2021 MEDUSA PRODUCTION TEAM:

Nathan Cohen - Music Director
Laura Crook - Production Director
Jamileh Jemison - Producer
Brian King  - Artistic Director
Eileen Little - Aerial Theatrical Director

For Spring/Summer 2021, the team is retreating to Manship Artists Residency + Studios to further adapt "Medusa" as fully staged live-action play. She will be rising again soon!




CHARLES HAYDEN PLANETARIUM PRODUCTION | SUMMER 2019 & JAN 2020

PROGRAM

"The ritual object comes first; then the monster is begotten to account for it; then the hero is supplied to account for the slaying of the monster"
 — JANE ELLEN HARRISON, CLASSICAL SCHOLAR (1850 -1928)

THE CHARACTERS

The Olympians
Athena - Goddess of Wisdom, War, Strategy, and Weaving
Poseidon - God of the Oceans, Seas, Earthquakes and Horses
Zeus -  King of the Greek Gods; God of Thunder and Lightning
Aphrodite - Goddess of Love and Sex
Artemis - Goddess of the Moon and the Hunt
Apollo - God of the Sun, Poetry, and Music

The Mortals
The Woman From Crete - a local woman living alone on the mostly abandoned island
Perseus - Son of Zeus, hero and adventurer 
Medusa - a young woman in line to become a priestess of Athena
Megara & Myopi - Medusa’s sisters
The Sailor - a reveler at Athena’s festival 
The High Priestess - the local religious authority
Queen Cassiopea - widow of King Cephus, she is regent ruler of Athens until a man takes her place by marrying her daughter, Andromeda​
Princess Andromeda - daughter of Queen Cassiopea and the late King Cephus
Captain Phineus - a famous Athenian hero, sea captain and suitor to Andromeda
The Kraken - Poseidon’s great sea monster


SHORT SYNOPSIS

PROLOGUE: Crete, 1100 BC
The adventurer Perseus is on a divine mission to behead the infamous monster, Medusa. On route he meets a local woman who questions his motives.

ACT ONE: Athens, 50 years earlier 
It’s the annual Festival of Athena. The seaside is brimming with music and revelry. A young woman named Medusa is enjoying the festivities with her sisters Megara and Myopi until a drunken sailor upsets their day. The High Priestess of Athena attempts to settle the dispute. Up in Olympus, Athena and Poseidon discuss their philosophical differences in dealing with mortals. Each demonstrates their ideology in action. 

ACT TWO:  Athens, 1100 BC
Queen Cassiopeia has been acting as regent of Athens since her husband King Cepheus has died. She is eager to marry off her daughter Andromeda to Captain Phineus so he may rule the great city. Not all goes as planned.

ACT THREE: Crete & Athens
Back on Crete, Perseus and the local woman discuss what it means to assassinate the Gorgon. Captain Phineus tries to intervene with his own agenda. Meanwhile in Athens, Princess Andromeda meditates on her identity and future. In Olympus, the gods and goddesses must reckon with their past.

Produced by Poison Peach Productions & Museum of Science Boston

James Wetzel — Producer, Adult Programs 

Danielle Khoury LeBlanc — Director of Charles Hayden Planetarium 
 
Story & Script by Brian King

Adapted for the Charles Hayden Planetarium by Brian King & Nathan Cohen

Script Editors 
Nathan Cohen, Sharron Cohen, Eileen Little & Craig Houk

Script Consultants
Shaina Doberman, Laura Crook, Remi Ibraheem, Nicholas Christie, & Elizabeth Chloe Erdmann

Animation, Sculpture & Environmentals 
Ruth Lingford - hand drawn animation
Norah Solorzano - sculpture, stop-motion, and after-effects
Jason Fletcher - Lead video & visual designer
Jason Fletcher, Heather Fairweather, Chuck Wilcox, Wade Sylvester - 360 assemblage, editing, synchronization, and art direction

Voice Casting & Voice Over Director
Eileen Little

The Cast:

The Olympians
Laura Crook as Athena
Richard Thieriot as Poseidon
David Crawshaw as Zeus
Nadia deLemeny as Aphrodite
Elinor Teele as Artemis
Dennis Monagle as Apollo

The Mortals
Eileen Little as The Woman From Crete
Elizabeth Chloe Erdmann as Medusa
Daniel Loeser as Perseus
Natalie Hegg as Andromeda
Miss Mary Mac as The High Priestess
Aurelia Nelson as Queen Cassiopea
Seth Chatfield as Phineus
Stephen Libby as The Sailor
Renee Dupuis as Megara
Amanda Cook as Myopi
Nathan Cohen as The Navigator

Athenians
Catherine Gunn, Barbara Drake, Craig Reed, Reg Edmonds, Sharron Cohen, David Cohen, Jane Beddus, David Beddus, Roy Gottlieb, Celene Lyon, & Norie Mozzone

Music performed by What Time Is It, Mr. Fox?

Brian King - voice, guitar, keys
Renee Dupuis - voice, keys, melodica
Nathan Cohen - violin, trumpet, banjo, voice
Joe Cardoza - bass, voice
Dennis Monagle - drums, voice

“House of Cards,” “Devil Vs. Scarecrow,” “He Was A Cloud,”  “Learning To Drown,” “Into The Black,” & “On Fire” 
written by Brian King 

“Ghost” written by Renee Dupuis

“Fly Away” & “The Witness”
written by Nathan Cohen & Brian King

Audio play Recorded, Edited, and Mixed
by Warren Babson
Bang-A-Song Studio, Gloucester MA

Sound Design
Nathan Cohen & Brian King

Sounds of the Greek Salpinx from “Around the World in Twenty-One Trumpets” online resources. Performed on the Boston Salpinx (Museum of Fine Arts) by Terry Everson, Associate Professor of Music, Boston University. 

Logistics, PR & Social Media
Anna Rae

Planetarium Tech
Talia Sepersky, Darryl Davis, Heather Fairweather, Jason Fletcher

This production was supported in part by grants from the Gloucester Cultural Council and Rockport Cultural Council, local agencies which are supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency. 

Live Sound
Joel Simches

Performance Photography
Jonathan Beckley

Main Medusa Logo Image Licensed by KV/Athena Designs Workshop, Athens Greece. 

Special thanks to 

Elizabeth Chloe Erdmann for her boundless support and wisdom

Laura Crook for her profound advice and love of this project

Anna Rae for her insight, dedication, and friendship

The Goddess Pilgrimage of Crete

Gloucester Stage Company

Daniel Lobser

Gaelen, Annie, and Levon
for letting us cut into playtime

and to all of our loved ones, fans, and cheerleaders throughout this project!

for news about What Time Is It, Mr. Fox? join our mailing list at  www.whattimeisitmrfox.com
for updates and news about Medusa visit www.medusaspeaks.com
​

CAST & CREW BIOS

Eileen Little - Voiceover Director, Casting Director, Editor, and voice of "The Woman From Crete." Eileen Little received her MFA in Acting from the National Theater Conservatory and is a graduate of the New England Center for Circus Arts.  When not filming movies and commercials, she performs regularly on various aerial apparatuses with the Boston Circus Guild, is a member of the touring company, Girls on Trapeze, and is the co-artistic director of Fight or Flight; an aerial theater company based in New York City.  Eileen is also an aerial instructor at ESH Circus Arts and Seaside Circus.

Laura Crook (Athena) is an actor, writer, and director. She has performed locally at North Shore Music Theater, Boston Center for The Arts, Merrimack Rep, Huntington Theater Company, Worcester Forum Theater, Salem Theater Company, and Gloucester Stage Company. Some of her favorite roles include Carol Ann Hearts Beating Faster (Premiere, BCA), Hermia A Midsummer Night’s Dream (NSMT and Champlain Shakespeare Festival) Cherie Bus Stop (Worcester Forum Theater), Lizzie The Rainmaker and Lenny Crimes of the Heart. She directed the critically acclaimed one woman show Queen of Wyoming for both the East to Edinburgh Festival (59E59 NYC), and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (George Square Edinburgh). Her first play But for the Grace of God has been produced multiple times and is published in The Boston Theater Marathon 2009 Anthology. Currently Laura is working on licensing and producing her musical adaptation of Cornelia Funke’s When Santa Fell to Earth.

Elizabeth Chloe Erdmann (Medusa) is a thought leader in new frontiers for modern, feminist theology and religious studies. She is a passionate theorist on “Nomadic Theology”—with a deep affinity for goddess-related history. Erdmann holds a Master of Theological Studies from Boston University, served as a fellow at Amarkantak Tribal University in India, and is currently pursuing a doctorate researching Contemporary Feminist Goddess Worship & Thealogy from UCC, Ireland. She is a published author and regular speaker on culture, religion, and feminism. She is an intellectual explorer, asker of questions that challenge boundaries, collector of lost stories, and a curious woman in love with the mysteries of the world.  What drew me to the role of Medusa in King’s play is how he empowers her character—not by simply making her a victim turned vicious “monster” who seeks vengeance on those that hurt her—but instead showing how wisdom and compassion ultimately direct her life.

Natalie Hegg (Andromeda) is an Artistic Associate with Hunger and Thirst Theater, where she has appeared in Triffles and Messenger #1. She also composed music for their inaugural production Ivanov, and workshop of The Seagull Project. Other favorite credits: Kill Me Like You Mean It, Potion, and The Bachelors’ Tea Party (Stolen Chair Theatre), Rock ‘N’ Roll and A Christmas Carol (American Conservatory Theater), Dancing Boobies Trilogy (Center for Performance Research), workshops of Collapse and Elisabeth & the Water Troll (New Harmony Project). MFA: American Conservatory Theater, BS: University of Evansville.

Richard Thieriot (Poseidon) is an actor and playwright living in New York City. He has worked on stages in NY, Denver, San Francisco, Baltimore, Houston, Washington DC, LA and more. He is thrilled to be a part of Medusa and is looking forward to more collaborations in Massachusetts. He can be seen at The Edinburgh Fringe in August and then at Rattlestick Theater in NYC in October/November in Monsoon Season by Lizzie Vieh.

Daniel Loeser (Perseus) is a New York based actor and writer that has appeared on television, New York and regional stages. He is also the Associate-Artistic Director of Fight or Flight, a trapeze and aerial based theatre company. This is Daniel's first time lending his voice to an animated film that’s being projected on the dome of a planetarium accompanied by live music, and he hopes you enjoy the show!  

Miss Mary Mac (High Priestess) has been performing in and around the Boston area for the past 25 years. She was a founding member of Acme Theater and Catbox Cabaret and was the front woman for the cabaret band, Sukey Tawdry. Some of her favorite performances have included performing with Up With People for the King and Queen of Belgium, and Ben Vereen and the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall. She is currently a member of the theater company Avenue Stage, which premiered the new works Fish Food by local playwright Michael O'Halloran at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2017, and AddictShunned by Judith Austin at the Boston Playwrights' Theatre in 2018.

David Crawshaw (Zeus) is new to voice acting but loved being a part of the ‘Medusa’ crew. He is currently working to manage Daggett Farm in Pawtucket Rhode Island and looks forward to continuing his work as a voice actor.

Nadia deLemeny (Aphrodite) is a British actor, director and voice over artist, as well as a producer and casting director at Charles River Media Group. Nadia has been wanting to work with Brian King for years. She has never had so much fun working in a recording studio as she did giving voice to Medusa: Reclaiming the Myth, and thinks the project is a 'beyond perfect.' 

Aurelia Nelson (Cassiopeia) is a voice over professional with over thirty years experience in narration, voice acting, and on air work. She is an account manager, award winning copy writer and the host of Curtain Up on North Shore 104.9FM radio. As a cheerleader and booster of the regional arts and performance scene she is delighted to be part of such a creative and talented group. It's fun to play with the cool kids

Seth Chatfield (Phineus) is an actor, director, artist and musician based in Southern New Hampshire. As an actor has worked in several feature films, dozens of sketch comedy skits, TV, music videos and theatre productions and this year directed his first short film, "Winkville." When he's not making art, he practices yoga, conducts gong-based sound immersions and offers Reiki as a Master in the Usui Sensei lineage.

Elinor Teele (Artemis) is an author, actor, playwright, and screenwriter. She holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge and has published two children's novels with HarperCollins. Her short plays have been performed at Boston's SWAN Day, Salem Theatre Company, and Boston Actors Theater. Learn more: elinorteele.com.

Dennis Monagle (Apollo)  Drums & Vocals. Dennis Monagle started acting and modeling at the tender age of 8 years old, after his mother picked him up from school one day and brought him to Cameo (Kids) modeling agency in Boston. As his keen mom knew this “ham” would, Dennis took right to it, and a year later was cast in “Sister Mary Ignatius Explains it All For You” - an off-Broadway hit that showed for 6 weeks at The Charles Playhouse. He continued working in television commercials and print work, including 4 different board-game covers, through his pre-teens. It was around this same time that Dennis’ passion for music found him behind the piano, taking lessons for 5 years. He also loves to sing, and studied voice performance with a private teacher.

It was in high school when Dennis turned his attention to his dad’s instrument, and began to hone his drumming skills. Soon thereafter, he was joining different bands, recording, and touring the country to perform. Dennis is the drummer in What Time Is It, Mr. Fox?, and has had the honor of performing with them at esteemed venues, such as Club Passim, Oberon (ART), the North Shore Music Theater, as well as The Shalin Liu Performance Center in Rockport, MA. As a hungry and ambitious musician, Dennis has kept busy with other bands, artists, and projects, including Qwill, Funk du Jour, Groove Therapy, Shagalot, Safety, Renee & Joe, Orville Giddings, The Bandit Kings, Christine Baze, Mike O’Connell, Brother Chameleon, and many others. 

​

Amanda Cook (Myopi)Amanda Cook lives in Gloucester with her husband, James, and children Abigail and Samuel. She sees writing and using her voice as an integral part of life. She performs, knits, spins yarn, plays fiddle, feeds people, and dances when she pleases. She teaches and works at the Gloucester Writers Center. Her book, Ironstone Whirlygig, was published by Bootstrap Press in 2017. She is currently working on Letter to Maximus, a poem-by-poem reaction to Charles Olson’s Maximus poems.

Stephen Libby (Sailor) Stephen Libby has been appearing on Boston stages for almost 20 years. Some notable roles include Dad / Elvis in Cooking with Elvis and Rosencrantz in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, (Apollinaire); Dylan Thomas in A Child’s Christmas in Wales (Boston Playwrights' Theatre / Boston Children's Theatre); Guildenstern in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Bad Habit Productions); Bunny in Misalliance, Dromio of Ephesus in Comedy of Errors, Starveling in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Publick Theatre); and additional appearances with Wheelock Family Theatre, Exquisite Corps, Shakespeare Now!, Opera Boston, Makeshift Theatre Co., and on tour with Shakespeare & Company. Stephen is the co-founder of Simple Machine, where he directed their inaugural production, rogerandtom, and played Man in the critically-acclaimed The Turn of the Screw.

WRITERS & BAND

Brian King is a songwriter, playwright, and performer. Born and raised in the seaport town of Gloucester, MA, Brian has been writing and performing professionally for 20 years. Through his original songs and scripts, Brian carries audiences through raw meditations on love, religion, sexuality, and identity. Whoopi Goldberg once described King’s voice as “the last thing I want to hear before bed to ensure I have beautiful dreams.” His song “Cold Rain” was covered by New Orleans Soul Queen, Irma Thomas, on her Grammy-nominated CD “Simply Grand,” earning the track high praise in Rolling Stone, USA Today & The Village Voice. With his neo-cabaret band, What Time Is It, Mr. Fox?, Brian has released 3 albums, toured the American Northeast and South, and released numerous art and music videos. Following its premiere in the Afterglow Festival in Provincetown, "Gravitational Fool," Brian’s original theatrical circus show about queer stereotypes, has been performed throughout the Northeast, including the ART in Cambridge. In addition to performing Brian has worked in public health for over 15 years as an educator and advocate on issues such as LGBTQ+ inclusion, HIV/AIDS, intimate partner violence, and social justice. These experiences inform his writing and art as he seeks to engage audiences in self-exploration, expression, and healthy community-building. In his new full-length stage play, Medusa, Reclaiming the Myth, King retells the Medusa tale for the modern era, in the spirit of revisionist works like Mists Of Avalon and Wicked. He draws on academic and cultural literature, as well as on-site research in Greece and Crete, to highlight themes of female empowerment, cunning, collaboration, and triumph inherent in the history but often suppressed in the classical texts. 

Co-founder of What Time Is It, Mr. Fox?, Nathan Cohen is a multi-instrumentalist performer, composer, and conductor. He is the director of the Rockport Public Schools Orchestra and Chamber Music program in Massachusetts and an adjunct professor of music at Endicott College in Beverly, MA. He is also Music Director for the New York City based aerial theater company, Fight or Flight Productions, an ensemble that stages new and classic works (on trapeze).

Renée Dupuis is an active professional vocalist and private music teacher. With a degree in vocal performance from the University of Hartford’s Hartt School of Music, Renée enjoys a diverse career as a freelance musician, writing and performing with her acoustic duo Renee & Joe and as a part of  What Time is it, Mr. Fox?. She is also a soloist with the Cape Ann Big Band.  Renée was Artist Coordination Manager for Parma Recordings from 2008-2013 , during which time she managed orchestral and chamber music recordings on-site internationally, working with musicians and recording engineers in the Czech Republic (Prague, Olomouc), Russia (Moscow) and The Netherlands (Amsterdam).  She also attended events, managed recording sessions and album releases in New York City, Las Vegas, and Washington DC. Renée is also an instructor and member of the board at Sound Harbor Community Music School in Gloucester, MA.

Joe Cardoza graduated from Berklee College of Music in 2006 and has since been performing and teaching music, based out of the North Shore of Boston, MA.  He has performed with many artists including Stan Strickland, Dave Mattacks (Fairport Convention), and Dave Brown (Billy Joel, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon). In 2010, Joe toured the West and East Coasts of the U.S. with rock group, The Bandit Kings, and he toured the American South in April 2015 with What Time Is It, Mr. Fox? Along with percussionist Dennis Monagle, he has co-hosted the Monday Night Jam at the Rhumbline Pub in Gloucester MA, a haven for professional musicians who want to collaborate and experiment with new musical styles. He plans to release a second album of original music with his wife, Renée Dupuis, in 2016. Joe currently teaches bass, guitar, and keyboard to private students and in the Rockport Public Schools in MA.

ANIMATORS

Ruth Lingford has been making short animated films since studying fine art and art history at Middlesex (1987–1990) and animation at the MA level at the Royal College of Art (1990–92). Her films have been broadcast by Channel 4 in the UK, and have won many awards all over the world. She taught in the MA animation program at the Royal College of Art and at the National Film and Television School. Her films are made using 2D digital techniques, often combining drawing and treated live footage. She is known for making “feelbad films” which use the seductive medium of animation to draw the audience in and take them to uncomfortable places. The Old Fools (2002, 6 min.) is a film of a poem by Philip Larkin, voiced by Bob Geldof. The film looks with a mixture of fear, disgust, and compassion at senile decay and the inevitability of death. An Eye for an Eye (2002, 5 min., 30 sec.), codirected with the Shynola collective, is a music video for UNKLE. An epic and multi-layered fantasy, it has been acclaimed variously as an anti-war film, a psychoanalytic exploration of infantile oral aggression, and a cool pop promo. Pleasures of War (1998, 11 min.) is a retelling of the Biblical story of Judith and Holofernes, and explores female aggression and the links between war and sexual desire. It was devised in collaboration with the novelist Sara Maitland, and was featured as one of the 150 Best Films Ever Made in Film: The Critic’s Choice, edited by Geoff Andrew. Death and the Mother (1997, 11 min.) is based on a Hans Christian Andersen story, and invites the audience to contemplate the things that are worse than death. What She Wants (1994, 4 min.) is a film about sex and shopping, the social deployment of sexuality, and capitalism in detumescence. She animated sequences for the film Secrecy by Peter Galison and Robb Moss, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2008, and for the award-winning documentary We Still Live Here, directed by Anne Makepeace.  She was the recipient of a 2008–09 Harvard Film Study Center Fellowship for Little Deaths, a short animated film using recorded interviews, which has won awards at three international festivals and been shown in over 40 festivals and theaters around the world. Recently she has worked on documentaries for PBS and NBC. In Summer 2017, she completed Trump Dreams, a short film based on dreams about Donald Trump collected from 2016-2017.

Norah Solorzano is a Multimedia Artist with a love of animation, puppetry, automata and performance. Her work has been shown at venues including SXSW, London International Animation Festival, the ICA, and on PBS. She has taught animation to students from elementary to college all over the Boston, New York and New Mexico areas, including LUCAD, SMFA, and CUNY. She received her BA from Harvard and earned her Masters in interactive media at Tisch NYU. Norah currently lives in Albuquerque.