Mint Theater Company Jonathan Bank Ted Altschuler Pete Konerko Aaron Lenehan
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Mint Theater Company Jonathan Bank, Artistic Director Presents
The Charity That Began At Home By St John Hankin Directed by
Gus Kaikkonen Scenic Design Charles F. Morgan
Costume Design Henry Shaffer
Lighting Design William Armstrong
Original Music Ellen Mandel
Dialect Coach Amy Stoller
Prop Specialist Judi Guralnick
Production Stage Manager Sara E. Friedman
Assistant Stage Manager Diane M. Ballering
Graphic Design Jude Dvorak
Press Representative David Gersten & Associates
Hair and Wig Design The Broadway Wig Company
Charity, sweet and sour. by Alan Andrews
One summer morning in 1909, a 39-year-old man, his health poor, spoke to the chambermaid at his hotel in the mid-Wales spa of Llandrindod Wells. He thanked Margaret Williams for her kindness and tipped her half-a-crown (perhaps 50-60 cents at the prevailing exchange rate). Just after noon, she later recalled, she saw him leave the hotel, dressed in a blue suit and carrying a small parcel. He went to the station and booked a ticket for a 12:30 train. He then headed in the direction of the River Ithon until he came to a spot known as Lover's Leap, where there was a quiet pool, some 12 feet deep. He strapped the parcel, which contained two 7 lb. dumb-bells, round his neck and jumped into the pool. Three days later, alarmed by his disappearance, Inspector Jones of the Radnorshire Constabulary, assisted by two constables, dragged the river and found his body. He was St. John Emile Clavering Hankin (christened Edward Charles St. John Hankin). Hankin’s death occasioned considerable shock. Bernard Shaw published a press statement, which he headed “A Public Calamity”. “He was,” wrote Shaw, “a most gifted writer of high comedy of the kind that is a stirring and important criticism of life.” Arnold Bennett described him as “a curious, honest, and original dramatist, with a considerable equipment of wit and of skill,” and asserted that “his most precious quality--particularly precious in England--was his calm intellectual curiosity, his perfect absence of fear at the logical consequence of an argument.” Max Beerbohm, Shaw’s successor as dramatic critic of the Saturday Review, called him “the sanest and most level-headed of men,” and “an always amiable and witty companion.”
In 1946, Shaw told readers of Drama that Hankin was “for the moment now forgotten, or neglected, but a master of serious comedy”. Amends for this neglect are now being made, led by Christopher Newton's sparkling production of The Return of the Prodigal, in the repertory of Canada's Shaw Festival for the past two seasons--closing on October 5,-and now the Mint's The Charity that Began at Home, Hankin’s favorite among his plays. That this belated recognition is coming in North America rather than in Britain would have appealed to Hankin; he once wryly observed that he was more popular in Australia and New Zealand than in this native land.
Hankin originally published these two plays, together with The Cassilis Engagement, in Three Plays with Happy Endings (1907). The title was ironic. In “A Note on Happy Endings”, with which he prefaced the collection, Hankin reported that people told him that his plays “ended unhappily”, critics “that they do not ‘end’ at all.” It is a mark of Hankin’s modernity that such concerns are not likely to trouble an audience now. We can admire his substitution of a measure of realism and honesty about his subjects for a conventional dramatic morality which saw marriage as the solution to every problem life presents, success as the harbinger of happiness, and prescribed endings that confirmed this. Seeking to penetrate social hypocrisy, Hankin was interested in what the world considered failure, and took a hard look at the meaning of marriage. The title of one of his shorter plays, The Burglar Who Failed, indicates the kind of subject that interested him.
David Gersten & Associates (Press Representatives) are proud to continue their association with Jonathan Bank and the Mint Theater. Current clients also include Tony N' Tina's Wedding (now in its 14th year!), Late Nite Catechism (6th year Off-Broadway!), The Drama League, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Jean Cocteau Repertory, Storm Theatre, Mary Cleere Haran, Rattlestick Theatre, The Lucille Lortel Foundation, and The League of OffBroadway Theatres & Producers, among others.
Jonathan Bank (Artistic Director) is the editor of Worthy But Neglected: Plays of the Mint Theater Company - which includes his adaptations of Welcome to Our City and The House of Mirth. Bank recently directed his third production of A.A. Milne's Mr. Pim Passes By for the Peterborough Players. Bank directed Othello for the Obie-award winning National Asian American Theater Company, Three Days of Rain, John Brown's Body and The Double Bass for the Miniature Theater of Chester and Emma: A Noise in the Silence for the Threshold Theater in Boston. At the Mint he has directed: Mr. Pim Passes By, Oroonoko by Thomas Southerne; Quality Street, by J. M. Barrie; and The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton and Clyde Fitch. He has directed three acclaimed productions of Pericles one at the Mint, and two different productions for the Kings Company Shakespeare Company and served as the dramaturg for New Jersey Shakespeare Festival's production of the play this season. Before coming to the Mint Theater Company, Mr. Bank served as Literary Assistant for Roundabout Theater, Director of the Play Reading Series at the Jean Cocteau Repertory Theatre, and was a member of the professional acting company at the Fairmount Theater of the Deaf in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his M.F.A. from Case Western Reserve University.
Mint Theater Company is dedicated to searching out worthy but neglected voices from the past, with a sharp appetite for timeless but timely plays that speak to issues, struggles and questions that are as current as today's headlines. In the spring of 2002, the Mint was honored with a special Drama Desk Award for "unearthing, presenting and preserving forgotten plays of merit" and in 2001 the Mint received an Obie in recognition of its success in combining " the excitement of discovery with the richness of tradition."
Included on the list of lost theatrical treasures found by the Mint has been the critically acclaimed New York premiere of Harley Granville-Barker's brilliant comedy The Voysey Inheritance, the New York premiere of Thomas Wolfe's riveting social drama Welcome To Our City, the first New York revival of A.A. Milne's comedy of morals, Mr. Pim Passes By, and Edith Wharton's unpublished dramatization of her powerful novel, The House of Mirth seen on Broadway for two weeks only in 1907.
In recent years we have also given New Yorkers the opportunity to experience great plays by a number of neglected women playwrights including the first New York revivals of two Pulitzer Prize winning plays; Zona Gale's Miss Lulu Bett, and Susan Glaspell's Alison's House; also Cicely Hamilton's Diana of Dobson's and Rutherford and Son by Githa Sowerby.
Mint has published an anthology that includes seven of our most significant rediscoveries entitled, Worthy But Neglected: Plays of the Mint Theater. This book, which also features photos, author bios, historical notes and a general introduction by Artistic Director Jonathan Bank, will help to extend the life of the unduly neglected plays that we have produced by introducing tomorrows' theater artists to these hard-to-find and, in many cases, out-of-print, gems.
William Armstrong (Lighting Design) productions have been Ten Little Indians, The Search For Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, Our Town and As You Like It. Mr. Armstrong has lit numerous productions in New York City, both on and off Broadway, as well as for many of the regional theatres across the country. For the past fifteen years he has also worked as an architectural lighting consultant and designer with his company, William Armstrong Lighting Design. Mr. Armstrong lives in New York City and is married to Penny Dow. They are the proud parents of two young children: Gabriel, age 5, and Isabelle, just 6 months old.
Judi Guralnick (Prop Specialist) is the Prop Shop Supervisor at the Performing Arts Center at Purchase College, and freelances in the New York and Connecticut areas. She spent five years as Prop Specialist at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, and many summers at Maine State Music Theater. Her favorite props, that she's created, are the fruit for a Fruit of the Loom commercial, carousel animals for a production of "Joseph…”, and a macramé ass's head for Midsummer's Night Dream. Judi has also designed sets for small theaters from Maine to Washington, DC and in Israel. This is her third time working for the Mint Theater Company.
Amy Stoller (Dialect Coach) Mint Theater: Rutherford & Son; Diana of Dobson's; The Voysey Inheritance; Mr. Pim Passes By. Other NYC: Sitting Pretty (Hypothetical Theatre Co.); Night and Day (Jean Cocteau Rep); Northanger Abbey (1999-2000 OOBR Award) and Innocent Diversions (Distilled Spirits); An Ideal Husband (T. Schreiber Studio). Regional: Diana of Dobson's (Fairfield Theatre Co.) ; Educating Rita (Peterborough Players). Touring: Love Arm'd, Aphra Behn and her Pen (Edinburgh; throughout USA; most recently at Tribeca Playhouse, NYC). Ms.
Stoller also teaches individual actors How to Speak Like a Toffee-Nosed Git for Fun and Profit.
Sara E. Friedman (Stage Manager) is thrilled to return to the Mint Theater booth. Recent NYC credits: Bronx Casket Company (World Premiere), directed by Hinton Battle; Self Defense by Carson Kreitzer (New Georges/Reverie Productions); No Time for Comedy and Rutherford and Son with the Mint Theater Company; the Folksbiene Yiddish Theatre; and Theaterworks/USA. Outside of NYC, Sara has worked with the Adirondack Theater Festival, The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, The West Virginia Public Theater, and The Lake George Dinner Theatre. Originally from Glens Falls, NY, Sara holds a B.A. from Union College and an M.F.A. from Carnegie Mellon University in Production Technology and Management.
Diane M. Ballering (ASM) is excited to be working her first show in New York. She just moved here from Wisconsin where she worked last season at the Madison Repertory Theatre. She has also spent time at the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre as well as Capital Repertory in Albany, NY. A special thanks to John.
Sharron Bower (Casting Director) casts theatre, animation voiceovers and independent films. She recently cast The Miniature Theatre of Chester's production of Three Days of Rain directed by Jonathan Bank. Other recent credits include the indies Honey and Max at the Park, and the animation Office Hyjinx, which won I Want My Flash TV's "Hip Clip" award. Also an actress, Sharron was last seen at The Mint in Allison's House. Recent television includes Law & Order: Criminal Intent. See www.sharronbower.com.
Before taking up playwriting, Hankin had spent some years as a journalist. After a year in India with the Indian Daily News, a bad attack of malaria sent him back to England. He wrote dramatic criticism, notably for The Times, and satiric verse and dramatic prose for Punch. His first book, Mr. Punch’s Dramatic Sequels, already questioned the satisfactoriness of plays’ endings, demonstrating, as he said, that famous plays were “capable of continuation”. As he put it
Plays end too soon. They never show The whole of what I want to know.
The curtain falls and I'm perplexed With doubts about what happened next.
Thus he offered sequels to Hamlet (“The New Wing at Elsinore”), She Stoops to Conquer (“Still Stooping”), Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra (“Octavian and Cleopatra”), Pinero's The Second Mrs. Tanqueray (“The Third Mrs. Tanqueray”) and eight more.
The Charity that Began at Home bears a sub-title: “A Comedy for Philanthropists”. Misguided do-gooding was also the subject of a short story by Hankin in a new literary journal, Ford Madox Ford's English Review, in June 1909, the very month of his suicide. “A Man of Impulse” tells of a man strolling at night along the Thames Embankment when he sees someone jump into the river. “Maxwell was an impulsive man who seldom stopped before interfering if he thought some one else was being guilty of an act of folly.” He leaps to the rescue, only to find that the supposed victim, far from being grateful, is furious at this frustration of his planned suicide.
There have been various attempts to explain St. John Hankin's suicide. Bernard Shaw claimed in 1944, in the postscript that he wrote for Back to Methuselah when it was included as the 500th volume in the World's Classics series (published by Oxford University Press): “One of the masters of comedy among my playwright colleagues drowned himself because he thought he was going his father's way like Oswald Alving.” Since this followed a sentence about Ibsen’s Ghosts, with a reference to “inevitable syphilis”, it has naturally prompted the view that Hankin feared he had inherited syphilis from his father. This seems improbable. It is clear that his health was continuing to deteriorate, that his visit to the spa, where he had been for two weeks, was not providing any encouragement, as similar previous treatment had not, and that he was depressed following his mother's recent death. The weakness in his health was almost certainly a consequence of the malaria he had contracted in India 15 years before. Indeed, some obituary tributes noted that Hankin used to attribute his weak health to the after-effects of malaria.
His father, incidentally, was 87 when he died--of “old age” and “heart failure” according to the death certificate-- in 1915.
Alan Andrews chaired the Theatre Department at Dalhousie University in Halifax from 1969-72 and again from 1998-2001. He edited Allan Wade's Memories of the London Theatre, 1900-1914 (Society for Theatre Research, 1983) and was for ten years editor of the Dalhousie Review.
Cast of Characters
(in order of appearance)
Lady Dennison.............................................................................................Kristin Griffith Margery.................................................................................................. Harmony Schuttler William...............................................................................................................Bruce Ward Anson...............................................................................................................Pauline Tully Mrs. Horrocks..............................................................................................Michele Tauber Hugh Verreker..................................................................................................Karl Kenzler General Bonsor....................................................................................................Lee Moore Mr. Firket...........................................................................................Christopher Franciosa Soames.......................................................................................................Troy Schremmer Mrs. Eversleigh.............................................................................................Becky London Miss Triggs........................................................................................................Alice White Mr. Hylton.................................................................................................Benjamin Howes SCENES
Priors Ashton, Lady Denison's house in the country. Act I The Drawing-room Act II One week later Act III An hour later
Act IV One week later
There will be a ten minute intermission between Acts II & III
STAFF Technical Director.........................................................................................................Carlo Adinolfi Master Electrician.......................................................................................................Andrew Dickey House Manager............................................................................................................Nicholas Russo Tammy Killian
SPECIAL THANKS Sandra Lindberg and Dr. Narendra Jaggi of Illinois Wesleyan University and Kathie Coblentz for help with dialect research. Mary Jane Louaver of A.R.T./NY, Roger Fields and The Zuni Café; Materials for the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs/ NYC Dept. of Sanitation; Linda Moser at Anything But Costumes. Mint wishes to thank the tdf Costume Collection for its assistance in this production.
Lighting equipment provided by the Technical Upgrade Project of the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York through the generous support of the New York City Council and the City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs.
Medea, Rough Crossing, Lulu, Major Barbara, Travesties, Tartuffe, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, Macbeth, Candida and many others. Ms. Mandel has written a cycle of E.E. Cummings songs. Her CD Every Play's an Opera is available in the lobby and at amazon.com.
Gus Kaikkonen (Director) Credits include Off Broadway productions of The Voysey Inheritance with George Morfogen at the Mint, Macbeth with Stephen McHattie, Candida with Laurie Kennedy, Richard III with Austin Pendleton, and Fridays with Henderson Forsythe. He has directed at the Asolo (2002 Sarasota Magazine Award for Best Direction and Best Production for Twelfth Night), GeVa, Northlight, Florida Repertory, the Folger, the Springer Opera House, Aspen Theatre in the Park, the BoarsHead and Glassboro Summer Theatre. For a season he was the resident assistant director for the Washington Opera at the Kennedy Center. From 1990-93 he was the Artistic Director of Riverside Shakespeare Company in NYC. Currently he is the Artistic Director of the Peterborough Players, a professional resident stock theater in Peterborough, New Hampshire where he has directed James Whitmore in Our Town, Mary Beth Hurt in Six Degrees Of Separation and James Rebhorn in Later Life. An actor and playwright as well, he won Vermont's 2000 Bessie Award for his performance as Richard III, was the 1995 James Thurber Playwriting Fellow at the Ohio State University and has been a MacDowell Fellow. His plays have been produced in New York at Playwrights Horizons and the Production Company, in London at the New End Theatre and the Theatre Museum, Covent Garden and at regional theatres across the US. Charles F. Morgan (Set Design) designed Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe, Gaslight, and Collected Stories for The Peterborough
Players. In regional theater, Charlie has designed scenery for over fifty shows in Chicago, Cleveland, North Carolina, Boston and Virginia; where he just designed On Golden Pond with The Barter Theater. In the Boston area, he has designed for The Merrimack Repertory Theater, The American Stage Festival, The Lyric Stage, The Nora Theatre, Wellesley College, Worcester Foothills, Boston Conservatory and Gloucester Stage Company. Some favorite designs include the everlasting Shirley Valentine, Three Hotels, Talley's Folly, The Last Yankee, and Right of Survivorship. Mr. Morgan also works with Mystic Scenic Studios. His best “productions” are found at home with his children Nora, Catherine and Miles. Thanks to KC for her love and patience; deeper than I can ever hope to understand.
Henry Shaffer (Costume Design) designed costumes at the Mint for The Voysey Inheritance, A Farewell to the Theatre, and The Flattering Word. Henry has designed twelve productions for the Peterborough Players including As You Like It, Our Town, The Importance of Being Earnest, Six Degrees of Separation, and Romeo and Juliet. and for the Studio Theatre in Washington, DC for Medea, Shakuntala, The Wake of Jamey Foster, Album, Really Rosie, and He Who Gets Slapped. Film work as an art director or set decorator includes A Few Good Men, The Exorcist III, Elliott Faumann, Ph.D., Samaritan, Liberty, Yuri Nosenko KGB, and numerous episodes of Unsolved Mysteries, and countless commercials. He has also designed special projects for the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. and The Walters Gallery of Art in Baltimore, MD. Mr. Shaffer holds a BA in Fine Arts from Georgetown University and an MFA in Stage Design from CarnegieMellon University.
Michele Tauber (Mrs. Horrocks) worked this past summer at The Depot Theatre doing Aunt Abby in Arsenic & Old Lace. Prior to that she was seen as The Little Nun in The House of Blue Leaves at Two River Theatre Co. in Manasquan, NJ. Michele toured the country for two seasons with The Acting Company doing Mrs. Malaprop in The Rivals, Adriana in the Trevor Nunn musical version of The Comedy of Errors as well as multiple roles in Macbeth, O, Pioneers! and Romeo and Juliet. Regionally she has worked at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival in both A Christmas Carol and The Tempest, at the Forum Theatre in NJ doing Totie Fields in Sophie, Totie & Belle, and Kiss the Bride, at the Cleveland Playhouse as Sharon in The Man of the Moment, and at Theatrefest at Montclair State University as Popeye in The Miss Firecracker Contest and in Lettice & Lovage. Three seasons at the Texas Shakespeare Festival with roles in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Two Gentleman of Verona, Anthony and Cleopatra, Alls Well That Ends Well, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Miser, Fiddler on the Roof, Guys and Dolls, and Revoco. She toured the East Coast with the Present Stage Company's Cabaret Food Fright. In NY she has worked with the Turnip Theatre Company, actors Classical Troupe and The Acting Company. Television work includes principal roles on Law & Order, Kate & Allie, and The Street. She has her MFA in Acting from Professional Theatre Training Program at the University of Delaware.
Pauline Tully (Anson) is thrilled to be working at the Mint with this enormously talented group. Pauline was last seen as Ygraine in The Death of Tintagiles at HERE. As Lily in Once in a Lifetime at the Williamstown Theater Festival as well as Vera in The Unveiling and Clarice in The King Stag, also at WTF. Recent favorites include playing Desdemona in the African
Arts Company's Othello, and Ceasonia in the WTF production of Caligula.
Bruce Ward (William) Recent NYC credits include Street Theater (TOSOS 2), Craig Lucas' Boom Box(Circle East), and appearances on the television series Law & Order and Ed. International and regional credits include Chekhov's The Seagull at Russia's National Theatre of St. Petersburg, the Boston company of Shear Madness, Bottom in Midsummer Night's Dream (Publick Theater), Barney in Last of the Red Hot Lovers (Merrimack Repertory), Das Barbequ (Portland Stage Company), Lenny in Rumors (Worcester Foothills), Ned Weeks in The Normal Heart (Cambridge Theater Company), and L.M. in 3 productions of Pump Boys and Dinettes. He has performed his acclaimed solo play, Fabulous Ride Into the Unknown, at theaters, festivals and colleges across the country, including in NYC at HERE, the NYC International Fringe Festival, and in residence with the New York Theatre Workshop. Film appearances include Wilbur Falls (with Danny Aiello) and Private Lies (with John Corbett).
Alice White (Miss Triggs) is delighted to be working with Gus Kaikkonen again, having done three shows at Playhouse 91 under his aegis. That season included the acclaimed production of Candida, in which Alice played Prossie. Other favorite roles are: Lady Macbeth (Missouri Rep), Dr. Helga Van Zandt (The Passion of Dracula, Cherry Lane Theatre), Lady Bracknell (Merrimac Rep, Best of Boston award-winner), Miss Adelaide and Fraulein Schneider (Guys and Dolls and Cabaret in rotating rep, Barter Theatre) and B (Three Tall Women, Walnut Street Theatre). Ellen Mandel (Original Music) composed the music for The Voysey Inheritance, Welcome to Our City and Rutherford and Son at the Mint. Other scores include
Christopher Franciosa
Karl Kenzler
Troy Schremmer
Pauline Tully
Kristin Griffith
Becky London
Benjamin Howes
Lee Moore
Harmony Schuttler
Michele Tauber
Bruce Ward
Alice White
Christopher Franciosa (Mr. Firket) a graduate of UCLA and the Actor's Theatre of Louisville's apprentice program is ecstatic to live a block away from the Mint and equally as excited to be in his first Mint production. He appeared in the film Monkeybone last year with Brendon Fraser but his love is the theater. His most recent foray was Dan in Closer at the Hippodrome Theatre. Some of his other favorite Regional Theater credits are Treplev in The Seagull, Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, Ellard in The Foreigner, Banquo in Macbeth, Laertes in Hamlet, Trinculo in The Tempest, Emperor Joseph in Amadeus and all the male roles in The Trojan Women. He has also played Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet and Slender in Merry Wives of Windsor at The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum in L.A. where he is a company member. A playwright as well, Christopher has had numerous productions of his works all over the U.S. including a recent staged reading of his new play Pompeii at The Actor's Studio West. Christopher is thrilled with his new dog Zeus and even more thrilled with his new wife Marissa.
Kristin Griffith (Lady Denison) has performed extensively in New York and in Regional Theaters in the U.S. and Canada. This summer she played Empress Elizabeth of Austria in the Zellnik brother's musical City of Dreams. Other recent stage roles include Lady Eastlake in Greg Murphy's off-broadway hit The Countess, and the lead in Frank Gilroy's Inspector Ohms at Ensemble Studio Theatre. She starred as Flyn in Woody Allen's film Interiors, as Lizzie Acton in Merchant/Ivory's The Europeans, and as Heather in Steven Soderberg's King of the Hill. She has guest starred on the TV series Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, Ed, Third Watch and Wonderland. Ms. Griffith co-starred in The Long Way Home, with Jack Lemmon; in the Hallmark film Rose Hill; in Gregory K:
A Place to Be; and in Flesh and Blood, with Denzel Washington. She is a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre.
Benjamin Howes (Basil Hylton) hails from Australia where his credits include Les Miserables, Beauty and the Beast, Little Shop of Horrors, and Grease. Since arriving in the U.S. he has performed leading roles for Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Skylight Opera Theatre, and Pecadillo Theatre Company. He is also a member of Emerging Artist's Theatre. In 2000 he was the recipient of the Weekly and Arganbright Outstanding Supporting Actor Award for roles in Florida including Wemmick in Great Expectations and Le Compte de Guiche in Cyrano.
Karl Kenzler (Mr. Verreker) was last seen at the Mint as Victor Bretherton in Diana of Dobson’s. New York credits include: The Heiress (Broadway); Spinning Into Butter (Lincoln Center Theatre); Youth Is Wasted (SoHo Rep); The Libertine (Theatre Row Theatre); Dangerous Corner (Studio Tisch); Mel & Gene (Director’s Lab at Lincoln Center) and Fire In The Head (A-1 Collaborators). Regional credits include: McCarter Theater, Paper Mill Playhouse, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, The Ahmanson Theatre, The Kennedy Center, Cleveland Play House, Great Lakes Theater Festival, Buffalo Studio Arena, Fairfield Theater Company, Playwrights’ Theatre of New Jersey, Theatrefest, Chautauqua Conservatory Theatre and Indiana Repertory Theatre. Film/TV credits include: Now and Again, Law & Order, Trinity, and the independent film Neurotica. Becky London (Mrs. Eversleigh) is delighted to work with Gus Kaikkonen again, for whom she has done The Search for Signs of Intellegent Life in the Universe, Full Gallop, and Dinner with Friends at the Peterborough Players. Ms. London has
worked on Broadway in Marlene, at Lincoln Center in Ubu, in Wendy Wasserstein's Isn't It Romantic at the Lucille Lortel, in Othello with Theater for a New Audience and in Last of the Red Hot Lovers in its Off-Broadway revival at American Jewish Theater. As a member of Charles Busch's Off-Broadway Theater-inLimbo Co., Ms. London played two of Mr. Busch's husbands in Shanghai Moon. She also appeared opposite Mr. Busch in the New York and Tokyo productions of Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, created the role of Berdine in Psycho Beach Party and played a ubiquitous five roles in Pardon My Inquisition. Regional credits include The Real Thing (The Old Globe), Fires in the Mirror (Trinity Rep), Twelfth Night (Walnut Street Theater), as well as appearances at Yale Repertory Theater, Centerstage, Cincinnati Playhouse, the Wilma Theater and many others. Television credits include Law & Order, Third Watch, Quantum Leap, The Equalizer, All My Children and Ryan's Hope. She is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and lives in New York with her husband, Randy Martin, and their two-year-old son, Benjamin.
Lee Moore (General Bonsor) is delighted to return to the Mint Theater where he previously appeared in two critically acclaimed productions; Welcome to Our City and Alison's House. Recently he starred in the world premiere of City of Light at the Buffalo Arena Theatre. He played Glenn Taggart for seven years on Guiding Light and has appeared in many day-time serials in a variety of roles. He stars in the soon to be released feature, Sin of the Father and also starred in two short films, The Guests and Cadaverous, which won several awards on the festival circuit including the CINE Golden Eagle. The veteran actor's career has also embraced commercials, voice-overs, Regional Theatre, Off-Broadway, and Summer Stock. He has
written two film scripts for production in the near future. With his wife, MezzoSoprano, Leslie Middlebrook, he has written and lends his Bass-Baritone voice to a concert entitled, A Victorian Evening. An Opera aficionado, he and Ms. Middlebrook share their home with two very supportive cats, Romeo Montecchi and Mario Cavaradossi.
Troy Schremmer (Soames) is appearing with the Mint Theater Company for the first time. He has also worked with Theatre for a New Audience, 2econd Stage, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Native Aliens, 2texans and HB Playwrights Foundation. He studied at HB Studios with Rochelle Oliver and Uta Hagen. Regional credits include: Mill Mountain Theatre in Roanoke, VA (Lila), Grand Canyon Shakespeare Festival (Midsummer..., Smoke on the Mountain), Capital City Playhouse in Austin, TX (Goodnight Desdemona...), Fort Salem Theatre in upstate New York (Dial M for Murder) and Shakespeare's Motley Crew in Chicago (Comedy of Errors).
Harmony Schuttler (Margery) was most recently seen here in NYC as Kaja in The Century Center’s production of The Master Builder for their Ibsen Series. Other credits include: The Glass Menagerie (Laura), The Triumph of Love (Léonide), The Turn of the Screw (Governess), Arms and the Man (Raina), Abelard and Heloise (Heloise), internationally renowned Kabuki Master Shozo Sato's Kabuki Medea (Princess) and the Asolo Theatre Festival's production of The Voysey Inheritance (Ethel). Born and raised in South Dakota, and a graduate of the FSU/Asolo Theatre Conservatory, she has studied with such theatre artists as: José Quintero, Charmian Hoare (RSC), and Mark Wheatley (Theatre de Complicité, London). She wishes to thank Gus for this tremendous opportunity and her family and Paul for their constant love and support.