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Theater & Performing Arts Resume

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  • 40+ years’ experience in professional, educational, community, and children’s theater

  • Award-winning performing arts producer, director, performer, designer, playwright, and technician.

  • First AVY Board of Governors’ Award for Special Contribution to Community Theater

  • 1,000+ television, performing arts, and corporate and community productions and events

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Executive and Staff Positions

  • Co-founder, director, producer, writer, performer The Image Players children’s theater repertory company. Toured throughout NY and NJ. Presented original plays and performances at cabarets, shopping malls, schools, libraries, parks, hospitals, and restaurants. Contracts with Nathan’s Famous, Woodbridge Township Recreation and Libraries, Menlo Park Mall, Woodbridge Center Mall 

  • Staff Technician Roundabout Theater Company Two Off-Broadway theaters, NYC.  Set construction, lighting, sound for regular theatrical and dance seasons included: Merce Cunningham, Meredith Monk, Mariano Para (flamenco), Lar Lubavich, Erick Hawkins, Claude Kipnis, Othello, Pins & Needles, others.  

  • Production Manager and Stage Manager Hartley House Theater, Off-Off Broadway NYC. Assisted directors and designers for 3 By Chekov and Houdini’s 9th; supervised all aspects of production, including casting.

  • Vice Chair Metuchen Cultural Arts Commission (7-terms). Produced 300+ performing arts and visual arts events including art shows, street fairs, symphonic, jazz and rock concerts, etc. Founded annual choral concerts with 10+ choirs, blues festival, and others.

  • Events Chair Metuchen Centennial Commission. Produced and managed 80+ events including play contest, concerts, dance and other performing arts events, televisions special programming, historical tours, gala dinner, etc.

  • Manager/Tour Director. Jimmy Santiago Baca’s October 1996 tour, including all arrangements for 13 events in NY and NJ (including 3 colleges, 3 high schools); read with Mr. Baca at most events

  • Spokesperson, Publicist, Talent Selection Co-coordinator, and Poetry Coordinator—First Night Woodbridge Township 1995. Included 230 professional performing artists

  • Board of Directors Edison Valley Playhouse, Edison, NJ

  • Board of Directors Actors Repertory Company, NYC, NY

  • Board of Directors Parish Players, Plainfield, NJ

Works by Betsy Robin Schwartz Performed by Others​

  • Memorial Park directed by Wendy Liscow, Forum Theater, Metuchen, NJ

  • this is just to say why she did not wax poetic directed by Terry Hands (Royal Shakespeare Company) Riverside Studios, London, UK

  • Words: A theater piece based on the poetry of Betsy Robin Schwartz directed by Wm. Perry Morgan, Appel Farm, Elmer, NJ; Several poems used in curricula of several school districts

  • Director, writer, performer Poet’s Wednesday Presents Betsy Robin Schwartz a staged dramatic reading of original poetry using 5 actors; received two AVY nominations for performers and a special commendation AVY Award.

  • The Grown Girl’s Jump Rope Songs performance with Scarlett Lee Moore Trenton Avant Garde Festival, Cafe Newz, and Prolitkult Poetry Circus.

Directing Experience 

(*= Brady/Morgan/Schwartz. +=co-directed and/or stage managed w/Prof. James Morgan)
 

NJ Theater League (NJTL) and Eastern States Theater Association (ESTA) Play Festivals

  • Total Abandon (1 hour version) at New Jersey Theater League (NJTL) 1990 Play Festival. Received Best Production, Best Actor, & Best Supporting Actor awards. 

  • Total Abandon (1 hour version) represented New Jersey in Eastern States Theater Association (ESTA) 1990 Festival in Wilmington, Delaware. 

Parish Players, Plainfield, NJ

  • Fourtune NJ Premier (AVY Award nomination)

  • Quilters*(AVY Award nominations, including Best Musical)

  • Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf

  • Tea & Sympathy (AVY Award nominations)

  • Total Abandon* (1989 AVY Award Best Drama) 

Nutley Little Theater, Nutley, NJ

  • Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris…*(AVY Award nominations)

  •  Biloxi Blues (with Jay Mohr)* (AVY Award nominations)

Somerset Valley Playhouse, Neshanic, NJ

  • Total Abandon* (AVY Award nomination)

Philatheans, Fanwood, NJ

  • Total Abandon* (also producer)

Parish Players at Edison Valley Playhouse, Edison, NJ

  • 2x3 an Evening of One Acts: Answers and Private Wars (AVY Award nominations)

Theatre at St. Luke’s, Metuchen, NJ

  • Mass Appeal

  • Crimes of the Heart* (AVY Award nomination)

Middlesex College, Edison, NJ

  • Def Poetry Jam on Broadway+ (first rights w/o original cast)

  • The Vaginal Monologues+

  • The Laramie Project+

  • Greater Tuna+

  • Dracula+

  • Loose Joints+

  • Fools+(AVY Award for stage management)

  •  A Little Night Music+

  • Noises Off+

  •  The Search for Intelligent Life...+

  • Fashion+

  • Working+

  • The Miser+

  • Quilt+

  • Ionesco’s Exit the King (American Theater Association (ATA) regional award) 

Staged choral readings and oral interpretation performances with various writers and performers in NY and NJ

Design and Production Experience

Set Designer

  • Quilters co-designer with Andy Gordanier (AVY Award nominations), Parish Players, Plainfield, NJ

  • Tea & Sympathy (AVY Award nomination), Parish Players, Plainfield, NJ

  • Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Parish Players, Plainfield, NJ

  • Mass Appeal, Theater at St. Luke’s Metuchen, NJ

Lighting Technician/Production Assistant

  • Hudson Guild Theater, Off Broadway NYC

  • Soho Rep, Off Broadway, NYC

  • Promenade Theater, Off-Broadway, NYC

Production Assistant

  • 6 Characters in search of an Author, Parish Players, Plainfield, NJ.

  • Girls Guide to Chaos, Parish Players, Plainfield, NJ.

  • Hay Fever, Parish Players, Plainfield, NJ. 

  • Table Settings, Parish Players, Plainfield, NJ.

  • Godspell NJ Public Theater, Berkely Heights, NJ

Assistant Director & Stage Manager

  • Really Rosie, (AVY Award nominations) Parish Players, Plainfield, NJ 

Producer

  • Beyond Therapy, (AVY Award nominations) The Studio Theater Company, Edison, NJ.

Acting Experience (post-college)

  • EMAIL: 9/12 Somerset Valley Playhouse, Neshanic, NJ

  • Love Letters Edison Valley Playhouse, Edison, NJ

  • Vagina Monologues, Middlesex College, Edison, NJ

  • Laramie Project Middlesex College, Edison, NJ

  • Really Rosie Parish Players, Plainfield, NJ

  • The Shadow Box (Agnes) Godot Productions at Middlesex College, Edison, NJ

  • You Know I Can’t Hear You When the Water’s Running (AVY nomination) Middlesex College, Edison, NJ

  • Crimes of the Heart, Theatre at St. Luke’s, Metuchen, NJ

  • Small roles and voiceovers in industrial, community, children’s theater, film, video, and radio productions.

Teaching Experience

Teacher 

  • Taught English; directed school play. Iselin Jr. High School, Iselin, NJ. 

  • Taught Acting and Theater Arts. Colonia Sr. High School, Colonia NJ. 

  • Designed, taught, & performed in children’s drama program in 32 parks. Woodbridge Township Parks & Recreation, Woodbridge, NJ. 

Tutor

  • Electronics, physics, mathematics

  • Writing, acting

  • Television production, interview technique, and performance

Creative Writing Workshops

  • Adult poetry workshop, American Jewish Poetry Festival, Sudbury, MA

  • Teen poetry and oral interpretation workshop, Appel Farm Arts and Music Center, Elmer, NJ

  • Poetry writing workshops, Bishop Ahr High School, Edison, NJ 

  • Poetry writing workshops, Piscataway High School, Piscataway, NJ.

  • Grades 2, 3, and 4 poetry workshops, Martin Luther King School, Edison, NJ

Judge/Adjudicator

  • Very Special Arts NJ's New Jersey Wordsmiths, VSA Teen Arts Festival

  • Various New Jersey Teen Arts Festivals creative writing and theater competitions

Acting coach & private tutor for local actors and other performing artists.

Education & Training

  • Kean University, Union, NJ. B.A. Cum Laude, English–Speech/Theater/Media; Graduate work in Reading Education

  • Middlesex College, Edison, NJ. A.A.S. Electrical Engineering Technology, honors, awards, special recognition award 

  • Middlesex College, Edison, NJ. Theater student, honors & recognition award.

  • Emerson College, Boston, MA. Theater Education student. 

  • NJ Secondary Teaching Certificates for English, Theater, and Speech Arts.

  • Lighting internship at Big Apple Lights with Rick Belzer and Rich Desimone

  • Lynn Winik and Elizabeth Coakley, Acting.

  • Veme Fowler, Dance & Musical Theater.

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