The Legend of George McBride

J.Stephen Brantley (Eddie) Off-Broadway: Mope (Ensemble Studio Theatre), Murder in the First (The Directors Co.), Pirira (Theatre 167). Regional: Of Mice and Men (Bay Street Theater, North Coast Repertory Theater), The Night Alive (Guild Hall), Romeo and Juliet and R & J & Z (Stonington Opera House). TV/Film: “Gotham” (Fox), “The Blacklist” (NBC), “Happy!” (SyFy) “Neon Joe, Werewolf Hunter” (Adult Swim), “Difficult People” (Hulu) and Eliza Hitt’s “Beach Rats.” Brantley has also worked with Big Dance, Blessed Unrest, Jewish Plays Project, TOSOS, Queens Theatre, LaMaMa, Metropolitan Playhouse, and P.S.122. He is the 2017 recipient of the Doric Wilson Independent Playwright award and the Micheál MacLiammóir Award for Best Actor at the 2013 Dublin International Gay Theatre Festival. More at www.jstephenbrantley.com.

Bill Brochtrup (Tracy) is making his ETC debut. Best known for his 10-year run as cheerful police administrative aide John Irvin on ABC’s Emmy Award-winning “NYPD Blue” (SAG Award Nomination), Bill has spent the last five seasons recurring as savvy police psychologist Dr. Joe on TNT’s “Major Crimes.” In New York, he appeared in the Off-Broadway productions of Jonathan Tolins’s Secrets of the Trade (Primary Stages) and David Marshall Grant’s Snakebit (Century Center), as well as the Fringe-NYC production of John Pollono’s Lost and Found. His Los Angeles theater credits include productions at South Coast Repertory, Pasadena Playhouse, L.A. Theatre Works, Boston Court, Fountain Theatre, Evidence Room, Odyssey Theatre, Rogue Machine and Antaeus Theatre Company, where he serves as co-artistic director. He has appeared in the films Life as We Know It, He’s Just Not That Into You, Ravenous and the upcoming Hypnotized. Other television credits include series regular roles on ABC’s “Total Security,” CBS’s “Public Morals,” recurring roles on Showtime’s “Shameless,” and Jon Avnet’s web series “Kendra.” He has told his original stories at numerous Spoken Word events, written for OUT magazine and the best-selling book of essays I Love You, Mom!. He is an SPCA Friend for Life, has hosted AIDS Walks across the country, and has traveled the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and the Balkans visiting our troops with the USO and Armed Forces Entertainment. billbrochtrup.com

Carlton Byrd (Rexy, Jason) is honored to be making his ETC debut! Carlton has appeared in many regional productions including Seattle Repertory Theatre/Arena Stage’s Two Trains Running, Theater Works’ Sunset Baby, ACT Theatre’s musical Bad Apples and The Classical Theater of Harlem’s touring production of Romeo & Juliet and the musical Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death. Carlton’s television credits include “Castle,” “Major Crimes,” “Blue Bloods” and “Law & Order: SVU.” Carlton also teaches at the Lee Strasberg Institute for Theatre and Film in West Hollywood. B.F.A. New York University. Hebrews 12:1

Keiana Richàrd (Jo) is a native of Nashville, TN. She received her MFA from the University of California, San Diego. Her theater credits include New York: Lincoln Center’s Tony-nominated Broadway production of Dividing the Estate, The Pearl Theatre Company’s Ghosts, The McCarter Theatre’s Eclipsed, and The Public/Sundance Lab’s reading of Forgotten World; Los Angeles: Rogue Arts Ensemble’s Wood Boy Dog Fish, The Hudson Theatre’s Good People, and Center Theatre Group’s The Trip to Bountiful. Film/T.V. include projects such as Mid-City Blue, Adult Swim’s “Delocated,” and NBC’s “The Player.” She is thrilled to be a part of ETC’s production of The Legend of Georgia McBride.

Stephen Michael Spencer (Casey) ETC Debut! Regional theater: In four seasons with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival: Originated the role of Jason in Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize award-winning play, Sweat (also at Arena Stage), Autolycus in The Winter’s Tale, Hamlet, Timon of Athens, Julius Caesar, Off the Rails, Berowne in Loves Labours Lost and Roderigo in Othello; Cleveland Play House: Yentl, Carol for Cleveland, In Arabia We’d All Be Kings, The Misanthrope, Twelfth Night; Triad Stage: Tartuffe; North Carolina Shakespeare Festival: The Tempest. International: The Heart of Robin Hood with Mirvish Productions at the Royal Manitoba Theatre in Winnipeg and the Royal Alexandria Theatre in Toronto. Training: B.F.A. from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, M.F.A. from Case Western Reserve University/ Cleveland Play House. www.stephenmichaelspencer.com

Matthew Lopez (Playwright) is the author of The Whipping Man, one of the most celebrated and widely produced new American plays of the last decade. The Manhattan Theatre Club production received Obie, Lortel, and Outer Critics Circle awards, including the John Gassner New Play Award. It has since been produced at over 100 U.S. theaters as well as internationally. The Legend of Georgia McBride premiered at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts and ran Off-Broadway at MCC Theatre in a production that received multiple Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, and Outer Critics Circle nominations, including Best Play. Other plays include Somewhere (Old Globe, world premiere), Reverberation (Hartford Stage Company, world premiere), The Sentinels (London’s Headlong Theatre Company) and Zoey’s Perfect Wedding. Matthew holds commissions from Roundabout Theatre Company, Manhattan Theatre Club, South Coast Rep, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and Hartford Stage Company, where he recently served as their Aetna New Voices Fellow. For the past two seasons, he has been the Inaugural Playwriting Fellow at the Denver Center Theatre Company. Matthew was a writer on the HBO series “The Newsroom” and has recently adapted Javier Marias’s “Your Face Tomorrow” trilogy for the screen as well as the biopic “Dr. Q” for Disney.

Jenny Sullivan (Director) directed ETC’s Baby Doll in the 2016-17 season and I Am My Own Wife (Indy Award) in the 2015-16 season. Jenny began 2018 at the Wallis in Beverly Hills directing the world premiere of Tom Dugan’s Jackie Unveiled (with Saffron Burrows) and then the Rubicon premiere ofJane Anderson’s The Baby Dance: Mixed. Previously, she directed the fou-rmonth Off-Broadway run of Tom Dugan’s Wiesenthal, which then moved to the Wallis in Beverly Hills and the Royal Manitoba Theatre in Winnipeg. Other ETC productions include: Good People (with Catherine Coulson), Tea at Five (with Stephanie Zimbalist), The Year of Magical Thinking (with Linda Purl), The Lion in Winter (Indy Award), The Mystery of Irma Vep (Indy Award), The Clean House (Indy Award), The Memory of Water (with Bairbre Dowling), and Dublin Carol (Indy Award). She also directed Rubicon’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (with Gregory Harrison and Jeff Kober) and Darrow (with James O’Neil). Some regional credits: The Dresser with Len Cariou and Granville Van Dusen at Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, The Year of Magical Thinking and Steel Magnolias at Laguna Playhouse, Death of a Salesman with Stuart Margolin and Wendy Phillips at AUM, Tenderly—The Rosemary Clooney Musical at Center Rep in Walnut Creek, The Elephant Man at San Jose Rep, and six seasons of new plays at Williamstown Theatre Festival. Jenny directed all the women in the Geffen Playhouse production of Nora and Delia Ephron’s play Love, Loss and What I Wore! Rubicon productions: A Moon for the Misbegotten, Our Town, The Mystery of Irma Vep (Ovation nomination for Best Director), Steel Magnolias (with Bonnie Franklin), Doubt, Trying, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Indy Award) with Joe Spano and Karyl Lynn Burns, You Can’t Take It With You (Indy Award), Hamlet (Indy Award) with Joseph Fuqua, The Rainmaker, The Little Foxes, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Tuesdays with Morrie, Food Confessions, Happy Days, Defying Gravity, Art, Dancing at Lughnasa, Love Letters (with Jack Lemmon) and Old Wicked Songs (with Harold Gould). Other Santa Barbara productions: Marat/Sade, The Way We Live Now: Theatre for Our Lives in This Crisis Called AIDS (Center Stage Theatre), Listen for Wings (Access Theatre); Nancy Nufer’s Food Confessions, Mother Earth/Father Sky, and The Shadow Box, all at the Lobero Theatre. Jenny is most proud of her world premiere of Jane Anderson’s The Baby Dance, which began at the Pasadena Playhouse, moved to Williamstown Theatre Festival, Long Wharf Theatre (CT Critics Circle’s Directing Award) and the Lucille Lortel Theatre Off-Broadway. Film credits: Access All Areas, and The Next Best Thing (in which she had the good fortune to direct her father Barry). RTC produced the world premiere of Jenny’s autobiographical play J for J with Jeff Kober and the late great John Ritter. This was followed by a staged reading in NYC and a full production at the Court Theatre in Los Angeles. Jenny was a founding member of Santa Barbara’s “The Mime Caravan,” which created the annual Summer Solstice Celebration.

Jamie Torcellini (Choreographer) For ETC, he most recently appeared in The School for Lies and starred in The Mystery of Irma Vep, and has also directed The 39 Steps and Tell Me on a Sunday. Jamie has performed in many Broadway shows since 1980, including Cats (Mr. Mistoffelees), Little Johnny Jones (Standby to Donny Osmond), Me and My Girl (Standby for Jim Dale), Jerome Robbins’ Broadway, Man of La Mancha (Barber), Beauty and the Beast (LeFou), and the original company of Billy Elliot. Regional credits: Hamlet, Young Frankenstein (Igor), Spamalot (Patsy), My Fair Lady (Alfie Doolittle), You Can’t Take it with You, Tuna Christmas, Man of La Mancha (Sancho), and starred in a dozen productions of Me and My Girl. As a director and/or choreographer, Jamie has mounted several productions of The 39 Steps, The Mystery of Irma Vep, Pirates of Penzance, My Fair Lady, The Producers, Me and My Girl, How to Succeed…, West Side Story, Life Could Be a Dream, Kiss Me Kate, and many benefits and industrials across the country. He also assisted on both of the Stuart Little films starring Gena Davis and Hugh Laurie. He has been a teacher of musical theater and tap at the College and Conservatory of the Performing Arts (New York), and a teacher of comedy improv for several institutions, including Notre Dame De Namur (Belmont).

Keith Mitchell (Scenic Designer) is delighted to again be working with ETC, where he designed I Am My Own Wife, also directed by Jenny Sullivan. He has designed award-winning productions for a variety of southland theaters including SCR’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Sugar Plum Fairy and many shows at 24th Street Theatre, A Noise Within, Kirk Douglas Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Geffen Playhouse, Getty Villa, and Odyssey Theatre Ensemble. He has designed more than 20 shows for the Garry Marshall Theatre, including The Value of Names, with the late Jack Klugman (Ovation Award, Scenic Design), and 18 seasons for Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Summersounds at the Hollywood Bowl. Keith is an Emmy Award-winning art director. He works on a variety of commercials and television projects, including the 2018 Winter Olympics Social Media Campaign. He recently illustrated a children’s book, I Love to Go Camping by JoAnn Dickinson.

Alex Jaeger (Costume Designer) Alex designs costumes for theater and film across the country. For ETC, he has designed The Mystery of Irma Vep, I Am My Own Wife, and Baby Doll. He is currently designing A Doll’s House Part 2 for Indiana Repertory Theatre and All’s Well That Ends Well for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Other credits include The Baby Dance, Mixed and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance for Rubicon Theatre Company; Other Desert Cities and Parallelogram for the Mark Taper Forum; The Paris Letter, Eclipsed and The Nether for the Kirk Douglas Theatre; The Seafarer for Laguna Playhouse and many productions for South Coast Repertory, including Amadeus, Zealot, and Office Hour. Off-Broadway credits include Two Sisters and a Piano for the Public Theater. Other regional credits include Mr. Burns for Guthrie Theater; The Sneetches for the Children’s Theatre Co. in Minneapolis; Once in a Lifetime for the Asolo; One Man, Two Guvnors and King Charles III for the Pioneer Theatre and many productions for the Studio Theatre D.C., including Caroline or Change, Grey Gardens and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Alex is a frequent contributor to productions for the Magic Theatre and A.C.T in San Francisco and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Recently, Alex received Seattle’s Gregory award for his designs for Hairspray at the Village Theatre, where he has also designed Barefoot in the Park, The 39 Steps, Evita and Cabaret. Other awards include two Ovation Awards, five Back Stage Garlands, three Drama-Logues, an L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award and nominations for a NAACP arts award as well as three L.A. Weekly drama awards. Alex is a member of USA 829. For more information and pictures please visit www.alexjaegerdesign.com

Jared A. Sayeg (Lighting Designer) is a four-time Ovation Award Nominee and winner of the Ovation, StageRaw, Garland and the LADDC Kinetic Lighting Awards. Designs for ETC include: The School for Lies, City of Conversation, Baby Doll, Intimate Apparel, A Little Night Music, Frankie & Johnny, The Liar, Bell Book & Candle, Creditors and The Fantasticks. His designs have been seen throughout the US, Canada, Spain, and Edinburgh. On Broadway he designed the magic spectacle The Illusionists and two National tours as well as Bravo Bernstein, Gotham Glory at Carnegie Hall. Regional: Center Theatre Group, Pasadena Playhouse, South Coast Repertory, 5th Avenue Theatre, Sacramento Music Circus, International City Theatre, Reprise, Laguna Playhouse, Virginia Stage Company, The Colony, Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey. On the West End, he designed Rolling with Laughter at Her Majesty’s Theatre. He was on the design teams for the Broadway productions of PRIMO, The Woman in White, The Radio City Christmas Spectacular and the national tour of Blithe Spirit starring Angela Lansbury. Other designs include productions for Holland America and Norwegian Cruise Lines, the 2011 NBA All Star Game, LA Lakers at Staples Center, Neil Diamond’s world tour, the LA Auto Show, and he had the honor of lighting Pope Benedict XVI for the Papal Rally in NYC. Jared is Principal Designer for the prestigious USA International Ballet Competition held every four years, and creates the lighting for the nationally touring music group The Company Men. His architectural designs are seen regularly in restaurants and exhibits as well as the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific. Member of the International Association of Lighting Designers and the youngest member to join the United Scenic Artists-Local 829, and he serves as a trustee to the executive board. www.jaslighting.com

Randall Robert Tico (Sound Designer) This is Randall’s fifth score and/or sound design for ETC, the others being The Invisible Hand, Macbeth, and Husbands & Wives, directed by Jonathan Fox, and Baby Doll, directed by Jenny Sullivan. Also with Sullivan are the 2018 world premiere of Jackie Unveiled at the Wallis and The Baby Dance: Mixed at Rubicon Theatre Company. Other recent works include Astoria Part One & Two for Portland Center Stage (PCS), directed by Chris Coleman; More with Coleman and PCS are Othello, Anna Karenina, Shakespeare’s Amazing Cymbeline, The Imaginary Invalid, and Snow Falling on Cedars. With director Nancy Keystone and Critical Mass Performance Ensemble are Apollo at the Kirk Douglas Theatre (Garland Award and an Ovation Award nomination), Ameryka (2016 Ovation nomination), Suzan-Lori Parks’ The America Play (Theatre @ Boston Court), Antigone (Portland Center Stage for which he won a Drammy Award), The Ahkmatova Project, Dr. Faustus, The Rover, and Measure for Measure. Further works include Hamlet, The Winter’s Tale, the vocal score for David Hare’s version of Mother Courage, and music and sound design for The Glass Menagerie, all directed by Jessica Kubzansky, original music for Magic Fruit (Cornerstone), Shishir Kurup director, and composer/sound designer for the 2014-16 Launch Pad program at UCSB with director Risa Brainin. ­Coming up for 2019 is Anna Karenina for Denver Center for the Performing Arts with director Chris Coleman.

Abigail Strange (Production Stage Manager) is excited to be back at ETC! Select Off-Broadway: What We Wanted (PSM), Philoctetes (PSM), Cagney (York Theatre, Asst. Director/SDC Observer), Clinton the Musical (Asst. Director), Tail! Spin! (Asst. Director), Ethel Sings (PSM), Here Lies Love (Public Theatre, PA), Murder for Two (New World Stages, PA); Select NYC: A Streetcar Named Desire (Carnegie Hall, PA), Lincoln Center Out of Doors & Midsummer Night’s Swing (Stage Manager); Select Regional: Cookin’ at the Cookery (ETC, PSM) The Invisible Hand (ETC, PSM), A Christmas Carol (Hangar Theatre, PSM), Spamilton (Royal George Theatre, PSM), The Addams Family (Old Creamery Theatre, PSM).

Brian McDonald (Dramaturg) is ETC’s Director of Education and Outreach. He is an award-winning actor, director, and educator. He appeared in the national tours of Miss Saigon and Forever Plaid. Regionally, he appeared on the stages of the Denver Center, Theatre Virginia, The Lyric Stage, La Miranda Performing Arts Center, Ensemble Theatre Company, Pasadena Playhouse, Thousand Oaks Performing Arts Center, and the Ahmanson. As an actor, Brian was honored with many awards, including the Ventura Mayors’ Award for Emerging Artist, LA Weekly’s Best Supporting Actor Award and an Independent Award for his most recent performance in the one-man show, Buyer and Cellar. He has also directed for various regional theaters, including Seven Angels Theatre, Saratoga Performing Arts Center, and Rubicon Theatre Company. For Rubicon, he directed the critically acclaimed world premiere adaptation, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, A Tuna Christmas, The Sunset Limited, Bus Stop (Five Ovation nominations including Best Play), MASTER HAROLD… and the boys (nominated for three Ovation Awards Including Best Play) and the World Premiere musical Hello! My Baby, written and conceived by Cheri Steinkellner. His work as a director has earned him an Independent Award and StageScene LA Award for Best Director.