Coming Soon:
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THE RUNNER STUMBLES cast and staff:
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Becky Byers (Louise) is so excited to be performing in her frist Retro Production as a company member. Theater: Retro Productions' Dear Ruth (Miriam), Flux Theatre Ensemble’s Dog Act (Jojo - NYIT Nomination for Outstanding Featured Actress), Old Kent Road Theater’s Emancipatory Politics, A Romantic Tragedy (Becky), Boomerang Theatre Co’s Endless Summer Nights (Young Tracy), DMTheatrics’ Two Gentlemen of Lebowski (Bonnie/Choreographer) and Bitch Macbeth (Prime Asbury), Piper McKenzie’s Craven Monkey and the Mountain of Fury (Air Minion/Spunky Monkey) and Willy Nilly (Cass/Choreographer), Nosedive Productions’ The Little One (Cynthia-“The Little One”), Third Lows’ Penny Dreadful Series (Abigail Pierce) Film: Pain Cave Productions’ Play Hooky (Megan), The Electric Mess’ She Has a Funny Walk music video. Becky is a 2010 NYTheatre.com Person of the Year. |  |
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Nat Cassidy* (Prosecutor) is an award-winning actor, playwright and director. Favorite roles include Hamlet, Henry VI, Touchstone, Jaques, Trissotin, Tuzenback, Puck, Bottom, Christopher Marlowe, Iago, Eicmann, and many others. He has appeared Off- and Off-Off Broadway at such venues as CSC, SoHo Playhouse, Cherry Lane, Theatre Row, Galery Players, 59E59, Lincoln Center, and many others. Winner NY Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Solo Perofrmance (2011) and Outstanding Full-Length Script (2009), nominee for Outstanding Director (2009). |  |
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Heather E. Cunningham (Mrs. Shandig) was most recently seen as Edith in Retro’s Dear Ruth. Her performance as Sheila in Retro's Benefactors was nominated for a 2011 New york Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Actress in a Lead Role as well as Outstanding Ensemble. In 2007 Back Stage named her a “Performance to Remember” for her portrayal of Cheryl in Retro’s Still Life. Selected additional Retro: The Desk Set, Women and War (World Premiere), Holy Days (NYC premiere), When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder?, and Mrs. California (NYC premiere). Selected NYC: The Bleecker Company, The Soundtrack Series, Young Playwrights, New York Theatre Workshop, and Vital Theatre. Her residency at Hedgerow Theatre (PA) included appearances in over a dozen productions. Property designs for Retro productions including The Desk Set with Casandera Lollar: which earned a nomination for the first ever New York Innovative Theatre Awards Innovative Design Award. Heather holds a B.F.A. in theater performance from Denison University. www.heathercunningham.net |
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Casandera M.J. Lollar (Sister Rita) is a Brooklyn College alum and multi-faceted theater rat. She was seen most recently in the Off-Broadway production of Teeth of the Sons at the Cherry Lane Theater, and currently works at New World Stages for the Off-Broadway production of Rent. Nominated for a NYIT award i OUtstanding Innovative Design alongside Heather Cunningham. She is a proud company member of Retro Productions. |  |
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Joe Mathers (Amos/Fight Choreographer). A recent addition to Retro Productions after Dear Ruth, Joe is happy to be back onstage with Retro in The Runner Stumbles. When not acting with various other companies such as Boomerang, Imetuous, Gideon etc., he is often found backstage working as a carpenter, electrician, and fight choreographer. Currently freelancing as a rogue theater technician, Joe builds sets, shops and prop weapons for fun and profit. Walk on up and introduce yourself, he's always happy to add to the mayhem and destruction whenever he can. |  |
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Christopher Patrick Mullen* (Father Rivard) "CPM" is a graduate of DeSales University and a member of the resident ensemble of artists at The People's Light & Theatre Company. Recent credits include: The Broadway National Tour of West Side Story, and Retro's production of When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder? Regional credits include: Candide and Assasins (Arden Theatre Co.); King Lear, Dracula: The Journal of Jonathan Harker, The Mystery of Irma Vep, As You LIke It, Hamlet, The Glass Menagerie, and Twelfth Night among many others (Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival); Crispin: The Cross of Lead, The Tempest, The Crucible and Julius Ceasar among many others (The People's LIght & Theatre Co.); Two Gentlemen of Verona, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Taming of the Shrew and Hamlet among others (Orlando Shakespeare Theatre); The Pavilion (Chester Theatre Company); Hedda Gabler (Century Center); Amadeus (Hedgerow Theatre); and Quinnopolis vs Hamlet (Quinnopolis, NY). TV credits: Law & Order. |  |
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Ric Sechrest* (Toby Felker) is a Retro Productions company member where he has directed When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder?, Still Life and What I Did Last Summer. As an actor for Retro, Ric has appeared in The Tender Trap and The Desk Set. Other acting/directing credits include The Pentecost, The Tempest, All My Sons, Circus Beckett, The Good Times Are Killing Me and Proof to name a few. He is producing and directing the documentary film "To Each His Own: The Charlie Howard Story." For more information please visit www.ricsechrest.com. He holds theatre degrees from Syracuse University, University of Maine and Ohio Universtiy, MFA. |  |
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Alisha Spielmann (Erna Prindle) is a proud member of Retro Productions, having last been seen as Ruth Wilkins in Dear Ruth, and Ruthie Saylor in The Desk Set, as well as in The Retro Productions Cabaret. New York City theater: Intermezzo (New York City Opera); Killer High, Hack! (Vampire Cowboys); Oh Never Mime, Ten Year Twilight (Nosedive Productions); Miss Lilly Gets Boned, ForePlay: Secrets and Lies (Flux Theatre Ensemble); Hack! (Impetuous Theater Group); Native Speech, As You Like It, All's Well That Ends Well, Love In The Insecurity Zone (Boomerang Theatre Company); Bus Stop, The Learned Ladies, As You Like It (The Gallery Players). Regional: As You Like It, The Christmas Carol (The Guthrie Theater); Twelfth Night (Hodge Podge Theater); The Last Train To Nibroc (Paul Bunyan Playhouse). Training: June Stein, Andrew Wade. A native Minnesotan, Alisha received her BA in Music and Theater from St. Olaf College. www.alishaspielmann.com |  |
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Richard Waddingham (Monsignor Nicholson) was last seen in Retro's When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder? as Lyle. Credits include: The Skin Game The Mint Theater Company. Theatre Lila's Firecracker (Checkhov Adaptation), The Samuel Beckett Theatre. Their Daughter NYC International Fringe Festival; Abingdon Theatre, Tracks Beneath the Wheels, Public Ghosts - Private Stories George Street Playhouse, The Importance of Being Ernest, The Crucible The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, A Man for All Seasons Mill Mountain Theatre, Indians City Theatre Co. (Pgh), The Beauty Queen of Leenane Philadelphia Theatre Company, Lost Creek Twp., Crossroads Theatre Co., Molly Sweeney The Redhouse Theatre Syracuse. Relatively Speaking, Bedroom Farce and Corpse!; Cortland Repertory Theatre. Film: Watching the Detectives. MFA, Acting: Rutgers - Mason Gross School of Arts. Member AEA/SAG. Thanks to Patty and my family for their abundant love and support. |  |
Peter Zinn
(director) For Retro Productions, Peter directed Holy Days, Benefactors (2011 NYITAward nominated for Outstanding Production and Outstanding Ensemble), and Women and War. Off-Broadway, he wrote and directed the world premiere of Rumspringa (Bleecker Street Theatre). Other directing credits include Reike on the Plains, So Long Lives This, Found (HB Playwrights FOundation Theatre), and So Long Lives This (American Globe Theatre). As a producer, Hillbilly Women (The Arclight Theatre) directed by Sondra Lee, Upon My Word
(The Players Club), and The New Play Development Series (The Bleecker
Company). As an actor, he performed with Steppenwolf Theatre
Company, Apple Tree Theatre, The Milwaukee Rep, The Geffen Theatre and
others. He also works as a voice over artist and has voiced
hundreds of TV and radio commercials as well as narrated programs for
The Discovery Channel, MTV Networks, and E! Entertainment Television.
He is a proud company member of Retro Productions.
Milan Stitt
(playwright) was a founder and executive director of Triad Plawrights
Company, an Off-Off Broadway group that helped writers develop new
plays. He has held adminstrative positions with the American
Shakespeare Festival, Circle Repertory Theater, Long Wharf Theatre and
American Place Theatre and taught at prestigious universities such as
Carnegie Mellon, Yale, Princeton, The University of Michigan and New
York University. He studied at the University of Michigan, where
he won two Avery Hopwood Playwriting Awards and at the Yale School of
Drama. He was born in Detroit and passed away in March, 2009.
His plays include Ephraim McDowell's Kentucky Ride, Back in the Race, and The Runner Stumbles.
Jack and Rebecca (Beckie) Cunningham
(set design). Rebecca is Professor Emerita of Costume
Design at Brooklyn College where she spent 38 years and designed
costumes for an estimated 60 productions. She is the author of the
costume design textbook, The Magic Garment, 2E and handbook Basic Sewing for Costume Construction
soon to be published in a second edition by Waveland Press. Rebecca
received USITT’s 2008 Distinguished Achievement Award in Costume
Design and Technology. Jack is retired from John Wiley & Sons,
Inc., Publisher of college textbooks. Over the years Jack has designed
scenery for opera, summer stock, off-off Broadway, and regional
theatre. Jack’s play Women and War originally
produced by Retro Productions and later in conjunction with The
Bleecker Theater is published by Baker’s Plays, an imprint of
Samuel French, Inc. In recent years Rebecca and Jack have designed sets
and costumes for Retro Productions. Their set designs for Mill Fire, and Rebecca costumes for What I Did Last Summer and her set design for The Desk Set were recognized by the Innovative Theatre Awards with nominations for best scenic and costume designs.
Kathryn Rohe
(costume design) has been in New York for nine years, having aught the
previous ten at the University of Virginia, as the head of the Costume
Tecnhology Program. Most New York theatre credits are from the
award-winning Transport Group, with whom she has worked since its
inception in 2001. With them she has designed most recently
Michael John Lachiusa's Queen of the Mist and Hello Again, and an envireonmental production of The Boys in the Band. Recent credits outside of New york include the Drury Lane Theatre in Chicago (Seven Brides for Seven Brothers), the ILlinois Shakespeare Festival (Scapin, Macbeth), the Clarence Brown Theatre (A Christmas Carol) and Ball State University (The Importance of Being Earnest). She will be returning to the Clarence Brown for a reprise of A Christmas Carol, and Ball State to design The Drowsy Chaperone.
She is thrilled to be working on her first show with Retro
Productions, most notably former Denison University students Heather
Cunningham and Peter Zinn, and Heather's amazing parents Jack and
Rebecca Cunningham.
Jacqueline Reid
(lighting design) is a lighting designer and stage manager, and
currently teaches at Rutgers University. Recent positions include
Resident Lighting Assistant for the Los Angeles Opera as well as
Resident Lighting Designer for The Actor’s Gang. In L.A.
she has also worked with Ebony Repertory Theatre, AMDA, Pasadena
Playhouse, Princess Cruises and CalArts. Other lighting design
credits include Trying and Cradle of Man for Victory Gardens Chicago; Rembrandt’s Gift for Madison Repertory Theatre, The Young Playwright’s Festival and Tick, Tick…Boom for Pegasus Players, Antigone, House of Bernarda Alba, and The Oresteia (Joseph Jefferson Citation Nomination) for Greasy Joan & Company, also in Chicago.
Jeanne Travis* (sound
design and original music) currently lives and works in New York City
as a sound designer and stage manager. Her most recent designs: Measure for Measure (American Bard Theatre Company), Dear Ruth, Benefactors, The Desk Set (NYITAward Nominee 2010), Holy Days (Retro Productions), Galactic Girl in: Attack of the Starbarians
by Jon Hoche. A native Texan, Jeanne holds a double B.A. in music
and theatre from Texas A&M University - CC. Jeanne is a
flutist and composes daily. http://jeannetravis.tumblr.com
Click here to read our Fall Newsletter!
Tickets: Adults $37, Seniors over 65: $30
Student Rush: $20 at the door, based on availability, with ID.
For Group Discounts, email inquiries to
retroprods@gmail.com
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click here or call 212.352.3101 (in NYC) or 1.866.811.4111 (outside NYC) The Box Office accepts cash only and opens 30 minutes prior to performance. |
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Read more about this production at www.unitedstages.com |
