Alix Claps

Production Manager/Production Stage Manager/Entertainment Law Student
At this very moment, Matunuck, Rhode Island, PSMing FOREVER PLAID at Theatre By The Sea

What’s your favorite line from a play?
You could seriously pick almost any line from ARCADIA and I could claim it as favorite, but if I had to pick one: “We shed as we pick up, like travellers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it.”

What play or production changed your life?
I did a production of ASSASSINS in college, and the experience of that production, as much as the play itself, really showed me how magical and inspiring the rehearsal process can be. It isn’t something you suffer through to get to performances, it has magic of its own.

Is there anything you still dream of doing?
Calling the opening ceremonies of the Olympics.

What is your best escape?
A good book.

Alix Claps is the Production Manager for New York University’s Program in Vocal Performance, and a student at Rutgers School of Law – Newark. She has worked extensively in New York, and regionally at Music Theatre of Wichita, Ogunquit Playhouse, Theater By The Sea and Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey.

Wendy Barrie-Wilson

Actor, Potter, Teacher, Director
New York, New York + Ohio USA

What play or production changed your life?
From Stoppard’s Arcadia I learned what life was all about. If we could define a leaf mathematically, then we could define a tree, then a forest, and then the earth. And does that mean it is all predestined? And the answer is… we may never know — so Dance.

From Doubt I learned empathy is a long hard continuous road — learning how to walk in another’s shoes.

From summers watching the Stratford Shakespeare Festival – I learned what acting was about.

What’s your favorite play?
A Streetcar Named Desire –which I have had the fortune of working on 5 times. And Cyrano de Bergerac that I have done several times and played nearly all the women in it- just waiting to do the Duenna.

What’s your favorite line from a play?
“Sometime there is God so quickly”- Tennessee Williams
“I am in mourning for my life”- Anton Chekhov

What’s your favorite movie of late?
I had one of those deep cathartic desperate cries after watching Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Never Let Me Go”. And filled with furious anger after seeing Rachel Weisz in “The Whistleblower”.

Where do you look for inspiration?
When those strange, synchronistic, wonder-filled moments happen in life that let you breath and see the world a little differently… even if only for a short time.

Is there anything you still dream of doing?
Everything. Travel to the Grand Canyon, The Dakotas, Angkor Watt, Bali, Samoa, and see Venice, Santorini and Kauai again. Learn Flamenco dancing, write a book, work on more feature films.
I’d really like to build a home. Put a pool in. Make a lot of money. The usual stuff.

But for now I will continue to caretake my mother who has Dementia (without any help from my family) and rest when I can while I wonder what life will put before me later on.

I feel most like myself when I ….
..am working on a show, rehearsing and discovering.

What is your best escape?
Working on a show. Or getting a long massage.

What’s the one thing nobody knows about you?
A psychic told me I had three past lives. Russian, Victorian England and Native American. I think she was right.

Wendy Barrie-Wilson: Actor: Over 100 plays, including Sister Aloysius in European premiere of Doubt in Vienna, Austria. (SALT Award &  DayTony Award for subsequent productions of Doubt.)  Broadway: Our Town (Paul Newman) and All My Sons. TV: Mrs. Chitwood on The Guiding Light.  Director: “Einstein and The Roosevelts”. Professor: Acting – Denison University.

Lisa Rothe

Freelance Director & Director of Offsite Programs & Partnerships at the Lark Play Development Center
New York, New York USA

Where do you look for inspiration? Travel, music, books, art, my friends, the people I love and admire…

What’s your favorite book? Possession by AS Byatt. I have never cried so hard, reading a book.

Favorite movie? Dancer in the Dark.

Favorite pop culture guilty pleasure? I totally like reading the trashy magazines at supermarket check-out counters.

Favorite cocktail? If I didn’t get migraines from them, I would drink dirty, dirty, dirty Bombay Sapphire martinis whenever I wanted.

Is there anything you still dream of doing? Someday, when I am an old woman (besides wearing purple), I want to have a sheep farm, so I can card, spin and dye the wool and then knit and weave lots of beautiful things…and have a huge garden and a huge barn and a huge farm table and cook fabulous meals and have my closest friends over for dinner. All of the time.

I feel most like myself when I...am in rehearsal. I love process so much. As much as I loved acting, I realized I just didn’t have the temperament for it when I was finished on opening night. I was so happy when I started directing and could leave after opening and move on to the next project!

What is your best escape? Driving. Anywhere.

What’s the one thing nobody knows about you? Well, some people know this, but I was a biomedical engineering major in college.

Favorite line from a play?
Septimus: “When we have found all of the mysteries and lost all of the meaning, we will be alone, on an empty shore.”
Thomasina: “Then we will dance.”
(Arcadia by Tom Stoppard)

Lisa Rothe has developed and directed over one hundred new plays, musicals and operas, and has taught and directed at many theatre programs including NYU’s Graduate Acting Program, Yale School of Drama and The Juilliard School. Affiliations: Drama League.