The Irondale Ensemble Company 2007-2008
Michael-David Gordon
Michael-David Gordon began work with Irondale as an
actor and workshop facilitator of Irondale Ensemble Project’s AIDS Team
in 1990. He was a team leader and a senior teaching artist involved with
the planning, training and teaching on all of Irondale’s AIDS programs
through 1997, when DOH funding ended. These programs included the AIDS
team and Irondale’s Adolescent AIDS/HIV Prevention Workshop Program in
locations at Job Corps, the Off-Site Education Services branch of the
Alternative High Schools, and other sites with At-Risk youth. When the
AID projects ended, Mr. Gordon taught at continued as a teaching artist
at other sites such as Camelot and Riker’s Island. He also helps to plan
and teach staff development workshops. Mr. Gordon continued his work
with health education outside of Irondale including: GMHC - "HIV - The
Basics" - Facilitator Training (1994); NYC Dept. Of Health - "Aids 101
Facilitator Training (1996, 1997) (Certificate); The Door - HIV
Prevention Facilitator Seminar (1997) (Certificate); Body Positive -
Facilitator Workshops (1998). Mr. Gordon has performed in all of
Irondale’s Off-Broadway productions since becoming a member of Irondale.
He is also a member of Actor’s Equity. His roles have included Barrachio
in Much Ado About Nothing, The Stage Manager in Our Town
and the title role in Danton’s Death. Most recently, Mr. Gordon
portrayed Sam Slate. in Irondale Ensemble Project’s Wasted!
Terry Greiss
Terry Greiss (Co-Founder, Ensemble Actor, Executive Director), has been working in the theater for 34 years. He is an actor, director and co-founder (with Jim Niesen and Barbara Mackenzie-Wood), of NYC's Irondale Ensemble Project. He has performed in over forty roles with the company, and is a co-creator of most of Irondale's original works and education programs. He has conducted hundreds of workshops in public schools, prisons, theaters, professional training programs and community venues. He has been part of three Russian-American collaborations with the International Classic Center of St. Petersburg. Terry was the Founding President of the Network of Ensemble Theaters, a national consortium of artist-driven permanent theater ensembles. In April 2008 he was invited by the US Embassy to lecture and teach in Moscow and Yaroslavl and at the Golden Mask Festival. In addition to his work at Irondale, he has taught at the New School, the University of Wisconsin Drama Center and has performed at the Manhattan Theater Club. He is a graduate of the NYC High School for the Performing Arts and Sarah Lawrence College.
Welland Hardwick
Nolan Kennedy
Nolan Kennedy crashed into New York in August of ’07, leaping head first into the bouncy house that is Irondale. Nolan is a recent graduate of Illinois Wesleyan University where he earned his B.F.A. in acting. Nolan’s other interests vary widely from photography to writing to lighting design to improvisation and beyond. Nolan trained and then worked for many years at The Improv Playhouse, where he swears he learned everything he knows. He has also studied with Keith Johnstone, ComedySportz Chicago, and the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin, Ireland. Further education came from his internships with Strawdog Theatre Company and The Neo-Futurists, both in Chicago. Nolan’s work with former Irondaler Sven Miller on a controversial collaborative show called Into An Unlulled Sleep caught Artistic Director Jim Niesen’s eye, and thus Nolan made the trip east. Nolan’s other produced written work include Death…or Something, A Gustytown Adventure, Earth: The Musical, and Soot. Nolan is currently working a new play, This Little Piece.
Maria Knapp
Maria Knapp is currently the Managing Director at Irondale. She
graduated from Towson University with a MFA in Theater in 1996. Her graduate studies
included stage managing the graduate program's inaugural production Iago's Plot,
an adaptation of Othello conceived and directed by Kabuki Master Shozo Sato. This
production traveled to an international experimental theater festival in Cairo, Egypt.
Maria later focused on her graduate thesis on the stage management of small ensembles
which led to working with Touchstone Theater (Bethlehem, PA), The Independent Eye
(Philadelphia, PA), Irondale Ensemble Project, Bloomsberg Theater Ensemble (Bloomsberg,
PA), and Cornerstone Theater (Santa Monica, CA). Maria is also the Theater
Guide for About.com (www.theater.about.com). Email Maria at
Maria@irondale.org
Joseph McCarthy
Joseph McCarthy is Director of Development at Irondale. He has worked for many years in the communications business. Early in his career, he served as Director of Development for the Spoleto Festival, and in several roles in numerous political campaigns. He was a longtime partner in the Glyn Group, and was Senior Vice President at Edelman Public Relations, where he was responsible for corporate communications and video projects worldwide. After founding McCarthy Communications in 1992, he advised clients and produced communications programs for almost a decade before establishing, in 2002, a sister company, Townhouse Media LLC. There he served as president and publisher of BKLYN magazine for three years. He is the writer, producer and director of The Brave Man, a short dramatic film about the Battle of Brooklyn. He received a BA in English Literature from the University of Washington and an MFA from NYU's Institute of Film and Television. jmm@irondale.org
Jim Niesen
Jim Niesen is a co-founder who has guided the
creative aspects of the company's work since 1983. He has directed most of the Irondale
repertoire, including 5 works by Brecht: Good Woman of Setzuan; Galileo; Threepenny
Opera; St. Joan of the Stockyards; and the American premiere of Conversations in
Exile. He conceived the scenarios and directed Irondale's radical reinterpretations of
such classics as Uncle Vanya; Peer Gynt; As You Like It; The Inspector General; Ubu
Roi; and Peter Pan. Prior to founding Irondale he performed and directed at
several regional theaters, including: The Long Wharf; GeVa; Horse Cave and the Center for
Music Drama and Art in Lake Placid; State Theater of South Carolina; Carnegie Mellon
Theater Company, in addition to serving as Stage Manager at the Roundabout Theater in NYC.
Jim has had articles published in GESTUS, the Magazine of Brechtian Studies and THEATER
THREE. He has taught Master Classes in theater games and improvisation at the University
of Maine, Drew, and SUNY Plattsburgh, and Carnegie Mellon University, among others. Jim
directed the production of You Can't Win, which took the Grand Prix at the
International Drama Festival in St. Petersburg Russia in 1994. He also co-authored the
script for the piece. Email Jim at Jim@irondale.org
Nicole Potter, Education Director
Scarlet Maressa Rivera
Scarlet likes to sum up her multi-faceted and broad range of skills by identifying herself as a professional collaborator and ensemble ambassador. She is now entering her 5th season with Irondale and in this time she has been given the opportunity to dabble in sound design in such productions as Wasted, explore movement direction in Peter Panic as well as expand her acting repertoire and teaching experience. She currently holds her 3rd year residency at Benjamin Banneker High School in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.
Scarlet received her MFA in Performance and Interactive Media Arts (PIMA) as a member of the first graduating class at Brooklyn College in May 08'. She is also proud to be a Manhattanville College graduate, where she studied Dance & Theatre, double-minoring in music and sociology. In Scarlet's past life she fantasized about being a musician, and still to this day fancies singing ditties and playing guitar, saxophone, and a few other instruments. She prides herself on making a sound out of whatever is given to her. Others interests may include bicycle riding or examining community in our increasingly wired culture, however, Scarlet has a particular interest in using ensemble methods for the creation of original collaborative works that experiment with the integration of performance technology in a human and transparent way. Email Scarlet at Scarlet@irondale.org
Ken Rothchild
Ken Rothchild 's first scenery design for the Irondale Ensemble Project was for an adaptation of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, the second production of Irondale's inaugural season. Twenty-plus years later he has designed every production since, including The Good Woman of Setzuan, Antigone, St Joan of the Stockyards, Ghost Sonata, Danton's Death, Irondale's productions on both Russian tours (Uncle Vanya, Sacrifice, and You Can't Win), and the original productions of Peter Pan-ic (Flying Underground) and Outside the Law / As You Like It: over fifty designs at this point. During this same period of time he designed for regional theaters, regional opera, NYC dance companies; designed and toured productions in Israel, Sri Lanka, and India; and assisted on various Broadway productions and National tours. Other “mainstream entertainment business” roles have included a stint as an Art Director at the daytime drama Guiding Light on CBS; and as a designer and Project Manager for Design Etc., Inc. (a display design firm) where he was responsible for displays for Hasbro and Playskool at the annual NY Toy Fair. And in a role that seemed to exist somewhere between Art and Commerce, he was the Production Designer for two documentaries for WNET-Channel 13. One of these was None Without Sin, an exploration of the relationship between Elia Kazan and Arthur Miller that aired in the Fall of 2004.In the education field he has been a member of the faculty at Bennington College and at Jersey City State College; and is currently Resident Designer and adjunct faculty at Manhattanville College in Purchase, NY. At JCSC he presented a one-man show of his designs at the college’s Courtney Gallery. He served as Irondale’s Director of Education for 12 years. While continuing as the Company Designer, and acting as the production manager for its Off-Broadway productions, he also fills the role of Artistic Associate, advising and assisting the Company’s directors in determining the Company's goals and direction in its artistic and social endeavors. Most recently he has been elected to serve on Irondale’s Board of Directors. He is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts - Design Program, and a member of United Scenic Artists Local 829. Email Ken at Ken@irondale.org
Damen Scranton
Damen Scranton is an actor, playwright, director and teacher, and
is proud to be in his ninth year with the Irondale Ensemble Project. As an actor, he has
performed at the Lincoln Center Theater, the La Jolla Playhouse and at the Firken Crane
Theatre in Cork, Ireland, among others, and has worked with directors such as Michael
Grief, Marion McClinton and Athol Fugard.
As a playwright, Damen has had four plays produced (most recently The Death of Cabaret, 2002 Dublin Fringe Festival), and worked extensively with Athol Fugard, Mac Wellman and Jose Rivera. As a director, he has numerous credits in New York, California, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Most recently, Damen’s production of Chocolate in Heat was selected one of the 2001 NYC Fringe Festival’s "top eight picks" by Time Out Magazine.
This is Damen’s fifth year leading Irondale's residency at the NYC Museum School, and, with Irondale, he has taught at numerous other NYC schools and community groups. He has also taught writing at Marymount Manhattan College and acting and public speaking at the University of California, San Diego. He has a B.A. in Theater and an M.F.A. in Acting, both from U.C.S.D., and thanks you for your support and patronage of Irondale and similar arts organizations. Email Damen at Damen@irondale.org
Lindsay Vrab
Lindsay, a Chicago native, is rounding out her first year at Irondale where she began as an intern last January, debuting in The Great American All Star Traveling War Machine last spring. A graduate of Illinois Wesleyan University, she earned a BA in theatre arts performing in multiple shows including Into an Unlulled Sleep directed by former Irondaler Sven Miller and written by current Irondaler Nolan Kennedy. Prior to moving to New York, Lindsay stage managed, performed, and held various technical positions with the Busch Entertainment Corporation, Seaside Music Theater, and Heritage Repertory Theatre. She also loves exploring dance, music (instrumental and vocal), and stage combat. Lindsay is ecstatic to not only be performing with Irondale but to have the opportunity to use her multidisciplined background by choreographing dance and combat, stage managing, and technical directing throughout the year.