The Verge

The Department of Performing Arts and Humanities
of the School of Liberal Arts at CCBC
presents

THE VERGE

BY SUSAN GLASPELL

Director
Cohen Ambrose

Set & Lighting Designer
Terri Raulie

Composer
Daniel Lewis

Costume Designer
James J. Fasching

Technical Director
Jason Randolph

Stage Manager
Felix Cooke

October 18 at 11:10am
October 19, 20 at 7pm
October 21 at 3pm
October 22 at 10 am

THE COMPANY

BROADUS NESBITT III (Anthony) is a freshman theatre major at CCBC. He wrote and directed his original play at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute as well as being a part of the film club. He is represented by m.t.m. agency and has a training background in modeling. He is also a YouTuber who plans to draw in an audience with his short skits. He wants to transfer to Towson as a Theatre major. Although he loves acting, he has a passion for animals and would like to become a professional reptile breeder while maintaining his acting career.

TATE ERICKSON (Harry Archer) returns to CCBC Essex after a year and a half hiatus. Tate is a Theatre major who works in the theatre scene shop. Tate has appeared in Love’s Labor’s Lost, and Macbeth. He has also been in The Graduate at DCT, Avenue Q at Cockpit in Court Theatre, as well as many shows from his high school. Tate will also appear in Side Show at DCT and Working at CCBC Essex.

ROSE HAMILTON (Hattie) makes her acting debut in The Verge. She is a Theatre major, and 2nd year student at CCBC. Outside of classes, she enjoys dancing, script writing, and both digital and traditional art. She is currently working on developing multiple screenplays and stage plays that she hopes to get produced in the future.

NJ SAROFF (Claire Archer) is excited to be acting again after a small hiatus. N. J.’s love of theatre, sparked young, continued into high school where they acted and assisted backstage in The Wizard of Oz, Seussical, Once Upon a Mattress, and Bye Bye Birdie. They have also been a member of Open Space Arts participating in their Summer Playwrights Festival 2011-2017, and their winter plays as an actor, director, ASM and playwright. Previously they’ve been Stage Manager for CCBC’s Choir Boy, Spotlighters, and STAR Ltd. N.J has had six poems published and two plays performed. N. J. loves the incredible cast and thanks them for the amazing experience they have let them be a part of.

AZIZ RAVSHAN (Dick Demming) is a second-year Theatre major at CCBC. He makes his CCBC debut with The Verge. He is very excited to play the role of Dick Demming.

ANTOINE WILLIAMS (Tom Edgeworthy) is a 22-year-old student. A longtime lover of the performing arts, Antoine has spent nearly 12 years on the stage in one capacity or another. Whether singing in Europe, dancing on stage, serving in churches, accompanying and instructing his middle school chorus, or creating comedy videos via social media, the theatre seems to be a natural place for him to be. He currently majors in Political Science and plans to minor in Music. He last appeared in The Uprising Plays at CCBC Essex in Spring 2018.

PAIGE PISANO (Elizabeth) appears in her first production with CCBC Essex. In the past, she has appeared as the lead in the musical Annie and was also a part of the cast of The Wind in the Willows. This is Paige’s last semester at CCBC, and she will obtain her AA degree in December. She plans to transfer as a junior to Towson University in the Spring, and hopes to be a part of their theatre program as well.

CLAIRE SMITH ( Adelaide) has appeared in several productions with the Children’s Playhouse of MD, most notably as Lottie Child in Crazy for You. She has appeared in Interrupters by Legendary Pictures, a Tested episode with Adam Savage, a Motorweek episode on PBS, and a commercial for MD Department of Natural Resources. Recently, you may have seen her in The Baltimore Sun and Mashable for innovating her prom dress with tech. She is a freshman Honors Mellon Scholar at CCBC Essex and is thrilled to be part of this production!

DIRECTOR’S NOTE

Over the course of rehearsals for our production of The Verge, the United States senate voted to promote Judge Brett Kavanaugh to Justice of the Supreme Court, ostensibly tipping the scales of justice, and a threat to judicial precedent, into the hands of five men.

Susan Glaspell’s under-produced and – beyond literary and theatrical circles – virtually unknown 1921 play places women’s bodies and biological creation center stage. In her botanical experimentation, the play’s heroine, Claire, seeks to create something that “hasn’t been” out of the “life that waits.” Writing in the midst of women’s fight for the vote, achieved with the 19th Amendment in August, 1920, Glaspell embodies in Claire a desire to go beyond a singular change in the status quo; rather, to “explode the species” and make “the great leap” into complete newness and otherness – to re-vision what a woman may be within and beyond the patriarchy. Glaspell not-so-subtly hints at that great and unique womanly power, the ability to create and deliver life as well as to destroy it, as the best chance to “break through.”

Glaspell’s hauntingly relevant play speaks to a world that still has not yet learned that women’s bodies are their own, not the property of men to use, manipulate, adjust, and “hold into forms moulded” by them. When will we stop whistling, calling, glancing, and grabbing? When will we find the humility to face our shame and break through to what a man may be? As Claire says in the third act of the play: “Beauty is the humility breathed from the shame of succeeding.”

-Cohen Ambrose

PRODUCTION STAFF

PRODUCTION STAFF BIOS

COHEN AMBROSE (Director) is an actor, director, teacher, playwright, dramaturg, and theatre scholar, who has lived and worked in Montana, Washington, New York City, Prague, Czech Republic, and Baltimore. He holds an MA in Performance Theory and Criticism, an MFA in directing from the University of Montana, and a BA in philosophy and theatre from The Evergreen State College. His scholarship has been published in Theatre Symposium, Wheelhouse Magazine, State of the Arts, The Brecht Yearbook, the University of Montana Press, and the Performance Philosophy Journal. He has directed or acted in over twenty five professional and academic productions, most recently including an adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s Life of Galileo, Lanford Wilson’s Book of Days, and a new adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. He teaches Acting, Introduction to Theatre, Script Analysis, Philosophy, and Theatre History at CCBC Catonsville, where he also coordinates the Theatre Program. Special thanks to his wife, Laura, and his new baby son, Cillian.

TERRI RAULIE (Scenic Designer, Lighting Designer, and Technical Director) is an Assistant Professor in the Performing Arts and Humanities Department at CCBC. She holds a BFA and an MA in Theatre Design and Production from Montclair State University in New Jersey. Professional and regional credits include The Whole Theatre, The Hangar Theatre, and Playwright Horizons in New Jersey and New York. Locally, she has designed sets and/or lights for productions with Cockpit-in-Court Theatre, Phoenix Festival Theatre, and the Baltimore School for the Arts

JAMES J. FASCHING (Costume Designer) is the resident costumer in the Performing Arts and Humanities Department at CCBC. His career in design has taken him from designing for the Miss America Pageant, to having his own television spot on KDKA-TV for interior design tips, to designing hundreds of productions for Cockpit-in-Court Summer Theatre, Dundalk Community Theatre, Peabody Opera Company, Theatre Hopkins, and The School for the Arts in Philadelphia, to name a few. Mr. Fasching teaches Makeup Design for the Theatre program.

JASON RANDOLPH (Technical Director)

BS Math, College of William and Mary
MFA Rinehart School of Sculpture, MICA
MFA Technical Theatre and Design, UVA
TD/Resident Scenic Designer Single Carrot Theatre 2014-2017
TD CCBC Essex 2015-present
TD Cockpit in Court Summer Theater 2016-present

FELIX COOKE (Stage Manager) is glad to be back as SM for CCBC. No longer a student, his first role as stage manager came earlier this spring in ***The* Uprising Plays at CCBC Essex. He is a theatre major transferring to Towson University, and has since started stage managing for Spotlighters Theatre, for Judy & The General as well as their upcoming production of *Songs for a New World***. Working with this cast and crew has been an amazing and fun opportunity.

JALON PAYTON (Assistant Stage Manager) returns to CCBC Essex for The Verge. Jalon is a recent alum of CCBC, graduating with an associates of arts degree in Theatre. Jalon was the Sound Board Operator for last spring’s The Uprising Plays. He has also acted in The Elephant Man, The Menaechmi Twins, Macbeth and Everyman with CCBC. Jalon was recently awarded the “Outstanding Performance in Theatre Award” in the Spring by CCBC.

MIA AWAD (Assistant Set Designer) is a Design and Production major at CCBC Essex. Her previous credits include light board operator for Waiting for Godot and Stage Manager for Working at CCBC, and Assistant Stage Manager for Love, Loss, and What I Wore at Spotlighters Theatre.

DANIEL LEWIS (Composer) Versatile musician Daniel Lewis has elicited acclaim that it is “great to hear such good music so well played.” Trained as a classical guitarist, Mr. Lewis is known for very expressive phrasing and a commitment to unique programming, regularly performing music ranging from Renaissance Lute masterpieces to lesser-known 21^st century works. Equally at home in many musical styles, Mr. Lewis’ recent performance schedule has included original compositions on classical guitar, diverse music for the electric guitar in contemporary musical theater, and traditional American folk music on acoustic guitar and banjo. He can be heard in recordings of chamber music by Terry Champlin released by Highwater Music; and by David Loeb on the Vienna Modern Masters label.

As a composer, he has contributed music for projects produced by Tim Corbin Films, scored productions for Academic Theatre at CCBC, performed music written for Hamlet Lost/Found at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, along with frequently writing for River’s Edge Community Church. His compositions have been praised as “contemporary, fun, and complex,” and make use of the wide palette available today, ranging between solo classical guitar, traditional chamber ensembles, synthesizers, and beats produced in Digital Audio Workstations. Recently, he completed a piece for Banjo and String Quartet based around a reimagining of 19^th Century Banjo tunes, and is now working on a commission for the 50^th anniversary of the Central Maryland Chorale. Mr. Lewis holds a Master’s Degree from Mannes College the New School for Music and is currently Assistant Professor of Music at the Community College of Baltimore County, where he directs the Music Theory and Ear Training sequence.

Special Thanks