Maria Alegre (Playwright) is thrilled to be a part of COLLAB, a production of Vertigo Theater Company. She has been an actress in New York for over 6 years and is a proud member of the LAByrinth Theater Company Intensive Ensemble, 2012. BFA Emerson College, MLS Queens College. This is the first play she has ever written; it is dedicated it in loving memory to her friend Tristan.

Samantha Glovin (Asst. Director/Crew) was accepted into the Labyrinth Theater Company’s Spring Ensemble Workshop in 2012, where Vertigo was launched. She is grateful and proud to be a founding company member of such a talented, passionate, and supportive family, which now includes her COLLAB friends. She has appeared in various independent films, web series’, and off-off-Broadway productions. A North Jersey native, she is a graduate of Rutgers University and is currently pursuing an acting career in New York City.

Peter Collier (Tristan) was last seen onstage as part of Labyrinth Theater Company’s New York New York Festival. He recently finished studying with Maggie Flanigan. Up next, he will be performing Macbeth with The Queens Players at The Secret Theatre.

Padraic Lillis (Director) this season directed Lindsay Joy Murphy’s Rise and Fall of a Teenage Cyber Queen for LabRats, solo plays Bully by Lee Kaplan, When Thoughts Attack by Kelly Kinsella, co-wrote Kelly’s new show How To Write a One Person Show as part of the 10th Annual SoloNOVA Festival, and his own solo show How To Survive Crack Addiction.  He was awarded the Dayton Hudson Distinguished Artist Fellowship to be in residence at Carlton College. He is an adjunct professor with the Department of Dramatic Writing at NYU, a member of the Labyrinth Theater Company, and a lifelong Yankee fan.

Victor Almanzar (Terrence) is a native of The Dominican Republic. He moved to Queens New York at the age of thirteen.  As a young adult, Victor joined the United States Marine Corp, serving in Kosovo and Iraq. Upon returning home, he decided to pursue acting. Victor has since performed in theatrical productions throughout New York City at venues including Center Stage New York, Repertorio Español, Aaron Davis Hall, and as part of LAByrinth Theater Company’s NYNY Festival. He is currently pursuing a Masters of Fine Arts at the Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University.

Devon Caraway (Asst. Director) is excited to be Assistant Directing for COLLAB and Vertigo. She is an actor/director currently working on her MFA at Brown/Trinity Rep. Directing mentors/instructors include Brian Mertes, Melissa Kievman, Rachel Chavkin and Joanna Settle. Directorial Experience: The White Star (Brown/Trinity Rep), Suddenly Last Summer (CT Drama Association Festival), The Second Best Bed (CT Drama Association Festival). Previous Training: BFA NYU Tisch: Playwrights Horizons, Meisner Extension, The Classical Studio. Vertigo has immense passion and vigor. It’s a thrill to be working with you all!

Jacob Perkins (Jamie)- New York: The Rise and Fall of a Teenage Cyberqueen (Access Theater), The Austerity of Hope (Barrow Group/Fresh Fruit Festival), Fragments of Grey (Players Club). Shakespeare Theatre Co: Macbeth, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Much Ado About Nothing, The Heir Apparent. Guthrie Theater: Reverb, Macbeth. Training: University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theater BFA Actor Training Program, South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities. Thanks to Pia and Shira-Lee for the heels and the trust.

Shira-Lee Shalit (Director) is an award-winning director, writer and actor. Chosen by Steven Spielberg out of 12,000 directors as one of 12 Finalists for the Fox/Dreamworks show, “On The Lot”, Shira-Lee has directed for LAByrinth Theater Company, Barefoot Theatre Company, Nylon FusionCo, Stonestreet Studios, Jewish Plays Project, WGAEast Screenplays, a feature and many short films. A Presidential Scholar of the Arts Awardee and Finalist in the Student Academy Awards, Shira-Lee is on faculty at Columbia University’s Graduate Film School and NYU.

Leo Arias (Angela) is originally from Bushwick, Brooklyn and began his acting career at age 7 when he was cast as Tybalt in his elementary school’s production of Romeo and Juliet. Mr. Arias pursued theatre at the age of 10 when he was accepted in to Phillipa Schuyler’s Middle School for the Gifted and Talented. At the age 13, he was accepted in to Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts (the FAME School). He was a student of the Stella Adler Studios, has performance credits at off-broadway theaters, and was an invited member of the AMAS Musical Theater Company. Mr. Arias is also an alumni of the Labyrinth Theatre Company Ensemble. His voiceover work was last heard in the indie film Eliot Loves, which was recognized in the 2012 Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. He also played the part of Dad in the show “Or What She Will” in the 2012 Fringe Festival.  As of 2013, he has been an active core member of Vertigo Theater Company in New York City.

Wilemina Olivia-Garcia (Amelia)- Member of LAByrinth Theater Company since 1993.  Performance credits include: Untitled Ass Play-Esmeralda (workshop production) Stephen Adly-Guirgis LAB Theater Company, Dutch Heart of Man-Phyllis PublicTheater, LAB Theater Company, Ladronita- Shoplifting Prison & Sex-Self developed and performed at Center Stage NY; LAB Theater Company, Barn Series 2001. Her film credits include Bobby G Can’t Swim, Brenda John Luc Montias 2001, Drug wars- Annmarie Anthony Michaels 1990. She studied the Linklatter Voice & Movement technique, with Robby Mc’Caulghly, and is a City University BFA graduate. She is thankful for the love, and abundance!

Pia Scala-Zankel (Playwright/Producer) is proud to be the Co-Artistic Director of Vertigo Theater Company. Pia is thrilled to be making her writing debut with excerpts from her play Street Children.  Special thanks to Labyrinth Theater Company for giving her the impetus to follow her passion, to Shira-Lee Shalit and Padraic Lillis for their guidance and drive, to her beautiful family for their incredible love and support, and a huge thank you to her partner and rock Tara- who together make PIARA- WERQ GIRRRRL.

Analisa Velez (Lala) holds a BFA in acting from Florida State University. She is a 2008 YoungArts recipient, which led her to HBO’S Masterclass with Liv Ullman. Analisa’s emerging collective Raw Love Theatre recently premiered their play Ain’t No Such Thing As Free Pizza for Venus Theatre Festival. Her recent theatrical credits include Closet in Broken Motherhood Museum, Veronica in Mothefu**er with the Hat, Norca in Our Lady of 121st Street and Captain MacMorris in Henry V.

James Fauvell (Director) has worked Off and Off-Off Broadway as an actor, writer, director, stage manager and producer. Most recent theater credits include The Rise and Fall Of A Teenage Cyberqueen (Access Theater), Mike Birbiglia’s My Girlfriends Boyfriend (Barrow Street Theater), and Waiting For Godot. His film work includes Sleepwalk With Me (2012 Sundance Next Category Award Winner) and a lead in the feature Chasing Home. He Currently serves as Co-Artistic Director of the LabRats Theater Company.

Lindsay Joy (Playwright) is a Brooklyn based playwright. She is the Co-Artistic Director of the LabRats Theater Company in New York City. The Rats produced her new full length play, The Rise and Fall of a Teenaged Cyberqueen, this past spring at the Access Theater, directed by the one and only Padraic Lillis. Her play The Unearthing was a part of the newTACTics festival in the summer of 2012 and was presented in the Ground Up New Works Festival this past winter. She frequently works with aMios Theater company for their monthly short play bonanza, SHOTZ, at the Theatre Under St. Marks. Her short pieces have been seen all over the country- from the Bowery Poetry Club to the Boston Playwright’s Theater. Her collaborative piece “The Apartment: a Play with Four Sides” was featured in the 2011 NY International Fringe Festival. In 2001, Lindsay won the award for best short play at the Kennedy Center’s American College Theater Festival for her piece “Life, Love and a 7-11”.

Gillian Glasco* (Rita) received her B.F.A in Acting from Ithaca College, Ithaca, New York. She has performed with The Hangar Theatre Doubt, The New Federal Theatre Company Knock Me a Kiss and Court Martial at Fort Devens, The Classical Theatre of Harlem Ain’t Suppose To Die A Natural Death, The Billie Holiday Theatre The Waiting Room, The Steppingstone Theatre Company Reflections of a Heart, The Kitchen Theatre Company Kiss Me (co-writer/performer), and Arby Productions The Real Thing. Feature films: Hannah Has A Ho Phase. Television: Louie FX and Gravity The Starz Network. gillianglasco@hotmail.com.

Neil Tyrone Pritchard (Asst. Director)- Actor/Singer/Writer. A fresh face on the theater scene, his work has most recently been seen in readings at Labyrinth Theater Company, ESPA: Primary Stages, and The Cherry Lane Theater. He had a reading of his first play Bro-Kin, last winter. He is working on an autobiographical piece, Songs My Father Taught Me, a play with music. He is currently producing a new play, Standbys by Alex Riad for Cabrini Repertory Theater’s Thespis Festival.

Jose Sanchez* (Jerry)- Piquoiseau in Marius, Adam & Corin in As You Like It, Arab in Time of Your Life, Hodge in Shoemaker’s Holiday, Tom Shout (The Wall) in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Antonio in Twelfth Night, Lopez in The Power and the Glory (All with the Storm Theatre). Kilroy in Camino Real, Nurse Aid Warren-Turklein One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (both at the Lovinger Theatre). Rudy in Holidazeat the House of Tribes Theatre; Chino in La Pared/The Wall at Common Spaces Theatre; Latin King Lemon in King Koho at La TEA Theatre.

Billy Finn (Playwright) is a writer and actor currently attending the Brown/Trinity Rep MFA program in acting.  His plays have been seen at the Kennedy Center’s Page to Stage Festival, First Draft Theatre, the Source Festival, Brown/Trinity Rep and St. Bonaventure University. As an actor, Billy has performed at Shakespeare Theatre Company, Folger Theatre, the Kennedy Center, Arena Stage and many others. This summer, his full-length version of Two Grunts will be given a staged reading at Brown/Trinity Playwright’s Rep.

Padraic Lillis (Director). See bio in Random Moments of Beauty.

Don Meehan* (Mick)- Off Broadway: Play Dead, Drama Desk nominated 1-man show, (Teller/Director – Penn &); Vieux Carre, Nightingale u/s Pearl Theatre, (Austin Pendleton/Dir); Sasquatched: The Musical (Zeke) Pearl Theatre/NYMF; Bloodletters at 45 Bleecker.  Regional/Intl: To Kill a Mockingbird/NJ Shakespeare; Frankenstein,Ontario Canada;  Fame (Myers) European production; Christmas Carol (Scrooge)/Jenny Wiley Theatre, KY. Film/TV: The Men Who Built America (Thomas Scott), As The World Turns; House Of Cards, upcoming NBC Pilot “Believe”, The Fugitive Chronicles, upcoming Feature “Love, Lies and Seeta”.

Joseph DeVito (Tommy) is a New York film, tv and theater actor. He is currently in rehearsals for two plays that will open in the fall. He also has completed roles in several indie films this year. Joe enjoys spending time with his family and friends and is grateful for all their support.

Chris Holliday (Asst. Director)- This is Chris’ first trip down the aisle as an AD.  A marketing consultant turned actor, she has performed on stage, in indie films, as well as in tv commercials.  Chris graduated from the 2-year Meisner training program at William Esper Studio in 2011 and is a proud member of the 2012 LAByrinth Intensive Ensemble.  In July, she will be appearing in the play Dwight at The Fresh Fruit Festival (The Wild Project) and is co-producing, as well as appearing in, Be A Good Little Widow, by Bekah Brunstetter, in September (also at The Wild Project).  Chris is very excited to be working with this talented Two Grunts team!

Michael Milligan (Director) appeared on Broadway in August:Osage County, La Bete,and Jerusalem. Regional credits include the McCarter, Guthrie, Westport Country Playhouse, The Shakespeare Theater, Shakespeare and Company, Cincinnati Playhouse, St. Louis Rep, and many more. Michael’s one-man play, Mercy Killers, will play at 59e59 in July on its way to the Edinburgh Fringe in collaboration with the Harold Clurman Lab Theater.

A founding member of Vertigo Theater Company, David Potters (Playwright/Ari) was a top NBA draft pick before an injury caused him to discover the theater. Recent acting credits include Balm in Gilead at LAByrinth’s NYNY Festival and Fifth of July at the Stella Adler Studio. His other short plays include The Hostess (Theater for the New City), Songs for Women, and Williamsburg. He is currently studying acting and screenwriting at NYU Tisch.

Devon Caraway (Asst. Director). See bio in Street Children.

Caitlin Davis (Shailene) is an actor, writer, and core company member of Vertigo Theater. She was most recently seen as Sister Gretchen in Missionary in Manhattan: A Mormon Musical, an original production by the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Brooklyn. Other New York credits include Stop the Virgens! created by Karen O (Creator’s Project), Sleep Companion (Truffle Theatre Co.), and Relax! Alice (Spookfish Theatre). Recent film credits include Poor Traits, The 14th Burning, and Zero Sum Game.

Tara Ricasa (Producer/Stage Manager) earned her BA from UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television. A San Diego transplant, Tara currently serves as Vertigo Theater Company’s Co-Artistic Director. Offstage activities include raising funds to fight childhood cancer with The Seany Foundation and building puppets of all sizes. Many thanks to all her family and friends (esp. Piara) for their continued support and to the creative teams for their trust and collaboration. Proud member AEA.

Ivica Marc (House Manager) is originally Croatian but calls NYC his place of birth, since it’s the place where he found his creativity. He is a very proud member of the creative force that came out of the LAB summer intensive workshop and is amazed how far they all have come just a year later. At the moment, he is being creatively pulled, pushed, and dragged at the Maggie Flanigan studio, where he is studying all the acting secrets from the masters of the acting teaching universe. His love philosophy is “Fuck It!!!”