On the Boards ’25

P.H. Crosby (playwright) writes poetry, fiction and drama, and has worked here and
elsewhere as a board administrator, teacher, and bookseller. Crosby’s work has appeared
in Rattle; War, Literature and the Arts; Friends Journal; and Blue Unicorn; work is
forthcoming via Silkworm and The Aplomb Project. Readers Theater adaptations by
Crosby of “The Odd Women” and “Bartleby the Scrivener” were produced at the Lava
Center in Greenfield in 2022-23; and an original play, “Modern Times”, appeared in
2024.

Tracy Grammer (director) is an actor, director, storyteller, cat-tender, and nationally-touring singer-songwriter based in Greenfield. She thanks LAVA and playwright PH Crosby for the opportunity to help fledge this tender new work. tracygrammer.com

Kendra Corrie is a stand-up comic, writer, and visual artist. She’s also the proud granddaughter of Martha: Senior Presidential Tailor (‘63-‘91), who told off Lyndon B. Johnson for groping her during their first professional introduction.

Katie Hertel is very excited to be a part of On the Boards again this year, and she is grateful to LAVA for making it happen and to her family for being awesome.

Ashley Kramer is thrilled to be joining the LAVA Center for their On the Boards: New Play Festival. As a student, Kramer studied American Literature and Theater at New York University. She currently lives in Greenfield with her family and is a musician, an educator, and the grant writer for Stone Soup Café.

Priscilla Mollard is a bioarchaeologist with aspirations of theatrical grandeur. She has only recently returned to the stage after many, many years away. Since high school actually, but who’s counting? This is her first performance with the LAVA Center but hopefully not her last!

Maya Quiñones is currently pursuing her MFA in Dramaturgy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is passionate about deeply human stories. Paramount to her artistic ethos is empathy and grace. She is also a fan of cats, both musical and otherwise.

Konrad Rogowski is an award-winning actor, director, and published playwright, from Western MA. He has performed with the Suffield Players, Suffield CT, with lead roles in MacBeth, Sweeney Todd, Hearts, and Jaques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. He is the recipient of the Mass Critic’s Circle Career Achievement Award.

Charlene Kennedy, director, is Professor Emerita of Theatre. She was awarded an NEH fellowship to study Shakespeare at the American Shakespeare Center, and she was a Directing Fellow at The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. Directing credits include more than 100 productions. Personal favorites include Blood Brothers, Avenue Q, Noises Off, The Importance of Being Earnest, Twelfth Night, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear, Rathmines Road, and CLASS.

A Southern Vermont native, Nicole Winot’s most recent performances include Annelle in Steel Magnolias with Rock River Players and Under Milk Wood with Actors Theater Playhouse. This will be her first production with LAVA.

Elizabeth LaPrade is an actress and writer, having worked in numerous
plays and films over the years. Few things in life thrill her more than the connection she feels when creativity flows. She is presently in production with a one-woman show she wrote about a woman’s enlightening and vulnerable journey to her ultimate transformation.

Jeremy Ebersole is honored to be a part of this year’s On the Boards event. He was last seen at LAVA in last year’s 25-Hour Play Festival, and before that in 2004 when he tried his hand at acting as a college undergrad. Jeremy is a historic preservationist working in Brattleboro, VT, and serves on Greenfield’s Historic Preservation Commission. He is an expert on neon sign preservation. Jeremy lives in Greenfield with his wife, 2 young kiddos, and 3 kitties.

Brandon Williams is from Dorchester, Massachusetts. He first started acting in 2009. Acting is the hardest thing to do, and it affects every aspect of my life, so he won’t stop doing it.

Ryn Griffin recently moved back from Costa Rica to the Valley to continue improving his teaching and performance arts. He feels honored to participate in this project.

Narrow House: Dreams to Let is Nathan Haugh’s debut with LAVA and his first performance as an actor. While he has some previous backstage experience, his work-life has prevented him from acting, so he is excited for this opportunity!

Joanne Graves is a sacred storyteller and a sacred story receiver, as evidenced by her life as an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, a Personal Care Assistant for elders, and a student at Happier Valley Comedy School in Hadley, MA. She shares stories on stage as “Joyanne.”

Rex McGregor is a New Zealand playwright. His short comedies have been produced on four continents from New York and London to Sydney and Chennai. Website: https://www.rexmcgregor.com/

This is Ed Fitzgeralds’s first experience directing. His first acting experience was in fifth grade playing the lead of Santa Claus. He took a sixty-year hiatus and appeared last summer in the role of Guiseppe the glass maker in “Family Business” at Suffield Players.

Lindel Hart is a writer, performer, and yoga teacher whose commissioned adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein premiered in the abandoned First National Bank Building in Greenfield and was subsequently mounted at the Springfield Museums, the Academy of Music Theatre, and a 15-performance run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland. His most recent onstage appearance was in Orlando at the Academy of Music Theatre in Northampton in May.

This is the third summer that Sandra Wang has participated in Lava’s play reading series. She loves being here collaborating with others and contributing to works in progress.

Jeremy Geragotelis is a playwright, composer, and scholar. Their plays and projects include The Preparation to the Death of Mary Dyer (KCACTF, Musical Theater Award Winner | O’Neill Music Theater Conference Semi-Finalist), Doctor Vysarius (w/ Steven Glavey), and IT’S LIKE RIDING A BIKE (The American Prize Finalist, 2023). They received their MFA from the Iowa Playwrights Workshop and are currently pursuing their PhD in American Studies at UMass Amherst.

Ezekiel Baskin (they/them) is a freelance theater director, lighting designer, and producer. As a director, they focus on new work. They are the President of the Board of Silverthorne Theater Company, a Governing Member of Real Live Theatre, and a member of the Artistic Advisory Team for Play Incubation Collective.

K Adler is a performance artist and producer based in Western MA. They work regularly with Eggtooth productions and are a co-founder of Cloudgaze arts collaborative. They are the voice of “Art Chat with Kat” on 93.9 The River delivering weekly updates on arts and culture in Franklin County.

Jamie Berger has done a good amount of performing of various sorts, nearly all of it decades ago back in NYC and San Francisco. He lives in Turners Falls with his wife Anja Schütz, dogs Mario, Kono, and Ingrid, and cat, Mink, and works as an independent college admissions consultant.

Drew Chortkoff (they/she) is a musician and performer living in the Pioneer Valley. They are overjoyed to have a hand in the realization of local art like this.

Ash is a local theatre director, co-founder of Green Brain Theatre, and co-captain of the 2012 Mansfield High School tennis team.

Lindel Hart is a writer, performer, and yoga teacher whose commissioned adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein premiered in the abandoned First National Bank Building in Greenfield and was subsequently mounted at the Springfield Museums, the Academy of Music Theatre, and a 15-performance run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland. His most recent onstage appearance was in Orlando at the Academy of Music Theatre in Northampton in May.

Katie Hertel is very excited to be a part of On the Boards again this year, and she is grateful to LAVA for making it happen and to her family for being awesome.

Maya Quiñones is currently pursuing her MFA in Dramaturgy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is passionate about deeply human stories. Paramount to her artistic ethos is empathy and grace. She is also a fan of cats, both musical and otherwise.

This is the third summer that Sandra Wang has participated in Lava’s play reading series. She loves being here collaborating with others and contributing to works in progress.

Eva Schegulla is a full-time writer, publishing under multiple names in fiction and non-fiction, and an internationally produced playwright and radio writer.

Karina Lutz worked as an environmental activist; editor, reporter, and magazine publisher; professor, yoga teacher, and workshop facilitator; farmer, carpenter, and seamstress. Her books are Post-Catholic Midrashim and Preliminary Visions; other poems are linked from karinalutz.wordpress.com.

Ezra Prior is mainly a standup comic though has recently transitioned to turning his jokes into scripts and vice versa until one format fits best. He has bombed for NPR and crushed inside rooms of three so if there’s anything it’s ever done consistently, it’s fail, and also be consistent in writing and performing until this failure becomes good writing.

Deborah Kearney, Irish of Ashfield. Climbed Kilimanjaro 2023. Learns best from children. Writes for the child in all of us, who learn easiest in the scenery of song.

Howie Faerstein is the author of 5 poetry collections. Multiple Pushcart nominee, & Cutthroat Discovery Poet, he lives in Florence, MA. https://howiefaerstein.com

Jo-Anne Hart has performed her nonfiction pieces in New England, Sweden, and Norway. She was a Grand Slam Winner at the Ko Festival of Radical Performance in Amherst, and at the 2024 PVD Fringe Festival her work was voted Best One-Person Show and Best Love Story.