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George Abud, Marinetti

Proud Arab-American actor. La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Broadway: The Band’s Visit starring Katrina Lenk and Tony Shalhoub (Daytime Emmy Award,OBC Recording); The Visit starring Chita Rivera and Roger Rees (OBC Recording). Off-Broadway: Nerd Face in Emojiland (Drama Desk Award nom.,OOBC Recording; The Duke on 42nd Street); The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui opposite Raúl Esparza, Nathan the Wise opposite F. Murray Abraham, Peer Gynt alongside Gabriel Ebert, and Allegro directed by John Doyle (all for Classic Stage Company). Select Regional: Lewis Chapman in August Rush (Paramount Theatre); Charlie Davenport in Annie Get Your Gun directed by Sarna Lapine (Bay Street Theater).

Leanne Antonio, Ensemble/Understudy: Rafaela

is so excited to be making her La Jolla Playhouse debut with Lempicka. Her most recent credits include: The Lion King (Broadway) and Black No More (Off-Broadway). She would like to thank her family, both blood and chosen, for their constant support, God, her agents at HCKR, and Taylor and the management Team at Stagecoach Entertainment. May you leave the show today better than when you walked in.

Lauren Blackman, Ensemble/Understudy: Baroness/Suzy Solidor

La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Broadway: Tsarina in Anastasia (OBC). Mrs. Claus in Radio City Christmas Spectacular (Radio City Music Hall). National Tours: Irene Molloy in Hello Dolly. World Premiere Productions: Little Dancer (The Kennedy Center), Anastasia (Hartford Stage), Marie, Dancing Still (Seattle Rep). Off-Broadway: Lisa in Next Thing You Know. Select Regional: Mary Poppins in Mary Poppins (MSMT & WBT), Lady Jacquie in Me and My Girl (Maltz Jupiter), Morticia in The Addams Family (Fulton), Countess Andrenyi in Murder on the Orient Express (Fulton). Original Cast Albums: Anastasia and Next Thing You Know. @laurblackman

Victor E. Chan, Baron

La Jolla Playhouse: Fly, Miss You Like Hell. Regional: On Your Feet (Moonlight Stage); Rock of Ages (Cygnet Theatre); 1776 (McCoy/ Rigby Entertainment); Sweet Charity (Reprise 2.0); Evita, In the Heights (SDRep); This Beautiful City (Diversionary Theatre); Chess (East West Players); Crush in Finding Nemo the Musical (Disney Creative Entertainment); Miss Saigon (Starlight Theatre); Rocky Horror Show (American Stage Theatre Co.). Movies: The Birth of an Alien, Heart of Mind, Platypus: The Musical, The Syndicate. TV: Oscars 2018 (ABC), Bent (NBC), NCIS: Los Angeles (CBS). Love to his wife Michelle, and sons: Gabriel, Elijah and Dorian. Proud member of AEA. @VictorEChan

Leovina Charles, Swing/Understudy: Kizette

La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Broadway: Young Nala in The Lion King. Ismene in I Am Antigone. (Theatre for a New City); Clytemnestra in Oresteia (BADA); Oya in In the Red and Brown Water (UCSD), Toby in Twelfth Night (UCSD); Maribel in Sonadora (Tribeca Film Festival). Education: UC San Diego M.F.A. candidate.

Milena J. Comeau, Ensemble

La Jolla Playhouse: Debut! National Tours: Jesus Christ Superstar, Bandstand. Off-Broadway: Alice By Heart; The Golden Apple at Encores! Regional: West Side Story (Weston); Annie (Axelrod); Who Could Ask… (Barrington Stage). Dance Lab New York, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, PHISH at Madison Square Garden. B.A. in Human Evolutionary Biology from Harvard. Endless loving gratitude to all my people, LDC, La Jolla Playhouse and this incredible dream team for their trust and welcome. Say hi – @milenajcomeau!

Michael Louis Cusimano, Ensemble

La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Select regional credits: The Tale of Despereaux (The Old Globe); The Last Five Years, On the Twentieth Century, The Rocky Horror Show (Cygnet Theatre); Once, Million Dollar Quartet, Big Fish (Lamb’s Players); The 39 Steps (Glendale Centre Theatre); Metamorphoses (Santa Barbara ETC); Don’t Dress for Dinner (International City Theatre); and the West Coast premieres of Desperate Measures (North Coast Rep) and Homos, or Everyone in America (Diversionary). Michael was awarded the San Diego Critics Circle Craig Noel Award for “Actor of the Year” for his body of work in 2019. Education: B.F.A. from Carnegie Mellon. IG @koozimano

Eden Espinosa, Tamara de Lempicka

Elphaba in Wicked, Brooklyn in Brooklyn the Musical, Flora in Flora the Red Menace, and Maureen in Rent. Sadie Thompson in Rain, Eva Peron in Evita. Emma Borden in Lizzie. Mary Flynn in Merrily We Roll Along. Daniela in In The Heights. Anita in West Side Story for the BBC PROMS. Trina in Falsettos. TV credits: Law & Order, Ugly Betty, Elementary. Voiceover: Cassandra in Tangled the Series, Robot Chicken, MAD TV, Elena of Avalor, and Titan Maximum. Eden has two albums. Look Around and Revelation are both available on all streaming sites. @edenespinosa www.edenespinosa.com

Amber Iman, Rafaela (June 14 - July 10)

La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Broadway: Shuffle Along, Nina Simone in Soul Doctor. Off-Broadway: A Civil War Christmas, Rent. National Tour: Hamilton (1st National, Peggy Schuyler/ Maria Reynolds). Favorite regional credits: Joy in Witness Uganda (The Wallis; LA Ovation Award Winner - Best Featured Actress in a Musical), Cheryl in Stick Fly (Huntington Theatre; IRNE Award Nominee - Best Supporting Actress), Aldonza in Man of La Mancha (Shakespeare Theatre; Helen Hayes Award nomination for Outstanding Actress & Emery Battis Award for Acting Excellence). Howard University Graduate (2016 James Butcher Alumni Award). Proud founding member: 2021 Tony Award-winning Broadway Advocacy Coalition, Black Women On Broadway. Writer, Executive Producer, and Star of her award-winning short film, Steve, streaming now on kwelitv.com. Up next, Amber will star in Goddess at Berkeley Rep, opening August 2022!

Natalie Joy Johnson, Suzy Solidor

La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Other credits include Pat in Kinky Boots (Broadway), Enid (Broadway) & Paulette (First National Tour) in Legally Blonde, Suzy Solidor in Lempicka (Williamstown) and Nadia in Bare: A Pop Opera (2004). TV: High Maintenance (HBO), Difficult People (Hulu). Natalie is an accomplished cabaret artist, just finishing a 36-week residency at The Q in NYC. In 2019, she performed in the inaugural season of the Sydney Cabaret Festival in Australia. Her single “Get Into It…Queen” (by Miss Natalie) is available wherever you stream music, and the music video lives on YouTube. www.nataliejoyjohnson.live.

Carson Kreitzer, Book/Lyrics/Original Concept

is a recent Guggenheim, McKnight and MacDowell Fellow. Current projects include Capital Crime!, a play with songs set in Gilded Age New York, and a trio of plays about the climate crisis: green, Timebomb and a new play inspired by her time in Svalbard, sailing with The Arctic Circle Artist and Scientist Residency Program. Her plays include The Love Song of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Rosenthal New Play Prize, Stavis Award), The Slow Drag (New York and London) and Lasso of Truth (NNPN Rolling World Premiere). She is an Affiliated Writer with The Playwrights’ Center, an alumna of New Dramatists and was the first Playwrights of New York (PoNY) Fellow at the Lark. She has received support from the NEA, TCG, the Jerome and McKnight Foundations, and the Jonathan Larson Award. Her collection SELF DEFENSE and other plays is available from No Passport Press.

Matt Gould, Book and Music

is a two-time recipient of the Richard Rodgers Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, The Jonathan Larson Award, and ASCAP’s Dean Kay, Harold Adamson, and Richard Rodgers Awards. His original musical TV series, Insignificant, is currently being developed by TBS and MGM Studios with Eric Tuchman (The Handmaid’s Tale) attached to executive produce. His musical Witness Uganda, written with Griffin Matthews, had its LA premiere at the Wallis, NY premiere at Second Stage Theater, and its world premiere at the American Repertory Theater at Harvard. The album of that show was released in February 2022 featuring Grammy winners Cynthia Erivo and Ledisi along with Matthews. A film adaptation is currently in development. His original musical Lempicka, written with Carson Kreitzer, premiered at the Williamstown Theater Festival in 2018 under the direction of Tony winner Rachel Chavkin. Other works include The Family Project for LA’s Center Theatre Group and Twilight in Manchego (directed by Billy Porter for the NYMF). Gould has written and arranged music for theaters around the country, and translated, adapted and directed Romeo and Juliet in Pulaar (Mauritania, West Africa). A graduate of Boston University’s College of Fine Arts, Matt is a frequent speaker and guest lecturer at schools and universities and is the co-director of Uganda Project. Most importantly, he is foster daddy (and hopeful adoptive daddy) to Galileo and Apollo. Special thanks to Griff, Mom and Dad, and Andrea. @FakeMattGould

Rachel Chavkin, Director

is a director, writer and artistic director of Brooklyn-based experimental collective, the TEAM, whose work has been seen all over New York, the US and internationally (including festivals across Europe, Australia and Asia), and whose consensus-driven writing process was the subject of a feature length documentary. She won the Tony Award, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards for her work on Hadestown (Broadway, NYTW, Citadel, National Theatre London). She is a three-time Obie Winner, and received Tony, Lortel and Drama Desk Award nominations for Dave Malloy’s Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 (Broadway, Ars Nova, A.R.T.). Select London: Mission Drift (National Theatre), American Clock (Old Vic). Select New York and regional: Marco Ramirez’s The Royale (LCT and The Old Globe; Obie Award, Drama Desk and Lortel nominations), Malloy’s Preludes (LCT3), Bess Wohl’s Small Mouth Sounds (Ars Nova and national tour), The Royal Family (Guthrie Theatre) and multiple collaborations with Taylor Mac. Her first short film, Remind Me, was an official selection of the Venice and Beverly Hills Film Festivals. 2017 Smithsonian Award for Ingenuity. Proud NYTW Usual Suspect and Member SDC.

Raja Feather Kelly, Choreographer

is a choreographer and director, and the Artistic Director of the feath3r theory–a Brooklyn-based dance-theatre-media company that he founded in 2009. Over the past decade he has created 16 evening-length works with the feath3r theory to critical acclaim, most recently WEDNESDAY (New York Live Arts), the UGLY trilogy (Bushwick Starr, New York Live Arts, and ImPulsTanz), and The Kill One Race – part documentary, part theatre, part reality TV game show. Recent works include Broadway's A Strange Loop, 86ed (Diversionary), On Sugarland (New York Theater Workshop) and SUFFS (Public Theater), and We're Gonna Die (Second Stage). Kelly was hailed as the choreographer who “can make your play move” by The New York Times. Other credits include choreography for Skittles Commercial: The Musical (Town Hall), Fireflies (Atlantic Theatre Company), If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka (Playwrights Horizons), and The Good Swimmer (BAM), among many others. He has received dozens of awards, fellowships and honors, including the Obie and Outer Critics Circle Awards for A Strange Loop (2020), an inaugural Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship (2019-2021), a New York Dance Performance Bessie Award (2009), three Princess Grace Awards (2017-2019), a Breakout Award from the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (2018) and Dance Magazine's inaugural Harkness Promise Award (2018). He has been nominated for two Lucille Lortel Awards, a Chita Rivera Award, and was a finalist for the 2019 SDCF Joe A. Callaway Award for outstanding choreography of A Strange Loop and Fairview. He was also featured on the cover of the February 2020 issue of Dance Magazine.

Remy Kurs, Music Supervisor/Arrangements

La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Selected credits: Young Jean Lee’s We’re Gonna Die (Second Stage), directed by Raja Feather Kelly; Witness Uganda (Wallis & ART); The Kill One Race (the feath3r theory/Playwrights Horizons); Hysteria (the feath3r theory/NY Live Arts); Lempicka (Williamstown); Ride the Cyclone (MCC); Invisible Thread (Second Stage); The Hidden Sky (Prospect Theater Co.); The Honeymooners (Paper Mill). National Tours & Broadway: Matthew Warchus and Jack Thorne’s A Christmas Carol, Book of Mormon. As music producer: Studio Cast Recording of Witness Uganda on Sony Masterworks.

Cian McCarthy, Orchestrations

Broadway: Moulin Rouge! The Musical; Book of Mormon; In The Heights. Off-Broadway/Regional: Burn All Night (American Repertory Theater); Tales of the City (American Conservatory Theater); A Little More Alive (Kansas City Rep); Kingdom (The Public Theater). Orchestrations: Witness Uganda (Original Cast Album); We’re Gonna Die, Invisible Thread (Second Stage Theater); Lempicka (Williamstown Theater Festival). Film: Something Like Summer (original score). 3rd Prize at the Moscow Conservatory International Competition for Young Composers. Performances at Jazz@Lincoln Center, The Blue Note, The National Concert Hall and The Guinness Jazz Festival.

Riccardo Hernández, Scenic Design

La Jolla Playhouse: Indecent, Sleeping Beauty Wakes,The Miser, Beauty, Cloud Tectonics. Selected Broadway: Jagged Little Pill (Tony nom); Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, starring Audra McDonald and Michael Shannon; Indecent; The Gin Game (sets and costumes); The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, Caroline, or Change (also Royal National Theater London); TopDog/UnderDog; Elaine Stritch at Liberty (also West End’s Old Vic); Parade (Tony nom) directed by Hal Prince. Hernández has designed over 250 productions at most leading regional theaters across the US and internationally, including collaborations with George C. Wolfe, Diane Paulus, Arin Arbus, Mary Zimmerman, Daniel Sullivan, Robert Woodruff, Kathleen Marshall, others). Opera: Philip Glass' Appomatox (San Francisco Opera); Don Giovanni (Santa Fe Opera); Haroun (New York City Opera); Amistad (Lyric Opera of Chicago), among others. Also: Festival Automne Paris, La Colline-Theatre National Paris, Cour D'Honneur, Palais des Papes - Avignon Festival, Teatro Real de Madrid, MXAT (Moscow Art Theater), Theater an der Wien, Oslo National Theater, Youg Vic, Estates Theater Prague; etc. Awards: OBIE for Sustained Excellence of Scenic Design; Henry Hewes Design Award, Princess Grace Statue Award, others. Co-Chair and Associate Professor at Yale School of Drama.

Anita Yavich, Costume Design

Broadway: Fool for Love, Venus in Fur, Chinglish and Anna in the Tropics. New York credits include: The Life at Encores; Soft Power, Oedipus El Rey at the Public; The Mother at the Atlantic; The View Upstairs at the Lynn Redgrave Theatre; Nathan the Wise, Caucasian Chalk Circle, Orlando at CSC; Thom Pain, Big Love, Kung Fu, Golden Child and Iphigenia 2.0 at Signature; The Legend of Georgia McBride, Coraline the Musical and The Wooden Breeks at MCC. Opera: Cyrano De Bergerac at La Scala, the Met, and Royal Opera; Les Troyens at the Met. Awards: Ovation, Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, Obie.

Bradley King, Lighting Design

La Jolla Playhouse: An Iliad (assoc LD). On Broadway: Flying Over Sunset (Tony, Drama Desk noms), Hadestown (Tony, Drama Desk Awards), Great Comet… (Tony, Drama Desk Awards), Bernhardt/Hamlet. Recent Off-Broadway: Little Shop of Horrors (West Side Theater), Endlings (NYTW), Evita (Encores!), Alice By Heart (MCC), Apologia (Roundabout). Regional: shows for ART, Berkeley Rep, The Old Globe, The Guthrie, and many others. Upcoming: new musicals The Karate Kid (St. Louis Stages), Goddess (Berkeley Rep), Water For Elephants (Alliance). Proud USA 829 member. On the web at bradleykingld.com / @bradleykingld

Justin Stasiw, Sound Design

is an NYC-based sound designer and engineer. Broadway (as associate): Moulin Rouge!, Beetlejuice, Frozen, Something Rotten!, Side Show, It’s Only a Play. Off-Broadway: The View Upstairs, Songbird. Regional: A Christmas Story, Jasper in Deadland, How to Succeed… (5th Avenue Theatre); Paint Your Wagon (5th Avenue, Ordway); The Secret Garden (STC, 5th Avenue); Josephine, Beatsville (Asolo Rep). International: Sweeney Todd (Manila, Singapore), Jersey Boys (Manila), Ghost (Manila). Justin is a proud member of IATSE and of USA/829.

Peter Nigrini, Projection Design

is one of Broadway’s pioneering projection designers. His work includes MJ; Ain’t Too Proud; Beetlejuice; The SpongeBob Musical; Dear Evan Hansen; A Doll’s House, Part 2; An Act of God; and Fela!. In other venues, Here Lies Love and Grounded (Public Theater); Hans Zimmer Live; Lucia de Lammermoor and Don Giovani (Santa Fe Opera); The Grace Jones Hurricane Tour; Deep Blue Sea for Bill T. Jones/Park Avenue Armory; Real Enemies with Darcy James A.rgue and Secrete Society at BAM and on Broadway this fall, KPOP.

Tom Watson, Hair and Wig Design

Originally from N. Ireland, Tom headed the wig/makeup department at the Metropolitan Opera for 17 years. He has designed more than 80 Broadway productions, including Wicked, Rock of Ages, The King and I, Fiddler on the Roof, Oslo, Falsettos, The Little Foxes, Junk, My Fair Lady, King Kong, All My Sons, Great Society and Plaza Suite.

Peter Duchan, Script Consultant

La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Bookwriter of Dogfight (Second Stage), winner of the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical, nominated for five Outer Critics Circle Awards, including Outstanding Book. Produced in London, Tokyo, Seoul, Sydney, Amsterdam, etc. Script Consultant for the long-running Broadway musical Waitress. Other theater credits include writing books for the musicals The Illusionist (Nissay Theatre, Tokyo) and Stu for Silverton (Intiman), as well as co-creating (with Warren Carlyle) the revue Carefree: Dancing with Fred and Ginger. Film: co-wrote the screenplays for Breaking Upwards (feature, IFC Films) and Unlocked (short, Tribeca Film Festival). Graduated Northwestern University.

The Telsey Office, Casting

With offices in both New York and Los Angeles, The Telsey Office casts for theater, film, television, and commercials. The Telsey Office is dedicated to creating safe, equitable, and anti-racist spaces through collaboration, artistry, heart, accountability, and advocacy.

Cody Renard Richard, Production Stage Manager

La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Cody is thrilled to be back with team Lempicka! As a stage manager, Cody has worked on 14 Broadway shows, most recently serving as the PSM and Associate Director for Freestyle Love Supreme. Other favorites: Cirque du Soleil, Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Tony Awards, VMAs, and 4 Live! Musicals for NBC. Cody is a co-producer on the Broadway production of A Strange Loop and the National Tour of Moulin Rouge!. He’s also adjunct faculty at Columbia. He was named a 2020 OUT100 honoree and to the Kennedy Center Next 50 list. CRR Scholarship Founder. codyrenard.com @codyrenard.

Aaron Elgart, Assistant Stage Manager

La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Broadway: Paramour, Newsies, Shatner's World: We Just Live In It, Wit, Bonnie and Clyde, Wonderland, La Cage Aux Folles (2010). Off-Broadway: The New York Idea (Atlantic Theater Company); Himself and Nora (Minetta Lane Theatre). National Tours: Wicked, Once, The Addams Family, 9 to 5 The Musical. Regional: Cutman (Goodspeed Musicals). Graduate CU Boulder, The Julliard School, NYU SPS.

Emily Searles, Assistant Stage Manager

La Jolla Playhouse: Bhangin' It. Regional: On Your Feet (Moonlight Stage); Anything Goes, My Fair Lady (Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre). Other select credits: peerless, Prepared, Uncle Vanya, Letters from Cuba, Much Ado About Nothing, Balm in Gilead (UC San Diego); Brigadoon, Ubu Roi, How I Wonder, Salome (Muhlenberg College). M.F.A., UC San Diego, B.A., Muhlenberg College.

Williamstown Theatre Festival

Since 1955, Williamstown Theatre Festival has brought America’s finest actors, directors, designers, and playwrights to the Berkshires, engaging a loyal audience of both residents and summer visitors. Each WTF season is designed to present unique opportunities for artists and audience alike, revisiting classic plays with innovative productions, developing and nurturing bold new plays and musicals, and offering a rich array of accompanying cultural events including COMMUNITY WORKS, Late-Night Cabarets, readings, workshops, and educational programs. While best known for acclaimed productions, WTF is also home to one of the nation’s top training and professional development programs for new generations of aspiring theater artists and administrators. WTF was honored with the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre in 2002 and the Commonwealth Award for Achievement in 2011.