Meet the direction/production/performance team bringing you RED

Meet the artists responsible for RED at Lost Nation Theater

Mark Rothko? - the artist 

Mark Rothko (1903-1970):  An American painter of Russian-Jewish descent, Rothko refused to identify himself with any artistic movement. Nonetheless, along with Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, he is generally identified as one of the great Abstract Expressionists.   By 1958-59, the time period treated in the play, Rothko had only just begun to be able to support himself from sales of his paintings.  However, in 2012, one of his paintings sold for over $86 million, at the time, a record for any post-war painting.  On February 25, 1970, Rothko’s assistant came to his studio and found him covered in blood, lying on the floor in front of his sink.  He had used a double-edged razor blade to cut the main arteries inside both arms at the elbow.  Rothko was 66.  He left no note.  As he had once remarked,  “Silence is so accurate.”  The Seagrams Murals referred to in this play arrived in London for display at the Tate Gallery on the very day of his suicide.

John Logan? - Playwright

John Logan received the Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critic Circle and Drama League awards for his play Red. This play premiered at the Donmar Warehouse in London and at the Golden Theatre on Broadway. He is the author of more than a dozen other plays including Never the Sinner and Hauptmann. His adaptation of Ibsen'sThe Master Builder premiered on the West End in 2003. As a screenwriter, Logan had three movies released in 2011: Hugo, Coriolanus and Rango. Previous film work includes Sweeney Todd (Golden Globe award); The Aviator (Oscar, Golden Globe, BAFTA and WGA nominations); Gladiator (Oscar, Golden Globe, BAFTA and WGA nominations); The Last Samurai; Any Given Sunday and RKO 281 (WGA award, Emmy nomination).  He was inspired and prodded to write Red by Stephen Sondheim after completing the screenplay adaptation of Sondheim's Sweeney Todd. 

Doug Sprigg? - Director

The first recipient of an Endowed Chair in Theatre at Middlebury College, Mr. Sprigg taught and directed plays there for thirty-three years. For twenty of those years, he served as Chair of the Department. Among the plays he directed at Middlebury were the four great plays of Chekhov, as well as Shakespeare's Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear, Much Ado About Nothing, and Othello. He also directed Midwives by Vermont playwright Dana Yeaton, and, at the Bread Loaf School of English in Ripton, he directed Pinter’s Old Times. Mr. Sprigg received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, where he was privileged to direct such actors as Christine Lahti, Margo Martindale, Zach Grenier, and Gilda Radner, in addition to other burgeoning talents. Mr. Sprigg has directed in Los Angles for Ensemble Studio Theatre West; in New York City at the Bruno Walter Theatre; in D.C for the Potomac Theatre Project; and in New Jersey at The Gristmill Playhouse. For fourteen summers, he directed for the Heritage Theatre Festival at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. The plays included Proof, Art, The Price, Picnic, and The Miracle Worker.  In 1986, he directed Kim Bent in a production of Waiting for Godot that toured throughout the state of Vermont. 

Kim Bent - actor portraying Mark Rothko
 

A native of Braintree, Vermont, Kim is the Founder and Artistic Director of Lost Nation Theater.  Kim was a member of the Champlain Shakespeare Festival for several years as an actor and as a director of the interns, as well as the Iowa Theater Lab, one of the premiere experimental theater groups in the nation in the nid-70s, performing throughout the USA and Europe.  He has worked with Anne Bogart, Whoopi Goldberg and John O’Keefe.  Kim has been part of the theater faculty at Middlebury College, Goddard College, New York University and Long Island University, among others.   An actor, director, teacher and scenic/lighting designer, Kim’s favorite LNT roles:  Atticus in To Kill a Mockingbird, Deane Davis in But Your Honor!-Deane Davis Remembered, Andre in My Dinner with Andre, John in The Subject was Roses, Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night, and Bottom in a Midsummer Night’s Dream; directing Molly Sweeney, David Budbill’s Judevine, One Shoe Off, Complete History of America, Waiting for Godot, and The Tempest, and developing new work. He is renowned for his solo show work in Gunslinger and Beaver Falls.  Writing and directing STONE in 2005 was a return to his roots and the early days of LNT, when the company produced exclusively original work.  In 2006, Kim received the inaugural “Hathaway Prize” from the Vermont Historical Society for STONE.  His most recent writing projects were adapting Treasure Island, Katherine Paterson’s Lyddie for the stage, -  that show had its world premiere at LNT in 2012 - and is delighted to have continued his and LNT’s tradition of telling Vermont stories with Ransom.  Kim studied theater at the University of Vermont (BA), Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and Long Island University (MA). He is a juried artist on the Vermont Council’s artist register.

Levi Penley - actor portraying Ken

Levi Penley recently graduated from Reinhardt University with a degree in Musical Theatre. Some of his favorite roles include: The Baker in Into the Woods, Clown 1 in The 39 Steps, The Dentist/Voice of Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors (Thin Air Theatre Company) and Peter in Peter and the Starcatcher (Fine Arts Center). He is a proud member of the improv troupe lmaoNYC and an unapologetic Star Wars fanatic. RED marks his Lost Nation Theater debut. He hopes you thoroughly enjoy the show!

Mark Evancho? - Scenic & Lighting Design

Mark Evancho is pleased to be working with Lost Nation Theater again.  Over the years (since 1993) LNT audience has seen his work in Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Macbeth, Shaw’s Arms and the Man, Ibsen’s A Doll House, The Mystery of Irma Vep, I Love You You’re Perfect Now Change, and Always, Patsy Cline among others.  He has also designed for the National Shakespeare Company, New Jersey Shakespeare Festival, Blue Light Theatre Co., Potomac Theatre Project in the NYC area, Olney Theatre Center in MD, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Pennsylvania Stage Company, and Bucks County Playhouse, in PA, and The National Opera Co. in NC.  In the New England area, Mark has designed for the Vermont Stage Co., & Lyric Theatre Co., Burlington VT, and Yankee Communications, Concord, NH.  Mark has studied with Ming Cho Lee through the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, with Lester Polakov’s Studio & Forum, in NYC, plus the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia.  Mark has been teaching design at Middlebury College since 1991.

Cora Fauser? - Costume Design

Cricket first met LNT Artistic Director Kim Bent when she began costuming as a work-study student at the University of Vermont costume shop in 1965. Married to a peripatetic costume and set designer, she worked in the periphery of academic administrative support. Since moving back to Burlington in 1992, Cora has contributed sewing and design expertise to Burlington High School productions, Champlain College, Vermont Stage, etc…, and started with Summer 1997, to LNT.  Cora has been nominated for several Burlington City Arts “Bessie” Awards for her work at Lost Nation Theater which includes: Bully!, A Delicate Balance, Side of Side Sondheim, The Cradle Will Rock, Search for Signs…, Working, The Fantasticks, Greater Tuna, You Can’t Take it With You, Lost in Yonkers, My Three Angels, Amy’s View, Taming of the Shrew, Having Our Say, Collected Stories, Sweeny Todd, Shirley Valentine, True West, Snow, 1940’s Radio Hour, Romeo & Juliet, STONE, Judevine, Mark Twain’s A Murder Mystery & Marriage – a musical melodrama, Compete Works of William Shakespeare, A Song for my Father, The All Night Strut, Woody Guthrie’s American Songbook, Katherine Paterson’s Lyddie, David Budbill’s Two for Christmas, The Mystery of Irma Vep, The Crucible, Our Town, and most recently Hairspray.

Laura Gist - Stage Management

Laura is thrilled to be joining Lost Nation Theatre for her second season as The Production Manager and Stage Manager. She is excited to be working with incredible talent in such a beautiful place. Other recent credits include Florida Studio Theatre out of Sarasota, FL and Public Theatre in ME. She is eager to see what the future has in store.

Melissa Troxler - Stage Management 

Melissa is glad to be a part of the stage management team at Lost Nation Theater. Along with working in stage management, she enjoys working in carpentry and lighting. Melissa has worked with Berkshire Theatre Group, the Theatre Workshop of Nantucket and recently stage managed a touring production of The Nutcracker.

 

Kathleen Keenan? - Producing Artistic Director

Kathleen came to Vermont from New York, where she directed and composed music for several different theater and dance-theater companies. She performed Off Broadway, at Lincoln Center and as a featured singer-songwriter of Folk City.
For LNT, Kathleen has appeared in the title roles of Always Patsy Cline, The Belle of Amherst, Educating Rita, Molly Sweeney and Shirley Valentine. She is relished playing Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd, Haley in Bad Dates, Catherine in Proof, and Rose in Dancing at Lughnasa. She enjoyed getting back to her singer-songwriter roots a Corninna in Streets of Gold and in Lies and Legends-The musical stories of Harry Chapin. Favorite LNT directing projects: Katherine Paterson’s Lyddie, Beaver Falls, The World Goes ‘Round, Approaching Zanzibar, The Fantasticks, Rocking Horse Winner, Tale of the Mandarin Ducks, To Kill a Mockingbird, Miracle Worker, Mark Twain’s A Murder, A Mystery and A Marriage, The Mystery of Irma Vep, and The 39 Steps. Original scores: Metamorphoses, Katherine Paterson’s Lyddie, Caucasian Chalk Circle (played by jazz great Lester Bowie), Glass Menagerie, Twelfth Night, and Frankenstein, et at. Direction, book adaptation and music: DH Lawrence’s The Rocking Horse Winner, and the children’s musicals Winnie the Pooh and Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse. Kathleen is a phi beta kappa/magna cum laud graduate of Long Island University where she received the School of the Arts Award and the Carleton-Winthrop Palmer Award for greatest contribution to the theater.