The Creators

Frank Blocker, playwright and actor
Plays include: Southern Gothic Novel (Drama Desk Award nomination) and Stabilized Not Controlled both running two years each at Manhattan’s Stage Left Studio; Eula Mae’s Beauty, Bait & Tackle (Signature Theatre Company’s Quintero Theatre), Suite Atlanta (78th Street Studio Theatre), HP Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu (The Visceral Company, Los Angeles) Patient Number (Inner Voices Social Issues One-Act Play Winner), The Wisconsinners (Dubuque Fine Arts Center), and Alice, a musical, with composer William Wade (York Theatre Development Series, Emerging Artists Theatre’s Notes From a Page).

New York stage credits include: Southern Gothic… (nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Solo Performance); Roderick Usher in Steven Berkoff’s Fall of the House of Usher (The Independent-West Village), Mr. Peachum in The Beggar’s Opera (Dixon Place-East Village), Edward II (The Paradox-West Village), the “last Don” in The Don Quixote Project, off-Broadway debut in Eula Mae’s Beauty, Bait & Tackle, and as a prisoner on the streets in the Obie-winning West Village/East Village Fragments with Peculiar Works Project/NY. Regional credits include The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Amadeus, Urinetown, Copacabana, and Me and My Girl. Film and TV: Thanks for Sharing, Tales of Halloween, Law & Order: SVU, and film shorts Lester and Maryam and Red Moonflower Blooming to name a few.
www.frank-blocker.com

He has served as editor for ten volumes of short play collections and coordinated the Stage It! 10-Minute International Play Festival from 2015-2023. He is a member of The Dramatists Guild as well as Actors’ Equity Association and SAG/AFTRA. He is also an ordained minister currently serving as Assistant Pastor at Jubilee Fellowship of Naples.

Murray Scott Changar, playwright
Murray left St. Louis and Webster College for New York City in 1977. He performed at The McCarter in Coriolanus, American Theatre of Actors and Drama Committee Rep, and was featured in the movie The Chosen. Directing credits include off-Broadway’s Nelson and Simone: Out of Senses and the critically acclaimed Full Circle. His last credit was directing the Audience Favorite play Whatever Happened to… The Three Sisters in Fn Productions/E-Merging Writers Stage THIS! An evening of 10-minute plays at the 78th Street Studio. As a playwright, he penned the full-length play The Gates of Helen (Whole World Theatre, Atlanta), the one-page play The Old Actor and the Whore (Lamia Ink! at Poet’s Cafe) and two short plays: The Noble Sons of Popeye (Circus Theatricals, Los Angeles) and White Picket Fence (Short Attention Span Play Festival, Boston). Both short plays were published. He also penned the science fiction novel The Slaves of Votarus, and edited the play collection Stage This, TOO! More Ten-Minute Plays (with Sydney Stone). He was known to present new works with Blakkapricorn Productions “Meditations on a Theme” and served as dramaturge for many plays, including Southern Gothic Novel. Murray passed away during the play’s infancy, but remains an integral force and constant voice in the project, the son of a Holocaust survivor: Henryk, the subject of the play.

The Director

Jamibeth Margolis
Jamibeth Margolis (Director/Casting Director) Theatrical directing credits include Do I Hear a Waltz? and Jekyll and Hyde at the Arvada Center Theater in Denver. Recent Staged Readings: Stalled, Bonjour Mon Amour, and Good Jew.  Jamibeth served as assistant director to Tony Award winner Jerry Zaks on The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (Broadway)and also on Jules Feiffer’s A Bad Friend  (Lincoln Center Theatre). She has also helmed developmental productions of the following new musical works: Winesday (currently running in NYC), Save The Palace, Owl Creek, Great Googly Moo, and Warsaw.  Opera directing credits include Tosca and Pirates of Penzance (Boheme Opera NJ).  She was the recipient of the SDCF Directing Observership on Mark Lamos’ production of Tosca at New York City Opera.  Casting credits include the Broadway and National Touring Companies of such hits as Les Miserables, The Phantom Of The Opera, Miss Saigon, Cats, and Jane Eyre as well as two dozen other shows on Broadway, as well as tours and regional theater. Jamibeth won an Artios Award for her casting of Fiddler On The Roof In Yiddish (directed by Joel Grey).  She cast Harmony on Broadway this season.  Member: SDC, CSA.  She is thrilled to be working with Frank and this team again!  MFA in Directing from University of Idaho.  
www.jamibetharts.com

Development

Peculiar Works Project, New York City

Peculiar Works Project was founded by Ralph Lewis, Catherine Porter, and Barry Rowell in 1993 to create, develop, and present original, multi-disciplinary, site-based performance. This award-winning company encourages collaboration, experimentation, and a rebel spirit in artists by providing them with the tools and opportunities needed for artistic exploration. Peculiar Works performs in unconventional, non-theater spaces because they believe artistic work wakes up a site, the site in turn transforms the work, and audiences then experience both in surprising new ways. Through these unique locations—city streets, landmarked buildings, gutted storefronts, and other peculiar sites throughout NYC and beyond—and unusual performances, Peculiar Works brings diverse communities of artists and audiences together. Ralph served as producer for productions at United Solo Festival and the premiere at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Manhattan.

Supporting Players

Alexa Sacks-Wilner, Stage Manager
David Castaneda, Lighting
Spencer Katzman, Music
Fiona Hansen, Sound
Jeffrey A. Margolis, Projections
Barry Rowell, Photography

Former Supporting Players for whom we are grateful:
Jared Six, Stage Management
Jeff Blodgett, Lighting
Angelia Winn, Sound
Barry Rowell, Photography
Toni Palumbo Vasquez, Photography
Ruben Dario Vasquez, Videography

Special Thanks

AG Contemporary Art/NYC
Beth Tikvah Congregation of Naples
The Jewish Congregation of Marco Island
Museum of Jewish Heritage
The Shoah Foundation
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
University Settlement/East Village

Betsy Bennett
The Changar Family
Ted de Clercq
Judy Cohn Copeland
Matt Hanley
Terry Libby
Julianne Mabey
Jeffrey A. Margolis
Gina Palencia
Catherine Porter
Robert Stabile
Annette Trossbach
Robin & Youngja White

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