Amy Berryman, Annabel Capper, and More Among All-Female Cast of THE CONVENT

Weathervane Productions, Rising Phoenix Repertory, in association with Rattlestick Playwrights Theater announce casting for the world premiere production of The Convent, a new play by critically acclaimed playwright Jessica Dickey (The Amish Project, Charles Ives Take Me Home). The production, directed by Daniel Talbott, will begin performances on January 16, 2019 with an opening night scheduled for January 24, 2019. The Convent will run through February 17, 2019 at the Mezzanine Theatre at A.R.T./New York Theatres (502 West 53rd Street). Tickets go on sale on Monday, December 3 at weathervanetheater.org.

The all-female cast features Amy Berryman (Lunchtime, I Will Be Gone), Annabel Capper (Pygmalion, Passion Play), Margaret Odette (Sensucht, She Kills Monsters), Brittany Anikka Liu (Period Sisters, Rapture Blister Burn), Lisa Ramirez (Good Grief, Angels in America), Samantha Soule (The Philanthropist, Dinner at Eight), and Wendy Vanden Heuvel (I Am A Seagull, Burn Country).

Jessica Dickey has been hailed as "a playwright to watch" by The New York Times. Her one-woman show, The Amish Project, went from the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival to a critically heralded production at Rattlestick in 2009, and has since been produced all across the US and all over the world. She was also acclaimed for Charles Ives Take Me Home, produced in 2013 by Rattlestick.

In Dickey's new play, a group of women go on a retreat to live like nuns in the Middle Ages and are baptized with 80s pop, female mysticism, hallucinogens and sex. The Convent is a toothy dark comedy about desire, devotion and the mystery of intrinsic divinity.

The production features scenic design by Raul Abrego, costume design by Tristan Raines, lighting design by Joel Moritz, sound design by Erin Bednarz, projection design by Katherine Freer, and fight direction by Unkle Dave's Fight-House.

Kendra Bator serves as executive producer. General manager is Snug Harbor Productions, Inc. (Steven Chaikelson).

BIOGRAPHIES

Amy Berryman (Bertie) is an actor and writer originally from Seattle. She was previously seen as Louise in Lunchtime at The Brick in NYC, written/directed by Greg Kotis, and at the Humana Festival as Pen in Erin Courtney's I Will Be Gone. The short film she wrote, co-produced, and starred in, You Are Everywhere, won Best Drama in the LA Short Film Festival 2018 and she can be seen in the award-winning web series #nofilter. Amy was a Finalist for the 2018 Playwrights Realm Fellowship, and her plays have been developed at the Last Frontier Theatre Conference in Alaska; AMIOS Theatre Co, Nomad Theatricals, and Barrington Collective in NYC; Prop THTR in Chicago; and Portland Stage in Maine. Her play The New Galileos was recently recorded for the podcast The Parsnip Ship. amy-berryman.com

Annabel Capper (Dimlin). Trained: London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), 3 Year Classical Acting. London born, New York based. Favorite roles include: Off-Broadway: Mrs. Pearce, Pygmalion (Bedlam), Gertrude, Hamlet (Kraine Theater), Mary, Passion Play (Lincoln Center). Regional: Mrs. Bonner,Mrs. Packard (Bridge Rep, Boston), Lady Macbeth, Macbeth (Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre) London: Esther, The Price (Apollo Theatre, West End), Nurse Ratched, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (Lost Theatre), Beatrice, Much Ado About Nothing (Hazlitt Theatre), Miss Prism, The Importance of Being Earnest(Hazlitt Theatre). TV: "EastEnders" (BBC), "Sensitive Skin" (BBC), "Operation Mincemeat" (BBC). Radio: Cymbeline, Troilus and Cressida (BBC).

Margaret Odette (Jill). New York: Sensucht (JACK), She Kills Monsters (The Flea/Vampire Cowboys), Figaro (The Pearl), The Electric Lighthouse (The Flea),Asian American MixFest (Atlantic). Regional: Paradise Blue (Long Wharf), The House That Will Not Stand (NYS&F), Jump (Chautauqua), Skeleton Crew(Chester). Film: Sleeping with Other People. TV: Instinct, Elementary (directed by Lucy Liu). Margaret is a co-founder and producer for HomeBase Theatre Collective, and a proud volunteer at The 52nd Street Project. BA Brown University (Weston Acting Award recipient); MFA NYU Tisch Grad Acting.www.margaretodette.com

Brittany Anikka Liu (Tina). New York: Period Sisters (HERE Arts Center), Rapture, Blister, Burn and Buffalo Heights (TIC Theatre). Regional: The Diary of Anne Frank (People's Light & Theatre), Tranquil (Luna Stage Co.), Romeo & Juliet, All's Well That Ends Well, Antony & Cleopatra, Julius Caesar (Virginia Shakespeare Festival). BA & BBA from The College of William & Mary.

Lisa Ramirez (Wilma) was most recently seen as MJ's Mom in Good Grief at the Vineyard Theatre, the Angel in Angels in America at Berkeley Rep and Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire at the Ubuntu Theater Project. She has performed extensively at theaters on both the East and West Coast such as the Cherry Lane Theatre, Atlantic Theatre Company, Working Theater, The Foundry, Ubuntu Theater Project, Magic Theatre, and Berkeley Rep, amongst others. Writing credits: Exit Cuckoo (nanny in motherland) was first presented Off-Broadway by the Working Theater (Colman Domingo, director) and subsequently toured in various theaters throughout the U.S. and Ireland; Art of Memory, a dance theatre piece, commissioned by Company SoGoNo and presented at the Ontological-Hysteric Theater and the 3-Legged Dog in New York (Tanya Calamoneri, director); Invisible Women-Rise, Foundry Theatre & Domestic Workers United; To the Bone, originally a Working Theater commission, was a finalist for the 2012 NPN Smith Prize, the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference and the Ellen Stewart Award; All Fall Down was conceived/written in at INTAR during the Maria Irene Fornés Hispanic Playwrights in Residency Lab; Contributing playwright for In Mother Words, presented at The Geffen Playhouse and various regional theatres (Lisa Peterson, director); In 2012-13 Lisa was part of the Mentor Project at the Cherry Lane Theatre where she wrote Pas de Deux (lost my shoe), (Bryan Davidson Blue, director). In September 2014, the Cherry Lane Theatre presented the world premiere of To The Bone (Lisa Peterson, director). Proud recipient of the 2015 NYCT Helen Merrill Emerging Playwriting Award and the Kilroy List of best plays 2015. Currently working on the screenplay of To The Bone and a stage adaptation of Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths, commissioned by the Ubuntu Theater Project.

Samantha Soule (Patti). Broadway: The Philanthropist, Dinner At Eight, Coram Boy. Off-Broadway: Transfers (MCC), And I And Silence (Signature Theatre); A Fable, A Summer Day, Killers and Other Family, The Hilltown Plays (Rattlestick, Obie Award); Barbecue, Much Ado About Nothing, Detroit '67 (Public), A Little Journey (Mint, Drama Desk nomination); Gabriel, The Voysey Inheritance (Atlantic Theater Company); Monstrosity (I3P); Valhalla (New York Theatre Workshop); The Dining Room (Keen, Drama Desk Award). Selected regional theatre: Transfers (Powerhouse), Thieves (Rising Phoenix Rep), Candida, Edith (Berkshire Theatre Festival) A Body of Water (Old Globe), The Evildoers (Yale Rep), Twelfth Night, An Enemy of The People, The Tempest (Shakespeare Theater), Lady Windermere's Fan (Williamstown) Film/TV: "Godless," "NCIS-NOLA," "Blacklist," "Nurse Jackie," "Blue Bloods," "Do No Harm," "Law & Order: SVU," "Smash," You Say Hello, How We Got Away With It, Cigarette Soup, The Penny Dreadful Picture Show, No Retreat, Revolutionary Road. BFA: The Juilliard School. Artistic Associate of Rising Phoenix Rep

Wendy Vanden Heuvel (Mother Abbess) works as an actress, teacher, and producer in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. She has taught at New York University's Experimental Theater Wing, Fordham University, A.C.T., The Barrow Group, and at Our Little Roses Orphanage in Honduras. In 1991 she was a member of Jerzy Grotowski's Objective Drama Project at Irvine University. She has worked as an actor in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and regionally. Acting credits include: Resurrection Blues by Arthur Miller (Guthrie Theater), Beckett Shorts directed by Joseph Chaikin, Mud (Magic Theater), A Movie Star has to Star in Black and White (Signature Theater), and Sex in a Coma, directed by Lee Breuer. She has worked with Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and Rising Phoenix Repertory both as an actress and a producer, and is a member of The Lake Lucille Chekhov Project created by Melissa Kievman and Brian Mertes. Film credits include The Chekhov Film Project's I Am A Seagull, Burn Country with James Franco and Melissa Leo, and Under the Silver Lake with Andrew Garfield. In 2012, she was awarded the TBG Outstanding Contribution to Theater Award and is a member of The 52nd Street Project. She lives in San Francisco with her husband Brad Coley and their daughter Lila Blue.

To post a comment, you must register and login.