red fern theatre red fern theatre
red fern theatre
red fern theatre
red fern theatre
red fern theatre

melanie red fern theatre
Jennifer Lucas David Mason*
red fern theatre
melanie red fern theatre melanie
Emilie Elizabeth Miller Brian Patacca*

Cast

Jennifer Lucas - Ellen Van Oss
David Mason* - Michael Wells
Emilie Elizabeth Miller - Lainie Wells
Brian Patacca* - Walker Harris

*Actor appears courtesy of
Actor’s Equity Association

Equity Approved Showcase


Production Team

Gina Scherr - Lighting Designer
Jesse Dreikosen - Set Designer
Laura Luciano - Stage Manager
Lauren McDonnell - Public Relations

Two Rooms
by Lee Blessing
Directed by Melanie Moyer Williams
Featuring Jennifer Lucas, David Mason*, Emilie E. Miller, and Brian Patacca*

*Actors appear courtesy of Actors' Equity Association

Provocative and compelling, “Two Rooms” deals with a subject much in the minds of contemporary society: the taking of innocent hostages by political terrorists. The play illuminates both the numbing agony of the one detained and also the helpless fury of those who are left behind—loved ones impatient for something to be done, and officials who feel they must be guided by logic rather than emotion.

Performed November/December 2006 at the 78th Street Theatre Lab, NYC.


Jennifer Lucas, Ellen Van Oss

Jennifer recently relocated from San Francisco.  Two Rooms marks her first New York performance. Jennifer has an extensive list of acting credits in first-run productions in and around the San Francisco Bay Area and is a resident company member of Impact Theatre in Berkeley, CA.  Recent principal roles there include Barbara in Crumble and Joan Stone in Money and Run. On the West Coast she has studied acting and voice with Dr. Lee Strawn, and locally, with the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.


David Mason*, Michael Wells

Recent NYC credits include:  Barbara Bush Never Slept Here (Circle East); Kalighat (Circle East); L'esprit d'escalier (Chip Deffaa Invitational);  New York (Ensemble Studio Theatre, Civilian Studios and National Theatre Workshop of the Handicapped); Mae and Her Stories (Primary Stages); The Breaking Light (Present Company); This Will Be the Death of Him (NativeAliens). Regional credits:   Sight Unseen, The Underpants, Lobby Hero, The Boys Next Door, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, An Inspector Calls, The Big Apple, and All in the Timing (New Century Theatre); Jerry Finnegan's Sister (Summer Theater at Mt. Holyoke, Foothills Theatre).   Film: Carson's Place; Writer's Block. www.davidmason.info


Emilie Elizabeth Miller, Lainie Wells

Emilie Elizabeth Miller created The Red Fern Theatre Company with Melanie Moyer Williams. She played Kimberly in their premiere production of "Patient A," also by Lee Blessing. She has appeared in various film, television and theatre pieces in and around NYC. Emilie is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College. She is loyal to her training at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA.


Brian Patacca*, Walker Harris

Brian most recently completed shooting She's Got It, an independent film.  His favorite project, Pastoral (a Jeremy Holloway fim) recently showed at the IFC Center. Other film credits include Trans (lead), Burp (lead), Gratuitous Violence (supporting), Dodging Silver Bullets (lead), Broken Eros (supporting). He has appeared on As the World Turns, All My Children; and VH1’s Games People Play where he won the grand prize in the actors' game show. Off-Broadway he was part of the original cast of John Fisher’s Joy and shook his groove thing nightly in the runaway disco hit, The Donkey Show. He has appeared in Horticultural Therapy at The American Globe Theater.
Regionally he has been seen with The Provincetown Theatre Company as “The Third Man” in Paula Vogel’s The Baltimore Waltz and in The Dead Boy as the title role. Provincetown also saw him as "Perry" in Love! Valour! Compassion! Media, Pennsylvania audiences saw him as Pharaoh and Napthali in Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  Internationally Brian has been seen with The Honeyboys and in four commercials for Bailey's Irish Cream, as well as Emergen-C, Spike TV, Mail Frontier, Dunkin' Donuts, and Nassua Hospital.


Melanie Moyer Williams, Director

Melanie Moyer Williams, a graduate of Duke University, is delighted to be involved with The Red Fern Theatre Company’s second production.  Most recently, Melanie directed Henry Kissinger by John Attanas with Woodframe Productions where they received rave reviews at the NY Fringe Festival.  Last year, she directed A Tribute to Andrew Lloyd Webber with the Youth Symphony Orchestra of El Salvador in El Salvador with Wanderlust Theatre Company.  She directed That is the Question in the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, and it was named to the “Best of the Fringe” list.   Melanie also directed Medea excerpts as well as musical directed Iphigeneia for CYPRECO and the New York Public Library.  For the Michael Chekhov Theatre Company, she directed Five Women Wearing the Same Dress, When the World Was Green and Icarus’s Mother.  Other favorite directing credits include A Tribute to the Blues (Wanderlust Theatre Company) Red, Hot and Cole; Oleanna; What the Butler Saw and assisting Director Susana Tubert on the NY premiere of Joyce Carol Oates’ Bad Girls for the Director’s Company.  In addition to founding the Red Fern Theatre Company, Melanie is currently directing a reading of a new musical Temps with a full workshop production to be performed Winter 2007.


Gina Scherr, Lighting Designer

Gina has designed lights for Safe in Hell at the Yale Repertory Theatre and Yale School of Drama productions of Three Sisters, Julius Caesar, The Life and Death of King John, and The Lonesome West. She was the resident lighting designer for the Yale Summer Cabaret 2005.  New York credits include lights for Food For Fish (The Kraine), Cloud 9 (Theatre at Riverside Church), Bad to Worse (Horace Mann Theatre and Local Hakiri Smash Club), Jesus is Magic (Zipper Theatre), The Prince (Stella Adler Conservatory), India Dreaming (The Culture Project), and FUSE Festival 2003 (HERE Arts Center).  Gina received her BA from Vanderbilt University and her MFA from the Yale School of Drama.  www.ginascherr.com


Lauren McDonnell, Public Relations

Lauren McDonnell is thrilled to be working with the Red Fern Theatre Company. Lauren is a graduate of Auburn University with a degree in Public Relations and currently works for Yahoo!. She is also the webmaster for the Broadway actress, Stephanie J. Block. Many thanks to Melanie and Emilie for this opportunity to work with Red Fern!


Laura Luciano, Stage Manager

Laura Luciano is a graduate from the State University of New York at New Paltz where she majored in both performance and design technology. Recent credits include Polaroid Stories (director/SUNY New Paltz), Striking Chords (playwright/Creative Place Theatre), Dust (production assistant/Soho Think Tank) and Henry Kissinger (stage manager/NY Fringe Festival).


Jesse Dreikosen, Set Designer

Jesse Dreikosen is excited to be working with The Red Fern Theatre Company for the first time.  He recently moved from Miami where he was the resident set designer for three seasons at New Theatre, in Coral Gables, Florida.  Favorite shows at New Theatre include Madagascar (Carbonell nomination), Paradise, and The Sunken Living Room, which were co-produced with Southern Repertory Theatre and will be produced once again in New Orleans this January.  Other recent credits include: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Of Mice and Men, and Forever Plaid for the Texas Repertory Theatre Company in Houston, Texas; The Triumph of Love and The Taming of the Shrew for The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey; The Importance of Being Earnest and Proof for Viterbo University in La Crosse, Wisconsin.  He has also assistant designed at The Indiana Repertory Theatre.  This coming summer will be the second time his work will be on exhibit at the Prague Quadrennial in the Czech Republic.  He received his M.F.A. from Purdue University and has received both regional and national awards for his designs.