of Entertaining Mr Sloane

by Joe Orton

Claire Schoonover (Kath) comes from England and is absolutely delighted to be making her debut appearance with The Edge of the Universe Players 2. Recent local credits include: Brave Spirits Theatre: Henry IV, Parts One and Two (Northumberland, Chief Justice, Vernon); Unexpected Stage Company: Romeo & Juliet: Love Knows No Age (Juliet); Anacostia Summer Festival: Solomon And Marion (Marion). Claire relocated to D.C. in September, 2013 after acting for 10 years in Stuttgart, Germany. Claire is a graduate of The Theatre Lab Honors Conservatory and will next be seen in Too Much Sun (Audrey) with Peter’s Alley Theatre Productions.

Matthew Aldwin McGee (Sloane) is a Helen Hayes Award winning actor and freelance artist living in the DC/MD area. Acting credits include Shakespeare Theatre: Much Ado, Two Gentlemen, Merry Wives, Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2; Constellation Theatre: Taking Steps, Scapin; National Children’s Theatre: The BFG; Imagination Stage: The BFG, From Here to There; Folger Theatre: Romeo and Juliet; Studio Theatre: Rocky Horror. He also works as a puppet designer, builder, and performer, and dabbles in directing (recently assistant-directed Avenue Q at Constellation) and playwriting. Matthew earned his degree in theatre from California State University, Fresno.

David Bryan Jackson* (Kemp) recently appeared in The Importance of Being Earnest at Scena Theatre, before which he was in The Old Masters at Washington Stage Guild, The Two-Character Play at Spooky Action Theater, and House and Garden at the Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre. He has performed David Hare’s one-man play Via Dolorosa at several theatres (and will be doing so in January at New Rep in Boston). He has acted at the Shakespeare, Folger, Woolly Mammoth, Studio, Signature, Hub and Source Theatres, as well as Washington Shakespeare Company, Arena Stage, the Kennedy Center, the Potomac Theatre Project, and Olney Theatre Center, where he was literary manager for many years. He has also worked as a director and sound designer at several D.C. area theatres. On-screen credits include the soon-to-be-released independent films Dinner with the Alchemist and Her Tango, AMC’s Turn: Washington’s Spies, and the title role in the award-winning short Unloved. He has law degrees from both sides of the Atlantic, and has also worked at various times as an attorney, editor, lumberjack, carpenter, Lucite embedder, stand-up comic, and troubadour (his Song for the Earth can be heard on Zoe Ravenwood’s album The Problem Might Be Me).

Jim Jorgensen* (Ed) recently understudied both Tartuffe and Orgon in Tartuffe at Shakespeare Theatre and appeared in Hamlet at Taffety Punk. He also understudied and appeared in The Tempest at Shakespeare Theatre.  Selected credits:  Constellation Theatre:  36 Views, Gilgamesh, Zorro, On the Razzle, Ramayana; Forum Theatre; Angels in America I and II, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, Mad Forest; Theatre J: Born Guilty, Our Suburb; WSC Avant Bard: Night and Day, Royal Hunt of the Sun, The Bacchae, Lady Chatterley’s Lover; Folger Theatre: Much Ado About Nothing; Keegan Theatre:  Buried Child; Scena Theatre: A Clockwork Orange, Hedda Gabler, Writer’s Cramp;  Catalyst Theater:  Flu Season, The Trial; Theatre Alliance: Boy Gets Girl; Fountainhead Theatre: Fit to be Tied, Betrayal. Training: Southern Methodist University M.F.A. in Acting. Website:  www.jimjorgensen.net.

Stephen Jarrett (Director) directed Luv, Cops, Treadwell: Light and Dark, and The Show-Off for The American Century Theater. Recent local productions: The Summoning of Everyman (Edge of the Universe Players 2) and Luv, American Style (Infinite Jest, 2014 Capital Fringe Festival). He has directed at Source Theatre, Opera Theatre of Northern Virginia, and Theater Alliance. New York directing credits (nine productions) include the first N.Y.C. revivals of Frank D. Gilroy’s Who’ll Save the Plowboy (Equity Library Theatre), Lawrence and Lee’s The Gang’s All Here (Riverwest Theatre), and The Ballad of Baby Doe (Bronx Opera). Other career highlights: production stage managing in New York, running a U.S. Army theater in Germany, and serving twelve years as Staging Director and Production Manager for the Hispanic Heritage Awards (Kennedy Center). Stephen was founding Director of Performing Arts at BlackRock Center for the Arts in Germantown and, for ten years, the Executive Director of Washington Area Performing Arts Video Archive (WAPAVA). He is a principal of White Dog Video Services. Theater training: Yale Drama, Catholic University, and University of Iowa.

Kevin Laughon (Props Designer) recently became the new Production Manager at Theater J.  Recent show:  Queens Girl in the World (Theater J).  His props have also graced the stages of many theaters, including WSC Avant Bard, Forum Theatre, Theater Alliance, 1st Stage, NextStop Theatre Company, Signature Theatre, Constellation Theatre Company, and The American Century Theater.  Previously, he was Production Manager (plus Sound Board Operator and Box Office Manager) at MetroStage from 2004 to 2011.  A graduate of Syracuse University, he is an actor, singer, dancer, choreographer, and teacher who has worked in TV, film, local theaters, schools, and dance studios for over 20 years.

Erik Teague (Costume Designer) is currently a freelance Costume Designer based in Alexandria, Virginia. A native of Cartersville, Georgia, he attended Kennesaw State University where he received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Theatre and Performance Studies and went on to receive his Master of Fine Arts degree in Costume Design from Boston University. He is a two-time National Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival Barbizon Award recipient for Excellence in Costume Design.  Some designs of note are The Flying Dutchman, The Odyssey, Trouble in Tahiti, and Ariadne in Naxos for the Glimmerglass Festival; costumes and puppets for The Lion, The Unicorn, and Me at the Washington National Opera; The Snow Queen and Evita at Serenbe Playhouse; The Wedding Dress and The Last of the Whyos at Spooky Action Theatre Company, 1001 Nights: A Love Story About Loving Stories with the Center for Puppetry Arts; Les Liaisons Dangereuse, The Rocky Horror Show and Spring Awakening at Actor’s Express; 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea for the Georgia Aquarium; The Museum At Night for The High Museum and The Navigator at 7Stages.

Giorgos Tsappas (Set Designer) Recent  credits include Our Town, Waiting for Godot, The Lieutenant of Inishmore at National Theatre of Cyprus; Guantanamo and John Epperson As I Lay Lip-Synching at Studio Theatre; The Rocky Horror Show, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, POP, Passing Strange, Fucking A, Jerry Springer the opera, Reefer Madness, Terrorism, Polaroid Stories, Nocturne, This Is Our Youth, A Clockwork Orange, Kerouac, Hair at Studio Theatre Secondstage; Photograph 51 at Theater J; A Trip to the Moon at Synetic Theater; Living Out, Senorita de Tacna, Ay Carmella, Lucido, Blood Wedding at GALA Hispanic Theatre; The Letters, Harlem Rose at Metrostage; Jerry Inside Out, Candide at Spooky Action Theatre; Macbeth, Medea, The Maids at WSC.

Marianne Meadows (Lighting Designer) Member, United Scenic Artists Local #829; B.A. Sarah Lawrence College; M.F.A. University of Washington; training at Lester Polakov’s Studio and Forum of Stage Design. National tours: Cook, Dixon, and Young (the original Three Mo’ Tenors),  The Acting Company.  Resident Designer with The Washington Stage Guild,  Histrio, and Theatre Lab.  Previous productions include RepStage: The Violet Hour, The Dazzle, and The Piano Teacher;  Solas Nua: Johnny Meister and the Stitch, Scenes from the Big Picture, La Corbiere;  Fords’ Theatre: Eleanor, A Couple of Blaguards;   The Kennedy Center: How to Bake an Apple Pie and See the World; Woolly Mammoth: Quills (Helen Hayes nomination), The Dead Monkey; Studio Theatre: Old Wicked Songs (Helen Hayes nomination), Miss Margarida’s Way; Theatre J: The Chosen  (Helen Hayes nomination); Washington Jewish Theatre: The Adding Machine (Helen Hayes nomination); Open Circle Theatre: Evita, Songs from a New World;  American Century Theatre: Beyond The Horizon, On The Waterfront;   Scena Theatre: Salome, The Purge, The Fall of the House of Usher;  Washington Shakespeare Company: Revenger’s Tragedy, Bent.  Theatre Lobby’s Mary Goldwater Award, 2004.

Ed Moser (Production Manager, Sound Designer) is a regional audio-production veteran whose designs include The Veil, Long Day’s Journey into Night, A Little Trick, Afterplay, and Master Harold and the Boys (Quotidian Theatre), Amelia (a Kennedy Center Page-to-Stage reading), and A Christmas Carol, Underneath the Lintel, and Tuesdays with Morrie for Paul Morella.  Favorite musical credits include Señor Discretion Himself (Arena Stage), Urinetown (University of Maryland), David in Shadow and Light (Theater J), and Godspell (Olney Theatre Center).  Favorite designs for The American Century Theater include Native Son, Treadwell: Bright and Dark, Visit to a Small Planet, The Country Girl, Little Murders, and Marathon ’33.  At The American Century Theater, Ed has produced Come Blow Your Horn, Bang the Drum Slowly, Oh Dad, Poor Dad . . ., Judgment at Nuremberg, An evening with Danny Kaye, and The Seven Year Itch.

Laurel VanLandingham (Stage Manager) is a freelance stage manager in the DC area and regularly works with Mason Opera out of George Mason University. Her most recent credits include Now Comes the Night (1^st Stage, Production Stage Manager), La Boheme (Mason Opera, Interim Stage Manager), Staunton Music Festival (Staunton Music Festival, Festival Stage Manager), Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare Opera Theatre, Production Stage Manager), Beatrice et Benedict (Shakespeare Opera Theatre, Production Stage Manager), The Pirates of Penzance (Mason Opera, Production Stage Manager).

Salima Seale (Assistant Stage Manager) is excited to be working on her first show with Universe Players 2.  She has recently relocated from Saint Paul, Minn.; this show is her first in the D.C. area. Her previous productions include By The Way, Meet Vera Stark, The Government Inspector, and One Dog Canoe. She is a graduate of Macalester College.

Naomi Robin (Casing Director) For many years, Naomi Robin was a professional stage actress based in New York, performing in theatres all over the U.S. and in Canada with such actors as Theodore Bikel, Robert Merrill, and Jan Peerce.  Later, she combined that with a second career as a SAG/AFTRA voiceover artist, doing thousands of spots and long-form narrations.  Returning to her theatre roots, she then spent many years as Casting Director at Theater J, with occasional free-lance projects on the side.  She also served as a judge, and earlier as a nominator, with the Helen Hayes Awards.  Most recently she has focused on free-lance casting and coaching projects.

*Member, Actors’ Equity Association