The People I Know
Jump to: THEATER | MUSIC | FILM | WRITING | COMEDY | PHOTOGRAPHY | ART | RADIO/AUDIO | BLOGS | FUTURISTS | WELLNESS/HEALTH/LIFESTYLE | IN MEMORIAM
THEATER
Erin Alexis [is] "an actress, published writer and a stand-up comedian." Toured across Canada with Tom as the actress in Freak Out Under the Apple Tree.
Ali Skye Bennet: "​I make things. Things = stories, plays, performances, events, images, experiences." Appeared in The Alternative Lifestyle Fair and The Relationship Expert.
Gamze Ceylan [is] "a German-Turkish actress living in NYC. My journey started in Berlin. I then moved to Istanbul and London before I settled in NYC. Followed my strong acting urge that started in London, and I ended up training as an actress, singer, and dancer." Appeared in the first ensemble of Cats Can See the Devil.
TJ Dawe: "Writer. Performer. Director. Instructor. [H]as toured many autobiographical monologues, often about shitty jobs and unrequited love. [H]as performed at more than one hundred theatre festivals and performing arts centres."
Edward Einhorn [is] "a playwright, director, translator, librettist, and novelist. I am also the Artistic Director of Untitled Theater Company No. 61, a non-profit indie theater company based in New York."
Kurt Fitzpatrick "is a writer/performer who is very much alive."
Clara Francesca "is the Philosopher of the Heart making Art. An award-winning artist, director, & speech coach, Clara’s passion is unlocking the individual’s authentic voice with a genuine curiosity for investigating what it truly means to co-exist in such a diverse world.... Clara continues to create digital and non-digital invigorating art, theater, exhibitions and music as a solo artist and as a member of multiple New York ensembles."
Nicola Gunn "works across contemporary performance, choreography, theatre and socially-engaged art as a performance artist, writer, director, choreographer, facilitator, and dramaturg."
Harrington & Kauffman: "Richard Harrington & Chris Kauffman are a theatrical comedy duo from New York City who have toured around the world with the three shows they have created as their alter-egos Gustave and Nhar." Richard appeared in a Callous Cad video segment.
Ian W. Hill - Gemini CollisionWorks "was founded in 1997 by multidisciplinary artist Ian W. Hill as a company to produce his work for the stage as director/designer, both original plays and restagings." Ian portrayed the General in a Callous Cad video segment.
Dan Jeannotte "is an actor, improviser, voice artist and writer. He is featured in the new series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds as Sam Kirk, brother of James T. Kirk."
Kim Katzberg "is a Brooklyn-based NYIT Award winning writer and performer who has been creating genre-bending, darkly comedic multimedia theatrical works since 2010." She has been a long-time collaborator of Tom X. Chao, having originated the role of Tuesday in Cats Can See the Devil.
Luke Landric Leonard "is an American artist, theatre director, actor, playwright, filmmaker, and educator. He is the founder and artistic director of Monk Parrots in NYC, and Assistant Professor of Experimental Media and Performance at Seoul Institute of the Arts."
Jennifer Lieberman: "Independent film & theatre producer, award-winning & Amazon #1 best-selling author." Assisted with Cats Can See the Devil.
Deb Margolin "is a playwright, actor, and founding member of Split Britches Theater Company. She is the author of numerous plays ... " Tom studied Performance Composition with Deb at NYU, and he appeared in her play Critical Mass as The Stage Manager.
Adam P. Murphy - Acting With Adam: "Acting coach – I started my professional acting and voice acting career in 1998 in NYC."
Charlotte Pines "is a filmmaker, actor, photographer, and multimedia artist." Portrayed The Magical Being in Callous Cad.
Rosalie Purvis: Performance practitioner/educator at the University of Maine. Originated the role of The Magical Being in Callous Cad.
Devon Ragsdale: "Creator of Janet, Your Personal Life Coach and other odd things." Appeared as the Stage Manager in Callous Cad.
Shawn Sides "has been a performer, director and producer in Austin, TX, and occasionally New York for 20 years. She’s a founder and a Co-Producing Artistic Director of Rude Mechs in Austin, TX ... " She appeared as the Woman in a White Dress in Tom's very first performance in NYC, The Negative Energy Field.
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MUSIC
Roberto Barnard Baca – "Composer of chamber, orchestral and electro-acoustic music." Professor, University of Guadalajara, Mexico.
Alex Eddington "is a composer, sound designer and theatre artist based in Toronto, Canada." Alex assisted with scoring the strings for "I Wish I Were Pretty" by Tom X. Chao.
Forrest Fang "is an ambient progressive musician who emerged from the DIY-'cassette culture' 80′s scene with highly idiosyncratic style influenced by the minimalism of Steve Reich, Philip Glass and Terry Riley, the progressive rock of Jade Warrior and Mike Oldfield, and the traditional musics of non-Western cultures, including Javanese gamelan and the folk music of his Chinese ancestors."
Moto Osada – "Remarkable for its unique blend of harmonic textures, Mr. Osada’s music often draws on Japanese themes and traditional instruments to augment Western harmonies.... He has written extensively for film and television, as well as for the theater and dance media." Based in Tokyo, Japan.
Shanghai Love Motel: Bryan Brown, Bill Millard, Mark Hennessy. Rock band.
Woodhead: Vern Woodhead, Yana Davydova, Dmitry Ishenko. "Woodhead has been playing no-wave influenced rock around NYC for several years."
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FILM
John Harlacher "is an actor, stage director, and filmmaker based in New York City. He has directed one feature film: 'Urchin' which was released theatrically in February 2007." Tom has a small cameo in "Urchin."
Michael R. Perry "is a producer and writer, known for The River (2012), Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999) and The Voices (2014)." (From IMDB.)
Chris Paine – Papercut Films: "Chris is a Los Angeles based filmmaker whose credits include: 'Who Killed the Electric Car?' (2006), 'Revenge of the Electric Car' (2011) and 'Do You Trust This Computer' (2018)."
Cara Yeates – "Canadian filmmaker living in Upstate NY." "Cara's short film 'Gone Before Your Eyes' premiered at the Woodstock Film Festival this fall before screening at the Mill Valley Film Festival and winning Best Narrative Short at the Buffalo International Film Festival."
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WRITING
Michele Carlo "is a native New Yorker, a Nuyorican, a natural redhead — and an author/storyteller/comedy-adjacent performer who has appeared across the U.S. ... Many of Michele’s early Moth stories appear in her book Fish Out Of Agua: My life on neither side of the (subway) tracks (Citadel/Kensington)." She and Tom started their theater journeys on the same evening at Dixon Place many years ago.
John Devore "is a writer living in New York City. His work has appeared in Esquire, GQ, and The New York Observer. He is the winner of two James Beard literary awards for an essay about Taco Bell and growing up biracial." Author of forthcoming memoir, Theatre Kids: A True Tale of Off-Off Broadway.
Leslie Kendall Dye [is] "an actress, freelance writer, and dancer in NYC. I write book reviews, nostalgic essays, stuff about acting and dancing, humor pieces, and sometimes stuff about parenting." Portrayed Margot in Summer, Deepening Then Gone.
Sara Gourdazi "is a Brooklyn writer and holds an M.A. in journalism from New York University and an M.S. in engineering from Rutgers University." Author of debut novel The Almond in the Apricot.
Heather Harpham "is a writer, teacher and theater artist whose fiction, essays and reviews have appeared in Slate, Parents, More, Water~Stone Review and Red Magazine in the UK. Her memoir, Happiness: The Crooked Little Road to Semi-Ever After, was released in 2017 ...."
Eve Kerrigan "is a writer of fiction and personal essays as well as a teacher and editor. She is an enthusiast of all things amusing and creative." She appeared in Callous Cad.
Richard Lange "is the author of the collections Dead Boys and Sweet Nothing and the novels This Wicked World, Angel Baby, which won the Hammett Prize from the International Association of Crime Writers, The Smack and Rovers."
Betsy Pisik: "I’m a Pulitzer-nominated journalist with a 30-year background in foreign affairs, diplomacy, armed conflict, investigative reporting, investor relations, and the $50-billion legal cannabis industry. I had the privilege to co-write with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon 'Resolved: Uniting Nations in a Divided World,' published by Columbia University Press in 2021."
David Wharton "has filled an array of roles – covering the courts, entertainment, sports and the second Persian Gulf War – since starting as a Los Angeles Times intern in 1982.... He has ... been nominated for an Emmy and has written two books, including 'Conquest,' an inside look at USC football during the Pete Carroll era.
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COMEDY
Ducks Breath Mystery Theatre: "Troupe members include Jim Turner (the eccentric folksinger Randee of the Redwoods, a 1980s MTV regular), Dan Coffey (Dr. Science), Merle Kessler (Ian Shoales, NPR's acerbic mile-a-minute sneer artist), Leon Martell (the beleaguered art instructor) and Bill Allard (the flustered nun Sister Mundi Mr. Johnson)."
The Pajama Men: "Shenoah Allen and Mark Chavez are an American comedy duo and character comics from Albuquerque, New Mexico."
Rob Paravonian – RobPRocks: "With the mind of a comedian and the soul of a musician, Rob Paravonian seamlessly fuses sharp comedy performances with top-notch musicianship."
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Phil Buehler "is a New York based photographer who documents the deterioration and remnants of neglected architecture constructed in the recent past. He is arguably the first to coin the neologism 'modern ruins'."
Anthony Rhoades – Rhoadesfoto.com: "Professional photographer and expert level retoucher in Brooklyn, NY, and the Mid-Hudson Valley."
Beowulf Sheehan "is a New-York based photographer of figures in the arts and humanities. To date, he's photographed better than 1,000 writers from more than 60 countries." Author of Author, a book of author portraits.
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ART
Lisa Levy – Lisa Levy Industries: "Lisa Levy is a conceptual artist, comedic performer and (self-proclaimed) psychotherapist."
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RADIO/AUDIO
Seth Madej – Special Relativity [radio play]: "A radio comedy starring Alex Borstein. The most evil woman on Earth travels back in time and kidnaps her younger self in a last-ditch attempt to foil her own plan to destroy the Universe. Featuring Dee Bradley Baker, James Urbaniak, and Ted Travelstead." Tom's voice appears a few times also.
Tom Tenney [is] "a freelance podcast producer/editor, and the co-founder and Executive Director of Radio Free Brooklyn, a nonprofit community radio station I started in 2015."
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BLOGS
Trav S.D. – Travalanche: "The observations of actor, author, comedian, critic, director, humorist, journalist, m.c., performance artist, playwright, producer, publicist, public speaker, songwriter, and variety booker Trav S.D." Well-known chronicler of vaudeville and Coney Island.
Steve Snyder – My Fall Semester: "Periodic reflection on teaching at a small liberal arts college." Grand View University, Des Moines, Iowa.
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FUTURISTS
Roger G. Gilbertson - "I make up stuff, sometimes with words, sometimes with molecules. Occasionally both. Outside the box thinker, always ready with 'one more option'." Longtime collaborator of Chris Paine. The Unusual Earth Orbit Circling Above Our Ancient Past [lecture]. IMDB. Linked In.
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WELLNESS/HEALTH/LIFESTYLE
Rachel Astarte "is a licensed psychotherapist and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing. She received a diploma in Mind-Body Wellness from Southwest Institute of Healing Arts, where she also received her certifications in Transformational Life Coaching and Clinical Hypnotherapy." Appeared with Tom in Jaded Individual.
Mikki Baloy: "Personal healing & rites of passage for the spiritually curious, tender-hearted, and conscientious. Shamanic and mystical understandings can help us course-correct both our inner and outer worlds."
Allegra McBane "is the owner of Mamatoto Wellness LLC. She is a Certified Yoga Teacher (500 RYT), a Postpartum Doula and a Certified Lactation Educator Counselor (CLEC)."
Masha Sapron "received her 500-Hour Yoga Certification from YogaWorks in Los Angeles under the mentorship of Lisa Walford, Kia Miller, and Chad Hamrin. She is a mother of three and writes about yoga and motherhood at www.ayogiisborn.wordpress.com and www.MothersYoudLikeToFriend.com." Appeared as the Woman in a White Dress in The Negative Energy Field.
Jean Vitrano "draws on her training in mindfulness practices, meditation and body therapies to assist her clients in living with greater peace, ease, and awareness."
Krista Worth – Krista + Home: "Krista is Connecticut-born, New York-trained and happily adopted by Palm Beach County. Her modern, clean and surprisingly classic aesthetic has earned her a reputation as Palm Beach County’s go-to interior designer." Appeared as Dr. Evelyn Florentine in the first ensemble of Cats Can See the Devil.
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IN MEMORIAM
Anne Bernstein (1961-2022) [was] "a comedy/animation writer and story editor. Her association with the influential animated series Daria endear[ed] her to clever misfits around the world." (From IMDB.)
Dennis Gunn (1961-2015) "was an incredibly gifted musician, first and foremost as a drummer. He was also a singer/songwriter, a guitar player, and a producer." (From Legacy.com.) Listen to his album here.
Tony Lovett (1961-2014) "was the co-author with Matt Maranian of the regional cult classic, L.A. Bizarro, a best-selling underground guidebook to Los Angeles." (From Wikipedia.)
Paul A. Sergios (1961-1994). Filmmaker, AIDS activist. Author of One Boy at War: My Life in the AIDS Underground.