2009: Too Big To Fail - Archived Bios

DIRECTION & SCRIPT

Wilma Bonet (Director) returns to SFMT as director. She was actress/collective member of the Mime Troupe in the early 80's. Recently she directed Jose Rivera's School of the Americas and Sandra Cisnero's The House On Mango Street for Teatro Vision in San Jose. She has also directed Jeannie Barroga's Walls, for Asian American Theater, Shakespeare's Twelfth Night for Women's Will, and Milcha Sanchez Scott's Evening Star/Doglady, Eduardo Machado's The Cook, Roy Conboy's Drive My Coche, La Posada Magica, and Vieques for Teatro Vision. Ms. Bonet's other directing credits includes: Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis, TheaterFIRST in Oakland, Cal State University Sacramento, TheatreWorks in Palo Alto and Latina Theatre Lab in San Francisco. As actress, Ms. Bonet recently appeared at Marin Theatre Company in Octavio Solis' Lydia, at the Mark Taper Forum in Luis Alfaro's Electricidad and at the Denver Center Theatre Company in Jose Cruz Gonzalez's September Shoes. Her one-person play Good Grief Lolita which toured the Bay Area, is published in Puro Teatro: A Latina Anthology. She has also performed at the American Conservatory Theatre, Campo Santo, California Shakespeare Theatre, Thick Description, El Teatro Campesino, the Old Globe, Dallas Theatre Center and other theater companies in the San Francisco-San Jose-Bay Area. Her television and film credits include What Dreams May Come, 8MM, Underwraps, Jack, Radio Flyer, and Nash Bridges. Awards: Marion Ross Award for Good Grief Lolita, Bay Area Theatre Critics Award, Los Angeles Drama-Logue Award, and Goodman Award for Outstanding Performance.

Pat Moran (SFMT Collective, Composer, Lyricist, Musician) first worked with the Mime Troupe on 2005's Doing Good and he's been hanging around since then. In addition to his work on the summer show, Pat is a teacher with the Mime Troupe's Youth Theater Project, a freelance musician, and a private guitar instructor. He can be seen performing regularly with a number of bands including Lord Loves a Working Man (2009 SF Weekly Best Soul/Funk/R&B Award Winner) and Khi Darag (middle-eastern psychedelic dance party music). Pat was a guest artist composer and sound designer with the University of San Francisco in 2009.

Carla Pantoja (Fight Choreography) is a Bay Area actor who is also a fight director. She trained with the British Academy of Stage & Screen Combat, Academy of the Sword, Action Actor's Society, and continues with Dueling Arts International. Carla is currently the resident fight director for Teatro Vision (San Jose) and Woman's Will (Oakland). Her work has been seen on stage at Cutting Ball Theater, Killing My Lobster, Teatro Vision, Woman's Will, Palo Alto Players, Broadway West, East LA Repertory Theater, as well as school productions around the Bay Area. She has been nominated for a 2007 Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award for her work on Cutting Ball Theater's Taming of the Shrew.

Michael Gene Sullivan (SFMT Collective, Head Writer) joined the Troupe in 1988 as a replacement actor. Began writing for the Troupe in 1992 (Social Work), directed his first SFMT show in 1995 (Coast City Confidential), and became headwriter for the Troupe in 2000. In the last twenty years Michael has performed in, written, and/or directed over twenty Mime Troupe productions, including Offshore (actor/writer), 1600 Transylvania Avenue (writer/director), Mr. Smith Goes To Obscuristan (actor, co-writer, co-director), Showdown at Crawford Gulch (actor/writer), GodFellas (actor/writer), and most recently Making a Killing (actor, writer, co-director). Other work includes performances with American Conservatory Theater, Denver Center Theatre Company, the Magic, Eureka, and Lorraine Hansberry Theaters, the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, Theatreworks, and the Berkeley and San Jose Repertory Theaters. Michael is the author of the award winning one person show, Did Anyone Ever Tell You - You Look Like Huey P. Newton?, which he performed in New York, Vancouver, and San Francisco, and is the author of 1984, the critically acclaimed stage adaptation of George Orwell's dystopic novel. The play, directed by Tim Robbins, opened at the Actor's Gang Theatre in Los Angeles, has been performed in Europe and Asia, and has had several American tours.

PERFORMERS

Aharon Wheels Bolsta (Musician) is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist with a background in jazz, funk, and North Indian classical drumming. He has collected rhythms from all over the world, including Balkan meters and Middle Eastern grooves on darbukka, and West African polyrhythm on djun-djun and calabash. He has had the honor of studying Indian tabla with renowned tabla master, Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri, for more than ten years. He also studied Indian bamboo flute with Ashoke Mehta in Varanasi, India, and Raga theory with Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. Aharon has toured nationally and internationally with Gamelan X, One People Voice, Lucia Comnes and the Pickpocket Ensemble. He also has played with the Shotgun Players and other theater companies.

Wilma Bonet (Director, Actor) returns to SFMT as director. She was actress/collective member of the Mime Troupe in the early 80's. Recently she directed Jose Rivera's School of the Americas and Sandra Cisnero's The House On Mango Street for Teatro Vision in San Jose. She has also directed Jeannie Barroga's Walls, for Asian American Theater, Shakespeare's Twelfth Night for Women's Will, and Milcha Sanchez Scott's Evening Star/Doglady, Eduardo Machado's The Cook, Roy Conboy's Drive My Coche, La Posada Magica, and Vieques for Teatro Vision. Ms. Bonet's other directing credits includes: Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis, TheaterFIRST in Oakland, Cal State University Sacramento, TheatreWorks in Palo Alto and Latina Theatre Lab in San Francisco. As actress, Ms. Bonet recently appeared at Marin Theatre Company in Octavio Solis' Lydia, at the Mark Taper Forum in Luis Alfaro's Electricidad and at the Denver Center Theatre Company in Jose Cruz Gonzalez's September Shoes. Her one-person play Good Grief Lolita which toured the Bay Area, is published in Puro Teatro: A Latina Anthology. She has also performed at the American Conservatory Theatre, Campo Santo, California Shakespeare Theatre, Thick Description, El Teatro Campesino, the Old Globe, Dallas Theatre Center and other theater companies in the San Francisco-San Jose-Bay Area. Her television and film credits include What Dreams May Come, 8MM, Underwraps, Jack, Radio Flyer, and Nash Bridges. Awards: Marion Ross Award for Good Grief Lolita, Bay Area Theatre Critics Award, Los Angeles Drama-Logue Award, and Goodman Award for Outstanding Performance.

Velina Brown (SFMT Collective, Actor) Velina has been a principal actor for the Mime Troupe in such shows as Social Work, Knocked Up, Escape to Cyberia, Gotta Getta Life, Coast City Confidential, Soul Suckers from Outer Space, Killing Time, Damaged Care, City for Sale, Eating It, 1600 Transylvania Avenue, Mr. Smith Goes to Obscuristan, Showdown at Crawford Gulch, she was Veronique of the Mounties, and was both an actor and Contributing Lyricist on GodFellas and Making a Killing. She has appeared onstage at A.C.T., Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Denver Center Theatre Company, Word for Word, Lorraine Hansberry Theater, Pacific Jewish Theater, Thick Description and Theatreworks, as well as film, TV, and commercials.

Lizzie Calogero (Actor) was born in Tehran and grew up among the brussels sprout fields of Bedfordshire, England, before moving to God's country in 1993. She has played short, feisty people of all genders and ages in theatres all over the Bay Area, including (more recently) SF Playhouse, San Jose Rep, Center REP in Walnut Creek, and TheatreFIRST.

BW Gonzalez (Actor) appeared in A Christmas Carol at American Conservatory Theatre and has worked locally with CenterRep, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, San Francisco Mime Troupe, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, Oakland Ensemble Theatre, San Diego Repertory Theatre and Playground Theatre Company. As a nine year company member with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, she performed Ariel in The Tempest, Masha in The Three Sisters, Shen The/Shui Ta in The Good Person of Szechuan, Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Cassandra in The Trojan Women, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth and Mattie Campbell in Joe Turner's Come and Gone among many others. She created the role of Phoebe in Darker Face of the Earth by former poet laureate, Rita Dove which she performed at both Crossroads Theatre and The Kennedy Center. Recent television credits include three seasons as Lupe on the Emmy Award winning show, Arrested Development. Gonzalez is a recipient of a Citation of Excellence in Theatre from the Massachusetts House of Representatives and has taught Theatre Arts workshops and master classes to men, women and children in prisons and juvenile detention centers and has also worked with at-risk youth for 30 years.

Ed Holmes (SFMT Collective, Actor) has been performing and teaching in the bay area for the past 36 years. Ed has performed with the Berkeley Mime Troupe (yes, that kind of mime), Fratelli Bologna, Antenna Theater, SF Opera, Oakland Symphony and Young Audiences. He has taught at ACT, CSUH, Mills College, and given numerous workshops to students of all ages as well as to animators at Sony, Dreamwrks and PDI. Ed has performed his one man show SUBHUMAN-True Tales from Beneath the Sea at bars and VFW halls throughout California. As Bishop Joey, he has instigated the annual St.Stupid's Day Parade since 1979. Ed has been a performing/directing member of the Troupe since 1986.

Lisa Hori-Garcia, Actor/Director/YTP Project Director/Teacher/Miss Flower's owner, joined the Mime Troupe Company and Collective in 2004. Originally from California, Lisa moved to Massachusetts where she received her BA from Smith College. Upon graduation, Lisa landed her first professional theater job as an ensemble member/Production Manager with New WORLD Theater in Amherst, MA. Since moving to San Francisco in 2002, she has worked exclusively as a theater artist, performing with Asian American Theater Company, Magic Theater, Woman's Will, Impact Theater, and Word for Word to name a few. For the last three years, Lisa has been the program director of the Mime Troupe's Youth Theater Project. In the fall, she will be moving to Los Angeles to attend USC for graduate school.

Adrian Cervantes Mejia (Actor) is thrilled to be joining the Mime Troupe for the first time this summer. Originally from the smoggy Southern California City of Riverside, and having spent the past seven years living intermittently in Humboldt County, he is happy to now call San Francisco his home. He earned his BA from HSU and his MFA from The Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre. Having toured up and down the West coast with The Dell'Arte Players Company as a guest artist and ensemble member, traversed the jungles of Chiapas Mexico with Clowns Without Borders, and performed in street festivals of Northern Europe with Teatro Pachuco, Adrian is happy to have work close to home.

James Mitchell (Musician) is new to the Mime Troup this year. This Napa Valley native plays piano as well as bass, trombone and tuba. Jimmy's career in music blossomed at an early age. By age 15 he was gigging on a weekly basis at several different clubs and wineries with a jazz band that he would later lead. At 17, his band performed in London at the Boar's Head and Wimbly Hall. After high school he toured for several years with Bumble, a San Francisco based punk/ska band. In 2006, he received a B.A. in music from Sonoma State University. As an accomplished composer, performer and an educator, he is an integral part of the bay area jazz community.

PRODUCTION TEAM

Nina Ball (Scenic Designer) recent design credits include The Floating Light Bulb for A Traveling Jewish Theatre, Old Times for TheatreFIRST, On Golden Pond for Willows Theatre Company, Rabbit Hole for Town Hall Theatre, Macbeth for Shotgun Players, Abundance for St Mary's College, Sound of Music and West Side Story for Musical Theatre Works, and The Karamazovs and Don Juan at San Francisco State University. She is currently working on an adaptation of Animal Farm (sets and costumes) and Three Penny Opera for Shotgun Players and Barefoot in the Park for Willows. She is also a scenic artist and has painted for Berkeley Rep, Cal Shakes, Lorraine Hansberry and beyond.

Emilica Sun Beahm (Costume Designer) is excited to be working with SFMT. Since moving to the Bay area almost three years ago Emilica has received her B.S. in Apparel Design and Merchandising from SFSU, and begun working on productions in the bay area. Recently she finished designing and building the Tales of Hoffman for Berkeley Opera Co, and has also worked with Lamplighter's on several shows, including last summers Mikado. Emilica also enjoys working for the Greenhouse Cafe in West Portal, Davids ego, and Rock n Roll.

Maurice Beesley (Technical Director) was tricked into auditioning for the Senior Class play in 1961. Since then he has built scenery for A.C.T., S.F. Opera and Berkeley Rep., and others of fond memory. He has been a member of the stage crew of nearly every theatrical venue in San Francisco and has supervised tours around the West and to Hawaii. Maurice has been a proud member of Local #16, I.A.T.S.E. for thirty years.

Liza M Frolkis (Production Manager) is a native Clevelander who relocated to San Francisco in 2007. In her short time with the Mime Troupe she has worn many hats including: YTP Educator, Props Designer, Summer Performance Workshop Participant, and Fedora. Other Bay Area theater credits include work with the Magic Theatre and Featherlead Productions. In addition to her work in the wonderful world of stage, Liza is an active freelance artist and designer.

Will McCandless (SFMT Colective, Sound Engineer/Designer) is the most recent addition to the San Francisco Mime Troupe artistic collective. Will began with the Troupe in 2006 as the sound engineer for the California tour of Godfellas. Since then, Will has been the Troupe's sound engineer as well as the sound designer for the SFMT Youth Theatre Project. During the off-season, Will designs sound for several Bay Area Theatres - Magic Theatre, Center REP, Marin Theatre Company, Solano College Theatre, A.C.T. Conservatory, Alter Theater, Actors Ensemble of Berkeley, and Ben Levy Dance Company.

Spain Rodriguez (Poster Designer) legendary underground cartoonist, created the first underground tabloid, Zodiac Mindwarp. His character Trashman, Agent of the Sixth International, was an icon in underground newspapers of the '60s. Big Bitch, another popular Spain character, appears in She Comics. Spain's work currently appears in the online graphic novel Dark Hotel, at sfgate.com, the LA Weekley and Blab. His graphic novel, Nightmare Alley, was recently lauded by Time Magazine. His graphic novel, Nightmare Alley, was recently lauded by Time Magazine and he has recently published "Che", a 100 page graphic biography. To contact Spain for commissions or to purchase artwork, please email him at spainrodriguez@comcast.net.

Karen Runk (Stage Manager) moved to SF with the intention of only staying for a few months. Twelve years later she's still here! This is largely due to the talented folks at the Troupe. Doing the math you'll discover she first experienced the Troupe by stage managing two '97 youth projects, Revenger Rat Meets the Merchant of Death and Inside Out. After which she ran screaming into the arms of the Magic Theatre and there she stayed, contently for two years. The Troupe then wooed her back for their '99 Summer Production City For Sale. Still under the Troupe's spell she's stage managed a plethora of their summer shows and has only managed to escape, successfully, one full summer back in '02 when she worked with SFShakes.

Daniel Yelen (Props Designer) began his performance career in the Bay Area with the Temescal Gay Men's Chorus, Pacific Chamber Singers and Oakland Opera. In 1987, he joined Lamplighters Music Theater, where he also served as prop master for five productions. In 2006, he furnished props for Merrily We Roll Along produced by Altarena Playhouse, and has subsequently done set and costume design for San Francisco Free Civic Theater productions, including Judgment at Nuremberg, The Visit, and All's Well That Ends Well. Recently he appeared as Mr. Crabtree in SFFCT's The School for Scandal. Since 2003, he has designed properties and set pieces for thirty-one productions by Donald Pippin's Pocket Opera. In addition, he designs props for the San Francisco Opera Guild's Opera á la Carte educational program, and is the set dresser for the Gilbert and Sullivan Scenes program offered by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

SFMT STAFF & ADDITIONAL SUPPORT

Ellen Callas (SFMT Collective, Additional Dialogue) in 1976 co-founded Hit and Run Theater, a political sketch comedy troupe that toured rural northern California for many years. Since joining the Mime Troupe in 1986, she has worked as a writer, actor, director, production, company & stage manager and teacher for the company's ongoing Youth Theater Project. Ellen also continues her thirty-five year career as an improvisational theater performer.

Jenee Gill (General Manager) has spent the past 20-odd years working in the theatre & non-profit arts communities, both in San Francisco and Los Angeles. After earning a B.A. in Theatre from UCLA, she spent a number of years performing in and managing educational theatre programs in Southern California, working primarily with homeless and incarcerated youth in productions that focused on issues of substance abuse, domestic violence and AIDS prevention. Those same years were spent overseeing a homeless feeding program in Hollywood, serving as a near-volunteer stage manager in less-than-99-seat houses around town, and at one point raising a ruckus with some friends onstage in an agitprop theatrical reaction to the Gulf War. The more keen-eyed of you (blink and you missed it!) may have seen her as Patricia in Gregg Araki’s gay teen angst movie, “Totally F***ed Up.” In San Francisco - prior to becoming a parent, when she still had the energy to stay up later than 10 p.m. - she created and performed various solo shows at The Climate & Marsh theatres, while earning an M.A. in Arts Education & Administration at SF State. She has served as the Outreach Director at Young Audiences of the Bay Area, Executive Director of TILT, “Adventures in Music” Coordinator at the SF Symphony, Director of the Children’s Art Center at Fort Mason, and most recently, as the Operations & Finance Manager of AcroSports. Jenee, her 12 year-old son & baby-daddy live with their rambunctious pit-bull mix and sickly, shedding cat in Bernal Heights.

Erica Lewis-Finein (Publicist)

Jerome Moskowitz (Development Director) worked as a grantwriter for American Conservatory Theater from 1993 to 1998, eventually advancing to the position of associate director of development. He has worked for the Mime Troupe in a consulting capacity since November 1998, where he has increased the company’s success rate at grant solicitation, developed a stable core of major donors, and helped with strategic planning and management issues. Jerome helped to plan the Mime Troupe’s 40th anniversary celebrations in 1999 and will do the same for the upcoming 50th festivities in 2009. When not working with the Mime Troupe and other nonprofit clients, Jerome can be found pursuing his passion for performing cabaret and musical theater. In summer 2008, he was one of 36 students selected from a nationwide audition to participate in the sixth annual Cabaret Conference at Yale University.

Michele Rudenko (Bookkeeper)

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