PERFORMERS
Michele LaRue reading a story by Mary Wilkins Freeman when we were performing in a backyard during the pandemic
PERFORMERS
Tom Byrn has acted at various theaters in the Philadelphia area, including, People's Light & Theatre and the Delaware Theater Company, and at various other theaters in PA, NY, and OH. Currently an Associate Member, for eleven years, Tom was a full-time Ensemble Member of the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble in Bloomsburg, PA. He performed in the following for East Lynne Theater Company: Possessing Harriet, Will Rogers U.S.A., Mr. Lincoln, which was part of ELTC's 2015 and 2016 seasons and toured to Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble, Within the Law, He and She, Biography, The Dictator, the world premiere of The Ransom of Red Chief adapted by Gayle Stahlhuth, and portrayed Holmes in several NBC radio-style productions of Sherlock Holmes' adventures. In 2018 and 2019, Tom directed Silent Sky and Summerland for ELTC. Using editorials from the Cape May County Herald from the Civil War through the mid 1920's, he wrote Historical Spout-Offs which was performed on the ELTC stage as well as virtually during the pandemic. Tom is co-editor of the trade paper-back Letters to the Editor (Simon & Schuster) and is a member of Actors' Equity Association and the Lincoln Center Director's Lab. He resides in the Susquehanna River Valley of central PA with his wife and daughter.
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.
Derrick McQueen, due to a Dodge Foundation Grant, was the Playwright in Residence at South Jersey Regional Theatre, where his play I Have Been Said to Possess was produced. He's acted with the New York Theater Workshop, Mabou Mines, Totem Pole Playhouse, and sung at the Cape May Jazz Festival. The characterizations and concerts that he has created based on historical African-Americans, include the journalist Alfred P. Smith, Congressman George White, and abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Derrick took part in the NYC's Culture Project's X-Impact on the Gulf production of Voices of the Storm, life stories from the Mississippi Delta and Louisiana from those impacted by hurricane Katrina. He earned his B.A. in Theater Arts from Drew University, a M.Div. in Theology and the Arts, and his Ph. D. in Homiletics and New Testament, the latter both from Union Theological Seminary. Derrick is currently serving as the pastor of the historic St. James Presbyterian church in Harlem.
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
Carolyn Nelson has performed professionally as both a singer and an actor in her varied career. Most recently, she was seen in the Philadelphia area at Quintessence Theatre's 2023 World Premiere of Written by Phyllis, at Act II Playhouse in Steel Magnolias and in Nunsense at the Uptown Theatre in West Chester. Carolyn has appeared in national television commercials and on the daytime drama, One Life to Live. You can also hear her on Pandora radio in selections from her solo jazz CD, Come a Little Closer.
Marty McDonough, for East Lynne Theater Company when Gayle Stahlhuth was producing and directing there: Judge Dempsey in Preston Sturges' Strictly Dishonorable, Ambrose Bierce in the world premiere of David Geible’s Nothing Matters, Mr. Rucastle and the Announcer in the radio-style Sherlock Holmes Adventure of the Copper Beeches, Announcer and Dr. Grimesby Roylott in Sherlock Holmes Adventure of the Speckled Band, and Rev. Davidson in Rain, based on W. Somerset Maugham's story, directed by Bruce Minnix. Recent work in NYC includes portraying Dr. Tinkey in Augustine Daly’s A Marriage Contract, Senator Langdon in Deep Are the Roots, and various roles in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, at Metropolitan Playhouse. He works on stage, and in television and film in and around New York, and is the voice of a variety of ads, animations and video games. He played Jackie Mason’s foil in the film One Angry Man, had principal roles in television’s Homicide, and was a regular on The Chappelle Show. He received his acting training in New York with Walt Witcover, and with Terry Schreiber at T. Schreiber Studio, as well as in England with actors from the Royal Shakespeare Company. Member AEA. For more information, see www.martymcdonough.com.
Polly MacIntyre started acting in Houston as a member of Main Street Theater. She has also performed in Philadelphia, where her favorite role was Lady Bracknell in Pride and Prejudice. Polly created Belles of Dublin, a play with live music. She also created a solo spinoff that she performed at the Capitol Fringe Festival in DC as well as at the Chicago Film Festival. She has also acted in independent films, including Bob and the Trees, which won the grand prize in Prague at the Kovary Film Festival.
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.
Autumn Richards is a senior at the Lower Cape May Regional High School. She has been acting since she was in fifth grade. Her first production was Scrooge the Musical (Fan). Autumn then started participating in summer workshops at Cape May Stage, where she helped to write and act in a play of the workshop’s own creation. She also participated in summer workshops at East Lynne, acting in plays like Bianca and the Witch’s Curse (Bianca), The Reluctant Dragon (Horace), and Little Women (Marmee). In middle school, she was in the cast of Flapper, before COVID shut it down. During COVID, she participated in East Lynne’s Backyard Theater Summer Workshop. In her freshman year of high school, she joined back into theater. She did the shows All Together Now, The Addams Family (Ancestor), Queens (Queen Elizabeth I), Mean Girls (Taylor Wendell), Harvey (Nurse Ruth Kelly), and Guys and Dolls (General Matilda B. Cartwright). After the musical was over her junior year, she was asked to compete in the South Jersey Teen Arts Festival. With a fellow student Shea Booth, she performed a scene from The Seagull (Nina). Shea and she progressed on to the State Festival, where they performed again and received feedback from professionals in the acting field. Autumn loves acting and plans to perform in both the Fall Play and Spring Musical at LCMR. When she graduates, she plans to go to college for film production.
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.
Gayle Stahlhuth
Click Here for Her Bio
Click Here for Her Bio
