The People Behind Dreambook

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Jaime Carrillo (director) directed 365 Days/Plays at The Public Theater on behalf of The Classical Theatre of Harlem.  His direction of Lynch Play, an examination of slavery and racism in the U.S. interrupted by a 19th century black minstrel, featured race-reversal and gender-reversal casting as well segregated seating for the public.  Lynch Play received an AUDELCO award nomination for Excellence in Black Theatre and NYTheatre.com praised it for: “treating a serious subject with intelligence and curiosity and for understanding that audiences want to be challenged and will follow theatre artists on a path that's unusual, risky, or even a little bit dangerous as long as they're treated with respect.”  Jaime’s direction of Forteez Bluntz Chickenhedz 'n' Uva Necessateez, which NYTheatre.com called, “a poetically violent meditation on black history, ancestry, and politics,” received Time Out New York’s 4-star rating.  He directed for Fort Point Theatre Channel in the 2014 and 2015 Boston Theater Marathons, and conceived Bostonia Bohemia’s gender and race bending production of OTHELL(A) in the Central Square Theatre lobby.  Jaime is also a Lucille Lortel Award-winning producer.  He was associate producer for the renown Waiting for Godot in New Orleans, featuring Wendell Pierce. Education: Graduate, William Esper Studio; B.A. with honors, Brandeis University.  This summer, Jaime will be a part of Shakespeare & Company’s Sotto Voce. 

Gavin Damore (social media manager) is a Boston-based theatre publicist and social media manager. In addition to FPTC, clients include the internationally touring play Kultar’s Mime. He is one of the founding members of Artists from Suburbia, a theatre initiative based out of East Bridgewater, creating new and multimedia theatre productions on Boston’s South Shore. He has interned with SpeakEasy Stage Company and is a box office associate at New Repertory Theatre. He has a B.A. in English from Stonehill College and he is studying for a Master’s in public relations at Boston University.

Karen Dervin (Parson Clapp) is a big supporter of new works and is delighted to be a part of Dreambook and to make her FPTC debut. An active actor and director in eastern Massachusetts, she most recently performed with the Winthrop Playmakers, Acme Theater, and the Hovey Players. Favorite roles include Reggie Fluty in The Laramie Project, Dana in The Sweetest Swing in Baseball, and Barbara and others in Wonder of the World. As always, thanks and love to David for supporting my addiction.

Lauren Foster (Walt Whitman) was last seen as Marius in Drag Les Miserables with Heart & Dagger Productions. Dreambook marks her debut with FPTC. She has previously appeared in 5 Lesbians Eating A Quiche (Ginny), Shiver!: A Fairytale of Anxious Proportions (Professor Drachen/Cat 2/Princess), This Is Treatment (Liz/Tanisha/Greek Choir), Turtles (Foos), Hamlet on Trial (Defense Attorney), The Eight Reindeer Monologues (Dancer), Brewed (Babette), Psycho Beach Party (Bettina Barnes), A Dream Play (Indra’s Daughter/Agnes), The Diary of Anne Frank (Margot Frank), The American Plan (Olivia Shaw), Godspell (Gilmer/Ensemble), and The Beebo Brinker Chronicles (Marcie/Nina/Lili). She holds a BFA in theater performance from Salem State University. She is a singer, musician, Irish Step dancer, and company member of Heart & Dagger Productions. She will next been seen in Drag Guys & Dolls with Heart & Dagger Productions.

Caitlin Gjerdrum (Judah Touro, ensemble) has graced the BPT stage twice before, as the half man's other half/archive worker/cat/handmaid in Project: Project’s Shiver and as Fanny in Maiden Phoenix’s Miss Penitentiary. She holds a BM from Berklee, where she studied musical theatre composition/performance. New musicals she has performed in include Precious Bane (Prue Sarn), MOGO (Clara/Burlesque Dancer/Sock Vendor), Peter Eldridge’s The Kiss (Rose Friedmann), and Charles Randolph Wright & Nona Hendryx's Skin Diver (Marta). Up next: The Tulsa Swinton Variety Hour with The Flux Factory in NYC.

Thomas Grenon (Jules Lion) is making his debut with FPTC. Boston credits include Othello and Measure for Measure (Actors’ Shakespeare Project), A Great Wilderness and Bent (Zeitgeist Stage Company), Loot (Hub Theatre Company) and Daughter of Venus (Artists’ Theatre of Boston). His regional credits include roles in ART (Arts After Hours) and Hamlet, Macbeth and Much Ado About Nothing (Bay Colony Shakespeare Company). He produced and directed 8 The Play, the fight for Marriage Equality for Broadway Impact. He holds a degree in theatre from Westfield State University and attended the two-year actor-training program at the National Shakespeare Conservatory in New York City.

Naomi Ibasitas  (stage manager) is a stage manager/director in the Boston area. She recently graduated in May 2015 from Emerson College with her Bachelor's in theatre studies. Since graduating, she has worked with various companies in the Boston area, including the Nora Theatre Company, the Hub Theatre Company, Poets’ Theatre, and StageSource. Dreambook is her first FPTC production.

Josh Kigner (scenic designer) has a BFA from the University of Connecticut. He is a freelance theatrical designer specializing in creating innovative and immersive theatrical pieces in and around New England. Design Credits include Dream Play (New York International Fringe Festival), The Miser (Connecticut Repertory Theater), The Quest of Queen Thomas, (Emerson Cabaret), Fiddler on the Roof (Woodland Theatre Company) and repertory set for six youth shows (Stoneham Theatre). www.joshkignerdesign.com.

Rebecca Lerman (office boy, ensemble) is enthused to be a part of her first show at FPTC! Past productions include Gypsy (Balloon Girl), Miracle on 34th Street (Susan Walker), It’s A Wonderful Life (Janie Bailey), A Christmas Carol (Young Fan, Cratchit Child, Want, Ensemble), The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (Imogene Herdman), and most recently as an Ancestor in The Addams Family on Stoneham Theatre’s main stage. In addition, Rebecca has also been a part of the young company at Stoneham Theatre, ever since she was a young girl. Some of her favorite shows through the young company include: Oliver! (Oliver), Les Miserablés (Young Cosette, Ensemble), The Mystery of Edwin Drood (Edwin Drood), Beauty and the Beast (Mrs. Potts), Argonautika (Athena), and most recently Love’s Labour’s Lost (Rosaline). Rebecca would like to give an enormous thank you to her astounding, loving, and supportive family. Also, a special thanks to Leigh Barrett, Jeanne LaForgia, and M. Lynda Robinson for their coaching and friendship. Rebecca will be attending Adelphi University in the fall as a BFA acting major. Enjoy the show!

Bailey Libby (Alexander Hays, ensemble) is thrilled to be in her first production with FPTC. Past productions include End of the World (Sally Poplar) and Dancing Wilde (Infanta), both with Boston Actors Theater, and Trojan Women: A Love Story with Artist's Theatre of Boston. Bailey also performs regularly with Mystery Cafe Dinner Theatre. She would like to thank her husband Stephen for his constant love and support.

Ben Lieberson (technical director) is a freelance technical director and carpenter as well as a scenic and lighting designer. He has recently built sets for Bad Habit Productions and Brown Box Theatre Project. Design credits include scenery for Brilliant Traces and The Taming of the Shrew (Brown Box Theatre Project), Tales of a Fourth Grade Lesbo (Flat Earth Theatre), and It’s Not About My Mother (Fresh Ink Theatre); lighting and scenic design for Laughing Wild (Hub Theatre Company), Drunk Enough to Say I Love You (Artists’ Theater of Boston), and Echoes (Brown Box), and lighting design for Far Away (Whistler in the Dark). www.benlieberson.com

Juliana Merhaut (assistant stage manager) is thrilled to be doing her first production with FPTC.  New to the Boston theater scene, Merhaut was involved in many northeast Ohio theater companies where worked as a stagehand, set designer, lighting designer, and stage manager.  Favorite productions include Cabaret (Stage Left Players), Nunsense (Salem Community Theatre), Number the Stars (Youngstown Playhouse), and The Secret Annexe (Oakland Center for the Arts). Merhaut received her Bachelor’s from Youngstown State University and Master’s degree from Boston University. By day, she works in Fort Point as consultant with Halloran Consulting Group and is a part-time faculty member at B.U. 

Marc S. Miller (producer) is co-artistic director, cofounder, and producer of FPTC. He directed FPTC’s productions of 4:48 Psychosis, The Time of Your Life, Hotel Cassiopeia, Waiting for Gilgamesh, The Land, Indiscreet Discretion, and Krapp's Last Tape. He also has directed for a number of Boston-area theatres and was a member of the Actors’ Coop of North Carolina. Favorite non-FPTC directing gigs include Arcadia, Pygmalion, and Cloud Nine with the Longwood Players; Tone Clusters, Middle-Aged White Guys, and Arms and the Man with the Theatre Cooperative; Criminal Hearts with Theatre Unanimous (also co-producer); Play With a Tiger (independent production; also producer); and We Can’t Pay, We Won’t Pay with the Actors Coop of North Carolina. He has acted, stage managed, and swept the floors for countless theatre companies over four decades. He has written or been project director for a dozen books, including several that won major awards, on theatre, economic opportunity, health care, human rights, history, and technology policy.

Brenna Nicely (dramaturg) is a stage director, dramaturg, and translator living in
Greater Boston. Select recent dramaturgy credits include Father
Comes Home From the Wars, Crossing: A New American Opera, and Sexyback
(American Repertory Theater), A Streetcar Named Desire (Moscow Art
Theatre), The Fourth Graders Present an Unnamed Love Suicide (A.R.T.
Institute), The World-Fixer (Goethe-Institut Boston), and Titus Andronicus
(Orlando Shakespeare Theatre). Brenna works in the education
department at the American Repertory Theater and is a published
writer. M.F.A. in dramaturgy, A.R.T. Institute at Harvard.

Heather Oshinsky (costume designer) is doing first show with FPTC. Heather grew up in Long Island, New York, where she stayed after high school to get her Associate’s degree in American Sign Language from Suffolk County Community College. She moved to Boston to received a B.A. in theatre production and design from Northeastern’s College of Arts Media and Design. Heather became interested in theatre in high school when her tenth-grade English teacher had her attend an extra help session during a stage build she was chaperoning. Heather quickly joined the school’s club, staying hours after school to help with the productions. Currently, Heather works as a freelance costume designer in the Boston area.

Dan Osterman (playwright) is doing first production with FPTC. As a long-time member of the arts community he has mostly been known for his painting work. He has also been active as a curator/organizerfor “Rewind” the Former Fort Point Artists Show (2010), and two “Weathering Art” climate-related art shows. Until now, he has kept his writing to a low-profile. Dreambook started out as a one-person play based on Walt Whitman’s life with the Putnam Community Theater in Putnam, Connecticut, but grew into a multi-generational unpublished novel. This play is based on the middle third of the novel. Dan brought this portion to the Fort Point Theatre team and began work on adaptation for the boards three years ago. He is profoundly grateful and excited to be working with so many talented people committed to bringing this story to life.

Shanie Schwartzman (mayor, ensemble) is excited to be working with FPTC for the second time. Her first collaboration with the company was a staged reading of Body and Sold. Shanie is a graduate of Emerson College with a BFA in acting. She has also worked with Hub Theatre Company for Love of the Nightingale and will be working on a short film this July. “This is an amazing cast and crew. Break a leg!”

Alexandra Smith (William Walker, ensemble) is excited to work with FPTC for the third time, having previously appeared in MicroTheatre: plat(T)forms and Lies (Boston Theatre Marathon). Other acting credits include Gretchen in Boeing Boeing (Footlight Club), various roles in If You Dream (Bad Habit Productions), Pope Joan/Win in Top Girls (Theatre @ First), Hattie in Laundry and Bourbon (Makeshift Theatre), Olivia in Twelfth Night (Barker Playhouse), and Celia in As You Like It (Epic Theatre Company), as well as appearances with Open Theatre Project, Shotz Boston, Solas Nua in Boston, and the One-Minute Play Festival. She can be seen in the upcoming web series We’ve Got History. Alex is also a stage manager and director, focusing on socially conscious devised work with youth performers. By day, she is manager of curriculum and instruction in Huntington Theatre Company’s Education Department and serves on the board of the Theatre Community Benevolent Fund.

Robin JaVonne Smith (Anna Lion) made her FPTC debut as the Newsboy in The Time of Your Life. She is a company member of Beau Jest Moving Theatre. Shows include Samurai 7.0, Apt.4D, and most recently Wild Williams, a night of three outrageous plays by Tennessee Williams (two of which premiered at the Tennessee Williams Festival in Provincetown). She is also a member of Ryan Landry's Gold Dust Orphans. Performances with this troupe include Phantom of the Oprah, Peter Pansy, and Mildred Fierce. She received her A.B. in English and theatre from Bowdoin College and also studied at the British American Drama Academy in London.

Nick Thorkelson (composer; band leader) is a founding member of FPTC, where he has acted (The Time of Your Life, Trapped Inside a Low-Fat Twinkie), written (short pieces in the Exclamation Point! series), worked on set design (Hotel Cassiopeia), and created animated film (“Où est Fleuri Rose” in Filmstock, “Robotic Interruptions” in Channel/Dance). Dreambook is the third FPTC show for which he has written music and led the band, the others being Carny Knowledge and The Good Person of Setzuan. Nick curated and co-produced FPTC's anthology show Bohemians in 2013, which included a Walt Whitman piece that led (indirectly) to the Dreambook project. He has played in several bands hereabouts, including Jamaica Hylton and 6of1.