Limited to a max of 15 people.  Sessions will take place after the matinees of THE THIN PLACE, from 4:45pm – 5:45pm. 

Limited to 2 Sittings:
Saturday Oct. 15 @ 4:45p
Sunday Oct. 23 @ 4:45p

Critical Praise for Gloucester Stage’s THE THIN PLACE by Lucas Hnath

Meet the Creative Team

Lucas Hnath / Playwright

Lucas Hnath’s most recent play, Dana H., was at the Vineyard Theatre in New York. Lucas received a 2017 Tony Award nomination for Best Play with A Doll’s House, Part 2. Hnath’s other plays include Hillary and Clinton, The Thin Place, Red Speedo, The Christians, A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney, Isaac’s Eye and Death Tax. He has been produced on Broadway at the John Golden Theatre and Off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop, Playwrights Horizons, Soho Rep and Ensemble Studio Theatre. His plays have also premiered at the Humana Festival of New Plays, Victory Gardens and South Coast Repertory. He is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect, a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre and an alumnus of New Dramatists. Awards: Whiting Award, Guggenheim Fellowship, Kesselring Prize, Outer Critics Circle Award for Best New Play, Obie Award for Playwriting, Steinberg Playwright Award and the Windham-Campbell Literary Prize.

Dee Dee Batteast / Director

Dee Dee Batteast is currently adjunct acting faculty for Ball State’s BFA program, where she teaches courses in beginning acting, audition, one-person show, and Shakespeare, as well as coaching Ball State’s professional showcases in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles.  Dee Dee is a proud alumnus of Ball State’s undergraduate program (07’). After the completion of her undergraduate career, Ms. Batteast relocated to New York where she lived and worked as an actress, social activist, and youth advocate.  While in the city she volunteered at Girl Be Heard, a not-for-profit theatre company dedicated to social justice and issues affecting young women.  Ms. Batteast is also a writer.  Her self-produced one-woman show, NO AIDS, NO MAIDS, enjoyed a successful run at the Washington DC Fringe Festival, where it received the Capital Fringe Honors, Favorite Show of Fringe, Favorite Solo Performance, and Favorite Performance(s). Dee Dee received her MFA in acting from UNC-Chapel Hill, where she spent 3 years as a company member of PlayMakers Repertory Theatre.  Some of her Recent regional theater credits include work with The Goodman, Clarence Brown Theatre, Virginia Stage Company, Illinois Shakespeare Festival, Farmers Alley Theatre and Indiana Repertory Theatre. Television credits include Chicago Fire, The Shinning Girls, Chicago Med. Batteast earned her undergraduate degree from Ball State University and her MFA from UNC-Chapel Hill.

Meet the Cast

Cynthia Beckert* / Linda

Cynthia Beckert is delighted to be making her Gloucester Stage debut. A long-time resident of Los Angeles, she was a member of the all-female LA Women’s Shakespeare Company under the direction of Lisa Wolpe (favorite roles include
Hamlet, Laertes, Bassanio, and Duke Antonio), and performed with Laguna Playhouse, Ensemble Theatre Company, A Noise Within, Kingsmen Shakespeare Company, and many others. Recent Central Florida appearances include American Stage (Pipeline), The Hippodrome (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time), and four seasons with MCT Orlando (including Grounded, Rapture, Blister, Burn, Top Girls, and Men on Boats). Cynthia is part of the workshop and premiere cast of the world’s largest immersive theatre experience, Disney’s Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser, helmed by Sleep No More director Mikhael Tara Garver. Cynthia earned her MFA in Acting from UC Irvine and her MA in Theatre from FSU. Proud Actors’ Equity Union member for over 25 years. 

Siobhán Carroll / Hilda

Siobhán Carroll (she/her/hers) is delighted to be working at Gloucester Stage. Other Boston credits include Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Blue Kettle and Here We Go (Commonwealth Shakespeare Company), Red Velvet (O.W.I.), My Fascination With Creepy Ladies and I, Snowflake (Anthem Theatre Company), The Three Sisters
 (Apollinaire Theatre Company), and Next To Normal (Arts After Hours). New York Credits include: Lady Macbeth (The Cutting Room), Which Way To The Ivy Covered Well (Rochester Fringe), and Sing Goddess (HERE Arts Center). Siobhán plays Petra in the Black Oak series Ms/Manage. 

Joshua Wolf Coleman* / Jerry

Most recently Joshua has performed with Gloucester Stage in Mr. Fullerton, Between the Sheets. Regionally, at Greater Boston Stage in Miss Holmes, Trinity Rep in their production of August Wilson’s Radio Golf, the Nora Theatre Company at Central Square Theater in Cloud 9 and A Christmas Carol (Ebenezer Scrooge) as well as Bedlam Theatre’s co-production of The Crucible. He has worked with luminaries of the stage including Edward Albee, Joseph Chaiken, and Anne Bogart at The Guthrie Theater, Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and La Jolla Playhouse. Other roles include: Norry the Drag Queen, the Headless Sheep, and Puddn’head Wilson, as well as Macbeth, Lysander, Friar Lawrence, Angleo, and Iago. Television work includes Kevin can F*** Himself, Shameless, Bosch, How to Get Away With Murder, The West Wing, Scandal, House, Gray’s Anatomy, Touchstone’s film Hidalgo and Netflix’s Aftermath.

Bren McElroy* / Sylvia

Bren is delighted to help top off the season at Gloucester Stage. While she has performed in several AfterDark readings at the Company, Bren is excited to be making her GSC debut. Relocating to the States after several years in Dublin, Bren is best known as Cassandra in the Irish National TV series, Fair City. With dual citizenship, Bren has performed in theaters across the United States, Ireland and the U.K. Favorite appearances include Lynn Nottage’s world premiere of Las Meninas (San Jose Repertory Theatre), the premiere of The Robb’d That Smiled (Dublin Fringe Festival/Old Museum Arts Theater, Belfast), Othello (American Conservatory Theater,) and The Air Conditioned Bubble (Tamarind Theater, LA). This past year, Bren has starred in 10 independent films many of which are premiering in ’22/‘23 film festivals. Some of her film and TV credits include ABC’s All My Children, Paramount’s Dead Man on Campus and most recently a Dublin based film, A Story for Niamh. Bren loves voice acting and was a morning news reader for KPFK in LA; she recently had fun recording two books in a 3 book series on Audible with over 30 characters. Bren navigates between Boston and NYC and as a former National Champion in Dramatic Interpretation she coaches acting, voiceover & public speaking at communicationmattersstudio.com to her impressive clients. Education: MFA in Acting, American Conservatory Theater (Prof. Theater Internship awarded), BA in Theater, Kenyon College (Joanne Woodward Acting Award received), British American Drama Academy & Carnegie Mellon. She is a long time member of AEA & SAG-AFTRA. Follow her on brenmcelroy.com or IG: bren.mcelroy. Bren dedicates her performances to her Auntie Gloria and her mentor Ken Ruta. 

Meet the Production Team

Claire Russell / Assistant Stage Manager

Claire Russell is a graduate of Gonzaga University where they earned a BA in Theatre Arts with a design, tech, and management focus. In addition, Claire earned minors in Special Education and Interdisciplinary Arts. They spent their undergraduate career stage-managing numerous productions. Their training also included a little of everything else from acting and props design to lighting design and directing. Claire spent their senior year stage-managing the fall musical and working to create a resource website for ability inclusive arts production that was shared with the Gonzaga community. Claire is looking forward to continuing to develop their stage management philosophy and skills as well as continue working on learning about and promoting ability inclusive performance opportunities for diverse audiences.

Jenna Worden* /Production Stage Manager

Jenna Worden is a stage manager, producer, and director with a passion for storytelling, education, and access to the arts. Favorite GSC credits include: Barefoot in the Park, The Agitators, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Out of Sterno. Additional regional credits include Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, SpeakEasy Stage, The Gamm, New Rep Theatre, Phoenix Theatre, and Childsplay AZ. She is the director and producer of Brian O’Donovan’s A Celtic Sojourn, Live. She earned both her BA in Theatre Studies and BSEd in History from Northern Arizona University and is constantly looking for new ways to teach and be in conversation with the past. Proud member of Actors’ Equity Association.

Critical Praise for THE THIN PLACE by Lucas Hnath