ABOUT ERS
Elevator Repair Service (ERS) is a New York City–based company that creates original works for live theater with an ongoing ensemble. The company’s shows are created from a wide range of texts that include found transcripts of trials and debates, literature, classical dramas, and new plays. Founded in 1991, ERS has authored an extensive body of work that includes upwards of 20 original theatrical productions. These have earned the company a loyal following and made it one of New York’s most highly acclaimed experimental theater companies. Gatz (a production of the entire text of The Great Gatsby), along with The Sound and the Fury (from Faulkner’s novel) and The Select (an adaptation of The Sun Also Rises) are among the company’s best known works. The company’s body of work also includes new plays by Kate Scelsa and Sibyl Kempson as well as works by Shakespeare and Chekhov. ERS productions share a commitment to risk-taking and reinvention, blending unusual texts with innovations in theatrical form. They feature the company’s signature dynamic performance style coupled with a rigorous commitment to psychologically complex performances. ERS has received numerous awards and distinctions. Visit ERS online at www.elevator.org
COMPANY BIOGRAPHIES
John Collins (Director) founded Elevator Repair Service in 1991. Since then he has directed or co-directed all of the company’s productions while also serving as the company’s Artistic Director. ERS productions directed by John include Cab Legs, Room Tone, Gatz, The Select (The Sun Also Rises), The Sound and the Fury, Arguendo, Measure for Measure, and numerous others. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a United States Artists Fellowship, and a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award.
Laurena Allan (Patricia) has performed with ERS as Myrtle Wilson in Gatz, Mabrel in Fondly Collette Richland, and will be playing Patricia in the upcoming production of Seagull at NYU Skirball Center this July. She also performed in Sibyl Kempson’s Sasquatch Rituals, and Richard Maxwell’s House.
Kate Benson (Irina) has performed with ERS in Fondly, Colette Richland; A Sort of Joy: Thousands of Exhausted Things; and Ulysses. She is a writer and actor living in Brooklyn. Her plays include [Porto]; A Beautiful Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes; and Where Are We Going? She has performed at the Public Theater, NYTW, La Mama, the Chocolate Factory, and PS122.
Julian Fleisher (Ilya) Julian has starred off-Broadway in Coraline (MCC) & February House (Public). A composer, his scores have been heard in Broadway’s The Performers, off-Broadway’s Almost Maine, & his song “Nothing Rhymes with Christmas” can be heard in Sony’s Happiest Season. As a host, his WNYC Podcasts, The Naked American Songbook and 44 Charlton ran for 3 seasons & he recently recorded the 1st season of Why Songs Matter (92nd Street Y). He’s the producer of Ana Gasteyer’s albums “I’m Hip” & “Sugar & Booze,” and Kiki & Herb’s album “Do You Hear What I Hear.” He’s also written the book, Drag Queens of NY, & is a founding board member of The Musical Theater Factory. julianfleisher.com
John Gasper (Yakov, Co-Sound Design) is a performer, musician and sound & video designer. Highlights as performer/musician: David Neumann/Advanced Beginner Group’s I Understand Everything Better; Royal Osiris Karaoke Ensemble’s The Art of Luv; Sibyl Kempson’s 7 Daughters of Eve’s 12 Shouts To The Ten Forgotten Heavens; Trish Harniteaux’s The MS Phoenix Rising (dir. Katie Brook); Alaina Ferris & Karinne Keithly Syers’ The Lydian Gale Parr. As sound designer: Bailey Willams’ I thought I would die but I didn’t (dir. Sarah Blush); Sarah Einspanier’s House Plant (dir. Jaki Bradley); New Saloon’s Cute Activist (dir. Morgan Green); Lisa Clair Group’s Willa’s Authentic Self. As video designer/installation: Dan Foley + John Gasper’s WITNESS; John Gasper’s Affirmation Feedback. www.realjohngasper.com
Lindsay Hockaday (Paulina) As a performer with ERS, Lindsay was seen in Gatz (2012); Shuffle; Fondly, Collette Richland; The Select (The Sun Also Rises); Measure for Measure and she served as the company’s Director of Education Programs. She performs with Sibyl Kempson’s 7 Daughters of Eve Theater & Performance Co., has been a teaching artist for The Kitchen’s education programs in public schools, and is currently an 8th grade Humanities teacher at New York City Charter School of the Arts.
Maggie Hoffman (Nina) is a founder of the avant-punk performance ensemble Radiohole and the artist-run performance space The Collapsable Hole in the West Village. In addition to her 25 years of performance with Radiohole, Maggie has appeared with ERS in Ulysses; Measure for Measure; Fondly, Collette Richland; Arguendo, and touring productions of Gatz; The Select (The Sun Also Rises); and The Sound and The Fury.
Robert M. Johanson (Boris) is a freelance performer/composer/director in New York City. He is a founding member of Nature Theater of Oklahoma, and has performed with them in No Dice, Poetics: a Ballet Brut, Romeo and Juliet, No President, and composed music for and performed in Life and Times: Episodes 1-9 and Burt Turrido. He has worked with many other companies both in New York City and abroad including: Elevator Repair Service, 7 Daughters of Eve, Radiohole, The Civilians, Witness Relocation, Jim Findlay, Morgan Green, Lithuanian National Drama Theatre, Von Kralhi and Spreafico Eckly.
Vin Knight (Gene) With ERS: Ulysses; Everyone’s Fine with Virginia Woolf; Measure for Measure; Fondly, Collette Richland; Shuffle; The Select (The Sun Also Rises); The Sound and the Fury; No Great Society; and Gatz. Other stage credits include The Music Man (Sharon Playhouse); Spam (JACK); Our Man in Havana (Portland Stage); Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (2013 Broadway revival); Marie Antoinette (ART and Yale Rep); The Temperamentals (Barrow Group); and U.S. Drag (Clubbed Thumb). Film and TV credits include “Inventing Anna,” “Search Party,” “Orange Is the New Black,” “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” “Succession,” “Bull,” “The Blacklist” and “Homeland.” He is a graduate of Yale University.
Gavin Price (Konstantin, Co-Sound Design) is a multidisciplinary performing and technical artist. He is a classically trained actor & vocalist, and plays over ten instruments. He has performed and designed with Elevator Repair Service since 2013. Other projects include the short film Boccamazzo Construction; The Return of Adam (Met Museum); XX-ID (New Museum); Common Time (MCA); Saint Fortune, co-founder. He has also performed and designed with Mabou Mines, Tectonic Theater, Cabin Fever, Face the Music, 7 Daughters of Eve, Pandora Boxx & Mrs. Kasha Davis, Theater in Quarantine, and with Emily Pacilio in The Basics. Spotify & iTunes: The Witch Ones, The Tender Band, Cabin Fever.
Pete Simpson (Semyon) is a 25-year Broadway/Off-Broadway/international theater veteran (earning an Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in 2017). Collaborations include Elevator Repair Service, Half Straddle, Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company, the New York City Players, Minor Theater Company, Wooster Group, Big Dance Theater and Richard Foreman. Pete is a 24-year veteran performer and director w/ the Blue Man Group (performing the ‘Blue Man’ role over 5,000 times in four countries). Simpson was seen on Broadway this past fall in Tina Satter/Half Straddle’s Is This A Room. Film/TV Credits: Marriage Story, Morning Glory, Lincoln in the Bardo, Gotham, Law and Order, The Tonight Show and Conan O’Brien.
Susie Sokol (Masha) Susie is a second-grade teacher at St. Ann’s School in Brooklyn where she has taught since 1996. She began performing with ERS in 1992. She has also worked with theater artists Katherine Profeta, Sibyl Kempson, and Tina Satter.
Aaron Amodt (Production Manager) has been involved with a number of ERS productions including tours of Gatz; Everyone’s Fine with Virginia Woolf; The Select (The Sun Also Rises); Fondly, Collette Richland. In New York City he has worked with New York Theatre Workshop on Slave Play; What the Constitution Means to Me; Othello; Hadestown; and Lazarus. He has been involved with tours such as A Billion Nights on Earth (Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental) and Ringling Brothers And Barnum And Bailey Circus. Outside of theater Aaron collects commemorative telecom postage stamps and makes ghost photographs which you can find on IG @amodttech.
Mariana Catalina (Company Manager) recently joined ERS as Company Manager. In addition to her work with ERS, she is a producer of live performance, as well as a writer, director, and performer living in New York City. Her work has been presented by Ars Nova and Dixon Place. Mariana is a frequent collaborator with Tina Satter/Half Straddle, currently producing the international tours of Is This A Room (FIND/Schaubühne, Wiener Festwochen, Theaterformen). As an arts worker, she has collaborated with a variety of artists both independently and through The Kitchen, Performance Space New York, and Mabou Mines, among others.
Camilla Dely (Associate Costume Design) is a costume designer and visual artist born and raised in South Africa. She is equally fueled by poetic texts and devised processes, and is interested in stories that concern the limits of our humanity, questions of violence + justice, and the stunning messiness of human beings. She received her MFA in Design for Stage and Film from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Recent work includes Déjà Vu (Theater for One) and Collective Rage (Brown/Trinity Rep). www.camilladely.com
dots (Scenic Design) We are a design collective based in New York City specializing in designing environments for narratives, performances and experiences. Hailing from Colombia, South Africa and Japan, we are Santiago Orjuela-Laverde, Andrew Moerdyk and Kimie Nishikawa. We offer expertise in multi-disciplinary practices ranging from architecture, theater and performance design, graphic design, and film. We approach every project with diversity of thought and burning curiosity and, above all, we believe in the value of the whole being greater than the sum of its individual parts.
Alex Vásquez Dheming (Assistant Lighting Design) is a Salvadoran Lighting Designer based in NYC. Collaborators include Big Dance Theater, Nélida Tirado, Calpulli Mexican Dance, Ariel Rivka Dance, New York Theatre Ballet, Ashwini Ramaswamy, Performance Space NY, Vanaver Caravan, Jacob’s Pillow, Rattlestick, Lincoln Center, CPR, Dance Manager’s Collective, Museo del Barrio, The Tank NYC, Playwright Horizons, Hypokrit Productions, and Theatreworks. Her work has been seen around the US, Spain (Museo Guggenheim Bilbao), and France (Cannes Film Festival). Alex holds a BFA in Production Design from Savannah College of Art and Design, participated in the Wingspace Theatrical Design Mentorship, is a SILV alumna, and a recipient of The Playwright Realm’s International Theatermakers Award. www.alexvasquezdheming.com; @alxvsquezdhming
Marika Kent (Lighting Design) is a Brooklyn based lighting designer. Recent/upcoming design: Catch as Catch Can (Playwrights Horizons); UNTITLED TOAST (The Wooster Group); Measure for Measure (Shakespeare&Company); Gem of the Ocean, School Girls, or the African Mean Girls Play (Portland Center Stage); Reconstructing (The TEAM); Generation Rise, Generation NYZ (Ping Chong + Co, The New Victory); Jazz Singer (Abrons Arts Center); Chimpanzee, Fly Away (Nick Lehane); No Child, Memphis, Peter and the Starcatcher (Cape Fear Regional Theater); Roan @ The Gates (Luna Stage). www.marikakent.com
Maurina Lioce (Assistant Director and Stage Manager) With ERS: The Sound and the Fury; Arguendo; The Select (The Sun Also Rises) (tours); Gatz (tours); Fondly, Collette Richland; Measure for Measure; Everyone’s Fine with Virginia Woolf; Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge. NYC: Stage Management for Half Straddle, Adrienne Truscott, Alex Tatarsky, Jim Findlay, David Byrne, Sibyl Kempson’s 7 Daughters of Eve Theater & Performance Co., Andrew Ondrejcak, Mike Iveson, Erin Markey, Suzanne Bocanegra and Young Jean Lee. Maurina has been a member of Elevator Repair Service since 2014.
Charlie Lovejoy (Assistant Stage Manager) they/them, is a formerly-Chicago-based stage manager and current MFA candidate at the School of Drama at Yale. Off-Broadway: Kimberly Akimbo (The Atlantic Theater). Regional: Between Two Knees (Yale Repertory Theatre); Molly Sweeney, The Santaland Diaries, Incendiary, graveyard shift (Goodman Theatre); Miracle: A Musical 108 Years in the Making (Royal George Theater); La Ronde (American Theater Company); Corduroy, Fantastic Mr. Fox (Emerald City Theatre). Academic: Romeo and Juliet, Bodas de Sangre (School of Drama at Yale); Mr Burns, King Lear, Not I, West Side Story, By the Bog of Cats, Miss Julie (University of Chicago).
Patricia Marjorie (Property Design) is a Brazilian multidisciplinary theatre artist based in New York with focus on set design, props and directing. Recent works: set designer for Re MEMORI by Nambi E. Kelley (WP theater); props for Eva Luna by Repertório Espanhol; Notes On Killing Seven Oversight… by Mara Velez Melendez (Soho Rep.); 7 Minutes (Waterwell, dir. Mei Ann Teo); Wolf Play (Soho Rep.); Black Exhibition by Jeremy O. Harris dir by Machel Ross; SKiNFoLK by Jillian Walker; In the Southern Breeze (Rattlestick). Patricia has also recently directed What Will Become of Kaaron? (The Tank) and her own work as a playwright A Song to Keep the Wolves Awake (The Tank).
Hanna Novak (Producer) is a theater producer, director and playwright based in New York City. She is the Producer for Elevator Repair Service as of 2022, having worked for the company in other roles since 2016. With ERS: Gatz (tours); Fondly, Collette Richland; Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge (tours), among others. She is currently producing the company’s take on Joyce’s Ulysses. As a playwright and director, her work has been performed at/developed with Clubbed Thumb, the New Ohio, and the Performing Garage. She has collaborated with Tina Satter/Half Straddle, Julia Jarcho/minor theater, and Liz Magic Laser. MFA: Hunter College.
Katherine Profeta (Dance and Movement Coach) is a founding member, often choreographer, and few times performer with ERS since 1991. She’s also a dramaturg, working with choreographer Ralph Lemon (from 1997’s Geography to 2014’s Scaffold Room, plus his upcoming Low). Other collaborators over the years include Annie Dorsen, Julie Taymor, Nora Chipaumire, David Thomson, and Theatre for a New Audience. Her book Dramaturgy in Motion came out in 2015. Currently she is a Professor in the Practice at Yale School of Drama.
Jason Sebastian (Sound Engineer) Jason Sebastian has been working freelance in live performance for over 20 years in various capacities. He moved to New York for a decade after graduating from the College Conservatory of Music. He is currently the sound engineer for Elevator Repair Service, working on most shows the last 12 years. In southern Ohio, Jason works with students at Miami University and was an adjunct for CCM’s Sound Design program. He has also designed at the Cincinnati Playhouse and last fall he helped reopen the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company designing Romeo and Juliet. He currently resides in Cincinnati but still occasionally gets to travel the world with friends and collaborators.
Juliana Suaide (Assistant Property Design) Juliana is a Brazilian actress and all-things-art-department artist. Juliana graduated in ballet from The Royal Academy of Dance and in acting from The Lee Strasberg Institute. Juliana’s art department credits includes the Brazilian show “Rainha da Cocada,” Seasons 2 and 3 (Prop Master & Set Dressing), “Diabolical,” Discovery ID Series (Art Dir.), “FOX Stick Figures,” pilot (Production Designer), “Lies That Bind,” Discovery ID Series (Art Dir.), “Out of Water,” musical (Scenic Designer & Prop Master), Notes On Killing Seven Oversight…, Soho Rep. (Props Assoc.), Ulysses, ERS (Props Assoc.), Eva Luna, Repertorio Español (Props Assoc.) and ReMemori, WP Theatre (Set Designer Assoc.). Instagram @jusuaide
Kaye Voyce (Costume Design) ERS: Measure for Measure and Everyone’s Fine with Virginia Woolf. Broadway: Sea Wall/A Life (co-design),True West, The Nap, Significant Other, The Real Thing, The Realistic Joneses, and Shining City. Recent off-Broadway: Morning Sun (MTC), Mud/Drowning (Mabou Mines), The Bedwetter, SHHHH, Anatomy of a Suicide (Atlantic), Marys Seacole, After the Blast (LCT3), Mary Page Marlowe (2ST), The Antipodes, Signature Plays, The Wayside Motor Inn (Signature), Coriolanus, Hamlett (Public Theatre), Greater Clements (LCT). Many projects with Richard Maxwell/New York City Players including Field of Mars, Queens Row, Paradiso, The Evening, Isolde, Open Rehearsal, Neutral Hero, The End of Reality, and Henry 4 Pt 1.
Actors’ Equity Association (“Equity”), founded in 1913, is the U.S. labor union that represents more than 51,000 professional Actors and Stage Managers. Equity fosters the art of live theatre as an essential component of society and advances the careers of its members by negotiating wages, improving working conditions and providing a wide range of benefits, including health and pension plans. Actors’ Equity is a member of the AFL-CIO and is affiliated with FIA, an international organization of performing arts unions.