Cast and Crew Bios
LIESEL ALLEN-YEAGER (Shallow) is excited to be working with the Maryland Shakespeare Festival. She has just completed her second year of training at The Juilliard School in New York, where favorite roles have included Elizabeth Proctor in The Crucible, Manuela Ripoll in Broken Eggs, Masha in The Seagull, and Sabina in The Skin of our Teeth. Liesel spent much of her childhood in Mt. Rainier and Silver Spring and is happy to return to her hometown for the summer to do what she loves!
JAKE BERGER (Master Ford) is making his debut with the Maryland Shakespeare Festival. His previous credits include Duncan/Macduff in the Shakespeare & Company tour of Macbeth; Valère in Tartuffe at Lamb's Players' Theatre, Joe Pitt in Angels in America, Part 1 at TheatreVCU, and Hortensio in The Taming of the Shrew with Shenandoah Shakespeare Express. He has directed for the education programs of The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey and Shakespeare & Company and has taught at the San Diego Junior Theatre, Stagewest, Virginia Commonwealth University and Webster Conservatory.
ANDREW BLASENAK (Caius, Nym) recently graduated with his MFA in Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature in Performance from Mary Baldwin College where his favorite roles included Edmund and Kent in King Lear, Mephistopheles in Doctor Faustus, and Holofernes in Love’s Labour’s Lost. He has also performed with the American Shakespeare Center (Staunton, VA) as Nathaniel and Marcade in Love’s Labour’s Lost, and with the Actor’s Shakespeare Company (Hoboken, NJ) as Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing, Valentine in Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Pincy in A Comedy of Errors, among several other roles. He is a strong proponent of audience-interactive theatre and plans to study it and actor-ownership of companies at the Ph.D. level this fall at Ohio State University. Thanks to the too-numerous-to-be-named people who have encouraged and believed in me throughout the years, and especially to my parents.
DOUGLAS ‘DC’ CATHRO (Mister Page) is thrilled to be working with Maryland Shakespeare Festival. He has been involved in the Bare Bard series, but Merry Wives marks his first appearance on their main stage. DC has been seen up and down the East Coast in shows such as Chess, Holmes & Watson, Coyote on a Fence, The Miss Firecracker Contest, and The Immigrant. Film appearances include heads or tails, Hunting Dragonflies, and Limits to Ambition. Thanks to the audience for supporting live theatre.
VERONICA DEL CERRO (Host, Pistol) is delighted to be working with Maryland Shakespeare Festival! She was last seen as Saint Monica in The Last Days of Judas Iscariot at Forum Theatre. Previous productions include My Children! My Africa! (Studio Theatre), Autobahn, Polaroid Stories, Seconds of Pleasure (Studio 2ndstage), Mill Town Girls (Quotidian Theatre), and Promenading with Lunatics (Treadwell Theatre). Veronica graduated from Virginia Tech and the Studio Acting Conservatory.
MEGAN DOMINY (Anne Page, Mistress Quickly) is happy to join the cast of Merry Wives. Most recently, she worked with the Shakespeare Theatre Company on Tamburlaine and Edward II. Other local credits include Sybil in Washington Shakespeare Company's Private Lives, Peaseblossom in Folger Theatre's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Christina in Riot Actors of Washington's Two of Me, Susie in Madcap Players' Pretty Theft, Corie in Bay Theatre's Barefoot in the Park, Ariel/ Miranda in Heritage Theatre's Tempest, and Hero in Upstart Crow's Much Ado About Nothing.
STEVEN HOOCHUK (Falstaff)
ELIZABETH JOHNSON (Props Designer)
BECKY KEMPER (Mistress Ford)
NEIL McFADDEN (Sound Designer) Neil’s sound and lighting designs have been heard (or seen) in many area theatres, including Arena Stage, Studio Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Olney Theatre, the Washington Savoyards, Everyman Theatre, and Round House Theatre (where he was the Resident Sound Designer for eleven years). A seven-time nominee, Neil received the Helen Hayes Award for his design of Round House’s Heathen Valley. Neil is also a musician and composer; he has played in many area shows; he also performs regularly with his rock/blues band Mike’s Garage (www.MikesGarageRocks.com), and as a solo acoustic performer. Love to Elizabeth.
THADD McQuade (Director)
JOSEPH B. MUSUMECI, Jr. (Set and Lighting Design) Joe has been associated with the Maryland Shakespeare Festival in both (or all) of its incarnations as a resident designer. In Frederick he has designed the Scenery for all MSF’s shows since Taming of the Shrew in 2002. This year he adds lighting duties to give a rest to Jason Aufdem Brinke so he and former MSF Technical Designer Kathryn Pong can enjoy their nuptials. Congratulations to both!
Recent local designs include the sets and lighting for Chicago at Carroll Community College, The Fifth Sister and The Importance of Being Earnest at Hood College and scenery for Sleeping Beauty and Twice Upon a Time at Imagination Stage. When not at the drafting board for a show or his local design and consulting firm, ProScenia Design,he is the Facility Managerat The JCC of Greater Washington. Mr. Musumeci is a two-time nominee for the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Set Design. He is a recipient of the Mary Goldwater Award for Outstanding Set Design, (and the coveted “Gilbey” for outstanding set design at Catholic University,) and has served as both Technical Director and Production Manager of MSF (as The Shakespeare Project) and of Round House Theatre for twelve years. He designs everything from graphics and interiors to miniature golf hazards in the shape of famous Israeli landmarks, and is bemused to be able to finally say he actually does “weddings and Bar Mitzvahs,” and lives in Frederick with Wicket, the Emergency Attack Shih-tzu and too many books.
SHANNON PARKS (Mistress Page)
CELESTINE RANNEY-HOWES (Costume Designer) moved to Maryland from the San Francisco Bay area 8 years ago. She was the Costume Shop Manager at The Arena Stage for 3 years and now is an instructor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and a Resident Artist at the Greenbelt Community Center. She has designed for the Maryland Shakespeare Festival’s Much Ado About Nothing and Two Gentlemen of Verona. She has also designed at UMBC’s Victor Frankenstein, Problem Child and Wild Black-Eyed Susans, as well as Endgame, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) and An Evening of One-Acts at Prince George’s Community College. Her artwork has been displayed in Richmond, VA at the Union Presbyterian Seminary as part of the exhibit The Body of Christ and at Montpelier Art Center as part of the Laurel Art Guild Show. In California, she was an instructor at San Francisco State University, Dominican College, San Francisco City College and California State University, Hayward. She designed costumes at Marin Theatre Company Performing Arts Conservatory, The Western Stage in Salinas, San Jose Stage Company, the American Conservatory Theatre's Young Conservatory, Marin Shakespeare, San Francisco City College and California State University, Hayward. She also designed for Shakespeare and Company in Lennox, Massachusetts, for the their 25th Anniversary. She still considers her best design to be her daughter, Alithea, who is, at the age of 25, a performance and fine artist.
PAUL R. RING (Production Stage Manager) This is Paul’s first season with the Maryland Shakespeare Festival and he hopes to have many more to come. He just finished up a seven month tour with the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Theatre for Young Audiences production of Katie Couric’s The Brand New Kid as the Assistant Technical Director and Sound Supervisor. Other theatres around the DC/Baltimore area Paul has worked at have been Folger Shakespeare Library, Shakespeare Theatre, Signature Theatre, Studio Theatre, and Woolly Mammoth Theatre. He was recently the Technical Director and Facilities Manager for the Warehouse Arts Complex in downtown Washington. He is also a designer in both lights and sound, having worked on several shows for last year’s Capital Fringe Fest.
JONATHAN TETER (Tour Manager/Assistant Stage Manager) His acting credits include Urinetown (Maryland Ensemble Theatre and McDaniel College), Something’s Afoot (McDaniel College), and The True Story of Cinderella (McDaniel College). He has been the Production Associate for the Baltimore Opera Company in The Bartered Bride, Tosca, La Forza del Destino, Maria Stuarda, Roméo et Juliette, Madama Butterfly, and the Stage Manager for A Christmas Carol (McDaniel College; Carroll Arts Council) and Waiting for Godot (McDaniel College); Jon has also worked regionally at the Olney Theatre Center. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music, Theatre, and French language from McDaniel College, and he currently works at the Baltimore Opera Company.
WES YOUNG (Evans, Fenton) is excited to be joining the cast of Merry Wives. He has just finished up his third year at the University of Virginia where he has enjoyed performances with The Whethermen in Virginia Improv, and Sir Andrew in UVA's production of Twelfth Night. During the summer Wes is to be found with the American Shakespeare Center where he helps with their Young Company Theatre Camp.
