DON'T DRESS FOR DINNER - BIO'S

SAM FREED (Bernard) On Broadway: Hal Prince’s first revival of Candide and Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song Trilogy. Off Broadway: Brown at Ensemble Studio Theatre, Ron McLarty’s The Folsum Head at the Currican Theatre, Wilson at Primary Stages, B.A.F.O. at the American Place Theatre, Morocco at the WPA, and the Proposition. He appeared most recently in Address Unknown directed by Frank Dunlop at the George Street Playhouse. Other regional credits include Lovely Day at the Pittsburgh City Theatre, Wintertime at the Guthrie, Lady in the Dark at Philadelphia’s Prince Music Theatre, David Wiltse’s Temporary Help at the Westport Country Playhouse where he also performed A. R. Gurney’s Ancestral Voices with Fritz Weaver and Elizabeth Wilson. He has appeared with his wife, Barrie Youngellow, at the O’Neill Theatre Center and in the West Coast Premier of A. R. Gurney’s The Fourth Wall at the Pasadena Playhouse. At the Seattle Rep: Arthur Laurents’ My Good Name and John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation. Film credits include Jack the Bear, For the Boys, Call Me, Stephen King’s Thinner and the independent films Lobster Farm, 101 Ways, and Peoples. On television, he has been seen on Sex and the City, Law and Order, Law and Order: SVU and Criminal Intent, Monday Night Madness, Third Watch, amongst others, and was a regular on the NBC series Ferris Bueller and CBS series Kate and Allie.

DEE HOTY (Jacqueline) most recently starred on Broadway as Donna in Mamma Mia! Other Broadway: Footloose (Tony nomination), Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public (Tony nomination), Will Rogers Follies (Tony nomination), City of Angels (Outer Critics Circle Award nomination), Me and My Girl, Big Girl, The Five O’Clock Girl, Shakespeare’s Cabaret. National Tours: Will Rogers Follies (Joe Jefferson Award), Barnum with Stacy Keach. Off Broadway: The Audience, Personals, Vanities, Forbidden Broadway. Regional: Book of Days (St. Louis Rep, Hartford Stage), Lion in Winter (Cape Playhouse), Phyllis in Paper Mill’s Follies (released on CD), O’Neill Playwright’s Conference, Bay Street, Actor’s Theater of Louisville, Cleveland Playhouse, Goodspeed, Ford’s Theatre, Dodsworth with Hal Linden. Film/TV: Co-narrator of TBS’ “Untold West,” “Harry and Walter Go to New York,” “Models, Inc.,” “St. Elsewhere,” “Spenser: For Hire,” “The Equalizer;” Recurring roles on “Capital,” “Ryan’s Hope,” “Guiding Light,” “As the World Turns.” Cabaret: Russian Tea Room, Rainbow and Stars; the Boswell Sisters show “Rhythm on the Rainbow.” Video: “My Favorite Broadway: The Leading Ladies.” Earlier this summer, Dee starred as Desirée Armfeldt in A Little Night Music at Pittsburgh C.L.O. and as Mame in Mame at the St. Louis MUNY. A graduate of Otterbein College, Dee has been a member of Actors’ Equity Association since 1976.

MARK LEYDORF (George) Recent credits include Mamma Mia! in Las Vegas; A Christmas Carol and Arcadia at Portland Stage in Maine; Of Mice and Men at the Hangar Theatre in Ithaca, New York; Train Play with Clubbed Thumb, Mephisto with Reverie/Theatre of Necessity, and Life During Wartime with No Pants, all in New York City. Other favorite roles include Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh, Trofimov in The Cherry Orchard, the evil Tuan Ku in Der Orphano das Chao, and Orlando in As You Like It. Mark earned a B.A. in English from Yale and is finally putting it to use: His musical based on the film Citizen Ruth, written with the composer Michael Brennan, was recently workshopped at New York Theatre Workshop in Manhattan.

COLLEEN QUINLAN (Suzette) NY credits: Kyle Jarrow’s Armless, winner Best Overall Production Award 2004 at N.Y. International Fringe Festival. A Home Without... Lincoln Center Play Lab. Appeared with Roger Reese in Albert Inurrato’s Earh Worms, and with Richard Kind in The Eight Reindeer Monologues. Regional: Kimberly Akimbo, Hartford Theatre Works, The Rose Tattoo, and Betty’s Summer Vacation, both at The Huntington Theatre starring Andrea Martin and directed by Nicholas Martin. She has also workshopped plays at the Williamstown Theatre Festival.

LENISE SORÉN (Suzanne) is honored to be taking the stage at the legendary Cape Playhouse and thanks the cast and crew for this fabulous experience. Lenise was last seen onstage in NYC in the Off-Broadway show Pieces (of Ass) where she wrote and performed her unique spoken word/slam. Other favorite stage roles include: Amy in Tape, and several characters in the sketch comedy/music show Now That You’ve Seen Me Naked and Endangered Improv. Her most recent television credits include: playing Nikki Betts opposite James Caan and Josh Duhamel on NBC’s “Las Vegas,” playing opposite Vincent D’Onofrio on “Law and Order Criminal Intent,” and the principal actor in both a Coca Cola and a Verizon commercial. Lenise stars in the soon-to-be-released independent feature Life Happens where she had the opportunity to be a singer/songwriter for the film as well. She co-wrote, co-produced and was the lead voiceover artist for the animated television series “The Wonder Kids,” as well as starring in several feature films, including “Nightmare,” “The Class,” “Nikos,” and “Big Day.” Lenise is a founding member of The JC Film & Theater Company in NYC and is the creator and owner of Actingworks (www.ActingworksNY.com). Lenise thanks her incredible family and friends for never straying from their love, belief and support of her. Thanks to her agents at Stone Manners—Tim, Scott, Bobby, Holly, Glenn, Mark, Michael and Erin. And a special thanks to Carl for teaching her in so many divine ways and showing her how to continually live with integrity as an artist.

KEVIN SPIRTAS (Robert) In September 2003, selected over hundreds of actors, Kevin made a huge ripple in the Broadway community when he was cast to be Hugh Jackman’s stand-by in the smash hit musical, The Boy from Oz. Before that, for seven years, Spirtas played the dashing and frollicking Dr. Craig Wesley on NBC’s “Days of Our Lives.” In 1999, Soap Opera Digest nominated Spirtas for Best Villain, and TV Guide (12/25/99) touted him for a Best Supporting Actor Emmy, not only achieving critical acclaim for his acting but also became a huge fan favorite in the process. In February 2000, Spirtas had the delightful opportunity to play his “Days” role of Dr. Craig Wesley opposite Matt LeBlanc’s Dr. Drake Ramoray on NBC’s “Friends.” No stranger to the world of soap opera, before joining the cast of “Days,” Spirtas starred as Hollywood agent Tim Burke in the syndicated mini-soap opera “Valley of the Dolls,” based on the novel by Jacqueline Susann, and as Tom Gallagher in the late night series “Rituals.” Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, at age 16, Spirtas began honing his singing and dancing skills while working at Six Flags Over Mid-America theme park. There, a year later, he won the Stairway to Stardom and made his television debut on “The Dinah Shore Show.” At age 18, after attending only one semester of college at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, Spirtas headed to New York City and landed his first professional job on Broadway, the role of Mike (“I Can Do That”) Costa in A Chorus Line. Spirtas also appeared on Broadway in the role of Warren Sheffield in Meet Me in St. Louis. Other stage credits include: Chess (Anatoly), Company (Robert), Damn Yankees (Joe Hardy), No. 9 Rue D’Antin...The Legend of Camille (Baron de Varville), 3 Guys Naked from the Waist Down (Phil Kunin), Into the Woods (Rapunzel’s Prince), Bye Bye Birdie (Conrad Birdie), Little Me (George Musgrove), Gypsy (Tulsa), To Sir with Love (Denim). Spirtas has starred in the films, “Embrace the Darkness,” “Striking Resemblance,” and “Green Plaid Shirt.” Spirtas has been featured opposite Sir Ian McKellen and Brad Renfro in Bryan Singer’s “Apt Pupil,” Ben Affleck in Mark Steven Johnson’s director’s cut of “Daredevil,” and Olympia Dukakis in the movie made for television, “A Match Made in Heaven.” Spirtas can also be seen in those fantastic cult classic slasher sequels: “Friday the 13th VII,” “Subspecies II,” “Subspecies III,” and Wes Craven’s “The Hills Have Eyes II.” Recently, Spirtas was a guest on Jim Brickman’s second PBS special, “Love Songs & Lullabies,” and can also be seen touring the country and seven seas performing his hit musical concert: “Night & Days.”

JAMES BRENNAN (Director) In the last few months, Jim has created productions of Call Me Madam at the Goodspeed Opera House, On Your Toes and Noises Off at the Cape Playhouse on Cape Cod, and She Loves Me at the Paper Mill Playhouse. He has also directed the Paper Mill’s productions of Noises Off, Sound of Music, and Crazy For You (which was televised on PBS) as well as a Where’s Charley? in Wichita, 42nd Street and Hello Dolly! in Sacramento, C4Us in Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Westchester, and Wichita, and She Loves Me in Philadelphia and Maine, as well as the Broadway concert revivals of Cole Porter’s Jubilee and Jerome Kern’s Sally. He has, over the years, in various Stock and Dinner Theatres, directed and choreographed productions of Chicago, Cabaret, The Merry Widow, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Bells Are Ringing, George M, The Apple Tree, Kiss Me Kate, and High Button Shoes. As an actor, he appeared on Broadway in Good News, Rodgers and Hart, So Long 174th Street, I Love My Wife, Little Me, 42nd Street, Singin’ in the Rain, Me and My Girl, Crazy For You, and Camelot. He has performed Noel Coward’s Private Lives at the Alley Theatre in Houston; My Fair Lady in Philadelphia, Sacramento, Wichita, and Winnipeg; Camelot in San Diego, Sacramento Philadelphia, and the Paper Mill Playhouse; 1776 in Sacramento, Rochester, Philadelphia (receiving a Barrymore Award for his John Adams) and a Devil in Damn Yankees in Sacramento. When he’s been directing for a stretch of time, he misses acting...and vice versa.

RICHARD CHAMBERS (Set Designer) has designed scenery throughout the Northeast for companies such as The Pittsburgh Public Theatre, StageWest, North Shore Music Theatre, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, The American Stage Festival and Shakespeare and Company, as well as the Buffalo Philharmonic, The Portland Symphony and the Virginia Symphony. He has designed premiers by -playwrights such as Derek Walcott, Russ Lees and Kate Snodgrass. Last fall, he designed the New York premier of Ronan Noone’s The Lepers of Baile Baiste and will design the Off-Broadway premier of Mr. Noone’s The Blowin’ of Baile Gall in September. This is his eleventh season designing for the Cape Playhouse.  Richard holds an MFA from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts where he studied with Oliver Smith and John Conklin. For many years he worked with Herbert Senn and Helen Pond on a variety of projects. He is the recipient of two Elliot Norton Awards and three Independent Reviewers of New England Awards, is a member of United Scenic Artists local 829, has been a professor of scene design at New York University, Ithaca College and Boston University and currently teaches at Suffolk University.

GAIL BALDONI (Costume Designer) Credits include last summer’s Noises Off at The Cape Playhouse. Also, Wonderful Town at New York City Opera, Off-Broadway: A Majority of One, Cinderella (also recently designed North Shore’s Cinderella), Home of the Brave, Jolson & Co., I Can Get It For You Wholesale, Milk and Honey, Rags, Shabbatai, The Subject was Roses, and The Yiddish Trojan Woman.  Regional theatres include Paper Mill Playhouse, Westchester Broadway Theatre, The Boston Ballet and Goodspeed.  Enjoying draping and sewing, Gail made Cher’s mermaid costume for the film Mermaids, has worked for Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus and is an Emmy-nominated designer for NBC’s Another World.

JESSE LOWENSTEIN (Lighting Designer) Off Broadway: Streptococci: A Love Story, Heavenly Bliss & Lady in a Box (Cherry Lane Theater). Off-off Broadway: I Vermin, The Hollywood Success Story (NYC Fringe ’03); Runaways (Developing Artists, Center Stage NY). Regional: Sweet Charity, Children of Eden, Grease, Mother Posture, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (John Harms Center for the Arts). Other projects include Electronic Ensembles, Turntables as Ensemble Instruments, A Celebration of the Theremin, Nyabinghi Spirit, Mizik Racine and Trade Winds of Trinidad (Lincoln Center Summer Festival 2000). Repertory Lighting Designer for Armenian dance group, Sayat Nova Dance Company of Boston (North American Tour). Education: Carnegie Mellon School of Drama ’04.