PROGRAM 13
Place Settings by Susan Crawford
Unnamed, Untitled, Unidentified by Steph Prizhitomsky
place settings
By Susan Crawford
Directed by Sean Walsh
SYNOPSIS: Long-time friends Esther and Renee have met for lunch at La Respite weekly for years. This particular week they skip the usual catching-up at the news that Renee is planning her fifth marriage. This particular week they skip the usual catching-up at the news that Renee is planning her fifth marriage. They soon descend into long-suppressed hostilities. Long-time waiter, Pierre, attempts to keep the peace with little success. When Renee departs to the powder room he seizes the opportunity to enlist Esther's support for the long-smoldering torch he has carried for Renee all these years. Esther is not inclined to help with what she considers an even worse mismatch for her friend than the one for which Renee is already preparing. A moment alone, however, leads to a change of heart.
Antoinette Gelmont (Renee)is a New York based dancer, actor and live-music promoter. She has danced and acted in films and television-series: recent credits include: Sorry, Charlie a new film to be released this spring and the series Lark & Spur which will stream on Amazon.
Daniel Wolfe Mitnik (Pierre) NYC –In the Boom Boom Room (Harold), A Lie of the Mind (Baylor), Our Town (Doc Gibbs); Regional Theater - The Bald Soprano (The Fire Chief), Much Ado About Nothing (Dogberry), Taming of the Shrew (Grumio), A Thousand Clowns (Arnold Burns), Prelude to a Kiss (the Old Man), The Comedy of Errors (Dromio): Daniel is a graduate of Northwestern University, where he studied theatre and English literature, and the Terry Knickerbocker Studio, a two year Meisner conservatory.
Marcy Sansolo (Esther) is a film and theatrical actor. Recent theatrical roles include Magenta, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Marie Dindon, La Cage aux Folles, and Sister Berte, The Sound of Music. She is grateful for the opportunity from Susan Crawford. Follow her on instagram at TheRealMarcySansolo.
Seán Walsh, Director: Based out of his native New York City and Dublin IE, Seán has worked professionally as an actor and theatre director for more than fifteen years. He taught acting at the Louise Lasser Acting Studio and currently teaches at the studio of his own name.
Susan Crawford, Playwright, has written several full-length and one-act plays, co-wrote one, plus a screenplay. Her full-length comedy "Dollars to Doughnuts, a Comedy for the 99%" received its world premiere at Theatre for the New City last summer. Currently she is working with collaborator/composer Daniel Seidman on “Fifth Avenue,” a jazz musical comedy about NYC’s 1920’s prohibition era, for which she has written the book and co-written the lyrics. She studied playwriting with Arthur Kopit and Screenwriting with William Kelley.
Unnamed, Untitled and unidentified
Written and Directed by Steph Prizhitomsky
Synopsis: Three characters to the very literal meaning of the word sit on an uncomfortable cramped bench at a disappearing train station waiting for a train that'll never come known only as The Astronaut, The Bride, and The Doomsayer. They may or may not be already dead, but that depends on who you ask.
Playwright/Director: Steph Prizhitomsky is the head screenwriter of Future is Female Productions, co-founder of the White Rabbit Film Festival in its second year, and editor in chief of Suits and Sage Magazine. She is the recipient of the Best Young Actor award at the NJ Film Awards. Her previous plays Limbo’s Woodland and Strangers in a City have both premiered at the Chain Theater. Instagram: unfortunatelywrittenbysteph
The Doomsayer: Mackenzie Krestul is a genderqueer actor, writer, and sound designer, and recent graduate of Hofstra University’s BFA Theatre Arts program. Some of their favorite performance credit include Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, Orlando in Sarah Ruhl’s Orlando, Oenone in Jean Baptiste Racine’s Phaedra, Marianne in Molière’s Tartuffe, and Cassandra in Euripides’ Trojan Women.Mackenzie is also the founder and president of the nonprofit Code Read, dedicated to providing new books to kids in need (for more, visit www.coderead.org). They would like to thank the cast and crew for all of their brilliant work! For more about Mac, check out their website https://mackenzierobinkrestul.godaddysites.com and Instagram @macrobin.k!
The Astronaut: Daniel Oliver Lee is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist and the proud recipient of a grade-school basketball medal. As an actor, Daniel’s work ranges from acting in developmental theatre with Tectonic Theatre Project to graffitiing obscenities on Comedy Central. At 15 years old Lee made his 54 Below Debut and went on to be cast in an AEA reading of Farewell My Concubine by Kenneth Lin and Jason Robert Brown, directed by Moisés Kaufman. In 2021 Nickelodeon selected Daniel as one of twelve finalists for the Nickelodeon Trans Youth Acting Challenge by Michael D Cohen. His screen work has been featured by NoBudge, Nitehawk Cinema, Kodak Shoot film, Nowness Asia, Comedy Central, and CBS to name a few. He can currently be seen as a teenage Bryan Cho (조휴일) of the K-Rock sensation The Black Skirts in the visual album 'Teen Troubles in Dirty Jersey' which currently has over 200k views. Daniel is studying Film & TV at NYU and is brushing up on his Nadsat. Instagram: danieloliverlee
The Bride: Helen Textor is an NYC based actor, originally from Kansas City. Helen is a graduate of Elon University’s BFA Acting program where she played Hannah Jarvis in Tom Stoppard’s ‘Arcadia’ and originated the role of the Young Executive in the US premier of Steven Dietz’s play ‘American La Ronde’. Helen likes to think of herself as a “dialect nerd” because of her love and passion for learning and independently coaching accents and dialects for the stage. In late 2023, Helen can be seen playing the role of Clementine in CLSquared Productions’ new independent feature film, ‘Nowhere Fast’. Most recently, Helen performed a scene at the Kraine Theater as part of We Are Actors’ ‘A Night of Scenes’. If you’re ever roaming around Rockefeller Center, pop into Del Frisco’s Grille and ask Helen to make you a cocktail- as one of the senior bartenders here, she makes the best margarita in New York City. She can also be found through her website, www.HelenTextor.com, or through her Instagram @itshelentextor.
The Automated Announcement: Anthony Misiano is an actor, editor, smart-ass multi-hyphenate living in NYC. He's kept the lights on working in television, independent film, commercials and voice over – he likes to think at this point you've probably seen or heard him somewhere and had no idea. In 2021 his one-man comedy I Squeezed Really Hard opened at Wild Project to glowing reviews, and he hopes to bring it to Edinburgh in 2023. On the small screen Anthony’s been seen in Awkwafina is Nora from Queens, TURN: Washington's Spies, as John Wilkes Booth in Legends & Lies and as Nikola Tesla in American Genius. Later this year you can see him in FX's Feud: Capote's Women & Amazon's Fallout. He’s shorter than he looks but taller than he feels. Instagram: howdyanthony