![Bullpen Sessions Episode 35: Felix Solis]()
January 7, 2021
Felix Solis (Actor) plays Ray Vera on Ozark and is currently filming season 4. He started booking Film and Television gigs starting with shows set in NYC such as New York Undercover, NYPD Blue and Third Watch and the film Empire (starring opposite John Leguizamo and Peter Sarsgaard). Soon Felix appeared in acclaimed television Shows such as The West Wing, OZ, Law & Order: SVU, The Sopranos, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Damages and Fringe (to name only a few); and numerous films such as The Forgotten (opposite Julianne Moore), Wes Craven’s My Soul To Take, Man On A Ledge (opposite Sam Worthington and Ed Harris) and Arbitrage (opposite Tim Roth). With his roots in theatre, Felix has also continued to work on stage receiving the HOLA 2013 Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor for the production of Basilica at New York’s prestigious Cherry Lane Theatre; a Connecticut Critics Circle Award in 2008 for Boleros For The Disenchanted and a Helen Hayes Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Passion Play in 2006. He is especially proud of a letter Al Pacino wrote him to thank him for his performance in the original production of Our Lady Of 121st Street with the LAByrinth Theatre Company of which he has been a member since 1999. In addition to acting, Felix co-created a film production company, Subway Token Films, where their first short film, TINTO, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2014; their next short film, iHeart (which he directed), made its world premiere at the Hoboken International Film Festival; it won the Award of Merit at One-Reeler Short Film Competition.
![Bullpen Sessions Episode 34: Andrea Dymond]()
December 18, 2020
Andrea Dymond is a Chicago-based freelance director, specializing in new work, Andrea was formerly Resident Director at Victory Gardens Theater. She directed 11 productions there, including 7 world premieres. Chicago credits include Tree, Year Zero, Blue Door, Free Man of Color, Shoes, and I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document…(Victory Gardens); Helen (Next); and Keep A Song In Your Soul, which she directed and developed with the Grammy Award-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops (Old Town School of Folk Music). Other regional credits include: the new musical, St. Heaven (Village Theatre) and Having Our Say (Madison Repertory). Recent credits include: Shepsu Aahku’s Softly Blue (MPAACT) and Lynn Nottage’s Mud River Stone, (Eclipse) In addition, Andrea’s experience includes research and production dramaturgy, directing at new works festivals nationally; serving as thesis play advisor for MFA playwrights at Carnegie Mellon; and, directing at NNPN’s MFA Playwrights Workshops, at the Kennedy Center. Andrea teaches directing, collaboration, text analysis, acting and new play development at Columbia College Chicago, where she recently directed a production of Blues for an Alabama Sky, by Pearl Cleage and Euripides’s Hecuba, in the traditional style, with masks, and a singing and dancing Chorus.
![Bullpen Sessions Episode 33: Lisa Ramirez]()
December 3, 2020
LISA RAMIREZ (playwright/actor) Associate Artistic Director at Oakland Theater Project, Artistic Associate at Cherry Lane Theatre. Roles include, The Angel in Angels in America at Berkeley Rep, Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire at the Ubuntu Theater Project in Oakland. Lisa has performed extensively at theaters on both the East and West Coast such as the Cherry Lane Theatre, Atlantic Theatre Company, Working Theater, The Foundry, Ubuntu Theater Project, Magic Theatre, Berkeley Rep amongst others. Writing credits include, Exit Cuckoo (nanny in motherland) was first presented Off Broadway by the Working Theater (Colman Domingo- director) and subsequently toured in various theaters throughout the U.S. and Ireland; Art of Memory, a dance theatre piece, commissioned by Company SoGoNo and presented at the Ontological-Hysteric Theater and the 3-Legged Dog in New York (Tanya Calamoneri- director) Invisible Women-Rise, Foundry Theatre & Domestic Workers United; To The Bone, originally a Working Theater commission, was a finalist for the 2012 NPN Smith Prize, the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference and the Ellen Stewart Award; All Fall Down was conceived/written in at INTAR during the Maria Irene Fornés Hispanic Playwrights in Residency Lab; Contributing playwright for In Mother Words, presented at the Geffen Playhouse and various regional theatres (Lisa Peterson- director); In 2012/13 Lisa was part of the Mentor Project at the Cherry Lane Theatre where she wrote Pas de Deux (lost my shoe), (Bryan Davidson Blue- director); In September 2015, the Cherry Lane Theatre presented the world premiere of To The Bone (Lisa Peterson- director).
November 5, 2020
Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder’s plays include Gee's Bend, Fresh Kills, The Flagmaker of Market Street, The Furniture of Home, White Lightning, Provenance, and Everything That’s Beautiful. Her plays have been produced at the Royal Court (London), Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Denver Center, Cleveland Play House, KC Rep, Northlight, the Arden, B Street Theatre, and Hartford Stage, among others. Her one act Santa Doesn’t Come to the Holiday Inn was featured in the Marathon of One Act Plays at the Ensemble Studio Theatre. Elyzabeth is the recipient of the Osborn Award given by the American Theatre Critics Association and is a graduate of the dramatic writing program at New York University. Elyzabeth is the current Tennessee Williams Playwright-in-Residence at Sewanee: The University of the South where she teaches playwriting.
October 29, 2020
Jessica Asch is a licensed Creative Arts Therapist (LCAT) and a Registered Drama Therapist (RDT). She holds a BFA in Acting and an MA in Drama Therapy from New York University. Jessica has worked in a variety of settings helping individuals with developmental disabilities, veterans struggling with complex PTSD, Holocaust survivors, adolescents in the juvenile justice system, adults struggling with substance abuse, and individuals living with chronic mental illness. www.jessicaasch.com
October 23, 2020
Celeste Lagrotteria is the Production Manager for Manhattan Theatre Club. At MTC she production managed My Name is Lucy Barton, Ink, Choir Boy to name a few. She has also worked with Center Theatre Group, The Mark Taper Forum and The Kirk Douglas Theatre, and Williamstown Theatre Festival. She has overseen productions at the highest level Celeste began her professional career at Kentucky Shakespeare Festival. She has an MFA in Production Technology & Theatre Management from Carnegie Mellon, and is a graduate of Centre College.
![Bullpen Sessions Episode 27: Jenni Werner]()
October 15, 2020
Jenni Werner is the Literary Director and Resident Dramaturg at Geva Theatre Center. In that role, she has served as dramaturg on 29 productions at Geva, including classics and world premieres by Wendy MacLeod, Deborah Zoe Laufer, Cass Morgan, Nora Cole, Jamie Pachino, Mat Smart, Gabriel Jason Dean, Keith Glover, Lila Rose Kaplan and Brent Askari. In 2015, Jenni co-produced Geva’s blues festival celebrating the life and legacy of musician Son House, Journey to the Son. Jenni also produces Geva’s new play programming, and has led the development of over 40 new plays during her tenure at Geva. Additionally, she directs Geva’s commissioning of new plays through the Rochester Stories program. Previously, Jenni served as the Director of Programming at Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for the non-profit theatre field. From 2005-2011, she produced TCG’s annual National Conference, curating the content and organizing the logistics for the largest national gathering of professionals in the non-profit theatre field. For six years, she was an adjunct instructor at New York University, and is now an adjunct instructor at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Jenni has an M.F.A. in dramaturgy from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a B.A. in theatre and history from Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. She also serves on the board of ImageOut, Rochester’s LGBT film festival.
October 8, 2020
Kerry O'Malley is a wonderful actor who has worked on Broadway, Film, and Television. She is currently cast in the Broadway Revival of 1776 and can be seen on the new series Snowpiercer on TNT. Her theater credits include Broadway and National Tour of White Christmas, Into The Woods, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, the original cast of How I Learned To Drive, for television Shameless, Boardwalk Empire, Brotherhood, and film credits include Terminator Genisys with Emilia Clarke and Arnold Schwarzenegger, Annabelle, Annabelle: Creation, the Disney feature Earth to Echo, Case 39 with Renee Zellweger, The Happening with Mark Wahlberg, Rounders with Matt Damon, and many others. She is also a huge Boston sports fan. www.kerryomalley.com
October 1, 2020
Stephanie Klapper (Stephanie Klapper Casting) is a New York-based Casting Director whose work is frequently seen on Broadway, Off-Broadway, regionally, internationally, on television, and on film. Projects she has cast have won numerous awards, including the Tonys, OBIES, Artios, Drama Desk, Pulitzer Prize, Sundance Audience Award, Cannes Prize Du Publique, and Comic Con awards. Frequent and long time collaborators include Primary Stages, Mint Theater Company, New York Classical Theatre, american vicarious, The Peccadillo, Masterworks, Resonance Ensemble, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Company, Cincinnati Playhouse, Capital Repertory Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Adirondack Theatre Festival, Ford’s Theatre, Kansas City Rep, The New Theatre, as well as many more both in New York and regional theatres around the country.
