MEET THE CAST OF HENRY IV, PART 1

 

 

 

Abby Anderson

GLENDOWER/SHERIFF/MESSENGER/TRAVELLER

Abby is delighted to be making her New Orleans Shakespeare Festival debut! Favorite regional credits include Joanna in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (Sierra Repertory Theatre), Shelby in Steel Magnolias (Forestburgh Playhouse), and Truly Scrumptious in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre). She holds a BFA in Musical Theatre from Rider University, and is currently an MFA Performance candidate at the University of Southern Mississippi where she recently played the role of Ruth Condomine in Blithe Spirit.

 

 

Jake Bartush

PRINCE HENRY 

Jake just hit 10 years in New Orleans and is excited to be
making his New Orleans Shakespeare Festival debut. Last seen in Tennessee Williams Theater Company’s View Carré (The Writer), other recent credits include NOLA Project’s Spider Queen (Ranger Clark), Twelfth Night (Feste), and Robin Hood (Sheriff of Nottingham); Goat in the Road’s Numb remount (Horace Wells); Second Stars’ Chesapeake (Kerr-Big Easy Award). Jake has a BA in Theater from Marymount Manhattan College.

 

 

Silas Coper*

KING HENRY

For New Orleans Shakespeare - Much Ado About Nothing, All’s Well That Ends Well, The Tempest, The Illusion, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Cymbeline, Romeo & Juliet and Julius Caesar. Other local stage work includes Our Town and Dividing The Estate at Le Petit, Orphans at the Allways, SPILL at Swine Palace, 33 Variations at Southern Rep, and The Diary of Anne Frank, To Kill A Mockingbird and True West for NOCCA Stage Company. Silas has toured nationally in Noises Off, appeared in Moscow, London and New York, and regionally at Baltimore Center Stage, Delaware Theatre Company, Utah Shakespeare Festival, and in Los Angeles at The Falcon, 24th Street and Colony. Directing credits include Einstein and the Polar Bear in Los Angeles, The Trip to Bountiful at NOCCA Stage, and Driving Miss Daisy at JPAS. TV/Film: the lead in Snakeskin Jacket, The Big Short, The Green Lantern, Columbiana, Chameleon, Multiplicity, Schizopolis, Justice For Natalie, Dr. Vegas.

 

 

Robinson J. Cyprian

WESTMORELAND/BARDOLPH

Born in Hammond, Louisiana, raised in Trenton, New Jersey, this
is Robinson’s first show with New Orleans Shakespeare Festival. Recent credits include: the radio drama play Moby Dick in the Dark (Captain Ahab) with Chicago-based theatre company Theatre in the Dark, as well as Topdog/Underdog (Lincoln), produced by RoBenHood Productions, an up & coming theatre company on the Northshore co-helmed by Robinson. He is a graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi.

 

 

Mike Harkins*

FALSTAFF

Mike Harkins holds his M.F.A. in Acting from the University of New Orleans. Directing credits include Oleanna, Closer, Lobby Hero and Sideman. Mike has been seen in Cat’s-Paw, DetroitA Streetcar Named Desire, Noises Off, 33 Variations, King Arthur in Monty Python’s Spamalot, as the Rev. T. Lawrence Shannon in The Night of the Iguana, as Jackie (Dad) in Billy Elliot. Sound Design credits include Hamlet, Venus in Fur, Spamalot, Mold, 39 Steps and many others with Southern Rep, Rivertown/Theatre13, The NOLA Project and The New Orleans Shakespeare Festival.

 

 

Monica R. Harris

WORCESTER

Monica R. Harris is a SAG-E/EMC actor and occultist with a BA, Theatre Arts from Loyola University. As You Like It marks 3 seasons of performing with New Orleans Shakespeare Festival at Tulane! She’s so happy to back with The Bard this summer. When she’s not soothsaying “One call, that’s all!”, haunting your dreams, or tarot reading, she directs and produces. Her recent credits include The NOLA Project’s Treasure Island, reprising both Lauren Gunderson’s The Revolutionists as a Whitman College guest artist as well as Wynton Marsalis’ A Fiddler’s Tale with Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. Monica is a proud core team member of the original work in development & Come ‘Round in Circle and will debut in Vieux Carré with Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theatre Festival this fall.

 

 

Shelley Johnson

LADY PERCY/DOUGLAS/BARDOLL

Shelley is thrilled to be back at Tulane Shakespeare Festival this summer! Past productions playing in Much Ado About Nothing (Conrad) and All’s Well That Ends Well (Nurse/ Widow). Shelley is from Atlanta, Georgia where she worked with Georgia Shakespeare Festival (Julius Caesar) and Stone Mountain Park; In 2012 she moved to New Orleans after receiving her MFA in Theatre Performance from USM. She has performed with Rivertown Theaters (Legally Blonde/One Man, Two Guvnors/Boeing Boeing/Christmas Carol/Peter Pan/ Wizard of Oz), Southern Rep (Christmas at Pemberly), Le Petit (Death of a Salesman), and NOCCA as an Actor and Fight Director over the years. Currently, Shelley teaches Talented Theatre for grades 6th-12th with St Tammany Parish and she adores working with her amazing students every day. Shelley is a recognized actor combatant with SAFD and DAI. She is a certified vocal teacher with the Lessac Institute. A ton of love to Adam and the kids for their unwavering support.

 

 

Kris LaMorte

SIR RICHARD VERNON / PETO 

Kris is delighted to return to the New Orleans Shakespeare Festival, previously seen in Julius Caesar. Shakespeare credits include roles with Swine Palace, Dallas Shakespeare Festival, and Fort Worth’s Shakespeare in the Park. In addition to acting and doing voice overs, Kris is a Professor of Theatre at Delgado Community College. He has directed 12 Angry Jurors, Tartuffe, The Boys Next Door and many others. He received his MFA in Acting from LSU and BA from Texas Wesleyan University. In New Orleans, Kris has performed with The NOLA Project (A Few Good Men), InSideOut Productions (Coyote on a Fence), and the Native Tongues series, among others

 

 

Alexandria Miles

MORTIMER/FRANCIS/SOLDIER/TRAVELLER 

Alexandria Miles is thrilled to be making her New Orleans Shakespeare Festival debut. She has recently earned her MFA in theatre performance at the University of New Orleans. Some of her previous New Orleans acting credits include Romeo and Juliet, Redux, Fool for Love, and RapUnzel. alexandriamilesacting.com.

 

 

Robert A. Mitchell

NORTHUMBERLAND/GADSHILL

Robert is pleased to make his debut with New Orleans Shakespeare, having just returned from his former hometown, St. Louis, where he portrayed Shealy in a production of August Wilson’s Jitney at The St. Louis Black Repertory Company. Other recent roles in NOLA have been Sheldon Forrester in Trouble in Mind (Tulane), Winning Boy/US in The Piano Lesson (Le Petit), Don Quixote in Camino Real (TWTC), and Julius Winfield in Pulp Shakespeare (at Nonprophets-South). Look for him soon as Dr. Buchanan in Tennessee Williams’ Summer and Smoke at TWTC. He also is Artistic Director of his own company.

 

 

Matthew Raetz

JOHN OF LANCASTER / POINS

In New Orleans Matthew has appeared as Jack (The Rose Tattoo), Dr. Sugar (Suddenly, Last Summer), Tom WingValley (For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls) and Jim O’Conner (The Glass Menagerie) for the Tennessee Williams Theatre Company. Nominated for a Big Easy award for his performance in Menagerie, Matthew has appeared at the NOSF as Dromio (Comedy of Errors), Lennox (Macbeth), and Florizel (The Winter’s Tale). Matthew played Cliff Bradshaw (Cabaret) at Rivertown Theatre, and he also is the Conductor for Warner Bros. The Polar Express Train Ride every winter. A NOCCA Alumni, Matthew owns/operates YellowBoxCircus with Reid Williams, a New Orleans based Circus Troupe specializing in various Circus and Performing skills. Book them for your next event!

 

 

Mark Swift

SIR WALTER BLUNT 

A current MFA theatre performance graduate candidate at USM, Mark is thrilled to be making his debut with the New Orleans Shakespeare Festival. Previous credits include A Woman of No Importance (Walnut Street Theatre), Dracula (Hedgerow Theatre), and Almost Maine (Wings of Paper). Mark is an alumni of the Hedgerow Theatre fellowship program and Rider University where he graduated with a BA in Theatre Performance.

 

 

Brittany N. Williams*

HOTSPUR 

Brittany N. Williams is an actress, writer, singer, and Co-Artistic Director of The NOLA Project. She’s performed across three continents—including a year spent as a principal vocalist at Hong Kong Disneyland—and several US states. Brittany holds a BFA in Musical Theatre from Howard University and an MA
in Classical Acting from the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama. Some of her favorite credits include Universal Robots (Helena), Margaret I (Joan of Arc), Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds (Nansi – Helen Hayes Award Nom.), Antony and Cleopatra (Soothsayer/Clown), and Lear (Cordelia/Fight Captain). You’ll find Brittany on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok as @BrittanyActs and at brittanynwilliams.com.

 

 

Cassie Steck Worley

MISTRESS QUICKLY 

Cassie first appeared on this stage as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet directed by Buzz Podewell for the opening of the Lupin Theater. She has been loving Shakespeare ever since. Audiences may remember her as Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Lady McDuff and Second Witch in Macbeth, Valeria in Coriolanus, Mistress Ford in The Merry Wives of Windsor and Gertrude in Hamlet. She is thrilled to serve as Chair of the Advisory Board and is most proud of The Festival’s annual re-mount which brings Shakespeare to six thousand high school students each January.

 

 

*appears courtesy of Actors' Equity Association 

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