The Weird Sisters Women's Theater Collective - Feminist Shakespeare in Austin, Texas » Players

Christa French

admin — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 14:49:36 +0000

Christa French co-founded the Weird Sisters in 2004, inspired by women struggling for more equal and powerful roles in contemporary theater and in Shakespeare productions in particular. She is thrilled to be part of a thriving community of women whose passion, dedication, and commitment to growth continually kindle her excitement and hope.

Christa has performed in five of the six Weird Sisters plays, notably playing Desdemona in 2009’s Good Night, Desdemona; Good Morning Juliet, and has tried her hand at directing and choreography. She has also performed in a five-person production of Twelfth Night and in various plays with Poor Tom Productions. She is an alumnus of the University of Texas English department and the Shakespeare at Winedale program.

Alyson Curtis

admin — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 13:53:53 +0000

Alyson Curtis is a mild mannered graphic and web designer by day and a coveter of the stage by night. She is quite content (for now) taking on the smaller roles and bit parts, as long as they don’t involve singing. Alyson has appeared on stage in four productions by the Weird Sisters, and has enjoyed growing her roles from six lines in Twelfth Night (as the Priest) to several roles and 40-50 lines in the 2010 production of Sycorax. She enjoys the process, and conquering stage fright even more. In addition to filling the stage with the random servant, citizen, nurse, ghost, sailor, she serves as the in-house poster designer as well as mistress of this very website you are currently perusing.

Originally from Colorado, Alyson has made her home in Austin, Texas for the last thirteen years. She lives in a little cottage with her partner Josh and her cat Eddie. Together they run Alyson Design, a busy graphic and web design business.

Courtney Glenn

admin — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 17:24:20 +0000

Courtney Glenn is one of the founding members of the Weird Sisters. She was introduced to Shakespeare in high school under the direction of her then teacher, Susan Todd, who later approached her with the crazy idea of an all women’s theater collective. She has been in five of the six productions by the Weird Sisters, often portraying a man such as Malvolio in Twelfth Night and Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Currently, she is playing the Governor of Algiers in the Weird Sisters’ production of Sycorax
Though she prefers to perform in an all-female cast and under collaborative direction, Courtney has also participated in other theatrical endeavors; notably, she played Camillo, Paulina, Florizel and Clown in a four person production of The Winter’s Tale at the Sherwood Forest Faire in the spring.
Courtney is currently a senior at Texas State, pursuing a double major in English and History. She has been accepted to graduate school and will continue to attend Texas State to receive her M.A. in medieval literature

Feliz Dia McDonald

admin — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 17:15:16 +0000

Feliz Dia is very excited to working with the WSWTC. She is very active in the theatre, film and dance community having performed in Pro-Arts Collective/ACC, Funnyhouse of a Negro, for which received a B. Iden Payne Nomination for Lead Actress(Drama). Other works include Tongue and Groove’s award winnning Red Balloon and An Arabian MidSummers NIght Dream. Her film projects include Spike Lee’s, The 25th Hour, as an extra; she played Etta in the Magnifecent Dead with Broom Closet Productions and Catherine in the The Flea Circus. She has studied At the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City and with ACC in Austin, where she received the Austin Critics Table W.H. “Deacon ” Crain for student work(06-07). Her goal is bring music, dance and theatre to the world and especially to the youth of the future. She is excited to share the stage with such a talented group of women!

Rachel Florence Briles

admin — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 17:09:36 +0000

Born and raised in Alabama the Beautiful, I attended the Alabama School of Fine Arts for Creative Writing. It didn’t even occur to me to apply to the theater program at ASFA (even though I had itched to act in the 8th grade play all through junior high…and, frankly, acted out all of my daydreams when know one was watching…I saved the world many times in my parent’s living room…I still do sometimes), and you know what, I’m glad I didn’t apply to the theater program!!-my life would be incomplete without creative writing. When I was 18, I moved to Austin where I knew no one to attend the the University of Texas. There I met Geography, Spanish, Teaching (well, I met that in Brownsville), and a really great guy whom I’ve kept. I even figured out how outgoing I could be, and daring!-I started a UT organization with my friends and was a leader…who knew that would happen…and I think I learned more from that experience than any single course I paid for. Now I’m a teacher, and sometimes I wonder what would have happened to me if I didn’t come to Texas…what would I be doing now?…would I be this happy? I spend all day in the school year hanging out with the best personalities that could ever grace this Earth-and they’re only 10 and 11 years old! By the end of the year what I think about the most is not what I’ve taught them but that I actually got to meet these kids and I wouldn’t have met them if I did something else with my life. Above is who I am. Theater, while I love it so much and thrive on how invigorating and even cleansing it is, is only me in the summers. I always come back…I will always come back. The Weirds are a special gift that no one should overlook.

Chris Humphrey

admin — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 23:44:24 +0000

Chris Humphrey (original score/sound design for Sycorax) has been involved with the Weird Sisters since 2008, but she’s been pretty weird most of her life. A classically trained composer, she has written everything from musical theater (for puppets, no less!) to sacred choral works to film scores to abstract electronica. She plays traditional instruments like bassoon and recorder in Heralds and Minstrels (a renaissance/baroque ensemble) and not-so-traditional instruments like didgeridoo and kinoor in the Annoying Instrument Orchestra (world ethnic ensemble). When she’s not making music, she acts in theater and film, creates costumes and props, choreographs dance numbers, and generally tries her hand at whatever creative opportunity catches her imagination.

Azure D. Osborne-Lee

admin — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 14:34:59 +0000

Azure D. Osborne-Lee is an interdisciplinary performer, writer, and teacher. Born and raised below the Mason-Dixon Line, Azure has lived and worked in New York City for the past year. In 2005 Azure earned her B.A. in English & Spanish from The University of Texas at Austin and studied abroad at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in Córdoba, Argentina. Before returning to school for a graduate degree in 2006, Azure worked as an actress with Zachary Scott Theatre. In 2008 Azure earned an M.A. in Women’s & Gender Studies, also from The University of Texas at Austin. Azure has been accepted to the M.A. Advanced Theatre Practice program at Central School of Speech & Drama, University of London for fall 2010.

Azure’s recent acting credits include The Seer in the world premiere of Sharon Bridgforth’s DELTA DANDI, Librarian 1 in Daniel Alexander Jones’s THE BOOK OF DANIEL, and The Porter in Wura-Natasha Ogunji’s INCIDENTS AT THE TWO TWO HOTEL. Azure is currently a resident playwright at Freedom Train Productions in Brooklyn, NY. Her one act play CROOKED PARTS was featured at Brooklyn Arts Exchange in January and will be coming to the University of Texas at Austin in the early fall. You can follow Azure’s work by visiting her website at http://azureosborne-lee.com.

Susan Gayle Todd

admin — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 14:34:18 +0000

Susan Gayle Todd founded the Weird Sisters Women’s Theater Collective in 2004 as part of her overall quest to centralize female characters in Shakespeare and to accommodate women who want to play Shakespeare. Her MA thesis in Women’s and Gender Studies, The Weird Sisters, Hand in Hand (2005), included an adaptation of Macbeth, which was produced and performed by an unwieldy crew of about thirty other women. The collective grew as Susan continued her work of confronting the canon through feminist adaptation and exploring women’s issues in theater. While earning a PhD in Theater and Performance Studies, Susan directed the Weirds in their productions of Michelle Lee’s Angels of the House (2006); Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (2007)and The Merry Wives of Windsor (2008); and Ann-Marie MacDonald’s Good Night Desdemona Good Morning Juliet (2009). During this time, Susan also wrote Sycorax, a feminist re-examination of the mother of Caliban in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The play was selected for production in the 2007 Cohen New Works Festival at the University of Texas and was directed by Fadi Skeiker. Now in their sixth season, The Weird Sisters are re-launching Sycorax under the direction of Susan Gayle Todd and Christa French.

Susan has immersed herself in directing, performing, teaching, and studying theater since her first brush with UT’s Shakespeare at Winedale program in 1992 where she has played and worked for many years. She has, over time, taught Shakespeare at the Huntington Library in California, the University of Texas, and Leander High School, where she has also directed innumerable students in scenes and plays. She currently teaches rhetoric at the University of Texas and St. Edward’s University, where she is director of the Shakespeare Club. Susan is dedicated to building community through theater while tackling tough social issues. Her greatest joys are her family and friends, and creating theater in Austin, Texas.

To learn more about Susan Gayle Todd, please visit her website: www.SusanGayleTodd.com