| Creative Team |
| Jessica Kubzansky (Director). Jessica's mother predicted she would be a director because in nursery school, she managed to get the other kids to fold her blanket for her. When she was 12, she wrote, directed and acted in a musical called The Horse with Two Lovers. The play told the story of two people who wanted to own the same horse because they thought the horse would win a race. Jessica played the horse, her sister played her rightful owner and her brother played everyone else. In the end, the bad guy was foiled, the horse won, she and her true owner were reunited—and sang about it. She loved it. And she still loves directing, because her job is to take stories that start as words on the page and bring them to three-dimensional thrilling human life. To this day, children’s literature is her favorite, because it’s an E-ticket to the imagination. The theatre is the only place where a person makes a “knocking” motion in the air and the entire audience imagines a door. In theatre, anything’s possible. |
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| Tim Horrigan (Musical Director) beat on his little wooden chair with Lincoln Logs at the age of 2 and has been making music ever since! He has written music for movies and musicals and provided musical direction for Pinocchio, The Emperor’s New Clothes and The Hoboken Chicken Emergency here at SCR. “Working with a talented cast and crew in creating a world on stage that didn’t exist before is just about the most fun you can have,” says Tim. And, if you live in the Northwood section of Irvine, you just might have him as your English teacher at Northwood High School when you get older. In the meantime, Tim says, “Keep taking those piano lessons!” |
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| Susan Gratch (Set Designer) is the oldest of 10: eight sisters and one brother (the youngest!). Susan’s mother is an accomplished fabric artist and her father was a highly regarded chemical engineer—partially explaining why Susan chose to become a scenic designer, a combination of art and engineering. In fifth grade, Susan’s parents took her to see My Fair Lady at Detroit’s Masonic Temple. The music and the acting were nice, but the scene changes from Covent Garden to Henry Higgins’ study to the street in front of it were riveting! Susan was hooked on design! After completing her master of fine arts degree in theatre design at University of Michigan, Susan eventually ended up in California as a professor of design at Occidental College. Her award-winning scenic, lighting and puppet designs have been seen in Los Angeles; Portland, Oregon; Salt Lake City; Atlanta Olympics; and now Costa Mesa. She loves her job! |
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| Ann Closs-Farley (Costume Designer) recently designed Cunning Little Vixens, Last Act of Lilka Kadison, Carnage, Discord, House is Black, Rabbit Hole, Fast Company, Broadway Bound, Annapurna, American Misfits, Coney Island Christmas, Eric Idle’s What About Dick?, The Pee-wee Herman Show (on Broadway), Disney’s Toy Story: The Musical, An Evening Without Monty Python, The Grönholm Method, Cabaret of Souls and Around The World in 80 Days. She has received multiple Ovation Awards and the Center Theatre Group’s Richard E. Sherwood Award for Emerging Artists. She is a longtime member of the Evidence Room and The Actors’ Gang theatre companies. Closs-Farley also designs for Disney, the World Poker Tour and Kaiser Permanente Theatricals. |
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| Jeremy Pivnick (Lighting Designer). Jeremy is excited to be back for his fourth show at SCR. It's pretty exciting to take a classic story and reimagine it in some new way that no one has seen. Jeremy designs shows all over the world, including in New York, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Scotland and Ireland. Thanks to everyone who made this show such fun to work on! |
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| Jaymi Lee Smith (Lighting Designer). When Jaymi Lee was 12 years old, one of her teachers made her work backstage during a school play. That was possibly the nicest thing the teacher could have done for her because she fell in love with theatre and with the magic of storytelling. Lighting design is a weird job to have, she says. Not a lot of people do it, but she absolutely adores her work. While the actors are helping to tell you a story with their bodies and voices, she’s helping to tell the story with light. For the last 15 years she has gotten to design shows at theatres all over the country, as well as in places like China, Italy, Spain, Ireland and Scotland. Currently, she teaches students about lighting design at UC Irvine where she gets to work next door to one of her best friends, Vinnie Olivieri, who is also the sound designer on this show. |
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| Vincent Olivieri (Sound Designer) started playing the pots and pans when he was 2 years old. He started playing piano when he was 5. He created his first sound design when he was in high school in Virginia, in between acting and directing projects. In college, he studied math and music, but he spent all of his free time with the drama students. He studied sound design at Yale School of Drama, where he hunted through junk yards for fun sound effects. Now, he teaches sound design and composition at UC Irvine, where his office is next door to one of his best friends, lighting designer Jaymi Lee Smith. |
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| Jennifer Ellen Butler (Stage Manager) started doing theatre in the fifth grade and she loved it so much she never stopped. She was an actor and crew member until she learned about the wonders of stage managing! She went to college and got a degree in theatre from the beautiful University of California, Santa Cruz and now stage managing is her full-time job. Stage managers don’t get to act crazy on stage, but they still have a lot of fun (yes, organizing and paperwork are fun). During the show, she sits behind you in the back of the theatre in a room called the booth and tells everyone what to do and makes sure the show goes smoothly. |