ELTC - Staff & Board Members 2023
Craig Fols (Artistic Director) first began putting on plays in his grandmother’s basement when he was four years old. Growing up in South Jersey, he created theater in grade school and the community and had his first one-act play published by Eldridge Publishing Company when he was 12.
At 15, he started getting acting gigs in Philadelphia, including performing for three summers at LaSalle Music Theatre and for six-show weeks in Philadelphia dinner theaters. At 18, he studied and worked at Bob Hedley’s The Philadelphia Company before moving to New York at age 19 to study acting at Circle in the Square on Broadway. Early acting credits include playing Colleen Dewhurst’s son in The Trials of Mrs. Surratt by Lanie Robertson. He also originated the role of Kenneth Halliwell in Nasty Little Secrets, first at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia and later at Primary Stages in New York.
While working at Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute, he began writing plays as an adult. On his 30th birthday, he acted in his comedy Buck Simple at Theatre Club Funambule on New York City’s Lower East Side. He went on to act in that show at venues such as the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club before the play was published in The Best American Short Plays 1994-1995.
In 2001, his long association with The Musical of Musicals began. While he was a writer at the BMI Workshop, he first pitched the show to Jim Morgan, the producing artistic director of the York Theatre, and eventually played the Leading Man Off-Broadway for more than 500 performances (Original Cast Album, Jay Records). During this time, he performed The Musical of Musicals for many of his childhood heroes, including John Kander and Fred Ebb, Harold Prince, Arthur Laurents, Carol Channing, and Stephen Sondheim. He subsequently directed his own version of the show at the Walnut Street Theatre, where he also played the Villain.
Recent work includes directing the Hank Williams bio Nobody Lonesome For Me at the American Heartland Theatre in Kansas City and developing his play A Tale of Two Cities, Cobbled Together by the Brothers Lovejoy at Centenary Stage in North Jersey. As a writer, he has received the Berilla Kerr Award, the BMI Foundation’s Jerry Harrington Musical Theatre Award, and a residency at Edith Wharton’s The Mount in support of his musical The Age of Innocence. He has also been a frequent resident at the Edward Albee Foundation in Montauk.
Cape May theater audiences of East Lynne Theater Company may also remember him as Maxwell Davenport in The Late Christopher Bean in 2013.
At 15, he started getting acting gigs in Philadelphia, including performing for three summers at LaSalle Music Theatre and for six-show weeks in Philadelphia dinner theaters. At 18, he studied and worked at Bob Hedley’s The Philadelphia Company before moving to New York at age 19 to study acting at Circle in the Square on Broadway. Early acting credits include playing Colleen Dewhurst’s son in The Trials of Mrs. Surratt by Lanie Robertson. He also originated the role of Kenneth Halliwell in Nasty Little Secrets, first at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia and later at Primary Stages in New York.
While working at Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute, he began writing plays as an adult. On his 30th birthday, he acted in his comedy Buck Simple at Theatre Club Funambule on New York City’s Lower East Side. He went on to act in that show at venues such as the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club before the play was published in The Best American Short Plays 1994-1995.
In 2001, his long association with The Musical of Musicals began. While he was a writer at the BMI Workshop, he first pitched the show to Jim Morgan, the producing artistic director of the York Theatre, and eventually played the Leading Man Off-Broadway for more than 500 performances (Original Cast Album, Jay Records). During this time, he performed The Musical of Musicals for many of his childhood heroes, including John Kander and Fred Ebb, Harold Prince, Arthur Laurents, Carol Channing, and Stephen Sondheim. He subsequently directed his own version of the show at the Walnut Street Theatre, where he also played the Villain.
Recent work includes directing the Hank Williams bio Nobody Lonesome For Me at the American Heartland Theatre in Kansas City and developing his play A Tale of Two Cities, Cobbled Together by the Brothers Lovejoy at Centenary Stage in North Jersey. As a writer, he has received the Berilla Kerr Award, the BMI Foundation’s Jerry Harrington Musical Theatre Award, and a residency at Edith Wharton’s The Mount in support of his musical The Age of Innocence. He has also been a frequent resident at the Edward Albee Foundation in Montauk.
Cape May theater audiences of East Lynne Theater Company may also remember him as Maxwell Davenport in The Late Christopher Bean in 2013.
Mark Edward Lang / TBE Design (Graphic Designer), a director, actor, acting teacher, playwright and graphic/web designer based in New York City, has been involved with East Lynne Theater Company since 2001. He has performed in many ELTC productions, including Who Am I This Time? (And Other Conundrums of Love), The Rainmaker, The Dictator, The New York Idea, Why Marry?, The Guardsman, Zorro!, Biography, Ah, Wilderness!, and Philip Barry’s You and I (Best Actor Jacoby Award, 2007); and also directed Eugene O’Neill’s Anna Christie and Kyle Bass' Possessing Harriet.
He began design work for ELTC in 2004, which includes creating logos, ads for all media, playbill covers and layout, newsletter layout, rack cards, invitations, posters, and the web site. The ELTC Season Posters may be viewed here.
Mark is a former company member and artistic associate of the Art & Work Ensemble and Harbor Theater companies in NYC. He’s performed Shakespeare, Molière and new works in NYC and on tour. He’s worked at Hilton Head Playhouse, Open Stage in Harrisburg, PA, and played Kosti in the three-person play Welcome Home Marian Anderson that premiered at the Passage Theater in Trenton, moved to Off-Broadway and then toured the country for several years. Directing credits include an off-off Broadway production of Othello in NYC. He wrote, produced and performed his two-person play Lunt and Fontanne: The Celestials of Broadway in NY (including FringeNYC 2016) and at the Classic Theatre of San Antonio. His play, Zelda and Scott: A Life Affair, based on the Fitzgeralds’ correspondence and co-starring his wife Alison J. Murphy, has played at ELTC, in NYC and at the Fitzgerald Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. He is a member of Actors’ Equity Association, SAG-AFTRA and the Dramatists Guild.
For over twenty years, he’s been a partner in Leadership Masters, founded by Scott Eck, which does corporate leadership training for Fortune 500 companies including GE, 3M, General Mills, State Farm, Boeing, Coca-Cola and Dell Computer. This work takes him all over the country and the world, to places like Istanbul, Malaysia, and Tanzania.
Mark is an honors graduate of Vassar College and was awarded its Kazan Prize for Excellence in the Dramatic Arts. In 2010, ELTC honored him for his design work at the New Jersey Theatre Alliance's annual Curtain Call event. Currently he is Vice-President and on the Marketing Committee for the Board of Trustees for ELTC.
He began design work for ELTC in 2004, which includes creating logos, ads for all media, playbill covers and layout, newsletter layout, rack cards, invitations, posters, and the web site. The ELTC Season Posters may be viewed here.
Mark is a former company member and artistic associate of the Art & Work Ensemble and Harbor Theater companies in NYC. He’s performed Shakespeare, Molière and new works in NYC and on tour. He’s worked at Hilton Head Playhouse, Open Stage in Harrisburg, PA, and played Kosti in the three-person play Welcome Home Marian Anderson that premiered at the Passage Theater in Trenton, moved to Off-Broadway and then toured the country for several years. Directing credits include an off-off Broadway production of Othello in NYC. He wrote, produced and performed his two-person play Lunt and Fontanne: The Celestials of Broadway in NY (including FringeNYC 2016) and at the Classic Theatre of San Antonio. His play, Zelda and Scott: A Life Affair, based on the Fitzgeralds’ correspondence and co-starring his wife Alison J. Murphy, has played at ELTC, in NYC and at the Fitzgerald Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. He is a member of Actors’ Equity Association, SAG-AFTRA and the Dramatists Guild.
For over twenty years, he’s been a partner in Leadership Masters, founded by Scott Eck, which does corporate leadership training for Fortune 500 companies including GE, 3M, General Mills, State Farm, Boeing, Coca-Cola and Dell Computer. This work takes him all over the country and the world, to places like Istanbul, Malaysia, and Tanzania.
Mark is an honors graduate of Vassar College and was awarded its Kazan Prize for Excellence in the Dramatic Arts. In 2010, ELTC honored him for his design work at the New Jersey Theatre Alliance's annual Curtain Call event. Currently he is Vice-President and on the Marketing Committee for the Board of Trustees for ELTC.
Thomas Raniszewski (Manager of Social Media) served as President of ELTC's Board of Trustees from December 2016 - December 2019. He earned a BA in Music from Rowan University. He released three CDs, all in partnership with George Mesterhazy, who was the producer. His debut album of original compositions, A Midnight at a Time received the Stonewall Society 2004 Pride in the Arts Award as well as being nominated Outstanding New Recording 2004 by Outmusic Awards.
Not a stranger to the not-for profit world, in the mid '80s, Thomas served on Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts and Humanities’ (MAC) Performing Arts Committee, and worked part-time for MAC as a tour guide from 1985 until 2000. In 2003 his Christmas single "Through a Child's Eyes" was released in partnership with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, with proceeds going to benefit this worthy cause. For several years, he helped organize GABLES' Diversity Weekends and Cabarets in Cape May.
At various times, Thomas owned and operated a B&B in Cape May, worked for Atlantic Books (when it was located at what is now Stewart's Root Beer), and currently works at the popular retail store, Bath Time. He was Entertainment Editor for Out in Jersey Magazine (2003-2006) and currently writes for Cape May Magazine (2006-).
Throughout the years, he’s worked off-and-on with various theaters, and since 2004, began performing with ELTC. Productions include Arsenic and Old Lace, Dracula, Huckleberry Finn, and Rain. Outside of Cape May, he produced two shows, in which he also performed. In 2011 and 2012, it was The Twentieth Century Way in Philadelphia and in 2016, the world premiere of Dying Like Ignacio in NYC. He is a member of the Actors' Equity Association.
Thomas was born and raised in Cape May County and raised his son, Andrew, who is a police officer.
Not a stranger to the not-for profit world, in the mid '80s, Thomas served on Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts and Humanities’ (MAC) Performing Arts Committee, and worked part-time for MAC as a tour guide from 1985 until 2000. In 2003 his Christmas single "Through a Child's Eyes" was released in partnership with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, with proceeds going to benefit this worthy cause. For several years, he helped organize GABLES' Diversity Weekends and Cabarets in Cape May.
At various times, Thomas owned and operated a B&B in Cape May, worked for Atlantic Books (when it was located at what is now Stewart's Root Beer), and currently works at the popular retail store, Bath Time. He was Entertainment Editor for Out in Jersey Magazine (2003-2006) and currently writes for Cape May Magazine (2006-).
Throughout the years, he’s worked off-and-on with various theaters, and since 2004, began performing with ELTC. Productions include Arsenic and Old Lace, Dracula, Huckleberry Finn, and Rain. Outside of Cape May, he produced two shows, in which he also performed. In 2011 and 2012, it was The Twentieth Century Way in Philadelphia and in 2016, the world premiere of Dying Like Ignacio in NYC. He is a member of the Actors' Equity Association.
Thomas was born and raised in Cape May County and raised his son, Andrew, who is a police officer.
THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Susan Tischler (President) is the co-owner of two stores on the Washington Street Mall in Cape May, Kaleidoscope and Just for Laughs, and writes for Exit Zero. Her reminiscence of her father, Fred Brown, a coal miner from Pittsburgh, was included in the late Tim Russert’s book Wisdom of Our Fathers, published in 2006. Since 2013, she's co-produced, and portrayed Minnie Pearl in Barry's Christmas Opry, proceeds of which go to support the nonprofit West Cape May Christmas Parade.
She portrayed Enid Stonor in The Adventure of the Speckled Band, performed radio-style, for East Lynne Theater Company in 2018. Also for ELTC, she performed in The People of Cape May vs. Johan Van Buren, written by Dutch TV personality Judge Frank Visser, as part of the 400th Anniversary of the Founding of Cape May. She was commissioned by ELTC to write and perform Helpful Hints based on Mae Savell Croy's Putnam's Household Handbook (1916). Directed by Karen Case Cook it was performed at The Chalfonte, on ELTC's main stage, and on the road. From 2017-2019, she performed with SPQR Theatre in Calliope Rose, The Wreck of the Spanish Armada, and her own original works, Meet the Locals and Tao of Tisch. She was then selected to perform Tao of Tisch at The Women's Theatre Comedy Showcase in Parsippany, NJ.
Susan Tischler (President) is the co-owner of two stores on the Washington Street Mall in Cape May, Kaleidoscope and Just for Laughs, and writes for Exit Zero. Her reminiscence of her father, Fred Brown, a coal miner from Pittsburgh, was included in the late Tim Russert’s book Wisdom of Our Fathers, published in 2006. Since 2013, she's co-produced, and portrayed Minnie Pearl in Barry's Christmas Opry, proceeds of which go to support the nonprofit West Cape May Christmas Parade.
She portrayed Enid Stonor in The Adventure of the Speckled Band, performed radio-style, for East Lynne Theater Company in 2018. Also for ELTC, she performed in The People of Cape May vs. Johan Van Buren, written by Dutch TV personality Judge Frank Visser, as part of the 400th Anniversary of the Founding of Cape May. She was commissioned by ELTC to write and perform Helpful Hints based on Mae Savell Croy's Putnam's Household Handbook (1916). Directed by Karen Case Cook it was performed at The Chalfonte, on ELTC's main stage, and on the road. From 2017-2019, she performed with SPQR Theatre in Calliope Rose, The Wreck of the Spanish Armada, and her own original works, Meet the Locals and Tao of Tisch. She was then selected to perform Tao of Tisch at The Women's Theatre Comedy Showcase in Parsippany, NJ.
Mark Edward Lang (Vice President & Graphic Designer) (See above)
Cecilia M. Tyler (Treasurer) majored in Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. After graduation, she remained in Philadelphia, earned a Master degree from Penn and spent the next 11 years teaching in the city. Her time there was divided between the public school system and 4 years as an instructor in the Psychoeducational Processes Department at Temple University. In 1979, Cecilia made a major career change when she joined New Jersey Bell. This change led to jobs in sales, technical support and finance in the rapidly changing telecom business. She was instrumental in establishing AT&T subsidiaries in Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and Colombia. She retired 22 years later from her position as Senior Manager for Business Planning in the International Channel of AVAYA, Inc, to return to her first love, teaching. Cecilia retired from Hunterdon Central Regional High School in Flemington, NJ after 12 years in the Social Studies department teaching Advanced Placement Psychology. She continues to work with students at Central as a volunteer in the theater department and in the Model UN program.
Keating Weinberger (Secretary) is a life-long Cape May resident who has worked as a CPA in the community for over 25 years. At Stockton University, he studied Accounting and Theater. His diverse theater experiences, when he was living in New York City, included stage managing in Central Park, and acting at the outdoor theater at Lincoln Center and Off Broadway at the Irish Arts Center. Now days, he enjoys ballroom dance with his wife and working on his farm. He appreciates the energy live theater brings to our community and hopes to help it thrive.
Keating Weinberger (Secretary) is a life-long Cape May resident who has worked as a CPA in the community for over 25 years. At Stockton University, he studied Accounting and Theater. His diverse theater experiences, when he was living in New York City, included stage managing in Central Park, and acting at the outdoor theater at Lincoln Center and Off Broadway at the Irish Arts Center. Now days, he enjoys ballroom dance with his wife and working on his farm. He appreciates the energy live theater brings to our community and hopes to help it thrive.
Mark David Boberick
Eliza Lotozo is the Chief Outreach Manager at Cape May MAC.
Daniel Magariel is an author from Kansas City. His first novel One of the Boys (Scribner 2017) was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, Amazon Best Book of 2017, and a finalist for Lucien Barrière prize. The book was translated into eight languages and optioned for a film, with Daniel co-writing the script. His second novel is forthcoming from Bloomsbury (January 2023). He has a BA from Columbia University, as well as an MFA from Syracuse University, where he was a Cornelia Carhart Fellow. He teaches at Columbia University.
Bernadette J. Matthews worked in the computer field as a Systems Engineer and Consultant for many years with the IBM Corporation in Philadelphia. She’s taught computer systems, traveling throughout the US and Canada and had her own Technical Recruiting firm in Philadelphia. Bernadette moved to Cape May, NJ in 2005, to join the Cape May Jazz Festival as its Executive Director. She later became the Executive Director of the Center for Community Arts, retiring from that position to manage Cape Island Cleaning Service, LLC, a residential and commercial cleaning company. In her spare time, she is 2nd Vice President of the Greater Cape May Chamber of Commerce, Board of Directors for Family Promise, and a member of Cape May Lutheran Church and its choir. Having grown up in a Church choir, she has a passion for music and entertaining. Bernadette was lead singer with a few groups in Philadelphia and became a part of the music scene in Cape May with the Hootenanny group singing with the late George Mesterhazy, The Squares and many others. Currently, she's lead singer for the Capers, a notable ensemble playing in and around the Cape May area. What spare time is left, she’s an avid tennis lover playing at the William J. Moore Tennis Courts.
Alison J. Murphy is a New York and New Jersey-based actor who has experience working with students with special needs, and co-teaches acting workshops with her husband, Mark Edward Lang. She has appeared in New York productions of Lunt and Fontanne: The Celestials of Broadway (with Lang), Aurora Leigh, The Wound of Love, and ELTC’s Why Marry? at the historic Players Club. ELTC productions in Cape May include The Late Christopher Bean, The Dictator, The New York Idea, Voice of the City, Why Marry?, Four by Four, You and I, Dulcy, and The Guardsman. For Access to Art in Cape May, she was in As You Like It and Bound by Truth. She has also worked with American Stage Company and Shakespeare in the Garden, in productions of Cloud Nine, Elephant Man, Extremities, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Othello, The Tempest and Twelfth Night.
Nick Nastasi
Jeff Sharkey (ADA Coordinator) has been involved in various performing arts scenes in South Jersey since 2002. He works for the New Jersey Department of Labor.
Eliza Lotozo is the Chief Outreach Manager at Cape May MAC.
Daniel Magariel is an author from Kansas City. His first novel One of the Boys (Scribner 2017) was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, Amazon Best Book of 2017, and a finalist for Lucien Barrière prize. The book was translated into eight languages and optioned for a film, with Daniel co-writing the script. His second novel is forthcoming from Bloomsbury (January 2023). He has a BA from Columbia University, as well as an MFA from Syracuse University, where he was a Cornelia Carhart Fellow. He teaches at Columbia University.
Bernadette J. Matthews worked in the computer field as a Systems Engineer and Consultant for many years with the IBM Corporation in Philadelphia. She’s taught computer systems, traveling throughout the US and Canada and had her own Technical Recruiting firm in Philadelphia. Bernadette moved to Cape May, NJ in 2005, to join the Cape May Jazz Festival as its Executive Director. She later became the Executive Director of the Center for Community Arts, retiring from that position to manage Cape Island Cleaning Service, LLC, a residential and commercial cleaning company. In her spare time, she is 2nd Vice President of the Greater Cape May Chamber of Commerce, Board of Directors for Family Promise, and a member of Cape May Lutheran Church and its choir. Having grown up in a Church choir, she has a passion for music and entertaining. Bernadette was lead singer with a few groups in Philadelphia and became a part of the music scene in Cape May with the Hootenanny group singing with the late George Mesterhazy, The Squares and many others. Currently, she's lead singer for the Capers, a notable ensemble playing in and around the Cape May area. What spare time is left, she’s an avid tennis lover playing at the William J. Moore Tennis Courts.
Alison J. Murphy is a New York and New Jersey-based actor who has experience working with students with special needs, and co-teaches acting workshops with her husband, Mark Edward Lang. She has appeared in New York productions of Lunt and Fontanne: The Celestials of Broadway (with Lang), Aurora Leigh, The Wound of Love, and ELTC’s Why Marry? at the historic Players Club. ELTC productions in Cape May include The Late Christopher Bean, The Dictator, The New York Idea, Voice of the City, Why Marry?, Four by Four, You and I, Dulcy, and The Guardsman. For Access to Art in Cape May, she was in As You Like It and Bound by Truth. She has also worked with American Stage Company and Shakespeare in the Garden, in productions of Cloud Nine, Elephant Man, Extremities, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Othello, The Tempest and Twelfth Night.
Nick Nastasi
Jeff Sharkey (ADA Coordinator) has been involved in various performing arts scenes in South Jersey since 2002. He works for the New Jersey Department of Labor.
THE BOARD OF ADVISORS
Kyle Bass is the author of Tender Rain, which premiered at Syracuse Stage in 2023, Salt City Blues, which was first produced at Syracuse Stage in 2022, and Possessing Harriet, published by Standing Stone Books, which premiered at Syracuse Stage in 2018 and was subsequently produced at Franklin Stage Company and at East Lynne Theater Company. His play Citizen James, or The Young Man Without a Country, about a young James Baldwin, has streamed nationally since 2021 and has been optioned for a feature-length film. Kyle is the co-screenwriter of Day of Days (Broad Green Pictures, 2017) and, with Ping Chong, he is the co-author of Cry for Peace: Voices from the Congo, which premiered at Syracuse Stage in 2010 and was subsequently produced at La MaMa Experimental Theatre. A three-time New York Foundations for the Arts (NYFA) fellow, Kyle is Assistant Professor of Theater at Colgate University and Resident Playwright at Syracuse Stage.
Geoff Cohen - A general manager and producer, I work with Nederlander Worldwide Entertainment developing new work and presenting shows in The USA, China, and Cuba. Past work includes a decade at Paper Mill Playhouse, 9 years at Madison Square Garden/Radio City Entertainment, and 5 years at George Street Playhouse. A co-creator of the New York Music Theatre Festival, I've also worked extensively with music and dance, and passionately pursue interests in poetry and photography (earned Certificate from the International Center of Photography).
Carolyn Griffin - Producing Artistic Director of MetroStage (VA) since its founding in 1984. She has produced over one hundred mainstage productions, including seventeen plays and musicals that were world premieres, and dozens of cabarets. She is committed to producing the best contemporary writing and showcasing the best regional artists for a broad-based audience reflecting the diversity of the Washington DC metro area. She has built three theaters by re-purposing nontraditional storefronts (and a lumber warehouse) into intimate well-equipped theater spaces, and is currently working on a fourth.
Michèle LaRue is an actress-manager, writer, and editor. She tours nationally with a repertoire of Tales Well Told, by American’s Gilded Age and Progressive Era authors. Several of these stories premiered on the porches and in the parlors of Cape May. A member of Actors’ Equity Association and SAG-AFTRA, Michèle was mentored by Warren Kliewer—founder and first producing artistic director of ELTC—to whom she was married for 27 years.
James Morgan is Producing Artistic Director of the York Theatre Company in NYC.
Emma Palzere-Rae is a former member of the Board of Trustees, and Chair of the Succession Committee. For ELTC, she appeared as Essie Miller in O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness! (2017) and as Harriet Beecher Stowe in Aunt Hattie’s House (2000). (Stowe continues to be offered for touring through ELTC.) Emma’s Be Well Productions also tours her original one-woman plays about Emily Dickinson, Victoria Woodhull and Gilda Radner throughout the country. She has appeared in regional and off-Broadway theaters and in film and television. Emma is also an experienced non-profit administrator having served as the Director of Development and Communications of Safe Futures (New London, CT), artistic director of NYC’s Plays for Living, and executive director of the Chorus of Westerly (Rhode Island). Emma is currently the Associate Director of Artreach, Inc., an organization that provides art classes and performing opportunities for adults who have suffered psychiatric disorders, and is the Regional Representative for The Dramatists Guild of America. She also co-directs Mystic Seaport’s annual holiday production Lantern Light Tours. Member Actors Equity Association, Dramatists Guild and Association of Fundraising Professionals.
Lanie Robertson is a playwright.
Sandra O. Sieber served only one term of three years on ELTC's Board, but in that time she and her husband hosted a fundraiser and held board meetings in their home, she gathered and categorized auction items for annual galas, revised the by-laws, pursued performing venues for ELTC, and is a true advocate for our theater and the arts. She also served on the recent Search Committee for a new Artistic Director.
VOLUNTEERING & BOARD MEMBERSHIP
Should you wish to be a member of the Board of Trustees, let us know. We're always looking for people with new ideas! Meetings are usually held virtually via Zoom (or in Cape May, NJ) at least four times a year. If you wish to help the company by volunteering to help with box office, ushering, marketing, etc., let us know that, too! See the "Get involved" page for details.
For information regarding Board Membership, Donations, Activities, and Volunteers:
Contact us through e-mail at info@eastlynnetheater.org, by mail to PO Box 121, Cape May, NJ 08204, or by phone at 609-602-8703.
Kyle Bass is the author of Tender Rain, which premiered at Syracuse Stage in 2023, Salt City Blues, which was first produced at Syracuse Stage in 2022, and Possessing Harriet, published by Standing Stone Books, which premiered at Syracuse Stage in 2018 and was subsequently produced at Franklin Stage Company and at East Lynne Theater Company. His play Citizen James, or The Young Man Without a Country, about a young James Baldwin, has streamed nationally since 2021 and has been optioned for a feature-length film. Kyle is the co-screenwriter of Day of Days (Broad Green Pictures, 2017) and, with Ping Chong, he is the co-author of Cry for Peace: Voices from the Congo, which premiered at Syracuse Stage in 2010 and was subsequently produced at La MaMa Experimental Theatre. A three-time New York Foundations for the Arts (NYFA) fellow, Kyle is Assistant Professor of Theater at Colgate University and Resident Playwright at Syracuse Stage.
Geoff Cohen - A general manager and producer, I work with Nederlander Worldwide Entertainment developing new work and presenting shows in The USA, China, and Cuba. Past work includes a decade at Paper Mill Playhouse, 9 years at Madison Square Garden/Radio City Entertainment, and 5 years at George Street Playhouse. A co-creator of the New York Music Theatre Festival, I've also worked extensively with music and dance, and passionately pursue interests in poetry and photography (earned Certificate from the International Center of Photography).
Carolyn Griffin - Producing Artistic Director of MetroStage (VA) since its founding in 1984. She has produced over one hundred mainstage productions, including seventeen plays and musicals that were world premieres, and dozens of cabarets. She is committed to producing the best contemporary writing and showcasing the best regional artists for a broad-based audience reflecting the diversity of the Washington DC metro area. She has built three theaters by re-purposing nontraditional storefronts (and a lumber warehouse) into intimate well-equipped theater spaces, and is currently working on a fourth.
Michèle LaRue is an actress-manager, writer, and editor. She tours nationally with a repertoire of Tales Well Told, by American’s Gilded Age and Progressive Era authors. Several of these stories premiered on the porches and in the parlors of Cape May. A member of Actors’ Equity Association and SAG-AFTRA, Michèle was mentored by Warren Kliewer—founder and first producing artistic director of ELTC—to whom she was married for 27 years.
James Morgan is Producing Artistic Director of the York Theatre Company in NYC.
Emma Palzere-Rae is a former member of the Board of Trustees, and Chair of the Succession Committee. For ELTC, she appeared as Essie Miller in O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness! (2017) and as Harriet Beecher Stowe in Aunt Hattie’s House (2000). (Stowe continues to be offered for touring through ELTC.) Emma’s Be Well Productions also tours her original one-woman plays about Emily Dickinson, Victoria Woodhull and Gilda Radner throughout the country. She has appeared in regional and off-Broadway theaters and in film and television. Emma is also an experienced non-profit administrator having served as the Director of Development and Communications of Safe Futures (New London, CT), artistic director of NYC’s Plays for Living, and executive director of the Chorus of Westerly (Rhode Island). Emma is currently the Associate Director of Artreach, Inc., an organization that provides art classes and performing opportunities for adults who have suffered psychiatric disorders, and is the Regional Representative for The Dramatists Guild of America. She also co-directs Mystic Seaport’s annual holiday production Lantern Light Tours. Member Actors Equity Association, Dramatists Guild and Association of Fundraising Professionals.
Lanie Robertson is a playwright.
Sandra O. Sieber served only one term of three years on ELTC's Board, but in that time she and her husband hosted a fundraiser and held board meetings in their home, she gathered and categorized auction items for annual galas, revised the by-laws, pursued performing venues for ELTC, and is a true advocate for our theater and the arts. She also served on the recent Search Committee for a new Artistic Director.
VOLUNTEERING & BOARD MEMBERSHIP
Should you wish to be a member of the Board of Trustees, let us know. We're always looking for people with new ideas! Meetings are usually held virtually via Zoom (or in Cape May, NJ) at least four times a year. If you wish to help the company by volunteering to help with box office, ushering, marketing, etc., let us know that, too! See the "Get involved" page for details.
For information regarding Board Membership, Donations, Activities, and Volunteers:
Contact us through e-mail at info@eastlynnetheater.org, by mail to PO Box 121, Cape May, NJ 08204, or by phone at 609-602-8703.
THE FOUNDER & EMERITUS STAFF
Warren Kliewer (Founder and Producing Artistic Director from 1980-1998) was born in Mountain Lake, Minnesota in 1931. At age 6, he discovered the magic of theater in the form of a puppet show of Peter and the Wolf at Balzer's Lumber Yard. His life was informed by the traditions of his Mennonite upbringing, his joy in being part of or watching any live performance, and his fervent commitment to the life of the mind.
He graduated from the University of Minnesota, and received his MA in English at the University of Kansas. Between 1959-1969, he taught English and drama at Bethany College in Kansas and Earlham College in Indiana, and was associate professor of English and Theater at Wichita State University, where he created the playwriting program. From 1970-1973, he served as production director for the National Humanities Series, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, in Princeton, NJ. His extensive acting work included the only New York production of Peter Weiss’s The Investigation, Tobacco Road (Fulton Opera House), and The Waltz of the Toreadors (New Jersey Shakespeare Festival).
His musical A Lean and Hungry Priest was produced in Los Angeles in 1973, and published in New Playwrights of Tomorrow. In 1976, he became a member of The New Dramatists in New York, where his plays The Booth Brothers and The Berserkers were produced in 1977 and 1978, respectively. In addition to dozens of original plays, his adaptations, which all premiered at ELTC, include Voice of the City, (based on O. Henry short stories), Ever So Humble (about John Howard Payne, early American actor-playwright), and Uncle Dan's Financial Tips, or Sunday Is Sunday, but the Other Six Days Is for Business (about Wall Street eccentric, Danial Drew in 1884). He also performed in the one-man show, Uncle Dan's Financial Tips, and a photo of him in this production is pictured here.
Even after being diagnosed with cancer and up to the day before he died, he was working on A Family of Actors, the first history of American actors and and acting to be written in 30 years.
Lee O’Connor (1948-2021; Technical Director from 1999 - 2020) When Lee's wife, Gayle Stahlhuth, was asked to be the Artistic Director in 1999, she asked him to be the Technical Director. In October 2019, he was diagnosed with cancer, and for awhile, it looked like he beat it. But then he lost the battle. Lee and Gayle brought over 100 different shows to the ELTC stage. His memorial service was filmed and is available at Spilker's Funeral Home. (Click Here) Shortly after his death, "The Lee O'Connor Memorial Fund" was created to build the dressing rooms for the AME Church that is slated to become a theater.
Gayle Stahlhuth (Producing Artistic Director from Jan. 1999 - Dec. 20, 2022) has performed off-Broadway (Manhattan Theatre Club, etc.) in national tours (Cabaret, Fiddler, etc.), regional theater (Gateway Playhouse in Long Island, etc.), television (various soaps, etc.), radio (commercials and Voice of America), and on the Chautauqua Circuit. Her plays have been performed at such places as the NYC International Fringe Festival, The Samuel French One-Act Festival, Arvada Center in Denver, Pennsylvania Stage Company, the Phoenix Theater in Indianapolis, and at several universities.
For her writing and/or performing, she’s been awarded commissions from The Smithsonian Institution, the Missouri and Illinois Humanities Councils, Theatreworks/USA and other theaters, and grants from the NJ Humanities Council, the NYS Council on the Arts, and the Mid-Atlantic Foundation for the Arts. This has all led to interesting productions and venues, i.e., The National Portrait Gallery commissioned her to write a play about Dorothea Lynde Dix. Titled Not Above A Whisper, she and her husband, Lee O’Connor, then took the play to venues sponsored by various mental health associations throughout the country. Solo shows she's created and toured (many bookings through Arthur Shafman Management) include Lou: The Remarkable Miss Alcott, The Awakening adapted from the novel by Kate Chopin, and Eve's Diary based on the writings of Mark Twain. Since 2007, she has presented ELTC's Christmas productions, adapting and performing stories by Zona Gale, O. Henry, Mark Twain, Mary Wilkins Freeman, Louisa May Alcott, L. Frank Baum, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edward Everett Hale, Bret Harte, and others, bringing to life thirty-plus characters in her memorized, unique storytelling style.
In the early 1980s, Gayle was a pioneer in the artist-in-residence (AIR) movement to put art back into public schools, and is on the AIR rosters for NY, NJ, UT, and WY. For her work, she was selected as one of only two hundred artists from all arts disciplines to be listed in THE DIRECTORY OF COMMUNITY ARTISTS published by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Throughout the years she has directed-stage managed-designed/set lights-designed/built sets-designed/built costumes for a variety of off-off Broadway shows, NYC cabarets, festivals and touring productions; started a dinner theater in Billings, MT; produced a Medieval Festival at The Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore; made and rebuilt elephant and llama blankets for Ringling Brothers Circus, and was an Emmy Awards’ judge in the field of broadcast news.
While still active as a performer, Gayle worked for the Sol Hurok Organization, setting up interviews and itineraries for artists such as Isaac Stern and members of the Bolshoi Ballet and Opera; was the accountant for Sha-Na-Na and other musicians; and worked undercover for white collar crime for a NYC detective agency.
She became ELTC’s Artistic Director in 1999, and A Year in the Trenches in the fall of 2017 marked her 100th production for ELTC. These shows include 24 world premieres and 11 NJ premieres, and she directed over half of them. Her directing and performing have been praised in “The Philadelphia Inquirer,” “The New York Times,” and “The Wall Street Journal,” as well as in local newspapers.
She served on the board of ELTC from 1987-1997, and at various times was President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer. From 1990-2002 she was a Council Member of The Episcopal Actors’ Guild, serving on the Membership Committee, and, at various times, was Chair of the Finance Committee, Secretary, and Treasurer. EAG, founded in 1923, was the first organization to help professional actors, and still continues to do so regardless of religious affiliations. Since 2004, she has served on the board of the New Jersey Theatre Alliance, serving on a variety of committees, but mostly with emerging professional theaters throughout the Garden State.
Gayle is an Active Member of the Dramatists Guild, SAG-AFTRA, Actors’ Equity Association, and the National League of Professional Women, who honored her in 2016 for her work as a theater professional. Gayle and East Lynne Theater Company are in the newest edition of THE CAMBRIDGE GUIDE TO AMERICAN THEATRE (2008).
She enjoys being in her homes in West Cape May, NJ and Manhattan.
For her writing and/or performing, she’s been awarded commissions from The Smithsonian Institution, the Missouri and Illinois Humanities Councils, Theatreworks/USA and other theaters, and grants from the NJ Humanities Council, the NYS Council on the Arts, and the Mid-Atlantic Foundation for the Arts. This has all led to interesting productions and venues, i.e., The National Portrait Gallery commissioned her to write a play about Dorothea Lynde Dix. Titled Not Above A Whisper, she and her husband, Lee O’Connor, then took the play to venues sponsored by various mental health associations throughout the country. Solo shows she's created and toured (many bookings through Arthur Shafman Management) include Lou: The Remarkable Miss Alcott, The Awakening adapted from the novel by Kate Chopin, and Eve's Diary based on the writings of Mark Twain. Since 2007, she has presented ELTC's Christmas productions, adapting and performing stories by Zona Gale, O. Henry, Mark Twain, Mary Wilkins Freeman, Louisa May Alcott, L. Frank Baum, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edward Everett Hale, Bret Harte, and others, bringing to life thirty-plus characters in her memorized, unique storytelling style.
In the early 1980s, Gayle was a pioneer in the artist-in-residence (AIR) movement to put art back into public schools, and is on the AIR rosters for NY, NJ, UT, and WY. For her work, she was selected as one of only two hundred artists from all arts disciplines to be listed in THE DIRECTORY OF COMMUNITY ARTISTS published by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Throughout the years she has directed-stage managed-designed/set lights-designed/built sets-designed/built costumes for a variety of off-off Broadway shows, NYC cabarets, festivals and touring productions; started a dinner theater in Billings, MT; produced a Medieval Festival at The Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore; made and rebuilt elephant and llama blankets for Ringling Brothers Circus, and was an Emmy Awards’ judge in the field of broadcast news.
While still active as a performer, Gayle worked for the Sol Hurok Organization, setting up interviews and itineraries for artists such as Isaac Stern and members of the Bolshoi Ballet and Opera; was the accountant for Sha-Na-Na and other musicians; and worked undercover for white collar crime for a NYC detective agency.
She became ELTC’s Artistic Director in 1999, and A Year in the Trenches in the fall of 2017 marked her 100th production for ELTC. These shows include 24 world premieres and 11 NJ premieres, and she directed over half of them. Her directing and performing have been praised in “The Philadelphia Inquirer,” “The New York Times,” and “The Wall Street Journal,” as well as in local newspapers.
She served on the board of ELTC from 1987-1997, and at various times was President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer. From 1990-2002 she was a Council Member of The Episcopal Actors’ Guild, serving on the Membership Committee, and, at various times, was Chair of the Finance Committee, Secretary, and Treasurer. EAG, founded in 1923, was the first organization to help professional actors, and still continues to do so regardless of religious affiliations. Since 2004, she has served on the board of the New Jersey Theatre Alliance, serving on a variety of committees, but mostly with emerging professional theaters throughout the Garden State.
Gayle is an Active Member of the Dramatists Guild, SAG-AFTRA, Actors’ Equity Association, and the National League of Professional Women, who honored her in 2016 for her work as a theater professional. Gayle and East Lynne Theater Company are in the newest edition of THE CAMBRIDGE GUIDE TO AMERICAN THEATRE (2008).
She enjoys being in her homes in West Cape May, NJ and Manhattan.
