Creative Team
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Keith Gordon (Composer/Lyricist) is currently writing the scores for the forthcoming musicals, Little Mary, with playwright Michele Aldin, and Free Money, with Martin Casella and Barbara Multer-Wellin. Keith is an alumni of the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop and has been a featured composer in the ASCAP East Coast Pop Music Workshop. His songs have been recorded by artists including the Valli Girls (Sony/BMG), JoJo David (Arrhae Press), and Anne Marie David (Arrhae Press). He has also written jingles for numerous national advertising campaigns, sung by a variety of people including Diane Schuur, Valerie Simpson, and even Howard Stern. | |
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Martin Casella (Book) is the author of the plays Mates (L.A. Weekly Award and Drama-Logue Award for Best New Play), Paydirt, Desert Fire, Beautiful Dreamer, The Big Enchilada and Grand Junction. He also wrote the book for the musicals Paper Moon, Survival Crackers, Happy Holidays, Taking Care of Mrs. Carroll and Doo-Dah! (Stages 2004). His play, Scituate, was included in the Stamford Center for the Performing Arts New Plays Festival and recently had a reading with Tony-winners Robert Sean Leonard, Carole Shelley and Randy Graff. His one-act play"George Bush Goes To Hell" was included in the Access Theatre’s Last Chance Texaco Festival in July of 2004. Casella’s newest play, The Irish Curse, was performed in the 2005 New York International Fringe Festival, where its received rave reviews and an award for Outstanding Playwriting. It has been optioned for an off-Broadway production and is scheduled to open on St. Patrick’s Day of 2006. Casella’s work has been seen at such venues as the Pasadena Playhouse, Crossroads Theatre (Los Angeles); Ernie Martin Theatre (New York); Group Theatre (Seattle); Bailiwick, Theatre Building (Chicago); Paper Mill Playhouse (New Jersey); Goodspeed Opera House (Connecticut); Walnut Street Theatre (Philadelphia); Ford’s Theatre (Washington); and Bunkamura Theatre (Tokyo). Current theatrical projects include: Free Money, a musical with collaborator Keith Gordon and documentary filmmaker Barbara Multer; a piece with director Alan Muroaka and actress Ann Harada about the infamous WWII radio announcer Tokyo Rose; and Jimi Slept Here, a musical memory piece with composer Steve Marzullo. Martin Casella has taught playwriting at the California Institute of the Arts and is a longstanding member of The Writer’s Guild of America, The Dramatists Guild, Screen Actor’s Guild and Actor’s Equity. | |
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Matt Lenz (Director) recently completed casting the Las Vegas production of Hairspray to open at The Luxor in February 2006 starring Tony award winners Harvey Fierstein and Dick Latessa. In March he will direct Martin Casella’s award-winning comedy The Irish Curse Off-Broadway. Matt is currently the Supervising Associate Director of the smash hit musical comedy Hairspray on Broadway, as well as for the First National Tour and Toronto productions. (He assisted 2 time Tony Award winner JACK O'BRIEN from the early stages of developing the musical that went on to win 8 Tony Awards, including Best Musical - 2003) Prior to that, he served as Resident Director for Disney's Beauty and the Beast on Broadway and for the national tours. Also for Walt Disney Theatrical Productions, he was Assistant Director throughout the development of the Elton John/Tim Rice musical, Aida in its World Premiere developmental production as Elaborate Lives: The Legend of Aida at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta. Other recent directing credits include: Disney's Beauty and the Beast at The MUNY in St Louis, The North Carolina Theater and for Michigan Opera Theater in Detroit, Dirty Blonde and Love! Valour! Compassion! at the Zachary Scott Theatre Center in Austin, Elton John and Tim Rice’s Aida at The Gateway Playhouse and Zachary Scott Theatre Center, the world premiere of Scituate by Martin Casella at the Stamford Center for the Arts, the Los Angeles production of Confidentially, Cole at the Tiffany Theatre on Sunset, Twelth Night, Hair, The Ten Percent Revue in Provincetown, The Who's Tommy (national tour), Bobby Rivers' We Can't All Be Matt Lauer and the world premiere of Oscar winner Alan Ball's The Amazing Adventures of Tense Guy starring Camryn Manheim (Off-Broadway). Matt is dedicated to the development of a variety of new plays and musicals and has directed numerous workshops and readings. Matt is a member SSDC and the Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab. | |
 | Diana Calderazzo (Asst. Director) holds an MA from the University of Central Florida Conservatory Theatre and a BA from Smith College. She has directed for the Missoula Children’s Theatre in Montana (Alice in Wonderland and Red Riding Hood) and The Aracoma Story, Inc., in West Virginia (Footloose, Charlotte’s Web, and The Aracoma Story). She has assistant directed productions of Picnic, Three Sisters, and The Seagull and served as dramaturg for Three Sisters, The Marriage of Bette and Boo, Picnic, Once on this Island and others. Diana is a regional winner of the Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival Dramaturgy Award; and her article, “Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins and the Wartime Political Climate,” will appear in Theatre Symposium in 2006. | |
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Kelsey Halbert (Music Director) Broadway : Taboo, Associate Conductor; keyboards for Grease! and Chicago. National tours : Music Director for Saturday Night Fever, Annie Get Your Gun (starring Marilu Henner and Tom Wopat), Associate Conductor for The Wizard Of Oz, Grease!, Chicago. National and European tours of Crazy For You and West Side Story. Frequent conductor at the St. Louis Muny, including premier of Breakfast at Tiffany's. Guest conductor, Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon. Conductor and pianist with Rosemary Clooney, Donald O'Connor, Rich Little, Charo, Lauren Kennedy and Alan Campbell. | |
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Judy Bowman (Casting Director) Recent Musicals: Love According to Luc (Greenwich Street Theatre), Twelfth Night: a musical (Actors Theatre of Louisville). Many years experience as casting associate on such musicals as Floyd Collins, Hair, Wizard of Oz, Gift of the Magi, West Side Story, and Sophie Tucker. Plays: Points of Departure (INTAR), Ping Pong Diplomacy & Havana Bourgeois (59E59), A Matter of Choice (Chashama), The Bigger Man (Center Stage), The Wanderer (The Flea), An American Maul (Culture Project), NY premieres of Keith Reddin's Almost Blue & Sarah Kane's Phaedra’s Love. A.R.T.: Romeo & Juliet, The Keening, Olly’s Prison, Desire Under the Elms. Broadway: David Mamet’s The Old Neighborhood (co-cast). TV: Animated tv pilot "Proof of Life On Earth" w/Julia Sweeney, Charles Grodin, & Mickey Dolenz. Recent Film: "508 Nelson", "Duane Incarnate" w/Kristen Johnston & Jim Gaffigan, "The Eden Myth", and several shorts. NY Casting for "Mean Girls", "Something’s Gotta Give", and "Freaky Friday" (Casting Associate). Judy is currently the resident Casting Director for Partial Comfort, Reverie Productions, and the NY Casting Director for the American Repertory Theatre at Harvard University. | |
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Van Hill Entertainment (Producer) co-founded by Van Dean and Hillary Cutter, recently co-produced a sold out run of The Mistress Cycle at the NY Musical Theatre Festival. The Mistress Cycle received rave reviews from VARIETY, BACK STAGE, BROADWAY WORLD among other publications. Current and upcoming projects include the new musical A Rose in Winter (book, music and lyrics by Van Dean) and involvement in the Broadway-Bound Once Around The Sun (dir. Jace Alexander, The Zipper Theater, Off-Broadway). Cutter's recent projects as Associate Producer include the Obie Award Winning play Gone Missing (The Civilians: The Belt Theater NYC, The Gate Theatre London); Nobody's Lunch (PS 122); Question Love (2004 Fringe Festival) and with WET (Women's Expressive Theater), St. Scarlet (Ontological Theater) and Scab (Greenwich Street Theater). Hillary Cutter is also an independent producer of film, TV, theater, commercials and corporate video projects. Recent credits include Production Manager/Post Supervisor on a one-hour Court TV special Major Misbehavior, Producer of a City Meals on Wheels PSA (featuring Kathleen Turner) and a Canadian PSA about Breast Cancer (to air in spring 2006), Production Manager on a reality TV pilot for Dream Dragon Productions, Line Producer for the NYC scenes of Hans Canosa’s feature film Conversations With Other Women and Production Manager on Amos Lees "Arms of a Woman" music video. The short film Lucky (Dir. Melissa Berman), which Cutter Associate Produced, won Fest Favorite at Hypefest and Audience Favorite at DC shorts. Dean is currently writing the book, music and lyrics for The Eyes Of Midnight. In 1995, he wrote new lyrics and arrangements of the Rodgers and Hart song, "Dear Old Syracuse" for Syracuse University's 125th Anniversary Celebration hosted by Dick Clark at the Carrier Dome stadium. Other past projects include composing the quintet "Stolen Youth" and contributing a song to Tada! Theater's musical review Everything About School (Almost). Dean has consulted for several Broadway composers and serves on the Board of Advisors of AWOL Project, Inc. (Artists Without Limits) a non-profit production company whose credits include the critically acclaimed New York production of The Shaggs - The Philosophy of the World. Van is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, Inc. Dean and Cutter recently served on the selection committee for the TRU Voices 2005 musical reading series. Van and Hillary are both graduates of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. |
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web: | www.vanhillentertainment.com | |
e-mail: | van@vanhillentertainment.com | |
e-mail: | hillary@vanhillentertainment.com | |