Who’s Who in Julius Caesar

“Stand and unfold yourself”

- Hamlet

Actors’ Equity Association (AEA) was founded in 1913 as the first of the American actor unions.  Equity’s mission is to advance, promote, and foster the art of live theatre as an essential component of our society.  Today, Equity represents more than 40,000 actors, singers, dancers, and stage managers working in hundreds of theatres across the United States.  Equity members are dedicated to working in the theatre as a profession, upholding the highest artistic standards.  Equity negotiates wages and working conditions and provides a wide range of benefits, including health and pension plans for its members. Through its agreement with Equity, Tennessee Shakespeare Company has committed to the fair treatment of the actors and stage managers employed in this production.  AEA is a member of the AFL-CIO and is affiliated with FIA, an international organization of performing arts unions.  For more information, visit www.actorsequity.org. 

Emma Crystal (Dance and Movement choreographer) is a native Memphian, but she has lived and worked as a performing artist in New York City for over 15 years.  Musicals include Dreamgirls (U.S. Tour), Sophisticated Ladies (European Tour), Sweet Charity, and Hair.  Since moving back to Memphis, Emma has choreographed and directed Sophisticated Ladies for Circut Playhouse and serves as a choreographer for The New Ballet Ensemble, The Memphis Links Annual Debutant Ball, world-renowned singer Kallen Esperian, Al Green's benefit for the American Heart Association, and Opera Memphis (Porgy & Bess, Treemonisha, and Macbeth).  At Hattiloo Theatre, Emma has directed and choreographed several shows and played Elaine in The Last of the Red Hot Lovers.  She wrote, directed, and choreographed There's Something About Big Women, which premired in 2007.  Emma recently choreographed a commercial for the Fred's Dollar Store, and she continues to direct, choreograph, and perform in the Memphis area.

Emma’s work and performance is sponsored by Lily W. and J. Fraser Humphreys III.

Jennifer Drew (Cinna the Soothsayer, Trebonius, Antony's servant, Ensemble) is honored to join TSC on this exciting production.  Originally from central Illinois, Jennifer has performed with Orlando Shakespeare Theater, oklahoma Shakespearean Festival, and most recently with Michigan Shakespeare Festival as Rosalind (As You Like It) and Miranda (The Tempest).  Other favorite roles include Helena (All's Well That Ends Well) and Portia (Julius Caesar), performed using "unrehearsed" technique, with Barn in the Barn.  She holds a B.M. in Miliken University and an M.F.A. in Acting from Western Illinois University.  Musically, Jennifer has performed on stage in such productions in Buddy with the Merry-Go-Round Playhouse and Smoke on the Mountains with Brown County Playhouse, and she was a violinist for the Knox-Galesburg Symphony, Miliken-Decatur Symphony Orchestra, and Serenada string quartet.    

Jennifer’s performance is generously sponsored by John Paul Jones.

Dan McCleary+ (Director; Founder and Producing Artistic Director) is a native Memphian and a graduate of Germantown High School and its Poplar Pike Playhouse.  Dan directed and acted in TSC's inaugural production of As You Like It (Jaques) and directed last fall's A Midsummer Night's Dream.  He also has directed critically-acclaimed productions of As You Like It at Orlando Shakespeare Theater, The Servant of Two Masters outdoors in downtown Atlanta and at Seattle Shakespeare Company, and All's Well That Ends Well at Georgia Shakespeare Festival.  At the Orlando Shakespeare Theater, he has directed the world premier of The Stone Face (about Buster Keaton and Samuel Beckett) and has played the title roles in Antony and Cleopatra and Richard III, Brutus in Julius Caesar, Porfiry in Crime and Punishment, Pertruchio in The Taming of the Shrew, and Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor.  As Associate Artistic Director at Shakespeare & Company in the Berkshires, Dan acted in and directed over 30 productions, appearing as Coriolanus, Macbeth, Herman Melville, Stephano, Don Armando, Hotspur, Master Ford, Bertram, and Antipholus/Dromio of Ephesus.  He directed S&Co's first production of The Servant of Two Masters, also his own adaptation of Anais Nin's Henry & June, Vita & Virginia (about Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf), My Own Stranger (poet Anne Sexton), and The Fiery Rain (Edith Wharton, Henry James, and Morton Fullerton).  Other Regional/New York theatre: Merrimack Rep., North Shore Music Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, StageWest, Alabama Shakespeare, Arden Theatre, Studio 4-A, and Huntington Theatre.  Dan is a published poet and teaches Shakespeare master classes around the country.  Last autumn, Memphis Magazine named him among the "Who's Who in Memphis," and the Germantown Arts Alliance honored him with its 2009 Distinguished Arts and Humanities Medal for Performing Arts.  Dan holds a B.A. in Marketing and Journalism from temple University.

Dan’s advice to the players is generously sponsored by Mary Lee and Peter Formanek.

Tracy Liz Miller* (Julius Caesar, Cinna the Conspirator, Ensemble) is honored to be joining Tennessee Shakespeare Company in this exciting production.  Tracy recently directed Italian American Reconciliation and adapted/directed/produced Titus Andronicus, both in NYC.  She is also the Marketing Director of Vermont Shakespeare Company.  Favorite roles: Almost, Maine at Chester Theatre Company, Night of the Iguana at Penobscot Theatre Company, Viola in Twelfth Night with The Improbable Fiction Theatre Company in NYC, The Creditors with The Miscreant Theatre Company in NYC, and Olivia in Twelfth Night with the Tusla Shakespeare Festival.  Next Tracy will play Desdemona in Othello at the Northeast Shakespeare Ensemble in NH.  She would like to thank Jackie Nichols and Playhouse on the Square for eons-ago internship, and she is so thankful for this opportunity to return to Memphis with this brilliant new company.

Tracy’s performance is sponsored by Jeannie and Owen Tabor, Jr.

Caley Milliken (Marc Antony, Lucius, Ensemble; Dance Captain) TSC: A Midsummer Night's Dream (Peaseblossom/Choreographer).  Shakespeare & Company: Othello (Bianca), Cindy Bella (Tisbe), Ladies' Man (Marie), and A Midsummer Night's Dream (Mustardseed, u/s Helena).  Corning Classics: Much Ado About Nothing (Beatrice), and Antigone (Chorus).  Caley received her MFA from Purdue university PATP in 2007, where her credits include Richard III (title role), Noises Off (Brooke), The Winters' Tale (Hermione), Marisol (June), Arms and the Man (Catherine), Metamorphoses (Eurydice and others), A Funny Thing... (Philia), and Buried Child (Halie).  Caley is also a classically trained dancer and choreographer.  She has danced with the Deutche Oper Ballet (Berlin, Germany), the Rafael Grigorian Ballet Company, the StudioWerks Dance Ensemble at SUNY Buffalo, and others.  This past summer, she served as choreographer to KaTet Theatre's critically-acclaimed production of Road in Chicago.

Caley’s performance is generously sponsored by Edward and Gloria Felsenthal.

Brittany Morgan (Portia, Decius Brutus, Caesar's Servant, Ensemble; Education Artist-Manager) is embarking on her second season with TSC after playing Phebe in the inaugural production of As You Like It.  This fall with TSC, she played Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream and began educating Germantown/Memphis area young people on playing Shakespeare.  Brittany received her B.F.A. from Illinois Wesleyan University, along with the British American Drama Academy.  She has been seen on stage in London (Opal Theatre), Chicago (First Folio Theatre), Orlando (Orlando Shakespeare Theatre; Orlando Repertory Theatre), and Massachusetts (Shakespeare & Company; Riggs Theatre).  A few favorite roles include Cordelia in King Lear, Diana in All's Well That Ends Well, Juliet/Desdemona/Beatrice/Hermia in Wild and Whirling Words, Ariel in The Tempest, Iphigenia in IPH..., Louisson in The Imaginary Invalid, and Ophelia in Hamletmachine. 

Brittany’s performance is generously sponsored by Audrey Taylor.

Vanessa Morosco* (Cassius, Ensemble) is delighted to be returning to TSC after playing Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream.  She has performed steadily with the American Shakespeare Center, for whom she has performed over 25 roles in seven season, including the title role in The Duchess of Malfi, Helena in All's Well That Ends Well, Hippolita in Tis Pity, Princess of France in Love's Labor's Lost, and Gwendolyn in The Importance of Being Earnest.  She now resides in New York, where she has appeared off-Broadway most recently as the Baron in Rape of the Lock (Judith Shakespeare Company), Gwendolyn in The Importance of Being Earnest (Theater Ten Ten), and the Woman in Wonder:lust (Beckett Theatre).  Regionally, favorite roles include Peg in The Way of the World (Yale Rep), Lady Teazle in School for Scandal (Pittsburg irish & Classical Theatre), Elvira in Blithe Spirit and Molly in Smell of the Kill (Wayside Theatre), Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream (Virginia Shakespeare Festival), the Courtesan in Comedy of Errors (Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival), and Launce/Thurio in Two Gentlemen of Verona (Folger Shakespeare Theatre).  She has trained with the British-American Drama Academy, Chautauqua Institution, Shakespeare & Company, and SITI Company.  Vanessa holds a B.A. in Philosophy from Manhattanville College and an M.A. in Ethics from Yale University.

Vanessa’s performance is generously sponsored by TSC’s Dunbar Abston Fund for Sustainable Excellence.

Elizabeth Raetz* (Brutus, Ensemble) is delighted to be working with TSC.  Her theatre credits include Shakespeare & Company: Twelfth Night (Olivia), Hamlet (Ophelia); Long Wharf Theatre: The Tempest with Olympia Dukakis (Miranda); Shadowland Theatre: How I Learned to Drive (Li'l Bit), All My Sons with Paula Prentiss and Richard Benjamin (Ann); Artists Repertory Theatre: The Seagull (Nina); Chenango River Theatre: A Shayna Maidel (Lusia), Talley's Folly (Sally); A.C.T.: Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Cecile); and New Harmony Theatre: The Philadelphia Story (Liz Imbry).  Elizabeth has studied at the Public Theater/NYSF Shakespeare Lab and at the Upright Citizens Brigade.  She is also a graduate of the American Conservatory Theater's M.F.A. Program in San Francisco. 

Elizabeth’s performance is generously sponsored by Nancy and Dan Copp.

Kerry Ryan (Casca, Calphurnia, Ensemble) is an actor, puppeteer, dancer, and physical comedian based in Portland, Oregon.  Her regional credits include Futura, Paradise Street, and Pony at Portland Center Stage; Freud's Girls at Artists Repertory Theatre; and The Servant of Two Masters and The Tempest at Seattle Shakespeare Company.  Kerry is a graduate of Brown University and the La MaMa Expiramental Theatre Program, as well as a former company member of Imago Theater's internationally touring Extreme Physical Theatre Company.  She is delighted to be making her Tennessee Shakespeare Company debut on such a fine project.

Kerry’s performance is generously sponsored by Greg Webb.

William Shakespeare (Playwright) was probably a lot like you, regardless of your age.  He was also a Revolutionary.  He was born into an Age of alarming innovation and discovery in every field of study: voyage, religion, printing, science, commerce, history, disaster, and triumph.  Just like you.  There was revolution all around him, and for us the occurrences of financial tumult, widespread poverty, victory and defeat overseas, scientific discovery, natural catastrophe, a warming planet, an increasingly intelligent world due to electronic information-sharing, and women beginning to share corporate and political leadership all create a similar Age of Renaissance.  William was born into an Age of religious ambivalence, often with accompanying violence, and he received the usual education for a boy then until he as 12 years old.  He married an older woman, perhaps because they were pregnant first.  And there are two periods in his early adult life that we know very little about.  When he emerges in documentation, he is a player and a writer.  But he doesn’t write like the others around him.  He writes, using known stories, through the rhythm of his heart. You can hear it in his verse lines.  He began to write his life into his plays: when his son Hamnet and father die, there is Hamlet; after his mother dies and England’s corn riots create domestic war, there is Coriolanus; after he falls in love with a dark-haired woman in the city, there are the Sonnets to his Dark Lady and all of his Rosalinds in As You Like It and Romeo and Juliet and Love’s Labor’s Lost; and when his daughters come of age, there are his final plays in which the daughters redeem their fathers.  It is said of William that he created the human being, which is to say he developed character on stage with psychological underpinnings and fragile grace resulting in landmark joys or the end of lives.  Like a genuine poet, he forces no answers upon us.  He lends us timeless questions.  William was a Revolutionary because he dared to question his life in a public forum, and he discovered that that which is most personal is shared by us all.  It is collectively held and needs to be articulated and felt for the health of a community.  In so doing, William redefined the function of theatre.  His Age compelled and inspired him, just as our own Age can do the same for us.  

Iren Zombor (Cellist, Music Composer and Arranger) is a native of Miskolc, Hungary.  After attending music college in her hometown, she lived in Bratislava, Slovakia, for two years, where she studied with the famous Slovak cellist, Joseph Podhoranky.  She received her Masters of Music degree in cello performance from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.  Iren has been a member of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra since the fall of 1996, where she currently holds the Assistant Principal Cello position.  She has performed around the world with various orchestras, as far as Eastern and Western Europe and Japan.  In addition to her busy performance schedule, her passion has long been private teaching.  Iren has taught students of all ages at all levels and has served on the Rhodes College faculty since 2004.   

Iren’s performance is generously sponsored by Nell Levy.

* Member of Actors' Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
+ Member of The Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, Inc., an independent national labor union.