Artists
Actors
Musicians
Production
Actors
Jonathan Farmer is an actor/writer/director living in the hipster haven of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In addition to being a founding member of High Fidelity, Farmer is also a co-founder of Climb the Ladder, a group dedicated to producing ... well ... whatever the founders feel like producing. And he is thrilled, once again, to be working with such an inspired and talented group of artists. Concurrently to this show, Farmer is collaborating with Erik White in the writing of a play titled In Articulo Mortis: A Mesmerism in Three Fits to be performed by children in Wilton, NH this summer. Farmer received his BFA in Acting from Syracuse University.
Rebecca Gomes is currently living in Connecticut, working as a cook in a vegetarian feminist restaurant. This is her first performance with High Fidelity. She holds a BA of Theatre/ Performance from Franklin Pierce College in New Hampshire, where she studied under playwright Bob Lawson. She has worked on various shows in New Haven, CT with redconception theatre. Her next venture will be working in the Bread and Puppet Theatre Festival in Glover, VT. She dedicates this performance to Shawn, for all his love and endless, countless, thankless support, and also to Bob for giving her the NYC opportunity.
Shauna Kelly joined the fabulous Andy's Summer Playhouse community when she did the teen shows Snow Angel (an original David Lindsay-Abaire piece) and Safety Glass. She attended Pace University downtown and has also studied acting with Austin Pendleton at HB Studio. Last year she worked for seven months on Richard Foreman's King Cowboy Rufus Rules the Universe (Ontological Hysteric Theater). Her resume includes various independent films, the most recent being DJ Mendel's Day Before Night. Her favorite theater roles include Juliet and Desdemona (Schimmel Center), Violet in Small Craft Warnings, and Shelly in Moonchildren (The Engine Production Company).
Meridith Loren Nicholaev graduated from Franklin Pierce College in 2004 with a degree in Theatre Arts, and now is an actress currently living the cliché life as a waitress/bartender and nanny in New York. This is her second show with High Fidelity Productions; you may have previously seen her in Pandora's Box as Nick at John Houseman Theatre. She was a finalist in FUSE TV, The Ultimate VJ Gig (as you may see, she did not get the job, but least she still has a sense of humor). She is now pursuing voice-over work with Red Sky Pictures. Meridith currently resides in Woodside, Queens, but is looking to move out to Brooklyn. If you know of a 4 bedroom loft at a decent price, please stay after the show.
Forrest Simmons is a writer and stand-up comedian from Atlanta, Georgia. Selected past acting credits include Precious Stone, Dirty Words and Suicidal Fags and the Death of God. He is currently working on a one-man show tentatively titled A Valentine in the Digital Age.
Once there was this girl who wanted to be an actress. She started taking summer acting classes in her hometown of Madison, WI. After five summers she came to the realization that acting wasn't the only thing on her creative plate. She also enjoyed making clothes, music and dancing. High School finally finished for Nadia and then it was off to the city where dreams are supposed to come true. After finishing a two year training program at the American Musical and Dramatics Academy, she was still hungry for more "education." Last year Nadia completed her BFA in Musical Theater at The New School University and then spent her first summer at Andy's Summer Playhouse in Wilton, NH designing costumes for Pandora's Box, which became High Fidelity's first production. She enjoyed acting in the show as well as designing costumes and is happy to be with the High Fidelity Theater once again. She thanks her family for their love and support and also everyone involved in this project for making it happen.
Erik White lives in New York City most of the time. He goes to work, takes a few classes, makes music, reads a little, tries to eat well. He is particularly fond of walking around the city at night when it rains. Sometimes he spends chunks of time in southern New Hampshire with his family and other people he knows. He has been working at Andy's Summer Playhouse in Wilton, NH almost every summer since 1996, and is writing and directing a play this summer with Jonathan Farmer called In Articulo Mortis based on life of Edgar Allan Poe and his works. Erik was most recently seen on stage last October in Hi-Fi's first production, Pandora's Box. It was a lot of fun, and he is honored to be a part of this group of amazingly wonderful people. He thanks Bob Lawson and Henry Akona for their inspiring drive and artistry, and thanks his family for their support, the organic coffee beans of the world, and Nadia and Matt for keeping him sane in the city.
Liz Wisan was last seen with High Fidelity as Puddin' 'n Pie in Pandora's Box. She most recently appeared in Matthew Hancock's Dracula at Urban Stages, and in Ula: a Dream play with Music at the Phil Bosakowski Theater. Other NYC credits include Orestes, My Renaissance Faire Lady, American Eyeball and Crash Bound. At Williamstown Theatre Festival, Liz has been a member of the Act One and Apprentice Companies, and will return this summer as a member of the Non-Equity Company. WTF productions include Blood on the Cat's Neck, Twelfth Night, Polaroid Stories, and Under Milk Wood directed by Darko Tresnjak. Liz grew up in Harlem before her family moved to New Hampshire. "Wow, that's quite a change!" Yes. Yes it was.
Musicians
Uncle Moon is a four- or five-piece (depending on the gig), acoustic band that explores the rich sounds of the double bass, accordion, saxophone, violin, and guitar to create a diverse range of eclectic musical experiences. Sometimes funny, sometimes touching, always innovative, Uncle Moon embraces a wide range of musical and poetic styles. What emerges is a unique and distinctive sound that wanders and explores widely, but always combines knowing urbanity with a sincere, down-home feel. Check out their homepage at http://unclemoon.com.
Trey Kay hails from Charleston, West Virginia and received his theatre training at Ohio University. Over the past couple of decades, he has performed frequently in the New York theatre scene and perhaps even more in the city's music clubs with his former band The Cheese Beads and current band Uncle Moon. He has also performed extensively throughout Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In the early 1990's, he created and hosted The Natural Coffeehouse Radio Hour, which was heard for a brief shining moment on WBAI. Trey performed in Meredith Monk and Anne Hamilton's Mercy, which was part of the BAM's Next Wave Festival. His band, Uncle Moon adapted and performed of The Velvet Underground's Banana Album, which they performed as a part of BAM Cinematique's Andy Warhol Film Retrospective. Recently, Trey's radio work was a part of the Peabody Award-winning program, Studio 360 American Icons: Herman Melville's 'Moby Dick.' He absolutely loves all aspects of being a member of Uncle Moon and is delighted to collaborate on this piece with them, his cousin, Henry Akona and playwright Bob Lawson.
Carl Riehl studied piano and music theory at Oberlin Conservatory. In addition to playing accordion with and writing and arranging music for Uncle Moon, he pursues a variety of projects as a soloist, accompanist, composer/arranger and studio musician. He recently performed Philip Glass' Glassworks album on solo accordion at BAMcafe, and has been commissioned to write music for the performance of Howl at the third annual Howl Festival later this summer.
Scott Selig has played upright and electric bass around the world with countless peppy pop, mopey rock, sloppy punk, earnest folk and other unclassifiable ensembles. He's happy that he became part of the Uncle Moon stable four years ago.
Fritz Van Orden first came to musical notoriety while associated with the band The Kenturney Suckers Rhythm Aces in Berkeley California in the late 1960s, and later with Shaped Like a Kidney in Santa Barbara. Since his attack on the New York music scene commencing in 1978, he has played with Laurie Anderson, Glenn Branca, Stew Lane and the Untouchables, Joey Arias, David Linton's Electric Owthaus, Uncle Moon, Auntie Angus, and many others. He was a founding member of both the noted Minimalist Rock Ensemble Red Decade, and the renowned big band The Ordinaires, with whom he played throughout the 1980s. He came out of retirement in 1999 to join Trey Kay's amazing Uncle Moon Band, has happily played with them ever since.
Production
Henry Akona, originally from Hawaii, is a director and composer based in New York. He most recently directed Pandora's Box: A vaudeville for High Fidelity Theater at the John Houseman Studio A. He is the co-director of the Journey Theater Project at The Immigrant's Theater Project and is also currently directing a reading of a new play by Dawn Jameson for the New Indigenous Voices Festival at The Culture Project in May.
Before moving to New York, Henry was an assistant director at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis where he assisted Joe Dowling, Douglas Wager and John Miller-Stephany. His new children's opera, TABULA RASA, will receive its world premier in New Hampshire in August.
Alice Attie is a visual artist who lives and works in New York City. She recently published a book of photographs entitled Harlem on the Verge; a second book is due to appear in the fall of 2005 on the meeting place of art and medicine. Her drawings were recently shown at The Drawing Center in New York City and are currently included in a show at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Connecticut. She has an MFA in Poetry and a PhD in Comparative Literature.
Robert Lawson is a writer, director, composer, screenwriter & visual artist who has provided leadership for High Fidelity since its inception. He is also the author & director of dozens of performance texts that have been produced in New York, Boston, Philadelphia and various other venues. His music/theater work ...but the rain is full of ghosts was performed at the Kennedy Center as part of the National American College Theater Festival (2003). His work has been published in American Writing, Poems & Plays and The Northern New England Review.
Recent work includes directing the premiere of Elodie Lauten's The Death of Don Juan (April 2005); writing High Fidelity's premiere production Pandora's Box : a vaudeville (NYC, fall '04); direction & set design for The Magic Flute for the Granite State Opera; a staged reading of Dominic Orlando's Terror of the Physical Being for the MacDowell Colony's Downtown series; an ongoing series of workshops in Creative Process and Film for the Donau University in Austria; and co-writing an independent feature film, Safety Glass, slated to begin shooting later this year in Canada. He is the co-author of a number of screenplays, in collaboration with writer/director Jonathan Glatzer, including Fear Itself and Emmet Bull's Peerless Arcadium - both currently in development.
 | DJ Potter Λ
(Lighting Designer and Cinematographer) |
DJ Potter is a writer, director, designer, performer from sunny Wilton, New Hampshire. Currently he is hard at work writing the screen play for of all that is unearthed, a silent film based on the relationships between photography and vampires. The film will be shot this July for Andy's Summer Playhouse also in sunny Wilton, New Hampshire. Other projects include choreographing and designing a seven part dance piece set to 78'rpm records entitled Sippy Cup.
