Melina Bielefelt

Actor

THEATRE: Molly Sweeney, (*LA Weekly Award Nom. for Best Actress), The Trial of the Catonsville 9 (Movement and Assoc. Director) at the Actor’s Gang (Tour: MD, VA, and Brisbane, Australia), Woyzeck, directed by Robert Wilson with music by Tom Waits at UCLA Performing Arts Live, Agents and Assets, with the Los Angeles Poverty Department, directed by John Malpede and produced by Peter Sellars,in Amsterdam, NYC, Detroit, Cleveland and LA. 1st Int'l. Bulgakhov Festival in Kiev with Zoo District. Theatre Movement Bazaar: Cirque Picnique, both in LA and at the Picolo Spoleto festival, Strange Beliefs, and Hollywood Macabre; as well as work with the following L.A. companies: La Mirada Playhouse, Cornerstone, Oasis, Fabulous Monsters, CROI, shrimps, John Fleck, Melinda Ring, Rudy Perez, Will Geer Theatricum, Will & Co. and at Highways, the Getty Center, HBO Workspace, A.S.K. and LAMEC. FILM: With Bill Viola, Ocean Without a Shore (Venice Biennale) and Going Forth By Day, (Guggenheim Museums in Berlin and NYC), and the horror film Cellar Door TELEVISION: CSI, The Forgotten, work with D.P. Amy Vincent and the History Channel.

Donald Boughton

Actor and Director

Sarah Boughton

Actor

Sarah Boughton has performed in various theatres in New York, Los Angeles and around the country. Her favorite credits include; King Lear at LaMama, Nina in The Seagull, A Tale of Two Cities with The Culture Project, Hermia in A Midsummer Nights Dream, Sarah in the premiere of Precipice at ATA in NY and The Greenway Court in LA, Isabelle in Measure for Measure, Scout in To Kill A Mockingbird, Helen Keller in The Story of Helen Keller, Portia in Julius Caesar, Dromio of Syracuse and Ephesus in Comedy of Errors, The Chicago Conspiracy Trial at the Odyssey Theatre, and Teri Schaivo in the staged reading ofBARE at SOSE. She was seen most recently as Liz in the Texas premiere of Daniel McIvor's A Beautiful View. Sarah has starred in and produced several short films. She received her BFA from Syracuse University.

Kristen Brennan

Actor and Producer

Kristen moved from Baltimore to Los Angeles in 1999. Initially confused by its artistic offerings, she joined forces with her friends and helped found Son of Semele Ensemble a year later. She has played the role of production manager on several productions including Melancholy Play, Lava/Breath, American Plan, and Film Is Evil: Radio Is Good. She has dabbled in writing as well but feels happiest on stage. As an actor with SOSE, she was seen in Earthlings, Lava/Breath, Film Is Evil: Radio Is Good and Preludes & Fugues, among others. Favorite productions outside of SOSE include Emma's Child at the Odyssey Theatre, Edward II with Circle X and Emilie Beck's And Let the Skies Fall. When she's not dabbling in the arts, she is working as a Behavior Analyst, who creates and oversees programs specifically designed for children with Autism.

Laura Carson

Actor, Producer

Laura is a writer, actress and comedian. She moved to Los Angeles in 1998 after several years studying and performing in New York City and regional theatre. Her favorite theatre role to date Heidi in Aaron Henne's King Cat Calico Finally Flies Free! where her inner cat lady was allowed to flourish. Her film and TV credits include Bruce Almighty, Grey's Anatomy, quarterlife, Gilmore Girls and Boston Legal. Currently she is working on developing her one-woman show about uber-famous supermodel and fashion icon, Puppet Poutface. Stay tuned.

Elizabeth Clemmons

Actor and Producer

Elizabeth was born in San Francisco and grew up in Marin County, California. She first began studying theater with James Dunn at the College of Marin. She moved to Los Angeles to attend UCLA where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a degree in Theatre Arts. She joined Son of Semele Ensemble after playing Helga in Peer Gynt. With SOSE she has played the role of Lili in American Plan, Ensemble in Film is Evil: Radio is Good, Gradgrind in Wilhelm Reich in Hell, the role of Death (among others) in The Mysteries, and Judge Margaret Milsap in King Cat Calico Finally Flies Free!. She was recently a producer and actor in Suzan-Lori Park's 365 Days / 365 Plays. Elizabeth also performed the role of Allison in the long running Fluffy Bunnies in a Field of Daisies, which played at the Off-Broadway Theater Soho Playhouse in New York, and won Best Ensemble Cast in the 2005 NY Fringe Festival. She can also be seen in a number of national commercials and independent films, including the recent Devil's Faith for Fox Atomic, directed by the academy award-nominated Matthew Cooke. She is also a member of the Classic Burlesque Troupe. Outside of the theatre world, Elizabeth has taught English as a Second Language, and is currently learning Italian at the Italian Cultural Institute.

Sharyn Gabriel

Actor

Sharyn was raised in Northern California and Hawaii. Her Filipino and Hawaiian background began her artistic career as she began traditional Filipino cultural dances and Polynesian Hula dance at the age of four. Sharyn danced and competed with several groups, including Hula Halau O Pi’ilani, for 15 years. She earned several Hula titles at many competitions including the Kau I Ka Hano and Ia Oe E Ka La Hula Festivals.

While dancing Hula in high school, she decided to test her strength in the drama department. While at Saint Francis High School she performed in Guys and Dolls and performed and co-choreographed Little Shop of Horrors (Ronette). Her senior year she performed in and choreographed A Chorus Line (Cassie) which earned her a Best Student Choreography Award from American Musical Theater.

While earning her BFA in Theater at Chapman University, Sharyn participated in numerous theater and dance productions including Cultures Converging for the American Association for Higher Education and Tartuffe (Marianne), which went to the Kennedy Center American Collegiate Theater Festival. After graduating from CU in 2002 with Departmental Honors, Cum Laude, and the University Grey Key she moved to Los Angeles.

Sharyn joined Son of Semele Ensemble in 2003 after playing Muriel in Animal Farm (Ovation Award for Best Musical, Intimate Venue). With SOSE she has played Iphigenia in Iphigenia Crash Land Falls On the Neon Shell that Once Was Her Heart (A Rave Fable), ensemble in King Cat Calico Finally Flies Free!, Mary in The Mysteries, Part I: The Creation, Pilate in The Mysteries, Part II: The Passion, the AMA in Wilhelm Reich in Hell, Melanie in A Human Interest Story, and ensemble in Film is Evil: Radio is Good. She also choreographed SOSE's production of The Tower, in which she beat out Debbie Allen (one of her idols) for an NAACP Theater Award for Best Choreography.

Along with her work with SOSE, Sharyn has performed at Boston Court, Theater 68, Evidence Room. Golden PAC, Musical Theatre West, and Cornerstone Theater. Other credits include commercials, Indie films, Guest Choreographer at Chapman University, and many Hula shows.

Aside from her busy performing and choreographing schedule, Sharyn is the Theater Operations Manager for Son of Semele Theater in LA (email Sharyn @ SOSE) and Group Fitness Program Coordinator and instructor for Meridian's Bodies in Motion Fitness Clubs (email Sharyn @ Bodies in Motion). Sharyn is represented by Allied Artists Management (310.499.1470). She lives in North Hollywood with her Composer/Sound Designer husband, Ryan Poulson and their dog and cat.

Daniel Getzoff

Actor and Playwright

Danny grew up in New Jersey, only 15 miles outside of but worlds away from New York City where he was introduced to theatre as a young'un and studied acting at HB Studios with Sandy Dennis while still in high school. He attended Cornell University for a short while and graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz with highest honors with an individual major in cultural theory as well as from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center's National Theatre Institute. Before moving to LA, Danny lived for a short time in New York where he studied with Uta Hagen and acted in several new plays in venues such as Playwrights Horizons, Theatre for the New City, and La Mama.

While in Los Angeles, Danny has performed onstage for a variety of companies. Melancholy Play is his second production at Son of Semele. He has been a member of SOSE since 2006 when he appeared in King Cat Calico Finally Flies Free! In addition, he has been part of the devising workshops and early readings for two of SOSE's current projects, Omnivore and Flood. Other selected credits include: The Compound Dog and At Least Until You Die (also wrote and produced), both at the Eclectic Company Theatre, Itself (Lunacy Theatre) Ah, Wilderness! at A Noise Within (Drama-Logue Award & Robby Award nomination), Waiting for Godot and In the Wake Of… (plymouth), Kill Switch (Ventura Court Theatre) and S.A.M. I Am (East West Players).

Onscreen he most recently appeared in Don Mancini's cult horror film Seed of Chucky which he filmed in Dracula’s home country of Romania. He also appeared briefly in Lethal Weapon 4 and Mixed Nuts, and performed leading roles in festival award-winning indie favorites Love, Lust & Joy, Girl X (Hollywood Film Festival) and Jimmy Rocket Knocks Your Socks Off.

Also a playwright, his first full-length play, At Least Until You Die, earned him a Garland Award nomination for Playwriting in 2006. His one-act play Propinquity (co-written with Elizabeth Dement) was produced for the Eclectic Company Theatre's Hurricane Season festival. Another one-act, I Am Not A Mirror, was performed at the 24th Street Theatre for the Virginia Avenue Project. He also has performed his own writing at several LA venues including plymouth and SPARK at the Powerhouse Theatre. His next foray into playwriting is a project about the life and poetry of Frank O'Hara. With his writing partner, Tom Gottleib, he wrote the short film Guy & Rex and, like most people in LA, is engaged in the long-term process of writing a feature film, the subject of which might someday thrill and kill cinema-going audiences.

In addition to acting and writing, Danny is a marathon runner and triathlete and has been a longtime advocate for public health issues having run a syringe exchange program and a drop-in center for homeless young people on the Westside at Common Ground in Santa Monica. He currently serves as Common Ground's Deputy Director.

Yolanda Hester

Actor

Theater: For All Time with Cornerstone Theater, Antigone & Love’s Labours Lost with Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey, Details with The Royal Danish Theatre directed by Bille August, Far Away with New York Theater Workshop directed by Stephen Daldry (The Hours, Billie Elliot). Additionally I have worked with The Atlantic Theater Company (NY), Tricycle Theatre (UK) and Judith Shakespeare Co. Film and TV: 8 directed by Wim Wenders, Commander in Chief, Sex and the City, The Chappelle Show.

Erith Jaffe-Berg

Actor

Erith's research interests include the commedia dell’arte, multilingualism in performance and the early-modern actress. Erith has a background as both performer and director and is a member of the L.A.-based theatre group, the Son of Semele Ensemble, and recently performed with the company as part of Suzan-Lori Parks' 365 Days / 365 Plays, LA.

She has published articles in the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, il cannocchiale, Quaderni Italinistica, European Studies Journal, Translation Perspectives, and has translated into Hebrew Marie Brassard and Robert Lepage's multilingual play Polygraph which appears in Canadian Plays: An Anthology, edited by Shimon Levy (2005). Her article, with Mas’ud Hamdan Parallel Currents in Italian and Syrian Comedy: Ghawwar Meets Mirandolina is forthcoming in Quaderni di Studi Arabi. She is currently working on a book on multilingualism in commedia dell’arte. For her research, she has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Canadian government and the UCLA Centre for the Study of Women.

Barbara Kallir

Director and Lighting Designer

Edgar Landa

Director and Actor

Edgar is the Managing Director of Son of Semele Ensemble that was profiled in the December 2004 issue of American Theatre Magazine. He has also acted in, directed and produced many SOSE shows and serves on the Board of Directors. Edgar is also a member of Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA where he serves on the faculty as a Fight and Text instructor and has worked extensively in their nationally recognized education programs. He has led numerous workshops in theatre, Shakespeare, and Fight with students at middle and senior high schools around the country and has taught in the theatre departments of Chapman University and Cal Arts. He currently teaches stage combat in the MFA program at the USC School of Theatre.

As a director Edgar most recently directed the world premieres of Record Storm Spreads Ruin! and King Cat Calico Finally Flies Free! by Aaron Henne; and Preludes & Fugues by John Glore; guest-directed Chavez Ravine, The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow, Titus Andronicus and Marisol at Cal State University Long Beach; and guest-directed the premiere of La Ofrenda at Cal State University Los Angeles. Other directing credits include Romeo & Juliet (Arizona State University), Lalo (CTG/Ricardo Montalban Theater), The Comedy of Errors (Vox Humana Theatre), and Richard Foreman's Film Is Evil: Radio Is Good (Son of Semele Ensemble). He directed the critically acclaimed musical adaptation of Animal Farm for Son of Semele Ensemble that garnered 2 Los Angeles Stage Alliance Ovation Awards (out of 7 nominations) for Best Director of a Musical and Best Musical in a Smaller Theatre. At the Mark Taper Forum, Edgar has worked as a literary and directing assistant in The New Works Festival and served as the assistant to director Lisa Peterson on Culture Clash’s Chavez Ravine.

Recent acts of violence include Henry V, Romeo & Juliet and Othello (for which he received a 2004 NAACP Theatre Award nomination) at Shakespeare Orange County; Fat Boy at Need Theatre; Othello for the LA Women’s Shakespeare Company; The Brothers Karamozov at Circle X Theatre Company; Homebody/Kabul at the Mark Taper Forum; the West Coast Premiere of Nilo Cruz' Pulitzer Prize-winning play Anna In The Tropics at South Coast Repertory; and King Lear at the MET Theatre. He also recently appeared in and staged violence/special FX for The Lieutenant of Inishmore at Florida Studio Theatre.

Edgar is an alumnus of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab & the Directors Lab West and is a graduate of the USC School of Theatre.

Gabriel Liebeskind

Actor, Musician

Gina Manziello

Actor

Matthew McCray

Actor, Director, Producer and Playwright

Matthew McCray is the Founding Artistic Director of Son of Semele Ensemble. A multi-faceted artist in many theatrical disciplines, Matthew enjoys working professionally throughout the year as a producer, director, performer, musical director, composer and teacher of theatre. Originally from Fort Collins, Colorado, he moved to California in 1994 to attend Chapman University. After earning a BFA in Theatre Performance and a minor in Vocal Music from Chapman in 1998, he moved to Los Angeles. He currently resides in Eagle Rock, California.

In 2004, Matthew was featured on the cover of American Theatre Magazine for his work with SOSE. As a director Matthew's work includes both original and published work. Most recently, his 2006 production of Iphigenia (A Rave Fable) received six LA Weekly Award nominations and Matthew received an award for his work as the Video Deisgner. Other directing work includes his own original plays A Few Moments Behind The Mask, Earthlings and Amended which premiered in REDCAT's Studio Festival, as well as Animal Farm, the west coast premiere of Back Story, a workshop production of What The Moon Saw by Stephanie Fleischmann and most recently a workshop production at CalArts of Lear's Wild Rose by Sibyl O’Malley. Matthew is currently collaborating with Center Theatre Group to assist in producing the yearlong festival of work by Suzan-Lori Parks called 365 Days / 365 Plays.

In 1999 Matthew created a theatre program for children in Newport Beach called Musical Theatre Playground (MTP) that produces reduced musicals and Shakespearean plays with child actors (K-6). As the program's sole producer, adaptor and director, Matthew has presented over 30 productions, inspiring countless children to become theatre-goers and theatre-makers. Now in his 8th year of producing and directing for MTP, Matthew's earlier MTP cast members have gone on to specialty high schools for the performing arts to continue their studies in the theatre.

Matthew has appeared on the stage, as well as in film, television and commercials. His credits include the experimental stage of REDCAT as well as nationally-recognized musical theatre organizations REPRISE! and Musical Theatre West. For Son of Semele Ensemble his acting credits include the role of Abraham in The Mysteries, the role of Boxer in the Los Angeles Stage Alliance Ovation Award-nominated cast of Animal Farm, Jacob in the NAACP Theatre Award nominated cast of The Tower and Paul Antonelli in Film is Evil: Radio is Good. His television work includes the recurring role of Jasper on the Emmy Award-winning television show Will & Grace, Boston Legal and, most recently, a pilot called The Cure. He has also been seen and heard singing in a Discover Card commercial, and in 2003 he carried a supporting role in the independent film The Commission, starring Martin Sheen, Edward Asner and Martin Landau. Matthew is a member of Actors' Equity Association and the Screen Actors Guild.

Matthew has authored three plays: Amended which premiered at REDCAT's Studio Festival in 2004; Earthlings which Son of Semele Ensemble premiered in Los Angeles in 2001; and, A Few Moments Behind The Mask which premiered in 1998 at Chapman University. His musical writing includes choral work, musical scores and incidental music for the theatre. His two published choral works for voice and piano are When We Two Parted, published in 1995 with Twin Elm Publishing, and The Paper Reeds By The Brooks, published in 1998 with National Music Publishing. When We Two Parted was performed by The Choral Project in Santa Cruz and San Jose in 2004. In 1996 his musical anthology of Lewis Carroll poetry was added into a theatre work about Alice Liddell, subsequently performed at Chapman University. Additionally, in 1998 he directed a complete evening of his choral compositions, also at Chapman.

Matthew currently teaches Musical Theatre at Chapman University. Other teaching credits include a performance workshop at California Lutheran University, as well as private singing instruction at Pacific School of Music and the Arts. Last year Matthew was asked to join a panel at California Institute of the Arts to speak with students about the formation of ensemble theatre companies.

Michael Nehring

Actor and Director

Michael Nehring is an award-winning actor, director, and educator. He has been a founding member of several important theatrical companies in Southern California including Friends and Artist’s Theatre Ensemble (FATE), Shakespeare Orange County (SOC), and Son of Semele Ensemble (SOSE). He is a proud member of Actor’s Equity and has been performing professionally for over twenty years. He is also a respected director and an acting coach. He is a Full Professor with tenure at Chapman University and has served multiple terms as Theatre Department Chair. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Theatre from Fresno State University and a Master’s Degree in Theatre from The University of Oregon.

Michael began his professional work as an actor during several seasons with the Hollywood Theatre Ensemble, a summer-stock theatre company housed in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. In Southern California he was a founding member of FATE, for which he played several leading roles including the Herald in Marat-Sade (Los Angeles Weekly Award and Drama-logue Award for Performance), Semyon in The Suicide (Drama-Logue Award for performance), Precious in the world premiere of Dolores and Her Loved Ones, and supporting roles in The Firebugs and Balm in Gilead. He went on to become a founding member of SOC, a classical theatre company based in Garden Grove operating in compliance with Actor’s Equity. As an SOC company member he performed such roles as Prospero, Iago, Malvolio, Caliban, Polonius, Feste, Lear’s Fool, Touchstone, Horatio (Drama-Logue Award for performance), and Bottom. He played supporting roles in Henry V, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew, and Merchant of Venice. He founded SOSE with a group of Chapman students in 2000 and the company was recognized on a 2004 cover photo in American Theatre as one of the twelve “up and coming” theatre companies in America. For SOSE he performed the lead role of Nanny in the world premiere of Earthlings and Napoleon in Animal Farm (Ovation Award for Best Musical). Michael has also performed for The Center Theatre Group, Los Angeles, Shakespeare Santa Barbara, A Noise Within, and for the ASCAP/Disney Musical Theatre Workshop. Film/television acting credits include Off Hollywood, a comedy pilot for NBC, Sticks and Bone, a film directed by Everett Lewis, and Necropolis, a film directed by Sal Romeo.

Michael is a versatile stage director and choreographer, comfortable in the genres of musical theatre, Shakespeare, social-realism, and various styles. His professional directing credits include Romeo and Juliet (Recommended List in the Los Angeles Times) and A Shakespearean Christmas for SOC, The Mysteries for SOSE (Recommended List for the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Weekly), Looking Glass for Laughing Horse Repertory, and The Threepenny Opera for FATE. He has a twenty year history of directing for Chapman University including HAIR, Oklahoma!, Brigadoon, Little Shop of Horrors, The Crucible, The Bacchae, The Playboy of the Western World, Die Fledermaus, The Fantastiks, The Creation, She Loves Me, Madwoman of Chaillot, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Cloud Nine, and The Grapes of Wrath.

Michael began working for Chapman College as a part-time faculty member in 1982. He was promoted to Full Professor with tenure in 2006. He created several foundation courses for the University including Dramatic Literature and History, Parts I and II, Acting for the Camera, Musical Theatre Performance, Voice and Movement, Text Analysis and Scene Study, Rehearsal and Performance, and The History of Acting in Film. He developed the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting program for Chapman University. In 1988 he created The London Theatre Tour, a course that annually takes a group of Chapman students to England for an in depth study of British production practices. He has also taught performance for The Disney Channel, Cal. State Fullerton, Orange Coast College, The Portland Actor’s Conservatory (Portland, Oregon), Sal Romeo Workshops (Los Angeles), and The University of Oregon.

Diana Payne

Actor

Anthony Powell

Actor

Rebecca Rasmussen

Actor

Erica Rice

Actor

Flor San Roman

Dramaturg

Alex Smith

Actor

Ashley Steed

Actor, Director, Producer and Writer

Ashley is a recent graduate of the University of Southern California where she earned a BA in Theatre with a minor in Cinema. Since the age of seven, when she first got the acting bug, she has become passionate about storytelling and constantly investigates the stories near to her and far from her. It is through the arts where she has found her purpose in life, thus she stresses the invaluable importance of arts advocacy and education. She’s worked for several theatre and performing arts companies in LA such as Center Theatre Group, Ghost Road Company and LA Stage Alliance. Ashley is a staff writer for LA Stage and LA Theatre Review. Back in the summer of 2009, she was an intern for SOSE and never left.

Alex Wells

Actor

Alex Wells has been a member Son of Semele since 2004. A native of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Alex is an actor, director, writer and broadcaster.

Last year he performed as Fresa Girl 2 and the TV Reporter in SOSE's Iphigenia Crash Land Falls on the Neon Shell That Was Once Her Heart directed by Matthew McCray. In 2005, Alex directed the workshop for SOSE's first company-devised play, The Labour Project with SOSE playwright Aaron Henne.

In other venues, Alex played Lance in Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen of Verona for the Classical Theatre Lab in West Hollywood and F.W. Benteen in Custer at the LA Veterans' Artists Alliance in Culver City. He was the first Secretary of Defense, James Forestal in Ken Urban's The Absence of Weather for Moving Arts at LATC. In 2003, he co-produced and starred as Oscar Wilde/Lord Goring in the critically acclaimed (LA Weekly "Pick of the Week") An Ideal Husband as Victorian Noir at The Met Theatre. Recent screen work includes, CBS-TV's NUMB3Rs and the independent film, Radio Free Albemuth.

Before coming to LA, Alex performed with the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival and in numerous off/off-off Broadway plays, including one he wrote about Vietnam veterans, The War in New Jersey. A million years ago, he toured the country doing Shakespeare.

He is on the artistic advisory board of Culver City Public Theatre, where, since 2000, he has directed classical plays such as The Braggart Soldier by Plautus, Oedipus Rex by Sophocles and The Deceived by Gl'Intronati.

Alex studied acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York and holds an MFA in acting from Temple University. He earned his B.A. and M.A. in History from Columbia University. He has been teacher with Imagination Workshop, East LA Classic Theatre and Brentwood School.

When he's not on the stage, he can be heard reporting the news for KABC-AM 790. He has also worked on the air for radio stations in New York, New Jersey and New England. He has written numerous articles about radio for publications such as the Pasadena Star-News, Downtown News, LA Radio Guide, Radio World and the Los Angeles Times.

Alex is married with a daughter in high school.

Jonathan CK Williams

Actor

Laura Wong

Costume Designer

Laura Wong is a Costume Designer living and working in Los Angeles. She is a recent graduate from Occidental College, and is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Costume Design from UCLA. Laura specializes in Japanese costume and textiles, and has studied the subject extensively in Japan and in the United States. Theatrical credits include Elektra, Slaughter City, Molly Sweeney, Fefu and Her Friends, and You Should Be So Lucky. Film credits include the feature film Honest Cheat and the short film Hitachi’s Tempura. Online portfolio available at: www.laurawong.net.