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BY ANY OTHER NAME

BY ANY OTHER NAME

Book & Lyrics by Deborah Zoe Laufer
Music & Additional Lyrics by Daniel Green
Directed by Lisa Rothe
Music Directed by Patrick Sulken

 
Developmental Reading:
May 9 – 22, 2022
ABOUT THE SHOW

Nine of Shakespeare’s young lovers find themselves magically transported to the same forest, where together they grapple with love, loss, identity, and the constraints of gender roles.

THE WRITERS

Deborah Zoe Laufer’s plays have been produced at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Cleveland Playhouse, Geva, The Humana Festival, Everyman, Primary Stages, Ensemble Studio Theatre, and hundreds of other theaters around the world. Plays include Be Here Now, End Days, Rooted, Informed Consent (NYTimes critic’s pick), Leveling Up, Out of Sterno, The Last Schwartz, Sirens, Meta, The Three Sisters of Weehawken, Fortune, dozens of short plays, and the musicals, Window Treatment and By Any Other Name. Deb is a recipient of the Helen Merrill Playwriting Award, the Lilly Award, The ATCA Steinberg citation, and grants and commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, The Edgerton Foundation, The National New Play Network, and the Lincoln Center Foundation. Her work has been developed by The Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference, Theatre Lab, PlayPenn, The Cherry Lane Alternative, The Missoula Colony, LOCAL Theatre, Asolo Rep, The Baltic Playwrights Conference, and more. Her plays are published or recorded by Concord/Samuel French, Smith and Kraus, Playscripts, LA Theatreworks, and Premieres. She is a graduate of Juilliard, an alumna of the BMI Lehman Engel Advanced Musical Theatre Workshop, a member of Honor Roll, and a Dramatists Guild Council member. 

Daniel Green is a composer, lyricist, and music director. He was recently the associate music director of Almost Famous at the Old Globe. Previously he was the associate conductor of In Transit and Rocky on Broadway and has also played or conducted on Broadway for An American In Paris, Big Fish, Matilda, Peter and the Starcatcher, The Addams Family, and Wicked. Other credits include Ever After (Associate MD, Alliance Theatre), The Wild Party (Associate MD, Encores!), Theory of Relativity (Music Director, Goodspeed), and the upcoming NYC premiere of Between the Lines (Music Director, Second Stage). As a writer, Daniel won the Holof Lyricist Award with David H. Bell for The Museum of Broken Relationships, which was developed at the Eugene O’Neill National Music Theatre Conference and later presented at the Aspen Theatre Festival. His solo musical Window Treatment, written with Deborah Zoe Laufer, was produced at the TBG Theatre Off-Broadway, and his show The Remarkable Journey to Tianguo, written with Lezlie Wade, has been featured in in festivals around North America, including the NAMT Songwriter’s Showcase and the ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop with Stephen Schwartz. Other writing honors include a NAMT grant from the National Fund for New Musicals; a retreat at Running Deer Musical Theatre Lab; a Weston Playhouse New Musical Award nomination, and inclusion in NEO at the York Theatre. Other composing credits include Fanny Brice (Asolo Rep Theatre); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Northwestern University); and Twelfth Night (Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival). Daniel is a graduate of Northwestern University and the BMI Musical Theatre Advanced Workshop.

THE TEAM

Lisa Rothe (Director) is a freelance theater director, coach, and educator. She was nominated for SDC’s Joe A. Callaway Award for Direction for Hold These Truths by Jeanne Sakata, starring Joel De La Fuente, which has toured the country and won Theatre Bay Area Awards for Outstanding Direction, Performer and Production. Recent directing work includes: Belly of the Beast by Margaret Vandenburg (presented by TodayTix, 3AD & New York Theatre Workshop); Steel Magnolias (The Guthrie Theatre); Fun Home and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Kansas City Repertory Theater); Amber Waves (Indiana Repertory Theatre); Pericles (adaptation by Ellen McLaughlin) for Next Chapter Podcasts; world premiere of The Names We Gave Him by Ellen McLaughlin and Peter Foley (Montclair State University). Lisa has worked at Irish Repertory Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse, Theatreworks Silicon Valley (nominated for 8 Bay Area Critics Circle Awards), Two River Theater, People’s Light and Playmakers Repertory Theatre, among others. Future: Another Revolution (Gulf Shore Playhouse); Indecent (Chautauqua Theatre). Previously, Lisa was the Director of New Works at Kansas City Repertory Theatre, co-Artistic Director of The Actor’s Center in NYC, co-President of the League of Professional Theatre Women, and is currently a Usual Suspect with New York Theatre Workshop, member of the National Theater Conference, an Artistic Affiliate and former Audrey Fellow with New Georges, Drama League and Fox Fellow alum. She was also the Director of Global Exchange at The Lark for over five years, providing expanded opportunities for playwrights, aimed at advancing new work to production, both nationally and globally. 

Patrick Sulken (Music Director) is a music director, orchestrator, and composer for theatre, film, and television based in New York City. He was the youngest music director on Broadway during his time at Pretty Woman: The Musical, and was the music supervisor and arranger of We Are The Tigers Off-Broadway, producing the viral sensation Original Off-Broadway Cast Album. As a conductor, his credits include Kinky Boots on Broadway, Little Shop of Horrors Off-Broadway, Fly at La Jolla Playhouse, and the first national tour of Peter and the Starcatcher. As a pianist, he has accompanied the casts of Mean Girls, Anastasia, Something Rotten!, and Gigi on Broadway, and has been heard on the stages of Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Kennedy Center as well as NBC’s Today and TBS’s Full Frontal with Samantha Bee. Patrick is a mentor and orchestrator for the National Endowment for the Arts’ annual High School Songwriting Challenge and a music director and songwriter for Story Pirates, an award-winning media company dedicated to fostering and celebrating the imaginations of kids. He is a proud graduate of Northwestern University and the Berklee College of Music.

THE CAST

Grace Petersen as ROSALIND
Rachel Guth as CELIA
Nicole Streger as VIOLA/CESARIO
Maddie Mazzella as JULIET
Zoe Maroko as OPHELIA
Emily Ann Brooks as HELENA
Alex Good as HERMIA
Clay Lawhead as LYSANDER
Eddie Wang as DEMETRIUS
Martina Cavard as MINERVA
Arwen-Vira Marsh as AGNUS
Sophie Morvillo as MYRTLE
Rachel Weintraub as SWING/UNDERSTUDY

Sophia Danielle-Grenier, STAGE MANAGER
Shraman Ghosh, MUSIC ASSISTANT