Suzanne’s award-winning play, Circle, ran for five months Off-Broadway. She directed her play, We Call Her Benny, to critical acclaim, as part of the first-ever FRIGID New York Festival. Her cult hit, Icons & Outcasts, which she also directed, ran for six months at The John Montgomery Theatre and The Duplex. Her plays have been seen at PS NBC@HERE, The Raw Space, Pulse Ensemble Theatre, The National Arts Club and 20th Century Fox at the Coronet Theater in LA, among others. Plays include Don’t Let Destiny Push You Around, Alexandra Triptych, Screwdrivers & Sunday Brunch, Jump Start, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Sex Ed and BITE. Other directing credits include Frank D. Gilroy’s The Subject Was Roses at The Celebration Theatre in Los Angeles; and a 12-week run of Bob Brader’s Spitting In The Face Of The Devil (which she also developed). Suzanne studied playwriting with Romulus Linney and received her MFA from The Actors Studio Drama School at The New School. She is an Alumni Veteran Resident Artist at Horse Trade, has received four OOBR Awards and is a member of The Dramatists Guild.
Bob Brader Managing Director
Bob is an actor, writer and monologuist. His debut monologue, Spitting In The Face Of The Devil, received a critically acclaimed two and a half month run at The Red Room, with encore performances in NYC last fall and at The Fletcher Gallery in Woodstock, presented by Authentic Writing, last December. Bob recently performed his new solo show, Preparation Hex, in the 2nd annual FRIGID New York Festival. Bob appeared in the first-ever FRIGID Festival last year as Peter in the original production of We Call Her Benny. Other New York Theatre credits include Girls School Vampire, Salome, Bitch Macbeth, Who in the Hell is the Real Live Lorelei Lee? and Caesar in DMTheatric’s award-winning production of Antony and Cleopatra. He also played Parker Lyman in the five-month run of BITE, his first show with The John Montgomery Theatre Company. He came to New York to attend The Tisch School of the Arts, working with the Stella Adler Conservatory. Bob is a member of AFTRA and The Dramatists Guild. www.bob-brader.com
Trish Minskoff Resident Director
Trish has worked on productions in London, Scotland, Holland, Romania, Hong Kong, Massachusetts and New York. Her production of Circle for PS NBC@HERE, The Kraine Theatre and The Raw Space won an OOBR award and ran Off-Broadway for five months. Other NY credits include: When I Was a Girl, I Used to Scream and Shout, by Sharman Macdonald with Roberta Maxwell and Robin Morse (NY premiere), Don’t Let Destiny Push You Around for PS NBC@HERE, Jump Start, Birthday and Patient 23 for The John Montgomery Theatre Company, Crimes of the Heart (National Theatre Workshop for the Handicapped for Emerge Arts), Sirens (The Producers Club for The Harbor), Orpheus on West Fourth Street (New Knitting Factory) and Screwdrivers & Sunday Brunch (Altered Stages and WBAI Radio). Workshop productions include: Sex Ed (The Actors Institute), As Long as it’s Morning (Rattlestick Theatre) and The Child (Vineyard Theatre). For the Harwich Junior Theatre on Cape Cod Trish has directed Bugsy Malone and Jane Eyre. London credits include Jane, or the End of the World, Quest of the Whooperdink, Lysistrata and The Enchanted Wood, which she also co-wrote, (Arts Threshold Theatre Co.), and The City - a multi-media dance piece (The Place Theatre & Turtle-Key Arts Centre). Trish brought Arts Threshold’s production of The Guise to the Edinburgh Festival (Fringe First) and toured through Romania and Hong Kong. ?As an assistant director, she has worked with Phil Setren on Wendy Hammond’s Jersey City for the London New Playwright’s Festival, with Jack Klaff on The Secret of the White Rose, with Jonathan Chadwick on The Investigation by Peter Weiss and Art Devine on 9-Ball. In addition, she assisted John Dexter on the Buxton Opera Festival and West End production of Gigi. Trish studied at LAMDA completing both the 3-year Acting Course and the 2-year Stage Management Courses, has an MFA in Directing and Playwriting from The Actors Studio at The New School University and is a member of The Dramatists Guild and The Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.
Douglas Shearer Technical Director
Doug has been with The John Montgomery Theatre Company since 1996 and has been in the theatre for almost 30 years. In that time he has acted, designed both lighting and sound, stage managed and directed. JMTC productions include Othello, Patient 23, Icons & Outcasts, Icons Y2K, The Collard Green: Contributions by Cornbread Divas and Run to the Roar (both co-productions with The Cracked Plate), Flirting with Reality, BITE, We Call Her Benny (FRIGID Festival), Spitting In The Face Of The Devil and Preparation Hex. Recent stage managing credits include Timmy the Great directed and choreographed by Savion Glover and Finer Noble Gases by Adam Rapp, directed by Michael John Garces. Companies Doug has worked with include Manhattan Theatre Club, Lincoln Center, Rattlestick, Ensemble Studio, The Play Company, The Acting Company, Primary Stages, American Globe, Vital, Signature and Amas. He has had the pleasure of working with both seasoned professionals and the future famous. Many thanks to Suzanne and the JMTC family.
Francis O’Flynn Artistic Associate
Francis has been involved with JMTC since 1998, be it onstage, or taking other actors’ clothes off, outside on the street in his infamous red vinyl pants, and recently in BITE as Mr. Arseless Chaps Man (you had to be there!). He played the lovable Vincent in Icons Y2K, Michael in Screwdrivers & Sunday Brunch, Justin in Jump Start and most recently Brother in We Call Her Benny in the first annual FRIGID Festival. Outside of JMTC, he was Lockwood in the worldwide smash hit musical, Wuthering Heights, and did lots of other theatre here in NYC and in London. Film: he was a “featured” extra in Woody Allen’s awful movie, Celebrity. His voice-over breakthrough came in 2001 when he became the voice of L’Oreal, supporting his dear friend, Beyonce. He was heard from coast to coast during “Saturday Night Live”, then dropped…He is currently working on his politically incorrect play, I Can’t Be Bothered, and hoping to be bothered during the reading of it sometime this season!
John Tees, III Resident Lighting Designer
John has designed many shows for JMTC including the OOBR Award-winning Circle, Alice Through the Looking Glass, and When I Was a Girl, I Used to Scream and Shout. Other NYC design credits include productions at The Atlantic Theatre Co., Vineyard Theatre, American Opera Project, Triad Theatre, National Shakespeare Co., Pulse Ensemble and Queens Theatre in the Park. Regional Theatre Designs include The Madison Repertory Theatre, Florida State Opera, Dayton Opera, N.C. Shakespeare Festival, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Live Bait Theatre (Chicago), New American Theatre, Helen Hayes P.A.C., and Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. His Assistant credits include shows on Broadway and in more than 20 cities and throughout the country. John has recently been working on many Fashion Shows and in Television. John is a member of United Scenic Artist Local 829 and NABET Local 16.
Scott Wynn Resident Photography
Scott is the beloved Resident Photographer of The John Montgomery Theatre Company and has been since the beginning. (He hates writing his own bios). www.scottwynn.com
Michael Koch Resident Graphic Designer
Michael is a freelance graphic designer and in-house designer for The John Montgomery Theatre Company. Originally from Allentown, Pennsylvania, Michael earned is bachelor’s degree in Media Communications from East Stroudsburg University where he studied photography, graphic design and desktop publishing. In his spare time, he enjoys spending time with his wife, Tammy, and their two year-old daughter, Charlotte.
Julie Rosier Associate Artist
Julie first worked with JMTC on the premier of We Call Her Benny (FRIGID New York Festival). Other directing credits include her own play, Hand/Flash/Back (Bowery Poetry Club) and Male Gaze, Kymbali Craig’s one-woman show (Bailey’s Café). Also a performer, writer and activist, Julie recently moved back to her hometown of Detroit. She lives and works at the Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership with legendary social activist, Grace Lee Boggs, where she is in the process of creating an activist theater project at the grassroots level.