Full Cast Announced for the Mountain Play Presentation of HAIR
By: A.A. Cristi Mar. 23, 2017
The Mountain Play - Casting is complete for the Mountain Play's production of HAIR In Concert, which will be presented as part of the Magic Mountain Play Music Festival commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love and the first ever outdoor rock festival - the Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival. HAIR In Concertwill take place on Saturday, June 10, 2017. www.MountainPlay.org
With a cast of 24, the production stars David Crane (Berger), Fernando Siu (Claude), Lexie Papedo Gasparini (Sheila), Amani Dorn (Dionne), Samuel Ethan Rubin (Woof), Gary Stanford Jr. (Hud), Amy Dietz (Jeanie), Chloe Condon (Crissy), Michael Monagle (Margaret Mead) and Paul Hogarth (Hubert). The Tribe includes Kimberley Cohan, Samantha Cooper, Corrie Farbstein, Debra Harvey, Nicole Helfer, Zachary Isen, Erica Lamkin, Eric Levintow, Bryan Munar, Aisha Rae, Shelby Stewart, Amy Zanco, Zachary Morris and Earl Alfred Paus.
HAIR celebrates the sixties counterculture in all its barefoot, long-haired, bell-bottomed, beaded and fringed glory. To an infectiously energetic rock beat, the show wows audiences with songs like "Aquarius," "Good Morning, Starshine," "Hair," "I Got Life," and "Let The Sun Shine." Exploring ideas of identity, community, global responsibility and peace, HAIR remains relevant as ever as it examines what it means to be a young person in a changing world.
About Jeff Wiesen:
Actor and Director Jeff Wiesen is delighted to welcome in the sanctity of Mt. Tamalpais once again. This season marks Jeff's directorial debut with The Mountain Play, as he is helming the production of Hair in Concert for the Magic Mountain Play Music Festival. Directing credits in the Bay Area include: Beauty & the Beast (IAM), Sweeney Todd (IAM), Secret Garden (IAM). Playing Gaston in this season's Disney's Beauty and the Beast, this is Jeff's 3rd Mountain Play as an actor, having appeared as Berger inHair (2007) and Captain Hook in Peter Pan (2015). Other theater credits include: Othello (Cassio - Marin Shakespeare Company), Los Angeles: Hamlet (Hamlet), Green Grow the Lilacs (Curly), King Lear (Edgar), Romeo & Juliet (Romeo) Television: Without a Trace, All My Children, Big Time Rush.
About David Möeshler:
David Möschler is an award-winning freelance conductor and musical director based in the San Francisco Bay Area and is thrilled to return for his second show with the Mountain Play after conducting last year's West Side Story. Recent music direction credits include Ray of Light Theatre productions (The Rocky Horror Show, LIZZIE, Into The Woods and Assassins), Lamplighters Music Theatre (Patience, H.M.S. Pinafore), American Conservatory Theater and Guthrie Theater (Mr. Burns: A Post Electric Play), San Francisco Playhouse (Promises, Promises), Douglas Morrisson Theatre (Candide), West Edge Opera (Hydrogen Jukebox), San Jose Repertory Theatre (One Night with Janis Joplin), Shotgun Players (Woyzeck, Assassins, The Threepenny Opera), Broadway by the Bay (Evita), and Center REPertory Company (Spring Awakening), among many others. Möschler has won two Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards for Best Musical Direction with Ray of Light Theatre as well as a Theater Bay Area Award for Outstanding Music Direction with Lamplighters Music Theatre. He is Resident Musical Director for YMTC Berkeley where he's conducted twenty full productions and has been a member of the music staff for College Light Opera Company since 2005. He serves on the faculty for Academy of Art University and is active as a guest lecturer on musical theater. In 2013 Möschler founded the Awesöme Orchestra Collective, which he conducts every month. More information can be found at davidmoschler.com.
About Zoë Swenson-Graham:
Zoë Swenson-Graham returned to the states in 2015 after living in London for nearly 7 years, where she worked as an actor, dancer, and trained as a stage combat instructor and fight choreographer. She is thrilled to be returning to the Mountain Play, after choreographing the fights for West Side Story and Peter Pan. Before leaving London, she was the leading role in the English Premiere of Neil LaBute's Autobahn at The Kings Head Theatre, London. Other acting credits include: Our Town (Emily). The Trojan Women (Helen), TheToll (Edinburgh Festival), and Twelfth Night (Viola). She received an Off-West End Best Actress nomination for At the Broken Places, a new American play that premiered in London. She has served as a stage combat choreographer and teacher around the UK, including the Royal Opera House, Soho Theatre, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, Southwark Playhouse and the British American Drama Academy. Since returning to the Bay, Zoe has choreographed for and taught with The American Conservatory Theatre, Berkeley Rep School of Theatre, Oakland School of the Arts, Sierra Repertory Theatre Company, East Bay Center for the Performing Arts, Ross Valley Players, YMTC, Palo Alto Children's Theatre, and Stapleton School of the Arts.
About David Crane:
David Crane is thrilled to be returning to Mountain Play after appearing as Bernardo last year in West Side Story. Originally from Berkeley, he is a proud graduate of UCLA's Ray Bolger Musical Theatre program. Recent Credits: I Love You You're Perfect (STC), The Glass Menagerie (STC), Do I Hear a Waltz (Musical Theatre Guild), Dave Malloy's Don't Stop Me (YMTC Berkeley), 110 in the Shade (Actor's Co-op Hollywood), Pride and Prejudice (IAM Theatre) and Carrie (Western Stage) You can also catch him online, in numerous Buzzfeed sketches, and in the new web series Dropping the Soap starring Jane Lynch! www.davidtcrane.com
About Fernando Siu:
Fernando Siu was first seen on the Mountain two years ago as a bumbling pirate in Peter Pan, and is overjoyed to return to the beautiful Mt. Tam stage! He has previously been seen in Theater At Large's Next to Normal (Gabe), Spreckles' Little Mermaid(Flounder), Marin Onstage's This Is Our Youth (Dennis), and Marin Summer Theater's Les Miserables (Jean Valjean), as well as many more around Marin County.
About Lexie Papedo Gasparini:
Lexie Papedo Gasparini is elated to be back on the Mountain with this incredible team! Bay Area acting credits include American Conservatory Theater, Crowded Fire, Shotgun Players, 42nd Street Moon, Berkeley Playhouse, PianoFight, The Mountain Play (HAIR 2007), etc. New York credits include The York Theater, Joe's Pub at The Public Theater, Off-Broadway at The Barrow Group Theater. Commercial credits include AutoNation, HomeLight, Visa, BurtsBee's, T-Mobile, ABC, DiscoveryChannel, SonyPlaystation, etc. Directing credits include PianoFight, Crowded Fire, NY Theatre Barn, IAM Theater's Pride & Prejudice and more. Lexie is a proud member of Actor's Equity.
About Amani Dorn:
Amani Dorn hails from Austin, Texas and is thrilled to be performing in her first show at The Mountain Play! She performed in many shows at Zach Scott Theatre while in undergrad at the University of Texas before moving to New York and subsequently getting her MFA in acting at U.C. Irvine. She recently moved to the Bay Area and couldn't be happier to be part of the tribe.
About the HAIR In Concert and the Magic Mountain Play Music Festival:
The Magic Mountain Play Music Festival celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the 1967 Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival through the music that gave voice to a generation and provided the soundtrack to the Summer of Love.
In response to America's materialism and demand for social conformity, a new consciousness began to rise with the "Human Be-In" held on January 14, 1967 in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. From coast-to-coast during the Summer of Love, young Americans encouraged all to "turn on, tune in, drop out" in an attempt to create a world community of individuals whose senses were activated, interactions were harmonious and who were free from unconscious commitments.
Invigorated by the excitement of what was happening in the streets, James Rado and Gerome Ragni were inspired to bring this experience to the stage and theatre-going public. HAIR The American Tribal Rock Musical was born. HAIR's world premiere took place in October of 1967 as the inaugural performance of Joseph Papp's Public Theater.
About the Mountain Play:
Rooted in more than a century of theatrical tradition, the Mountain Play Association provides enriching live performances that stimulate creativity, engage our community and foster a lifelong enjoyment of the arts.
Our signature event is a spectacular outdoor production that celebrates musical theatre and nurtures respect for the unique natural beauty of Mount Tamalpais.
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