People
Adam J. Thompson (Founding Director) is a New York City-based performance director and producer and the Founding Director of The Deconstructive Theatre Project (DTP), for which he has most recently directed a contemporary two-actor cirque adaptation of Antigone. With DTP, he has also directed and produced Moisés Kaufman’s Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, co-directed and produced Michel Marc Bouchard’s Lilies, or the Revival of a Romantic Drama and created, directed and produced The Girlie Show and Brecht & Co. He is the resident stage director of photographer Sarah Small’s 120-model performance installation, Tableau Vivant of the Delirium Constructions, which he staged at Skylight One Hanson, the 2010 DUMBO Arts Festival and the East Village’s BathHouse Studios; he will reprise his directing duties during Tableau Vivant’s world tour to 13 cities in 2013. Adam recently served as the Directing Observer on Moisés Kaufman’s One Arm off-Broadway. He has received local and international artistic residencies from Kunsthof Tangendorf, The School of Making Thinking, Chez Bushwick, and the Center for Performance Research (CPR), and holds a BA in directing and dramaturgy from Emerson College in Boston. Adam has studied devised performance with Moisés Kaufman and Tectonic Theater Project, performance interactive media with Harvestworks, and aerial performance and choreography at The House of Yes.
Arielle Lever (Managing Director) is a New York City-based actor and teaching artist. She graduated from Syracuse University with a BFA in Acting, and has performed regionally at Syracuse Stage, internationally in London and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and most recently in several off off-Broadway venues. She is the creator of South Africa Volunteers, a community-arts-based theatre program in Port St. Johns, South Africa and is a co-founder of CO/LAB, a not-for-profit theatre arts organization dedicated to providing a creative outlet to people with special needs.
Ryan J. Davis (Board of Directors) Ryan is happy to join the Board after knowing Adam Thompson since 2000. As a director, he has developed several new shows including White Noise (NYMF ’06), My Life on the Craigslist (New World Stages) , Street Lights (NYMF ’09) and Vote! (Minetta Lane Theatre) He also directs & co-produces the annual Broadway Beauty Pageant, held each April to benefit The Ali Forney Center. As a member of The Deconstructive Theatre Project, Ryan co-directed the French Candian play Lilies, a benefit performance held at Middle Collegiate Church. He has contributed as assistant director to Off-Broadway’s Jacques Brel… (The Zipper) and as Director’s Assistant on Broadway’s Tony Award winning Jay Johnson: The Two And Only. As a politico, Ryan recently served in NH as GOTV Triage Lead at Obama’s State Headquarters and was a member of the Obama Pride NYC Leadership Committee. He is a veteran of Gov. Howard Dean’s 2004 Presidential Campaign and sits on the Board of Directors of the Lambda Independent Democrats of Brooklyn. For his activism, Davis has been honored by The American Association of Political Consultants and awarded a Nightlife Award by The Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club for protecting nightlife. He contributes to The Hill & The Huffington Post and blogs at http://ryanjdavis.blogspot.com.
Danielle Hicks (Board of Directors, Core Artist) Danielle graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi in 2006 with a BFA in Theatre Performance. While in school, she had the opportunity to perform in various shows including: Fefu and Her Friends, The Cripple of Inishmaan and The Vagina Monologues. She was also a company member of Southern Arena Theatre, a summer repertory theatre company in Mississippi. Her shows at SAT included: Around the World in Eighty Days, The Game of Love and Chance, and Schoolhouse Rock LIVE! After leaving Mississippi, she spent a year in Boston where she became involved in The Deconstructive Theatre Project. As a member of DTP she has appeared in The Girlie Show and performed in the workshop for Brecht and Co. She is currently living in Atlanta where she is actively pursuing her acting career.
Gary J. Luca Jr. (Board of Directors) Gary has been working with The Deconstructive Theatre Project since its incorporation in 2006. As a consultant, he worked closely with the board of directors to assist in matters of corporate organization and governance. Gary is the founder and president of Lucariello-Staffiere Incorporated, providing technology, finance and general business consulting services to small and non-profit organizations in the Greater Boston area. He currently resides in his hometown of Malden, Massachusetts. Gary holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Suffolk University, with a major in Accounting, and is currently pursuing his Master of Business Administration from University of Phoenix. He comes to the Board of DTP with more than eight years of experience working with small, non-profit and government organizations. This is his second year on the board.
Melia Bensussen (Board of Advisors) Melia is the recipient of an OBIE Award for Outstanding Direction, and has directed extensively around the country and in New York. Theatres where she has directed include Baltimore Centerstage, Hartford Stage Company, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, La Jolla Playhouse, the New York Shakespeare Festival (where she was an Artist in Residence for many years), Manhattan Class Company, Primary Stages, the Long Wharf, Actors Theatre of Louisville (Humana Festival), People’s Light and Theatre Company (Barrymore nomination for Best Direction), San Jose Rep, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, and many others. She has directed the world premiers of works by Alan Ball (Five Women Wearing the Same Dress), Lee Blessing, Jeffrey Hatcher (Turn of the Screw, Scotland Road, Fabulous Invalid), Richard Dresser, Edwin Sanchez, Joe DiPietro, Regina Taylor, Willy Holtzman, Eduardo Machado, Y York, and others, as well as collaborated with such distinguished writers as Tony Kushner, Jonathan Larson, and Jose Rivera on productions of their plays. She was twice given Directing Awards by the Princess Grace Foundation, USA, and is a recipient of their top honor, the Statuette Award (for Sustained Excellence in Directing). Her edition of the Langston Hughes translation of Garcia Lorca’s Blood Wedding is in its fifth printing by Theatre Communications Group. A graduate of Brown University, she is a featured artist in Women Stage Directors Speak, by Rebecca Daniels (published by McFarland and Company), and her production of Twelfth Night at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival is featured in Women Direct Shakespeare, by Nancy Taylor (published in 2005 by Fairleigh Dickinson University Press).
Colman Domingo (Board of Advisors) Colman is an Obie Award winning actor as well as director, writer, and photographer. He has originated unforgettable roles on Broadway in the Tony, Drama Desk, and New York Critics Circle award winning musical Passing Strange. He was in the acting company of Lisa Kron’s Well on Broadway. His solo debut the he created, A Boy and His Soul played to sold out houses at The Vineyard Theatre, Joe’s Pub, and The Thick House in San Francisco. He has performed Off-Broadway in Bright Ideas (Manhattan Class Company), Henry V, Passing Strange (NYSF/Public Theater), American Maul (Culture Project/Reverie), Wet (Summer Play Festival) and, And Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi (Sundance Lab/Public Theater). Mr. Domingo has performed extensively at Berkeley Rep, The Guthrie, A.C.T, Huntington, California Shakespeare Theater, San Jose Rep, TheatreWorks, Hartford Stage, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, S.F. Shakespeare Festival, Perseverance, Indiana Rep, Geva, Campo Santo, Thick Description, Theater Rhinoceros, Sundance Theater Lab and The Eugene O’Neill Playwright’s Conference. Films include Passing Strange and Miracle at St. Anna (dir. Spike Lee), True Crime (dir. Clint Eastwood), Freedlomland (dir. Joe Roth, King of the Bingo Game (PBS) and Around the Fire. Mr. Domingo’s collaborations have garnered him a diverse and varied career. He was the standby for “Black Thought” of the Grammy Award winning Hip Hop group “The Roots” for the Carnegie Hall performance of “Ask Your Mama” starring Jessye Norman. He collaborated with Leigh Fondakowski for 5 years on the critically acclaimed work The People’s Temple that centered on the People’s Temple Church and Jim Jones. Mr. Domingo has directed the Off-Broadway premieres of Exit Cuckoo by Lisa Ramirez, and Single Black Female by Lisa B. Thompson. Television appearances include recurring on many “Law and Order” and “Nash Bridges” episodes. He is a series regular on the hit Logo/MTV series “The Big Gay Sketch Show” produced by Rosie O’Donnell. He has received a Bay Area Theater Critics Circle Award, Back Stage West/Dramalogue, five Dean Goodman Choice Awards, commissions, fellowships and/or residencies from the March of Dimes, The San Francisco Foundation, New York Theater Workshop, New Professional Theater and Theater Bay Area.
Rachel Hicks (Board of Advisors) Rachel received her Bachelor of Arts in English and History from The University of Pennsylvania in 2004. For two years following, she taught seventh grade English in the Mississippi Delta under the auspices of Teach for America, the national teacher corps dedicated to eliminating educational inequity. In 2006 Rachel was accepted as a Presidential Scholars Fellow into the prestigious John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She graduated from the Kennedy School in 2008 with a Master in Public Policy. Rachel currently resides in Jackson, Mississippi where she founded and serves as the Executive Director of Mississippi First, a new not-for-profit organization promoting better public policy in education, health, and the alleviation of poverty.
Kathy St. George (Board of Advisors) Kathy has appeared in Dear Miss Garland; Follies; And Now Ladies and Gentleman, Miss Judy Garland; Adrift in Macao; The Girlie Show; Respect, A Musical Journey; Menopause the Musical; I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change; Tell Me On A Sunday; and Definately Doris: The Music of Doris Day . Broadway: Fiddler on the Roof, directed by Jerome Robbins (1991 Tony Award); off-Broadway: I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change and five national tours. Regional: Long Wharf Theatre, Barter Theatre, Kansas City Starlight, Westbury and Valley Forge Music Fairs, Rochester Opera House and the Riverside Theatre in Florida ( Peter Pan – “Best Actress” Award). Local credits include: Ruthless!, Pete ‘n’ Keely, Nine , Das Barbecu (“Best Actress” IRNE Award), Jackie: An American Life, Follies in Concert , and Shear Madness. Kathy is a Stoneham native and a Salem State grad. Proud AEA member since 1981. www.kathystgeorge.com.
Liz Duffy (Core Artist) Liz received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she studied visual art, fashion design, and arts administration, and she spent 2 summers at Ox-Bow, school of art and artists’ residency. She has worked for various arts organizations since 2007, and served on the Board of Ravenswood ArtWalk, Chicago, IL, in 2008. Also a life-long dancer, she last appeared in Sondheim’s Follies. She began collaborating with The Deconstructive Theatre Project in August of 2009, contributing as a visual artist to the workshop of The Orpheus Variations.
Ryan Homsey (Core Artist) Ryan’s wide range of compositional styles has led him to compose for theater (New York City’s Metropolitan Playhouse, Emerging Artists Theatre, Astoria Performing Arts Center, The Deconstructive Theatre Project), dance (Minnesota’s American National Ballet and The Minnesota Ballet), and the concert hall (Young New Yorkers’ Chorus and American Radio Choir; NYC). Ryan has attended composition workshops with American choral composer, conductor and text-setting specialist Alice Parker. He was honored by the State University of New York with the 2007 Patricia Kerr Ross Award for excellence, originality and promise in the arts. Ryan also enjoyed a seven-year professional dance career in ballet and musical theatre that includes the Minnesota Ballet, American National Ballet, Lexington Ballet Company and Norwegian Cruise Line-Hawaii with productions under the guidance of Cameron Mackintosh and Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Really Useful Group. He has appeared in productions of Show Boat and Stephen Foster: The Musical. Ryan is from Superior, Wisconsin. He holds a Bachelor of Music from Purchase College’s Conservatory of Music where he studied Studio Composition under Emmy-winning composer Allyson Bellink. He is currently a graduate student in composition at New York University, and on faculty at SUNY Purchase College.
Caitlin Meehan (Core Artist) Caitlin has been a member of The Deconstructive Theatre Project since 2006, choreographing and performing in The Girlie Show and the workshop performance of Brecht and Co. Caitlin graduated from Muhlenberg College in 2006 with a BA in Dance and French. While at school, she worked with choreographers Karen Dearborn, Jennifer Kayle, Charles Anderson, and Tiffany Mills, among others, as well as created her own modern dance work. She also appeared in On The Town at Muhlenberg, and has dabbled in summer community theatre. In the fall of 2004, she studied and danced in Aix-en-Provence, France. Since returning to the Boston area, Caitlin has worked with Danny Swain Dance Company and is currently dancing with Monkeyhouse.
Laura Sisskin-Fernandez (Core Artist) Laura’s stage credits include Top Girls, Life Under Water, Eleemosynary, A Movie Star Has to Star in Black and White, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, Hamlet, and Coriolanus. She is a founding ensemble member and Core Artist of the Deconstructive Theatre Project, where she performed in Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde is currently developing the role of Federico Garcia Lorca in Colonia. She made her directorial debut with a production of The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, which she also produced. Laura holds a BFA in acting from Emerson College, and is a recipient of the New Jersey Governor’s Award for the Arts and the Penelope Hirsch Directing Award.
