Brianne Beatrice* (Bonnie) received her BFA in Acting from Salem State University and her MFA in Acting at The Pennsylvania State University. Beatrice is a Professor of Acting and Communication at Salem State University, Northern Essex Community College and Umass Lowell. Recent stage credits include: MR. BURS/POST ELECTRIC, Colleen (New Century Theater)  NOT CONSTANTINOPLE, Stacey (Vineyard Playhouse)  SIMON SAYS, Annie (BCA- Plaza Theater)  NORTH SHORE  FISH, Ruthie (Gloucester Stage) ALMOST MAINE, Various roles; RUMORS, Cassie (Callan Studio Theater) DINNER WITH FRIENDS, Beth;  KIMBERLY  AKIMBO, Debra; SIGHT UNSEEN, Grete (New Century Theater) FOOTLOOSE, Ethel; A FUNNY  THING HAPPENED…, Domina; LAST OF THE RED HOT LOVERS, Elaine (SSU Summer Theater) FIVE WOMEN WEARING THE SAME DRESS, Mindy; CLOUD NINE, Joshua/Kathy; PROPAGANDA, Elizabeth; LOVES AND HOURS, Rebecca; THE AFGHAN WOMEN, Malalia; ESCAPE FROM HAPPINESS, Elizabeth; MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, Hero (Pennsylvania Center Stage).

 

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Andrea Goldman* (Kia) Originally from St. Louis, Missouri. Training: New York Stella Adler Studio Conservatory and Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, England. Andrea is the co-founder of Viscus Film (www.viscusfilm.com) in Los Angeles, whose most recent short was nominated for 6 categories at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival Awards and garnered two wins. She is the Co-Artistic Director of The Box Collective (www.thebox-collective.com). Her performance background comes from creating experiential performance in New York and Europe, where she has been featured in The New York Times for groundbreaking work that challenges the notions of traditional forms of theatre.  Recent New York theatre credits: Winter in Malefactions, Olivia in Twelfth Night, Calpurnia in Julius Caesar (Alvin Epstein Dir.), Frankenstein, (Drama Desk Award Nominated), young ensemble at Pearl Theatre Company and The Rover (Bristol Old Vic). Andrea is an alumni of The Flea Theatre. She is thrilled to be working with Gloucester Stage Company this summer under the direction of the incredible Paula Plum. www.andreagoldmanweb.com

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Gabriel Kuttner* (Herb) is a Boston-based theatre artist, educator and producer of the hit comedy, Shit-faced Shakespeare, now playing in Boston, Austin and London’s West End (shit-facedshakepeare.com). As an actor, he has worked with many Boston-area companies including: Actors’ Shakespeare Project, Lyric Stage Company, New Repertory Theatre, Stoneham Theatre, Boston Playwrights Theatre, Israeli Stage, Publick Theatre, WHAT and others. He was a founding member of Orfeo Group, whose work was thrice recognized by the Elliot Norton committee. As an actor, he has twice been the recipient of the IRNE award (Solo Performance and Best Supporting Actor). Gabriel is a graduate of The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) and is a proud member of Actors’ Equity.

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Paul Melendy* (Simon) is beyond thrilled to be back at Gloucester Stage with Schwartz. He was introduced to the Gloucester stage in 2015’s Sweet and Sad. Recent area credits include A Confederacy of Dunces (Huntington Theater Company) with Nick Offerman of Parks and Recreation, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Commonwealth Shakespeare Company/Boston Landmarks Orchestra), Art (CSC) with Seth Gilliam of The Walking Dead, and Shakespeare at Fenway! (CSC) with Mike O’Malley of Glee. He received an Elliot Norton nomination (Outstanding Musical Performance) for his work in It’s a Horrible Life (The Gold Dust Orphans).  He can be seen ongoing in Boston’s Shear Madness as Tony/Eddie, and in September reprising his role as Tim Andrews in the fourth, and final, installment of Richard Nelson’s The Apple Family Plays (Regular Singing) at New Rep Theatre (copro w/Stoneham Theatre). Other regional credits: Underground Railway Theater, Actors’ Shakespeare Project, Centastage, New Century Theatre, Wheelock Family Theatre, Publick Theatre, Foothills Theatre, W.H.A.T., Barnstormers Theatre. Film credits: Unfinished Business, The Pink Panther Deux, and The Makeover.

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Glen Moore (Gene) is thrilled to be making his debut with Gloucester Stage Company. He was last seen at the OBERON as Saul in Liars & Believers original production WHO WOULD BE KING. He is also an artistic ensemble member with Liars & Believers. Boston area credits include; BLINDERS (Flat Earth Theatre), The Importance of Being Ernest (Moonbox Productions), Of Mice and Men (Boston Children’s Theatre), CLOSER (Bad Habit Productions), Of Mice and Men (Moonbox), The Time of My Life (Zeitgeist Stage Company),  And Nither Had I Wings to Fly (Bad Habit Productions),  Arcadia (Bad Habit Productions), Eurydice (Independent Drama Society) , and The Spitting Image (Happy Medium Theatre). Regional Theatre; Speech And Debate (Denver Regional Premiere). He holds a B.A. in acting from The University of Northern Colorado and also studied at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts with The National Theatre Conservatory. Glen is an Equity Membership Candidate with AEA and has worked as an acting coach in Boston and Denver both privately and with Model and Talent Management Agency. He would like to thank his friends and family for all their support.

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Veronica Anastasio Wiseman (Norma) Veronica is thrilled to be making her Gloucester Stage debut. Recent roles include; Mud Blue Sky  & Salome  (Bridge Rep), Speech and Debate &The Goat or Who Is Sylvia – IRNE Nomination (Bad Habit Productions), The Edge of Peace (Central Square Theatre), 27 Tips for Banishing the Blues, Talk To At Me & Real Realism (Sleeping Weazel),Bully Dance (Argos Productions),The How and The Why (One Bird Productions), Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret, Nunsense (Woodland Theatre Company). For Sharon Community Television, Veronica produces and hosts “Wise Friends” (Hometown Media and Alliance for Community Media Awards). Veronica received her BFA from Boston University. Heartfelt thanks to Paula and Bob for reeling me in for a Gloucester Stage summer! Love you Howard.

Deborah Zoe Laufer (Playwright) Deb’s play, Informed Consent, opened at the Duke on 42nd Street, a co-production of Primary Stages and Ensemble Studio Theatre, in August, 2015. An Alfred P. Sloan Foundation commission through EST, it first received productions at Cleveland Playhouse and Geva Theatre Center.  Her works have also been produced at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, Portland Stage, and eighty other theaters around the country, in Germany, Russia and Canada. End Days was awarded The ATCA Steinberg citation and appeared at Ensemble Studio Theatre through a Sloan Grant. It received a rolling work premiere through the National New Play Network, and went on to receive over 50 productions after that. Other plays include Leveling Up, Sirens, Out of Sterno, The Last Schwartz, Meta, The Three Sisters of Weehawken, Fortune, The Gulf of Westchester, Miniatures, and Random Acts. Deb is a recipient of the Helen Merrill Playwriting Award and the Lilly Award and grants and commissions from The Edgerton Foundation, the NEA and NNPN. Her plays have been developed at PlayPenn, The Eugene O’Neill NPC, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Ojai, The Missoula Colony, The Cherry Lane Alternative, The Dramatists Guild, New Georges, The Lark, Asolo Rep. and the Baltic Playwrights Conference. She is a graduate of The Juilliard School and a member of The Dramatists Guild.

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Paula Plum (Director) is a founding member of Actors’Shakespeare Project. She has been Artistic Director of WGBH’s A Christmas Celtic Sojourn since its inception in 2003 touring Concerts throughout NewEngland during the Christmas holiday season. Other directing credits include Macbeth and School for Scandal, (Actors’ Shakespeare Project), Steel Magnolias (Stoneham Theatre), Jake’s Women (Merrimack Repertory Theatre), Baltimore Waltz (Lyric Stage), I’m Not Rappaport, and Out of Sterno (Gloucester Stage), The Lady and the Clarinet (New Ehrlich Theatre), Lone Star, Laundry & Bourbon (Back Alley Theatre), Tell Me On A Sunday ( Stuart St. Theatre) and Romeo and Juliet (Happy Medium Theatre). As the 2009 recipient of the Fox Actor Fellowship , awarded to five actors nationwide, Paula conducted a workshop at her host theatre, SpeakEasy Stage, entitled Handling the Hot Moments, exploring the ways actors negotiate intimacy on stage. Her article of the same title was published in the October 2011 issue of American Theatre Magazine. While she is best known to Boston audiences as an actress, Paula is also a playwright, teacher and acting coach. Her most recent play, What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, explores the passions and peccadilloes of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. With Actors’Shakespeare Project, she has played Phedre, Lady Macbeth, Cleopatra, Beatrice, Mistress Overdone, and the Countess in Alls Well that Ends Well. Paula is the recipient of the Elliot Norton Award for Sustained Excellence, five IRNE awards, two Elliot Norton Awards for Best Actress, and was the 2003 Distinguished Alumna of Boston University’s College of Fine Arts. She is married to actor Richard Snee.

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Andrew Duncan Will (Sound Designer) is delighted to be working at GSC again, after designing Tender in 2010. Recent local credits include: That Time The House Burned Down, It’s Not About My Mother, and The Clytemnestriad (Fresh Ink); Speech and Debate, Six Degrees of Separation, The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, Translations, Rooms: A Rock Romance, and Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me (2014 IRNE Winner Best Sound Design)(Bad Habit Productions); Hard and Fast and Three (Boston Public Works); The Amish Project, Stronger Than The Wind, and God Box (New Repertory Theatre); Detroit (Apollinaire Theatre Company); Sixty Miles To Silver Lake and FUFU AND OREOS (Bridge Repertory Theater of Boston); Sondheim on Sondheim, Dear Elizabeth, Sweeney Todd, and Into The Woods (2015 IRNE Nominee Best Sound Design), One Man Two Guvnors (Lyric Stage Company); 27 Tips for Banishing the Blues (Sleeping Weazel); A Bright New Boise, Twelfth Night, Boston Abolitionists Project, and 4th Graders Present An Unnamed Love Suicide (ART Institute); Cabaret (Brandeis University); Good, How I Learned To Drive, and A Question of Mercy (Boston Center for American Performance). Andrew received an MFA in Sound Design from Boston University.

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Elisabetta Polito† (Costume Design) Recent work: Peter and the Starcatcher, Saturday Night/Sunday Morning, City of Angels, Into the Woods, Water by the Spoonful, Stones in His Pockets, Time Stands Still. (Lyric Stage Company). Dog Fight, Big Fish, A Future Perfect, Necessary Monsters, The Color Purple, Kurt Vonnegut: Make up your Mind, In the Heights, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (SpeakEasy Stage Company). Mary Poppins (Wheelock Family Theater).  A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,  How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,   Addams Family: The Musical, Unbleached American, Bernarda Alba, These Shining Lives, The Nutcracker, The Rimers of Eldritch (Stoneham Theater). Out of Sterno (Gloucester Stage Company). Pajama Game (Boston Conservatory). Inner City Blues, In the Heights (Boston Arts Academy). Marie Antoinette: Color of Flesh (Providence College). White Christmas (The Company Theatre). Martha, The Bartered Bride, The Merry Wives of Windsor (Boston Midsummer Opera).  The Love of the Nightingale (Emerson College). Into the Woods, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Cherry Orchard, Hairspray, Metamorphoses, Imaginary Invalid (Concord Academy). Rent, Dr. Faustus (Suffolk University). Funnyhouse of a Negro, Three Sisters (Brandeis Theatre Company). Recent recipient of an Elliot Norton Award.

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Mary Sader (Properties Designer/Assistant Set Designer) is currently pursuing her MFA in Set Design at Boston University. She most recently assisted on Lettice and Loveage at Gloucester Stage. At BU she has designed Exposed, By the Bog of Cats, Sight Unseen, Sickle (at the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre), and Later the Same Evening (in conjunction with the Opera Institute). Her most recent Props Design was In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play). Recent collaborations outside of BU include The Merry Way with Anthem Theatre Co, and La Hija de Rappacinni with OperaHub. She earned her BA in Honors from Virginia Tech and is a member of a society with a secret handshake.

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Jon Savage† (Set Design) Recent credits include Out of Sterno (Gloucester Stage Company) The Disappearing Number (Underground Railway Theater); Imagining Madoff (New Repertory Theatre); The Farm (Boston Playwrights Theatre); All’s Well That Ends Well (Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, Elliot Norton Award, Best Production, Large Company); Comedy of Errors (Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, Elliot Norton Award, Best Design, Large Company); Ryan Landry’s “M” (Huntington Theatre Company). Regional credits include A Grand Night for Singing (Bucks County Playhouse); State Fair (Walnut Street Theatre); Is He Dead? (Olney Theatre); Ain’t Misbehavin’ (Bay Street Theatre). Jon was the Associate Set Designer for the Broadway production of Hot Feet and has worked in television and film for productions on the History Channel and the HBO miniseries John Adams and served as a curator for the U.S. National Student Exhibit at the Prague Quadrennial, 2007. Jon is currently on faculty at Boston University and is a member of United Scenic Artists.

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Russ Swift† (Lighting Designer) GSC: Resident Lighting Designer for the past 11 years. Productions include: Sweet and Sad; Out of Sterno; The New Electric Ballroom; The Flick; Jacques Brel; Fences; Spring Awakening; North Shore Fish; Carnival; “Master Harold” . . . and the Boys; The Most Happy Fella; Fighting Over Beverley; Table Manners; Trying; The Breath of Life; Sins of the Mother; Billy Bishop Goes to War; Going to St. Ives; Dear Liar; The Belle of Amherst; Ponies; The Widow’s Blind Date; The Secret of Mme. Bonnard’s Bath; The Price; The Heidi Chronicles, Long Day’s Journey Into Night; My Old Lady; Spinning into Butter. Boston-area (select): The Hobbit (Wheelock Family Theatre); Scarlett Letter (Worcester Foothills); It’s All True (Lyric Stage Company of Boston); Rags (The Boston Conservatory); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, 2010 and 1012 Gala (Boston Arts Academy). Other: Mr. Swift has designed for Tri-Cities Opera, the Jewish Theatre of New England, the Publick Theatre, Chamber Theatre Productions, Boston Lyric Opera, the Worcester Forum Theatre, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, the Theatre of Newburyport, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Bristol Riverside Theatre, American Ensemble Theatre, Stephan Petronio Dance Company, the Caldwell Theatre, KewPee Corporation and the Trinidad Theatre Workshop. Mr. Swift has been on the faculty or staff at Northeastern University, Emerson College, Endicott College, Westfield State University, Eastern Connecticut State University, Salem State University, Community College of Rhode Island, and Groton School. He is currently the production manager for the Theatre Department at Boston College. Russ resides in Wilbraham with his wife, Mayre, and daughter, Michaela.

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Jenna Worden* (Stage Manager) is thrilled to return to Gloucester Stage after serving as a member of the inaugural apprentice company last season. In addition to her work at GSC, Jenna has worked with Childsplay AZ and Phoenix Theatre. She is excited to be teaming up with Paula Plum again, having worked with her previously on Out of Sterno and A Christmas Celtic Sojourn. Jenna earned both her BA in Theatre Studies and BSEd in History from Northern Arizona University. Credits of notability at NAU include stage managing Of Mice and Men, directing the premiere of Forgotten Places by Mac Groves, and performing with NAUghty Bits Improv Troupe.

 

Don Aucoin, The Boston Globe

“…Laufer thrashes out questions of Jewish-American identity, assimilation, memory (individual and collective), the heartache of unfulfilled expectations, and the double-edged power of home.”

“…Laufer brings a freewheeling imagination and a distinctive comic voice…”

“…“The Last Schwartz’’ finds ways to cut deep, and you can’t help but admire the audacity and speed of the playwright’s U-turns from whimsy to utter seriousness and back again.”

Carolyn Clay, The ARTery

“…a stellar New England premiere by Gloucester Stage Company…”

“…“The Last Schwartz” melds genuine feeling with dark comedy, all in consideration of what it means to be a family.”

“This may be “The Last Schwartz,” but let’s hope it’s not the last we hear from the team of Laufer and Plum.”

Kim Smith, Good Morning Gloucester

“At a pace that feels like you’re on a roller coaster, playwright Deborah Zoe Laufer delivers a potent blend of laughs and bitter revelations. The ensemble cast is uniformly brilliant, creating vivid characters that feel like people you know and may even be part of your own family. With expert direction by Paula Plum, evocative lighting design, and a set that looks exactly like your grandparents’ musty old house, The Last Schwartz delivers comedy and heartbreak that’s perfect for a midsummer night.”

Jess Viator, The ArtsFuse

“Paul Melendy gives a triumphant performance.”

“All of the performances of the cast members in The Last Schwartz are superb.”

“Both Andrew Duncan Will’s sound design and Russ Swift’s light design are elegantly crafted…”

“The Last Schwartz…is well crafted and touching.”

Jack Butterworth, ItemLive.com

“The Last Schwartz”…deserves to finish first on a list of evening entertainment.”

Mike Hoban, Events Insider

“Gloucester Stage has again paired playwright Deborah Zoe Laufer and director Paula Plum…and they again craft a gem.”

“Gloucester Stage’s ‘The Last Schwartz’ is more than just an entertaining comedy. It delves deeper into the twisted dynamics of ordinary appearing families than most dramas, while still providing plenty of laughs. It’s well worth the (scenic) drive) to Gloucester.”

Rich Fahey, On Boston Stages

“Director Plum, who has made Gloucester Stage one of her several artistic homes, helps her own cause with astute casting and a feel for Laufer’s work.”

“…it does have humor, heart and soul, and it has you caring what will happen to the Schwartz’s…”

Nancy Grossman, BroadwayWorld.com

“Laufer’s witty, insightful writing is given its three-dimensional due by a crackerjack cast who look like they’ve been performing together for months, not days.”

“Laufer’s script and the situations she dreams up are very funny and very true, but also poignant. Plum’s perfect pacing and deft handling of the various scenes gives the actors the time and space they need to inhabit their characters and find greater depth as the play proceeds.”

“Across the board, each member of the ensemble gets inside the skin of their roles and pulls their oars together rhythmically like a championship crew.”

Jules Becker, The Jewish Advocate

“If the fictional Schwartzes are clearly dysfunctional, Westchester County native Laufer’s insightful play proves a very sharp look at their difficulties connecting and belonging – a family tableau vividly portrayed by a stellar Gloucester Stage Company cast in its New England premiere under the taut direction of Paula Plum.”

“…GSC makes “The Last Schwartz” well worth your attention.”