Angels of the House

Performed by the Weird Sisters Women’s Theater Collective in 2006

Cast & Crew Biographies

• Hollie Baker, Louise Chandler-Moulton and songster. Hollie is a veteran Weird Sister who performed the role of Bessie Porter in The Weird Sisters, Hand in Hand last Spring. She has performed many roles, including Lady Macbeth in the Scottish play and Mistress Quickly in The Merry Wives of Windsor. By day, Hollie is a fitness trainer and manager of South Austin Curves. By birth, she is the daughter of this play’s director.
• Shannon Baley, Co-dramaturg. Shannon is finishing up her PhD in Performance as Public Practice at UT Austin and is bursting with pride to be a Weird Sister. Along with her scholarly and dramaturgy day jobs, she is a poet, a performer, and a soon-to-be mother. She would like to thank Stephan for his constant support and love, as well as all of her beautiful fellow Weirds, who continue to inspire her daily.
• Courtney Brown, Josephine. Courtney never thought she’d play a female in a play directed by Susan Todd. After taking on the foppish Hugh Evans in The Merry Wives of Windsor and the nasty Examiner in last year’s The Weird Sisters, Hand in Hand, Courtney was pleasantly surprised to receive the role of Josephine in Angels, and has used the opportunity to get in touch with her ultra-feminine side. She would like to thank her husband Dennis for being so supportive throughout this journey, for the second year running. And thanks to her mom, Dee Ann Glenn, for buying her costume!
• Lauren Bilbe, Mary and costume/props mistress. This is Lauren’s second term with the Weirds. Last year she played the role of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman. When Lauren isn’t treading the Weird boards, she is pursuing her degree in geography at Texas State University and running things at EarthArt with her darling Zane.
• Kai Bumpus, Bernard and lighting cobbler. Kai is new to the Weirds this year. She has many identities, including that of Drag King with Austin’s Kings N Things. Kai appears to live for her art, for Mel, and for Charlee.
• Michelle Lee, Assistant Director, Producer, and Playwright. What can we say? This Dollymop has given us all a big run for our money this year! Michelle is a doctoral student in English whose amazing scholarship and art have resulted in this play. Michelle also teaches rhetoric as she continues to write, direct, produce, stage manage, and perform amazing feats of culinary wizardry. She is most grateful to her husband, Charles, for his love and support throughout it all.
• Noelle Fitzsimmons, Peg. Although Noelle is a beloved Weird sister who wowed us with her performance of Fleance last year, we temporarily lost track of her and re-found her only after this production was underway. She has stepped into the role of Peg and performs lots of behind-scenes duties as well.
• Christa French, Publicity/Production. Christa is studying the boundaries of space and time in an effort to get more sleep. She spends much of her life at the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies at UT, chivvying numbers and arranging events for cool people, and much of what’s left shepherding the blossoming Proto-Christa, which she’s named Weston. Christa would like to thank Joey, Stephen, Brooks, the Michaelz, Dale, Stephanie, Terri, Jane, Alicia, and a bunch of other people we don’t have room for here.
• Leslie Guerrero, Michael Field. This is Leslie’s second season with the Weird Sisters and her second theatrical role as a man. Leslie, 26, is from Corpus Christi, Texas and moved to Austin in 1999, completing her BA in English from The University of Texas in 2004. Leslie wishes to thank her friends and family who have supported her during this process, but especially her father and brother for their sheer engineering genius and her dear friend, Marigny Manson, for letting Leslie exploit her talent as a master costumier.
• Clarke Hill, Lillias. Clarke, another brand-new Weird Sister, showed up at auditions with her friend, Kim Penna, and we haven’t let her out of our sight since. Clarke is an activist who works with kids and is determined to make this world a much better place.
• Charlee, Boy. Melissa’s daughter and our darling, Charlee has been the world’s most flexible 11-year-old. She has patiently stuck with us through many revisions of the play wherein roles were added, subtracted, and added again for her. We’ve finally come to call her Boy. She peddles newspapers, works backstage, anything to make a living in these Victorian times.
• Melissa Koonce, Doris and JT Grien. Melissa is feverishly working to finish her M.A. in Women’s and Gender Studies at UT. She has recently been accepted to NYU’s grad program, and we all plan to crash on her sofa when we visit the Big Apple. Good luck, Mel!
• Suzanne Mobarak, Gray. Suzanne recently escaped Houston, TX to join the wonderful world that is Austin. By day she wrestles high school students into submission. By night she…sleeps. Because she has often been referred to as “one of the guys,” Suzanne thought that playing a man would be easy. Foolish child. She would like to thank the Weirds for showing her just how damn girly she really is.
• Erica Nagel, Co-dramaturg and Newspaper Mogul.
• Kim Penna, Anna. In her glorious theatrical comeback, Kim Penna’s inner bitch is finally released. She feels that her role as Anna has taken her to new places within herself she never knew existed. For this, she would like to thank the Weird Sisters Theater Collective. In addition, Kim thanks her Star Sisters, family and ultra-hot boyfriend for all of their support. **Am I allowed to say bitch?**
• Carol Reed, Sally and seamstress. Carol decided she didn’t want to mature gracefully…she still likes to dance around and giggle occasionally, and is pleased to have found a group of fellow dollymops. She’s really not a grump generally. Thanks to dear husband, Jim, who not only builds any set piece asked of him, but has been willing to survive on Lean Pockets many nights lately.
• Audra Rouse, Choreographer. Audra is a PhD candidate in English and a gender-bending country western dance enthusiast. She would like to thank the Weird Sisters for providing such a wonderful challenge to her creativity.
• Penny Smith, George. Penny began her theater career one year ago in The Weird Sisters Hand in Hand. Having been around the stage since high school, she only recently decided to get up there and take a stab at acting. Penny is currently finishing up a bachelors degree in anthropology at UT and plans to be involved in future Weird Sisters productions while trying to figure out how she can utilize her degree. She would like to thank her parents, Pat and Cindy Smith, and her lovely partner, Angie, for all of their love and support.
• Shanna Smith, Edith. Shanna Smith has performed in somewhere around 30 plays, and she’s thrilled to be in her first one with an all-female cast. As co-artistic director of the Bedlam Faction theater company, she was most recently seen as the Princess in their production of Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost and as Mae in their staged adaptation of Reefer Madness.
• Susan Gayle Todd, Director. Susan is currently a doctoral student in UT’s Performance as Public Practice Program. That’s a lot of Ps, and she believes in every one of them. That’s why she’s so eager to keep this amazing community of women up and going, tackling women’s issues through play. With deep roots in UT’s Shakespeare at Winedale Program, Susan has been performing, teaching, adapting, and directing Shakespeare for many years with a growing concern for women’s opportunities in theater. This is her first foray into non-Shakespearean theater. Stay tuned for what’s next!
• Leah Tyo, Lights. Susan and Leah met in early January while having their tires patched at a local repair shop. Leah is a busy woman who somehow finds time to construct and run our lighting.
• Vicki Yoder, Katharine. Vicki Yoder would like to claim she has little experience on stage. She somehow thinks this will stave off critical comments. Truth be told, she has been a ham all her life. If further pushed, she’ll admit involvement in two bad plays, one in high school and one in college. She pursued athletics over theater and teaching over drama, but discovered the two are very much alike. Finally succumbing to the thespian call, she took the role of Macbeth last year with the Weird Sisters. She’d like to thank Susan Todd for all that has ensued.