Who's Who

Cast

Technical Staff

Who's Who

Ken Ludwig (Playwright) Ken Ludwig is the author of the several Broadway, Off-Broadway and West End plays and musicals. Lend Me A Tenor , a comedy, was first produced in London by Andrew Lloyd Webber and was nominated for the Olivier Award as Comedy of the Year. On Broadway, it was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play, and won two Tonys, four Drama Desk and three Outer Critics Circle Awards. It has been translated into 16 languages and produced in over 25 countries around the world. Crazy For You , which ran for years in London and New York, won the Olivier and Tony Awards as Best Musical of the year, as well as the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Los Angeles Critics Circle and Helen Hayes Awards. It has also played for years in Toronto, Tokyo and Australia, and was broadcast nationwide in the U.S. on PBS Television's “Great Performances.” Moon Over Buffalo marked Carol Burnett's triumphant return to Broadway after 30 years. Her Broadway co-star was Philip Bosco; and Lynn Redgrave and Robert Goulet succeeded them. The play received a nomination for Best Play of the Year. Last fall it was presented in London at the Old Vic under the title Over the Moon and starred Joan Collins and Frank Langella. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer , a musical written in collaboration with country songwriter Don Schlitz, opened on Broadway in May of 2001. Sullivan and Gilbert was produced by the Kennedy Center and the National Arts Theatre of Canada and was voted Best Play of the Year by the Ottawa critics. Producer Duncan Weldon is producing a recent play, Leading Ladies , this year on the West End in London. He has recently completed a new play, Shakespeare in Hollywood , which was commissioned by The Royal Shakespeare Company. A reading of the play was recently co-presented by the Kennedy Center and the Shakespeare Theatre. His latest work is an adaptation of the comedy Twentieth Century by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. For film, Ken has written All Shook Up for director Frank Oz and Touchstone Pictures, and Lend Me A Tenor for Columbia Pictures. For television, he co-wrote the 1990 Kennedy Center Honors for CBS (Emmy Award nomination) and a television pilot for Carol Channing. He is now at work on a new musical using the songs of Irving Berlin, for which he has been given exclusive rights. He is a founding member of the Shakespeare Theatre of Washington and has served on the New Play Committees of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. He is married to Adrienne George and has two children, Olivia and Jack.

Don Schlitz (Composer and Lyricist) Don and his wife Polly have three children: Casey, Cory, and Pete. His first recorded song, “The Gambler” sung by Kenny Rogers, earned him his first Grammy and was the Country Music Association's and the Academy of Country Music's Song of the year. Don's songs have been recorded by Randy Travis, Mary Chapin Carpenter, The Judds, Reba McEntire, Vince Gill, Tanya Tucker, Garth Brooks, Allison Kraus, and many other singers. His 50 + hits include 24 “number ones”. Among his best-known songs are “On the Other Hand”, “Forever and Ever Amen”, “When You Say Nothing At All”, “Rockin With the Rhythm of the Rain”, “One Promise Too Late”, “Strong Enough to Bend”, “I Know Where I'm Going”, “I Feel Lucky”, “ He Thinks He'll Keep Her”, “I Take My Chances”, “Learning to Live Again”, “I Think About You”, “and “The Greatest”. Schlitz, a four-time ASCAP Country Songwriter of the Year, has won three CMA's, two ACM's, and two Grammy's. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is his first musical.

Nick Olcott (Director) directs frequently for the Kennedy Center, including the world premieres and national tours of Judith Viorst's popular Alexander plays ( Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day and Alexander, Who's Not Not Not Not Not Not Going to Move) .  This season he will be directing Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream for the People's Light and Theatre Company in Phildelphia and Jules Feiffer's A Bad Friend for Theatre J in Washington, D.C.  Recent credits include The Miracle Worker (Arena Stage), The Impresario/Viva la Mamma (Wolf Trap Opera Company), Heartbreak House (Round House Theatre), The Daughter of the Regiment (Boston Lyric Opera),  and The Mad Dancers (co-directed with Liz Lerman at Theatre J).  For the Voice of America, he has directed numerous plays for radio broadcast, including All My Sons (starring Julie Harris), Seven Days in May (starring Ed Asner), The Heiress (starring Amy Irving and Chris Noth), and The Best Man (starring Marsha Mason). 

Tony Angelini (Sound Designer) is happy to be back at The Kennedy Center were he's designed many productions including:  The Emporer's New Clothes,  The Great Quillow, Shakespeare Stealer, and Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse. Other credits: NYC: Berlin (Theatre 315), Blind Persons Crossing (The Producers Club). Regional credits include many shows at Signature Theatre, Hamptons Shakespeare Festival, The Manhattan Arts Institute, The Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC, The Round House Theatre, Studio Theatre, Source, Keegan Theatre, The San Diego Repertory Theatre, as well as theatres in Ireland, Cuba, and Australia. He has received a Helen Hayes Award nomination and Washington Area Dance Award nomination for excellence in Sound Design. He also teaches sound design for The Roundabout Theatre Company, writes for Pro Audio Review Magazine, and is the technical director for the internationally acclaimed Footworks Percussive Dance Ensemble. Member I.A.T.S.E. Local 829 (U.S.A.)

Michael J. Bobbitt (Choreographer) DC Credits include: Alexander, Who's Not…Going to Move , Kennedy Center Youth and Family Programming; Wintertime , Roundhouse Theater Company; A New Brain (2002 Helen Hayes Nominee for Best Musical), A Class Act , BatBoy, the musical , The Studio Theatre; Timon of Athens , The Shakespeare Theatre, Love's Labours Lost, Blood Wedding , Washington Shakespeare Company; Ruddigore , Washington Savoyards; Little Shop of Horrors , The Fredericksburg Theater Company; A Chorus Line, Into The Woods, Working , Catholic University; Working, Hello, Dolly!, And The World Goes ‘Round, Footloose, On The Town , Montgomery College; Junie B. Jones, Rapunzel , Imagination Stage; Walking The Winds , Adventure Theatre. Regional Theatre: Hello Dolly!, Pippin, Guys and Dolls, 42nd Street, Lil' Abner, No Strings, She Loves Me, Crazy For You, Anything Goes, Carousel, Damn Yankees, Fiorello, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, Mack and Mabel, Singing In the Rain . National and International: Washington Post Music and Dance Scholarship Awards, Mel Tillis 2001, USO, 1996 Olympics, Pepsi Cola, and Coca Cola. Teaching credits: The Washington School of Ballet, The Dance Institute of Washington, The Theatre Lab, Montgomery College and Catholic University.

Dreama J. Greaves (Properties Artisan) has served as properties artisan for many Kennedy Center Youth and Family Programs shows. Her credits include such diverse productions as The Snow Queen ; Little Women ; Alice in Wonderland ; The Nightingale ; Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day and others; many of which have toured nationally. She has a Master of Fine Arts from Northwestern University and free-lances throughout the metro area.

James Kronzer (Scenic Design) Past shows for Kennedy Center include Shakespeare Stealer, My Lord What a Morning, Bocon and Hidden Terrors . Recent shows in the area: Twentieth Century, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, The Gospel According to Fishman and Grand Hotel at the Signature Theater, The Thousandth Night at Metro Stage , Heaven at Woolly Mammoth, Monster at the Olney Theater Center, Heartbreak House, Drawer Boy and Speaking in Tongues at the Round House Theater .  Elsewhere he has designed shows for the Arden Theater in Philadelphia: Pacific Overtures, The Dead, The Baker's Wife (Barrymore Award), Red Herring and Exit Wounds; Milwaukee Rep, Asolo Theater in Florida, Delaware Theater Company and the Weston Playhouse.  He has done several national tours for Networks including the current tour of Seussical the Musical as well as past tours of Showboat, Annie, Big, Damn Yankees .  Museum work of his has been seen at the Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of Women in the Arts, where he worked on the Julie Taymor exhibit.  He has been nominated for the Helen Hayes Award nineteen times and has received the award five times.  He is a member of United Scenic Artists, a board member at the Olney Theater Center and an Artistic Associate for Signature Theater.

Deborah Wicks LaPuma (Musical Director) is delighted to be working at the Kennedy Center with Youth and Family Programs once again. She has been working the Washington DC area for 11 years as a composer, music director, and sound designer with the Kennedy Center, Studio Theatre, Imagination Stage, MetroStage, Signature Theatre, the University of Maryland, and American University. She is the recipient of the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award, the Robert M. Golden Award, an N.E.A. New American Works Grant, and was a 2000 Helen Hayes nominee for Outstanding Musical Direction. Her work for young audiences has been commissioned and premiered at the Kennedy Center ( Walking the Winds, The Magic Rainforest ) and Imagination Stage ( Cinderella Eats Rice and Beans, The Magical Piñata and Ferdinand the Bull ). Ms. La Puma received her MFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and her BA from Stanford University.

Martha Mountain (Lighting Designer) has designed over a dozen productions for the Kennedy Centers Youth and Family Programs over the last decade.  She designs extensively around the region for diverse companies including Round House Theatre, Theatre of the First Amendment, Wolf Trap Opera Company, and Concerts from the Library of Congress. Ms. Mountain serves as resident lighting designer for Bowen McCauley Dance (www.bmdc.org). She has taught lighting design at George Mason University and at the University of Maryland, and is a member of United Scenic Artists, Local USA-829 (IATSE).

Rosemary Pardee (Costume Designer) has long been regarded as Washington D.C.'s busiest costume designer.  Her career has spanned thirty-three years, over five hundred productions, dozens of theatre and film companies and little sleep.  Her work has been seen at The Kennedy Center, the National Theatre, Arena Stage, the Folger Theatre and the Smithsonian Institute.  She holds resident design positions at the Round House Theatre, Interact Theatre Company, Everyman Theatre, The Washington Revels, and Gallaudet University's Department of Theatre.  Ms. Pardee also adjudicates the Maryland State Theatre Scholarship Program.  She has designed costumes for national tours of The Importance of Being Earnest , The Grapes of Wrath , Of Mice and Men , Frankenstein and A Few Good Men . An eight-time nominee, Ms. Pardee is a recipient of the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Costume Design and a member of United Scenic Artists.  For the Kennedy Center's Youth and Family Programs, she has designed The Best Christmas Pageant Ever , Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day , The Magic Rainforest , Into the Woods Junior , Alexander Who's Not…Going to Move , and the musical version of Roald Dahl's Willy Wonka .

Brad Waller (Fight Choreographer) has been with the Washington theater community as a fight consultant and teacher of stage combat since 1989. Brad is a certified teacher of stage combat through the Society of American Fight Directors, and is an Honorary Member of Fight Directors Canada and the New Zealand Stage Combat Society. He has taught at international stage combat workshops in Canada, Britain, Norway, Estonia, Australia, and South Africa. Brad enjoys research into the 16 th century fighting systems and had the honor to be guest curator of “The Sword and the Pen” exhibit at the Folger Shakespeare Library in 1995.

* The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a professional production employing members of Actors' Equity Association