FRANCES BARKER (Isabella) has a BFA in Dance from UL-Lafayette where she was a recipient of the Dean’s Scholarship. She has attended workshops with Urban Bush Women, Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Jump Rhythm Jazz Project, Cornish College of the Arts & The American Dance Festival in Durham, NC. Barker has performed and presented work both locally and nationally at Cite des Arts, American College Dance Festival, Festival Internationale and American Dance Festival. Local performance and choreography credits include Getting Out of Limbo (Leah Twilley/ACA) Alice In Wonderland (Cité des Arts) and ShadowBox Myth (ACA), Secondline ‘Taking it to the Streets’ (Michelle Gibson), Stravinsky’s Firebird (CCDT/ASO). She is also member of Theresa Wasiloski’s Movement Lab Dance Group. In 2015, she was invited to be a guest choreographer for UL State of La Danse.
KRISTIN DANIEL (Sally), an accomplished artist in her own right, became enamored with performing at a very young age. Knowing she wanted to pursue her passion for the arts, she moved to Los Angeles after graduating from The University of Louisiana-Lafayette in Business Administration to work as a professional dancer. Working between Los Angeles and New Orleans, Kristin earned several credits, including: GLEE, Grey’s Anatomy, and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. She also worked as Choreographer for ABC’s The Astronaut Wives Club and Choreographer’s Assistant on So You Think You Can Dance. Most recently she held lead roles in the short films "Pro-Motion" and "Washington & Vine", in addition to a principal role in the feature film "Love and She” and the short film, “Bixby”. Kristin continues to immerse herself in the arts, pursuing her passion for acting. In addition to performing, Kristin loves yoga, traveling, teaching, and hanging out with her dog, Bella. Check out her Instagram to keep up with all her daily adventures!
JOHN HENRY MCCARDELL (Jack) is a native of Lafayette, LA. He graduated from DeLarue Dance Centre under the direction of Carol DeLarue in 2009 with 12 years of dance training. He currently attends UL Lafayette majoring in Mathematics and works part time at Charley G’s Seafood Grill. With UL Lafayette, he has appeared in multiple productions of State of LA Danse and Evening of Dance. He has also performed in numerous productions under the direction of the Lafayette Ballet Theatre in works such as The Nutcracker, Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Sleeping Beauty. He recently worked with Movement Lab Dance Group to perform PLAY: A Movement Project, under the direction of Theresa Wasiloski. When not dancing, he enjoys yoga, cycling, and backpacking.
KARA ST. CLAIR (Bette), actor/dancer/groove mover has recently come back to Lafayette after living in France following her graduation from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Glad to be home for a hot minute, she's not sticking around for too long! A Lafayette native, St. Clair has always been drawn to performance and is excited to contribute to the theatre and dance scene of Lafayette once again. As a member of Acting Up in Acadiana, notable credits include Macbeth, Sustained Winds (NYC Fringe Fest), Play.Music.Heal (NOLA Fringe Fest), Unbearably Lovely, and 12th Night. As a proper non-proper dancer, St. Clair has worked with collaborate78 in I've Stopped Having That Dream I've Been Having (AcA, Montreal Fringe Fest). Miscellaneous happenings: St. Clair was recognized as "a promising young creator" at the Festival TransAmèriques in Montréal and was also a recipient of the Hill-Bonin PASA scholarship with which she studied with SITI Company in Chicago. St. Clair has loved working with Clare Cook Dance Theater on this project. She dances (onstage and off) with love for her ancestors, her family, and her sweet Mother. Always.
GREGORY SPENCER, JR. (Manny) is a dancer who recent graduate from Northwestern State University of Louisiana. At Northwestern he studied general studies with a minor in dance and social science. Northwestern is also where he trained in ballet, tap, jazz and modern. His resume includes NSU Productions of The Merry Widow, The Wiz, Alice In Wonderland: A New Ballet, The 4 Elements, and Once On This Island. He has directed, choreographed, and hosted The Rocky Horror Picture Show and in previous years he has played the roles Dr. Frank-N-Furter, and Rocky. Spencer has attended American College Dance Festival, in Missouri, New Mexico, and Arkansas. He has attended a weeklong dance intensive with BJ Sullivan and Kista Tucker, Director of Kista Tucker Dance Inc. He had taken class through American Dance Legacy and attended Louisiana Alliance for Dance Festival. Spencer has performed with 2b tribe dance theatre for the New Orleans Fringe Festival. He has designed costumes for the plays “A Prom to Die For”and “For Colored Girls Who have considered Suicide, When the Rainbow is not Enuf.” He is a former college cheerleader and NSU22 News anchor and is currently an Gymnastics and an All-Star Cheerleading coach.
THERESA WASILOSKI (Elinor) has been performing, teaching, and choreographing in South Louisiana for fifteen years. She currently works in Lafayette Parish Schools teaching creative movement as a PACE Artist and as a ballet instructor at Jeté Dance Company in Prairieville, LA. Her early dance training includes studies at Point Park College in Pittsburgh, PA, and The Dancers’ Workshop and The Academy of Performing Arts in Baton Rouge. Theresa received her BFA in Performing Arts (Dance Emphasis) from UL Lafayette in 2012 and soon after founded Movement Lab Dance Group and also began to study acting. Directing/choreography credits for Movement Lab include productions HAUNT,‘studies,’ and most recently Bubble Up. In 2015 she created and directed PLAY as part of the Acadiana Center for the Arts’ Residency Program. Recent performance credits include Gina Hanchey’s Xibipiio, Darolyn Robertson’s (choreographed by Frances Barker) ShadowBoxMyth, Cissy Whip’s Eye of the Blackbird. Recent acting credits include roles in American Horror Story and the Lauren-Reilly-Elliot Company’s production of Dinner with Friends. Theresa is currently working as choreographer with The Tea Sippers' Theatre Company on their upcoming production of American Idiot. 
NICO ZAUNBRECHER (Louisa) has performed and directed improvisational theatre with Cult of the Stage Monkey and Silverbacks of Lafayette, LA, and COSM of Carbondale, IL, in over 200 shows ranging from comedy and fantasy to horror and film noir, from 1999 to the present. He holds a B.A. in Philosophy and English from UL-Lafayette, and completed his Phd in Performance and Communication with Southern Illinois University Carbondale just a few weeks ago. He has published research on improv in the journals Theatre Topics and Human Studies, and teaches Communication and Public Speaking at SLCC. Touching Loss is his first scripted production in four years, and his first ever as a dancer.
EMMYLOU FALGOUT (Young Bette) has been a student at the Ballet Studio for the past 5 years. She has participated in Anne in Rhyme Land and Into the Sea, original ballet's under the direction of Beverly Spell. Also in a original contemporary ballet, Deep inside the Forest, under the direction of Spell and choreographer, Dadier Aguilera. Emmylou has attended several dance workshops notably with Arionel Vargas and Marize Fumero. She has participated in productions such as Alice and Wonderland and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever under the direction of Allison Brandon and in several school performances at Myrtle Place Elementary where she is in 4th grade. Emmylou also loves reading, riding horses, playing with her friends and playing with her dog Pistache.
CLARE COOK (Director/Choreographer) is the Artistic Director of Clare Cook Dance Theater. She is a native of Lafayette and has recently returned back home after spending the last ten years working as a choreographer in New York City. In NYC, her choreography was seen at Joe's Pub/DANCENOW Festival, Triskelion Arts, New York Musical Theatre Festival, HERE Arts Center, NY Theatre Barn’s Choreography Lab, Ars Nova, Berkshire Fringe Festival, Planet Connections Festival (Best Choreography Award), NYU Bessie Workshop, NYU's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, Columbia Stages, New School for Drama, and multiple operas with Opera Slavica. She is a member of The Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and is currently the tour choreographer, re-setting Susan Stroman's choreography for the National Tour of Woody Allen’s musical, Bullets Over Broadway. In 2014, she was commissioned by the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra in Louisiana to create a contemporary version of Stravinsky’s Firebird. Past teaching work includes: adjunct positions at New York University's Tisch Dance and Louisiana State University, Teaching Artist with the Metropolitan Opera Guild, Teaching Artist for the Lafayette Parish School System and Dancewave Brooklyn and Education Director for the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company. Clare holds an MFA in Dance Performance and Choreography from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Clare's early training as a dancer was in Lafayette, La at DeLarue Dance Centre. During college at LSU, she was a dance minor under Molly Buchmann and Susan Perlis, studied at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst as part of the Five College Dance Program, studied at The Ailey School and danced professionally with the Cangelosi Dance Project for two years before moving to NYC. All my love forever to RLA. www.claremcook.com
PAUL CASTLES, COMPOSER, is an internationally-working composer based in New York City and Sydney. His work has been performed in Asia, Australia, Europe, and the United States. THE FOUNTAIN (with South Korean librettist by Chae-kyung Lee) was produced by Theater Troupe Georipae and won Best New Musical at the 6th Daegu International Musical Festival. Their other collaborations include adaptations of MISS JULIE for the 2012 International Festival for the Centenary of Strindberg in Seoul and THE MAN WHO NEVER YET SAW A WOMAN'S NAKEDNESS by Mortiz Rinke for the 2014 Miryang Summer Festival. He has been commissioned by the Nexas Quartet and opera star Peter Coleman-Wright, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Three Act Theater, Chronology Arts, Halcyon, Clock Ensemble, Alicia Crossley, and various other companies and solo performers. His work has been developed by Victorian Opera, Salt Lake Acting Company, New York Theater Workshop, Cybec 21st Century Young Composers Program, and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra Fellows. 2016 highlights include TOUCHING LOSS (thrilled to be here!) and WILD GOOSE DREAMS (Sundance Fellow for the 2016 Sundance Theater Lab in Morocco). Paul is a Masters graduate of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and the Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program of the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, and a member of the Dramatists Guild of America. www.paulcastles.com
LEAH MILES, WRITER, is a playwright, bookwriter, lyricist and teaching artist based out of Brooklyn, New York. Ms. Miles' produced works include Entangled (at Three Act Theatre, NY), Touching Loss, (Triskelion Arts Split Bill Series, NY), Sunday Roaster Chicken (Ugly Rhino Productions, NY), Bronx Zoo (MuSE, NY), Providence: A Musical Comedy (Write Act Eastside, NY), and Little Women: The Musical Journey of Jo March (SeaStage premier, MA; It’s Only Tuesday Productions, CA; school productions in CA, MA, PA and TX). She holds a BA in Psychology from Salem State University (1994) and an MFA from the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at New York University’s Tisch School Of The Arts (2010). Leah dedicates this play to the loving memory of her father, David, and in honor of the strength and courage of her mother, Diane. www.leahamiles.com
BRIAN SCHNEIDER, LIGHTING DESIGNER, was born and raised in New York City. He began his lighting career with his high school plays. Afterward, Brian worked in Off-Broadway theaters while attending Bard College, where he graduated with a BFA in Film. Brian’s career is compiled of varied experience. He provided lighting for numerous theaters and museums, including the HERE Arts Center, Sotheby’s, Museum of the Fashion Institute of Technology, American Museum of Natural History, and the National Civil Rights Museum, in Memphis, TN. As the in house Lighting Designer for the Rubin Museum of Art in NYC, Brian provided lighting for galleries, events, music, dance, and spoken word performances. Upon moving to Lafayette, Louisiana in 2011, Brian accepted the position of Technical Director, for the Acadiana Center for the Arts. In 2015 Brian started his own lighting design firm, Footcandle Lighting and Electric. Now Brian is involved in several residential and landscape lighting projects. He loves working with the people of South Louisiana, and integrates Louisiana’s culture and point of view, with his personal style. Brian also has the pleasure of working on productions with companies such as Acting Up in Acadiana, Collaborate 78, the Movement Lab and Wanderlust Theater Company.
LAUREN FONTENOT, SET DESIGNER, has studied visual arts since she could ride her bike to lessons with painter Kathy Kieffe in first grade. Deborah Blair, Lana Badeaux, Bobette Castille and Kathy Reed bridged the gap between secondary and University education where Fontenot earned a BFA in Visual Arts concentrating in Ceramics from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. University studies, in retrospect, looked much like deconstructing the Canon of Art and studying Foucaultian themes of structuring language while teaching dance and fitness classes. Sometime after discovering feminism and bringing life and art together, the motto of 'what a feminist looks like' morphed into the practice of learning as many skills as possible. Installing fiber optics, building a full story staircase and the work of Alexander Calder all informed the set design and fabrication. Next, Fontenot looks forward to honing her arts and nonprofit administration skills through current work with Clare Cook Dance Theater, Asociacion Cultural Latino-Acadiana and the Freetown-Port Rico Coterie.
SHANNON BILLEAUD, COSTUME DESIGNER, first sat down at a sewing machine at the age of 7. Within 6 years she began draping her own designs and cutting her own patterns. Throughout her teens she began to engulf herself in historic garment construction and costume design. While studying for her bachelor's degree at the University of New Orleans and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette she immersed herself in Louisiana History and how costuming evolved in this unique setting. Throughout her college career Shannon worked under Art-To-Wear jewelry designer Marie DesJardins. In 2016, after apprenticing under Mardi Gras costume designer Madame Suzanne Breaux, Shannon opened her own costuming Atelier in Carencro, Louisiana.MOLLY TORIAN, PHOTOGRAPHER, is an internationally published fashion, portrait, and commercial photographer. She graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a B.A. in Photography, with a concentration in Commercial Photography. She is originally from Lafayette, Louisiana. She has lived and worked in Chicago and New York City, and is excited to expand west to Los Angeles in the near future.
