Written by Siobhán Donnellan and Jen Browne
Directed by Halina Ujda
Featuring
Arash Mokhtar
Logan James Hall
John O'Dowd
Jen Browne
Siobhán Donnellan
Original Music by Cliodhna Donnellan
Co-writer, Actor
A native of Clare, Siobhán is a founder member of Dragonfly Theatre. She graduated from the MA in Drama & Theatre Studies, NUIG in 2006.
She was winner of the Outstanding Actor Award 2007 in the New York Fringe Festival for her role as Jo in Dragonfly’s debut play Married to the Sea, which subsequently toured Edinburgh and Dublin Fringe Festivals as well as an Irish tour in 2008 which included the Galway Arts Festival.
Other leading roles in theatre include the role of Mary in Mary Hegarty’s Last Dance and, Vanessa in The Lost Weekend (The Axis, Ballymun).
In 2009 Siobhán was selected to take part in the Pilot Programme of the Postgraduate Diploma in Performance in the Centre of Excellence, Queens University, Belfast. There she performed in two shows, one for the Belfast International Children’s Festival, and the other a devised piece under the guidance of London based company Forced Entertainment.
John O'DowdActor
Actor and writer John O'Dowd, originally from Boyle, Co. Roscommon, has been living in Galway, Ireland since 1992. After making his debut in Zelig theatre company’s production of The Cripple of Inishmaan during ‘Project 06’ he has gone on to perform at the Dublin Fringe Festival with Pat McCabe’s Appointment in Limbo, at Arts festivals around Ireland with The head of Red O Brien and in Single Handed for RTE television. This is his New York debut.
Halina UjdaDirector
Halina Ujda won the Best Director award at the National Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival from the SDC in 2005. She was awarded a membership to SDC and a scholarship to study at the Kennedy Center.
Halina has directed at Minetta Lane Theater, DTW, BACA, W.O.W., LaMaMa Theater, PS. 122, Dixon Place, American Globe Theatre, Goldberg Theatre, 78th Street Theatre, Westside Theatre, the Midtown International Theatre Festival Mainstage, the Flea Theatre and with the Obie Winning Company: Peculiar Works. She has been the Assistant Director to the Tony Award Winning director Jack Hofsiss and to Christopher Ashley. She is a member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab. Halina has an MFA in directing from Brooklyn College.
Jeb Knight
Set Designer
Jeb Knight (Scenic Design) past work includes The Fifth of July, Much Ado About Nothing, Medea, 1959 Pink Thunderbird, Assassins, A Very Mary Christmas (with Mimi Imfurst) and The Bald Soprano, among others. He is a graduate of Marymount Manhattan College and is the Graphics Associate for York Theatre Company. His fine art can bee seen at www.facebook.com/jkart. Love to EGP.
Zola BoddenAssistant Stage Manager
Zola Bodden is currently a college student majoring in Journalism & Media. She has interned for five years at various arts & theatrical centers. Currently she is working with The Barrow Group as the class coordinator, she's excited to be a part of For the Birds and this year's Fringe Festival.
Company Manager
Rachael W. Gilkey works in the arts in New York City, sometimes programming, sometimes promoting, sometimes participating in, but always loving it, from the classic to the bizarre. She is proud to work with Blue Wren Collective at FringeNYC 2010, and is a member of the boundary-pushing Theatre Reverb.
Light Design .... Lois Catanzaro
Costume Design .... Catherine Fisher
Sound Design .... Alan Meaney
Stage Manager .... Kyle Crose
Assistant Stage Manager .... Zola Bodden
Company Manager .... Rachael Gilkey
Jen Browne
Co-writer, Actor
Jen Browne is an actor, writer, and director based in New York.
She recently appeared in Spontaneous Shakespeare and Wild Bard’s productions of Richard II, Macbeth, and The Taming of the Shrew. She is an artistic associate with the The Red Door Theatre Company.
Her play lamb was produced as part of the 2008 Houston Fringe Festival and her short plays Love is a Blind Squirrel (2010) and again and again (2009) received their first performances as part of Learning Stage’s Play-in-a-Day Festival.
She studied ensemble and creative performance at Queens University in Belfast, NI and received a BA in Theatre Arts from Rowan University.
Arash MokhtarActor
Arash Mokhtar is an actor, director, writer and artist based in York City. Recent credits include: Lord Arthur Goring in Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband, Joe Cooper in Tracy Letts’
Killer Joe, Sam in the debut of 70 Million Tons (nominated best featured actor in an ensemble, NYIT awards); Daniel Woolf in Closer; Eddie in Hurlyburly; Farrell Taggert in
Theatre for the New City’s production of Paradiddle by the filmmaker Craig Singer. Recent film credits: Berlioz (lead) “Master and Margherita”, independent short; Nebbish (supporting),
independent feature, When the Devil Comes (post-production); Adel (supporting),“Jamais Vu (Never Seen)”, independent short; Carmine Calashort The Godfather of Darts.
Actor
Logan James Hall hails from a small town in Oregon. Upon moving to New York to pursue his art he started with an education in the theater at The Neighborhood Playhouse. Following that up with many small theater credits in the city, as well as regionally. It has been a wonderful adveture so far, with many thanks to all the support.
Catherine Fisher
Costume Design
Catherine Fisher has designed over sixty shows for stage and independent film. For the Birds, is Cat's first participation in a FringeNYC production. She is a 2007 member of the Lincoln Center Director's Lab, and a New York State Counsel for the Arts (Individual Artist) awards recipient. Her collaborative work in the 2009 Midtown International Theatre Festival, garnered a nomination for Crossroads, which was presented in a blackbox-with-costumes, for best scenic design.