SCRIPT & DIRECTION:

 

Michael Gene Sullivan (Writer, Director, Actor, SFMT Collective) is an award-winning actor, director, and playwright based in San Francisco. As an actor Michael has worked with the American Conservatory Theatre, the Denver Center Theater Company, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Theatreworks, California Shakespeare Theatre, SF Playhouse, San Francisco and the African American Shakespeare Companies, and the Aurora, the Marin, the Magic, the Lorraine Hansberry Theater, and has been a principle actor for the San Francisco Mime Troupe for over 30 years. Michael’s directing credits include work with San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, TheatreFirst, the African American Shakespeare Company, Street Of Dreams Theatre Company, and over a dozen shows with SFMT. Michael was also director of the all-woman, all-clown Circus Finelli. From 1992 -1999 Michael was a Contributing Writer for the despite-its-name-never-silent, Tony and OBIE Award-winning San Francisco Mime Troupe before being named SFMT’s Resident Playwright 2000 to present. Michael is also a  Resident Playwright for the Playwrights Foundation, and in 2017 was playwriting resident at the Djerassi Arts Center.  Mr. Sullivan's political dramas, musicals, and satires include Walls (Ningun Humano Es Ilegal!), Treasure Island, For The Greater Good, Freedomland, Red Carol, Too Big To Fail, Did Anyone Ever Tell You-You Look Like Huey P. Newton?, Mr. Smith Goes to Obscuristan (with Josh Kornbluth), Godfellas, Too Big to Fail, Possibilidad or The Death of the Worker, the all-woman farce Recipe, and his one person show, Did Anyone Ever Tell You -- You Look Like Huey P. Newton? Mr. Sullivan's plays have been performed at the Melbourne International Arts Festival, the International Festival of Verbal Art (Berlin), The Hong Kong Arts Festival, and in Greece, Spain, Columbia, Argentina, New Zealand, Ukraine, England, Scotland, The Netherlands, Australia, Canada, Mexico, as well as in theaters throughout the United States. 1984, his critically-acclaimed stage adaptation of George Orwell's dystopic novel of the oppressive present/future, had its world premiere in 2006 at the Actors' Gang, directed by Academy Award winning actor Tim Robbins. After several extended runs in Los Angeles, 1984 has gone on to several national and international productions, has been translated into six languages, and published in two. Michael is also a Collective Member and Board Member of the San Francisco Mime Troupe. www.michaelgenesullivan.com

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Daniel Savio (Musical Director, SFMT Collective)  started his professional theater career playing for the San Francisco Mime Troupe, participating in the tours of GodFellas ('06) and Making a Killing ('07). He later returned to the Troupe and has been a fixture in the pit the last five seasons, serving as keyboardist for Freedomland ('15), musical director and keyboardist for Schooled ('16), keyboardist and bassist for Walls ('17) and Seeing Red ('18), and lyricist and keyboardist for Treasure Island ('19). He is thrilled to be composer and lyricist for the Mime Troupe's first radio play ever.

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CAST:

 

Andre Amarotico (Actor) is returning for a third summer with the Mime Troupe. Andre studied theater at Stanford University, where he received the Evelyn M. Draper Prize for Performance and the Muses Prize in the Arts and Classics. Recent roles include Anthony in Sweeney Todd (6th Street Playhouse), Christopher Wren in The Mousetrap (Ross Valley Players), Bones in Treasure Island (SFMT), Kenickie in Grease (Mountain Play), Romeo in Romeo and Juliet (Throckmorton Theatre), Smith in An American Ma(u)l (BACCE), Joe in Seeing Red (SFMT), and the title roles in Hamlet and Macbeth (Stanford). He received a TBA nomination for outstanding featured actor in The 39 Steps (Ross Valley Players).

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Wilma Bonet (Actor) a past SFMT collective member, directed the SFMT’s 2019 summer show Treasure Island, after directing Ripple Effect, 2012 the Musical, Possibilidad or Death of a Worker and Too Big To Fail all written by Michael Gene Sullivan. In the past she has also directed at Teatro Vision in San Jose the following plays: Jose Rivera's School of the Americas, Sandra Cisnero's The House On Mango Street, Milcha Sanchez Scott's Evening Star/Doglady, Eduardo Machado's The Cook, Roy Conboy's Drive My Coche, Octavio Solis's La Posada Magica, and Jorge Gonzalez's Vieques (West coast premiere). Her other directing credits includes: Jeannie Barroga's Walls, for Asian American Theater, Shakespeare's Twelfth Night for Women's Will, The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit for Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis, Fronteras Americanas for TheaterFIRST, Miriam's Flowers for Cal State Sacramento. She has also directed for TheatreWorks in Palo Alto and Latina Theatre Lab at the Yerba Buena Center in SF.

 

Velina Brown (Actor, SFMT Collective) is pleased to step into a new role for the Mime Troupe and direct Tales of the Resistance. For 25 years Velina has been a principal performer for the Mime Troupe. She was the Devil in Deal With the Devil, Veronique in Veronique of the Mounties, she's played Condoleeza Rice three times, and was both an actor and contributing lyricist on GodFellas and Making a Killing. Velina's most recent Troupe shows include WALLS, Schooled, Ripple Effect, Red State, Too Big to Fail, and Posibilidad: Or Death of the Worker for which she won a Bay Area Critics Circle Award for Best Principal Actress. Velina has toured France with the Word for Word, and Spain and Portugal with Brooklyn based ensemble Barbez in support of their album For Those Who Came After: Songs of the Resistance from the Spanish Civil War. Other credits include A.C.T., Berkeley Repertory Theatre, California Shakespeare Theatre, New Conservatory Theatre, Theatre Rhinoceros, SF Playhouse, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre and many others as well as film, television and commercials. Velina also voices video games, training films, narrates documentaries and writes an advice column for Theatre Bay Area called The Business of Show Biz. For more info. about Velina please visitwww.velinabrown.com.

 

Milo Carter-Daniels (Actor) is excited to be a part of Tales of Resistance with the SF Mime Troupe. He is a budding young actor, who also enjoys sports and art, as well as Minecraft. He has performed as Banquo in Macbeth at SF Shakespeare Summer Camp and as a victim of Dracula at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts. He can be heard in the VR game The Rig.

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Amos Glick (Actor) Somehow Amos has been able create a career out of acting like an idiot and refusing to grow up. Highlights include: Reveria (Acting Coach & Clown Act Conceptor - The Municipal Circus Of Bucharest), Graeme Of Thrones (Nat'l Tour),  Piff The Magic Dragon’s Piffmas Pifftacular, Impro Studio, Fraudway LA, Le Reve, The San Francisco Mime Troupe, The San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, The New Pickle Family Circus, BATS Improv & True Fiction Magazine. Film: Popovich: The Road To Hollywood, The Village Barbershop, Opal, Around The Fire. TV: Agents Of Shield, Just Roll With It, Nash Bridges.  Hobbies include making music, sometimes plays hockey and loves bluegrass and the Grateful Dead. He wrote, produced and starred in the award-winning short film A Man Wakes Up. www.AmosGlick.com

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Lisa Hori-Garcia (Actor, SFMT Collective) has been a principal performer and collaborator for the Troupe since 2004 in such shows as Seeing Red, Schooled, Posibilidad or Death of The Worker, Too Big To Fail and Doing Good to name a few. In 2016, Lisa received a TBA Nomination for Best Principal Actress in a Musical for her performance in Freedomland. She is also the program director and lead teacher of both the Mime Troupe's Youth Theater Project (YTP) and SFMT's summer intensive theater workshop. Lisa also works with other Bay Area companies, such as Cal Shakes, The Magic Theatre, Berkeley Rep, Word for Word and most recently appeared in ACT's Men on Boats and The Great Leap. Lisa is a former Ensemble Member & Production Manager with New WORLD Theater in Amherst, MA and received her BA from Smith College and MFA in Acting from the University of Southern California.

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Mike McShane (Actor) is an Emmy nominated actor, as well as one of the original recurring cast members of the UK’sWhose Line Is It Anyway. Mike has achieved peak nerdom by being a villain in Doctor Who, driving the Batmobile whilst dressed as a Klingon, and kicking Kevin Costner in the face (as Friar Tuck). Mike was a company member of Berkeley Shakespeare Festival, American Conservatory Theatre, and the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival throughout the Eighties, and is extremely happy to be joining old friends and new comrades in a great American institution, The San Francisco Mime Troupe. Keep Kicking.

 

Jarion Monroe (Actor) most recently appeared as King Arthur in Spamalot at Marin Shakes, and has recently been seen as Jack in Berkeley Rep’s Imaginary Comforts, Fezziwig in ACT’s A Christmas Carol, and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare at Marin Shakes.  His 50 year career includes all the major theaters in the Bay Area, as well as South Coast Rep, Yale Rep, Arizona Rep, Teatro ZinZanni, off Broadway theaters, and the Oregon Shakespeare Theater.  His favorite role in film was as Not-Professor X in The Internship, and he was in one of the first Seinfeld TV shows and one of the last Frasier shows. He won the “Natalie Wood Award” when he was at UCLA, and was knocked downstairs by Michael Landon in Bonanza, and literally knocked out by his “father”, Strother Martin, in the same episode.

 

Brian Rivera (Actor) performed last summer with the SF Mime Troupe in Treasure Island. His past work with the Troupe also includes Doing Good (2005) and Posibilidad, or Death of the Worker (2010). He made his Broadway debut in the Tony Award winning revival of The King & I at Lincoln Center & subsequently the First National Broadway Tour. Brian's credits include the US Premiere of The Orphan of Zhao at ACT & La Jolla Playhouse. His other Bay Area credits include Major Barbara at ACT, Berkeley Repertory Theatre's Yellowjackets, and California Shakepeare Theater's American Night. Brian studied at Oxford University through BADA and earned his B.A. in Drama from San Francisco State University. Many thanks to the Collective, our cast, band, & staff. Ars Longa Vita Brevis.

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Keiko Shimosato Carreiro (Actor, SFMT Collective)  At the University of Iowa in 1985, the Theater Department Head told her that the Mainstream American Stage would not be ready to integrate People of Color for at least 50 years. Determined to prove him wrong, she discovered alternative and political Theater in the process. Arriving in San Francisco in 1987, Keiko Shimosato Carreiro became the first Asian Collective Member with the Tony award winning San Francisco Mime Troupe, where she has been an Actor, Designer, Writer and Director ever since. She has performed throughout the Bay Area, notably, Berkeley Rep, ACT, The Magic Theater, The Aurora Theater, Word for Word, and Center Rep.  An award winning Costume Designer ,nominated for TBA Best Costumes and Bay Area Critics Circle award, she received the 2018 ACTF Meritorious Achievement Award. In Spring of 2020, she received the TBA Cash Grant towards her one person show. Co-founding“ Kunoichi Productions” Theater  in February of 2020, Keiko seeks to create multi-racial/cultural/generational/gender queer friendly, original works with an Asian Aesthetic.   Instructing Youth in The S.F. Opera Guilds’, “Voices for Social Justice” program, she teaches that all have a place on stage.

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Michael Gene Sullivan (Writer, Director, Actor, SFMT Collective) SEE ABOVE.

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MUSICIANS:

 

Patrick Byers (Musician) first started gigging in San Francisco and around the Bay with the swing and ska revival scenes of the late nineties. He earned his Jazz Performance degree from Sonoma State University, then expanded to performing a wide range of music, touring nationally and beyond. As the music industry changed and touring became less sustainable, his focus switched to becoming an in-demand session musician, as well as adding a multitude of instruments to his vocabulary.

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David Rokeach (Musician) has performed/recorded with Ray Charles; Aretha Franklin; Mavis Staples; Patti LaBelle; Mariah Carey; Celine Dion; Shania Twain; Joe Henderson; Grammy, Tony, Emmy, and Oscar winner Rita Moreno; Mark Murphy; Steve Miller; Carole King; Wilson Pickett; Ernestine Anderson; Sonny Simmons; Calvin Keys, Taj Mahal and many others. He has played the Broadway shows Jersey Boys, Les Miserables, Ragtime, Ain't Nothin' But The Blues, and Love Janis. He has also worked extensively in film and television. David is a faculty member at Stanford University, He has been a faculty member at The Jazzschool in Berkeley, Lafayette Summer Music Camp and Jazz Camp West.He started working with the San Francisco Mime Troupe in 1982!

 

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PRODUCTION TEAM:

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Taylor Gonzalez (Sound Designer/Audio Engineer, SFMT Collective) is excited to be working in this new medium with the San Francisco Mime Troupe. He is looking forward to the challenges ahead while working on a radio serial. During this time while sheltering in place Taylor has also been working on production and engineering for local bands albums. He is looking forward to getting back into the field to continue his work as a live audio engineer around the Bay Area, and is excited to work with the Mime Troupe for his 5th straight summer production.

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Karen Runk (Production Stage Manager) moved to SF with the intention of only staying for a few months... Over two decades later she's still here! This is largely due to the talented folks at the SF Mime Troupe and thanks to Golden Thread Productions where she has been a Resident Artist since 2018 - but mostly it's due to rent control! Runk has also stage managed with Word For Word, Magic Theater, SFShakes, Intersection for the Arts, and African American Shakespeare Company.

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Ellen Callas (General Manager, SFMT Collective) A native Chicagoan who cut her teeth on Second City, Ellen co-founded, in 1976, Hit and Run Theater, a political sketch comedy troupe that toured rural northern California for many years. Since joining the Mime Troupe in 1986, she has worked as a writer on (Ripped Van Winkle, Secrets in the Sand, Rats, Back to Normal, Escape from Cyberia, Revenger Rat, Soul Suckers, Eating It, 1600 Transylvania Ave, Doing Good, and Posibilidad. Also as an actor (Rats), director (Making a Killing) and as production, company & stage manager for various productions including the international collaboration and Asian tour of Big Wind. She also served as company manager for ACT's long running production of Angels In America: Parts I & II. She is committed to mentoring future activist artists and from its beginning has been an enthusiastic teacher and occasional project director of company's 24-year-old Youth Theater Project. Ellen credits her ability as an improviser for helping to navigate the rocky road of non-profit political theater.

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Kari Barclay (Community Engagement) is a writer, director, and educator who advances democracy and tells human stories of sexuality. Originally from Washington, DC, he has made work regionally and in New York at venues including Round House Theater, the San Francisco Mime Troupe Studio, and Manbites Dog. His play CAN I HOLD YOU? was one of the first plays about asexuality performed in the U.S. and has been developed in the Bay and New York. Kari is a 2020 Bay Area Playwrights Festival finalist, recipient of the Sudler Award in the Arts, and Ric Weiland Fellow at Stanford University. kari-barclay.com

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Marissa Ellison (Tour Manager),  born and raised in Wisconsin, Marissa has been a theater-lover since her 3rd grade debut as an orphan in Annie. Her relationship with the Troupe began in the summer of 2017, when she spent her summer as a workshop student with the Troupe. Marissa graduated with her BA in Theatre Arts from Marquette University. Since then, she has had the opportunity to perform in the Bay Area with Douglas Morrisson Theatre, Moonrisers, Ross Valley Players and Landmark Musical Theatre. Marissa is always excited to spend time at the Mime Troupe and be involved with such passionate theatre professionals!

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