JDT Lab: The Violin Maker - Guild Hall
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JDT Lab
The Violin Maker: A musical by Stephen Dickman

To the Violin by Ellen Frank. 22k gold leaf, egg tempera on Egyptian papyrus. 2019.

Event Category:
Monday, June 10
7:30PM
Free Reservations

Reserve tickets at the Box Office; 631-324-4050; or Theatermania.com at 1-866-811-4111

158 Main Street
East Hampton, NY 11937 United States
Free Reservations

Overview

Music, Story, Lyrics by Stephen Dickman
Book by Patricia Noonan
Musical Direction by Greg Pliska
Directed by Amanda Kate Joshi

A workshop production of a new musical by East Hampton composer Stephen Dickman.
Come with us and enter a town not found on any map, where the magical sound of the violin fills the air every day.
A young woman’s passion for the music leads us along a surprising path of complexity and intrigue.

Narrator – Morgan Cowling
Louisa – Hannah Bradley
Hugo – Bill Youmans
Anna – Joy Hermalyn
Jonas – Alex Stewart
Jacob – Matt Faucher
Nic – Laura Woyasz
Oscar – Jake Swain
Felix – Jeffrey Johnson II
Townsfolk – Michael Yeshion, Brittany Baratz, Manna Nichols, Matt Deitchman, Alexandra Palkovic and Will Porter

  • Brittany Baratz

    Brittany Baratz is a New York City based actor and singer. Originally from Gaithersburg, MD, her career has taken her to 46 out of 50 of the U.S. States and also abroad to the Spring of Culture Festival in Bahrain. Theatre includes: Rose in The Secret Garden (Theatre Under the Stars, The 5th Avenue Theatre, and Shakespeare Theatre Company), Alice in Alice Adams (Atlas Performing Arts Center), Mrs. Anderssen in A Little Night Music (Palm Beach Dramaworks), Man of La Mancha (Inspire Theatre), 1776 (Olney Theatre Center), Dinah in Trouble in Tahiti (Inscape Orchestra), Hope Cladwell in Urinetown! (Kay Theatre), Balthazar in Romeo & Juliet (Kentucky Shakespeare), Mom in Knuffle Bunny (John F. Kennedy Center/US Tour/International Tour), Squirrelle in Elephant & Piggie, Andromache in Trojan WomenBroadway Today! With Stephen Schwartz (John F. Kennedy Center) and Some Enchanted Evening concert (Carnegie Hall). Television includes: Mr. Robot (USA Network), Who the [Bleep] Did I Marry? (TLC), and Capturing Grace (PBS). Semi-finalist of the 2019 Lotte Lenya Competition. She is an alumna of The University of Maryland, College Park, the T. Schreiber Acting Conservatory in NYC, and studied abroad as a Young Artist with the Opera Music and Theater Festival of Lucca, Italy. Instagram: @brittanybaratz

  • Hannah Bradley

    Hannah is overjoyed to be working on The Violin Maker. Regional: Bye Bye Birdie (Goodspeed). BFA in Musical Theatre from Montclair State University. Many thanks and all my love to Amanda. Hannah is actively seeking representation in New York City.

  • Morgan Cowling

    Morgan is excited and grateful to take on the role of the Narrator in The Violin Maker reading, before heading to Stages St. Louis this summer to play Rizzo in Grease! National Tours: The Phantom of the Opera 25th Anniversary Tour (Meg Giry) OC. Off-Broadway/NYC: Marry Harry (Sherri Walters), The York Theatre. Once We Lived Here (Lecy), Urban Stages. Bull Durham (Workshop). Regional: Oklahoma (Goodspeed Musicals), Hello, Dolly! (Ford's Theatre), The Madness of May (Thalian Hall), Disney's Wishes (Disney Cruise Line, OC). Australia: Guys and Dolls, Seussical The Musical, The Marriage of Figaro. Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts alum. Thanks and love to family, friends, teachers and BRS/Gage. @morgan.marlene

  • Matt Deitchman

    Matt Deitchman is an actor, music director, composer/orchestrator, and multi-instrumentalist who most recently was seen in the world premiere of August Rush directed by John Doyle (Paramount Theatre, IL). Other regional credits include work with: Lyric Opera of Chicago, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Victory Gardens Theatre, Writers Theatre, Marriott Theatre-Lincolnshire, Chicago Children's Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Co. (D.C.), Asolo Repertory Theatre (Sarasota, FL). Graduate: Northwestern University. @mattydeitch

  • Matthew Faucher

    Recently honored with the Connecticut Critics Circle award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical, for his portrayal of Jud Fry; in the Goodspeed Musicals production of Oklahoma! Mr. Faucher will be taking on the role again at The Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera this summer. A graduate of the Hartt School with a BFA in Acting and vocal student of Scott Flaherty, Matt has also traveled the world singing the music of Frankie Vali and the Four Seasons with his singing group The Garden State Guys. 

    Broadway: Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. National Tour: Beautiful. Off–Broadway: The Threepenny Opera (Macheath, Drama Desk nomination), I Am Harvey Milk at Avery Fisher Hall, Chekhov Dreams (Eddie). Regional: The Muny, Goodspeed Musicals, Paper Mill Playhouse, Hartford Stage, Asolo Rep, Olney Theatre Center, Arts Center of Coastal Carolina, Flat Rock Playhouse and Monomoy Theatre. Love to Brit. Follow: @the_fauch, @MatthewFaucher. 

  • Jeffrey Eugene Johnson

    Jeffrey Eugene Johnson -  Dreamgirls South Korea (Wayne/Curtis cover). National Tour: Ragtime (Booker T. Washington) Regional: Producers (Papermill Playhouse/John Engeman Theatre/ Theatre by the Sea), Ragtime (Westchester Broadway Theatre), Pal Joey (Arkansas Repertory Theatre), Hairspray (Florida Studio Theatre), Joseph... Dreamcoat (Broadway Palm), To Kill a Mockingbird (Bristol Valley Theatre), The Color Purple (White Plains PAC), Beauty and the Beast ( Theatre by the Sea/Forestburgh Playhouse). Endless love and gratitude to the creative team, SW Artists, and his family and friends!

  • Joy Hermalyn

    Joy Hermalyn has made her career as a crossover artist with successes in opera, operetta and musical theatre.  Her operatic soprano debut as Minnie in Fanciulla del West with Utah Festival Opera alternated with performing Abigail Adams in 1776 during the same season. Joy has performed throughout the country in many opera productions including Madame Butterfly, Faust, Tannhauser, Il Trittico, Fledermaus, Hansel and Gretel, Postman Always Rings Twice, Trouble in Tahiti, The Crucible and G&S’s Pirates, Mikado and Pinafore.  Joy’s diverse credits range from NBC’s Sound of Music Live! with Carrie Underwood to Live from Lincoln Center with the NY Philharmonic to performances at the Royal Albert Hall in London and Carnegie Hall in NY. Appearances on Broadway and off include: Fiddler on the Roof, Cyrano, Candide, A Christmas Carol, Baz Luhrmann’s La Boheme, Death Takes a Holiday, numerous Encores! Productions at City Center, and she has won or been nominated for the Broadway World Best Actress in a Musical award numerous times. Joy’s favorite regional roles include Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd, Rose in Gypsy, Witch in Into the Woods, Arlene in Baby, Widow Corney in Oliver, and the Wardrobe in Beauty and the Beast. Joy teaches and coaches voice and audition technique at Yale University and Kean University, as well as maintaining a private studio in NY/NJ/Skype. In demand around the country for her solo concert/master classes entitled “Recipe for Crossover."

  • Manna Nichols

    Broadway/First National Tour Credits include Allegiance and Lincoln Center's The King & I (Tuptim). Off-Broadway Credits includeTokio Confidential (Sachiko), Death for Five Voices (Maria D'Avalos), and Frog Kiss (Hortense). Select Regional Credits include Arena Stage (My Fair Lady/Eliza), Arizona Theatre Company (The Music Man/Marian), Guthrie Theater (South Pacific/Liat), Goodspeed Opera House (Guys & Dolls/Sarah), Kansas City Starlight/Walnut Street Theatre/Fulton Theatre (Miss Saigon/Kim), Pioneer Theatre Company/Maine State Music Theatre/North Shore Music Theatre (Les Miserables/Eponine), Walnut Street Theatre/North Shore Music Theatre (The King & I/Tuptim), Geva Theatre Center (Hair/Crissy). Film credits include Cold Pursuit (2019/Minya) and Disney's Live Action Beauty & the Beast(background vocals). IG: @Manna_Nichols 
  • Alexandra Palkovic

    Off Broadway: Attack of the Elvis Impersonators(The Lion Theatre)Regional credits: Ursula in Sweet Charity, Lina Lamont in Singin in the Rain, Erma in Anything Goes, Doralee Rhodes in 9 to 5, Demeter in Cats, Cabaret, Serena in Legally Blonde(The Marriott Theatre), Tommy(Paramount Theatre),Ensemble/Jovie cover in Elf the Musical(Arvada Center), Delee in Smokey Joe's Cafe(The New Theatre Company), Sally in Cabaret, Charity in Sweet Charity(Timber Lake Playhouse). Commercial work: KFC Couchgating, Extreme Energy, Denver Zoo.

  • Will Porter

    Will Porter is thrilled to be performing again!!!  What a gift!  Many thanks to Guild Hall and Amanda Joshi for this opportunity.  He was last seen at Guild Hall in the staged reading of "The Violin Maker.”  Previous credits include:  Bells Are Ringing (Off-Bway), CATSA Chorus Line (Nat’l Tour), Berkshire Theatre Group, McCarter Theatre Center, The MUNY, North Shore Music Theatre, Theatre Under The Stars, The Fulton Theatre, and more.  Will is currently the Choreographer/Associate Director of “Never Sleep Alone” aboard the brand spankin’ new cruise ship The Scarlet Lady for Virgin Voyages… a voyage that, last February, sailed from Genoa Italy, across the Atlantic Ocean, and into a global pandemic!  He is cautiously looking forward to returning to the ship and resuming rehearsals in July.  This fall, Will is headed to Kansas City to pursue his MFA in Acting at the University of Missouri Kansas City/KC Rep.

  • Alex Stewart

    Alex is thrilled to take a break from serving tables to be a part of “The Violin Maker”! After spending four years as a company member with the Sacramento Ballet, Alex hung up his ballet shoes to pursue a career in theatre. Theatrical credits include Oklahoma!, Oliver!, A Connecticut Christmas Carol (Goodspeed Musicals), Elf: The Musical! (National Tour), Pirates of Penzance, Oklahoma!, My Fair Lady (PCPA), Nice Work… Get It, Boeing Boeing(Summer Rep. Theatre). Alex is also very excited to begin rehearsals in July for Annie as Bert Healy with North Carolina Theatre! Training includes the Pacific Conservatory Theatre, School of the Sacramento Ballet, Boston Ballet School. He is also a co-host of the “Nobodies in New York Podcast” with his brother and partner in crime, Timothy (available on iTunes, Google Play or Spotify). Love to the whole Stewart Clan and KMR Talent.

  • Jake Swain

    Jake Swain: Broadway: Mean Girls (Tyler Kimble, u/s Aaron Samuels). Regional: Oklahoma! (Will Parker) & Bye Bye Birdie (Harvey Johnson) at Goodspeed Opera House. National Tour: Elf the Musical. BFA in Acting, BYU. TV: Hysterical Women. Film: Cosmos Sisters, Zombied, Now Again, Nosebleeds.www.jake-
    swain.com. IG: @jacobmonte

  • Laura Woyasz

    Laura Woyasz (NIC) Broadway: Wicked (Glinda) Off Broadway: The Marvelous Wonderettes (Missy Miller) Attack of the Elvis Impersonators (Prissy Bordeaux) at the Lion Theatre, My Life With Albertine at Playwrights Horizons &Come Blow Your Horn at TACT.

    National Tours: Cheers Live On Stage, (Diane/ Carla US)Thoroughly Modern Mille, (Mille US) Wicked, (Glinda US)Hello Dolly, (Minnie Faye)

    Other favorites include: Working at ACT (World Premier)Grumpy Old Men, (Melanie Norton) US Premier at Ogunquit Playhouse, with Sally Strutters & Hal Linden, Venus In Fur, Women In Jeopardy, Little Shop of Horrors, Noises Off, Boeing Boeing, The Odd Couple, James Joyce's The Dead, Anything Goes, Sex With Strangers, The Who's Tommy, Smokey Joe's Cafe, Breaking Up Is Hard To Do. Laura made her feature film debut in Baptized By Desire. TV: Person Of Interest. She is also a published photographer, writer, and dog mom to Wally.

  • Michael Yeshion

    Michael Yeshion is a New York City based actor and singer and photographer, by way of Tampa, FL. Recent performing credits include Peron in Evita and Saunders in Lend me a Tenor (Resident Theatre Company), Bill Sykes in Oliver! (Forestburgh Playhouse), Major Holmes in The Secret Garden (Cincinnati Playhouse/Baltimore Centerstage & Lucille Lortel), Mother in Kiss of the Spider Woman (Sanford Meisner Theatre), Evita (North Shore Music Theatre), Duke/Carrasco in Man of La Mancha (Triad Stages), 110 in the Shade (Ford's Theatre), Little Shop of Horrors (Lucille Lortel), Trojan Women: Voices from Afghanistan (John F. Kennedy Center), and singing with the Muppets at Carnegie Hall. TV: Celebrity Ghost Stories, True Crimes with Aphrodite Jones, Mysteries at the Museum. He can also be seen on a variety of successful webisodes for Collegehumor.com, which have a collective six million views on YouTube. As a photographer, Michael frequently captures Broadway, Opera and Movie Stars, business executives, million dollar real estate listings, weddings, and more. Michael holds a BFA in Acting from Southern Methodist University. Instagram: @michaelyeshionphotography 

  • William Youman

    Film: Birdman, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, A League of Their Own, Mrs. Soffel, Nadine, Compromising Positions, Fresh Horses.  TV: The Little
    Match Girl, Separate But Equal, Private History of a Campaign That Failed (Peabody) 666 Park Ave. (Recurring); L&Os; Broadway: Original casts: Wicked; Carousel (2018 revival); The Little Foxes (w. Elizableth Taylor); The Farnsworth Invention (Aaron Sorkin); Big River; Titanic; Bar Luhrmann's La Boheme; Finian's Rainbow (revival); Bright Star (Steve Martin); Pirate Queen (Boublil and Schoenberg of Les Miz).  Also Billy Elliot.  Many Off-Broadway; most recently, Government Inspector; also Skin of Our Teeth at Theatre for a New Audience.

  • Stephen Dickman

    Steve’s many awards in composition include the Bearns Prize, Fulbright and Tanglewood Fellowships and National Endowment for the Arts Award. Among his extensive list of performances are 3 operas produced in NYC. The New York Times’ writes of Tibetan Dreams “it’s score…is lovely and rich… …the work charts its own path in musical language. Dickman has found a way to make East meet West.”  Steve’s music has been recorded on Opus One, CRI and New World Records labels. Steve’s worldwide travels, and musical studies in India powerfully impact his compositions. Steve was Managing Director of the Music Festival of the Hamptons and Pianofest. Steve founded “Composers of the East End”, a music series featuring composers living on the East End of Long Island.

  • Patricia Noonan

    Patricia Noonan is a NYC-based actor, singer, lyricist, and playwright.  Noonan wrote book and lyrics for the musical Learning How to Drown (with composer Amanda Jacobs), developed at The Johnny Mercer Writers’ Colony (Goodspeed), the Pitch (Finger Lakes Musical Theater Festival), and given a workshop production at Boston College. She is one of the writers/co-founders of The #makeitfair Project, which launched in 2015 to advocate for gender parity in the entertainment industry and beyond. Current projects include editing A Mile in Our Shoes (a collection of memoirs from women around the world), book & lyrics for the new musical Boundless, and book & lyrics for Sweetwater (with composer Sean Mahoney) which began at Goodspeed's Mercer Writers' Colony, was one of three shows chosen for Goodspeed's Festival of New Musicals in 2018, and was recently presented at NAMT's 2018 Songwriter Showcase. She graduated as a Presidential Scholar from Boston College.
  • Greg Pliska

    As composer/orchestrator: Broadway: Sylvia, War Horse (Best Play) (MD). Off-B'way: Shakespeare in the Park: As You Like It w/Steve Martin (Drama Desk nom.), Comedy of Errors, Twelfth Night; other: The Government Inspector, School for Scandal, Pericles. Regional: The Secret Garden (libr. David Ives), In a Lake of Fire (Moss Hart Award). Film (orch.): Manhattan Nocturne, The Wildest Dream, Flying Monsters 3D (BAFTA winner). TV (co-comp.): Life, Blood in the Water (Discovery, Shark Week), Hunting the Edge of Space (Nova). Podcast themes for Audible; orch. themes for IMAX, CBS News, Golf Channel.

  • Amanda Kate Joshi

    Amanda Kate Joshi is a NYC-based director, producer, and stage manager, who is thrilled to be directing again at Guild Hall after her 2019 staged readings of The Violin-Maker by Stephen Dickman and Kingdom of the Spirits by JZ Holden.  Additional directing selections include: Sell Me: I Am From North Korea by Sora Baek (Jersey City Theatre Center); Inch by Inch by Rachel Graf Evans (Theatre for a New City at Producers' Club); Craig McNulty’s Welcome Home Steve (Players Club); Wilde’s Importance of Being Earnest (14th Street Y); Michelle Markowitz’s Hookups & Hang-ups (Abingdon Theatre); Jay Hanagan’s Softly Sara Falls (Lookinglass Theatre).  Previous Guild Hall productions as Associate Director to Tony Walton: Noel Coward’s Tonight at 8:30, Sir Peter Shaffer’s Equus and The Gift of the Gorgon.  She was also his Associate on Stephen Sondheim’s Evening Primrose (John Jay Theatre).  As Associate to Don Stephenson:  Frank Loesser's Guys & Dolls, The Roar of the Greasepaint, The Smell of the Crowd; The Will Rogers Follies (all Goodspeed Musicals); The Producers (Paper Mill Playhouse); Cabaret (Manhattan School of Music).  Amanda has spent the last 15 years working on new and developing plays, as a director and an independent producer.  She sat on the Lark Play Development Company's Literary Wing, has been a reader for the Princess Grace Award in Playwrighting, and spent two years as the Colony Coordinator at for the Johnny Mercer Writers’ Colony at Goodspeed, which develops 30+ new musicals annually.  In 2005 she founded Wizard Oil Productions and was their Artistic Director until 2010, before spending two years as the General Manager of Abingdon Theatre Company.  She has additionally partnered with New Georges as a Line Producer, producing close to 20 productions for the three companies.  New Georges' A Beautiful Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes won an OBIE in 2015, and Wizard Oil's Empire of the Tree was nominated for an Innovative Theatre Award in 2010.  Amanda has been an evaluator for the SDC Observership Program, as well as nominated for both a National Directors Fellowship and an SDC Mike Ockrent Directing Fellowship.  www.amandakatejoshi.net. 

Event Sponsors

All Theater Programming is supported in part by Ellen Myers, Marders, the Daryl & Steven Roth Foundation, and funding from The Ellen and James S. Marcus Endowment for Musical Programming, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, Hess Philanthropic Fund, The Melville Straus Family Endowment, The Schaffner Family Foundation, and Vital Projects Fund, with additional support from Brown Harris Stevens, Saunders & Associates, and public funds provided by Suffolk County.
All Musical Programming supported in part by The Ellen and James S. Marcus Endowment for Musical Programming.
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