ANDRÉ DE SHIELDS (Louis, co-author) made his debut performance at the Cape Playhouse in the 1982 production of Ain’t Misbehavin’. He returned during the 2004 season as Henry Drummond, playing opposite Alan Rachins (Matthew Harrison Brady) in Inherit The Wind. Other critically acclaimed dramatic roles include Makak in Derek Walcott’s Dream On Monkey Mountain and the title role in Caligula, both at the Classical Theatre of Harlem, Willy Loman in Death Of A Salesman, Sheridan Whiteside in The Man Who Came To Dinner, Vladimir in Waiting For Godot, and Graham, the Gorilla, in Mark Medoff’s Prymate. He is best known for his show stopping performances in four legendary Broadway musicals: The Wiz (title role), Ain’t Misbehavin’ (Drama Desk nomination), Play On! (Tony nomination) and The Full Monty (Tony nomination). He received an Emmy Award for the recreation of his role, as the Viper in the NBC prime time broadcast of Ain’t Misbehavin’. Educated at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (BA) and New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study (MA), he holds two Doctorates of Fine Arts honoris causa, the first from his alma mater, UWM, and the second from the State University of New York-College at Buffalo. He is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association since 1969, and is currently serving a five-year term as Principal Councilor on Equity’s Eastern Regional Board. The ninth of eleven children born and reared in Baltimore, Maryland, André is a triple Capricorn. Namasté!
HARRIETT D. FOY (The four wives) Broadway: Mamma Mia and Once on This Island. Off-Broadway: Lone Star Love (Lucille Lortel Nom. Best Musical, cast recording), Crowns (Audelco Award—Outstanding Ensemble Performance), Dinah Was, and Reunion (cast recording). National Tours: The Piano Lesson, The Good Times Are Killing Me and From the Mississippi Delta. Regional credits: Polk County (Arena Stage—Helen Hayes Nom. Outstanding Lead Actress), Reunion (Ford’s Theatre—Helen Hayes Nom. Outstanding Supporting Performer), Seven Guitars (Pittsburgh Public, Baltimore Center Stage, EW Award Outstanding Lead Performer); Ambassador Satch starring André De Shields (Helen Hayes, Prince Theater); Crowns (Sundance, McCarter); A Christmas Carol (McCarter); Thunder Knocking on the Door (Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Center Stage); Jimmy Buffet’s Don’t Stop the Carnival (Paradise Island); Holiday Heart (Seattle Rep); Spunk, HMS Pinafore, Day of Absence (Center Stage). Television credits include “Law & Order SVU,” “One Life to Live,” and “As the World Turns.” She earned a BFA from Howard University. “With God All Things are Possible!”
STANTON DAVIS (Trumpet) has received a fellowship from the NEA for Jazz Composition as well as a Creative Arts fellowship from the Massachusetts Foundation for the Arts and Humanities. A previous “Who’s Who in Entertainment” winner, Stanton has appeared in Broadway hits as Harlem Song at the Apollo Theatre, Jelly’s Last Jam, Black & Blue, Ain’t Misbehavin’ and Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk, as well as being a featured musician in the Jazz Is, Jazz Ain’t International Series at the American Museum of Natural History. Stanton has toured with the Mercer Ellington Orchestra, Lionel Hampton, Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy, David Sanborn, Jim Pepper...and the list goes on. Currently, Stanton is the Contact Administrator for the American Federation of Musicians.
TERRY WALDO (Musical Director), the protégé of the late Eubie Blake, is a virtuoso ragtime, stride, and blues pianist. He is also a vocalist, an arranger, a comedian—famous for his dry wit—and leader of many highly regarded musical groups. He is a composer not only of rags and show tunes, but of movie scores as well. In addition, he is a scholar and an historian. His “This Is Ragtime” is the definitive book on the subject, and his 26-part series, with the same title, for National Public Radio fueled the 1970’s ragtime revival. In addition to his work with Ambassador Satch, Terry has performed in numerous theatrical projects including his two one-man shows, The Naked Dance: The Music of Storyville and Eubie & Me, now being booked by Columbia Artists. Waldo has previously been music director of a number of other shows about historical jazz figures, among them: Mr. Jelly Lord (based on the life of Jelly Roll Morton and directed by Vernel Bagneris), Down Hearted Blues: Bessie Smith (directed by André De Shields), the Playwrights Horizon’s production of Heliotrope Bouquet (based on the life of Scott Joplin and directed by Joe Morton) and Waldo’s own show, Shake That Thing, which opened at the Queens Theater in the Park in 1999. Waldo was composer and music director for the sequel to Sugar Babies called Scandals, which opened in Richmond, Virginia. Waldo has also appeared in concert all over the world, including several major shows for George Wein’s JVC Jazz Festival at Carnegie Hall and Jazz at Lincoln Center. He appeared on March 4, 2005 with the New York Pops at Carnegie Hall, presenting the world premiere of a Eubie Blake concerto. Terry has produced over 40 albums under his own name and performed and composed for hundreds of TV programs, including Ken Burns’ new PBS documentary, Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson. Terry’s music could recently be heard on the soundtrack album of the hit film, “Elf.”
LAURENCE MASLON (Director) is an Associate Arts Professor at the Graduate Acting Program of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. In addition, he teaches courses at NYU’s Undergraduate Drama Program and the MFA Musical Theatre Writing Program. He is also an Associate Artist at the Prince Music Theatre where he directed the first production of Ambassador Satch and also Pal Joey (Barrymore nomination). He is the co-author (with Michael Kantor) of the companion volume to the six-part PBS documentary series Broadway: The American Musical, which was aired on PBS in the fall of 2004, as well as co-writer of two of its episodes. Maslon edited the first critical edition of George S. Kaufman’s Broadway comedies for the Library of America. For PBS he wrote the American Masters documentary “Richard Rodgers: The Sweetest Sounds” (2001) and for the Rodgers centennial in 2002, he wrote concerts for Carnegie hall, the Smithsonian, Orchestra Hall in Chicago and the Chicago Humanities Festival. For the New York Festival of Song, he directed a Jerome Kern concert in Washington, London, and NYC. In celebration of Ira Gershwin’s centennial, he put together (in collaboration with Music Director Rob Fisher) the concert “Mr. Gershwin Goes to Washington” at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital hall. He has written for Stagebill, Show Music, the American National Biography, the Cambridge Guide to the American Theatre,, and a history of Broadway for volume three of the Cambridge History of the American Theatre. From 1988-95, he worked as Associate Artistic Director at Arena Stage in Washington, DC. At Arena, he directed A Perfect Ganesh, the premieres of Antigone in new York, Sin, and Life Go Boom!, as well as the successful benefit concerts of Love Letters, The Front Page, I’d Rather Be Right, and Let’Em Eat Cake. Maslon attended Brown University and Stanford University.
MERCEDES ELLINGTON (Choreographer) is a graduate of The Julliard School. Her many honors and awards include: Back Stage West Award, Black Theater Alliance Award and JEFF and Helen Hayes nominations. She is an honorary citizen of Paris and received the Virtuosi Award from Houston, Texas. Ms. Ellington’s choreography credits include Play On, Ambassador Satch, In Mahalia’s Light, CTFD Galas, Dames, Mood Ellington and Cotton Club Rhapsody, among others. She has worked with the Radio City Rockettes and on 16 musical productions at the St. Louis MUNY. As a director, her work includes the Society of Singers’ Louis Armstrong Award Gala, as well as many other award shows. Ms. Ellington is artistic director of DancEllington, Inc. She was featured in Ken Burns’ television jazz series and was profiled by Dr. Billy Tatlor on CBS Sunday Morning. She has also served as Hostess/Narrator for Swedish Jazz Festivals. Mercedes Ellington is on the Friars Board of Governors, as well as the boards of the Society of Singers/East, Career Transition for Dancers, The Martha Hill Foundation, The New Jersey Tap Ensemble, and serves on Broadway’s Tony Nominating Committee.
JAMES P. MIRRIONE (Co-author) has written for Broadway, Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway, as well as regional theatre. His commissioned plays include: The Ghost Café for Carnegie Hall (1992), The Last Stop, Will and Testament of St. Jack Kerouac for New York University (1995) and Cheap Sunglasses for the McCarter Theatre (2000). He is the 1995 winner of the Spokane playwrights Festival for his play Area code 212. In 1996, he received a commission from the U.S. Information Agency (USIA), which resulted in The Last Enemy, a play written for the first Middle East theatre company composed of Palestinians, Jordanians and Israelis, created under his direction. The play premiered at the United Nations in October 1998 prior to its first tour in Amman, Ramallah, Tel Aviv, Jaffa and Haifa. In 2001, he created the Sarajevo project at the University of Leeds, Bretton Hall Campus, a collaborative venture to join Bosnian actors from the Kamerni 55 Theatre in Sarajevo with UK actors at Bretton Hall and the Royal Armouries in Leeds. The result was the English premiere in September 2002 of Time Out by Bosnian playwright Zlatko Topcic, directed by James Mirrione. The play was performed in London (Gate Theatre and the Riverside Studios) and in Leeds (West Yorkshire Playhouse, the Royal Armouries and Powerhouse 1, Bretton Hall). From 1978 to 1998, James Mirrione was the playwright-in-residence for the Creative Arts Team (CAT), the resident educational theatre company at New York University where, as the author of 19 plays for the company, he established himself as one of the leading writers of Theatre-in-Education (TIE) plays for American audiences. His work in theatre with international communities has brought him to the 1997 and 1998 MKFM Festival in Croatia, where he conducted theatre workshops with artists from the former Yugoslavia. In Mexico City, in 1997, he created a play with Indian and Mexican actors about the plight of disappeared children. Presently, he is the AHRB Research Fellow in Creative and Performing Arts at Leeds University, Bretton Hall Campus, England. He holds a MA and Ph.D. from New York University.
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.
INGRID MAURER (Costume Designer) is pleased to return to the Cape Playhouse, where she has previously designed Wait Until Dark, Mass Appeal, The Lion in Winter, Radio Days and Something’s Afoot, among others. Most recently, she has designed costumes for the recreation of the 1925 Prokofiev ballet Le Pas d’Acier, at Princeton University, as well as the premier of Tenebrae for Christopher Caines Dance Company, where she has been designing since 2002. Recent theatre credits include From Door to Door (Off-Broadway), The Legacy Code (Pan Asian Rep) and Vanities (Penguin Rep.) Ingrid’s work is also on permanent display at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
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.