Every year, the Hear Now Festival is staffed by a stellar assortment of leading professionals from the worlds of audio theatre, audiobooks, video games, and podcasting to impart their wisdom and experience to attendees, as well as just to mingle and mix.
Leraldo Anzaldua is a Texas-based actor, fight director, motion capture performer, and action director. Leraldo provides voiceover for anime at Sentai Filmworks, and is currently an Assistant Professor of Movement and Stage in the Department of Theatre, Drama, and Contemporary Dance at Indiana University.
David Benedict has been with Atlanta Radio Theatre Company since 1994, or thereabouts. He first encountered the group at a Dragon Con performance of “The Island of Dr. Moreau” and was immediately captivated. He has performed in countless live performances and several studio productions. Notable roles include the title character in “Rory Rammer, Space Marshal”, the Monster in “The Passion of Frankenstein”, and Prowse from “Blues for Johnny Raven” as well as co-creating “Mercury: A Broadcast of Hope”.
Ken Bentley is a writer of original plays and adaptations, including "Great Expectations" (Malvern Theatres), "The Island of Dr. Moreau" (Big Finish), and "The Hunted" (Big Finish), which was shortlisted for the 2016 BBC Audio Drama Awards. He is the director of over 600 hours of audio drama for which he was a finalist in the BBC Audio Drama Awards in 2015 and 2016, and directed the winning play in the non-broadcast category in 2017. He was also a 2021 Audie Award winner for "Dr. Who: Stranded."
Bonnie Bogovich is a sound designer and voice actor in the video game and audio drama industries. Her voice can be heard in projects including The Call of the Flame," "Pugmire," "Mandible Judy," "I Expect You To Die," "Codename Blank," "Pathfinder: Kingmaker", and "Death and Taxes." She is the co-producer of Cryptic Canticles’ "The Dracula Radioplay Experience", co-creator of "Super Smash Opera," and "Evenings in Quarantine: The Zombie Opera," and arranger and vocalist for a plethora of video game tribute albums. Her audio production company, BlackCatBonifide LLC, is based in Austin, Texas. Learn more at https://blackcatbonifide.com.
Primarily a film and television actor, Michael Brainard has recently been pulled into the world of audio drama. He wrote and created the 2021 Audie nominated The Ernie Pyle Experimen!t at NPR affiliate WFIU in Bloomington, Indiana. Best known for his acting roles on ABC’s All My Children and NBC’s Santa Barbara, Michael thinks the time is right to put his full attention into the burgeoning world of audio storytelling.
Tony Brewer is a poet and sound effects artist from Bloomington, Indiana. He has taught and performed at the Hear Now Festival since 2013 and has been on staff with NATF since 2001. Tony specializes in live productions and has worked nationwide, from Florida to Minneapolis and from New York to Washington State. He has won an ANGIE award (named for Angela Lansbury) and was made a Kentucky Colonel for his work at the International Mystery Writers Festival in Owensboro, Kentucky, and he received the inaugural Bradshaw Award (named for Firesign Theatre character Lt. Bradshaw) for Service to the Field of Audio Theatre. More at http://www.tonybrewer71.blogspot.com
Wisconsin native Dr. Steve Brown has been bringing original and adapted works to the radio and stage for more than 15 years, winning more than 25 state and national awards for Kenosha’s WGTD Radio Theater, including from the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association, Wisconsin Bar Association, and the Hear Now Festival. Steve’s works provoke, compel, and challenge the audience. Steve is chair of the 2021 Hear Now Festival’s Podcast Palooza juried competition.
Steve and Michael Ullstrup created the Brown-Ullstrup Performing Arts Foundation, which has produced live, “old-time” radio broadcasts over Wisconsin public radio station WGTD F since 2005, as well as a popular dinner theater series of murder mysteries. Other Brown-Ullstrup theatrical collaborations have included the award-winning ““Thurgood Marshall and Earl Warren – A Conversation,” “A Fireside Chat: A Conversation with Franklin Delano Roosevelt,” a 2011 stage play which was performed at the FDR Presidential Library in Hyde Park, N.Y., and “And on the Eighth Day: Bryan v. Darrow,” a stage play about the 1925 Scopes “Monkey” Trial that won two awards and was performed at the 2013 Scopes Trial Festival in the same Rhea County Courthouse courtroom in Dayton, Tennessee, in which the original Scopes Trial took place in July of 1925.
Having earned his PhD in Educational Leadership from Iowa State University, Master’s Degree in Educational Media from the University of South Florida, and B.S. in Broadcast Journalism from the University of Florida, Steve has served for over 20 years as a university professor of educational leadership, as well as having been both a high school teacher and principal.
Steve is currently serving his second three-year term as an elected board member of the Salem Consolidated School, in Salem, Wisconsin.
Chris Burke helped create the sound of 80s horror, scoring such films as "Splatter University" (1984), "The Toxic Avenger" (1984) "Blue Vengeance (1991) and many others. He has worked in film production with directors Robert Altman, Lucio Fulci, Enzo Castellari and Lloyd Kaufman. As a sound designer, he has worked with Don Was, Tom Morello, Björk and the artists William Pope L., Jeremy Blake. In 2005, Chris created the award-winning machinima video series “This Spartan Life”, which ran for 10 years. Chris is currently writing, producing and composing music for the horror fiction podcasts Mandible Judy and Under Dead Water.
Benji Clifford is an award-winning sound designer, musician and presenter. He has worked on a variety of audio drama series, including BBC's flagship science fiction series "Doctor Who" and numerous spin-offs, including "Torchwood," "Counter Measures," "UNIT," and "Riversong." He has been involved in iconic shows like the Gerry Anderson productions "Captain Scarlet & the Mysterons," "Space 1999," and recently worked on restoring archive material for the BritBox online streaming service'. Benji currently works on "Terry Nation's Survivors," "Adam Adamant Lives," and the popular Games Workshop franchise "Warhammer," as well as presenting weekly podcasts for Big Finish Productions and Red Raygun Ltd. Benji received a 2021 Audie Award and a 2019 BBC Audio Award.
Alice Anne English is an audiobook narrator and actor with a sister who lives in the Kansas City area. She has been a Mark Twain reader and has been andis the producer of the Mark Twain readings at the 2021 Hear Now Festival Online. She has performed in both New York City and the Washington, DC area and toured with Encore Shakespeare out of Richmond, Virginia. She’s a bit of a technophobe, but is learning a bit more about sound technology every year with Hear Now.
Richard Fish is an actor, writer, and musician who has worked in audio theatre since 1970, becoming a producer, director, teacher, engineer, Foley artist, journalist, publisher, and salesman along the way. He helped found the National Audio Theatre Festivals organization, and WFHB Community Radio in his hometown of Bloomington, Indiana.
Richard has worked with the leading figures in audio theatre from coast to coast, including The Firesign Theatre and the legendary American grand master of the art, Norman Corwin. Born in New Jersey, he settled in Bloomington after graduating from Indiana University. He has won awards for radio advertising, broadcast journalism, and acting, including a Mark Time Award for "carrying on the traditions of the Firesign Theatre."
He is heard weekly over WFHB as host of "The Firehouse Theatre," presenting old and new audio theatre since 1993, and since 2007 as writer and presenter of "Better Beware," a weekly feature on scams and swindles. For 12 years, he wrote for and performed in "The Firehouse Follies," a live variety show offered four times a year. All these broadcasts are streamed from, and archived on, the station's website, http://www.wfhb.org.
For as long as she could remember, Rachel has been a geek, from watching Disney animated movies on VHS to recreating Power Rangers fight scenes in the back yard. More recently, she's turned her love of fandom into blogging, cosplaying, and podcasting.
Since 2014, Rachel has been co-hosting and producing the Five(ish) Fangirls Podcast, an all-female-driven pop culture podcast, and since 2020 she has been co-hosting the Gold Standard podcast, on which the participants watch and review every Academy Award winner for Best Picture in chronological order.
Helen is a scriptwriter and director of audio drama with Big Finish Productions. As well as writing numerous sci-fi episodes, she produced and co-wrote the WWII original drama series, ATA Girl, which was a Highly Commended finalist at the 2018 BBC Audio Awards and a 2021 Audie Awards finalist, and co-wrote an eight-part original series for Audible. She also composes music for musical theatre.
As a director, Helen has helmed over 80 audio episodes, working with actors such as David Tennant, Billie Piper, Alex Kingston, Paul McGann, Sylvester McCoy, Colin Baker, and Peter Davison. She is also an award-winning voice actor.
Audio pioneer Fred Greenhalgh is best known for bringing location recording techniques from his indie film background to the production of immersive audio movies. His work on his original series The Cleansed cauight the attention of Audible, and led to the opportunity to team up with audio legend William Dufris to develop Locke & Key as a faithful 13.5 hour location recorded audio movie, followed by The X-Files: Cold Cases and Stolen Lives, executive produced by BBC legend Dirk Maggs. Fred’s original work includes critically acclaimed The Dark Tome and Of Fae And Fiends, released as Stitcher Premium exclusives.
A tireless advocate for audio fiction, Fred’s efforts to promote the medium include offering a free online course teaching audio fiction, speaking at conferences around the world, and features in many of the world’s most influential media publications. He's currently working on the dramatization of ElfQuest, an audio movie based on the legendary fantasy comic saga.
Dave Grossman is a preeminent author and editor of interactive entertainment whose narrative design sensibilities grace a portfolio of critically acclaimed works covering the last twenty-five years. Beginning his career at the fledgling LucasArts Entertainment Company, Dave lent his unique voice and characteristic wit to classic adventure game titles such as The Secret of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle. Subsequently, during his nine-year tenure at Telltale Games, he assembled and directed a crack team of writers and designers responsible for some of the most compelling stories in the field of video games. In 2009 Dave was named to IGN's list of the top 100 game creators of all time.
Lia Hagen loves to laugh at sad stories. This bad habit began in her childhood bedroom in Omaha, Nebraska, where she lied about being 13 so she could post eBooks about her cats. Writing has always been her way of finding joy in a world not designed for chubby lesbians like her. These days, she’s a 23-year-old New York University grad stranded in the COVID economy. She writes whenever and whatever she can, from her award-winning poetry to a fiction podcast called “Overkill” with over 40,000 downloads. In her upcoming comedy series “Stalled,” she expresses her love for queer community in all its delightful, drunken, and necessary forms.
Larry the O has worked on many sides of music and audio, including music production, audio post production for film and TV, video game sound, live and studio audio engineering, industrial sound design, hardware manufacturing, software product management, marketing and communications, and audio education. He spent 17 years as a Contributing Editor to Mix and Electronic Musician magazines and has authored books on music software for Hal Leonard Publishing. The O single-handedly produces the storytelling-meets-sound-art series Ears Hear Now, records country superstars Hammond D. Puppy and the Furry Bottom Boys, and remains an active performing musician. Hear more at https://satchelmouthmedia.bandcamp.com/ or https://www.toysintheattic.org/
A lecturer and broadcaster with thirty years of experience, Jude Kampfner has been a radio maker for BBC, WNYC, WBEZ, NPR, and Australian Broadcasting. Since 2005, her company, 'Corporation For Independent Media' has consistently produced award-winning documentaries and audio dramas for BBC radio. In the past five years, eight percent of her audio output has garnered major awards.
Known as a narrator, director, producer and writer, Jude has had long-term collaborations with composers, authors, actors and sound designers. She's worked with writers ranging from George Pelecanos to Mike Daisey, actors like Rosamund Pike and Tracy Letts, and conducted interviews with musicians such as Steve Reich and Talib Kweli. She’s developed an audio fiction podcast for Slate, made science podcasts for the University of Edinburgh and many more podcasts for the BBC.
Born in Singapore, Jude has lived and worked on four continents. She holds a BA and MA from the University of Cambridge (History and Politics), has a post-graduate degree in teaching from Cambridge, and completed graduate work in Theatre Arts in Australia. She trained as a radio drama producer at the Australian Broadcasting Company in Sydney and became national Executive Producer.
Back in her native London, Jude produced short and long-form documentaries for all BBC radio networks, then moved to Chicago, from which she reported for the BBC and NPR. She joined New York Public Radio (WNYC) to produce the pilot phase of the Peabody award-winning arts show Studio 360, then remained on staff for six years as Senior Arts Producer.
Jude trained as a career coach at New York University, and then with Dr Eric Maisel the originator of the field of creativity coaching. As a creative coach, Jude teaches how to make a good living as a freelancer, become a staff producer or develop entrepreneurially. She teaches you how to pitch in an intensely competitive environment, overcome resistance and bounce back from rejection.
Read more at: http://www.judekampfner.com Listen to selections of her work at: http://www.soundcloud.com/judithkampfner
KC Wayland is an award-winning writer, producer, editor, director, and United States Army veteran whose film and audio work has been enjoyed around the world. His highly successful zombie audio “Theater for the Mind”, “We’re Alive: A Story of Survival”, appeared on the Nerdist Podcast Network and garnered over 58 million downloads since its debut. More recently Kc was a producer of the historical audio theater series and smash hit “Bronzeville”, starring Laurence Fishburne and Larenz Tate. You can visit him at www.wayland.ws.
Deondra is a native of Cincinnati. He was really aware, even while it was happening, that the discovery of arts education in his life made him a better person.
Peter Spellos is director/founder of Breakfast Anytime! Improv & Sketch Comedy. For the past five years, he’s been teaching his very successful Improv Comedy Workshops and Cold Reading/Audition Skills Workshops in Indianapolis, as well as, for the past year, on-line to a world wide theatrical community.
Directing credits include: Los Angeles – Man With No Shadow, Mother May I, Chocolate, Controlling Interest, 2b (or not 2B), and The Blonde and Other Slight Distractions at New Mercury Theatre Company; The Gatehouse, One Woman Show with Two Women, Baby With The Bathwater, Let Us Go Out Into That Starry Night, A Matter Of Opinion, You Belong To Me, Mrs. Sorken, Diversions and The Actor’s Nightmare at The Artists’ Gym and Escape From Happiness at the Zephyr Theatre. NYC - Yours Truly at the Westbeth Theatre Center and The Comedy Corps (co-authored) at the Post Theatre Company.
He has taught and founded improv and theatre companies in New York, Los Angeles, London and now Indianapolis over the last 35 years. Peter was both Comedy Consultant and Associate Director of the American Theatre Festival on Long Island, Creative Director of Who’s on First and Improv Director at The Comic Strip in NYC, taught acting, comedy and improv at those venues and was Adjunct Professor of theatre at LIU/Post.
Peter’s own acting career was the mainstay of his creative soul for decades, appearing in over 100 feature films and TV shows and 40 animated series. His sentimental favorite being GUS on the NBC’s critically acclaimed AMERICAN DREAMS with Brittany Snow. His numerous screen credits include performing with some of Hollywood’s finest; Men in Black II with Will Smith, Heartbreakers with Sigourney Weaver, Jim Carrey in Yes Man, Ray Liotta in Phoenix and Nicholas Cage in City of Angeles.
He guest starred on so many great shows – Without a Trace, ER, NYPD Blue, News Radio, Lois and Clark, Married with Children, just to name a few. Peter’s voice-over career has also been filled with great performances on iconic shows. Most famously, he was the voice of Sky-Byte on Transformers – Robots in Disguise and Meramon and Whamon on Digimon and Gilliam on Outlaw Star. You can hear him in so many other projects like, Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Cowboy Be-Bop, Bleach, Street Fighter II, Naruto and Fist of the North Star.
Eric Jason Martin is a producer, director, voice performer, and author, based in Los Angeles. He is the AudioFile Earphones and Audie Award–winning narrator of over 300 audiobooks. Eric is the director of Kate McKinnon and Emily Lynne's original series Heads Will Roll, featuring Meryl Streep (Broadway Video/Audible), and produced, directed, and narrated Stinker Lets Loose!, starring Jon Hamm (Audible), both New York Times Bestsellers. His production of Mr. New Orleans, starring Westworld's Louis Herthum, is a 2021 Audie Award nominee. In March 2021, Eric released his first novel as an author, "New Arcadia: Stage One,"" with an all-star multi-cast audiobook featuring an original soundtrack, through his Sound Off Productions label.
Emily Labes is the Communications Manager of Soundbooth Theater as well as a freelance Creative Communications Specialist. For Emily, storytelling takes a variety of forms – from helping to craft Soundbooth’s core messaging to drafting ad copy and blogs to writing her very own audio serials. As the co-creator of Space Buns, Emily wrote the script of the very first SBT Original! She has also been fortunate enough to hear some of SBT’s talented voice actors perform her work in “Meta Narrators,” a sketch she wrote for the 2019 Independent Audiobook Awards, and Love in the Time of Corona, a series that was performed in nine weekly installments on Soundbooth Theater Live! and then adapted into a one-act play for the 2020 Hear Now Festival. The Hear Now production received the 2020 Festival Favorite Award. Prior to running away from corporate America, Emily was a publicist at Finn Partners, a publicity firm, before becoming the Digital Marketing & Strategy Manager of Caserta, a tech firm specializing in big data. As a publicist, Emily primarily worked in book publicity. She had the privilege of promoting books by many notable authors and individuals, including Diane Ackerman, Dean Koontz, and Pope Francis. She graduated from Emerson College with a BFA in Creative Writing and currently resides in New York City.
Russell McGee is a 2021 Audie Award Finalist, a three-time Telly Award winning writer/producer, and a 2019 Regional Emmy nominated writer. Russell received his Master’s in TV/Film Production from Indiana University in 2013, and his Bachelors in Theatre with a creative writing minor from Indiana State University in 2001. He currently works as the On-air Promotions Producer at WTIU, teaches Screenwriting and Sound Design at Indiana University, has written multiple Doctor Who short stories including a Subscriber Short Trip, and is a sound designer for Big Finish Productions LTD on their Doctor Who audio dramas. He was also nominated for Best Audio Adaptation in the 18th Annual Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards, nominated as a Producer, Writer, & Editor in Children's Programming 2018 Regional Emmy Awards, won the Best Vocal Direction Award in the 2019 Audio Verse Awards, and won the Bronze Festival Favorite Award in both 2019 & 2020 at the Hear Now Festival.
Over his 40-year career as a writer/director/producer of audio drama and audiobooks Brian Price has received a Mark Time Grand Master Award for Lifetime Achievement in Science Fiction Audio, The Norman Corwin Award for Excellence in Audio Theatre, an APA Audie Award for Best Audio Drama in 2017 for In the Embers and was nominated for a 2019 Audie for The Old Cart Wrangler’s Saga. His work has been translated into Chinese, French and Croatian. http://www.greatnorthernaudio.com
Brandon Wentz is a VO artist and voice director from Indianapolis, Indiana. He holds an MFA in acting from University of Georgia, and has worked with EarPlay on a number of interactive games including Pugmire, The Orpheus Project, and Mr. Robot. Brandon is currently a VO artist and co-host of the Emmy award winning PBS show Journey Indiana, and is the host and GM of the Monster of the Week actual play RPG podcast: The Critshow.
Jon Myers is Co-Founder and CEO of Earplay, the originator of interactive audio stories you play with your voice. Jon conceived of the first voice-operated interactive audio drama, Codename Cygnus, which launched in 2013 after a successful Kickstarter campaign. Named after the long-running audio play series by NPR, Earplay has become known for its award-winning interactive audio Alexa productions, as well as its publishing tools and technology. Jon is a twice-named top design and product professional of the voice industry by Voicebot.
Erin B. Lillis is a voice actor most known for her work in horror audio fiction such as The NoSleep Podcast, Mandible Judy, The Grey Rooms, Congeria (featured on Shudder), Calling Darkness, Vampires of White Chapel and her horror for kids project, The NoNap Podcast. She’s also starred as villainous characters in horror video games such as Devour, Noch and Simulacra 2. In addition to voice acting, she is a writer of short horror, a podcaster, and a paranormal documentarian. To find her other work you can visit her website at http://www.ErinLillis.com or follow her on Twitter/Instagram at @Ravie13
It was always about words – Angie Hickman, an audiobook narrator, has been in love with language for all of memory. She received a BA in Secondary English Education while also pursuing theater, then built on her enthusiasm for words by teaching high school English and working in libraries and bookstores.
What writers do is a sort of alchemy; that they can convey an idea or event onto paper such that she can experience it -- however many miles or generations away -- fascinates her. In her 130+ audiobooks she has communicated those concepts and stories with empathy, humor, and exuberance.
Brandon Peters is the multiple award-winning podcast producer, writer, editor and host of The Brandon Peters Show. He has been involved in podcasting for 9 years as a staple of Out Now With Aaron and Abe as well as his work with Creative Zombie Studios, including his former podcast Cult Cinema Cavalcade. In addition to podcasting, Brandon is an entertainment writer at Why So Blu of 8 years and has been featured in Forbes, The A.V. Club, The Adult Spelling Bee and The Saturday Evening Post.
Jamie Robertson is an award-winning musician and sound designer who has worked with Big Finish for more than 10 years, writing music and sometimes creating sound design for productions like the BBC’s flagship series “Doctor Who,” and ITV’s series “The Prisoner” and “Timeslip.” Jamie also created themes for some of Big Finish’s own properties, including “Sherlock Holmes” and “Jago and Litefoot.”
Jamie’s music runs all through much of the Doctor Who-verse: as the main composer for the 4th Doctor and 8th Doctor series (which won a 2021 Audie Award and a 2019 BBC Audio Award), in Big Finish’s Doctor Who 50th Anniversary special, “The Light at the End.” in the 2020 “Doctor Who: Lockdown” videos, and even in marketing videos on the BBC’s official Doctor Who YouTube channel. Other credits include composing for the incredibly popular “Dinosaurs:Terrible Lizards” series on YouTube, the ITV2 series “All About the McKenzies,” and in documentary and feature films such as “The Casebook of Eddie Brewer.” Beyond composing, a close viewing of the film “Yesterday,” starring Lily James, will turn up a couple of brief on-camera appearances by Jamie.
Jaime also is an avid ghost hunter, and produces the YouTube series “Paranormal Torch” (the title paying homage to the 1970s animated series “Jamie and the Magic Torch”), in which he visits historical and supposedly haunted locations, sometimes even spending the night. Spooky!
Neil Hellegers is an actor, narrator, and educator who lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, son, and mutt. He has narrated over 250 audiobooks (receiving some nice nominations and awards for a few of them), has appeared in numerous films, programs, and commercials, and has performed and taught Shakespeare internationally. Neil is the creator and director of ShakeSports, a series of competitive acting events using the Bard’s text and tales to combine modern improv & gaming with their original Elizabethan furor. ShakeSports I & II, ShakesRumble and The Mousetrap, premiered at the Hear Now Festival.
Award-winning playwright Jennie MacDonald received her PhD in Literary Studies at the University of Denver. She’s a regular contributor to One Night Stand Theater, where Guy Williams originated the protagonist’s role in "Late Night at Sam’s.” Her dark comedy, "A Merry Widow or Two," received the 2019 Colorado Authors League Award of Excellence for Stageplay. Her radio plays, "The Hall of Mirrors: Not Another Word" and "The St. Nicholas Caper," received second and first place, respectively, in the MTB 2018 and 2017 Audio Drama Scriptwriting Competition. Jennie is a member of The Dramatists Guild of America and Colorado Dramatists.
Guy Williams holds a B.A. in English and Theatre from Loretto Heights College and is honored to be reading “Late Night at Sam’s” by his long-time friend and theatrical collaborator, Jennie MacDonald. He regularly performs with One Night Stand Theater. Guy has been a member of Colorado Homegrown Tales since its inception and spent 15 years performing all the major Gilbert & Sullivan patter-song roles with the Empire Lyric Players. For the past 12 years, he has been narrating audio books for Talking Book Publishers, Inc., in Denver, Colorado.
Charles Pptter is a retired audio producer formerly based in New York City. He has taught sound and audio production at universities and in workshops in the US, Europe, and Africa, including 25 years as Professor of Film and Television at New York University. He won numerous industry awards for his work including CPB, Armstrong, and Ohio State Awards, and produced three Grammy Award-winning recordings in the Spoken Word category. Charles taught interdisciplinary media and cultural studies courses at the Institute for American Universities in Aix en Provence, France for twelve years. He has been a craftsman all his life, working in many media: wood, metal, fiberglass, and stone. His special interests include, but are by no means limited to, old motorcycles, wine, Provencal language and culture, and all things medieval. He and his wife Helene are now full-fledged retirees who currently divide their time between Saugerties, New York and Apt, France.
Since joining New York Festivals as Vice President and Executive Director in 2009, Rose has transformed the competitions by emphasizing the importance of innovative storytelling across all platforms and genres. By instituting Advisory Boards and by expanding the Grand Juries to include more women and more countries, she brought a greater diversity to the selection process which translated into an uptick in the level of worldwide participation and overall growth of brand prestige.
An Emmy Award winning producer and member of the DGA, Rose is the former Director of the Sports Emmy Awards and Director of Production for the Emmy Awards. Past production experience includes five Olympic Games for ABC, NBC and CBS. Her extensive background in TV includes news, sports, arts, and entertainment content for ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS and ESPN. She received a BA from University of Massachusetts and MS in Broadcast Journalism from Boston University.
Victoria Gerken is the Publisher and Head of Acquisitions at Podium Audio. She has welcomed independent authors into the Podium family since since 2016. She previously worked with authors in traditional publishing roles at Random House and Alfred A. Knopf, where she was a publicist and sold subsidiary rights. She got her first taste of entrepreneurship in publishing as the founder of the Random House Speakers Bureau.
Bill Goveia is a performing artist, photographer and IT professional in Bloomington, Indiana. He enjoys working on theatre, film, and voice-over projects, reading, writing, hiking, listening to blues, spending time with his grandchildren, family and friends, and learning new things. He is thankful for the opportunities MCCT has provided over the last year to work with amazing artists.
Dan Heise has found a second life in the theater with MCCT, playing Banquo in Shakespeare's Macbeth, Plummer in the Farndale...Macbeth, James Joyce in Travesties and a host of supporting parts in King Lear. In the wake of COVID’s impact, Dan has helped MCCT make the transition from live stage to digital multimedia as a performer, technical director and board member.
Jason Lopez created the Monroe County Civic Theater Podcast along with Bill Goveia in April of 2020. Jason and Bill pitched the idea at an MCCT board meeting earlier in the year. For better or worse, the timing of the podcast worked out well because only a few months later, the theater was looking for ways for volunteers to get involved while social distancing. The MCCT Podcast allowed theater volunteers to record from their homes. Jason has participated in several MCCT productions as well as other film and theater projects around Bloomington, Indiana. His biggest theater role so far is as MCCT's president.
Margo Morton is a lifelong fan and attendee of live theater, Margo Morton decided in early 2020 to take part in the magic herself and enrolled in various acting courses to strengthen her skills. The Poe reading featured in the 2021 Hear Now Festival was her first official "gig," and she has since performed in the Monroe County Civic Theater's production of "Check, Please!" Margo is eager to continue to participate in community theater and share the joy of the performing arts with others.
Steve Scott has performed in over 15 theater and voice acting productions in Bloomington, Indiana. He appeared in Bloomington Playwrights Project’s performances of “30 Day Mourning Period” (Larry), “Beating A Dead Horse” (Fritz), and “The Oregon Trail” (Clancy). His last stage appearance before the pandemic was as serial killer Ralph Ian Wantage in Monroe County Civic Theater’s production of Bryony Lavery’s “Frozen”. Steve also voiced the character’s Dick and Denver in Indiana Public Media’s “The Ernie Pyle Experiment”, and the voice of Fred Porlock in Cardinal Stage’s radio drama, “Predisposed to Violins”.
Jonathan Mitchell is the creator and producer of The Truth, an anthology fiction podcast distributed by Radiotopia. Launched in 2012, stories from The Truth have also been heard on public radio programs such as This American Life, All Things Considered, and Snap Judgment. He lives in New York City.
Helen Engelhardt is an independent audio producer of audio books and features and music programs; a writer and poet, storyteller and actor. Helen has been a part of the audio community from the days of Midwest Radio Workshop, through National Audio Festivals and Hear Now Audio Festival. She funded the Norman Corwin Awards and funds the Annual Tony Hawkins Awards for Excellence in Audio Drama at NYU.
David Ossman is an American writer and performer, best known as a quarter of The Firesign Theatre, whose collective work includes comedy albums, plays, films and radio shows. He’s best known for his role as George Leroy (“Porgie”) Tirebiter in Firesign’s LP “Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers,” a hero of two mystery novels and hours of broadcasts. His Catherwood the Butler delivers the classic line, “What’s all this Brouhaha?” to Nick Danger. Ossman’s “solo” album, “How Time Flys” was nominated for a Nebula, and his 50th Anniversary version of “The War of The Worlds," produced by his wife, Judith Walcutt, was nominated for a Grammy. He can be seen (as Cornelius, the ant) in Pixar’s “A Bug’s Life." During the 1980s, Ossman returned to his “original” profession as a radio host, writer and teacher, with historic broadcasts for NPR and WGBH, along with equally historic all-star-cast radio events like “Empire of the Air," “We Hold These Truths,” and “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," independently created for Walcutt’s Otherworld Media non-profit studio. Returning to Firesign for their 25th Anniversary Tour and subsequent albums and performances, Ossman now edits the group’s work, collected by the Library of Congress, for publication.
Kristin Proctor was one of the youngest students to be accepted to graduate school at American Repertory Theatre / Moscow Art Theatre School (A.R.T/MXAT), Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University, where she played such parts as Nina in The Seagull (staged in Cambridge and Moscow), Kristine in Miss Julie and Sasha in the A.R.T. production of Ivanov (starring Debra Winger and Arliss Howard). Other favorite stage roles include: Originating the role of Laura in In Vitro, playing Isabella in Measure for Measure and Lisa in Boy's Life.
Kristin has appeared in numerous national commercials (Hyundai, Home Depot, Wendy's, American Express) and on such shows as: The Wire (recurring), Cold Case, CSI:NY, Entourage and NUMB3RS to name a few and in the Penny Marshall film Riding in Cars With Boys (starring Drew Barrymore), and in numerous shorts and student films. She has performed in such cities as New York and L.A. and all over Europe (Oslo, Moscow, Dublin, London). While in London, she attended The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) - Intensive Shakespeare summer course.
Kristin was born in Los Angeles and raised in Norway, she is the daughter of Philip Proctor voice-over artist and founder of The Firesign Theatre, and Barbro Semmingsen, children’s television producer in Oslo, Norway.
Kristin is a graduate of Hartvig Nissen Videregående, the liberal arts high school of Oslo and she also attended Romerike Folkehøyskole. She speaks fluent Norwegian and English and gets by in Russian, Swedish, German and French.
Robin Miles has been the voice of such powerful pieces as Hidden Figures, the basis for the hit movie, and Roxanne Gay’s An Untamed State.
Miles, who’d been acting on and off Broadway and on TV, got her start in audio by working with the American Foundation for the Blind, where she recorded fiction, nonfiction, and poetry—after getting rejected at first and tweaking her style to suit. She’s had several Audie nominations since, winning as part of large cast recordings such as In the Embers, which won Best Audio Drama for 2017, and for her direction of Roots in 2007. She’s been drawn to women’s stories, often those of women of color and often ones with emotional and devastating themes, which she says can often affect her during the process.
Early on in her career, Miles recorded her first horror title, The Good House by Tananarive Due. That experience, with relatable characters and accessible accents, made her realize that she was a perfect fit for horror, sci-fi, and fantasy. Of her time working on the audio, Miles says, That book won me many fans and was a springboard to titles by astounding Caribbean futurists Nalo Hopkinson (Midnight Robber), Karen Lord (The Best of All Possible Worlds), and Tobias Buckell (the Xenowealth series), speculative fiction & fantasy writers that bring exciting modern elements to classic world building.
Phil’s transition from Broadway star to voiceover artist occurred when he helped to create the Los-Angeles based Firesign Theatre 4-man recording group, which over 50 years garnered 3 Grammy nominations, whose archives were recently purchased by the Library of Congress. He has added his voice to radio shows, commercials, interactive games, TV, films and many Academy-award winning animated features for Disney and Pixar. He is probably best known as Howard on the Emmy-winning Rugrats, seahorse Bob in Finding Nemo, Charlie in Monsters, Inc., and the drunken French Monkey in Eddie Murphy’s Dr. Dolittle series. Phil is now a regular panelist on the PBS comic quiz, “Says You!”, and with his wife, Melinda Peterson, performs regularly with the award-winning Antaeus Theatre Company. http://planetproctor.com
After 20 years as a professional actor, Melinda was introduced to audio theatre in 1990 when she played all 17 of the female roles in Proctor & Bergman’s POWER which aired on NPR as a regular segment of John Hockenberry’s HEAT. She still wonders why she wasted so many years in make-up. Since that time she has contributed voices to NPR Playhouse productions, worked with all-star casts on WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS and EMPIRE OF THE AIR for Other World Media, performed with The Firesign Theatre on THE GREAT INTERNET BROADCAST for the Toyota Comedy Festival in New York and traveled several times to Dublin to participate in Crazy Dog Audio productions for RTE, Ireland’s public radio service. She is most proud to be Norman Corwin’s very favorite Lucretia Borgia in THE PLOT TO OVERTHROW CHRISTMAS and lead the cast of THE BBC MURDERS as Agatha Christie. Melinda has been a member of Los Angeles’ classical stage ensemble The Antaeus Company since 1991 and lives in LA with her darling husband, Phil Proctor, and her even more darling cat, Pepper.
Award-winning actor, producer, and coach, P.J. Ochlan, has been working in the entertainment industry for 35 years. His diverse career has included Broadway, the NY Shakespeare Festival under Joseph Papp, critically acclaimed feature films, and numerous television guest star and series regular roles. Along the way he’s worked with countless icons including Jodie Foster, Clint Eastwood, Robin Williams, and Al Pacino. He appears this season on Young Sheldon as Rene Descartes.
P.J. is best known behind the microphone as a widely acclaimed and record-setting audiobook narrator of nearly 500 titles. His work has been recognized with multiple Audie Awards, Earphones Awards, Voice Arts Awards, and the Odyssey Award.
P.J. is also one of the industry’s leading dialect and performance coaches. He is thefounder of Dr. Dialect (www.drdialect.com), co-founder of the Deyan Institute ofVoice Artistry in Los Angeles, and teaches from coast to coast at conferences and universities. And P.J. is the official dialect coach for Universal Studios and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, so he’s one of the only people on the planet who actually teaches at Hogwarts
An award-winning narrator with over 200 titles, Andrea Emmes has been a professional actor for over twenty years, performing on stage, television, film, video games, and audiobooks. She has a degree in Game Art and Design and is the producer of the short, animated film, “Mila”. Her wide range of character voices and her dynamic and emotionally invested performances have reviewers and listeners alike raving about how effortlessly she pulls people in.
With a professional career spanning over 40 years, Larry Cedar has over 300 professional television, film, theater, and commercial credits. Most notably he recurred for three seasons as Leon, the opium-addicted card dealer, in the HBO hit series Deadwood, and for six seasons on the Children’s Television Workshop’s PBS program, Square One TV. A graduate of the UCLA MFA acting program, his feature film work includes Call of the Wild, Love & Monsters, The Crazies, Midnight Son, Towelhead, Hollywoodland, National Treasure 2, Constantine, Feds, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and The Twilight Zone. Recent television includes Young Sheldon, Trial and Error, Mad Men, Runaways, Law and Order, For the People, American Horror Story, Grey's Anatomy and Community.
Larry's extensive theater credits include several appearances at The Colony Theatre (Best of Enemies, Travels With My Aunt, Billy Bishop Goes to War, Around the World in 80 Days), The Geffen Playhouse (Discord, Nightmare Alley), Reprise Productions; (The World Goes Round, She Loves Me [Ovation Award Winner Best Featured Actor in a Musical], Li’l Abner, Anything Goes [Ovation Award Nominee], On the Town, Brigadoon, 1776, and They’re Playing Our Song). The Mark Taper Forum (Hoagy, Bix and Wolfgang Beethoven Bunkhaus [as Hoagy Carmichael]), Laguna Playhouse (It's a Wonderful Life, Harvey).
Over the past several years Larry has adapted and performed four one-man literary stage adaptations based on the works of George Orwell (ORWELLIAN), Fyodor Dostoevsky (Notes From the Underground), and Franz Kafka (Letter to My Father and The Burrow) and will premiere his third Kafka piece, The Hunger Artist, at this summer's Hollywood Fringe Theater Festival. For more information and updates, find him on IMDB (bit.ly/larrycedar), Facebook ( facebook.com/larrycedaractor ) or visit his website at (www.larrycedar.com .
Nancy Peterson - an Audie Award winner, multiple Voice Arts Award and Independent Audiobook Award nominee - began her career in audiobooks with petty theft. Her dad’s brand-new-and-strictly-off-limits tape recorder was too tempting to bear. She and her friends recreated worlds from favorite chapter books, reading aloud into the device. She never could have dreamed that this would be the beginning of a career she loves. A 25- year veteran actor of stage, screen and recording studio. Nancy has a penchant for dialects; diving deep into the study of language. Her narration style, summed up by AudioFile Magazine, “creates the sense of listening to a play instead of a straightforward reading.” Nancy resides near the foothills of the Rocky Mountains with her husband and children, two dogs, three fish, one turtle, one snake, a hive of bees, and a gecko.
Meredith Ludwig is a writer/director/producer who grew up with a transistor radio under her pillow, saw her first musical at age eight and from then on embraced the act of storytelling in any media that she came in contact with. Due to current conditions, she has turned to the virtual world, learning to adapt to more visual format by creating video content for nine tribes in Ottawa County. Oklahoma with funding from the Administration for Native Americans. Her most recent body of work is Tilly Takes a Turn, the comedy of her Gemini twin, Tilly Tyrell. She was an early participant in Midwest Radio Theatre Workshop/KOPN and is forever grateful for the training she received in her formative years.
Barbara Rosenblat is one of the most revered voice actors in the country. She has recorded hundreds of audiobooks, docs, video games and audio dramas garnering eight Audie Awards and a slew of accolades for a distinguished body of work. She has appeared on London's West End and on Broadway. She acquired legions of new fans worldwide after her breakout performance as 'Miss Rosa' in the critically acclaimed Netflix series "Orange is the New Black"
Gary Sandy is best known for his role as program director Andy Travis in the classic television series WKRP in Cincinnati. His first professional role was a part created for him in the daytime drama As the World Turns, and for seven years he continued playing villains in the afternoon on Another World, Somerset, and his favorite, The Secret Storm. Gary received critical acclaim for his role in Norman Lear’s All That Glitters and has made countless TV guest appearances, including Murder She Wrote, F.B.I The Untold Story, The Young Riders, L.A. Law, and Diagnosis Murder. Feature film credits include Hail to the Chief, Some of My Best Friends Are…, Troll, and The Last of the Cowboys opposite Henry Fonda. Gary has performed in over one hundred theatrical productions, including on Broadway as the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance and as Sheriff Ed Earl Dodd opposite Ann Margret in the national tour of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.
Jim Brownold joined the outer fringes of “showbiz” in 1971 at WALL Radio in Middletown, New York. There he began in sales which he loathed with a passion. Discovering he could write funny ads and do character voices, they offered him the same money to do commercials. He thought for a nanosecond and accepted the offer. Then on to WRIF Detroit, and WPLJ New York – where he won numerous local and national commercial awards. In 1979 Jim discovered the First Amendment comedy/improv group, and fellow “newbie” Peter Spellos who became his comedy partner at WPLJ and in many live performances. Perhaps you were one of the oh-so-lucky who saw Peter and Jim in performance! You might also have seen Jim doing standup at the Improv, Stand Up NY, or Caroline’s. …Then again, if you were truly lucky, you did not. Like Peter, Jim also teaches improvisation – almost as well.
Dinne Ballon is a sound artist. Her sound works have aired on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. She was awarded a Maine Artist Fellowship from the Maine Arts Commission. During her Artist-in-Residency at Shenandoah National Park, she created a sound portrait for the park. At the Goethe Institute, she presented her sound installation Musical Instrument Dreams. At the Newseum, she produced audio for the national exhibition The Marines and Tet: The Battle That Changed the Vietnam War. For an international radio art competition, she was awarded for her field recording of boats creaking at a dock in Iceland. She produces audio for 3-D PhotoWorks, a company that creates fine art for museums that is accessible to the blind through touch and sound. For over ten years, she was a member of the teaching and production staff at the National Audio Theatre Festivals. At the University of Maine at Augusta, she taught audio production and radio theatre. Currently, she teaches audio to podcasters and producers through the Podcast Garage in Boston and the SALT Institute for Documentary Studies at Maine College of Artl.
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