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ARTIST BIOS cast of the NY Musical Theatre Festival
Equity Showcase Production
max TODD ALAN JOHNSON hannah MEGHAN
McGEARY casting by MARGOLIS-SEAY CASTING, NYC director & choreographer WILL POMERANTZ video projectionist
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Jim Bauer began studying piano at the age of 6 on the barren plains of Texas with smooth-drawling, tightly-wound Katherine Freiberger, who did not think much of either his discipline or his fingering, but with patience and determination gave him a solid start. Music came alive for him at age 10, when he laid flat on the floor, squeezed his head tightly between two large stereo speakers, and listened to Jimi Hendrix' "Axis: Bold as Love" over and over and over again. The world exploded, he took a leave of absence from lessons and saved his life by learning to play music by ear. After stabilizing, he later went on to study piano with Emilio del Rosario in Chicago, and as a student at Dartmouth College continued his piano studies with Gabriel Chodos while beginning music theory & composition studies. In his third year, enjoying a fit of clarity, he transferred to the fertile oasis of Haverford College, where he received a liberal arts education, studied piano with Temple Painter, and was generously mentored by composers Harold Boatrite and the late John Davison, who, between the three, had enough grace, dignity and pure musical intuition among them to keep the world afloat for generations to come. With his personal tastes and professional life straddling classical and hillbilly music, and a persistent interest in somehow weaving music and narrative together, Jim has spent some of his time performing on stage as singer/guitarist/keyboardist/front man for rock bands he puts together to play his music, some of it composing and producing music scores for film and television (Lodge Kerrigan films, VH1 “Behind the Music”, A&E “Biography”, History Channel, Discovery Channel, PBS, etc),, some of it in recent years collaborating with his lovely and talented wife Ruth Bauer, a visual artist, on their first work for theater, THE BLUE FLOWER, still in development in NYC, and the rest of it writing songs and making soothingly unrealistic plans. DAGMAR, his current pet project -- a 6-piece alt rock band -- had its debut performance at Joe's Pub in New York City in June 2005, and is in the process of recording its first CD, "Door No. 1", which will be released June 2006. “Door No. 1” is the first of a planned three-part, three-CD song cycle about a guy who can't get out of bed in the morning and an insect goddess who plunges through the ether to rescue him. He is a 2004 recipient of a Jonathan Larson
Performing Arts Foundation Award, a recipient each year since 2003
of the ASCAP Plus Award for performing musicians, and THE BLUE FLOWER
was a 2005 finalist for the American Academy of Arts & Letters
Richard Rodgers Award. He has released three commercially available CD's on his own record label, all of which are currently available at the iTunes music store:
CONTACT: bauer@weimarband.com
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Museum exhibitions include The Boston Museum of Fine Arts, The Hudson River Museum, The Tucson Museum of Art, The DeCordova Museum, The Brockton Museum, and the Rose Art Museum. Gallery exhibitions include The Clark Gallery/Boston, the Kathryn Markel Gallery/NYC, the Maxwell Davidson Gallery/NYC, The Drawing Center/NYC and the Thomas Segal Gallery/Boston. Her paintings, watercolors and monotypes have been purchased by a large number of notable private and public collections, and her work has been reviewed in a number of articles in art journals and newspapers, including ArtNews and The Boston Globe. As an illustrator, she has created book jacket covers for Houghton-Mifflin, Viking, Harvard University Press and Orchard Books. She is currently represented by The Clark Gallery (Boston) and Kathryn Markel Fine Arts (NYC). Ruth believes as strongly in nurturing young artists as making art, and is proud of her work as a faculty member and Head of the Art Department at Shore Country Day School in Beverly, MA. The Blue Flower is her first work for theater. CONTACT: r.bauer@weimarband.com
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CONTACT: www.tajworks.com
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CONTACT: meghan@meghanmcgeary.com ; Francis Delduca, The Fifi Oscard Agency 110 W. 40th Street, 16th Fl., New York, NY tel: 212.764.1100 |
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WILL POMERANTZ (Director & Choreographer) has developed many new plays and musicals in New York and regionally. He has directed presentations for NAMT and NMTN, and has been associated with such organizations as The Signature Theatre, The Studio Theatre, The Pittsburgh Public, The Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Denver Center, The Mark Taper Forum, New Dramatists, Soho Rep, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The American Music Theatre Festival, and New York Theatre Workshop. He is currently Director-in-Residence for The Culture Project/45 Bleecker, where he has recently overseen the production of Guantanomo by Victoria Brittain and Gillian Slovo, directed by Nicolas Kent and Sacha Wares, and directed Julia Jordan's Tatiana in Color: The Trial of Egon Schiele. He received an OOBR Award for Outstanding Production (A Tale of Two Cities), his production of The Shape of Things was voted Outstanding Production of 2002 by Metro Weekly in Washington, D.C. He received a Critic's Pick in TimeOut NY for his production of The Wild Duck, and his work has been cited in the Boston Area Theatre Critic's Top Ten List (Cruel and Barbarous Treatment). He was the Boris Sagal Fellow in Directing for the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Staff Repertory Director for The Acting Company, and an alumnus of The Directors Lab at Lincoln Center. He has directed plays by Wedekind, Shaw, Ibsen, Chekhov, Shakespeare and Strindberg,. Literary adaptations include The 5:48 (based on the story by John Cheever), Social Note: An Evening with Dorothy Parker (performed in the Oak Room at The Algonquin Hotel), Prater Violet (based on the novella by Christopher Isherwood), and Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. Upcoming projects include Unlocked by Sam Carner and Derek Gregor (Richard Rodgers Award Winner) produced by Paulette Haupt, Glow by Ed Bok Lee (for The New York Theatre Workshop) and Bonnie and Clyde (a two-person musical based on the lives of the notorious duo). Will has been a guest artist for The Juilliard School (three seasons), The National Theatre Conservatory at The Denver Center, Purchase College Conservatory Acting Program, The Atlantic Theatre Company School, and Louisiana College. He received his MFA from Carnegie Mellon University where he was awarded the Stephen Bochco Scholarship Award for Directing, as well as the Jacob Javitz Fellowship for Advanced Studies. CONTACT: w.pomerantz@weimarband.com |
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| ANDREW
LEVINE (Music Director / Co-Producer)
hails from Brooklyn, NY and has worked professionally
for American Place Theater, Jewish Repertory Theater, and Westchester
Broadway Theater. Regionallly, he has served as Music Director for
The Cleveland Playhouse, New American Theater, and Candlewood Playhouse.
He is the head of the Musical Theater Department at Perry-Mansfield
School for the Performing Arts in Steamboat Springs, CO, one of the
oldest and most revered summer arts programs in the country. At Perry-Mansfield
he is also Music Director for New Noises: A Festival of New Stageworks,
where he first came upon The Blue Flower. In addition to serving
as co-producer for The Blue Flower, he produces The Art
of Cabaret, a weeklong workshop for professional singers, and
is currrently developing projects built around composers who write
for the stage. For four years, Andrew was the Resident Music Director
for The Savannah College of Art and Design, and his work at the college
allowed him to express his talents as a composer, arranger, teacher
and producer. He holds a BMus in piano performance from Manhattan
School of Music and MMus in composition from Georgia Southern University.
CONTACT: a.levine@weimarband.com
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| PHILIP
TREVINO (Stage
Manager & Lighting Designer) last worked with Will Pomerantz
at The Culture Project on Tolstoy's Wife for The Women's Center
Stage Festival, and on Julia Jordan's Tatiana in Color. His
most recent lighting design work was seen in Ravaged by Romance
at La Mama. Philip works freelance for various theaters in various
capacities, including The Manhattan Theatre Club and The Public Theatre.
CONTACT: trevino@weimarband.com |
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photos < back / TOP / continue > news & events |
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JIM
BAUER (composer/lyricist/writer)
RUTH
BAUER (artist/writer) comes
from a long line of steely-eyed, tough-talking Texas prairie women,
but grew up in the suburban sprawl of Stamford, Connecticut where
she spent half her time reading books, another half making pictures,
and a third half trying to escape. A graduate of the Rhode Island
School of Design, her oil paintings, watercolors, collages and monotypes
have been shown in both group and solo exhibitions in museums and
galleries across the United States.
TODD
ALAN JOHNSON (Max) is currently
starring in Newsical, at Studio 54. BROADWAY: Zoser in Aida.
NAT'L TOURS: Javert in Les Miserables and starred opposite
Com Wilkinson's Valjean (Toronto '98-'99); '03-'04: Sweeney in
Sweeney Todd (New Rep, 2004 Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding
Musical); MacHeath in The Three Penny Opera (new Rep, MacDonald/Sams
Trans.); title roles in Jekyll & Hyde.
MEGHAN
McGEARY (Hannah) grew up in
a house with large, dark rooms crowded with clocks and feverishly
high expectations. She emerged from the twisted ravines of western
Pennsylvania fusing together a disciplined combination of visceral
and cerebral performance techniques that she developed further as
a drama student first at Smith College and then in London.
NY credits include: The Good
Woman (Shen Te/Shui Ta understudy & ensemble); The Vise
(Evelyn); Top Girls (Marlene); The Dancers (Elizabeth
Cruise) Regional credits include:
Diary of Anne Frank (Mrs. Frank); As You Like It
(Rosalind); Comedy of Errors (Luciana); Prelude to a Kiss
(Rita). Ms McGeary is also one of the lead vocalists in 
CLAYTON
DEAN SMITH (Franz) Winston in
Synapse Productions' 1984 at the Connelly Theater (Spring
2004); The Singing Assassin Nurse in the Fringe Festival hit Scalpel:
A Rock Musical (Fringe Excellence Award); Bajazeth, The King
of Mars in Salt Theater Company's Conquest of the Universe
in the Ice Factory Festival at the Ohio Theater; the voice of Scoobyin
Scooby Doo: Live on Stage at Radio City Music Hall and on National
Tour. He regularly appears at Manhattan Theatre Source, Chashama,
La Mama ETC., and on ABC's One Life to Live. TRAINING: Ward
Acting Studio, LAByrinth Theater Company, SITI Company and with
Anne Bogart at Columbia University. CONTACT:
JEAN
ARBEITER (Maria) BROADWAY: Jellylorum/Griddlebone
in Cats (final cast and Nat'l Tour IV) OFF-BROADWAY: Jessica
Gatewood in Splendora; FAVORITE REGIONAL CREDITS INCLUDE:
Eliza in My Fair Lady, Marian in The Music Man, Mother
in Ragtime, Princess Alcmene in Olympus on My Mind,
Thetis in the American premiere of The Greeks, Part I and II
(Alley Theatre) CONTACT: 
JAMIE
LaVERDIERE (Fairytale Man) made
his Broadway debut filling in for Matthew Broderic and starring
opposite Nathan Lane in The Producers. Jamie has toured Europe
with A Chorus Line and toured America with Urinetown.
Favorite roles include Billy in Anything Goes, Puck in A
Midsummer Night's Dream, and Huck in Big River. Film and TV
credits include cameo appearances on Comedy Central and Lifetime
TV, and starring in the award winning short film Hell is Other People.
CONTACT: 
ANDREW
DAWSON (Sewing Machine Man)
slipped out of crushingly humid Houston, Texas (where he was neither
football star nor popular cheerleader) with his irreverent sensibilities
and good humor intact. Both an actor and director, his NEW YORK
CREDITS include: Training Wisteria (Cherry Lane/Fringe NYC),
Play, Voice of Reason (Kraine Theatre), Father's Day
(John Houseman Studio), Anastasia Krupnick (NY Workshop).
NATIONAL TOURS: Salem Justice, Anne of Green Gables, ,and Hans
Brinker. REGIONAL CREDITS INCLUDE: The Tale of the Allergist's
Wife, Fuddy Meers, An American Daughter, Watch on the Rhine, An
Enemy of the People, Uncle Vanya, Arcadia, An Ideal Husband, Talley's
Folly, Cabaret, The Quadroon Ball, The Normal Heart, Blithe Spirit,
The Shadow Box, and the one-man show The Only Thing Worse
You Could Have Told Me. TRAINING: Trinity University,
The University of Houston, and the American Academy of Dramatic
Arts in New York City. He is a member of the Harbor Theater and
Screaming Venus Theatre acting companies. CONTACT:
MARC
GELLER (Typewriter Man) has
been involved with TheBlue Flower in its many incarnations over
the last two years. He has been seen in over 70 productions in New
York City, including the world premieres of Naked Will
(Oscar Wilde), Prince Hal (Irwin), Bomber Jackets
(Erica), The Night Word (Frank) Gesualdo (Carlo Gesualdo),
Box Office Poison (L. Kane), I Stand Naked Before You
(Brad), and the first NYC revivals of Shopping and Fucking
(Brian); Unidentified Human Remains (David); Bent
(Rudy) and Exit the King (Berenger). Due to an overwhelming
need to belong, Marc is a member of Harbor Theatre, NJ Rep., The
Worshop and Red Light District Theatre Company, and The Waterfront
Ensemble. CONTACT: 
JEN
CHAPIN originated the role of Maria
as one of the lead vocalists in