2017 Company

IMG_5474Performers: Andrew Butler, Tanya Dougherty, Claire Moodey, Rob McFadyen, Jan-Peter Pedross and Jon Riddleberger
Musician: Ed Rosenberg III

Playwright: Kristine Haruna Lee

Composer: Neal Kirkwood

Biographies

 

Andrew Butler (Performer) is a writer, performer and composer based in Brooklyn, NY. Previously with the Mettawee River Theatre Company: The Old Boat Goddess (2011), Communications From A Cockroach (2012), Before The Sun And Moon (2016), The Little Engine That Could (2011-2013). BFA: NYU’s Experimental Theater Wing. www.andrewrbutler.com

Tanya Dougherty (Performer) This will be Tanya’s sixth season as a company member for the Mettawee. Previous shows include Archy and the Underside (Mehitabel) and The Old Boat Goddess – Songs of the Ainu (Boat Goddess). Regional theatre credits include The Berkshire Theatre Festival, Endgame (Nell) and Shakespeare and Company, The Merry Wives of Windsor, (Nym).Brandeis Theatre Company credits include The Three Sisters (Masha), Sunday in the Park with George (Yvonne/Naomi), Funnyhouse of a Negro (Queen Victoria), Everything in the Garden (Jenny), Siddhartha (Sarasvati) and Hecuba (Polyxena). She holds an MFA from Brandeis University and a BFA from The University of Southern Queensland in Australia.

Rob McFadyen (Performer) is a NYC-based actor. Previously he has been seen at Portland Stage (Wittenberg), Berkshire Theatre Festival (Macbeth, Candide, A Christmas Carol), Brandeis Theatre Company (Three Sisters, Love’s Labours Lost, Everything in the Garden), Michigan Shakespeare Festival (Julius Caesar, Henry V, All’s Well that Ends Well), Performance Network Theatre (Candida), The Planet Ant (Dr. Seward’s Dracula), and Primary Stages (Little Monsters) among others. He holds an MFA from Brandeis University. Special thanks to Ralph and Casey.

Claire Moodey (Performer) directs, performs in, designs puppets for, and writes theater.  In the last year, she directed Megan Lang’s Forsaken Nation, Chiori Miyagawa’s Five by Five, co-directed Marco Millions with Bess Rowen for Target Margin, and assistant directed David Herskowits on Mourning Becomes Electra, Recent performing credits include Megan Murtha’s “Songs of Go and Pending”, It’s Lonely at the Top, and Are You With Us Graham Grant Graven.   In the fall, she will design objects for Alice Pencavel’s Daphne, and her original work femme pathos will be performed in January 2018.

Jan-Peter Pedross: (Performer) Previously with Mettawee: Valentyne & Orson, Peace, Nanabozho, Beyond the High Valley and numerous other gigs. With Astoria Performing Arts Center: Allegro, Blood Brothers, The Secret Garden, The Human Comedy. With Secret Theatre: Urinetown. With Gallery Players: Tommy, Man of La Mancha, Urinetown, Reckless, The Drowsy Chaperone, Violet, Chess. With NYC Fringe: The Nightmare Dream. With Judith Shakespeare : Coriolanus, Richard III and marathon reading of eight “history” plays. Much downtown/experimental theater, some film/TV/commercials. http://janpeterpedross.weebly.com

Jon Riddleberger (Assistant Director and Performer) is a NYC based actor, puppeteer, and teacher. This is Jon’s second summer with Mettawee! He has performed around the world as a puppeteer and is an artistic associate of Theater Reconstruction Ensemble in NYC. He has been a puppeteer with Dead Puppet Society, Handspring Puppet Company, Our Voices, InkFish Productions and toured with the North American and Japanese tour of “War Horse” as well as various other projects around NYC. For more check out:  www.jonriddleberger.com

Edward RosenBerg III (Musician) is a composer/performer based in New York City. He studied saxophone at the Eastman School of Music, composition at Queens College and counterpoint with Paul Caputo. Ed is currently pursuing a PhD in composition at Stony Brook University. Ed performs regularly with a variety of groups including Amy Lynn & The Honey Men, Euphonique Sax Quartet, Mettawee River Theater Company, Anti-Social Music and Asphalt Orchestra. Ed has also performed with The Talking Band, Fireworks Ensemble, Ensemble Signal, the Brooklyn Philharmonic and the Bottlenote Music Collective in Dublin. Ed is a member of the prog-jazz-metal group, Jerseyband. Edward also enjoys making meditative drone-based prog- rock with Glue Gun Optimism and children’s music with The Green Orbs. Ed has been commissioned by Cadillac Moon Ensemble, Tokyo Brass Art Orchestra, Dr. Faustus, The Liz Roche Dance Company, Google Inc, Atmo5pheric Wind Quintet, and Brooklyn Brass Quintet among others. Ed lives in Queens with his wife and two cats.

Kristine Haruna Lee (Playwright) is a playwright/performer/director and a founding member of harunalee theater company, currently in residence with Ars Nova’s Makers Lab. Recent plays include Memory Retrograde (BAX Artist-in-Residence), Sugar Shack (La MaMa Club), Before the Sun and Moon (Mettawee River Theater Co.), War Lesbian (Dixon Place Residency & Commission) and has developed work with the Bushwick Starr, York College, JACK, Prelude Festival, Target Margin Lab, and Asian American Writer’s Workshop. Upcoming: Memory Retrograde as part of The Public’s Under the Radar Festival in January, and Suicide Forest at Bushwick Starr in 2019. She is a recipient of the Lotos Foundation prize for directing, New Dramatists Van Lier Fellowship, and is a member of the New Georges Jam and Interstate 73. She teaches at NYU Experimental Theatre Wing. harunalee.com

Neal Kirkwood (Composer) is a composer, pianist, arranger and bandleader living in New York City. His ensembles include the Neal Kirkwood Octet, a “little big band” featuring some of the top improvisers in New York City. Experimental yet swinging, the Octet performs Kirkwood’s original compositions and arrangements of jazz standards. He also leads the Chromatic Persuaders, a quartet featuring violinist Mark Feldman, bassist Lindsey Horner, and drummer Tom Rainey. He recently debuted a new trio with Allison Miller on drums and Lindsey Horner on bass.
As a composer, Neal Kirkwood has received has received numerous commissions, including a 2007 New York State Music Fund commission for “Village Songs,” a song cycle for children’s chorus and a ten-piece jazz ensemble, with a text drawn from the writings of 4th grade students in New York public schools. In 2000 he received a New York State Council for the Arts commission for “The Future of Futurism,” a five movement work for jazz orchestra. Other commissions include “Voices” for children’s chorus, 2008, for the Children’s Aid Society chorus, and “The Mirrored Self” and “The Enchanted Realm” for the Belgian ensemble Octurn. His composition for jazz orchestra “Goldberg’s Variations” was winner of the Jazz Composer’s Alliance Competition in 1996. He has composed music for symphony orchestra, jazz orchestra, chamber ensembles, and voice. He holds a master’s degree in composition from Mannes College of Music, where he studied with Charles Jones.
In addition to his activities as a bandleader and composer, Kirkwood has performed and recorded with Pony Poindexter, Bobby Previte, Lindsey Horner, Mark Feldman, Mike Clark, among others, and has toured with vocalists Michel Hermon, Chris Connor, Abby Lincoln and Bobby McFerrin.
He has also been deeply involved performing and composing for some of New York’s most creative and experimental theater ensembles. For 12 years he has composed scores for Ralph Lee’s Mettawee Theater. He has contributed to many of playwright Jim Neu’s productions, often in collaboration with saxophonist Harry Mann. He has also worked with Otrabanda Company, the Talking Band, Anne Bogart, Joseph Chaiken, and Louise Smith.
He has released four CDs as a leader: “The Neal Kirkwood Octet,” “The Chromatic Persuaders,” and “Extrospection” on Timescraper Records, and a solo piano CD “Time’s Circle” on Present Eye Music. He is currently on the faculty of Kutztown University in Pennsylvania and Third Street Music School in New York City

 

 

 

 

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