Becky Stark - lead actress (Madeline)/Songwriter
Becky Stark is an acclaimed singer and songwriter. She most recently released the album Love to Live with her band The Living Sisters on Vanguard Records. She is the leader of the folk punk band Lavender Diamond and founder of the L.A. Ladies Choir, a collective of 30 women dedicated to creating healing experiences through music. She sang the role of Margaret on the The Decemberists’ 2009 album The Hazards of Love and joined Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward’s band She & Him for their Volume 1 tour. She is the creator of the art video series Califunya for which she collaborated with Miranda July, Jim Drain, and Tunde Adebimpe among others.
Harry Shearer - Actor (Dorian Byrd and Dr. Keely) - harryshearer.com
Harry Shearer is a comic personality who takes “hyphenate” to new levels. First and foremost an actor, he is also an author, director, satirist, musician, radio host, playwright, multi-media artist and record label owner.
For nineteen years the Los Angeles native has enjoyed enormous success and planted the fruits of his talents in the heads of millions worldwide thanks to his voice work for The Simpsons and The Simpsons Movie. Shearer plays a stable of characters: most notably Mr. Burns, Smithers, Ned Flanders, Rev. Lovejoy and Scratchy.
In July, 2007, Shearer plunged into the on-line video universe when the Harry Shearer Channel became a cornerstone of My Damn Channel, an entertainment studio and new media platform specifically created to empower artists to co-produce, distribute and monetize original, episodic video content. Each week a new political or pop culture satire written by and featuring Shearer is unveiled.
Movie audiences mainly know Shearer through his many collaborations with Christopher Guest and friends, beginning with Rob Reiner’s This Is Spinal Tap (1984) and continuing through the folk comedy A Mighty Wind (2003) and For Your Consideration (2006), a hilarious depiction of independent filmmaking and the “buzz” about a potential award nomination.
In the early 1980s, he and friends Michael McKean and Christopher Guest, along with director Rob Reiner, began to incubate an idea for a fake documentary about an aging heavy metal band. The resulting movie, This Is Spinal Tap, became the granddaddy of the mock-umentary genre and gave theworld new insight into the concepts of spontaneously-combusting drummers and amps that go up to eleven. The band was reunited in July 2007, for a special performance at The Live Earth Concert at London’s Wembley Stadium.
Shearer’s other film credits include Real Life, The Right Stuff, Portrait Of A White Marriage, The Fisher King, Godzilla, The Truman Show, Small Soldiers, and Dick. He has been a regular cast member on Saturday Night Live twice and, in 2002, wrote and directed his first feature film, Teddy Bears’ Picnic.
And on radio, Shearer’s one-hour satirical sandbox LE SHOW is heard weekly on stations worldwide.
Joseph Meissner - Director/Actor (Matt) - josephmeissner.com
Joseph has worked with some of the most influential theater directors of the last century, including Jerzy Grotowski, Andre Gregory (My Dinner with Andre) and Lee Breuer (The Gospel at Colonus). He graduated with honors from Brown University in 1993 with a degree in Theater.
In 1995, Joseph joined a small group of actors in a project led by Andre Gregory to explore Grotowskian performance training and Chekhov monologues. With Andre’s recommendation, Joseph was able to travel to Pontedera, Italy in the Fall of that year to train at Grotowsky’s secluded and highly selective performance studio.
Returning to the U.S. in 1996, Joseph worked with Salvage Vanguard on Ruth Margraff’s rock operetta Wallpaper Psalm and with New York-based Mabou Mines Theater on The Red Horse Animation, directed by writer/director Lee Breuer. The Red Horse toured to an international experimental theater festival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. As part of the rehearsal process, Joseph received intensive training in contact improv dance and Ashtanga yoga.
Between 1995 and 2001, Joseph worked closely with the nationally-recognized Salvage Vanguard Theater in Austin, TX, acting in lead roles in award-winning productions. In December 2000 theater critic Robert Faires of the Austin Chronicle wrote of The Cry Pitch Carrolls, “The performers bring great heart to the tale: There [are] raw wails of pain in Joseph Meissner’s fully grown Small Christus. The [actresses] reveal moving depths . . . and Meissner provides the ideal counterpoint to each.” Michael Barnes of the Austin-American Statesman called Joseph’s performance “uncanny.” He wrote, “only once in a very long while have we seen anything this mesmerizingly original.”
Joseph’s credits as a stage director in include the world premeires of Heidi Carla’s All in a Day’s Idyll at the 1992 Brown New Plays Festival, and Adam Sobsey’s The Essence of Comedy for Salvage Vanguard in 2000.
In 2001, Joseph moved to New Orleans and founded Shaolin-Do Kung Fu & Tai Chi, where he teaches martial arts and conducts private fitness and self-defense training. He has acted in many film projects and in 2003 collaborated with Kathy Randels and Jay Hammons of Moving Humans/ArtSpot on the performance pieces Venus, Vulcan, Mars and The Dancing Dwarf.
Joseph directed the short film Brook & Bern in 2008 and co-wrote the upcoming feature film Flood Streets with his wife, The Hatchery’s co-founder Helen Krieger. He plays the lead role of detective Jack Spade in the upcoming feature film, The Jack of Spades.
Helen Krieger - Writer/Producer
Originally from Hartford, Wisconsin, Helen Krieger got her BA in psychology from the University of Dallas, then moved to Boston, where she worked as a journalist before once again being tempted by the South.
Krieger was working as a real estate agent when Hurricane Katrina hit, and her experiences trying to rebuild the ravaged housing market after the storm inspired her to start writing again.
In the early morning, she wrote notes on the surreal experiences she’d had the day before, then she donned a face mask and gloves to meet with clients and inspectors at flooded homes. These notes later became award-winning stories and the inspiration for her first feature, Flood Streets.
Krieger’s stories have won a Eureka! Short Stories Fellowship Award, a Moondancer Fellowship and placed as a finalist for the William Faulkner Wisdom Creative Writing Competition. She’s received several grants to pursue writing including a Cultural Economy Grant to study novel construction at the Algonkian Writer’s Conference in San Francisco.
Additional Cast:
Rachel Dupard - Feliciana
She appeared on Dallas Fox 4 Insights, representing The Black Academy of Arts & Letters, shared the stage with Ms. Irma P. Hall of the hit movie “Soul Food” and has traveled Internationally to Bermuda performing as a solo artist in a children’s concert.
Rachel has a couple of broadway productions under her belt, performing the last two years with The Black Academy of Arts and Letters under the guidance of Mr. Curtis King. She was young Billie Holiday in “Rhapsody in Rhythm” and performed the Stephanie Mills version of “Home” in the Wiz where she was the finale act in “Hip Hop on Broadway.” She was the guest vocalist at the 2009 ESSENCE Music Festival in New Orleans, opening for the Youth Empowerment Session where she warmed over the audience with her soulful rendition of the National Anthem and then one of her own songs. Rachel is currently a High School student at a Performing and Visual Arts school in Dallas, TX and her private classical vocal lessons will help to expand on her career goals.
At the age of 13, Rachel completed her first demo CD project January 2009 with the Grammy Award winning producer, Madukwu Chinwah who has worked with Eryka Badu, Kirk Franklin, N’Dambi, Raven Symone, and many others. This project allowed Rachel to deliver positive messages and perfect her skills as a vocal artist creating future opportunities.
Asia Rainey - Georgia
Asia Rainey, a native of New Orleans, is an award-winning performer, educator and activist. As a spoken word artist, she has been welcomed around the country, sharing stages with artists such as the Last Poets, Mos Def, Suheir Hammad, Sunni Patterson, Taalam Acey and many more.
As an actress, Asia has starred in several theatre productions (Purlie; The Vagina Monologues; Origins of Life on Earth; The Unacquainted; A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant & A Prayer) and in television (writer, actress of the award-winning LPHI commercial “Treat You Right,” special co-host of Between the Lines). In 2010, she debuted her original stage play, Shut Up & Fly, set to tour in 2011. Her upcoming releases include a new CD in 2011 and a new book set to hit shelves in 2012.
Melissa Hall – Liz
Melissa Hall is a native of south Mississippi. She studied acting on the coast with the Walter Anderson Players and the Jefferson Davis players where she received an Irene Ryan Award nomination and honorary membership in the Delta Psi Omega collegiate theatre society for her multi-character portrayals in All in the Timing. In New Orleans, Melissa appeared in David Mamet’s A Boston Marriage, nominated for a Best Comedy Big Easy Entertainment Award and the 2004 Lesbian Theatre Award in Curve Magazineand played the role of Lavinia in Dog and Pony Theatre’s Titus Andronicus.
Elizabeth Dunnebacke – Sandra
Elizabeth Dunnebacke’s work in theater and media arts includes filmmaking, acting and nonprofit administration. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Theatre, Speech and Dance from Brown University and is anticipating her MFA in Film from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee in August of 2010. Elizabeth has worked in film and video production and post-production on documentary, commercial and network television projects. She is currently the Executive Director of the New Orleans Video Access Center (NOVAC) where she oversees training and career development programs which help to connect Louisiana residents to opportunities in the region’s growing creative media industry, particularly in emergent creative media technology. Elizabeth lives in New Orleans with her husband and 1.5 children.
Alma Maleckar – Dischordia
Bio coming soon!
Aja Becker- Abby
Aja Mel Becker is a fourth grader at The International School of Louisiana where she studies in Spanish immersion. She is writing her own play called, “Flying on the Big Metal Bird.” She was in ArtSpot Production’s “Beneath the Strata” at The Studio in the Woods. At The Ashe Cultural Center Aja did a poetic piece for the Women and War/Femme Fest and played the Mexican Wrestler during the September State of the Nation’s “More Spaghetti.” Last March she played Little Kate in “Turning of the Bones” for HomeNOLA?. She absolutely loved playing Abby in “Flood Streets”, her first movie role.
New Orleans filmmaker Miceal Og O’Donnell received his BA in fine arts at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, PA. Following graduation, Miceal worked for several years as a studio assistant under Ron Klein, an internationally acclaimed sculptor. He also studied writing under Pulitzer Prize winning author Stephen Dunn.
Miceal served in the United States Coast Guard from 2000-2004. During that time his primary responsibilities included Search and Rescue, Law Enforcement, Boat Coxswain, Training Petty Officer, Helo tie-down, and supervisor of Deck Department, to name a few. He has earned the Achievement Medal, and multiple other medals and awards during his service.
While stationed in Oregon, he studied screenwriting at the Northwest Film Center with a retired NYU screenwriting professor. After being transferred to New Orleans, LA, where he served at a small boat station, he enrolled in classes in film production at the University of New Orleans, where he took screenwriting workshops with Mari Kornhauser and Henry Griffin. He worked on many short films as a PA, grip, gaffer, camera operator, First A.D., boom operator, among many other positions.
In 2005, Miceal started an MFA program in film production, which was quickly cut short by Hurricane Katrina. Realizing that he learned more working on movies than in the classroom, he wrote and produced the feature Jack and the Dead Girl . . . , directed by Mike C. Ryan.
Miceal immediately followed this producing experience by getting behind the camera in an attempt to learn directing hands on. At several 48 Hour Film Festivals his films, produced and photographed by his wife Eileen O’Donnell, have won: second place audience award, best use of dialogue, best special F/X, and best actress ensemble at the Berlin festival in 2007.
He has written more than twenty feature length scripts and dozens of short scripts. A recent short that he wrote for Director V.K. Shah, The Nice Girl, premiered at the L.A. International Short Film festival, and has since played at The Other Venice Film Festival, and the Sun Screen Film Festival in Tampa Florida. The Independent Critic has stated in their review of the film, “While the film’s budget is a tad obvious in a couple of spots, Shah clearly knows his strength lies in Miceal O’Donnell’s solid script and giving his cast room to flex their muscles.”
His last producing and directing effort was the feature film The Jack of Spades, featuring actors Joseph Meissner, Dan Deluca (from HBO’s The Wire,) Jennifer Coolidge (Stifler’s Mom from American Pie,) Marc Macaulay (Bad Boys, Monster) and Lance Nichols (Benjamin Button).
Miceal is currently leading an acting workshop drawing on the techniques of Meisner, Stanislavsky, Stella Adler, and Harold Clurman.
| Kathleen Ledet / Assistant DirectorKathleen is a documentary filmmaker, with a BA in film and communications from the University of New Orleans. She co-directed and produced the award-winning short documentary, Weeding by Example, which tells the story of the City Park ‘Mow-Rons,’ a small group of New Orleanians who came together after Hurricane Katrina to bring their park and community back.
Kathleen worked with Glen Pitre and Michelle Benoit of Cote Blanche Productions on two documentaries: Air Racers for the State Aviation Museum in Patterson, LA, and Harvest to Restore: America’s Coastal Heartland, which aired on LPB in 2008. In 2009, Kathleen worked with acclaimed documentarian Rebecca Ferris of Cottage Filmsas producer on Turning the Tide, a short documentary about the volunteer effort to use discarded Christmas trees to help save Louisiana’s wetlands. The film was produced for the City of New Orleans and NOVAC. Kathleen worked as associate producer on Miller’s Tale, a Cottage Films feature documentary about the life of actor Jason Miller (Father Karras in The Exorcist). Kathleen’s 37-second short documentary Snowball Season won NOVAC’s 37th Anniversary Short Film Contest. Kathleen is currently working with Cottage Films on a documentary about the small Native American community of Isle de Jean Charles, which is rapidly disappearing due to subsidence, hurricane damage, and lack of levee protection. Rob Hebert / Editor |
Josh Johnston / Sound Mixer
