KRISTIN ANGEL is a graduate of Hampshire College who has been working in and supporting not-for-profit educational organizations for more than 20 years, and is currently chairing her local cultural council. She is a stalwart member of The August Company audience.
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STEVE ANGEL is a local actor and graduate of Hampshire College who has worked extensively with Enchanted Circle Theater in Holyoke and The Hampshire Shakespeare Company in Hadley.
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SCOTT BRAIDMAN is a teacher, director, and actor. He has studied and worked in theater and improvisation in Chicago, New York, and Boston. He currently teaches theater and film at Southwick-Tolland Regional High School.
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RACHEL BRAIDMAN is an actor and a writer. She is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) Theater Department where she performed in: Proof, Curse of the Starving Class, Arms & the Man, Alls Well That Ends Well, and Gum. She is thrilled to be back in the Pioneer Valley after three years living in New York City and Boston, paying her dues and her bills. Currently, she writes a blog called: i found a puddle and i fell in it.
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LIESEL DE BOOR is an honored graduate of the MFA Program at Columbia University. Her films have screened on big and small screens all over the world,and have received awards from The National Book of Review, Eastman Kodak, The Milos Forman Fun, Line Cinema, and Polo Ralph Lauren, and her feature film scripts have won an award from Nickelodeon, and have been selected for the IFP Market. She makes a living as a photographer, filmmaker and educator for Whole Foods Market.
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HARLEY ERDMAN is a translator, dramaturg, playwright, and theater historian who is a professor of theater at the University of Massachusetts. He has translated plays by both classic Spanish and contemporary Latin American playwrights, and is completing an anthology of plays by 17th century Spanish women. He has also written extensively on Jews on the American stage, and is the author of the book /Staging the Jew/. He lives in Florence, Massachusetts, just a short walk from where The August Company performed /Taming of the Shrew/.
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KELSEY FLYNN is an actor and a writer who lives in Northampton, Massachusetts with her wife. Her theater career began in improvisational and stand-up comedy performing regularly at the Comedy Studio and the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge and Gotham Comedy Club, Catch a Rising Star, and Caroline’s in New York City. Her theater career began as Puck in Hampshire Shakespeare’s MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM. Other roles now include Cordelia (KING LEAR), Claire (BOSTON MARRIAGE), Sheila (THE BOYS NEXT DOOR) and Karl Rove (NAKED THEATER 3: BETRAYAL CAN BE FUN). She’s also a regular player with PaintBox Children’s Theater having performed such roles as Baby Bear, Peter Pan, and all the witches in the WIZARD OF OZ. When not on stage,Kelsey is a twice-awarded VALLEY ADVOCATE’S BEST IN THE VALLEY radio personality for WRSI, the River.
CLAIRE KAVANAH is an actor, dancer and all around theatre type. She is a fairly recent graduate of the UMass Amherst theatre program. While attending UMass she performed in many department productions including: Big Love, Life is a Dream, House of Desires, The Reincarnation of Jamie Brown, The Chairs, and Ondine. She also participated in a number of student projects, most notably, Fool for Love. Before relocating to the Valley Claire produced and performed in Art and King Lear for the Railroad Street Youth Project in Great Barrington. Claireperformed in Hampshire Shakespeare’s productions of Much Ado about Nothing and King Lear and she also worked as an education artist for Shakespeare and Company in Lenox, MA. Last summer Claire performed in The Ordinary Theater’s productions of Our Town Revisited and The Joys of Fantasy. She was most recently seen in the August Company’s production ofTaming of the Shrew and the brief yet gripping 5 Minute Sound of Music. She makes her living slinging beer.
ERIN MCKEOWN is an internationally known musician, writer, and producer. With 7 full length albums, 2 EPs, and numerous soundtracks to her credit, she has spent the last 10 yearscrafting a reputation as an original musical voice and compelling live performer. Her latest album, Hundreds of Lions, is out now on Righteous Babe Records.
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JULIAN OLF directed and taught dramaturgy and playwriting at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His screenplayANTHONY, inspired by Shakespeare’s HAMLET, received a Gold Award at WorldFest International Film Festival and was given a professional reading by The Drama Garage of Hollywood. His screen adaptation of Henry James’s short story, THE LIAR, was finalist in America’s Best Screenplays. Olf’s short stage comedy, 1-900-SEX-DATE, won first prize in the Nantucket Short Play Competition. It received productions by the Nantucket Actor’s Theater, the West Coast Ensemble (L.A.), New Century Theater (Northampton, MA) and Phare Play Productions (NYC). His short dramas have received numerous productions: “I LUV BETSY + JOEY + MARY LOU . . .” and FUN WITH JAY LENO: A SHAMELESS DOMESTIC DRAMA were seen in NYC and Baton Rouge;UNAIRED PUBLIC RADIO SEGMENT, in Vancouver & Amherst; and SWF: A LOVE STORY FOR THE STAGE, in Boston. Olf’s one-character play (PEOPLE ALMOST ALWAYS SMELL GOOD IN THE ART MUSEUM) was produced at UMass-Amherst, with the author performing the role. It was published in the Fall, 2008 issue of the Massachusetts Review and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
DENNIS QUINN is a writer and actor. Last season he was Lucentio in the August Company’s Taming of the Shrew, and most recently he played Rolf in their abbreviated Sound of Music. He teaches English and Drama at Central High School in Springfield.
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SHEILA SIRAGUSA teaches courses in acting and theater. Formerly on the faculty at NYU’s Stella Adler Conservatory, SUNY Oneonta, Sheila now teaches at Central Connecticut State University. This past season, she wrote and produced a new play entitled WATER, about privatization of natural resources. She was a founding member of the KO Festival of Performance, at which she acted, directed, wrote and composed over a number of seasons. Directed THE DIRTY GIRLS, which ran at Manhattan Class Company, The Village Gate, the Raw Space and the Philadelphia Womens’ Theater Festival. Recent directing credits include new works FAITH AND CLOVER, BECOMING, THE ISLAND AGAIN and MATTER. Staged readings of THE THINGS THEY CARRIED at Eastworks and THE CATONSVILLE 9 in conjunction with a lecture by Professor Howard Zinn. At UMass, directed OTHELLO, SOME ASIANS, REINCARNATION OF JAMIE BROWN, and TRUE WEST. Directing credits at Hampshire Shakespeare Festival include MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING and KING LEAR. In the last couple of seasons her work has been seen in MERCY OF A STORM and BLACKBIRDat the Chester Theatre Company. Sheila has performed at various regional venues, including the George St. Playhouse, the Theater at Monmouth, and at St. Peter’s at the Citicorp Center and Moonworks at the 29th St. Repertory.
KERRY STRAYER has appeared in “Gone” and “FMSOM” with The August Company. He has also worked with Hampshire Shakespeare Company, The Theater Project, and Commonwealth Opera, among other theater companies in the Valley. His appearance in The August Company’s “As You Like It” this summer will mark his twelfth Shakespearean production.
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PAM VICTOR is a homeschooling mother, a teacher, an improv comedian, an actress, and a writer. Pam is the founding member of the improv comedy troupe “The Ha-Ha’s” and produces “The Happier Valley Comedy Show.” Pam enjoys bringing theatrical joy to children and their tall companions with Paintbox Theater where she has appeared as a Blue Fairy, a Princess, and a Fox among other roles. Pam is the author of the sci-fi/therapeutic fiction children’s chapter book “Baj and the Word Launcher: Space Age Asperger Adventures in Communication” (Jessica Kingsley, Publ.) Pam’s writing heart lets loose and dances joyfully all over her blog “My Nephew is a Poodle,” where she writes mostly true essays.