“BWW Review: A Nimble BAREFOOT IN THE PARK at Gloucester Stage Company”

Nancy Grossman

“Gloucester Stage Opens Season with ‘Barefoot in the Park’ June 7”

– WickedLocal 

Opposites attract: Gloucester Stage steps into 40th season with ‘Barefoot in the Park’

– EagleTribune

Head up to the Gloucester Stage Company and go BAREFOOT IN THE PARK with comedic master Neil Simon’s longest running Broadway play.

– Joyce Kulhawik

McCAELA DONOVAN* (Corie) is happy to be back at Gloucester Stage Company after appearing in ‘Crimes of the Heart’. Local credits: Huntington Theatre Company, American Repertory Theatre, Berkshire Theatre Group, Reagle Music Theatre, Commonwealth Shakespeare Co, ArtsEmerson, New Repertory Theatre, Brandeis Theatre Company, Greater Boston Stage Company, Actor’s Shakespeare Project,The Lyric Stage, Bridge Rep of Boston, Fiddlehead Theatre Co and Company One. New York Credits: NYMT Festival, Primary Stages. BFA- Musical Theatre (Ithaca College), MA -Theatre Education (Emerson College), MFA Acting (Brandeis University ). She is a member of Actor’s Equity, SAG-AFTRA, SAFD. McCaela serves as the Assistant Director of the School of Theatre at Boston University. Thanks to the Gloucester team, the wonderful humans on this production and her husband Joe, the best scene partner onstage and off.

PAULA PLUM* (Mrs. Banks)  is the recipient of five IRNE Awards, the 1995 & 2007 Eliot Norton Award for Best Actress, the 2004 Eliot Norton Award for Sustained Excellence, and the 2003 Distinguished Alumni Award from Boston University. In 2009 she was one of five actors nation-wide to receive the Fox ActorFellowship in association with SpeakEasy Theatre Co. Ms. Plum is an actress, director, writer, and teacher and has created seven one-person shows for the Undadilla Theatre of Vermont, most notably, Plum Pudding. As a founding member of The Actors’ Shakespeare Project, she has directed Macbeth and School for Scandal. For 12 years she has been the Artistic Director of A Christmas Celtic Sojourn for WGBH, a concert of traditional Celtic music, dance and poetry that tours New England in December. Original work includes “Wigged Out!”, a comedy about her mother’s death, and “What Lips My Lips Have Kissed” a dramatic biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay. Other directing credits include: Jakes Women ( Merrimack Repertory Theatre) I’m Not Rappaport ( GSC) Baltimore Waltz (Lyric Stage) and Steel Magnolias ( Stoneham Theatre) She is married to actor Richard Snee.

JOE SHORT* (Paul) is a professional actor, teacher, and production artist. He has performed in
numerous theaters in Boston, New York, Rhode Island, Washington DC, and elsewhere. Joe was a founding artistic associate of two successful New England theatre companies: Bridge Rep of Boston and The Wilbury Theatre Group, in Providence, RI. He has also directed both professionally and at the university level, most recently directing True West, by Sam Shepard, for the Gloucester Stage Company.
Joe is an instructor of acting at numerous universities in the area, and has been an instructor of acting, voice, and movement at the University of Rhode Island since 2010. Joe is the Production Technician for      the newly created Theatre, Dance, and Media concentration at Harvard University, and the production manager at Gloucester Stage Company since 2013. Joe earned his B.F.A. at the University of Rhode Island, and is an M.F.A. graduate of the Brown University/Trinity Rep
Consortium.

RICHARD SNEE* (Victor Velasco) Auld Lang Syne, Table Manners, Living Together, Round and Round the Garden. Regional: Othello(American Repertory Theatre); Present Laughter, Sisters Rosensweig (Huntington Theatre Company); Uncle Vanya, Boy Gets Girl, Something in the Air, A Christmas Carol (Merrimack Repertory Theatre). Richard has been a member of the Boston company of Shear Madness since 1987 and is a founding member of the Actors’ Shakespeare Project, and has appeared in several of their productions including Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Cherry Orchard, Richard III, and Comedy of Errors. He has also performed at the Lyric Stage Company of Boston, SpeakEasy Stage Company, the Nora Theatre Company, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, the Wilbur Theater, Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and a lot of other places over the last thirty years.  His film credits include Gone, Baby, Gone; The Company Men; My Best Friend’s Girl; Never Met Picasso; Treading Water; Mr. North; and Teacakes or Cannoli.Richard’s television credits include voicing characters for several animated series including Science Court; Dr. Katz; Home Movies; and Hey, Monie! Richard and his wife, Paula Plum, helped create and starred in the FX network’s animated series, The Dick and Paula Celebrity Special. She was “Paula.” He was “The Dick.”

*Member of Actors Equity Association (AEA)

Neil Simon

Born on July 4, 1927, in New York City, Neil Simon began writing comedy for some of radio and television’s top talents in the 1940s. Turning to the stage, he enjoyed his first major hit with Barefoot in the Park in 1963, and later scored Tony Awards for The Odd Couple (1965), Biloxi Blues (1985) and Lost in Yonkers (1991). Simon also became a successful screenwriter, earning acclaim for both original and adapted works. In addition to his numerous Tony and Academy Award nominations, Simon in 1983 became the first living playwright to have a Broadway theater named in his honor. He passed away on August 26, 2018

Jeffrey Petersen (Set Designer) returns to GSC after designing last season’s The Agitators. Recent New England design credits include: Becoming Dr. Ruth, Lonely Planet, Statements, Unveiled (New Repertory Theatre); Romeo & Juliet CSC2, Birdy, Death and the Maiden (Commonwealth Shakespeare Co.); Everyman (NEU);  Divas (Opera Hub); Elemeno Pea, Lost Tempo, Equal Writes, Restricted, and The Honey Trap (Boston Playwrights’ Theatre); The Werther Project, Uncommon Women and Others, Cosi Fan Tutte, and Rosmersholm (Boston University). MFA Boston University. jeffreypetersendesign.com

David Remedios** (Sound Designer) has designed sound for GSC’s Out of the Mouths of Babes, The Effect, The Totalitarians, The Flick and An Ideal Husband. Recent credits include The Burdens (City Theatre, Pittsburgh); The Haunted Life, Slow Food, Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley, and Murder for Two (Merrimack Rep); Quack (Alley Theatre); Berta, Berta and A Late Morning (in America) with Ronald Reagan (Contemporary American Theater Festival). His work has also been heard regionally at Trinity Rep, 59E59, Geva, Huntington Theatre, Studio Theatre, Portland Stage, Theatre for a New Audience, Hartford Stage, CenterStage Baltimore, La Jolla Playhouse, Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, Cincinnati Playhouse, and American Repertory Theatre (50 productions); internationally at prominent arts festivals in Bogotá, Paris, Hong Kong and Edinburgh; and locally at many New England Area Theatres. David is Assistant Professor and Program Head of Sound Design at Boston University’s School of Theatre, and is a proud member of USA 829. remediossound.com

Jenna Worden* (Production Stage Manager) returns for her fifth season with Gloucester Stage where she has worked as both a stage manager and props master. Favorite stage management credits with GSC include The Agitators, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Totalitarians, and Out of Sterno. In addition, Jenna has worked with Commonwealth Shakespeare Company (Birdy, Universe Rushing Apart, Richard III, Death and the Maiden, Our American Hamlet), WGBH (A Christmas Celtic Sojourn), Phoenix Theatre, and Childsplay AZ. She earned both her BA in Theatre Studies and BSEd in History from Northern Arizona University. Proud member of Actors’ Equity Association.

*Member of Actors’ Equity Association (AEA)

^**Represented by United Scenic Artists, Local USA-829 of the IATSE