CREATIVE TEAM
Igor Golyak,
Director,
Conceiver
and Adapter
Golyak is the founder and producing artistic director of Arlekin Players Theatre & Zero Gravity (zero-G) Virtual Theater Lab. A global leader in the virtual theater movement, he directed WITNESS, chekhovOS /an experimental game/ and State vs. Natasha Banina during the pandemic, which became international virtual theater sensations, receiving multiple New York Times Critic’s Picks. His work has received numerous Elliot Norton Awards for The Seagull, The Stone, and Dead Man’s Diary, including a Best Director Award, This Week In New York Pandemic Awards (WITNESS and chekhovOS), and Broadway World’s Best Director of a Streamed Production Award (chekhovOS). He directed a critically acclaimed The Merchant of Venice for Actors’ Shakespeare Project, productions at Northeastern University and Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and has taught at Boston Conservatory, Boston University, Harvard University, Lesley College, Wellesley College, New England Theater Conference, the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts/Middlesex University, Moscow Specialized Institute for the Arts, and the ARBOS Theatre Festival. Golyak is from Ukraine and leads Arlekin, a company of immigrants, which has performed all over the world, including festivals in Ukraine, Yerevan, Armenia, New York City, Chicago, Lviv, Monaco, the US, Canada and UK, as well as the Moscow Art Theatre.
Anna Fedorova,
Scenographer
As a scenographer and costume designer, Fedorova has developed theatre shows in Moscow, Saint-Petersburg and other Russian cities, as well as in Poland, Japan and Greece. She participated in a number of full-featured and short movies as a set designer. Exhibits: Moscow Union of Artists and Season Outcomes exhibits in Moscow annually since 2006; student exhibit at the Prague Quadrennial (2007). Sketches for the performance Vernii Ruslan are held in the collection of Russian State Art Library in Moscow. Memberships: Moscow Union of Artists/Theatre and Cinema since 2009. Teaching: Lecturer at the Moscow Art Theatre School (2006-2014), Stage Design and Art Technology. The winner of “Theatre Spring 2017” prize for best scenography and costume design. Associate degree from Decorative-Applied art department of Voronezh Art School. Master of Arts degree in Scenography from Moscow Art Theatre School.
Yuki Nakase Link,
Lighting Designer
Link's recent design credits include Our Town (Dallas Theater Center), In A Grove (Pittsburgh Opera), Embarqued (Duke Performances), Red Velvet (Shakespeare Theatre Company), Queen, Tiny Beautiful Things (Long Wharf Theatre), When Monica Met Hillary, The Cubans, Queen of Basel (Miami New Drama), Seven Deadly Sins (NYC and Miami Beach), Stick Fly (The Juilliard School), Blood Moon at Prototype (Baruch Performing Arts Center), Look Who’s Coming to Dinner (La MaMa), Theo, The Bridge of San Luis Rey (Two River Theater), Triptych: Eyes of One on Another (Disney Hall, Kennedy Center and BAM). She was born in Tokyo, grew up in Kyoto, Japan and currently lives north of NYC in the woods of Hudson Valley. M.F.A.: NYU. yukinlink.com
Oana Botez,
Costume Designer
Botez is a Princess Grace Recipient, NEA/TCG Career Development Program Recipient and NEA/TCG Round of Global Connections Program. Nominated: The Lucille Lortel Award, The Theatre Bay Area Awards, The Henry Hewes Design Awards. Recipient: The Barrymore and Drammy Award. Critically acclaimed shows in New York: BAM Next Wave, Bard SummerScape/Richard B.Fisher Center, Baryshnikov Arts Center, The David H. Koch Theater/Lincoln Center, Soho Rep, LCT3, The Public Theater, 59East59, La MaMa, The Kitchen, PS122, HERE Arts Center, The Joyce Theater, The Ontological-Hysteric Theater, BRIC Arts Media, Big Apple Circus/Lincoln Center and The Classic Stage Company. Regionally: The Wilma Theater (Philadelphia, PA), Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival (MA), Hartford Stage Company (CT), Long Wharf Theater (New Haven, CT), CalShakes (San Francisco), Humana Theater Festival (Actors Theatre of Louisville), Shakespeare Theater (DC), Berkeley Rep (Berkely, CA), ArtsEmerson (Boston,MA), Broad Stage (Santa Monica, CA), MCA (Chicago,IL), Shakespeare Theatre Company (Washington, D.C), ODC (San Francisco), The Walker Arts Center (Minneapolis, MN), Peak Performances (Montclair, NJ), ADI (Rockville,MD), Academy of Music (Philadelphia, PA), Curtis Institute of Music (Philadelphia, PA), Cutler Majestic Theater (Boston,MA). Internationally: Bucharest National Theater (Romania), Arad National Theater (Romania), Bulandra Theater (Bucharest), Château de Versailles, Théâtre National de Chaillot (Paris), Les Subsistances (Lyon,France), The Old Vic ( London), Budapest National Theater, Cluj Hungarian National Theater (Romania), Bucharest Operetta Theater (Romania), International Festival of Contemporary Theater (Adana, Turkey), Le Quartz (Brest, France), La Filature (Mulhousse, France), Exit Festival /Maison des Arts Creteil (Paris, France),Tanz im August Festival Hebbel am Ufer – HAU1(Berlin, Germany), Centro Cultural Universidad del Pacífico (Lima, Peru), Centro Cultural (Lima, Peru), Palazzo Simoncelli (Orvieto, Italy), Edinburgh International Festival (UK), Singapore Arts Festival. Oana teaches in the Design Department at David Geffen School of Drama at Yale.
Tei Blow,
Sound Designer
Blow is a media designer and performance maker. Tei’s work combines original compositions with found sound and images, and re-produces them with obsolete technology and live bodies. He has performed and designed with Mikhail Baryshnikov, Big Dance Theater, David Neumann/Advanced Beginner Group, and The Future of Death. Tei’s work has been featured at Hartford Stage, Dance Theater Workshop, PS122, Lincoln Center, The Kitchen, BAM, The Public Theater, The Broad Stage, MCA Chicago, MFA Boston, Kate Werble Gallery, Baryshnikov Arts Center, The Roundabout, The Wadsworth Atheneum, and at theaters around the world. He is the recipient of a 2019 Baryshnikov Arts Center Cage/Cunningham Fellowship, A 2016 NYSCA Composer's Grant, and a 2015 “Bessie” Award for Outstanding Sound Design for David Neumann/Advanced Beginner Group’s I Understand Everything Better. Tei is 1/2 of Royal Osiris Karaoke Ensemble, whose ongoing multipart series The Art of Luv received the Creative Capital Award.
Alex Basco Koch,
Projections
Designer
Alex Basco Koch is a Drama Desk and Lortel nominated projection & media designer for plays, musicals, films, and immersive art events. His work can be seen on Broadway, Off-Broadway, across the US, and in Central and South America and Europe. He created four hours of original video and animation to play alongside the Magnetic Fields' international tour 50 Song Memoir and released a dozen of the works as official music videos through Nonesuch Records. Alex's projection design work was featured in two films that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival: Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You, directed by Academy Award nominated filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady; and Miles Ahead, directed by and starring Don Cheadle. He is a founding member of and produces Staging Film, an experimental film and theater project that has featured original work from Leigh Silverman, Heidi Rodewald, and Chisa Hutchinson among many others. He has led the creative direction of video for brands such as Tyra Banks’ Modelland, Benjamin Moore, and Target.
Jakov Jakoulov,
Composer
Jakoulov is an award-winning composer and pianist. He has written four ballets, twelve instrumental concertos, music for over 20 theatrical, TV, and cinema productions, and numerous symphonic, chamber, and choral works. Jakoulov’s music has been commissioned and presented by Verbier Music Festival in Switzerland; Boston Symphony for Tanglewood Contemporary Music Festival; International Arts Festivals in Scotland, France, and Italy; Kammerspille (Munich, Germany); Lilla (Helsinki, Finland); New European Strings Orchestra (London, UK); Dallas Symphony Orchestra; Fort Worth Symphony; Juilliard Orchestra; Armenian National Symphony Orchestra; and Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, among others.
Eric Dunlap,
Video, Effects & Streaming Designer
Eric Dunlap has created video designs for dance and theater, interactive video installations for museums, and live mix video performances for concerts and special events. A former dancer, choreographer, producer from New York, he currently he lives in Berlin where he pursues his work as a video artist. A thirty year veteran of the performing arts, he spent his formative years as a principle dancer with the Alwin Nikolais / Murray Louis Dance Company, and has danced with various modern dance and opera companies. He was co-founder and Executive Director of Forward Motion Theater from 1995 - 2012. Pursuing a mission to explore movement and technology, the company created works combining physical performance and digital media, produced VJs and audiovisual artists, and curated collaborations in multi-media performance. Since moving to Berlin in 2011, he works as a video designer and technician, and continues to build works combining dance and video. Two of his new video art works have been acquired by the Leo Kuelbs Collection as a part of their “Digital Fairytales” series, and he was recently awarded him a research grant to explore dance and interactivity as a part of Berlin’s Neustart Kultur Fund. Recent video designs include the world premiere of “Die Machine Steht Nicht Still” with Caroline Peters and LEDWALD, produced by the Wiener Festwochen (Vienna), and “Sich waffnend gegen eine See von Plagen” produced by the Schaubühne in Berlin.
Tom Sepe,
Robotics Designer
Sepe started acting and assisting in theatrical productions at the age of 5. He graduated as a multi-disciplinary Bachelor of Arts from UCSB, assisted in the fabrication of large-scale art installations for Burning Man Festival, and worked for the world-renowned Obscura Digital as a technical director. Most recently he custom built a pair of humanoid robots for Meow Wolf's Omega Mart in Las Vegas, NV. (отредактировано)
Carol Rocamora, Translator
Rocamora is an educator, translator, playwright, and theatre critic. Her three volumes of the translations of Anton Chekhov's complete dramatic works have been published by Smith & Kraus. She is also the author of the biography entitled Anton Chekhov: A Life in Four Acts. Her dramatic adaptations of 20 Chekhov short stories have been published in a two-volume collection entitled Rubles. Her play "I take your hand in mine...", based on the correspondence between Chekhov and Olga Knipper, has been translated in numerous languages and produced around the world. She serves on the faculties of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and the Juilliard School She is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association, the International Association of Theatre Critics, Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk.
Tom Abernathy,
Interactivity Narrative
TOM ABERNATHY is an award-winning writer, interactive narrative designer/director, filmmaker, theater director, musician, and recovering child actor. Arlekin audiences know him as the writer of the interactive script in the New York Times Critics' Pick chekhovOS/ an experimental game. Highlights of his trailblazing, 25-year career conceiving and defining interactive storytelling include Guild Wars 2 (ArenaNet/NCSoft), The Division (Massive/Ubisoft), League of Legends (Riot), Halo: Reach (Bungie/Microsoft), The Saboteur (Pandemic/EA), and Destroy All Humans! (Pandemic/THQ)--the first video game ever to be covered in the New York Times specifically for its writing and sociopolitical satire. Film writing credits include Bad Country (Sony Pictures), starring Matt Dillon and Willem Dafoe. A graduate of Oberlin College and the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts, Tom also sits on the advisory board of the Game Narrative Summit at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), the interactive's biggest annual industry gathering. Born and raised in Atlanta, he now lives in Seattle with his wife and daughter.
Seth Gore,
Designer of American Sign Language (DASL)
Gore is a Deaf bilingual creative house. Specializing in interplay between English and ASL languages, arts, teaching and technology, Seth allows his deafness to permeate and influence his work. His work is centered around signed language and effective and authentic human communications. As Director of ASL and ASL Coach for several Hollywood and Broadway productions, including Paramount’s A Quiet Place 2, Freestyle Love Supreme and To Kill a Mockingbird in MSG, Seth ensures the signed message gets through to the audience. He lives in New York City and currently is developing signed script collaboration solutions (Visual Script) and English grammar learning (Grammar Shapes) and teaching workshops (Unlearning Words) that aim to unlock people’s signed thought and make their communications more whole.
Anna Hrustaleva,
Hair & Makeup Designer
Anna Hrustaleva has designed stage sets, costumes, makeup and hairstyles for numerous productions at the best Moscow theatres and regularly creates for cinema and for television series.
Katya Kellblau,
Production Manager
Katya Khellblau, Production Manager
Leanna Keyes,
Streaming Technical Director
Keyes is the co-founder of Transcend Streaming. Her most well-known technical works are the fully live green screen productions of Today Is My Birthday with Theater Mu, How to Catch a Karen with Naked Empire Bouffon, and Visionary Futures with the University of Massachusetts. A longtime producer at the Bay Area Playwright Festival at Playwrights Foundation in San Francisco, her passion for new and experimental works has led her to work with many developmental producers in New York, including Ken Davenport (Ma Vie En Rose, The Griswolds' Broadway Vacation), The Bad Kids (How to Repair a Mechnical Heart), and Liquid Theatre Collective (Marian). She's also a co-editor and contributor to The Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays, a first-of-its-kind anthology of plays by trans playwrights centering trans characters. www.leannakeyes.com / @LeannaKeyes and www.transcendstreaming.com/ @TranscendStreaming
Kyra Bowie,
Production Stage Manager
Kyra Bowie is a multi-hyphenate artist and the co-founder of Transcend Streaming. She is incredibly grateful to be a part of The Orchard team. Select Credits: Powerhouse (PSM | ARTNY) happy life (PSM | Walkerspace), Shooting Celebrities (PSM | The Flea), How To Repair A Mechanical Heart (PSM), Camp Morning Wood (PSM | AsylumNYC), OSF O! Staged Reading Series (Streaming Producer), Play On Podcasts (Coordinating Producer). NYU Tisch alum. Eternally grateful to my family, friends & partner in all things, Leanna. Proud AEA Member. @KyraBowie www.KyraBowie.com
PRODUCING TEAM
Sara Stackhouse,
Executive Producer
Stackhouse is Managing Producer at Arlekin Players Theatre & Zero-Gravity (zero-G) Virtual Theater Lab where she produced WITNESS and co-produced chekhovOS /an experimental game/ and the international tour for State vs Natasha Banina. She is a founder of BroadBand Collaborative where she co-produced two streaming series during the pandemic featuring artists from around the globe (All Together Now & Latitudes). She is Founder and Creative Director of The Mama Project, a arts-based project for women in townships in South Africa. Sara was Founding Executive Producer of Actors’ Shakespeare Project, producing 48 productions, during which time the company received multiple Elliot Norton, IRNE, and Best of Boston Awards, and an Innovative Theater Company award from American Theater Wing. Sara is the recipient of the “Inspiration Award” from Boston’s Social Innovation Forum. She was Chair of Theater at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Supervising Producer of INSIDE This Old House on A&E/Time Warner, Executive Producer of Toy Symphony at the MIT Media Lab, and Project Manager for cellist Yo-Yo Ma in her twenties, where she managed collaborations, recordings, and was on the producing team for numerous films, including the award-winning series Yo-Yo Ma: Inspired by Bach.
Staci Levine,
Groundswell Theatricals, Inc.
Groundswell is a NYC-based producing and general management company founded by Staci Levine. Groundswell has produced on Broadway, Off-Broadway, across North America, London’s West End, Australia, and New Zealand. Productions include the new podcast Radio Play Revival; Arlekin Players Theatre Off-Broadway production of The Orchard; the national tour of Patti LuPone’s Don’t Monkey with Broadway; Lisa Lampanelli’s touring production Losin’ It; An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin (Broadway, tour); John Lithgow’s Stories By Heart (Broadway, tour); the new musical A Taste of Things to Come (Off-Broadway, Chicago); The Last Two People on Earth: An Apocalyptic Vaudeville, starring Mandy Patinkin and Taylor Mac with direction and choreography by Susan Stroman (Off-Broadway, tour); the tour of An Evening with Mandy Patinkin & Nathan Gunn; Mandy Patinkin’s solo concerts: Dress Casual (Broadway, West End, tour), Mamaloshen (Broadway, Off-Broadway, tour), Celebrating Sondheim (Broadway, tour), and Diaries (Off-Broadway, tour). Staci cut her teeth in commercial theater with Dodger Theatricals, working on numerous Broadway productions including Once Upon a Mattress, Titanic, The King & I, Footloose, The Music Man, 42nd Street, Wrong Mountain, Into the Woods, Urinetown, Dracula the Musical, and Good Vibrations, as a member of Dodger Management Group. Staci is a member of The Broadway League.
Irina Shabshis,
Cherry Orchard Festival
w_MilaSamokhina_pp%20(1).jpg)
Shabshis is the Co-founder and Artistic Director of the Cherry Orchard Festival. At the start of her career in 2005, she joined Maestro Artist Management (MAM) as a Partner and Artistic Director. Bringing a strong classical music background and vast computer science experience to the table, she helped MAM become one of the leading boutique artist management companies in the United States. In 2012, Shabshis co-founded the Cherry Orchard Festival Foundation, a non-profit focused on introducing North American audiences to cutting-edge international theatrical projects and esteemed performers, welcoming prominent international companies and projects such as the Gesher Theatre (Israel), John Malkovich & the international cast of Giacomo Variations (Austria), The Theatre of Nations (Russia), Vakhtangov State Theatre (Russia), Jaunais Rīgas teātris (Latvia), Tango Fire Dance Company (Argentina), Rafael Amargo Flamenco Company (Spain), Max Raabe & Palast Orchester (Germany), Theatre-Atelier Piotr Fomenko (Russia) and many more. In 2020, Irina co-founded Maestro Immersive Art which partnered with the first experiential entertainment company, Lighthouse Immersive, to cultivate large-scale immersive exhibitions and events of all art forms that would become recognized across the United States.
Maria Shclover,
Cherry Orchard Festival
wa_MilaSamokhina_pp%20(1).jpg)
Shclover, producer and co-founder of the Cherry Orchard Festival, is a classically trained pianist who went on to graduate from NYU Stern School of Business. With extensive finance experience and her background in the arts, Shclover founded Maestro Artist Management (MAM) in 2004, focusing on providing a bespoke experience to international artists. Over the years, MAM became one of the leading boutique artist management companies that presented acclaimed international tours of renowned classical musicians. In 2012 Shclover co-founded the Cherry Orchard Festival to promote and present international theatrical projects and acclaimed performers to American audiences. During the pandemic, Shclover closely worked with director Igor Golyak and the Arlekin Players Theatre to promote and present his groundbreaking works in virtual theater, State vs. Natasha Banina and chekhovOS, which has received critical acclaim and recognition. In 2020, Maria co-founded Maestro Immersive Art Inc. that partnered with Canadian Lighthouse Immersive to bring the immersive exhibits to the US. With the success of the Immersive Van Gogh and other titles, Maria Shclover became one of the pioneers in the immersive arts industry.
Svetlana Dvoretsky
ShowOne Productions
wa_MilaSAmokhinap.jpg)
Leah Michalos,
Producer/General Manager, Michalos Management LLC
Michalos Management is an entertainment management, producing and consulting firm with 15 years’ experience in both commercial and nonprofit entertainment ventures. Broadway: lead producing team, Chicken & Biscuits (Circle in the Square). Select credits include: The Lucky Star, Renee Taylor’s My Life on a Diet (Lucille Lortel and Outer Critics Circle nom.) In The Pocket, Terms of Endearment with Molly Ringwald, Butler, A Better Place, The Road to Damascus, On A Stool at the End of the Bar, Almost Home, Jericho, Murder in the First, Poetic License, The Best of Everything. Film: Executive Producer: Beau, a new musical. Director: GABBY Awards at Carnegie Hall, El Capitan (LA) and Ellis Island. michalostheatricalmgmt.com
Zachary Meicher-Buzzi,
Associate Producer,
Virtual Experience
Zachary Meicher-Buzzi is a radically inquisitive digital, XR and Theatrical Producer and General Manager with 10 years of experience in building and coordinating multi-disciplinary teams of creatives. He has developed and produced unique transmedia projects that blend virtual and physical realities, leveraging a wide range of mediums and emergent technologies. Zachary has served as a key connector and translator between technical and creative teams, both remotely and in-person, on projects with collaborators throughout the entertainment world, including Disney, Taylor Mac, The Rude Mechs and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He currently serves as the XR Producer and Artistic Manager at Actors Theatre of Louisville, and is also the co-founder of the Louisville Blockchain Collective, which provides crypto onboarding as a public service for residents and businesses across Louisville, KY. ZachMB.me
Special thanks to the additional artists, designers and technicians who helped to bring the May/June 2020 Off-Broadway iteration to life:
-
Adam Paikowsky (dotdotdash.io)
-
Blair Cadden
-
Alex Coulombe & Yu-Jun Yeh
(Heavenue, Agile Lens) -
Daniel Cormino
-
Alexander Huh
-
AThomas Goldberg
-
Alexey Prosvirnin