Round the House (David Firestine, Sharon Goldwasser, Claire Zucker, and Mark Robertson-Tessi) presents a mixture of songs and energetic Irish traditional dance tunes. Round the House brings authentic Irish music, with a twist of Tucson, to stages throughout the southwest. Their 2004 CD was named best new release by Tucson readers and was featured on the NPR All Songs Considered website. They are four-time winners of the TAMMIE for best traditional/ethnic band in Tucson. Round the House is based in Tucson Arizona, but has played in New Mexico, Colorado, Texas and California in the past few years.

Robert Villa (Violinist) began taking violin lessons while in the 7th grade at Roskruge Middle School. He is currently playing 8th chair in the first violin section of the Civic Orchestra of Tucson. He is also beginning a string quartet and is open to giving lessons. His love of music encompasses many styles and genres. As well as music, Robert loves nature and all that is wild. He is currently on the board of the Tucson Herpetological Society—dedicated to conservation, education and research concerning the amphibians and reptiles of Arizona and Mexico.

Cast

Musicians

Production Staff

Designers

Our Thanks

Esther Blue Almazan (Miss Power) has a Bachelor’s Degree in Theatre Arts and recently completed her Master’s Degree in Scriptwriting at Prescott College. A member of Tucson Art Theatre since 1990, she has also worked with the National Theatre of Great Britain, aka Theatre, Old Pueblo Playwrights and the Greer Garson Theatre.

Amy Almquist (Gretta Conroy) studied acting at the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago and received her MFA in Directing from the University of Montana. She has worked with the Montana Repertory Theatre, Missoula Children’s Theatre, Seattle’s Annex Theatre and locally has performed and/or directed with the Arizona Opera, Beowulf Alley Theatre Company, Live Theatre Workshop, Upstairs Film, Pima Community College and The Invisible Theatre. Her local productions include: Criminal Hearts, The Threepenny Opera, Kindertransport, Lost in Yonkers, Come Back to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean, The Dining Room and To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday. Amy taught acting at Pima Community College, is a member of the Screen Actor’s Guild and is currently a cast member of the internationally renowned LaughingStock Comedy Company.

Christopher Burnham (Mr. Bergin), a native of Tucson, has spent much of his life on the stage, getting his start in children’s theater and working his way up through the Theater department of Salpointe Catholic High School, where some of his favorite roles included Henry Higgins (My Fair Lady), Captain Keller (The Miracle Worker), and King Sextimus (Once Upon a Mattress). Currently a junior in the Theater program at the University of Arizona, Christopher’s roles have included four ensemble roles in Guys and Dolls, Talthybios in The Trojan Women, and Al in The Philadelphia. He is also currently working on The Creation of the World and Other Business, in which he plays Adam. Christopher would like to express his joy at having the opportunity to work with such a great cast and director, bringing such beautiful language to the stage. Also, he would like to thank his parents, sister, and good friends for their love, support, and encouragement.

Tanaya Gallagher (Lily): This is Tanaya’s second professional show, the first being The Rogue Theatre’s production of The Balcony. She performed in many shows at Catalina Foothills High School including Cabaret, Jake’s Women, The Children’s Hour and Summer and Smoke. Currently she is training to become a fitness instructor at Canyon Ranch and is attending Pima Community College where she runs cross country.

Roxanne Harley (Mrs. Malins)’s theater credits include The Balcony (The Rogue Theatre), The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife (Wilde Playhouse), The Hot’l Baltimore and Random Ax (Nathalia), The Vagina Monologues (V-Day Productions), The Foreigner (Pima College Theater Arts) and Spinning the Tale (Bloodhut Productions). She is a playwright and produced and directed her short film What She Wants. Roxanne is on the counseling faculty at Pima Community College.

Carolyn Hokin (Miss Daly) is a freshman in science at the University of Arizona, and is more than thrilled to be a part of the Rogue Theatre’s production of The Dead. She got her start performing at St. Philip’s in the Foothills Episcopal Church, where she sang such coveted solo pieces as Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and Gabriel Fauré’s Pie Jesu. She has worked extensively with the BASIS School, where she most recently played Bella in Lost in Yonkers, Titania in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and directed The Compleat Wrks of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged). Carolyn is also currently a member of Tucson’s popular improv troupe Not Burned Out Just Unscrewed.

Art Jacobson (Mr. Kerrigan) began his acting career as a child actor in Chicago radio. In college, he played John Adams in a summer-long production of The Common Glory. He wrote and acted in radio dramas produced by the Broadcasting Service of the University of Michigan and came home to Chicago as a production director at NBC’s affiliate, WMAQ. Subsequently, he taught philosophy at Roosevelt University in Chicago. Tucson audiences have seen him in readers’ theatre performances of No Exit and The Critics, as the Rabbi in Borderlands Theater production of Vilna’s Got a Golem, and in The Rogue Theatre’s The Balcony. He’s delighted to be part of The Dead.

Amy Kenton’s (Miss O’Callaghan) mostly musical theatre credits include Into the Woods (Witch), Man of La Mancha (Aldonza), The Fantasticks (Luisa), The Last Five Years (Kathy), Hansel and Gretel (Gretel), Die Fledermaus (Orlovsky), Trouble in Tahiti (trio), 1940s Radio Hour (Ann), Up A Tree (SuSu) and ensemble roles in Beguiled Again, Assassins, Grand Night for Singing and A Marvin Hamlisch Music Revue. She has also been seen in Eleemosynary (Artie), performed Samuel Barber’s Knoxville Summer of 1915 with chamber orchestra, and was vocal director for Catalina Foothills High School production of A Chorus Line. She most recently appeared as Chantal in The Rogue Theatre production of The Balcony.

William Killian (Mr. Browne), an ensemble member of The Rogue Theatre company, played the Judge in The Rogue Theatre’s production of The Balcony. He has worked in most of the Tucson acting companies, including the Arizona Theatre Company and its production of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. His other favorite work includes The Seagull, Cerceau, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, On Golden Pond, Bill W. and Dr. Bob, Hot L Baltimore, and I Never Sang For My Father. He has acted in the films Family Plan and The Decoy and in several films with the media arts students at Pima Community College and the University of Arizona. In 2003 the U of A media arts students gave Bill an Outstanding Actor Award in appreciation of his work. For several years he was the Host of Different Drummers, a Midwest talk show on the Chicago CBS affiliate WBBM-TV.

Joseph McGrath, Artistic Direcotr (Gabriel Conroy) is a graduate of the Juilliard School of Drama. He has toured with John Houseman’s Acting Company, appearing in Pericles, Tartuffe, Twelfth Night, and The Country Wife. At the Utah Shakespearean Festival, Joe appeared in Hamlet, Henry IV: Part I, and Much Ado About Nothing. In New York City, he directed Rough Magic: A Shakespeare Quartet. In Tucson, he is a frequent performer with Ballet Tucson appearing as an Ugly Stepsister in Cinderella, Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, VanHelsing in Dracula and, perennially, as Drosselmeyer in The Nutcracker. He has also performed with the Arizona Theatre Company, Tucson Art Theatre, Arizona OnStage, Green Thursday, Damesrocket Theatre, and Old Pueblo Playwrights in such roles as Trigorin in The Seagull, Sam Byck in Assassins, John in Oleanna, and This Rock in Anger Box. Joe is also a scenic designer and owns Sonora Theatre Works with his wife Regina Gagliano, producing theatrical scenery and draperies. Most recently, Joe directed The Balcony and performed The Fever for The Rogue Theatre and also appeared in Arizona Opera’s Threepenny Opera.

Arlene Naughton (Mary Jane) performed most recently in The Rogue Theatre’s The Balcony. She is very pleased to be returning to the stage after a ten-year absence. Her Arizona credits include Nunsense (Flagstaff Festival of the Arts), Brighton Beach Memoirs (Serendipity Playhouse), A Christmas Carol (Gaslight Theatre); and Wigged Out! (Stray Theatre Company). Arlene also toured with the Nebraska Theatre Caravan and performed in Lady Audley’s Secret (Imperial Hotel) and I’ll Be Back Before Midnight (Derby Dinner Playhouse). She is a licensed marriage and family therapist and works at Cottonwood de Tucson.

James Naughton (Mr. Corley) is a Tucson native. He holds a masters degree in Rehabilitation Counseling from the University of Arizona, and works full-time as a licensed independent substance abuse counselor, and professional counselor at a local inpatient treatment facility. In the last year, Naughton was cast in a 15 minute short of Tea For Three at the Wilde Playhouse. Also, he has participated in many script readings with Old Pueblo Playwrights, and was most recently seen at The Temple of Music and Art in the staged reading of Circle Jerk.

Roberta Royse Streicher (Miss Kate) is very honored to be selected to play in The Rogue Theatre’s production of The Dead. Roberta came to Tucson in 1974 with her son, Eric, and has played in Tucson as a professional actress with the Arizona Theatre Company. She has recently appeared in the Wilde Theater’s production of The Allergist’s Wife, the Old Pueblo Playwrights’ Festival in Transitional Objects by Eugenia Woods and the Wilde Playhouse competition of OPP plays, Waiting. Roberta has a BFA from Goodman Memorial Theatre, has studied in New York City with Tamara Daykarhanova, was in the director’s unit of the Actors Studio, and has taught at Juilliard School of Music and Pima Community College. Roberta asks that her work in The Dead be held in memory of her beloved friend Viola Scott, June 27, 1904 - March 6, 2006.

Mona Tadych (Miss Julia), born in Belfast, North Ireland, began her career at age six as an Irish dancer and as an actor in school plays. In her teens, she joined the Association of Dramatic Arts, doing Irish plays such as O’Casey and Synge. She moved to Milwaukee in the fifties, appearing in numerous plays on stage and TV, then on to Tucson in the seventies, where she appeared at the Playbox and ACT (now Arizona Theatre Company). She also has appeared on TV in Young Riders and Legend, as well as local commercials. Now she’s back to the Irish again in The Dead. Mona is married, mother of two and grandmother of three. A member of SAG since 1989, she is enjoying it all! 

Martie van der Voort (Molly Ivors) has been performing as a musician and actor for over 30 years. She performs regularly with the Not Burnt Out Just Unscrewed comedy improv troupe, Bloodhut Productions, Old Pueblo Playwrights and Bloody Unicorn Theatre Company. She is a singer/songwriter and the soloist at the Pet Cemetery of Tucson. She has a private practice in psychotherapy by day. She greatly enjoyed working with the inaugural Rogue production of The Balcony and still finds these rogues quite charming. She thanks her partner Lauren for all her patience and support.

Brian Wees (Freddy Malins) was last seen in Invisible Theatre’s The Exonerated. He has recently performed in Live Theatre Workshop’s Corpus Christi and The Rogue Theatre’s The Balcony. Brian spent his early years on the stage of Washington D.C. and New York City - most notably in the Off Broadway production of Hagar’s Children. Favorite productions in Tucson have been Quintessential Stage’s A Skull in Connemara and The Weir, LTW’s The Rainmaker and The Taming of the Shrew, Top Hat’s The Sunshine Boys, Borderlands’ Guantanamo, and Brachiate’s Macbeth.