LAS MENINAS by Lynn Nottage

August 5 to 29, 2015
Irondale Center 
85 South Oxford Street 
Brooklyn, New York 11217

Director: Jonathan Solari
Dramaturg: Elizabeth Stern
Design Team: Courtney Nelson, Paul Hudson, Jaimee Fricklas, Yiannis Christofides
Stage Manager: Megan Litt

---

Our production of Lynn Nottage's Las Meninas will be the New York City premiere of a story of the love affair between Louis XIV’s wife Queen Marie-Thérèse and Nabo, her African servant as told through the imagination of their illegitimate daughter.

Las Meninas is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC). Additional support for Las Meninas is made possible with public funds from the Decentralization Program of the New York State Council on the Arts, administered in Kings County by Brooklyn Arts Council.

The production is presented in repertory with Angelina Weld Grimké's RACHEL. Both plays explore repressed histories and the fear of bringing children into unjust societies.

CAST

​KELLY CAMPBELL* (La Valliere) was recently seen as Daisy in the national tour of The Great Gatsby (Montana Rep). Other theatre credits include The Crimson Thread (Seven Angels Theatre), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Pensacola Shakespeare Co.), Into The Woods (Ozark Actors Theatre), You Can’t Take It With You (Asolo Repertory Theatre) Crimes Of The Heart (Banyan Theatre), Cymbeline (McArdle Theatre), The Women (The Civic Theatre), Suddenly Last Summer (Dungeon Theatre), and Closer (Late Night Series). TV: Boardwalk Empire. MFA, FSU/Asolo Conservatory. 

​TONI ANN DENOBLE* (Louise Marie-Therese) last worked with New Brooklyn Theatre as a member of the ensemble of actors who participated in Read Revive Reclaim. She was last seen in Signature Theatre's New Plays Now Fest. Recently, she completed a seventeen-week run of Rise & Fall, a punk rock version of the Brecht opera, with BREAD Arts Collective. Other theatre companies that she has worked with include Classic Stage Company, National Black Theater, Poetic Theater and Flea Theater. MFA in Acting from Columbia.
www.ToniAnnDeNoble.com

ANNA NANETTE HUDSON (Queen Mother) has performed with international modern and contemporary ballet companies around the world, and as a chorus dancer on Broadway and London’s West End, working with such famed choreographers as Martha Graham, Pina Bausch, Bob Fosse and Jerome Robbins. She studied dance at The Martha Graham School in NYC and with Pina Bausch in Germany, theater at RADA in London, and currently with Wynn Handman in NYC. Theatre includes the works of William Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, Tennessee Williams, and Eugene O’Neil. She recently appeared at The National Arts Club in NYC as Mrs. Violet Venable in Suddenly Last Summer, under the direction of Karen Kohlhaas. Anna's series of one-woman dance theatre performances, A Time It Was, has been the recipient of grants from the NEA, the NEH, AARP, and The Alzheimer’s Association. She was a master teacher for Arts for the Aging, a national non-profit in Washington, D.C. that brings professional performing artists into facilities serving people wiith dementia and memory loss. She is the creator of a dance course designed for senior citizens called 'Dance-In-Time' and a pre-ballet class for children called 'Dance with Me'.

KESTREL FARIN LEAH (Mother Superior), a UK native, is based between Los Angeles and New York City, while working internationally as an actress and director. MFA in Acting from California Institute for the Arts. She has trained with Suzuki Company of Toga (Japan) and Attis Theater (Greece). Notable roles include Mrs. Violet Venable in Suddenly Last Summer, directed by Kameron Steele, and a cross-gender interpretation of Jean Genet in Maureen Huskey's A Splendid Death, adapted from Splendid's. Film/TV includes German filmmaker Dara Friedman's Play. Currently a dancer in French artist Julien Previeux's What Shall We Do Next?. As a director, Leah is collaborating with composer Christopher Schunk on the hyper-opera film project Kingdoms. Previously, she wrote and directed Breaking and Entering, a theatrical collaboration with fine artist Arjuna Neuman at Human Resources, LA. Short films (director/writer): Breakfrst, Lighthouse Avery.

​SAMANTHA LEVITT (Queen Marie-Therese) is thrilled to be a part of New Brooklyn Theatre's production of Las Meninas. She has worked at The Public Theatre, The Cherry Lane Theatre, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, McCarter Theatre, Lark Play Development Center, The 45th Street Theater, The Ontological-Hysteric, and Primary Stages. Recent film credits include: Penguin: Bird of Prey (Ronnie Vreeland), Something in the Water (Daniella), The Space in Between (Olivia), and A Day in the Life (Gal). BFA, NYU Tisch School of the Arts (ETW); graduate of the William Esper Studio's two-year training program with Terry Knickerbocker. She would like to thank Paul Meier and Dianna Schoenborn for their help in bringing Marie to life. ​

​RANCE NIX (Nabo Sensugali), an Atlanta native, graduated from the University of Georgia after studying Advertising and Music Business. Rance has always loved being in front of people and his goal in life is to be a positive inspiration to those that watch and encounter him. While at the UGA, Rance hosted many events, participated in the creation of several YouTube videos, and began performing stand-up comedy. Eventually, he decided to pursue a career in entertainment as an actor, host of a television show and stand-up comedian. He is excited to be portraying Nabo in New Brooklyn Theatre's production of Lynn Nottage's Las Meninas.

​CHRISTIAN RYAN* (Doctor) most recently appeared as Hotspur in Henry IV with Moosehall Theater Company. Regional theatre includes Alabama Shakespeare, Westport Country Playhouse, Orlando Shakespeare. NYC theatre includes the Flea, Metropolitan Playhouse, Exit Pursued by a Bear, and many Ross Howard Plays with New Light Theater Project. Graduate of Stanford University and William Esper Studio.
www.chrisryanacting.weebly.com

​ARNAUD SPANOS* (King Louis XIV) was born in France and is doing his family proud to be playing the role of the Sun King of the House of Bourbon. Since starring in Jonathan Solari’s The Love Letter You’ve Been Meaning to Write New York, Arnaud has pursued a voiceover career: numerous commercials, video games, audio books, and cartoons all over the world. Currently, six commercials voiced by Arnaud are in The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

​
​ZACH WEGNER*'s (Painter) play Hot Steams is now available on Indie Theater Now, after running in last year's New York Fringe Festival. As an actor, he recently appeared in Joe Orton's Loot at The Westport Country Playhouse. NYC stage includes: God Steeling (Theater 54), Hot Steams (45 Bleecker & Fringe 2014), Organic Shrapnel (Theater 54) The Other Day (The Robert Moss), The Deep Throat Sex Scandal (45 Bleecker), Rich Boyfriend (The New Group), Harold Pinter’s A Slight Ache and The Lover (Cellar Door). Regional: The Other Day (Pilsen), The Skin of Our Teeth (Bristol Riverside), Never the Sinner (TheatreWorks). Television: Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Graduate of the School at Steppenwolf, British American Drama Academy, often found at HB Studio.

*These Actors appeared courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association.

 ENSEMBLE

The ensemble in New Brooklyn Theatre's production of Las Meninas consists of a group of talented actors who possess a variety of different skills and talents; have performed regionally all over the United States, on Broadway and internationally; and have trained in prestigious conservatories such as The University of the Arts, Boston University, The New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts, Rutgers University, Interlochen Arts Academy, The National Theater Institute, Chapman University, The Moscow Theatre School, Vassar College, The London Academy for Music and Dramatic Art, and Carnegie Mellon University.

ALEX SARRIGEORGIOU

ALLISON ANDEREGG

ANA GENCARELLI

CAITI LATTIMER

CASSIE GILLING

CLEA DECRANE

HANNAH MCKECHNIE

JULIA SCHONBERG

KATRINA KLEIN

MARYN PEARL SHAW

MOLLY JONES

ROBIN FRIEND STIFT

SHANNON MARY GILROY

VIOLETA PICAYO

---

LYNN NOTTAGE's (Playwright) Pulitzer Prize-winning play Ruined has received an Obie, the Lucille Lortel Award, New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, Drama Desk Award, and Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Play (Manhattan Theatre Club, Goodman Theatre). Other plays include Intimate Apparel (New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play; Roundabout Theatre, CENTERSTAGE, South Coast Repertory); Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine(Obie Award; Playwrights Horizons, London’s Tricycle Theatre); Crumbs From The Table of Joy; Las Meninas; Mud, River, Stone; Por’Knockers, and Poof!. Nottage is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2007 MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant,” the National Black Theatre Festival’s August Wilson Playwriting Award, the 2004 PEN/Laura Pels Award for Drama, and the 2005 Guggenheim Grant for Playwriting, as well as fellowships from the Lucille Lortel Foundation, Manhattan Theatre Club, New Dramatists, and New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a member of The Dramatists Guild, an alumna of New Dramatists and a graduate of Brown University and the Yale School of Drama, where she is a visiting lecturer.

ELIZABETH STERN (Dramaturg) is a playwright and dramaturg in New York. She is the Administrative Assistant and a script reader at Playwrights Horizons. With New Brooklyn Theatre, she co-wrote an adaptation of The Cherry Orchard in Istanbul. Other experience includes working as an artistic intern at MTC and LCT3. She is currently writing a play about displacement in Brooklyn, Istanbul and Russia that straddles two centuries, three continents and Chekhov. BA in English and Theatre, Williams College.