Welcome to Whiskey Theatre Factory & Fragmented Theatre Festival’s Production of:
Cyrano on the Moon
A play by Monica Cross
Program Note
Cyrano’s Moon
by Jodi Antenor
As Cyrano yearns for the moon, I do too.
The friend I made long ago, one of few.
He describes what I’ve known all of my life,
And would also agree there is nothing alike.
A trick, an illusion, a ruse that is played,
Cyrano cuts them like dragons, that’ve been slayed.
Strength from the moon fills him from within,
As he takes on the challenges that once were his sins.
This fills me with glee as I can relate,
She helps with my battles, no matter the stake.
As fierce as the moon fights by our side,
There is always a challenge from which we can’t hide.
What is the secret behind Cyrano on the Moon?
Will he rise above all or fall to his doom?
A lesson to learn from the lovers and friends
Say how you feel, long before the end.
A tale unrequited, and needlessly so.
Say how you feel, and let the rest go.
the cast
&
The
Creative
Team
Ghina Fawaz (“Roxanne/Cynthia”) is a senior at Rollins College, double majoring in Psychology and Theatre with a double emphasis in performance and directing. She is an aspiring playwright and has had her work featured around Central Florida including the Orlando Fringe! Previously, she appeared with Whiskey Theatre Factory's "Broad Strokes: an evening of monologues and plays exploring what it means to be a woman in America."
Kate Murray (Show Host, “Sister Marthe”) is an educator, performer, producer, sexuality and communication advocate, & social justice mage. She’s been seen on theatre and burlesque stages throughout Central Florida and is the founder of Orlando's Society of Life Exploration. For over a year, she brought her American sass to the stages of France with her home troupe Burlesque Moulin before coming back home to fight the patriarchy and eat Taco Bell. She is passionate about telling unique stories and reducing shame around difficult topics.
R. Graham Rogers (“Cyrano”) is a Playwright and Actor who recently earned his BFA in Acting from the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music (CCM) Acting program. Recent acting highlights include: Joe Marks in Sex and Education (Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati) and Sam in The Flick (The Esquire). He is delighted to be back acting after a nearly two-year-long haitus. Graham’s plays have been produced off-Broadway at the Lucile Lortel Theatre with Young Playwright’s Inc, as well as in Ohio, Tennessee, and Florida. His original play Black & White was a part of Fringe Development at the 2019 Cincinnati Fringe Festival and his series Happy Hour: The Bar Series was a part of Play(under)ground at The Know Theatre in November 2018. Graham is also a yoga teacher, massage therapist, and mindfulness practitioner.
Logan Turner (Show Producer, “Sister Claire”) is an actor and playwright in Central Florida. Although dance was her first love, Logan found a home in theater in college. She received her BFA in Theatre Arts from Nebraska Wesleyan University and spent 13 years in Chicago before making her way to the Orlando area. Logan has trained at the Art's Sake Studio in Meisner technique and appeared in local theater and film projects. As a former dancer, singer, synchronized swimmer, and orchestral musician, she is passionate about all forms of performance art that are collaborative, evocative, and above all, entertaining.
Arius West (“Christian”) graduated from the University of Central Florida with his bachelor’s in Theatre and Education with a concentration in Stage Combat. He is a teaching artist and performer with The Orlando Repertory Theatre and seasonally works with Oddoties Entertainment at SeaWorld. Arius is also a coach for a high school step team, he serves as a lead & assistant teaching artist for ArtReach Orlando, who integrate the arts within school curriculum, and he was an original member of The Orlando Magic’s coed Hip Hop Dance team, The 407. Considering the impact of Covid-19 on all of this, Arius now spends a lot of his free time virtually connecting & collaborating with other artists, acting in & directing virtual productions, and more! More recently, he has slowly but surely been getting involved with live productions as safely as possible.
Monica Cross (Playwright) is a playwright from Gainesville, Florida. Her short plays have been produced across the United States and online. Her play The Aria of Julie d’Aubigny was a 2021 semifinalist for the O’Neill New Play Conference as well as a semifinalist for the American Shakespeare Center’s Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries competition. Her play Wonder of Our Stage won best play at the Players Centre for Performing Arts’ New Play Festival in 2018 and was a part of the Backstage at the Players Summer Sizzlers in 2019. Monica won the John Ringling Towers Individual Artists Award for Performing Arts in 2019 and was a Fellow at the Hermitage Artist Retreat the same year. She is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild of America, Playwrights Thriving, and the Writer’s Alliance of Gainesville. Her work is available on the New Play Exchange.
Jodi Antenor (Digital Director, Dramaturg, Poet) is an actress and playwright with more than 16 years of experience in the entertainment industry. At the age of 18, she moved to Florida and was immediately welcomed with three back to back hurricanes. Ever the optimist, she stayed in Florida where she went on to perform in a multitude of different shows and parades at several different theme parks including Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, and the Nickelodeon Hotel. As a part of the development team for the Whiskey Theater Factory, Jodi hopes to create a community where playwrights and actors feel welcomed, confident, and free to explore their creativity. In her free time, Jodi loves to play softball and travel to new destinations.
Carlee Coulehan (Show Editor) is an actor and editor who is based in Los Angeles. She studied Acting and Media Production at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music where she performed in multiple theatrical productions and film festivals in the States and internationally. Roles include a performer in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival production H2O: A Play About Water, and Kathy in Clybourne Park. She also created her own short film Mouse in the House which premiered at the local Cindependent Film Festival in Cincinnati. She is a co-founder of the Fragmented Theatre Festival alongside Bethany and has helped run it since its debut. Carlee recently moved out to California and currently works as an assistant editor at a behind the scenes media company. She is so excited to work on this experimental project that incorporates her two favorite things: theatre and editorial work!
Bethany Dickens Assaf (Director) is the Literary Manager for MadLab Theatre of Columbus, a teaching artist with Central Florida Community Arts, and a founding member of both the Fragmented Play Festival in Cincinnati and the Whiskey Theatre Factory of Orlando, and is a member of Next Stage Playwrights Cincinnati. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, a member of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas.
She would like to thank everyone in this production for giving their time and talents to this show and being proactive and positive throughout. This has truly been a joyous process!
Angela Flynn (Show Designer) is a wife, homeschooling mom, and first-time grandmother residing in Orlando, FL. An involved parent, supporting her children’s performing pursuits, Angela found herself immersed in the theater world. That plunge uncovered talents and creative desires Angela never considered. She discovered a passion for costume design and a potential career as the end of homeschooling nears.
Some design credits include Titanic the Musical with CFCArts Community Choir & Symphony Orchestra. Disney’s The Little Mermaid, The Music Man, and The Secret Garden with CFCArts Youth Musical Theater Troupe. The Consciousness with S&K Productions, and Big Brad Wolf with Playwrights' Round Table. She also designed all of the costumes, hair, and makeup for Playwrights' Round Table's Science Fiction Shorts: an evening of short plays.
ABOUT THE PLAY
Cyrano de Bergerac wakes up in a lunar afterlife ready for more adventure. Meanwhile, Roxanne, still living with the convent walls, struggles to reconcile her love with Cyrano's legacy. Roxanne sets herself to the task of writing the postmortem adventures of “Cyrano on the Moon” with the help of two Nuns. On the Moon, Cyrano battles the embodiments of vice, compromise, and all of Cyrano's old enemies with the help of his old friend and rival Christian. As scenes shift back and forth between the surface of the Moon and the convent’s small chamber, the two worlds begin to collide, and the three women take turns entering the world of Cyrano's adventures and question him about life and love.
Sound effects obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com
Thank you to all of our contributors from past shows who added a donation to their or made an investment in wtf!
(If you added a donation to your ticket for “Cyrano on the Moon” you will be on this list of awesomeness for our next show!)
Ken Preuss, Davis Strauss, Kathryn Harding, Elle Dowdy, Ed Anthony, Danielle Miller, Elizabeth Marshall, Aliyah Colon, Brooke Dennis, Kimberly Patel, Jess Reilly, Logan Davis, Michelle Pascua, Jen Jacobson, Anthony Gonzalez, Cathy Rabino, Lars Seiler, Emily Lupfer, Leah Porrata, Patrick Rosengrant, Sara Oliva, Chris Niles, Jim Serrano, Jon Anderson, Florian Boehm, Alexandra Bautista, Ella Palardi, Jordan Henry, Carlee Coulehan, Suzi Appleton, Monica Rabino, Faith Dickens, Ashley Dougherty, Jennifer Barnickel-Fitch, Karen Berwick, Maxine Derington, R Graham Rogers, Nicole Amero, Molly Schoolmeester, Bennett Webb, Manuel Solis, Joshua Cartee, Pierre Antenor, Debra Cole, Nancy Dickens, Nicholas Simons, Donna Murray, Stephen Woosley, William Marksbury, Chris Niles, Jamie Clinton, Monica Cross, Katie Dumoulin, Jen Simon, Susan White, Cynthia Williams, Stephen Sturk, Meghan Pratt, Melody Winters, Christine Chouinard, Douglas Muscott, Amy Barnickel, John Boggess, Mala Patel, Doug Powhida, Jan Steffen, Gay Stenftenagel, Keith Jackson, Will Hunter, Mark Fernando, Brian Coley, Michael Hill, Sara Bitter David Schlosser, Matthew Kurk, Christine Cho, Robin Bidwell, Amanda Creighton