The Lifespan of a Fact

LAURIE ATLAS (Emily Penrose) is elated to be back at Hampton Theatre Company after making her debut last year as Abby in Ripcord. She holds a BA in Theatre from SUNY Oswego and has been a member of SAG- AFTRA for over 40 years. In addition to performing in live theatre, film, television, and on the radio, she has worked as a voiceover actress, singer and computer graphics engineer at NBC and ABC. Her stage credits include Berthe in Boeing Boeing, Silda in Other Desert Cities, Vernadette in The Dixie Swim Club, Ethel in Moon Over Buffalo, Mrs. Barrymore in The Hound of the Baskervilles, and The Nurse in The Tin Woman. This past December she co-produced the premiere of Gimme Another Minute, Long Island’s first One Minute Play Festival. She would like to express her thanks and gratitude to George and the entire stellar Hampton Theatre Company team. She is honored to be working alongside this amazingly talented cast and crew. Love always to her husband Fred and daughter Jamie, as well as her extended family and friends for their unwavering encouragement and support.

JAMIE BAIO (Jim Fingal) is so excited to be back working with George at the Hampton Theatre Company. Jamie is the proud 2017 recipient of the HTC Peter Marbury Scholarship and you may remember him as Jay in HTC’s production of Lost in Yonkers in 2016. Jamie has a B.A. in Theatre Performance from Wagner College. Recent credits include: Jack in Into the Woods (Broadway Theatre of Pitman), Jesus in Godspell (Star Playhouse), Bobby Strong in Urinetown (Wagner College), and Sky u/s in Mamma Mia! (Surflight Theatre). Thanks to the amazing cast and creative team and to the family and friends who have been so supportive. Enjoy the show! @jamiebaio

MATTHEW CONLON (John D’Agata) is ever so grateful to return to HTC, where he was last seen in 2019 as Sherlock in Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery, Victor in Private Lives, and Quixote in Man of La Mancha. This is his sixteenth HTC production. NYC: HB Playwrights: The Game of Love and Death (w/ Herbert Berghof); Freud’s Last Session (w/ Fritz Weaver); Sonnet Rep: The Tempest; EST: The Traveling Lady (Drama Desk nomination – Best Play); LaMama: A Human Equation. REGIONAL: Patchogue: The Diary of Anne Frank; Penobscot: To Kill a Mockingbird; Bay Street: Men’s Lives; Cleveland Play House: The Importance of Being Earnest; O’Neill: Fuddy Meers; StageWest: Suddenly Last Summer (w/ Kim Hunter); Mendelssohn: Oedipus Rex. Film: The Redeemer; Fire Island; Sweet Lorraine. TV: Distemper; Law & Order(s); One Life to Live. Matthew’s essays appeared in the WSJ online imprint MarketWatch for the series “Dispatches from the Pandemic.” For Dad.

GEORGE A. LOIZIDES (Director/Set Designer) is a veteran member of the Hampton Theatre Company. His most recent HTC credit was co-directing Over the River and Through the Woods (in which he also acted) this past fall. He has also directed for HTC A Doll’s House, Part 2; Native Gardens; Private Lives; Don’t Dress for Dinner; Lost in Yonkers; Picnic; The Odd Couple (Female Version); and Bus Stop. His acting credits for HTC include Sylvia (playing threedifferent parts), On Golden Pond, Alarms and Excursions, Heroes, Bedroom Farce, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Glengarry Glen Ross. With over 50 years of theatrical experience, he has also acted and directed for Playcrafters Theatre Company in Bellport. For 27 years he was Director of Theatre Arts for Ward Melville High School, where he taught acting and directing and directed 81 productions. He studied acting and directing at the HB Studio in NYC. He is on the Board of Directors and the Artistic Committee of the HTC, and is Administrator of the company’s Peter Marbury Scholarship. To Matt, Laurie and Jamie, “WOW.” Thanks to Andrew for producing. Thanks to HTC for the opportunity and support. He is grateful to Ricky and Meg for building the set. Thanks to Teresa for her consistently wonderful costumes. Thanks to Seamus for his continuing great sound work. Thanks to Sebastian for his masterful lighting. Thanks to Catherine for being his sidekick at rehearsals. Thanks to Grace and Ariel. Thanks to Julia for managing the house. Love to Kathy.

ANDREW BOTSFORD (Producer) As an actor, director, and sometime producer, Andrew has worked with the HTC since the company’s second production in December 1985. His most recent directorial effort was Ripcord by David Lindsay Abaire in Winter 2022; his most recent acting assignment was in the role of Torvald in A Doll’s House, Part 2 by Lucas Hnath in Spring 2022. He is the host of a summer film commentary program at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center, and is the host and lead interviewer at the annual Hamptons Doc Fest in Sag Harbor. A former visiting professor in the Graduate Arts program at Stony Brook Southampton, he also served for 20 years as the associate editor of The Southampton Press family of weekly newspapers.

JEREMY KAREKEN (Playwright) is a New York and Baltimore-based playwright whose short plays Hot Rod, Big Train and 80 Cards have been performed around the country and internationally. His awards include the Sewanee Conference’s Dakin Fellowship for Farblondjet, and Guthrie/Playwrights Center’s Two-Headed Challenge for The Sweet Sweet Motherhood. The Hamptons Film Festival Screenwriters Conference selected Kareken and David Murrell for their horror-comedy script THESE! Conquered the Earth! (about haunted breast implants). In 2018, PlayPenn shortlisted his political satire about an illiterate king, The Red Wool. Born and raised in Rochester, NY, he has taught at NYU, NYIT and the Actors Studio Drama School, and is a lifetime member of The Actors Studio. He occasionally acts and for 18 years served as the researcher for Bravo TV’s “Inside the Actors Studio.”

DAVID MURRELL (Playwright) is a native of New York City and (like Kareken) a graduate of the University of Chicago. He has written a sea chest’s worth of TV and film treatments, screenplays, and plays including E.T.D. and [Organic Winery Project]. Access Theater (NYC) and the Cleveland Public Theatre each produced his play Ductwork, and (this bears repeating!) the Hamptons Film Festival Screenwriters Conference selected his and Jeremy Kareken’s feature screenplay about haunted breast implants, THESE! Conquered the Earth!
In 2019, he was co-awarded the John Gassner Playwriting Playwriting Award from the Outer Critics Circle for The Lifespan of a Fact, his first Broadway play.

GORDON FARRELL (Playwright) trained as a playwright at the Yale School of Drama, then worked with major Hollywood studios as a story analyst and, eventually, screenwriter. He has sold screenplays to Universal Pictures, Warner Brothers, MGM and ITC, and has worked with the likes of Robert Simonds, Neal Moritz and Bruce Berman. His first independent screenplay, Girls Who Smoke, was an official selection at over a dozen film festivals, winning the Audience Choice Award in Seattle at the Post Alley Film Festival. As a playwright, he worked with dozens of women on New York’s Lower East Side who wanted to tell their personal stories on stage. The series of monologue plays that grew out of it was called In The Red Room/Every Woman Dances for Someone. His other plays have been produced in San Francisco, at the Alleyway Theatre, at the Yale School of Drama, and at Primary Stages in New York. He is the author of “The Power of the Playwright’s Vision,” which has become a standard playwriting text at colleges and universities in North America, Europe and Asia.

TERESA LEBRUN (Costume Designer)is the resident costumer for HTC. She began helping with costumes in 1986 and has designed the costumes for the company’s productions since 2005. Teresa has also costumed for Westhampton Beach High School. Much love to her sons, Josh and Noah, family and great friends.

GRACE HYGOM (Production Stage Manager) is thrilled to be stage managing Hampton Theatre Company’s The Lifespan of a Fact. Previously, Grace has done tech for three shows and was stage manager for two shows at Mattituck High school. Here at HTC she has worked on lighting for Native Gardens (2021) and Ripcord (2021), as well as stage managing Over the River and Through the Woods (2022) and It’s a Wonderful Life (2022).

ARIEL GARDINER (Sound/Lighting Tech) has run a light wall, soundboard, and spot in previous theatrical productions. She has run tech for four shows at Mattituck High School, two shows at North Fork Community Theatre, and two shows here at Hampton Theatre Company.

JULIA MORGAN ABRAMS (House Manager). After retiring from the legal department of Bristol Myers Squibb, Julia began a second career as a volunteer, initially for Literacy Suffolk, HTC, the Southampton Animal Shelter and Early Girl Farm, where she wrote grants and worked in fundraising. She continues to write grants and help with marketing for several local nonprofits. Julia would like to thank all of her dedicated House Assistants for their continued support.

Director – GEORGE A. LOIZIDES
Producer – ANDREW BOTSFORD
Set Design – GEORGE A. LOIZIDES
Lighting Design – SEBASTIAN PACZYNSKI
Projections – MEG SEXTON
Costume Design – TERESA LEBRUN
Rehearsal Stage Manager – CATHERINE MALONEY
Production Stage Manager – GRACE HYGOM
Set Construction – RICKY BOTTENUS, MEG SEXTON
Sound Design – SEAMUS NAUGHTON
Sound and Lighting Tech – ARIEL GARDINER
Box Office – SONYA HUBBARD
Production Graphics – DESIGNINGJOE: JOE PALLISTER
House Manager – JULIA MORGAN ABRAMS
Production Photographer – TOM KOCHIE