Rani Deighe Crowe: (Festival Artistic Director) began her theater training at Ohio University and completed her B.A. at Antioch College in Arts (Theater/Dance concentration). Additionally, she studied Humor Writing at the New School for Social Research, stand-up comedy at the Stephen Rosenfield Stand Up Experience, and Writing the at the Writer's Voice, in One Person ShowNew York City. She has performed stand-up in New York City at Don't Tell Mama, Stand Up New York, and Caroline's. She recently directed the Dayton area production of the Vagina Monologues at Therapy Cafe. She also recently produced an audio adaptation of Edgar Lee Master's Spoon River Anthology for the Telephone Booth Project in Yellow Springs. As an actor, she has performed in many shows including Carlyle Brown's Masks of Othello, Witold Gambrowich's Ivona; Princess of Burgundia, Romeo and Juliet, Tennessee Williams' The Slapstick Tragedy. She has written short plays and solo material including The New Woman Gets a Room of Her Own: A Performance/Lecture with Hats, a Power Point performance/lecture on women of the twenties using text from Dorothy Parker, Gertrude Stein and Virginia Woolf and her character of Julia Jean Child which she portrayed in Yellow Springs, Ohio " at the Little Art Premiere of Julia Child Julie and Julia.
Actors
Heather Atkinson: (Sheila in Estragon's Boot) lives in Dayton Ohio, and holds a Theatre Performance degree from the University of South Florida, where she worked with numerous Tampa Bay theatres. For a season, Heather studied in Lennox, MA with Shakespeare and Company. Locally, Heather has worked with the Dayton Theatre Guild, Mayhem & Mystery, and has made numerous on-camera appearances. She is currently pursuing her Masters Degree in International and Comparative Politics.
Jerry Buck: (Hank in Parking Spaces) a resident of Yellow Springs for twenty-five years, rediscovered an interest in theatre and acting after his retirement in 1989. Since then he has appeared in plays at various venues in the Miami Valley including Clark State, the Antioch Area Theatre, Yellow Springs Center Stage, the Xenia Area Community Theatre, the Beavercreek Community Theatre, and the Dayton Theatre Guild. Jerry has experience working in parking lots for festivals, concerts, and the like. His final, and perhaps most important, qualification for the role is that he is, without question, an old coot.
Amy Dobyns: ( Mrs. Cratchet in Disgruntled Tiny Tim)
Amy currently lives in Springfield and holds and AA in Theatre and Dance. Amy started acting and dancing at a young age, and performned in several seasons of The Nutcracker ballet. Other perfomance highlights include Essie in You Can't Take it With You, Haley in Burried Child, The Ghost of Christmas Past in A Chistmas Carol, being the Dance Captain in Oliver!. Amy was last seen performing in the Choreographer's Without Companies showcase in Cincinatti in Melissa Heston's Les Jeux D'Amore. Amy has been teaching dance for thge past 8 years, and recently openned her own dance school in New Carlisle called La Petite Danse.
Classically trained at Yale School of Drama, his performance repertoire is vast: the Greeks, Shakespeare, Shaw, Checkov, Moliere, Brecht, Beckett, Pinter, Ionesco, Williams, Miller, O’Neil, Steinbeck, and modern playwrights yet living.
During a richly textured career, which includes television, film, dinner theatre and national commercials, his professional affiliations read like an historic theatrical pantheon; Basil Rathbone, Cedric Hardwicke, Tyrone Guthrie, Helen Hayes, John Carradine, Morris Carnovsky, Alfred Drake, Edward Asner, Kathleen Turner, Polly Holiday, and Kathy Bates, to name a few.
As an educator, he has served on the faculties of Wright State University, Bennington College, Wittenberg University, and Clark State Community College, and has directed productions of Evita, What the Butler Saw, Holy Ghosts, Antigone, The Heiress, Rumors, Waiting for Godot, Lend Me a Tenor, and You Can’t Take It with You. He is proud to have many students flourishing professionally on both coasts and in Chicago.
Louise Smith: (performing I am a 10-Minute Play) M.A., M.S. Ed., LPC is an actor, writer, community arts activist, educator and therapist. She was the chair of the Antioch College Theater Department from 1994-2008. In that capacity she directed and produced numerous events and taught classes in acting, directing, ensemble theater, collaboration, solo performance, voice and speech and 20th century avant garde playwrights. As an Antioch alumna (’77), Smith saw the mission of the Antioch Theater to be rooted in the Yellow Springs community and under her tenure, the theater was a cultural resource for numerous local arts organizations, the Yellow Springs Schools and the campus until the college closed in 2008. Professionally, Smith is an award winning actress (Obie 2003, Bessie 1990). She has worked with Julie Taymor, Meredith Monk, the Talking Band, Ann Bogart, Big Dance Theater, and Otrabanda. She was a member of Ping Chong and Company for eleven years, touring nationally and internationally. She has created and performed 12 solo works since 1984, and has received funding for her work from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Ohio and New York State Arts Councils. She holds an I.M.A. from McGregor School of Antioch University in Playwriting and an M.S. Ed. in Community Counseling from University of Dayton. Her interests include solo performance, dialogical and community based art practices, Jungian psychology and the intersections between theater and therapy. She is passionate about theater as a transformative experience for both the audience and the performer.
As a mental health therapist she has worked with women residential treatment for AOD issues, on an Assertive Community Treatment team, as a counselor at Wilmington College, in the Rocking Horse Adult Medical Clinic and with children and families at Wellspring in Springfield Ohio.
J. Gary Thompson:
(Matt in Two Person Conversation, director and Kirby in Estragon's Boot)
J. Gary Thompson hails from England, where he was a musician and street magician. Creating original scores for theatre and film brought him back to acting, wherein he has worked on both stage and screen. Most recently, Dayton audiences saw J. Gary as "Sweeney Todd" in the Springfield Stageworks production, “Dennis Cochran” in “A Case of Libel” at the Dayton Theatre Guild, and in the short film “Sunday Spin”. J. Gary is also a sound designer and audio engineer.
