoan has also directed plays and readings at the Lark, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Urban Stages, Workshop Theater, Nylon Fusion, Articulate Theatre, Abingdon Theatre, Oberon Theatre, the Samuel French Short Play Festival, the Actors Studio, T. Schreiber Studio, the Broadway Bound festival and many others.EducationJoan graduated from the High School of Performing Arts, studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse and has an MFA in Directing from The New School and an MS in Museum Education from Bank Street College. Career ArcEarly in her career she was an Equity, AFTRA and SAG actress. She later became a teaching artist for Henry St Settlement, Young Playwrights and Theatre for a New Audience. Joan went on to teach in New York City Public Schools where she was also a staff developer and at Fordham University as an adjunct professor for both under graduate and graduate classes.MembershipsJoan is a member of The New York Madness Company, Rising Sun Performance Company, The Episcopal Actors’ Guild, the League of Independent Theatre, the Dramatists Guild, New York Women In Film and Television and the Society of Stage Directors & Choreographers. She is a voting member for the New York Innovative Theatre Awards Artistic Achievement committee and a Nominator for the Kilroys List. Joan is also an ex-officio Vice President for Programming on the Executive Board of Directors of the League of Professional Theatre Women.
Tess and Shay are back with another fiyah episode. This time they have special guest Turhan Henderson (Shay's Husband) on the mic. Shay tells the love story of how her and her husband came to be. She also tells her husband's medical history for the past year and a half. Turhan tells us how he feels about his situation. Could your marriage survive this? Tune In.
Hosted by Coni Koepfinger and Christy Donahue: Nancy Rhodes (Stage Director, writer, and educator) stages a wide range of musicals, operas and plays in the U.S.A, Europe and Asia. She directed The Astronaut’s Tale at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, BAM Fisher; staged the world premiere of Tartuffe for San Francisco Opera, and Virgil Thomson’s opera Lord Byron at Alice Tully Hall.As Artistic Director & co-founder of Encompass Theatre, specializing in new music drama & American opera, she staged over 65 works including Gertrude Stein/Virgil Thomson’s The Mother of Us All, (about Susan B. Anthony), Blitzstein’s Regina, Britten’s Phaedra, and Only Heaven by Ricky Ian Gordon and Langston Hughes. Her production of The Diary of Anne Frank was nominated for an Artistic Achievement Award and played to over four thousand people on tour at Cleveland Opera. She recently directed the world premiere of Anna Christie, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Eugene O'Neill; and the Cast Album was released by Broadway Records in 2019, and reached #6 on the Billboard charts.Internationally, she directed Death In Venice (Stockholm), Carmen (Oslo), Happy End (Finland), Kiss Me Kate (Ankara, filmed for TV), West Side Story (Istanbul), and Eccentrics, Outcasts and Visionaries for the Holland Festival (Amsterdam), and the first American musicals ever staged in the country of Albania. At Encompass, she launched Paradigm Shifts, Music and Film Festival, to celebrate courageous people around the world protecting our planet, oceans, and wildlife, and in 2017, Paradigm Shifts was presented in Seoul, Korea.As Vice President/U.S. Delegate to the International Theatre Institute, Rhodes conducted workshops and served as a guest speaker in Italy, Sweden, Germany, Venezuela, Argentina, Korea, Holland, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Estonia. She taught Acting for Singers at Manhattan School of Music for 12 years and is the commissioned librettist of The Theory of Everything, inspired by physics’ string theory of multiple dimensions and alternate universes.
Hosted by Coni Koepfinger and Christy Donahue: Nancy Rhodes (Stage Director, writer, and educator) stages a wide range of musicals, operas and plays in the U.S.A, Europe and Asia. She directed The Astronaut’s Tale at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, BAM Fisher; staged the world premiere of Tartuffe for San Francisco Opera, and Virgil Thomson’s opera Lord Byron at Alice Tully Hall.As Artistic Director & co-founder of Encompass Theatre, specializing in new music drama & American opera, she staged over 65 works including Gertrude Stein/Virgil Thomson’s The Mother of Us All, (about Susan B. Anthony), Blitzstein’s Regina, Britten’s Phaedra, and Only Heaven by Ricky Ian Gordon and Langston Hughes. Her production of The Diary of Anne Frank was nominated for an Artistic Achievement Award and played to over four thousand people on tour at Cleveland Opera. She recently directed the world premiere of Anna Christie, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Eugene O'Neill; and the Cast Album was released by Broadway Records in 2019, and reached #6 on the Billboard charts.Internationally, she directed Death In Venice (Stockholm), Carmen (Oslo), Happy End (Finland), Kiss Me Kate (Ankara, filmed for TV), West Side Story (Istanbul), and Eccentrics, Outcasts and Visionaries for the Holland Festival (Amsterdam), and the first American musicals ever staged in the country of Albania. At Encompass, she launched Paradigm Shifts, Music and Film Festival, to celebrate courageous people around the world protecting our planet, oceans, and wildlife, and in 2017, Paradigm Shifts was presented in Seoul, Korea.As Vice President/U.S. Delegate to the International Theatre Institute, Rhodes conducted workshops and served as a guest speaker in Italy, Sweden, Germany, Venezuela, Argentina, Korea, Holland, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Estonia. She taught Acting for Singers at Manhattan School of Music for 12 years and is the commissioned librettist of The Theory of Everything, inspired by physics’ string theory of multiple dimensions and alternate universes.
Hosted by Coni Koepfinger. Guests Cindy Cooper and Lisa Pelikan.Cindy Cooper is an award-winning playwright, journalist and author. Her plays have been produced in New York at Primary Stages, the Women’s Project, Wings, Museum of Tolerance, Art and Work Ensemble, New Circle Theatre Company, and elsewhere, and in Chicago, Minneapolis, L.A. Montreal, Jerusalem, Budapest and more. Reviews of Running on Glass last year called the writing “extraordinary” and said “storytelling is, indeed, the mode of Cooper’s script.” Cindy has won awards from Pen and Brush, the Samuel French Play Festival, Malibu International, and is a two-time Jerome Fellow. She is also the author of eight books, including Mockery of Justice, made into a CBS-TV movie; her articles have appeared in Ms., The Nation, Glamour, National Law Journal and more. She lives in New York City. You can read more at her website, cyncooperwriter.net.Lisa Pelikan, DirectorLisa recently directed Cindy Cooper’s Heaven Scent, Ed Valentine’s Walk With BrightCandles, Christopher Goutman’s For Your Love, and Lori Goodman’s New Leaf with theNew Circle Theatre Company. With the Ensemble Studio Theatre she directed JuliaSpecht’s Our Love Story Is Not Very Interesting. She received the ADA Best DirectorAward for her direction of ‘night, Mother for which both her actors were nominated andone received the Best Actress Award with the Interact Theatre Company. As an actor,Lisa made her feature film debut as the young 'Julia' in Fred Zinnemann's Julia sharingthe title role with Vanessa Redgrave, her television debut as the ingénue in the HallmarkHall of Fame production of The Country Girl with Jason Robards and Shirley Knight,and her theatrical debut starring as 'Wendla' in Spring's Awakening with the CircleRepertory Theatre. In New York City, Lisa also starred in the world premieres ofPanache, (winning the ADA Award for Best Actress in a Comedy), Jim Leonard's TheDiviners, and Arthur Miller’s The American Clock. If you have further curiosities aboutLisa’s career, you can visit her website at www.lisapelikan.com(Wendla is pronounced with a “V” – “Vendla”)
Hosted by Coni Koepfinger. Guests Cindy Cooper and Lisa Pelikan.Cindy Cooper is an award-winning playwright, journalist and author. Her plays have been produced in New York at Primary Stages, the Women’s Project, Wings, Museum of Tolerance, Art and Work Ensemble, New Circle Theatre Company, and elsewhere, and in Chicago, Minneapolis, L.A. Montreal, Jerusalem, Budapest and more. Reviews of Running on Glass last year called the writing “extraordinary” and said “storytelling is, indeed, the mode of Cooper’s script.” Cindy has won awards from Pen and Brush, the Samuel French Play Festival, Malibu International, and is a two-time Jerome Fellow. She is also the author of eight books, including Mockery of Justice, made into a CBS-TV movie; her articles have appeared in Ms., The Nation, Glamour, National Law Journal and more. She lives in New York City. You can read more at her website, cyncooperwriter.net.Lisa Pelikan, DirectorLisa recently directed Cindy Cooper’s Heaven Scent, Ed Valentine’s Walk With BrightCandles, Christopher Goutman’s For Your Love, and Lori Goodman’s New Leaf with theNew Circle Theatre Company. With the Ensemble Studio Theatre she directed JuliaSpecht’s Our Love Story Is Not Very Interesting. She received the ADA Best DirectorAward for her direction of ‘night, Mother for which both her actors were nominated andone received the Best Actress Award with the Interact Theatre Company. As an actor,Lisa made her feature film debut as the young 'Julia' in Fred Zinnemann's Julia sharingthe title role with Vanessa Redgrave, her television debut as the ingénue in the HallmarkHall of Fame production of The Country Girl with Jason Robards and Shirley Knight,and her theatrical debut starring as 'Wendla' in Spring's Awakening with the CircleRepertory Theatre. In New York City, Lisa also starred in the world premieres ofPanache, (winning the ADA Award for Best Actress in a Comedy), Jim Leonard's TheDiviners, and Arthur Miller’s The American Clock. If you have further curiosities aboutLisa’s career, you can visit her website at www.lisapelikan.com(Wendla is pronounced with a “V” – “Vendla”)
KAY RICHARDSON Business Name: Clients Who Say Yes Website: clientswhosayyes.com Email: info@clientswhosayyes.com Kay Richardson, known as “The Clients Who Say Yes Mentor, is a business coach and the author of “What a Woman’s Gotta Do.” She mentors women business owners to create clarity, courage and cash, so they can serve and impact the world while earning their real worth. Life has taught her that With The Right Mix of Determination and Drive, There's Nothing You Can't Do and that What You Believe About Yourself Can Make Or Break You.
Determined Women Host Coni Ciongoli Koepfinger Interviews Nan Barnett.Nan Barnett is a new play developer and producer, and an advocate for theater-makers and the theater they make. She is currently the Executive Director of National New Play Network, the country's alliance of more than 100 theaters with a dedication to the development, production, and continued life of new plays and the pioneering of programs and innovations for the new play sector.
Determined Women Host Coni Ciongoli Koepfinger Interviews Nan Barnett.Nan Barnett is a new play developer and producer, and an advocate for theater-makers and the theater they make. She is currently the Executive Director of National New Play Network, the country's alliance of more than 100 theaters with a dedication to the development, production, and continued life of new plays and the pioneering of programs and innovations for the new play sector.
Host Coni Koepfinger interviews LORCA PERESS. LORCA PERESS specializes in developing multicultural and multidisciplinary theatre, dance-theatre, musicals, opera and theatrical multimedia projects. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of MultiStages (est. 1997), and also works as a freelance director
Host Coni Koepfinger interviews LORCA PERESS. LORCA PERESS specializes in developing multicultural and multidisciplinary theatre, dance-theatre, musicals, opera and theatrical multimedia projects. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of MultiStages (est. 1997), and also works as a freelance director