Fat Cat Killers Creative

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Director
Andrew Block
Andrew received the Ovation and L.A.Drama Critics Circle awards for Best Director & Production for the world premiere of John Pollono’s Small Engine Repair. Delighted to be working with playwright Adam Szymkowicz and Sparkplug after last season’s NYC Fringe hit Clown Bar 2 (Audience Choice, Most Fringe awards). Selected credits include: Kelley Nicole Girod’s This Stretch of Montpelier & Body of Water (The Fire This Time); Mark Jason Williams’ Straight Faced Lies & The Other Day (Theatre at 14th St Y); John Pollono's Lost and Found (FringeNYC Encore, Lucille Lortel Theatre); David Caudle’s Downward Facing Debbie (World premiere, Paradise Factory); Sondheim's Company (Gallery Players); Why Bother? (Best Director, Planet Connections Festivity); Adam Rapp’s Bingo With the Indians (GLAAD award nomination for Outstanding Theatre, West-coast premiere); Illuminati (Best Director, Network OAF); Bedroom Farce (FAPC); Reach (Ivy Theatre Company); Avenue Q (Manhattan College); Inherit the Wind (Manhattan College); Rumors (AADA); The Shape of Things (Adelphi University); Recovery (FringeNYC); Andrew also serves as TDF's liaison and representative to NYC's vibrant Off and Off-Off Broadway community.
Production Manager
Rebekkah Ross
Rebekkah is a co-founder and co-Artistic Director of SparkPlug Productions. She is an actor-narrator-author-producer and soon to be woman-behind-the-puppet in The Willy & Fidget Super Funtime Show. Additional upcoming projects include a new podcast from the mind of Christopher Rozzi, and a series of picture books. She has recently completed her first middle grade novel Betty Lou and the Howl of the Rougarou and can't wait for you to read it. www.rebekkahross.com
Production Designer
Scott Fetterman
Scott is a multimedia designer, video producer, technician, and performer; he currently holds the position of Lead Audiovisual Technician at BAM Fisher in Brooklyn, NY and is a proud member of IATSE Local 4. A product of NYC’s downtown experimental scene, Scott got his start working with Temporary Distortion from 2011-2017 in several capacities; most notably as Video Designer, Assistant Installation Designer, and Musician for the 6-hour-long installation-based performance My Voice Has An Echo In It, which toured within the US and France. Other key collaborations include Oscar-nominated filmmaker Josh Fox (The Truth Has Changed, Staying Home, and The Edge of Nature), One Year Lease Theater Company (Pool No Water and Skin Tight), and director Andrew Block (too many to list).
Stage Manager/Sound Design
Tony Lapore
Tony has been involved in theatre for over 25 years as a producer, composer, stage manager, lighting designer, sound designer, and playwright in cities across the US, UK, Canada, Italy, and the United Arab Emirates. Films he scored the music to have won awards in film festivals internationally. You can find him playing jazz drums in clubs around town. TonyLepore.com
Playwrite
Adam Szymkowicz
ADAM SZYMKOWICZ’s plays have been produced throughout the U.S., and in Canada, England, Wales, The Isle of Man, Ireland, Scotland, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, Greece, Mexico, Turkey, Switzerland, South Korea, Thailand, Sweden, Austria, Slovenia, Malaysia and Lithuania. His work has been presented or developed at such places as Portland Center Stage, MCC Theater, Ars Nova, South Coast Rep, Playwrights Horizons, LCT3, LAByrinth Theater Company, The Lark, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Primary Stages and The New Group, among others. Published plays include Deflowering Waldo, Pretty Theft, Food For Fish, Hearts Like Fists, Hearts Like Planets, Incendiary, The Why Overhead, Adventures of Super Margaret, 7 Ways To Say I Love You, Rare Birds, Marian Or The True Tale of Robin Hood, Marian Or The True Tale of Robin Hood The Musical, Kodachrome, Clown Bar, Clown Bar 2, Clown Bar Christmas, Mercy, The Bookstore, Old Fashioned Cold Fusion, The Parking Lot, The Night Children, The Wooden Heart, Stockholm Syndrome, When Jack Met Jill, Heart of Snow, Christmas Tree Farm, 100 Things I Never Said To You, 100 Love Letters I Never Sent and Nerve. His plays are published by Dramatists Play Service, Concord/Samuel French, Playscripts, Broadway Play Publishing, Theatrical Rights Worldwide, Stage Partners and Original Works Publishing, and are featured in numerous Smith and Kraus and Applause books. His monologue book, Small Explosions came out from Applause in early 2023. His book on playwriting, Letters to a Young Playwright comes out from Applause in fall of 2024. He was the premiere Resident Playwright at The Chance Theater in Anaheim, CA and the first playwright to participate in Bloomington Playwrights Projects’ Square One Series. He has been to The Orchard Project, Green Gulch, Theatre4ThePeople’s the Barn and to JAW at Portland Center Stage, served twice as Playwright in Residence at the William Inge Center, and twice as a Dramatists Guild Fund’s Traveling Masters. Szymkowicz received two grants from the CT Commission on Culture & Tourism, and has been commissioned by South Coast Rep, Rising Phoenix Rep, Texas State University, The NOLA Project, Single Carrot Theater, Majestic Rep, The Chance Theater, Concord Theatricals/The Educational Theatre Association and Flux Theater Ensemble. Adam received a Playwright’s Diploma from The Juilliard School's Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program and an MFA from Columbia University where he was the Dean’s Fellow. Szymkowicz is a two-time Lecomte du Nouy Prize winner, a member of the Dramatists Guild, Writer’s Guild of America, and was a member of Primary Stages’ Dorothy Strelsin New American Writer’s Group, the MCC Playwright’s Coalition and of the very first Ars Nova Play Group. He has interviewed over 1100 playwrights on his blog.

The Companies

SPARKPLUG PRODUCTIONS was founded by Christopher Lee and Rebekkah Ross, Artistic Directors, to create performance opportunities for artists we believe in. Our goal is to produce new works utilizing multimedia and to bring artists from different disciplines together. This cross-pollination of artistic processes creates a cooperative spirit among artists and fosters collaboration. By working together, we hope to develop a platform that allows us to break through boundaries and conventions to create new multimedia works as well as a vibrant community of artists. SparkPlug is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization and donations are tax-deductible. www.sparkplugproductions.com, IG: @splugnyc

 

THIN DUKE PRODUCTIONS was founded in 2003 by Philip Cruise, Artistic Director, with the goal of bringing both classical and original works to the New York City stage for an affordable price that are accessible to all. The mission has always been to showcase performers who struggle for a seat at the table due to such classic roadblocks as lack of representation, momentum, or money. Thin Duke and SparkPlug Productions have been producing original works as Thin Duke/SparkPlug Productions since the 2018 world premiere of Dean Haspiel’s THE LAST BAR AT THE END OF THE WORLD.