Spotlight On...Corey Tazmania

Name: Corey Tazmania

Hometown: Brooklyn, New York

Education: Antioch College, Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts

Select Credits: The Parable Conference (Next Wave Festival, BAM); On the Future of Art (Guggenheim); Pericles and Oliver Twist (STNJ); Jericho (NJREP); The Housewives of Mannheim (59E59).

Why theater?: Theatre is an art form that requires collaboration- of ideas, craft, and expression. Because it is a shared event throughout its entire process, I feel connected to and actively engaged in something much larger than myself (esprit de corps).

Who do you play in Villainous Company?: Claire Ashburn

Tell us about Villainous Company: This play is like a puzzle. All three of its characters reveal certain truths. Each of them (and us) have to figure out where these pieces fit to make sense of the real and whole story being told.

What is it like being a part of Villainous Company?: Super fun! I think we're pretty lucky to have a group of people who are playful, thoughtful, clever, wicked good at their craft and bring homemade snacks...

What kind of theater speaks to you? What or who inspires you as an artist?: Wow, I have to say I am inspired by all of the performing arts and the artists, artisans and technicians who make it happen. There is something so beautiful and scary and reflective in the ephemeral quality of live art.

Any roles you’re dying to play?: Martha (Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?); Medea (Medea); Frankie (Frankie And Johnny At The Clare De Lune); Pilot (Grounded); Portia (Merchant of Venice).

What’s your favorite showtune?: "My Friends" from Sweeney Todd.

If you could work with anyone you’ve yet to work with, who would it be?: Director Ken Rus Schmoll.

Who would play you in a movie about yourself and what would it be called?: Natalie Wood, "The Foolish Grin (Working Title)"

If you could go back in time and see any play or musical you missed, what would it be?: Ellen Terry in Macbeth, Ruth Gordon in A Doll's House

What show have you recommended to your friends?: Under the Radar Festival

What’s your biggest guilty pleasure?: Chinese food in bed.

What’s up next?: In February, I'll be working on an installation for Camel Collective at REDCAT and then return to NJREP for Richard Strand's new play, The Realization of Emily Linder.

Spotlight On...Julia Campanelli

Name: Julia Campanelli

Hometown: I’ve lived in NYC long enough to call it my hometown. I think I was born here in a previous life.

Education: University of Maryland (theatre) and The New School University, NYC (film)

Select Credits: Sleep No More (Punchdrunk NY); Cornbury: The Queens’ Governor (Theatre Askew); The Seagull (East River Park Amphitheatre); And It Spins Twice by Alex Roblan, Benefit of A Doubt with Carol Kane, The Comings And Goings Of Average People with Mackenzie Phillips, directing the site-specific Macbeth on LES for Shelter Theatre Group.

Why theater?: It’s the only place being a drama queen isn’t frowned on. I think. I may be wrong.

Who do you play in Villainous Company?: Joanna Clay, the fastest cat in the jungle.

Tell us about Villainous Company: 3 female sociopaths in a game of intrigue and a war of wills.

What is it like being a part of Villainous Company?: Wonderful! The company is great. It’s a great, tricksy script, and director is delightful. My cast mates are so good it’s intimidating. I really had to up my game to play with them.

What kind of theater speaks to you? What or who inspires you as an artist?: Theatre about strong, independent, intelligent women speaks to me, which is why I was drawn Villainous Company. Playwrights like Sarah Ruhl and Moira Buffini inspire me because they write these types of characters. Ann Hamburger’s En Garde Arts did some site-specific productions directed by Tina Landau and Ann Bogart that blew my mind. Literally, my head left my body. It was messy, but worth it.

Any roles you’re dying to play?: Mr. Macbeth, Hecuba, Tamora, Lady Bracknell (let’s take it back from the men). Juliet, or any ingénue. I was never an ingénue. Too tall.

What’s your favorite showtune?: I’m not a musical theatre person, but I do like A Little Night Music, and West Side Story, because of the stories they’re based on, and of course the music is so brilliant.

If you could work with anyone you’ve yet to work with, who would it be?: I would love to have worked with Mike Nichols. He inspired me to become a director.

Who would play you in a movie about yourself and what would it be called?: I am developing a screenplay about myself. In high school I broke the gender barrier in sports in the United States. The role I would play would be writer and director. I’m stuck on the title, though. I’m open to suggestions.

If you could go back in time and see any play or musical you missed, what would it be?: Wow. So many. I would love to have seen an original Globe production in Shakespeare’s time. Moliere in his last performance, dying on stage (that’s how I want to go). John Wilkes Booth at his last performance. (talk about theatre as politics!) Sarah Bernhardt in anything, Laurette Taylor in The Glass Menagerie, Charles Ludlam and Everett Quinton in Camille. The original production of The Trojan Women; (Imagine Euripides’ notes to actors -  “I love what you’re bringing to the role, but it’s a comedy!”)

What show have you recommended to your friends?: Villainous Company, Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night Time, Tamburlaine Parts I & II.

What’s your biggest guilty pleasure?: Seeing 2 plays or 3 films in a day.

What’s up next?: In 2015 I’m directing three concert staged readings for my theatre company, Shelter Theatre Group: a gender-reversed Romeo and Juliet, on the same weekend VC opens (multi-tasking!), an all-male version of The Maids, and a gender-mixed version of Hamlet. After VC closes I go into pre-production on a short film I wrote and will direct and act in, based on one of Shakespeare’s most famous sonnets, called “116”. I have a horror film project with director Jeremiah Kipp in development that we hope to shoot this year. And I have another film I’m developing based on Jocasta and her relationship with Oedipus, placed in modern day New York City. Again, I’m stuck on the title. Do you think ‘Motherf**ker’ is too literal? Spoiler alert, definitely.