Kenny C. Gannon, PhD

Director and Associate Professor of Theatre

In May 2009, Kenny was named the new Alumnae Distinguished Professor. He holds a PhD in Theatre from Louisiana State University, an M. M. from Converse College, and a B. A. from Samford University; He has directed over 80 productions and acted in over 100. Recent acting projects for Kenny Gannon include Sigmund Freud in the Royal Court play “Hysteria” for Burning Coal Theatre, Roy Cohn in both parts of “Angels in America” for Theatre in the Park, and Jeremiah Mears in “God’s Man in Texas” for the Southern Appalachian Repertory Theatre. Directing projects include “Little Women the Musical” for SART, “Cry Havoc,” “King Lear” with Eddie Levi Lee in the title role, “THEmisanthrope,” a new adaptation set in Las Vegas, “Uncle Vanya” with Michael Mattison and Jim Frick set in the Mississippi delta in the 1930s, his own adaptation of “A Doll House” set in New York City in the 1950s, and “My Sister in This House” with Estelle Bajou, all for Peace College in Raleigh, North Carolina. Since coming to Peace in 1995, Kenny’s productions have regularly won rave reviews and many “Best of Triangle” awards from the Raleigh News and Observer, the Independent Weekly and the Classical Voice of North Carolina. His 2002 production of “Twelfth Night” set in the Louisiana bayou during Lent was named one of the year’s top five productions by the N&O.

His production of “Cat On a Hot Tin Roof” at Hot Summer Nights at the Kennedy featuring Melissa Kite, Lamont Wade and Michael Hunsaker was named one of the year’s best in 2005. His students have gone on to study at Juilliard, Harvard, VCU, ADA in New York and Los Angeles, and the Manhattan School of Music, among many other schools. He regularly brings in guest artists from all across the country to work with his students. He is particularly proud of his associations with playwrights Barbara Lebow, Tom Key and Eddie Levi Lee. He has directed numerous productions of “A Shayna Maidel” all in collaboration with Lebow and commissioned her to oversee the writing of new play for Peace College. Furthermore, under Kenny’s direction, Peace College produced the first American production of The Shared Experience’s adaptation of “Jane Eyre.” Playwright and Artistic Director Polly Teale came to Peace College to work with the students on the production and then flew with the cast to New York to see The Shared Experience production at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Jennifer Mann Becker

Technical Director, Lighting Designer and Production Manager

Jenni moved to Raleigh from Brooklyn, NY where she designed for both educational and professional venues. An MFA graduate from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, her credits include scenery for “Tartuffe” and “Crumbs from the Table of Joy” at Burning Coal Theatre; resident scenic and lighting designer for College Light Opera Co. in Cape Cod where she designed “Pirates of Penzance” and other Gilbert & Sullivan productions; and as production designer for Amnesia, winner of the 2000 Martin Scorsese post-production Award for a short film in New York City.

Flynt Burton

Assistant Director and Acting Coach

Flynt has an MFA in Acting and joined the Peace community in 2007. She has co-directed several fascinating stage projects including, “TheMisanthrope”, and “Cry Havoc” with Dr. Kenny Gannon. She also created and directed “The Searchlight Project” a provocative bit of original theatre for PCT last semestre. Flynt carries on as actor, director, and acting teacher. As an undergraduate, Flynt attended Sweet Briar College, another outstanding women’s college and thrived from all the extra opportunities afforded to her there and now feels a special connection to the women in theatre at Peace.

Jeff A. R. Jones

Fight Director

Jeff is a recognized Fight Director and Certified Teacher by the Society of American Fight Directors who has staged fights for theatre, opera, ballet and film. He staged fights with weapons ranging from swords to bread loaves on actors, singer, dancers, and even a giant dragon puppet. His fights have received rave reviews in both The Washington Post and The New York Times. He teaches classes locally and invites any interested parties to contact him: jarjones@nc.rr.com. At Peace College he has gouged out eyes in “My Sister in this House,” beaten people with crowbars and stabbed them with switchblades in “King Lear,” and punched, knocked down and shot them in “Cry Havoc.” Some other credits include North Carolina Theatre: “Camelot” (with Debby Boone), Virginia Stage Company: “The Beauty Queen of Lenane” (with Eileen Brennan), Asolo Conservatory Theatre: “American Buffalo” (with William Wise), Theatre Previews at Duke: “Birdy” (with Michael Pitt), Virginia Shakespeare Festival: “As You Like It,” Carolina Ballet: “Romeo & Juliet,” “Carmen,” “Don Quixote,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Messiah,” “Nutcracker,” “The Kreutzer Sonata,” “The Miraculous Mandarin,” Virginia Opera: “Roméo et Juliette,” “Otello,” “Pagliacci,” New Jersey Opera Theatre: “Romeo et Juliette,” “Pirates of Penzance,” Opera Illinois: “West Side Story,” Bare Theatre: “Macbeth,” “Titus Andronicus,” Parkway Playhouse: “As You Like It,” Duke University Theatre: “Macbeth,” “Pericles,” “Sweeney Todd,” “Gint,” “Fool for Love,” “Angels in America,” “Spring Awakening,” “Shadow of Himself,” “Why Things Burn,” “Mao II,” Florida State University: “The Rover,” “Carousel” (with Michael Piontak), Durham School of the Arts: “Henry IV, Part 1,” Raleigh Little Theatre: “As You Like It,” Independent film: “The Promise.” He is adjunct faculty at Duke University and has a secret life as resident scenic and costume designer for Carolina Ballet.

Kelsey Hunt

Costumer

Kelsey is Resident Designer at Triad Stage(“One of the Best Regional Theaters in America” by New York’s Drama League, voted the Triad’s “Best Live Theater” by the readers of the News & Record’s GoTriad six years in a row and awarded “Professional Theatre of the Year” by the North Carolina Theatre Conference). She has designed over twenty productions during her residency including four world premiers. Her favorites include: “Ghosts;” “The Night of the Iguana;” “Tobacco Road” (“Best of 2007” by The Wall Street Journal); “Brother Wolf;” “A Streetcar Named Desire” (honorable mention, best production design, Independent Weekly); and “A Moon for the Misbegotten.” Kelsey has worked with UNCG Theater, New York’s Glimmerglass Opera House, Lisa Zinni (associate designer for Broadway’s Rent), Firebrand Theory Theatre Company, The Lortel Theatre and now, Peace College.

Wade Newhouse, PhD

Acting Coach, Dramatic Literature and Shakespeare

An assistant professor in the Peace College English department, Wade Newhouse has also spent his life thinking about theater. As a young teenager, he learned to act and improvise under the direction of Bo Thorp at the Fayetteville Little Theater, and in his undergraduate days at the University of North Carolina he appeared in eight productions as one of the founding members of the UNC Pauper Players. While teaching English at Cary High School, he developed an annual Shakespeare Festival and directed productions of “The Tempest,” “The Merchant of Venice,” “Macbeth” and “Hamlet” to expand the offerings of the Drama department there. After appearing in community theater productions of “Desire Under the Elms,” “Assassins,” and “Rosencrants & Guildenstern are Dead,” Wade has devoted his theatrical energy to improvisation theater and comedy. He spent three years learning the basics with the Chapel Hill branch of Comedy Sportz, then helped Matthew Krevat and Al Herr develop Raleigh’s Village Idiots in 1997. Since returning to Raleigh from graduate school, Wade has rejoined the Idiots and has performed with them as the group’s Assistant Director for the past three years. He also appeared in their productions of “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)” and “The Bible: The Complete Word of God (Abridged)” at the North Raleigh Arts and Creative Theater. He continues to use his academic research in narrative theory to understand and create different contexts for scripted and improvised drama.

Eliza Laskowski, PhD

Dramaturg

Eliza’s involvement in the theatre began when she was a teen-ager, helping out with the summer musicals at her hometown community theatre. By the time she graduated from college, she had appeared in Tom Stoppard’s “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead”, Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest,” Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Patience,” and Craig Lucas’s “Reckless,” and done everything behind the scenes from paint sets to run a light board to produce three shows at Sewanee, where she earned a degree in English in 1996. During high school and college, she also sang with several active choirs and had the privilege to perform at the Kennedy Center, Winchester Cathedral, and Westminster Abbey, among numerous other locations in the United States and England. Eliza continued her studies in literature, with a master’s degree from The University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa in 1999 and a Ph.D. from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2006; concentrating on sixteenth and seventeenth-century drama, she focused her research on an elite form of entertainment called masque. Because masque was a complex union of poetry, music, dancing, scenic spectacle, and allegory, Eliza brings a unique interdisciplinary approach to the genre that combines her practical theatrical and musical experience with an academic focus on the intersections of performance practice, culture, and text. Eliza currently teaches in the English Department at Peace College, while offering textual and historical expertise for the production of sixteenth and seventeenth-century plays at Peace College Theatre.

Sonya Drum

Scene Designer

Peace College Theatre: “Uncle Vanya,” “A Doll’s House,” “King Lear,” “The Curious Savage,” “An Inspector Calls,” “Suddenly Last Summer,” “The Children’s Hour,” “Antigone,” Private Eyes;” “Eye of God,” “ Measure for Measure,” “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep,” and “ “Little Eyolf,” Burning Coal Theatre Company: “Company”, “Crumbs from the Table of Joy,” “All the King’s Men,” “Lipstick Traces,” “Taming of the Shrew,” “Safe House,” “90 in 90,”“Julius Caesar;” Duke University Theatre Studies: “The Special Prosecutor;” University Theatre at NCSU: “Sweet Charity;” Raleigh Dance Theatre: “Alice in Wonderland;” Streetsigns Center for Literature and Performance: “Tongue of a Bird,” “Pop Sadness,” Suitcases Packed,” “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men,” “A Midsummer Night's Dream,” “Antigone;” Manbites Dog Theatre: “Fit to Be Tied,” Shakespeare and Originals: Loose Lips Sink Ships,” Hot Summer Nights at the Kennedy: “The Last Five Years,” “Graceland/Asleep on the Wind,” “Proof,” Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and “Starting Here, Starting Now.”

Caroline Boney Domack

Production Stage Manager

Hailing from Hamlet, NC, Caroline graduated from Peace and went straight to The Juilliard School. After finishing her program in stage management, Caroline stayed on to become House Manager for all the theatres at Juilliard in Lincoln Center. At Juilliard, Caroline met and married Tim Domack. They now reside in Raleigh and are busy with a growing family.

Tim Domack

Technical Consultant

Tim graduated from the University of Central Florida as a theatre major. He worked with The Juilliard School as a prop artisan for seven years before relocating with his wife and son to the Raleigh area. Tim currently teaches tech theatre at Riverside high school and freelances with Peace, NC State, and the Carolina Ballet.

Guest Artists for 2009–2010

Allan Maule

The Shape of Things

Allan is a game writer, voice director, playwright, and actor. His performance work includes “The Cherry Orchard” (Delta Boys), “AutoBahn” (FATE), “Blue/Orange” (Manbites), “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (Burning Coal), “The Christmas Letters” (Ride Again Productions), and “White People” (StreetSigns). Allan's voice will also be featured in the upcoming MMORPG computer game “Fallen Earth”.

Allan received his BA from Duke (Theater Studies and English), and his MA from UNC-CH (Performance Studies).

Hampton Rowe

The Shape of Things

Hampton is a graduate of DePaul University’s Theatre School. He has performed professionally in Chicago, Los Angeles and is glad to call Raleigh home once again. Local area credits include Jeff in “The Curious Savage”, Duke of Cornwall “King Lear”, Waffles in “Uncle Vanya” and this fall’s production of “The Shape of Things” as Phillip all for Peace College. Hampton has also performed in Chapel Hill at Deepdish Theater as Sean in “Orson’s Shadow” and Florindo in “Servant of Two Masters”. Hampton can be seen as Harker in the upcoming film “Wesley” and has also done local commercials and industrials. Most recently Hampton was seen in “Romeo and Juliet” starring Evan Rachel Wood at Raleigh’s very own Theatre in The Park.

Gigi Delizza

The Winter’s Tale

Credits include “A Streetcar Named Desire,” “Three Sisters,” “The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant” (Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern), “Proof” (Hot Summer Nights at the Kennedy), “The Man Who” (Manbites Dog Theatre), “Cold Kill” (New World Stage). Gigi graduated from Carnegie Mellon University (BFA).

Katja Hill

The Winter’s Tale

Katja works throughout the Triangle as an actor, director, teacher, writer, and improviser with many companies including Peace College Theatre, Deep Dish, Ghost & Spice, Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern, Manbites Dog Theater, the all-female improv troupe Ask Daphne, and many local filmmakers. Katja has voiced characters for Fallen Earth, run alluringly across Prague in an independent spy film, and served as an artist in residence UNC-Chapel Hill with local filmmaker, Francesca Talenti. Her critically acclaimed original solo show “Cornucopia of Me” received a 2008 Emerging Artist Grant from the Durham Arts Council. She serves as the Associate Managing Director at Manbites Dog Theater as well as a faculty member of the Carrboro ArtsCenter’s Youth Performing Arts Conservatory. Katja is a graduate of the North Carolina School of the Arts.

Mikey West

Scapin

Mikey is a man who wears many hats. He is a member of Raleigh’s Village Idiots, The Stand-Up Guys, and Comedy Out Of Context. At North Raleigh Arts & Creative Theatre, Mikey has served as a Master of Ceremonies, Technical Director, Producer, Assistant Director, Weapons Master, and even tried his hand at directing with Clue, the Musical; but he’s most at home on the stage. Mikey has appeared in numerous productions over the years, including “Harvey”, “The Wizard of Oz”, &lrdquo;The King and I”, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, “Harold and Maude”, “Babes in Toyland”, “Harry Chapin: Lies and Legends”, “The Outsiders”, “The Night Thoreau Spent In Jail”, “Dracula”, “The Philadelphia Story”, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, “Run For Your Wife”, “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)”, “Talk Radio”, “The Laramie Project”, “The Diary of Anne Frank”, “Arsenic and Old Lace”, and “The Bible—The Complete Word of God (Abridged).”

Paul Hamilton

Composer, The Winter’s Tale

A native of Savannah, Georgia, Paul has developed a versatile career as a pianist, composer and music director. In March of this year he performed his Carnegie Hall debut with Chicago baritone Robert Sims, by invitation from Jessye Norman as part of her HONOR! festival. He has performed at the famous Cappella and the Smolny Cathedral in St. Petersburg, Russia; at the Tokyo International Oboe Competition, with oboist Jennet Ingle; at the Galway Music Festival in Galway, Ireland; and at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago. Recent engagements include roles as music director in the new Redwoods Opera Workshop with Elizabeth Vrenios in Mendocino, California; conductor and pianist in The Barber of Seville with Opera Fresca, Mendocino; Odetta & Robert Sims in Norfolk, Virginia; Simon, Sykes, & Sims with Robert Sims, Sony recording artist Jubilant Sykes, and opera veteran Simon Estes. Hamilton currently tours the US with Robert Sims. As composer/orchestrator Hamilton has written original scores for Tartuffe, Peace College, 2001; Equus, Bailiwick Repertory, Chicago, 1997; On Golden Pond, Fireside Theatre, 1998. He has also collaborated with librettist Gail Deschamps for the national touring company GMT Productions, including Sadako and a Thousand Cranes, Alice in Wonderland, and The Emperor’s New Clothes. His orchestration of My Good Lord was performed by the Ritz Chamber Players at Lincoln Center in New York, as well as two spirituals for a live broadcast on WFMT radio in Chicago. He was awarded an Individual Artist Grant by the Georgia Council for the Arts. Hamilton has conducted and arranged over 25 productions for the Fireside Theater in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, including original arrangements and orchestrations for their annual Christmas show with Broadway theater director Phillip McKinley. He arranged/directed the music for A Lot of Living with composer Charles Strauss, New York, 1998. Chicago credits include The Light in the Piazza at the Goodman Theater, Jesus Christ Superstar at the Drury Lane Theatre, and Sweeney Todd at the Ravinia Festival with Patti Lupone and George Hearn. Hamilton earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Shorter College in Rome, Georgia between 1987 and 1992 with William Knight; he also pursued private post-graduate study with Vladimir Shakin at the Conservatory of Music in St. Petersburg, Russia. He is a member of Pi Kappa Lambda National Honor Music Society, and Alpha Chi National Honor Society. In his spare time, Hamilton volunteers as a patient advocate-videographer for hip resurfacing. He recently attended the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons conference in Las Vegas with fellow advocate Vicky Marlow to film interviews with some of the world’s leading surgeons. Paul Hamilton resides in Chicago, where he is Music Director at Lake View Lutheran Church.

Laura S. Jenkins

The Winter’s Tale

“The Winter’s Tale” marks Laura’s first performance with Peace College. For Burning Coal, Laura appeared in “Inherit the Wind” in February 2008, the inaugural production for Murphy School auditorium. For Raleigh Ensemble Players, Laura has appeared in “The Shriker” and “Poona the F***dog and Other Stories for Children,” “Quilters,” and “The Good Person of Setzuan” for Deepdish Theatre. Ms. Jenkins’ Raleigh Little Theater credits include “Music Man,” “City Of Angels,” “The Pirates of Penzance,” “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” “Cinderella,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” “The Taming of the Shrew,” “Dracula,” “H.M.S. Pinafore,” “Once Upon a Mattress,” and “James and the Giant Peach.” In addition to her work on stage, Ms. Jenkins has served in several volunteer and leadership positions for RLT and REP and other theatrical endeavors. Although Ms. Jenkins is an attorney by day, she enjoys spending much of her time in the theater. Ms. Jenkins sees theater as an excellent opportunity to commune with others: to entertain, to enlighten, and to serve.

John Vettel

Scapin

John started performing onstage in high school way back in 1974—before most of the rest of the cast was born. Fast-forward to 1992, when John began his long, happy career performing for, and teaching music to, young children. In this guise, he is known and loved by the pre-school set as “Uncle John.” He has released two CDs of original music (“Hardley a Clown in the Sky” and “Play On, Uncle John”) and is currently at work on his third collection. In 2000, John discovered he was an Idiot. He has been performing since as part of Raleigh's Village Idiots, performing live Improv comedy regularly at North Raleigh Arts & Creative Theater.