PERFORMERS
Michele LaRue reading a story by Mary Wilkins Freeman when we were performing in a backyard during the pandemic
PERFORMERS
Suzanne Dawson has played leading roles off-Broadway in: CBS Live, The Last Musical Comedy, The Great American Backstage Musical, and the revival of New Faces of ’52. Her regional credits include Sylvia at Florida Studio Theatre, The Snowball and A Little Night Music at Buffalo Studio Arena, Carnival at The Alliance in Atlanta, and Rumors at Paper Mill Playhouse here in NJ. She toured with Rumors, and opposite Gavin Macleod in Last of the Red Hot Lovers. East Lynne Theater Company shows include: To the Ladies!, Alice on the Edge, The Butter and Egg Man, Berkeley Square, The World of Dorothy Parker, Dulcy, Ruth Draper’s Company of Characters, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Zorro!, Arsenic and Old Lace, and the world premiere of Dorothy Parker: A Certain Woman. Member Actors' Equity Association.
Megan Dean is an actor, director, playwright, and teaching artist from Easton, Pennsylvania. She has worked with The Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, People's Light Theater, and The Springville Center for the Arts. Her plays have been produced by Rouge Theater Festival in NYC and HACC's New Works Festival. She loves being down by the beach surrounded by the Cape May community and is excited to be reading for CAT!
Stephanie Garrett played Mary in East Lynne Theater Company's NJ premiere of Jan Buttram's Lost on the Natchez Trace. She also performed in ELTC’s Women and the Vote, Rain, The People of Cape May v. Johan Van Buren, and Christmas in Black and White with Gayle Stahlhuth. She performs regularly for the company’s popular Tales of the Victorians. Over fifteen years ago, as a volunteer at Historic Cold Spring Village, she became a storyteller, specializing in early 19th Century Cape May County African American History. Stephanie has a BA and MA in Sociology and worked as a Sociologist and Human Resources Manager during her career in Federal Government. Upon early retirement she received the Meritorious Service Award, the highest award given by the Department of Navy to a civilian employee. She is past President of the Greater Cape May Historical Society.
Michèle LaRue, Chicago-born and raised, returned to her ancestors’ New Jersey long ago. Her credits with East Lynne Theater Company include William Dean Howells’ Bride Roses, Susan Glaspell’s Suppressed Desires, and Gayle Stahlhuth’s adaptation of Henry James’ The Beast in the Jungle – all directed by her late husband: ELTC's founder and first producing artistic director, Warren Kliewer. She was also in Langdon Mitchell’s The New York Idea, directed by Stahlhuth.
For over 25 years, LaRue has made people laugh with her Someone Must Wash the Dishes: An Anti-Suffrage Satire, written by Marie Jenney Howe in 1912, and directed by Kliewer. AND she's been performing Kliewer's own vibrant poetry about life in the theater, in Places Please, Act One.
LaRue was one of the first to read on porches as part of ELTC's Tales of the Victorians. Now, under her own title, Tales Well Told, she reads works of Kate Chopin, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, O. Henry, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, and other American writers, in various venues nationwide. A popular piece is her Gettysburg: One Woman’s War, three stories from Elsie Singmaster's moving 1913 classic book Gettysburg: Stories of the Red Harvest and the Aftermath,
She is a member of the two performers’ unions—Actors’ Equity Association and SAG-AFTRA—and of multiple literature organizations, As a theater editor-writer, she has collaborated on numerous notable publications.
For over 25 years, LaRue has made people laugh with her Someone Must Wash the Dishes: An Anti-Suffrage Satire, written by Marie Jenney Howe in 1912, and directed by Kliewer. AND she's been performing Kliewer's own vibrant poetry about life in the theater, in Places Please, Act One.
LaRue was one of the first to read on porches as part of ELTC's Tales of the Victorians. Now, under her own title, Tales Well Told, she reads works of Kate Chopin, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, O. Henry, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, and other American writers, in various venues nationwide. A popular piece is her Gettysburg: One Woman’s War, three stories from Elsie Singmaster's moving 1913 classic book Gettysburg: Stories of the Red Harvest and the Aftermath,
She is a member of the two performers’ unions—Actors’ Equity Association and SAG-AFTRA—and of multiple literature organizations, As a theater editor-writer, she has collaborated on numerous notable publications.
Matt Baxter Luceno ELTC: Arsenic and Old Lace, A Year in The Trenches, Within the Law, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, It Pays to Advertise. NY Theater includes The Winter’s Tale (dir. Everett Quinton), Chemistry of Love (La MaMa E.T.C.), The Merry Wives of Windsor Terrace (Brave New World Rep), The Island of Doctor Moreau, Hamlet (Piper Theatre), Uranus (Superhero Clubhouse), Scapin (Turtle Shell), and staged readings with Red Bull Theater, La MaMa, and The Actors Studio. Regional: Dancing Lessons (ARC Stages – Next Stage), King Lear w/ Stacy Keach, Ion, Twelfth Night (Shakespeare Theatre Company), Julius Caesar (Shakespeare on the Sound), A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet (Allentown Shakespeare). Television: “Guiding Light”, “Shark Week”. Training: SUNY Purchase Acting Conservatory, BFA (President’s Award). Matt is a former Acting Fellow at Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. Member AEA. MattBaxterLuceno.com
Phil Pizzi began his career in broadcasting at WCMC AM/FM in Wildwood, NJ in 1977. He co-hosted Music Plus on the local original cable TV station, featuring bands and interviews with everyone from William Shatner to Weird Al Yankovic. He appeared in The Music Man, Guys & Dolls, and The Odd Couple with the Sea Isle Players. He performed with ELTC in The New York Idea, Why Marry?, It Pays to Advertise, and two Sherlock Holmes' radio-style productions: Adventure of the Copper Beeches and Adventure of the Specked Band . Indie films include The Corner Bar and Bittercress. Phil produces Jersey Cape Fishing, South Jersey's longest running fishing show, distributed on Comcast Cable to over 2 million households throughout the Delaware Valley. In the fall of 2018, he retired as the host of The Morning Show on 98.7-FM The Coast, WCZT, the most listened-to radio station in Cape May County.
Frank Smith was a detective with the Philadelphia Police Department before he bought a house in Cape May and turned it into The White Dove Cottage Bed and Breakfast on Hughes Street. From 1990 until he sold it in 2002, he greeted guests at his B&B and even helped plan events such as family reunions and weddings. From 2003-2007, he was a travel consultant for the Cape May County Chamber of Commerce, and from 2007-2013, a host at Aleathea’s Restaurant at The Inn of Cape May. From 2014-2020, when the place was sold, he was the assistant manager of The Henry Sawyer Inn, where he also conducted Murder Mystery Weekends like he did when he ran The White Dove. Frank was a volunteer for Cape May MAC, portraying “Dr. Physick” from 1992-1997.
He joined ELTC’s board in 1993 and served off-and-on as president from 1996-2016. He also was ELTC’s storyteller on The Ghosts of Christmas Past Trolley Rides, co-sponsored with Cape May MAC, from 2007-2017. Until recently, Frank was the Volunteer Liaison, scheduling volunteers for ushering duties at performances, interacting with visitors at ELTC's tables at local fairs, distributing posters, and helping with fundraisers. He also worked the box office, occasionally stage managed, and has been a long-time performer for ELTC's Tales of the Victorians.
He joined ELTC’s board in 1993 and served off-and-on as president from 1996-2016. He also was ELTC’s storyteller on The Ghosts of Christmas Past Trolley Rides, co-sponsored with Cape May MAC, from 2007-2017. Until recently, Frank was the Volunteer Liaison, scheduling volunteers for ushering duties at performances, interacting with visitors at ELTC's tables at local fairs, distributing posters, and helping with fundraisers. He also worked the box office, occasionally stage managed, and has been a long-time performer for ELTC's Tales of the Victorians.
