STAGE NOTES
The WICA Blog
MEET THE ARTISTS | SEX
THE CREATIVE TEAM
Edward Jordon (adaptation / direction), as book writer, has two Broadway-bound musicals currently in rehearsal in NYC: J’ai Fait and Bollywood And Vine. Both are with his longtime collaborators, Broadway conductor Charles Czarnecki and Emmy-winner Daniel Neiden, and June Rachelson-Ospa. The recipient of eleven international screenwriting awards, Edward has worked for actress Sally Field, Oscar-winning producer Jonathan Dana, and Golden Globe-winning producer Renee Missel. Edward’s own feature films, which he wrote and directed, include The Original Cast Album, It’ll Have Blinking Eyes & A Moving Mouth, Dogwalking On Jackson Crescent, Bollywood And Vine, and Lucky Bubbles. With over fifty directing and producing theater credits in New York, this production of SEX marks a reunion with his Bollywood and Vine film star, Skye Aubrey.
Jana Szabo (musical direction) relocated to Seattle in 1981 from her home in NYC. Since arriving in the Pacific NW, Jana received her BFA in Music Performance/Jazz at Cornish Institute of the Arts. She is presently involved in theatre here on Whidbey Island. Jana’s recent Outcast Productions roles include Stella in Follies, a performer in City Beat, and part of the workings as a Vocal Coach for Hotel Belle Claire. She was the Musical Director for Seussical (WICA ). Jana has been teaching Voice, Piano, and Performing Art related work since 1985 and is grateful to her family for their unending support, WICA, Deana Duncan, and Edward Jordon for giving her this fabulous opportunity.
Robert McElhinny (scenic design)
Alex Wren (lighting design) has returned to WICA this season for DjangoFest NW 2019 and this production of SEX. Other works at WICA you might remember such as: Prelude to a Kiss, White Christmas, MacBeth, One Act Fest NW (2016, 2017), The 39 Steps, Rumors, Wait Until Dark, Enchanted April, Dr. Horrible’s Sing a Long Blog, and Big! the Musical (Backstage Manager). He also has design credits for Island Shakespeare Festival and Outcast Productions where he has been the resident lighting designer for the past nine seasons. Alex is lead trainer and creator of West Seattle High School and Chief Sealth International High School’s Tech Training Program, with the addition of Ingraham High School this year. Alex had the pleasure of working with Seattle Children's Theatre this summer on their “intro to tech classes” for their summer drama school program, as well as lending a hand for their summer season. Grab a glass of bubbly and get ready to enjoy this wonderful production of SEX!
Zachary Schneider (projection design) grew up on Whidbey Island and attended ten years of WICA’s Advnaced Production Acting Conservatory. He graduated from Seattle’s Northwest High School and attended Worcester Polytechnic Institute for Physics and Game Design before transferring to Cornish School of the Arts where he received his BFA in Film in 2018. Zachary is Whidbey Island Film Festival’s ShortsFeast curator, teaches at Seattle International Film Festival’s summer and break camps, is the owner of ZPPD Media. His documentary on homeless youth, Alley, is being used by the Roots Young Adult Shelter to raise awareness.
Daunne Zinger (choreography / ensemble) has been involved with WICA since 2015 as a Choreographer. This is her first time on WICA’s stage as a performer and is delighted to be a part of SEX. Daunne has choreographed many local musical theater productions since 2008 for WICA, Whidbey Children’s Theater and Whidbey Playhouse Theater in Oak Harbor. She received her BA degree in Dance from the University of Washington in 2011. When Daunne is not choreographing, she is teaching jazz and tap classes at Island Dance and In-Motion Studios. She also teaches “Luigi jazz“ master dance classes throughout the Puget Sound region and is honored to have her classes featured on Whidbey TV’s segment “Life’s Better Here.” Daunne and her husband, Jerry Bacon, reside in South Whidbey. Daunne wishes to acknowledge Edward Jordon for providing the opportunity to be a choreographer AND a performer in this production. Enjoy!
Tyler Raymond (sound design)
Rob Scott (stage management) has previously appeared on the WICA stage as the Angels City Four bass in City of Angels, Fezziwig in Scrooge the Musical, James Talbert Winston in The Kentucky Cycle, Jonas Fogg in Sweeney Todd, and Frederick Arnott in Enchanted April. He has been the stage manager for the WICA productions of Rumors, Our Town, Metamorphoses, Oliver!, On Golden Pond, The Rocky Horror Show, and Rabbit Hole. He co-produced Whidbey Children’s Theater’s Pirates of Penzance and was the technical director for Les Miserables and many other productions during WCT’s early years. Rob wishes to thank his wife Kate for her patience and support. Rob also wishes to thank the Whidbey community for their generous support, which makes theater and the arts of all kinds possible.
THE CAST
Wendy Ashford (Dawson) is thrilled to be working with Edward and the cast of SEX. This is her fourth production with WICA as an actor. She started as a volunteer in the booth and loved watching the shows and actors grow. She presently works part-time at WICA as a production assistant. Some of her professional acting experience have been with Seattle Opera, in the fourth season of Z Nation (Syfy network), and in the Capital Hill web-series with Jinkx Monsoon and Ben DeLa Creme. She attended two years of acting classes at Freehold Theatre Lab.
Skye Aubrey (Clara) starred on Broadway in Cactus Flower. For two decades, she guest starred on virtually every classic TV series including Fantasy Island, Marcus Welby, Love American Style, Ironside, Owen Marshall, Thriller, Toma, Banyon, Batman, Green Acres, Emergency, The Most Deadly Game, Insight, Switch, and Superboy. She also won raves for her film work – most notably in The Carey Treatment with James Coburn, The City with Anthony Quinn, A Very Missing Person with Eve Arden, The Phantom of Hollywood , and Vanished (TV’s first-ever mini-series). Skye credits one of the highlights of her career as co-starring with her mom, actress Phyllis Thaxter, in the TV movie, The Longest Night. Skye’s dad was Hollywood Producer James T. Aubrey who served as President of CBS Television, ABC Television, and MGM Studios during his storied career. In addition to her acting credits, Skye co-produced the Christopher Reeve Superman franchise with then husband Ilya Salkind.
Katrina Bentsen (Bellhop/Manicurist) discovered her love for the theatre in Martha Murphy’s barn AKA Whidbey Children’s Theatre. She performed in various plays and musicals at WCT, in school, at church, and into adulthood. Katrina is grateful for not only this nurturing community, but also for the exposure she got at home, where she, Kyle, and Mosa grew up dancing and learning to harmonize through family dinner prayers (epic!). Katrina currently works as a Registered Nurse and lives with husband Kristian and daughters Anja and Kaia in Langley. Being part of Sex has been a very educational experience about the various facets impacting the lives of of sex-workers, both in the time of Mae West and the current day. Katrina is so grateful for this opportunity, for her family for making it possible to participate, and for this awesome cast and crew.
Kyle Collins (Inches) was born in the cabin his parents built on Whidbey Island. Home was filled with music and dancing and continues today. Kyle has enjoyed entertaining since high school when he and friends orchestrated elaborate magic shows for the community. Last year, he made his first theatrical debut as Spike in Vanya and Sonja and Masha and Spike (also directed by Edward Jordan). When he’s not onstage, he loves to play ultimate frisbee, sing karaoke, play trivia, and share meals with his family. He works as an electrician at Whidbey Sun and Wind. He would like to thank his family for their love and support, the entire cast for being super awesome, and last but not least, Barb and Dave Bennett for helping him get to rehearsal on time!
Suzi Dixon (Mae West/Margy Lamont) loves performing in musical theatre, especially the work of Kurt Weill. She has appeared in Weill’s Beggar’s Opera, Berlin to Broadway and a Brecht/Weil cabaret. She also performed in the campy musical Forbidden Broadway and the decidedly less campy but lovely musical Shenandoah. Just like Remy in the movie Ratatouille, Suzi is a Paris-trained chef, a job that has taken her all over the world. She has also worked in prisons, teaching people like Rocky to train service dogs for people with disabilities. An expert horse whisperer, Suzi drove a team of Friesians in the parade scenes of The Hunger Games movie. Suzi is a year-round resident of Whidbey Island and she is delighted to be making her third appearance at WICA.
Betsy Harvey (Maxine/Lady Beckley)
George Henny (Lt. Gregg) is a dedicated supporter of WICA, and is always thrilled to perform on the WICA stage. George most recently appeared as Phil Davis in White Christmas. Before that, George appeared as the Baker in Into the Woods, Alan in God of Carnage, Brad in The Rocky Horror Show, Evan in ART, Inspector Craddock in A Murder is Announced, various roles in WICA’s Firesign Theater productions of Waiting for the Electrician (or Someone Like Him) and Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers, Crabtree in Lew Carlino’s The School for Scandal, and Telemachus Clay. He received his BA in Drama from the University of Washington and is a passionate champion of community and making a powerful, positive difference in people’s lives. George is active in the leadership of Whidbey Telecom, and is proud to serve the community through it.
Marla Kelly (Bellhop/Pedicurist) is thrilled to join the cast of SEX. Some of her favorite credits include Almost, Maine as Marci, The Boyfriend as Fay, and You Can’t Take it With You as Ms. DePinna (South Whidbey High School). Her most recent performance was as Mustardseed in Island Shakespeare Festival’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Marla plans to study Musical Theatre when she goes to college next year.
Connor Kinzer (Jimmy Stanton)
Keagan Leland (Patty/Jillian) has been acting since she learned how to scrunch her face into expressions, beginning in earnest with You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown (Sacramento Theater Company) at age five. She is thrilled to making her WICA debut in this new adaptation and thanks Edward, Jana, and Daunne for all their direction and collaboration. Keagan was been on stage with Bob and Ro Productions, Whidbey Children’s Theater, South Whidbey High School Drama Club, and Outcast Productions. Her theatrical studies include training in script writing, On Camera Acting, Ballet, Tap and Jazz, and singing.
David Mayer (Rocky) is happy not only to return to the WICA stage, but to don his rarely-worn “musicals” hat. David was last seen as Murray in Outcast Productions’ spring offering of Shtick. He portrayed the title character in WICA’s Sherlock Holmes and The American Problem in 2018. Thrilled to have worked with director Edward Jordan, David offers special thanks to the crew and entire WICA team, including many volunteers, who really make this happen.
Michael McInerney (James Stanton, Sr.)
Nicole Parnell (Agnes) studied at the New York Conservatory for Dramatic arts and recently completed the audio production of Blizzard Entertainment’s “Starcraft: Ghost - Spectres” and is currently producing the audiobooks for the “Aphrodite's Sister” Trilogy. Always active in the dramatic arts, Nicole played the lead in Pike & Pine’s short film Search and Rescue, she played Nina in Edward Jordon's production of Vanya & Sonya & Masha & Spike at WICA. She contributed a recurring voice role as Iris - the ships AI navigation system in Whidbey TV’s The Adventures of Captain Callie and Her Crew, as well as narrating several independent audiobook productions. Nicole feels very grateful and excited to work with and learn from the tremendously talented Edward Jordon.
Cindy Rutstein (Laverne/Cruise Director) returns to the theatre after raising two sons who recently earned their degrees in Film and Television. Cindy studied acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in NYC and her favorite performances include Grandma Tzeital in Fiddler On The Roof, Frosine in L’Avare, and Penelope-Ann in Bye Bye Birdie. Cindy is best known as co-founder of musical duo, “disappear fear.” For her music recording work, Cindy has been honored with the GLAAD Award for Best Album and her CD, “Get Your Phil,” went to #1 on the Folk charts. Cindy would like to thank Edward Jordan for this delightful version of SEX, sister Sonia Rutstein for unyielding encouragement, and partner Mel Oyler for making re-entry into the magical world of theatre possible!
Ethan Worthington (Officer Dan) has played lead roles and helped create many independent and traditional productions in high school and college. He has appeared in a few Shakespeare plays (including Romeo in an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet) and most recently playing an upright bass and singing at local open mics. Ethan spends his days raising his children and his weekends showing kids and adults how to play virtual reality at his arcade, The Holodeck, on the other side of town. After being absent from the theatre to creating a family and business, he is extremely excited to be back on stage with such a talented cast and crew.
RELATED PROGRAMMING
SEX | OCT 11-26, 2019
ARTICLE | Mark Rothko on How to Be an Artist
Famed Abstract Expressionist Mark Rothko believed that art was a powerful form of communication. “The fact that a lot of people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I can communicate those basic human emotions,” he said in an interview in 1956. “The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them.”
Through canvases of floating forms and glowing, suspended rectangles, Rothko sought to create a profound connection between artist, canvas, and viewer. What’s more, he asserted that his works not only expressed human emotion, but also stimulated psychological and emotional experiences in those who witnessed them. “Painting is not about an experience,” he told LIFE magazine in 1959. “It is an experience.”
While Rothko believed his paintings spoke for themselves—and routinely derided art critics who attempted to explain his practice with words—that didn’t stop him from developing his own theories about the power of art and the creative process. Throughout his career, from the late 1920s until his death in 1970, the New York–based painter amassed a body of writing and gave a number of interviews that reveal his views on how creativity can be unlocked and encouraged. Below, we highlight several of Rothko’s words of wisdom… read more.
SOURCE: Artsy
BIOGRAPHY | Peggy Guggenheim
Solomon R. Guggenheim’s niece, Peggy Guggenheim (1898–1979), was a self-described “art addict” who sought to distinguish herself from her business-oriented relatives and make her mark on the world through collecting and traveling in avant-garde circles. Peggy’s collections, galleries, and museum were all stamped with her distinct tastes and style.
Her singular career spanned the modern era, linking the Dada and Surrealist movements with Abstract Expressionism. She collected and championed artists from Vasily Kandinsky to Jackson Pollock to Yves Tanguy, and made few distinctions between her business and private lives: her two marriages were to artists, Dadaist Laurence Vail and Surrealist Max Ernst, amid a string of liaisons and intrigues with the likes of Samuel Beckett and Constantin Brancusi.
Largely self-taught when it came to art, Peggy was guided by her interest in creativity and iconoclasm, and found her way to her métier through her personal connections in the avant-garde world after arriving in Paris in the 1920s. She moved in the same circles as Brancusi, Marcel Duchamp, writer and artist Djuna Barnes, and painter Romaine Brooks; she was photographed by Man Ray and dressed by the legendary designer Paul Poiret.
It was not until she moved to London in the late 1930s, fleeing the Nazi occupation of the continent, that Peggy opened her first gallery, Guggenheim Jeune. Around this time, Samuel Beckett told her that “one should be interested in art of one’s time,” which became one of her mottos and lent itself to the name of her celebrated second gallery, Art of This Century in New York. From Paris to London, she quickly amassed one of the most prominent collections of Cubist and Surrealist art, during a period when few others (including her uncle and Rebay) held these works in high regard. Her initial collection, acquired at a rate of one painting per day on frenzied trips to Paris during World War II, cost her only $40,000 for a group of works by Brancusi, Georges Braque, Salvador Dalí, Ernst, Fernand Léger, and Pablo Picasso, among others… read more here.
SOURCE: Guggenheim
RELATED PROGRAMMING
PEGGY GUGGENHEIM: CONFESSIONS OF AN ART ADDICT | MAY 22, 2020
MEET THE ARTISTS | THE PHOTOGRAPHER
Nerys Jones was born and educated in Mid Wales and studied at the Royal Scottish Academy and Guildhall School of Music and Drama. From 1994-2000, she was a company mezzo-soprano for English National Opera (ENO), where she sang many roles, including Cherubino, Hansel, Despina, Zerlina, and Mercedes,. She performed with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Early Music Consort, National Youth Orchestra of Wales, Grange Park Opera, Reisopera in Holland, Vlaamse Opera, Adelaide Festival, Opera Zuid and at La Fenice in Venice.
Since moving to Seattle in 2006, she has performed with numerous companies; Tacoma Opera as Marcellina (Marriage of Figaro), Count Orlovsky (Die Fledermaus) and most recently in the role of Female Chorus in The Rape of Lucretia. At Vashon Opera, the roles of Mother Jeanne (Dialogues of the Carmelites), Second Lady (Magic Flute), La Ciesca (Gianni Schicchi), and Madame Larina (Eugene Onegin), Puget Sound Concert Opera (as Prince Charmant in Cendrillion), University of Washington School of Music (as Euryclée in Pénélope), Pacific Northwest Ballet, Seattle Chamber Society, Northwest Philharmonia, and Northwest Sinfonietta.
Nerys has appeared in numerous Seattle Opera previews and earlier this year she made her main stage debut as Inez in Il Trovatore and will be returning in the 2019/20 season as Giovanna in Rigoletto. Also this past season Nerys joined Rimrock Opera for the US debut of the Welsh Opera Blodwen in Billings, Montana. Learn more about Nerys here.
RELATED PROGRAMMING
THE PHOTOGRAPHER | MARCH 20, 2020
ARTICLE | The #MeToo Moment: Art Inspired by the Reckoning
The first known feminist-art program in the United States was established in the fall of 1970 at the California Institute of the Arts. Judy Chicago (artist and educator) formed the art collective known as “Womanhouse” because, as she put it, “women artists were simply not taken seriously.”
Two decades later, the Guerrilla Girls forced attention to the fine art world’s gender and racial disparity with their gorilla masks and guerrilla-style stunts. (“Guerrilla Girls’ definition of a hypocrite?” read one poster. “An art collector who buys white male art at benefits for liberal causes, but never buys art by women or artists of color.”)
From Picasso’s Guernica — observed as a cry against the atrocities of the Spanish War — to the graffiti of the Arab Spring, social movements and injustice have long inspired art of all forms. The #MeToo Moment is no exception.
Explore works inspired by the #MeToo movement here.
SOURCE: The New York Times
RELATED PROGRAMMING
TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES: #METOO AND THE NEW SEXUAL LANDSCAPE | JUL 27, 2019