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BOY MY GREATNESS

By Zoe Senese-Grossberg

"The quick comedians
Extemporally will stage us, and present
Our Alexandrian revels. Antony
Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see
Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness
I’ th’ posture of a whore.”
-Cleopatra, Antony and Cleopatra, Act Five, Scene Two

What happened to the boys who played Shakespeare's women? At the Globe Theater in the summer of 1606, six boy players warm up, run lines, gossip, and fall in and out of love all in between rehearsals for the premieres of Antony and Cleopatra and Twelfth Night. As the plague and rising religious conservatism threaten their way of life, they are all forced to reconsider their futures on the stage. A play about growing up, gender, and a chapter of theater history we seek to forget.

Content Warning: This play features mature themes including discussions of transphobia, suicide, and child sexual abuse.

ROBIN - Rae Bell (she/they)
Rae Bell is a New York actor thrilled to come out of retirement for Boy My Greatness. Select stage credits include Just Us (Sixth Fest NYC), Eight by Tenn (Zeigeist Stage Company), and This Other City (USA premiere) (Solas Nua). Film/TV credits include Selah and the Spades on Amazon Prime and Mostly 4 Millennials on Adult Swim.

SAMUEL - Sophie Falvey (they/them)
Sophie is a New York based actor, writer, and teaching artist. New York theater credits include Comedy of Errors and The Oresteia (Gallery Players), The Seagull, RUR, Lay the Bent to the Bonny Broom (Firebird Players), The Dream (Columbia University), Low Stakes (Frigid New York), and Horsegirls (Homemade Jean Shorts), Abbie’s Mom Had Cancer (Murmuration Theater Co.), Revolution 10 (Purple Light Productions). Oberlin College theater credits include The Moors, At the End of the World, Hamlet, and Orlando.

JOHN - Leo Lion (they/he/she)
Leo is a director, teaching artist, and producer from Brooklyn, and the founding Artistic Director of The Firebird Project. Leo also serves as the Associate Artistic Director of Phoenix Theatre Ensemble and heads their PlayCoop New Works Incubator, a home for new storytelling forms like ARG and RPG. Recent directing credits include Rossum's Universal Robots and The Snow Queen with Firebird, Wind in the Willows and Scandalton: LIVE with Phoenix. As a teaching artist, Leo leads workshops in improv, playwriting, and RPG storytelling. As a genderqueer first-gen immigrant, Leo seeks to create work that explores nebulous identities, placelessness, and unconventional methods of meaning-making. | leolion.com / @whosleolion

HARRY - Benny Rendell (he/him)
Benny has performed in many shows with Firebird, including Romeo in the award-winning production of Romeo and Juliet. He has trained at Lee Strasberg, H.B Studio, and the Shakespeare company New Genesis Productions, where he played roles such as Hamlet, Brutus, and Benedick. Benny co-teaches Firebird’s Movie-Masters class and is currently studying Filmmaking and Cinema Studies at Tisch NYU.

HAL - Eli Wassertzug (they/them)
Eli is an NYC-based actor and singer originally from Northern Virginia with a BA in Drama from Vassar College. They have most recently worked in the city with New Relic Theatre, The Tank, Notch Theatre Company, Staten Island Shakespeare Theater, and Milky Way Theatre Company, and in addition to Vassar, trained with Hangar Theatre, Powerhouse Theater, Synetic Theater, and Traveling Players Ensemble. Eli aims to create inclusive, collaborative, and spectacular theater that challenges entrenched systems of power, especially gender. eliwassertzug.com

TOM - Juli Worth (they/them)
Juli is an Oberlin College graduate from Alexandria, VA. They have worked as a composer and recording artist on films (Redwood, Wolf Girl, Designing Desire, Boys Who Fly); plays (The Moors, Orlando, The Tempest); and musical projects (Hotspur Johnny, SCAD Mom, South Professor.) They completed a semester at the British American Drama Academy, and have appeared in several plays at Oberlin (The Moors, Orlando, 12 Ophelias) as well as Firebird’s recent productions of RUR, The Seagull, and Lay the Bent to the Bonny Broom. They would like to thank the Firebird team and their friends (including family) for their support during this process.

PLAYWRIGHT/DIRECTOR - Zoe Senese/Grossberg
Zoe Senese-Grossberg is a New York based director, writer, dramaturg, and teaching artist. Recent directing credits include: The Seagull and RUR with the Firebird Players, Facelift at Gallery Players, At The End of the World, Hamlet, Orlando, and Twelve Ophelias at Oberlin College. She has been Firebird’s Literary Director since 2017 and collaborated with them as a director, adapter, and dramaturg, on eight productions. Zoe has worked as a stage manager, dramaturg, production assistant, and assistant stage manager at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Powerhouse Theater, Four Walls Theater, and the Workshop Theater. Her playwriting has received recognition from organizations such as the Eugene O’Neill Center, Penguin Random House, and Young Arts. More at zoesenesegrossberg.com.

PRODUCTION MANAGER - Nick Roblee-Strauss
Nick is a multidisciplinary artist from rural western Massachusetts. His work has shown at 440 Gallery and Thomas van Dyke, in Brooklyn NY as well as the Granoff Center, List Art Center, Joukowsky Institute, and Salon 149, in Providence, RI. He holds a BA in Modern Culture & Media from Brown University where he was a Royce Fellow, received Region 1 Mark of Excellence Award for In-Depth Reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists for his work at the College Hill Independent and his screenplay Poached won the Brown Motion Pictures competition.

SCENIC/MAKEUP/POSTER DESIGNER - Katie Homer-Drummond
Katie is a New York-based artist originally from upstate South Carolina. They graduated from Oberlin College in 2022 with a B.A. in Creative Writing and Cinema studies. New York credits include makeup and costumes for Firebird’s R.U.R. as well as set and makeup for Firebird’s Seagull. They have written, directed, and art-directed two twenty-five minute short-films (Boys Who Fly on Gilded Wings & Wolf Girl), Designed multiple sets for the Oberlin College theater department (Warsaw Melody, Orlando, Next to Normal, Hamlet,  & Shayna Punim

STAGE MANAGER - Isabelle Pflanz
Isabelle is a resident performer, teacher, and experimental theater artist at Firebird. This past spring, Isabelle earned her Dance and Theater degrees at Oberlin College. Isabelle has worked as performer, co-adaptor, and choreographer for numerous theater projects scattered throughout New York. Stage Managing/ASM credits include: I Am Nobody (Theater of the Apes), Macbeth (Firebird Youth Theater), At The End of the World (OMTA), and little dear, vile innenarrable thing (Oberlin Dance), and The Seagull (Firebird).

PROPS DESIGNER/ADDITIONAL COSTUME DESIGNER/WARDROBE - Maximillian Romanov
Maximillian is a multimedia artist based in NYC. Utilizing his specialties in different mediums he has worked for theater productions and short films making props.

BAND - Wyatt Camery
Wyatt is a New York-based guitarist. He has scored several student films and most recently composed music for the stage for Arachne Theater's production of Twelfth Night (dir. Kelsey Robins) in July 2023. Wyatt's film scoring credits include the award-winning Sabor y Amor (dir. Luke Robins and Ivonne Serna), Fishbowl (dir. Luke Robins), and Welcome to Hough (dir. Chris Schmucki, Shaina Lin-Chung, and Anisa Curry-Vietze). He is thrilled to collaborate with fellow Oberlin alumni on Boy My Greatness!

BAND - Justin Pelofsky
Justin is a musician/actor currently based in New York. He is a recent graduate of Oberlin College, where performed in a number of productions including two directed by Zoe Senese-Grossberg: At the End of the World and Hamlet. Most recently, he portrayed "Simon" in a staged reading of Senese-Grossberg's Lay the Bent to the Bonny Broom. Along with Wyatt Camery and Juli Worth, he played on, recorded, and produced an eponymous debut album for their indie folk/bluegrass band Hotspur Johnny, which has been featured on two of Spotify’s curated editorial playlists and received thousands of listens. He is currently working on a new musical project showcasing a collection of instrumental tunes for guitar, mandolin, and lap steel and can be found performing the material around the city.

SPECIAL THANKS

Reva Grossberg and Carmela Senese
Katia Belousova
Jodi Senese
John Lenartz & Windsor Wine Merchants
Jim Furlong & Hudson Guild
Sofe Cote
Elise Stone
Stacey Bro
Veronique Autphenne
Victoria Gau
Pamela Smith
Lesley Sawhill
Ron Aja

ABOUT THE FIREBIRD PROJECT

The Firebird Project is a grassroots theater production and arts education company dedicated to telling stories that burn. We produce innovative original productions of classic plays and stage new works that examine and deconstruct the popular storytelling canon. We also offer year-round arts education workshops & classes for teen artists, including acting, improv, playwriting, filmmaking, and roleplaying games. Both our production and education wings emphasize lasting diverse and multidisciplinary community, artistic and intellectual curiosity, and a critical approach to the classical canon. 

Founded 10 years ago as a teen-run company, Firebird has always maintained a commitment to platforming young and emerging artists, bringing their voices into the conversation and enabling them to discover what they are capable of. Our close-knit resident ensemble of repeat collaborators creates repertory seasons of multiple works on connected themes, and our education wing fosters the next generation of storytelling artists. Our work is focused on the intersection of the old & new, the mythic and the iconoclastic, examining stories made immortal by Homer, Shakespeare, Austen, Ibsen, and Chekhov whilst exploring new forms including improvisational, immersive, interactive, and site-specific storytelling. We want to tell the stories you know in ways you’ve never seen them before.

More info at www.thefirebirdproject.org