George Kaplan Artist Bios

Elizabeth Mozer (B) Cherry company member; Cherry Arts début. Elizabeth most recently wrote and directed Castle On The Hill, a play based on her one-woman show, The Asylum Project. She is an Associate Professor of Theatre at Binghamton University where she has directed Dancing At Lughnasa, A Chorus Line, and Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone. Elizabeth was in the original Broadway casts of Teddy & Alice, Dangerous Games and Victor/Victoria. Additional performance credits include Tamara (The Park Avenue Armory), Up Against It (The Public), Foirades/Fizzles (La MaMa), and Doubt, Ashes to Ashes and Afterplay (The Garage). Elizabeth is the Founding Artistic Director of the company Theatre in the Flesh.

Dean Robinson (D) Cherry company member. Previous Cherry: White Rabbit Red Rabbit, Winter Animals, Storm Country, The Missing Chapter. Around Ithaca, he has performed in dozens of plays with The Cider Mill, Kitchen, Hangar, Civic Ensemble, and others. He has been involved with Cornell Interactive Theatre Ensemble, the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts, and the Hangar’s education programs. Currently an assistant professor in the Ithaca College Theatre Arts program, Dean has also taught acting at Cornell and Binghamton Universities. Nationally, Dean has been seen on the stages at American Conservatory Theatre and Eureka Stage (SF), The Ahmanson Theatre and LATC in Los Angeles, Trinity Repertory Company, American Southwest Theatre, and Joseph Papp’s Public Theatre. He is a founding member of LA’s acclaimed Actors’ Gang.

Joshua Sedelmeyer (A) Cherry company member. Previous Cherry: The Snow Queen (2016). In the Ithaca area, Joshua has also performed with Civic Ensemble (GK in Fast Blood), Hangar (Fred in A Christmas Carol), and Ithaca Shakespeare Company (Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet). Other favorite regional credits include: True West (Austin), The 39 Steps (Clown), The Pillowman (Michal), The Drowsy Chaperone (Man in Chair), Peter and the Starcatcher (Mrs.
Bumbrake), and Visiting Mr. Green (Ross). Thank you to my Rose for being an incredible partner, loving and patient. Actor, Director, Fight Director, Teacher, Bartender. Ithaca College, BFA Acting.

Erica Steinhagen (E) Cherry company member. Previous Cherry: White Rabbit Red Rabbit, The Snow Queen (2016 & 2017), What Happens Next. Kitchen: Margery in Hand to God; Melissa in The Drunken City (world premiere); Precious Nonsense; Bed No Breakfast; Tony and the Soprano; Dario Fo’s We Won’t Pay!; Nora; Bed and Sofa; The Servant of Two Masters. Hangar: Dana in Ever So Humble (world premiere); The Sound of Music; Cats; Beauty and the Beast; My Fair Lady; Erica’s one-woman cabaret Imagine My Surprise. Additionally, Stage Kiss (Cider Mill); The Best of Kathy and Mo, Wider than the Sky, and Antigone (Civic Ensemble); The Drowsy Chaperone (Human Race Theatre Co.); The Unfortunates, a one- woman play by Cherry artist Aoise Stratford. Proud member, AEA. For her Family. You all know who you are.

Jacob Garrett White (C) Cherry company member. Previous Cherry: White Rabbit Red Rabbit, Rule of Thumb. NYC: The Barrow Group’s Pentecost, Lobby Hero, and The Faithful, TFNA’s Julius Caesar, NYSF’s Cymbeline, Regional Theatre: The Old Globe & Goodman Theater’s Floyd Collins, NJ Rep’s Panama, Color of Flesh, and Emil, Axial Theater’s Lost in Paradise, Ensemble Theater of Cincinnati’s Keeping the Faith. Tours: The King and I, Babes in Toyland. Ithaca Theatre: Civic Ensemble: Fast Blood; Homecoming Players; IC’s On the Verge, Ithaca Fringe. Thank you Jenny and Audie!

Frédéric Sonntag (playwright) is a playwright and director based in Paris. He has written a dozen plays for which he has been awarded grants from the Centre National du Livre and l’Association Beaumarchais-SACD, as well as production grants from the Centre National du Théâtre. He has staged his works at numerous theatres and festivals throughout France. His works experiment with diverse narrative forms, focusing on such subjects as the relationship
between reality and fiction, the building and dissolving of identities and contemporary fears. Several of his plays have been published in the Tapuscrit-Théâtre Ouvert collection, by Avant-Scène Théâtre and Editions Théâtrales. Since 2009, Frédéric Sonntag has participated in several international events devoted to contemporary playwriting. His plays have been translated into English, German, Spanish (Chile, Argentina), Bulgarian, Catalan, Portuguese, Czech, Finnish, Greek, Serbian, Slovenian, Danish, Italian and Russian, and have been performed in many countries.

Samuel Buggeln (director & translator) is the Artistic Director of The Cherry Arts, where over the last few years he has produced, directed, translated, and/or commissioned a number of full productions from Ithaca and international writers. Pre-Cherry Arts, Sam directed over 20 productions at regional theatres; in NYC he has developed new work extensively at the Lark and other venues and is an Artistic Associate at the New Ohio Theatre. Among numerous works directed there are the Drama Desk-nominated Cressida Among the Greeks and Hater, his unconventional translation of Le Misanthrope, which has since been published and produced twice more. His co-translations of Santiago Loza’s plays are slated to be published in two collections in 2019.

Katie Browe (stage manager, sound) is a burgeoning artist in the realms of theatre and film and a senior at Ithaca College. This is Katie’s first play with The Cherry and the first time back to stage management in four years. In the meanwhile, she’s designed sound for Civic Ensemble’s Climates of Change and Living With Water, performed in Good Boys and True (Maddy), and worked on countless student films as sound designer, sound mixer, actor, and
assistant director. Katie is over-the-moon that George Kaplan got to be her stage management return.

Mike Cook (projections) is a videographer, editor, graphic designer, and artist from Ithaca, NY. He attended college at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, and after graduating worked at Dress Code NY Inc as their senior video editor (as well as designer, stop-motion animator,
prop builder, and head of studio construction). He has produced commercial content for The New York Times, Delta Airlines, IBM, Chase Bank, and Syracuse University, as well as over 40 short documentary pieces on well-known designers and artists ranging from Wayne White (Pee Wee’s Playhouse) to Emory Douglas (The Black Panthers’ Minster of Culture). His work has been recognized by 7 Vimeo Staff Picks as well as awards from The Webbys, The OneScreen Festival, and most recently the Tribeca Film Festival. In 2018, after deciding that 10 years in NYC was more than enough, he and his wife moved back to Ithaca.

E. D. Intemann (lights) Cherry company member. Previous Cherry: The Snow Queen (2016 & 2017), What Happens Next, Loza Plays. E.D. has lighting credits off-Broadway at 59E59, Dancespace at St. Marks, and La MaMa in New York City, the Eastman School in Rochester, NY, and the Sanctuary Theatre in Washington, DC. In North Carolina he has designed scenery and/or lighting for numerous shows as a member of the Burning Coal Theatre Company as well as lighting designs at Charlotte Repertory Theatre and Flat Rock Playhouse. Internationally he has designed for Garajistanbul in Istanbul and the Confrontations Theatre Festival in Lublin, Poland. As Resident Lighting Designer and Senior Lecturer at Cornell University he has designed lighting and/or scenery for over 70 shows.

Liz Woods (costumes) With a background in engineering, costume design, fine art, and rapid prototyping, Liz uses every material and technique possible to help create a wearable story. She has been involved in theatrical productions since 2012 for the Savoyards of Ithaca, Running to Places Theatre Company, Boynton Middle School, Ithaca High School, the Cherry Artspace, and the Ithaca Shakespeare Company. In her parallel world, Liz works as a UI/UX designer for arXiv at Cornell University and spends as much time as possible with her two children.

Daniel Zimmerman (environment) Cherry company member. Previous Cherry: Loza Plays. Select Off-Broadway: Fashions for Men (Drama Desk nomination; The Mint); After the Blast and Kill Floor (Lincoln Center); Friend Art (Second Stage); Suicide, Incorporated (Roundabout); You Got Older (Page 73 Productions); Be a Good Little Widow (Ars Nova); Other NYC: The Play Company, Clubbed Thumb, Cherry Lane, Colt Coeur, Lesser America, The Pearl. Regional: Arena Stage, Dallas Theatre Center, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Humana Festival of New American Plays, NYS&F, Cincinnati Playhouse, Center Stage, Playmakers Rep, Trinity Repertory Company, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Theatreworks Palo Alto, Portland Stage Company, People’s Light, Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference. Daniel teaches set design at Ithaca College.

Sasha Oliveau (costumes assistant) is a fibers artist and designer from rural Northern Virginia. She learned to sew from her grandmother at 6 years old, and began teaching others as a young adult. Having graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2018 with a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Fibers, she plans to continue her education in expressive art therapy. She works with slow, meditative processes to make one of a kind, abstract expressionistic objects and textiles that create therapeutic environments.

Elliot Vitaz (assistant director) is a senior Theatre Studies major at Ithaca College. Previous Cherry: assistant director, What Happens Next. Other Ithaca credits include dramaturg for Dégagé (Hangar), assistant director for Sense and Sensibility (Ithaca College), and assistant stage manager for Don Giovanni (Opera Ithaca).

Jennifer Herzog (Associate Artistic Director) was seen at the Cherry last fall in What Happens Next by Saviana Stanescu. Off-Broadway credits include: Folksbiene National Yiddish Theatre (Yentl), Jean Cocteau Repertory (The Merchant of Venice, The Cradle Will Rock, The Misanthrope), Abingdon Theatre Co., Jewish Rep, Prospect Theatre Co., Theater for the New City, and many others. In Ithaca, Kitchen Theatre mainstage credits include Circle Mirror Transformation. Last spring, she worked with Paula Vogel on a staged reading of Indecent at Cornell University. Jennifer teaches acting in the Department of Theatre Arts at Ithaca College.