When Lightning Strikes!

There are musicians, composers, arrangers, orchestrators and then there is James Sampliner. He is a pianist, composer, arranger, orchestrator, conductor, music producer, percussionist and music copyist.

In his thirty year career Patrick Boll has performed on Broadway, off Broadway and around the country. For nearly three years he starred as Bill Austin in Mamma Mia! on Broadway. Patrick was also in the Coen Brothers film Burn After Reading with George Clooney and Brad Pitt and How to be Single with Dakota Johnson and Rebel Wilson.

As New York Times theater critic Ben Brantley wrote, Marin Ireland is “one of New York theater’s most inspired and entertaining interpreters of people programmed to self-destruct.”

Astrid Van Wieren is an original cast member of the the hit Broadway musical, Come From Away. She has been in the show since it opened in 2017. Van Wieren also co-wrote, co-produced and stars in the indie feature film, The River You Step In. Her other credits include This Wide Night, Belles Soeurs, The Musical, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, Myth of The Ostrich, The Way Back to Thursday and Baal. This episode was recorded in May, 2020, when the world was in a much different place.

Charlotte Moore and Ciarán O’Reilly founded Irish Repertory Theatre in 1988. Ever since they have been passionately devoted to bringing Irish and Irish-American works to the stage. The Irish Rep presents everything from classics to contemporary works as they nurture new generations of Irish and Irish-American playwrights.

Michael Zegen stars as Joel Maisel in the beloved Amazon hit series, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Tedra Millan appeared on Broadway in Present Laughter. Her Off-Broadway credits include: Happy Talk,The Wolves, On the Shore of the Wide World, Nassim. On television you can see her in Fosse/Verdon, Tales of the City, Almost Family, Katy Keene and The Goldbergs. She is directing the upcoming short film, We Can Voyage There, written by David Lerner Schwartz.

Katie Brayben won a Olivier Award playing Carole King in the West End premiere of Beautiful. Just a few of her theater credits include Girl from the North Country, Honour, A Walk on The Moon, The Spoils, My Mother Said I Never Should, King Charles III and American Psycho. On television she has appeared in Luther, The Alienist, Doctor Who, King Charles III and Vera, You can see her in the riveting film, A Serial Killer’s Guide To Life which is now streaming online.

Aneesa Folds shares how she went from being a student at the Freestyle Love Supreme Academy to starring on Broadway a few months later in Freestyle Love Supreme. Her other theater credits includes Sistas The Musical, Seussical, Freaky Friday and Ragtime. She has performed at North Shore Music Theatre, Goodspeed Opera House, Arrow Rock Lyceum. Aneesa also appears in the new documentary, We Are Freestyle Love Supreme, which premiered July 17th on Hulu.

Jonathan Marc Sherman has been a professional playwright since he was a teenager. At 18 his play, Women and Wallace, was part of the Young Playwrights Festival and directed by James LaPine and then Don Scardino. The play was made for television audiences for PBS-TV's American Playhouse with a cast that included Josh Hamilton, Debra Monk and Cynthia Nixon. Sherman has been writing ever since...