Who’s Who?

Stephen Cross – Cook, Sergeant(s), Soldier(s), Old Colonel

Stephen is the Artistic Director of Building Company Theater based in Syracuse, NY. Recent productions include The Apprentice: Whitehouse, Fragile White Guy, and Re:Constructing America. Recent acting credits include George Antrobus in the Hangar Theater’s production of The Skin of Our Teeth; and Flick Richardson in Building Company’s production of Fragile White Guy. He is also collaborating on a new play titled, Surface Tension. It has been a tremendous honor to reunite with the Irondale Ensemble for this production of Mother Courage.

Joey Collins – The Ghost of Brecht, Eilif, Voices

Joey has been with Irondale for eight seasons. Past productions are 1599, Saint Joan of the Stockyards, Dead End, The Good Soul of Setzuan, and Galileo. Broadway companies include The Glass Menagerie, The Lonesome West, and Rock n Roll. Regional credits include The Homecoming, At Home At the Zoo for Berkshire Theatre Group, (BTCA/Berkie Award), You Can’t Take It With You for Indiana Rep; Tartuffe for Playmaker’s Rep, and the world premieres of Nick Gandiello’s Oceanside & Jack Kerouac’s Beat Generation at Merrimack Rep, Theresa Rebeck’s Fool for The Alley, Mark St. Germain’s Scott & Hem at CATF & Barrington Stage among others. Film and TV include Dottie’s Thanksgiving Pickle, with Olympia Dukakis, Law & Order, Kidnapped, Luke Cage, Enough is Enough, Modern Man, and Bittersweet. Vocal recording highlights include The Tragedy of Arthur, East of Denver, Phantom Nights (Earphone Award), and Mudbound (AUDIE Award).

Michael-David Gordon – Yvette, Katrin, Recruiting Officer, Soldier(s)

Michael-David has worked extensively in New York as an actor, teaching artist, and voice-over performer with the Irondale Ensemble Project, Theater for New City, and many other companies. He began working with Irondale as an actor and workshop facilitator of Irondale’s ‘AIDS Team’ in 1992. Mr. Gordon has also performed in all of Irondale’s Off-Broadway productions. He is a proud member of Actor’s Equity. As founder and the lead vocalist of the Michael-David Band, he appears nationally in clubs, theaters, auditoriums, colleges, and private events. In addition to fronting his own group, he has performed with The Walter Thompson Orchestra, The Pocket Band, and Apple Bonkers, among other musical ensembles.

Vicky Gilmore – Mother Courage, Farmer’s Wife

Mother Courage marks Vicky’s official return to the stage after 25 years. She last performed in Irondale’s production of Strindberg’s The Ghost Sonata as The Dark Lady and the Cook. Among other productions in her checkered past: The Real Inspector Hound, I Can’t Imagine Tomorrow, The Cherry Orchard, The House of Blue Leaves, Old Times, Landscape, A Touch of the Poet, Side by Side by Sondheim, The Grass Harp, The Boys from Syracuse, Carnival. Vicky is thrilled to be working with Irondale among such creative and generous artists.
She is a graduate of the High School of the Performing Arts and Denison University. Vicky would like to dedicate her performance to her mother Greta Kvalden who was an actress and performed on the radio for 20 years.

Terry Greiss – Swiss Cheese, Chaplain, Boy, Soldier

Terry is the co-founder of Brooklyn’s Irondale Ensemble Project where he is also an actor the Executive Director. He has performed in more than 60 roles with the company, and is a creator of most of Irondale’s original works and education programs. Away from Irondale he has performed at the Manhattan Theatre Club and the Cincinnati Playhouse, in Sarah Ruhl’s adaptation of Three Sisters, directed by John Doyle. He has conducted hundreds of workshops in public schools, prisons, theaters and professional training programs. Terry was the Founding President of the Network of Ensemble Theaters, and sits on the Steering Committee of the Downtown Brooklyn Arts Alliance. In 2008, at the invitation of the US Embassy, he was invited to lecture and teach improvisation in Russia. He has taught at the New School, the University of Wisconsin Drama Center. In 2015, he created Irondale’s To Protect, Serve and Understand an improv training program for NYC police officers, designed to enhance communication skills. From 2015-2020 he was an improvisation instructor for the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science. Terry is a graduate of the NYC (LaGuardia) HS for the Performing Arts and Sarah Lawrence College. He lives in Brooklyn, NY with his wife Vicky and son Liam.

Sam Day Harmet – Composer/Musician

Sam is a mandolinist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, improviser, and music educator based in Brooklyn, NY. A musician of diverse tastes, Sam’s projects range from deconstructive folk music, to free improvisation, to early jazz, to electro-funk, to Soundpainting and beyond. He has also written extensively in theater settings often composing material that blurs the lines between far flung styles and disciplines. Around NYC, he can regularly be found performing with Astroturf Noise, La Banda Chuska, the Walter Thompson Orchestra, Karl Berger’s Improvisers Orchestra, Erica Mancini, Salon Man, and numerous improvising musicians. His regular theater collaborators include the Irondale Ensemble, Casual FreyDay (with Julia Frey), and Letter of Marque Theater Company. Aside from mandolin-ing, he also enjoys exploring the guitar, tenor banjo, clarinet, electronics, and breaking the space-time continuum.

Jacqueline Joncas – Stage Manager/Dramaturgical Intern

Jacqueline was very excited to have been part of the creative team for Mother Courage and Her Children. She recently worked with The Complete Theatre Company, being featured in both showcases and Improv Nights. Jacqueline studied Theatre at Manhattanville College, where she received a BA, with a minor in Creative Writing. When she’s not on stage (or behind a screen on zoom), you can find her cycling the streets of NYC or in the park playing with her dog.

Jeff Lunden – Sound Engineer

Jeff is a freelance arts reporter and producer. His stories have been heard on NPR’s Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Weekend Edition, as well as other public radio programs. Jeff co-produced and co-authored Hamilton: A Story of US, for NPR Music in 2016. He also produced the NPR Music series, Discoveries at Walt Disney Concert Hall, hosted by Renee Montagne, and has produced over a dozen documentaries on musical theater and Tin Pan Alley for NPR, including A Place for Us: Fifty Years of West Side Story. Other documentaries have profiled George and Ira Gershwin, Stephen Sondheim, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein, Lorenz Hart, Harold Arlen and Jule Styne. He has won several awards, including the Gold Medal from the New York Festival International Radio Broadcasting Awards and a CPB Award. His print work has been published in the Washington Post Magazine, the Hollywood Reporter, Billboard and Symphony Magazine.
Jeff is also a theater composer. He composed the score for the award-winning adaptation of Arthur Kopit’s Wings (book and lyrics by Arthur Perlman), produced at the Joseph Papp Public Theater in New York (1994 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical) and the Goodman Theatre in Chicago (Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work/Adaptation). Other works include Another Midsummer Night (The Goodman Theatre, American Music Theater Festival), Once on a Summer’s Day (Ensemble Studio Theatre) and five family musicals for Theatreworks/USA, including adaptations of The Little Prince and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He is currently working with Art Perlman on an adaptation of Laura Esquivel’s novel of magical realism, Swift as Desire.

Jim Niesen – Director/Adaptor

Jim has served as Artistic Director of the Irondale Ensemble Project’s since its founding in 1983, directing more than eighty plays including nine by Brecht including the three play cycle Brecht in Exile and sixteen by Shakespeare including the epic marathon 1599-Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and Hamlet-all performed in a single evening. Mr. Niesen created the Irondale production of YOU CAN’T WIN, which took the Grand Prix at the International Drama Festival in St. Petersburg, Russia. Mr. Niesen created the theatre program for World Camps a non-profit organization working with children affected by HIV/AIDS in developing African countries. His articles on theater have been published in GESTUS and THEATER THREE. He is a contributor to AMERICAN DRAMATURGY, In 2018 he was named a distinguished alumnus of Ohio University where he serves on the College of Fine Arts Leadership Council. In 2019 he was selected to be part of the US delegations to Santiago a Mil the largest arts festival in Chile and the Joint Chinese US Theatre Conference in Shanghai. Mr. Niesen is listed in WHO’S WHO IN AMERICA and BROOKLYN MAGAZINE named him one of the “100 Most Influential People in Brooklyn Culture.”