The Broadway Revival 2000

CAST BIOS

CRAIG BIERKO (Harold Hill) has made quite a career in Hollywood,
having completed eight films and several TV appearances. Movies include:
The Long Kiss Goodnight, The Thirteenth Floor, The Suburbans,
Sour Grapes, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Til There Was You,
Johns and Victimless Crimes. T.V. appearances include: "Mad About You",
"Murphy Brown", "The Golden Girls", "Empty Nest", "Paradise",
"Pride & Joy", "Madman of the People", "Danielle Steel",
"Star", "Red Dwarf" and "Sydney". Craig hails from Westchester, New York.

REBECCA LUKER (Marian Paroo) was last seen on Broadway as
Maria Rainer in The Sound of Music.
Other Broadway: Magnolia in Show Boat (Tony Award nom.),
Lily in The Secret Garden (Drama Desk nom.)
and Christine in The Phantom of the Opera.
She has performed in X (The Life and Times of Malcolm X)
and Brigadoon for NYC Opera.
Regional: Julia in Time and Again (Old Globe Theatre).
Concerts: No, No Nanette and The Art of the Lyricist: Ira Gershwin
(both at Carnegie Hall) and The Boys From Syracuse
with the Encores! Series at City Center.
Recordings include Anything Goes: Rebecca Luker sings Cole Porter, Aria,
Wonderful Town, Jerome Kern Treasury, Brigadoon, Unsung Sondheim
and original cast recordings of The Secret Garden and Show Boat.
TV: "Matlock," "An Evening with the Pops: B'way Originals,"
"An Oscar Hammerstein Celebration."

MAX CASELLA (Marcellus Washburn) made his Broadway debut
playing Timon in the original cast of The Lion King,
in which he recieved a Theatre World award
for Outstanding Broadway Debut, as well as a Drama Desk nomination.
Best known to audiences as Vinnie, the quirky, charming
best friend of Doogie Howser, MD.
Max has starred in films from Ed Wood, Sgt. Bilko and Analyze This.
He is currently producing his first screenplay, 1933 Was A Bad Year
(based on the novel by John Fante) with director Michael Corrente.

PAUL BENEDICT (Mayor Shinn).
Broadway/Off_Broadway:
Little Murders; The White House Murder Case (Circle in the Square);
Bad Habits (Astor Place and Booth Theatre); The Local Stigmatic;
Live Like Pigs (Actors' Playhouse); The Play's the Thing;
The Cherry Orchard (The Roundabout); Richard III (Cort);
It's Only a Play (Manhattan Theatre Club).
Regional Theatre: More than 70 roles at Theatre Company of Boston,
Huntington Theatre Company, The Charles Playhouse (Boston),
American Repertory Theatre (Cambridge),
Trinity Repertory Company (Providence), Long Wharf Theatre (New Haven),
Center Stage (Baltimore), Arena Stage (Washington, D.C.),
Playhouse in the Park (Cincinnati), The Ahmanson Theatre,
The Doolittle Theatre (Los Angeles).
Film: The Freshman; The Addams Family; The Goodbye Girl;
This is Spinal Tap; Jeremiah Johnson; The Man With Two Brains;
Arthur II; Cocktail; Up the Sandbox; Sibling Rivalry;
The Front Page; Taking Off.

RUTH WILLIAMSON (Eulalie McKechnie Shinn).
Broadway: Epic Proportions, Little Me, Guys and Dolls, Smile,
The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940 and Annie (the first one).
Last season: MTC's The Green Heart (Drama Desk nomination)
and WPA's Queen Amarantha with Charles Busch.
Off_Broadway: The Good Times Are Killing Me,
The Leonard Bernstein Revue (Rainbow and Stars),
DuBarry Was a Lady (Encores!).
Regional: Merrily We Roll Along, Arena Stage; Candide, Huntington Theatre;
You Should Be So Lucky (Barrymore nomination), Wilma Theatre;
and various shows at Long Wharf, O'Neill Conference, Bay Street, Goodspeed,
Paper Mill and Coconut Grove.
Film: Malcolm X, Foreign Student, Italian Movie.
Television: "Law & Order," "As the World Turns," "One Life to Live,"
"Pete and Pete" and countless commercials, including one directed
by Woody Allen.

SUSAN STROMAN (Director, Choreographer).
Broadway:
Crazy For You (Tony Award, Drama Desk, Outer Critics' Circle Award),
Show Boat (Tony Award, Outer Critics' Circle Award),
Steel Pier, Big, Picnic, Contact.
London: Oklahoma! at the Royal National Theatre (Laurence Olivier Award),
Crazy For You (Laurence Olivier Award).
Off_Broadway: And the World Goes 'Round (Outer Critics' Circle Award),
Flora, The Red Menace.
New York City Opera: Don Giovanni, A Little Night Music, 110 In the Shade.
New York City Ballet: Blossom Got Kissed (Stroman created this ballet to
celebrate NYCB's 50th Anniversary).
Martha Graham Company: But Not for Me (at the Joyce Theater). }
Other Theater: Liza Stepping Out At Radio City Music Hall,
the annual spectacular A Christmas Carol at Madison Square Garden
(Outer Critics' Circle Award).
Television: PBS - "Sondheim, A Celebration at Carnegie Hall,"
"A Little Night Music," "Crazy For You," "An Evening With The Boston Pops."
HBO - "Liza Stepping Out" (Emmy nomination).
She is currently working
on a dance movie for Columbia Pictures.
Susan Stroman is the proud recipient of the Astaire Award.

MEREDITH WILLSON was born in 1902 in Mason City, Iowa.
He left Iowa to study at the Damrosch Institute of Musical Art
(later the Juilliard School), receiving flute instruction from Georges Barrere,
the world_renown flutist. He later joined the New York Philharmonic Orchestra
where he was 1st flutist.
He became musical director for various radio programs
throughout the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s,
including Tallulah Bankhead's program,
"The Big Show," for which he wrote the hit song
"May The Lord Bless and Keep You."
He composed the scores for the movies The Great Dictator
and The Little Foxes, as well as symphonic, band,
and choral works, including
The Jervis Bay: Symphonic Variations on an American Theme
and Anthem of the Atomic Age.
Willson wrote three Broadway musicals: The Music Man, his first
and most successful; The Unsinkable Molly Brown (music and lyrics),
and Here's Love (book, music and lyrics).
As an author he has published two autobiographical works
(And There I Stood with My Piccolo and Eggs I Have Laid),
one novel (Who Did What to Fedalia)
and a memoir about the making of The Music Man
(But He Doesn't Know the Territory).

THOMAS LYNCH (Sets).
Select New York work on and Off_B'way includes Swing!; Contact;
Ah, Wilderness!; Having Our Say; The Young Man From Atlanta;
The Heidi Chronicles (Tony nomination); Betty's Summer Vacation;
Driving Miss Daisy; and Tintypes.
He has designed extensively for the major regional theatres,
for Convent Garden, Vienna Staatsoper, Houston Grand,
New York City Opera (Xerxes), San Francisco and Seattle Operas.
Awards include two Joseph Jeffersons, the Elliot Norton,
and the 1999 Obie for Sustained Excellence.

WILLIAM IVEY LONG (Costumes). Credits include Swing!, Contact,
Epic Proportions, The Civil War, Annie Get Your Gun,
The Mystery of Irma Vep,
Cabaret (1998 Drama Desk Award nomination,
Tony Award nomination, Outer Critics' Award nomination),
Chicago (Tony and Olivier Award nominations; New York, London, Melbourne, and Vienna), Steel Pier, 1776, Smokey Joe's Cafe,
Crazy for You (Tony, Dora, Outer Critics' awards),
Guys and Dolls (Drama Desk Award),
Madison Square Garden's annual A Christmas Carol,
Six Degrees of Separation, Assassins,
1991 Obie Award for Outstanding Achievement,
Lend Me a Tenor (Drama Desk, Outer Critics' Circle Award),
Nine (Tony, Drama Desk, Maharam awards),
Robert Wilson's Hamletmachine,
Leonard Berstein's A Quiet Place and Trouble in Tahiti,
The Lost Colony, Mick Jagger for the Rolling Stones' Steel Wheels Tour,
Siegfried and Roy at the Mirage hotel, Paul Taylor, Twyla Tharp,
Peter Martins and Susan Stroman.

PETER KACZOROWSKI (Lighting).
Broadway: Kiss Me, Kate, Honour; Jackie; Steel Pier;
She Loves Me (also West End); On the Waterfront; A Small Family Business. Lincoln Center: Contact; Ah, Wilderness!; Twelve Dreams.
Roundabout: Impossible Marriage, Company, She Loves Me,
Picnic, among others.
Encores!: Babes in Arms, St. Louis Woman, Boys From Syracuse,
One Touch of Venus.
Off-Broadway: Violet, The Monogamist, The Uneasy Chair,
Death Defying Acts, Grandchild of Kings,
Song of Singapore among others.
Extensive designs for most leading regional theatre
and opera companies in the US.
Abroad: Royal Opera Covent Garden, Scottish Opera, Bonn State Opera,
Opera/North, Canadian Opera and the Edinburgh Festival.

JONATHAN DEANS (Sound)
has designed over 120 productions of musicals, plays,
operas, concerts, Las Vegas spectaculars and many attractions.
Las Vegas venues include EFX at MGM Grand,
Rio Hotel's Masquerade Parades, Seigfried and Roy and the Mirage,
Cirque de Soliel's O Mystere and La Nouba in Orlando.
Recent theatrical credits on Broadway and in the West End include Fosse,
Parade, Ragtime, Candide, Disney's King David, Saturday Night Fever
as design consultant and Disney's Beauty and the Beast
in Toronto and the national tour.

DAVID CHASE (Dance Arrangement).
Broadway: Music Director and/or Dance Arranger for
Kiss Me, Kate; Side Show; Radio City; Damn Yankees; Little Me; Music Man;
....Forum; Pimpernel (revised); The Seussical (workshop).
Also: Evening at Pops, Hasty Pudding, Forbidden Broadway, Forever Plaid.

The Broadway Revival 2000

Cast List
Cast Bios
About Bierko's Casting
Links & Articles
My Review

A Tribute to Meredith Willson's "The Music Man"