Creative Team

CHRISTINA ROUSSOS (DIRECTOR) is a theatre and film director based in Brooklyn. Her work has been seen at the Clurman Theatre on Theatre Row, HERE, the Living Theatre, FRINGENYC, Ensemble Studio Theatre, HB Studio/HB Playwrights Foundation and The Kennedy Center. She is the director and co-producer of The Share. Upcoming projects include the short film Close the Loop and the original series Bodega with Tenement Street Workshop. Last season Christina served as an Associate Director for Theater Breaking Through Barriers, and is currently a volunteer at the 52nd Street Project.

 

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REBECCA BURTON (PLAYWRIGHT) has been working on Mercy Street for the past few years. In in 2010 she directed a short film, It’s All Relative, which did well on the festival circuit that year. She is also collaborating with composer/lyricist David Sherman, and is in negotiations for a new musical entitled Fools’ Parade based on the Davis Grubb novel of the same title. Rebecca began writing at BMI, collaborating with Frederick Marco on a 10 minute musical The Reunion, based on her true life story, about an adopted child meeting their biological mother. She is member of the Dramatist Guild of America and an alumna of the BMI Lehman Engle Musical Theatre writing workshop. Previously she has worked as a director and dramaturg for several stage productions including: Higher Learning a new play by David O’Connor at HB Studios, H.A.! a new play by Perry Laylon Ojeda which was in development with director Karen Azenberg and has now become a Web Series, and Dramatic Tendencies, an evening of one act plays in NYC. She was the Assistant Director to Eleanor Riessa at The Old Globe Theatre in San Diego for the production of Cowgirls, as well as the Assistant Director to Avery Schreiber at The Jupiter Theatre in Florida, where she worked with Ted Lange as Hoke in Driving Miss Daisy and Bernie Koppell in Neil Simon’s Rumours. As an actor she has performed on both stage and screen. Most recently she starred in The Keeper a film by Zack Schamberg. This year she has been fortunate to be cast in a number of readings including: Maggie in Brooklyn Moonshine War a new play by Arthur Shapiro directed by Melisa Annis, at the Midtown International Theater Festival, and Sissy in The Carpetbaggers Children, by Horton Foote directed by Alex Mallory at ESPA Primary Stages.  New York productions include, One Midsummer Night by Stephen Jacobson, The Fullness of Life a new musical by Ed Goldschneider, and Beginings a new musical revue by Brett Kristofferson. Regionally she has worked at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Old Globe, The Hangar Theatre and the Jupiter Theatre to name a few. She Is the Founder of the TumbleBox Collective, a group of writers, directors and performers focused on new theatre and film development through collaboration. She received a B.F.A in Musical Theatre from the University of Michigan.

 

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BRETT KRISTOFFERSON (ORIGINAL MUSIC) Brett Kristofferson is a composer/lyricist whose work has been heard in numerous venues around New York City, including The Duplex, The Laurie Beechman Theatre, Don’t Tell Mama, Rose’s Turn, Manhattan Theatre Source, and Astoria Performing Arts Center (APAC).  He has presented several revues of his work, including This Love (“Best Revue of 1999” – New York Post); Beginnings: The Music of Brett Kristofferson; The Man on the Rock, and most recently, Keeping My Composure at the Laurie Beechman Theatre.  An alumnus of the BMI-Lehman Engel Advanced Musical Theatre Workshop, he has written book, music and lyrics for several musicals, including Insanities; The Red House (additional lyrics by Angela Shultz); As the Curtain Rises (book & lyrics by Brent Peterson); and In Her Place (book & lyrics by Angela Shultz).  He is the recipient of the 2010 Bistro Award for Songwriter and, in 2009, won two Dottie Burman Songwriting Awards, given by Cabaret Hotline and MAC.  He is a two-time “Song of the Year” nominee by the Manhattan Association of Cabaret and Clubs (MAC) in 2010 and 2002, winning the award in 2010 for his song, “Things That Haunt Me.”

 

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MARK McSHANE (AUTHOR “Séance on a Wet Afternoon”)

[b. 1930] was an Australian author of satire, suspense novels, and crime fiction. Born in Sydney to a family with Gypsy roots, he traveled the world for the first three decades of his life. In 1960, he settled on the island of Mallorca, in the Mediterranean, and decided to write fiction.

His first novel, The Straight and the Crooked, appeared that year, but it was his third effort, Séance on a Wet Afternoon, for which he is best known. The story of a strange pair of kidnappers, it was made into a well-regarded film in 1964 and has been adapted as an opera. His most well known characters are the eccentric Detective Sergeant Norman Pink, and Appleton Porter, an unlikely spy whose often comic adventures McShane chronicled under the pseudonym Marc Lovell.

Photo courtesy of the McShane family.  Bio courtesy of Otto Penzler, Mysterious Press.

 

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RENAE BAKER (CHILD ACTING COACH) holds a B.F.A. in Musical Theater from the University of Michigan, and is also an alumna of the National Theatre Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, where she studied directing as well as acting. As an actor and singer, herself, she has appeared on stage and in film, television, cabaret, concert and music video. Since 1997 she has been the founder/director I S.M.I.L.E. In New York Productions, a company of actors and vocal groups for special events. As an acting coach, Renae has guided her clients into feature films, pilots, episodic television, Broadway, National Tours, regional theatre and music videos. She is also called upon, by film directors, to help shape the performances of their talent on set and behind the scenes. She is recommended by major talent agents and managers as well as directors, teachers and parents of young actors. Renae Baker’s young clients have performed on Broadway (ANNIE, SHREK, MARY POPPINS, BILLY ELLIOTT), on Broadway tours (BILLY ELLIOT, LES MISERABLES), on TV (30 ROCK, SESAME STREET, elemeNtarY, LAW AND ORDER SVU) and in Feature Films (MOONRISE KINGDOM, THE WOMAN)