Cast
Daniel Passer (Performer and co-devisor) creates work as a performer, writer and director. For over a decade, Daniel has been a Clown and Comedy Conceptor for Cirque du Soleil and Dragone Entertainment. Credits include plays on Broadway and across the globe at venues such as Radio City Music Hall, The Beacon Theater, The Goodman, The American Repertory Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Madrid Stadium, Moscow Art Theatre and The Kremlin. He is a founding member of the international clown companies Your New Best Friends, Gods of Sex and The Rotten Plantains. This Spring, Daniel will perform with David Shiner in Juliette Dunn’s “The Puzzle” at The Hedgerow in Philadelphia. Daniel is currently the Associate Director of Performance and faculty of the Theater School at CalArts and has taught Commedia/Clown/Improvisation at Moscow Art Theatre, Cirque du Soleil, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Brown, Harvard, Cornell and Trinity College.
Will DeVary (the Mover) is thrilled to be returning to The Cherry, where he previously appeared in The Fan! Regional Theatre: A Christmas Story, A Christmas Carol (Actors Theatre of Louisville), Henry V, King Lear, As You Like It, Henry IV Parts 1 & 2, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Macbeth (Kentucky Shakespeare Festival), Antony and Cleopatra and Julius Caesar (Ithaca Shakespeare Company). Film: Men Go to Battle. Will is a proud alumnus of Chautauqua Theatre Company’s 2021 Summer Program and Ithaca College’s 2022 BFA Acting Class. He would especially like to thank Beth and Daniel for this opportunity, and Lou, for everything!
Anya Gibian (the Musician) is an actor-musician and songwriter based in Ithaca. Selected acting credits include: National Tours Roundabout’s Cabaret, and Once; Off Broadway: The Pirate La Dee Da, The Velveteen Rabbit (Atlantic Theater Company); The Mysteries (The Flea), Solina (New York Fringe Festival); Regional: Once (ZACH Theatre). Anya voices multiple characters on the audio drama fantasy podcast The Once and Future Nerd, for which she also contributes songs. B.S. Cornell University, where she studied theater performance, clown, commedia dell’arte, devising, absurdism, (with Beth Milles and more), and Industrial and Labor Relations. www.anyagibian.com
Production
Cristian Amigo (sound design) is a Latinx composer, sound artist/designer, guitarist, producer. Amigo is sound faculty at CalArts in the Department of Experience Design and Production in the School of Theater. Amigo’s awards include a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (music composition), and a Senior Fulbright Scholar/Artist Fellowship (Bolivia). He earned a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from UCLA and studied with masters from various performance traditions. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Oxford Press) contains an entry on his work. Amigo is currently an artist-in-residence at INTAR Latino Theater in New York City.
Amy Cohen (flight consultant) is a circus instigator, educator, director, and producer based in Ithaca, NY. She holds a B.S. in arts management from Ithaca College, an MA in “circus as a tool for social change, education, and creative expression” from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, and was a Fulbright Scholar to the UK researching contemporary circus in London, UK. Amy is the proud founder of Circus Culture as well as the Hupstate Circus Festival and Artist Residency.
Ashley Crespo (lighting design) is an Ithaca College student from Long Island, New York. She studies Lighting Design and Lighting Technology. She is thrilled to be working with this team and at the Cherry. Ashley has worked as the Lead Electrician at the Kitchen Theatre and has Lighting designed for IC on Broadway and Assistant Lighting designed for RENT at Ithaca College.
Quin Frederich (stage manager) is a freelance Stage Manager currently based in Ithaca, NY. Their recent work includes Something Blue (Stage Manager, Walking on Water Productions), Into The Woods (Sub Props Production Assistant, Ithaca College), Fun Home (Props Associate Stage Manager, Ithaca College), Mob Moll (Stage Manager, Ithaca College New Play Incubator), and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Assistant Stage Manager, La Cañada Playhouse). Quin is currently pursuing their BFA in Stage Management at Ithaca College with a minor in Audio Production.
Mia Jumbo (props) has been in and out of the business of theatre since 2009 when she graduated from the University of New Mexico with a degree in Design for Performance. She has worn many hats inside and outside the theatre world but these days she is enjoying her time as an ATD/ Props Master at Binghamton University. This is her first show taking on Production Management role and is psyched to be able support this creative work. Some of the most enjoyable and notable shows she has worked on thus far are Wicked: MunchkinTour (Rodey Theatre, UNM), Kinky Boots (Hangar Theatre), Sweeney Todd (Hangar Theatre), She Kills Monsters (Binghamton University), Little Women (Hangar Theatre), I Carry Your Heart (Hangar Theatre), Into the Woods (Hangar Theatre) and Other Desert Cities ( The Old Globe).
She enjoys spending time with her family; doggo Tora, kitties Rango, Ang and Pee Wee and humans Joshua, Frey and Crow. She also uses her spare time to read, garden, make soap and play Mario video games.
Joshua Letton (rigger) is a body suspension artist, carpenter, rigger, father, and farmer currently residing in Brooktondale NY
Greg Levins (associate live-stream design) graduated NYU with an emphasis in film directing, screenplay writing and video editing. Greg worked for a handful of casting houses in NYC, auditioning actors in countless commercials, industrials, music videos and films. He’s directed two indie features, wrote a handful of screenplays and dabbled in music video and commercial production. Since moving to Ithaca, he’s made a number of promotional videos for Ecovillage and is currently filming/archiving a weekly Gayogohó:nǫ’ language class taught by one of the few remaining native speakers. He’s thrilled to be a part of Heading Into Night, helping to expand the audience to include viewers at home with a live stream feed.
Beth F. Milles (director and co-devisor) is an award-winning director and adaptor. Recent directing work includes And if I don’t behave then what (Open Fist in Los Angeles, CA ), Time Bomb by Carson Kreitzer (Kitchen Theatre), Felt Sad, Posted a Frog (The Cherry Arts) and multiple visual/aural collaborations with the Playwright/Poet/librettist Ruth Margraff. Other recent work includes Fast Blood with Civic Ensemble and the world premiere of Iva Brdar’s Rule of Thumb at The Cherry Arts. Beth has directed at many well-known theatres, including Trinity Rep (Dead Man’s Cell Phone/Importance of Being Earnest), The Magic Theatre (Another Golden Rome), Long Wharf Theatre (Serial Blackface),The Actors’ Gang (Imaginary Invalid, Private Battle, Self Defense, Carnage), Civic Ensemble (In the Parlour), on Broadway (And God Said “Ha”), Playwrights Horizons, The Sundance Theatre Institute, American Repertory Theatre, Young Playwrights, Inc., New York Stage and Film, The Mark Taper Forum, New York Shakespeare Festival, ASK Theater Projects, and South Coast Repertory Theater and now is simply thrilled to be working with Daniel Passer, her longtime friend and collaborator, to generate and create this work at the Cherry Arts. She is a member of the Acting/Directing faculty in the Department of Performing and Media Arts at Cornell University.
Tim Ostrander (Props) is a prop designer & builder, and a teacher at Cornell’s Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts. He has designed & built props for Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, HBO & PBS among many others.
Sarah Plotkin (assistant director) is a freelance director, educator and cultural worker. She has worked in Boston and NYC and just returned to her hometown of Ithaca after more than a decade away. Sarah is the Founding Artistic Director of Electric Eye Ensemble, a collaborative theater company exploring American myths and stories through a revisionist, feminist lens. She holds an MA in Theater Education and Applied Theatre from Emerson College, and a BA in Directing from Sarah Lawrence College. Associate Member, SDC. sarahplotkin.com
Karen Rodriguez (live-stream design) is an Ithaca-based filmmaker and cinematographer. She is the owner of Wind-Up Pictures and the director of photography of the documentary Elizabeth Bishop and the Art of Losing. She has designed the live-stream at The Cherry since 2021 including And What Happens If I Don’t by Iva Brda, The Wetsuitman by Freek Mariën and Aqueron with the Xipe Theatre Collective.
Jennifer Schilansky (stage manager) is delighted to be working with The Cherry Arts on such a poignant piece. Based in Groton, NY, Jen spends most of her time working in Ithaca, NY and spending time with her 1 year old daughter Maya. Previous Cherry productions include Production Stage Manager for the English World Premieres of A Day, Hotel Good Luck, The Fan, and Felt Sad, Posted a Frog. Institutional work includes Production Stage Manager for SUNY Cortland’s Seussical, being a Stage Management mentor for SUNY Binghamton’s Into the Woods and Jazz Nutcracker, Ithaca College’s production of Sweat. From 2012 – 2022 Jen was the resident stage manager for the Kitchen Theatre in Ithaca for over 55 main stage productions. KTC favorites include: The Royale, Ironbound, Peter and the Starcatcher, The Mountaintop, Paloma, The Whipping Man, and Brian Dykstra Selling Out. She is currently working once again at the Kitchen Theatre for No Child which opens on March 28th. She has also served as the Production Stage Manager for the Hangar Theatre’s Pride and Prejudice, Dégagé, and A Doll’s House Part 2. Prior to moving to Ithaca, she spent five years as the resident stage manager for Stageworks Theater in Hudson, as well as Stage Managing for Half Moon Theater in Poughkeepsie and Bard College. Jen has been an Equity member since 2007 and is a graduate of Lycoming College in Williamsport, PA.
Márion Talán de la Rosa (costume design), born in Mexico City, Mexico, has nurtured her work by collaborating with artists and innovators of music, dance, drama and opera for over the last two decades. Her work has been nominated for The Lucille Lortel Awards and profiled in multiple media outlets including The New York Times, Broadway World, Broadway Blog, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Broad Street Review. mariontalandelarosa.com