Joy Pace (“Maggie”. “Rosa”) is Chair of Region 6 for the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF). Joy earned her B.A. from Centenary College of Louisiana, and her M.F.A. in Directing from Virginia Commonwealth University. A native Texan, and having lived in various areas of the country, she is thrilled to find this opportunity so close to “home”. Though a native Texan, Ms. Pace has lived in various areas of the country. Joy taught as Associate Professor of Theatre at Kentucky Wesleyan College where she was head of theatre and advisor to the Wesleyan Players for five years. She has also taught at Virginia Commonwealth University, and McMurry University.

Joy has worked professionally as an actor, director, vocal coach, instructor, and stage manager. Some of those credits include La Petit Little Theatre/Tennessee Williams Festival in New Orleans; The Blue Ridge Theatre Festival, Barksdale Theatre, Theatre Gym, and The Neighborhood School of The Arts in Richmond, VA; The Independent Theatre, Region 14 ESC, and Buffalo Gap Historic Village in Abilene, TX; and Theatre Workshop and Riverpark Center in Owensboro, KY.  She has worked in Educational Theatre for 14 years and enjoyed teaching every aspect of theatre while directing and finding avenues to continue acting. Her most recent directing credits include “All My Sons”, “Pygmalion”, “Othello”, “Waiting for Godot”, “Working: a musical”, and “The Long Christmas Ride Home”.  Her favorite recent acting credits include “Josie” in A Moon for the Misbegotten, “Sister Aloysius” in Doubt , and “Cornelia Scott” in Something  Unspoken.  In Educational Theatre she has directed over 30 productions and acted in many. Joy is greatly looking forward to a life filled with theatre, her great passion.

Donna Rigdon Jones (Kate Chopin) actor, director, teacher and mezzo-soprano has performed as an actor/singer with the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival Company, Oberlin Music Theatre, La Comedia Dinner Theatre, May Festival (Robert Shaw conducting), Louisiana Choral Foundation, Lake Charles Symphony, and the Piccolo Opera Company. She appeared in the PBS American Playhouse production of Playboy of the Western World. Jones has directed for university, community, high school and church theatre productions. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Georgia College, graduate degrees in Theatre from the Cincinnati College Conservatory and a PhD from Florida State University. Jones has studied with John Degen, Richard Hornby, Helen Krich Chinoy, Jose Quintero, Hubert Kockritz, and Italo Tajo. She lives in Lake Charles where she directs and performs with the Patrick Street Players and is a member of the Louisiana Choral Foundation. Currently, Dr. Jones serves as visiting lecturer in the theatre program of the performing arts department, McNeese State University.

 

Crew

Carolyn Woosley, Playwright/Director/Producer, is Co-Founder and President of Itinerant Theatre, Inc. and serves on the Board of The Lake Charles Little Theatre (The LCLT). A Lake Charles native, resident and retired Certified Financial Planner®, Woosley is a coastal and cultural activist. The LCLT produced the first seven of her 13-monologue cycle Louisiana Women in co-production with Carol Anne Gayle Productions. Adley Cormier was Director and Ms. Gayle was actor. An eighth, “Nellie”, was directed by Brenda Bachrack and produced by Leslie Berman with the Imperial Calcasieu Museum. Itinerant Theatre recently premiered “Maggie” starring Joy Pace. Woosley thanks Carol Anne Gayle for urging her to create the body of work which became Louisiana Women and for Gayle’s early productions. Leslie Berman’s The Readers’ Theatre workshopped Maiden Lane and Miller’s Café, two of Woosley’s five full-length plays. Fanny a screenplay on Felix Mendelssohn’s sister, is optioned.  Woosley was Executive Producer of the 2010 statewide tour of the two-company venture, Louisiana Women on Stage.

A LCHS graduate, Woosley studied history at Newcomb College of Tulane University (B.A., cum laude) and urban planning (M.A.) at UCLA. She credits the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, the UCLA Writers’ Extension Program, Idyllwild Arts Academy, the late Norman Corwin, friends and family for encouragement and training as a writer and producer.  She credits her studies under Joy Pace of the McNeese Theatre Dept. for training as a director.  She keenly anticipates life as a producer and director with Itinerant Theatre, as well as future writing projects.  For fun Woosley plays music, follows current events and her daughter Brooke’s design career and boats with friends on The Queen.

Marie Anne Chiment has created sets and costumes for hundreds of productions across America for opera, theatre and dance, including for Santa Fe Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, Kennedy Center, Wolftrap Opera and Broadway’s Minskoff Theatre. She has designed national tours of “Grease” and “Carousel,” as well as the GLAMA award- winning world premiere of “Patience & Sarah” for the Lincoln Center Festival. Chiment received her MFA in 1981 from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, winning the J.S. Seidman Award for design excellence. She is currently the Theater Department Chair of Temple University in Philadelphia.

Adley Cormier (costumes, sets & props designer) has designed and built for theatre productions for four decades. His sets, costumes and properties have been seen in productions for McNeese State University, LSU, Lake Charles Little Theatre, Ballet Society, American Cancer Society fundraisers, LC Symphony and for professional shows off-Broadway and, most recently for the Louisiana Women cycle of plays by Carolyn Woosley.  Mr. Cormier directed Carol Anne Gayle in the 1999 and 2001 premiers of the first seven Louisiana Women monologues at LCLT.  In this production Cormier is set and costume designer for “Maggie” and “Rosa”.

Cormier has produced, directed, designed or acted in over 350 shows. He has written and produced original works for the stage, and three translations of Moliere comedies. He and wife, visual artist Melinda Antoon, credit the Little Theatre show Flea in Her Ear as the spark in their getting together.

Born and reared in Breaux Bridge, Cormier was educated in Canada and at LSU.

Carol Anne Gayle, artist and actor, originally from Cape Cod, learned her craft at the Provincetown Playhouse, and later, in New York, in the company of such luminaries as Diane Keaton, from Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse school of acting. After moving to Lake Charles, Gayle became a fixture on the theatre scene, acting, directing, and creating works of passion and substance for the Lake Charles Little Theatre and others. Gayle’s work includes numerous film credits, as actor, artist and scenic designer. At present, she works as Exhibit and Program Specialist for Lake Charles’ Historic City Hall Museum.

Lake Charles Little Theatre and Gayle’s production company premiered the first six of the Louisiana Women monologues, ”Marie Therese”, “Celine”, “Kate”, “Clementine”, “Caroline” and “Rosa”. She premiered  “Clyde” in 2001, under the direction of Adley Cormier, LCLT producer.  During the 2010 AlterEgo Production’s statewide tour of “Louisiana Women on Stage”, Gayle portrayed “Clyde” (Connell) as one of the three “Visionaries”, and she also served as Director of the “Visionaries” Company. She portrayed “Clyde” in the 2010 Fringe Festival New Orleans, produced by AlterEgo Productions, in partnership with the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.

In this current production of “The Writers”, Gayle is Director of “Kate”.

Gabriel Brown, a native and resident of Lake Charles, La. is a 2011 graduate of McNeese State University, where he earned a B.A. in Theatre Arts: Performance. While at MSU, Gabriel served as 2010-2011 President of Alpha Psi Omega Theatre Honors Society. Currently, he serves on the Board of Directors of The Lake Charles Little Theatre (The LCLT).

His stage management credits include: Stage Manager of “Caroline, or Change”, “Doubt: A Parable”, “A Doll’s House”, and “Working: A Musical”. Acting credits include: Mike Talman in “Wait Until Dark”, Estragon on “Waiting for Godot” and Othello in “Othello”.
Gabriel has founded his own Lake Area theatre company, Gabriel Brown’s Urban Soul Theatre, where he directed “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enough” and “A Lesson Before Dying”.

Major influences are August Wilson, Tyler Perry, and David E. Talbert. Gabriel is excited to direct “Fences” by August Wilson in February 2013 at The LCLT.