The Ensemble Studio Theatre

Gretchen Walther

Ryan B — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 19:45:03 +0000

After graduating from Alvina Krause [Northwestern]; back to NY to Broadway debut, opposite Sal Mineo & Kevin McCarthy, in Something About a Soldier, under Dore Schary’s direction. It dealt with conscientious objecting in the Army: ahead of its time.
Curt cast me as lead in Not a Way of Life, which it was not, for long. It dealt with The Pill: ahead of its time.
I was in the original Lincoln Center Rep. Co. – which was neither “a way of life” nor “ahead of its time” – which never arrived.
Curt tapped me for start-up EST: NOT ahead of its time, praise be! Over the years of my varied career, EST has been a haven & an inspiration – working with wonderful actor-chums & writers R. Linney, F.D.Gilroy, A.Giron, D.Ives., and H.Foote.
EST even had a hand in producing Harold Fast’s The Novelist, in which I played Jane Austen.
EST prevails: a gem, & a family we cherish.

Quincy Long

Ryan B — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 19:40:16 +0000

Playwright. Productions: People Be Heard, Playwrights Horizons; The Lively Lad, New York Stage and Film and The Actors Theatre of Louisville; The Virgin Molly, Atlantic Theatre and Berkeley Rep; The Joy of Going Somewhere Definite, Atlantic Theatre and Mark Taper Forum. Joy was published by Dramatists Play Service as were People Be Heard and The Lively Lad. Current projects: Loulou, a musical, in development at the Banff Centre, commissioned by Ginger Cat Productions in Toronto; Buried Alive, a one act opera adapted from Edgar Allan Poe short story, commissioned by American Lyric Theatre; The Huntsmen, a play with songs which won a 2009 Time Warner Storyteller’s award; The Gospel According to Trains, a recipient of a New York State Council on the Arts Individual Artist’s grant through America-In-Play. Quincy Long grew up in Warren, Ohio, is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama, and lives in New York City.

Aurin Squire

Ryan B — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 19:32:36 +0000

Born and raised in Opa Locka, Florida, Aurin Squire went to school at Northwestern University for a radio/tv/film undergrad and then at the Actors Studio at New School University for an MFA in playwriting. His one-acts like Defacing Michael Jackson and Match Me have received critical praise and been produced around the country. Squire’s dark comedy To Whom It May Concern won best play, best playwriting, and best actor at the Fresh Fruit Festival and was produced Off Broadway in 2009 at ArcLight Theatre. Last year also saw his family musical Matthew Takes Mannahattan at Vital Theatre. He’s excited to be a part of the EST family.

Melodie Somers

Ryan B — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 19:26:14 +0000

With over 20 years of experience as an actress On and Off Broadway, Melodie has worked with such playwrights as David Mamet, Christopher Durang, Romulus Linney, Arthur Giron, Hal Corley, Shirley Lauro, Frank Gilroy, Curt Dempster and even the late Tennessee Williams. She was fortunate to have worked with director Jerry Zaks several times, as well as, Carl and Rob Reiner. A founding member of EST, she started directing and writing there and has worked with many playwrights as a dramaturg.

She founded the EST Institute with Curt Dempster around 1978 and has been a master teacher of actor’s craft at EST, Playwrights Horizons and the 42nd Street Collective. She continues to coach actors in NY and NJ. Since 2005, she has been singing in the musical duo of Somers & Steel and performs oldies, classic rock, country, and original music all over NJ and beyond.

Paco Tolson

Ryan B — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:43:54 +0000

Paco Tolson became a member in 2005 after being awarded EST’s inaugural Robert Pastorelli Fellowship and appearing in Romulus Linney’s play The Unwritten Song for that summer’s Marathon. Paco has been involved in nearly every program and festival the institution offers, from Brunches to Sloane to Going to the River. His first playwriting endeavor (with Jon Hoche) will premiere in Octoberfest 2010.

He has worked extensively in developing new plays with such renowned companies as Youngblood, Vampire Cowboys, Rattlestick, New Georges, Woodshed Collective, 2g, Ma-Yi, and New York Theater Workshop. He graduated with honors from Brown University in 2001.

Michelle Remsen

Ryan B — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:15:28 +0000

Lloyd Suh

Tim — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 17:29:13 +0000

Lloyd Suh is the author of plays including American Hwangap, Great Wall Story, Jesus in India, Happy End of the World, The Children of Vonderly, and Masha No Home. His work has been produced by Ma-Yi Theater Co., The Play Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Magic Theatre (San Francisco), East West Players (Los Angeles), and Tanghalang Pilipino at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in Manila, among others, and has been published by Samuel French, Smith & Kraus, Playscripts, and American Theatre Magazine. He has received awards and grants from the National Endowment of the Arts and Arena Stage, the Andrew P. Mellon Foundation and the Lark Play Development Center, Theatre Communications Group, the New York State Council on the Arts, New York Foundation of the Arts, the Jerome Foundation, and others. As an actor, he has appeared in principal roles in the feature films Dark Matter (dir. Chen Shi-Zheng, with Meryl Streep, Aidan Quinn and Liu Ye), and Year of the Fish (dir. David Kaplan, with Ken Leung and Randall ‘Duk’ Kim). He is a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre and The Actors Studio, Executive Producer of Second Generation, and Co-Director of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, the largest resident company of professional Asian American playwrights ever assembled.

Judy Tate

Ryan B — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 17:24:23 +0000

Judy Tate is a four-time Emmy Award winning writer and Writer’s Guild of America award recipient. She’s written scripts and story for Another World, As the World Turns and Days of our Lives, working steadily for over a decade. In theatre she was a Manhattan Theatre Club Playwriting Fellow and winner of the New Professional Theatre’s Playwriting award as well as being a member of Playwrights Horizons black playwriting group, Black Ink, and a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre. Her play Fast Blood was produced by the Lark Theatre Company and has been presented at Ensemble Studio Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, Passage Theatre, Hartford Stage and Epic Theatre Company. The Point and Mistaken for Genius were produced by The Women’s Project and the latter published in their collection, “Rowing to America and Other Short Plays.” Slashes of Light, commissioned by the Manhattan Theatre Club, was developed at the Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Black and Latino Playwrights Conference in San Marcos Texas and CAP21 in New York.

A professional actor for many years, Judy has worked in theatres throughout the United States and in Southern Africa. As a teaching artist she’s worked with playwriting students in alternative schools, prisons, shelters and from reservations. It’s her 14 years of work with high school inmates on Rikers’ Island that inspired her TV series, Lockdown High.

She is an alumna of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts conservatory program where she studied with Stella Adler and was an honors graduate receiving the Founder’s Day Award, Seidman Award and Beinecke Award for excellence in acting and academia.

Laurence Klavan

Ryan B — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 17:18:27 +0000

LAURENCE KLAVAN received two Drama Desk nominations for the book and lyrics to Bed and Sofa, the musical produced by the Vineyard Theater in New York. It also received two Obie Awards, five other Drama Desk nominations (including Best Musical), and an Outer Critics Circle nomination for Best Musical. It was published by Dramatists Play Service, and recorded by Fynesworth Alley. He co-wrote the book and lyrics to Embarrassments, the musical produced by the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia. It is published by Dramatists Play Service. His full-length play, The Magic Act, was produced by Ensemble Studio Theater and published by Dramatists Play Service. His one-acts, including Sleeping Beauty, The Show Must Go On, If Walls Could Talk, and Gorgo’s Mother, have been produced by EST, Manhattan Punch Line, Working Theater, Actors Theatre of Louisville, People’s Light & Theater Co., Philadelphia Festival Theater for New Plays, among others, and published by Dramatists Play Service. His one-act, The Summer Sublet, produced in the EST marathon, was published in Applause Books’ Best American Short Plays 2000-2001.

He has been awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and received commissions from the Actors Theater of Louisville, Vineyard Theater and the Wilma Theater. His novels, “The Cutting Room” and “The Shooting Script,” were published by Ballantine Books. His novel, “Mrs. White,” written under a pseudonym, won the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. His graphic novels, “City of Spies” and “Brain Camp,” both co-written with EST member Susan Kim, are being published in 2010 by First Second Books at Macmillan. His short plays, stories, and reviews have been published in such print and online journals as The Alaska Quarterly, The Literary Review, Conjunctions, Natural Bridge, Louisville Review, Gargoyle, The Dirty Goat, Playgirl, Pank, Skive, Literateur, Hamilton Stone Review, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Killing the Buddha, CafeIrreal, SN Review, Sliptongue, Foliate Oak, Brink, Conte, Best New Erotica 2010, The Forward, and Lincoln Center’s New Theater Review.

Bridgette Wimberly

Ryan B — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:23:29 +0000

Bridgette Wimberly, an award winning poet and author of seven plays, has been commissioned, work shopped and/or produced by The Alliance Theatre, Arena Stage, The Castillo Theatre, The Cherry Lane Theatre, The Cleveland Play House, The Ensemble Studio Theatre, Here/Tiny Mythic Theatre, Karamu Theatre, Kuntu Repertory Theatre, Manhattan Theater Club, St. Louis Black Repertory Theatre, and The Women’s Project.

Rally (Ensemble Studio Theatre, Castillo Theatre, New York) a ten minute, ran in a series of short plays as part of Going to the River, Ensemble Studio Theatre’s program that celebrates African American female playwrights. Bridgette received an Appreciation Award in 2009 from Going to the River for initiating this ten-minute play festival that produced fourteen short plays. Because this series was her idea, this award recognized her contribution, continued support and efforts to serve women playwrights. Rally will be published in 2010 as part of The Best 10 Minute Plays of 2010 by Smith and Kraus.

The Separation of Blood (Kuntu Repertory Theatre, Pittsburgh) was commissioned by The Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and won the 2007 Healty Black Family Award from the University of Pittsburgh. Bridgette made her Off-Broadway debut to sold-out houses in 2001 at the Women’s Project with her first play, Saint Lucy’s Eyes, starring Ruby Dee. Originally part of Cherry Lane Theatre’s Mentor Project, she was mentored by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein. It also received productions across the country and received three AUDELCO Awards, a Kesslering nomination for best new play, and a Lucille Lortel nomination for best actress, Ruby Dee. Saint Lucy’s Eyes is published by Samuel French and is included in Smith and Kraus’ Best Plays by Women 2001 and the Women’s Project and Production’s “A Theatre for Women’s Voices” 2003.

Bridgette was part of the 2006/08 Women’s Projects Producers Lab, a member of Lincoln Center Theatre’s Directors Lab where she produced four satellite productions in collaboration with the Lab, A Manhattan Theatre Club Fellow, and a member of the poetry group Cave Canem. She is also the recipient of fellowships/Awards from The New York Foundation for the Arts (Poetry), The New York Urban Arts Initiative, and the Harlem Arts Alliance for Ballet Neo, a dance TV pilot she wrote with ballerina Virginia Johnson. She has been on the Board of Directors at Cherry Lane Theatre, the longest continuously running Off-Broadway Theatre, for ten years. She recently became a lifetime member of The Ensemble Studio Theatre.

In January 2009/10, she received a grant from The Susan G. Komen for the Cure to teach play writing to breast cancer survivors. New York survivors’ plays were presented in a staged reading on October 26, 2009 at Cherry Lane Theatre, Cleveland survivors at Cleveland Play House on April 24, 2010 with legendary actress Ruby Dee and on May 1, 2010 at Karamu House. Both performances sold out. Proudly, From Breast Cancer to Broadway, Cleveland will be produced at Karamu October 29 through November 21, 2010.