Key Players
Roland Tec
playwright & co-producer
Roland Tec has been leading audiences into thrilling, unexpected and eye-opening worlds for decades. His film, All the Rage, widely considered a hallmark of the Queer Indie Cinema wave of the 1990s, had its world premiere at the San Francisco International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival where it sold out the iconic Castro Theater. As the film toured the international festival circuit followed by theatrical, television and DVD release, its critical take on the A-list Gay Male White Urban Elite made it a flashpoint for controversy. Mr. Tec wrote, produced, directed and scored the film. He also scored his second feature film, We Pedal Uphill, a tapestry film composed of 13 portraits of bravery and cowardice etched against a backdrop of post-911 America and its climate of fear.
As Co-Producer of Edward Zwick’s film Defiance, Mr. Tec served as a conduit between the production and the author of the non-fiction book on which the film is based, his mother, Holocaust scholar, Nechama Tec. Defiance stars Daniel Craig as Tuvia Bielski, Jewish rescuer and leader of the largest armed rescue of Jews by Jews during the second world war.
Tec’s plays and operas have premiered to wide acclaim, often being celebrated for his uncanny ability to present some of the darkest qualities of the human condition with sharp wit and a deep empathy. Notable titles include: Bodily Function (O’Neill Finalist) The Rubber Room (co-written with Gary Garrison), The Wreck Behind Us and his Zoom play about the January 6 insurrection, A Nagging Feeling Best Not Ignored.
When the 2020 pandemic shuttered theaters worldwide, Tec embarked on a mission to expand the scope and reach of monologue as one of the few forms of theater that could somehow still communicate within the confines of the Zoom platform. Since its founding, Hear Me Out Monologues has provided a venue to more than 150 writers who have proved themselves capable of making drama unfold with little more than a compelling character with a clear agenda and an audience gathered and eager to bear witness. http://www.rolandtec.com
Suze Allen
director & co-producer
Suze Allen is an author, copywriter, editor, dramaturg, writing coach, teacher, ghost writer and theatre professional. Her company, Manuscript Mentor, helps you to turn your dreams and ideas into effective and vibrant writing. Suze’s clients come from all walks of life. She has worked with scientists, psychologists, business owners, health and wellness practitioners, CEOS, mamas, chefs, playwrights, and all levels of writers who want to bring their story to the page.
She is a co-founder of 3Girls Theatre in San Francisco; now in their 10th year, and the creator of The Maine Playwrights’ Lab and Short Works Festival, Fresh! New Works San Francisco, Iambes Bones Studio Union Square San Francisco, amma studios in Portland, Maine and the SF Writers and Actors Lab. Suze served as Resident Dramaturg for 3Girls Theatre and the Playwrights’ Center of San Francisco, where she also taught playwriting. Her dramaturgy clients have had their plays produced all over the country. She served as the Bay Area Representative for The Dramatists Guild of America for 7 years and is a long-time member. She was also a teaching mentor for Each One Reach One’s playwriting program for young men incarcerated in the juvenile jail system.
As a playwright, director and actor, Suze’s work has been on stages in San Francisco, Boston, Anchorage, Alaska, Kennebunkport, Portland, Maine and Edinburgh, Scotland. She directs Do You Know What Happened to Me? Live Zoom Room & Flash Mob Theatre. Suze is the director of Roland Tec’s Hear Me Out Monologues, Some1Speaking on zoom every first Monday of the Month. hearmeoutmonologues.com She is a champion of new work and most recently directed The Birthday Lottery by Richard Fouts at the Z Space in San Francisco, and staged readings of Lisa Stathoplos’ Chimera, a Shape Shifter’s Journey at St. Lawrence Arts in Portland, Maine and Stephen Beck’s Socrates over zoom.
Suze ‘s classes include Memoir– the Art of Legacy Writing, Memoir and Monologue – Legacy Writing for the Page and the Stage, Writing Critique Workshop, Writing through Grief and Sorrow, Playwrights Lab, Mama-logues – Writing Workouts to Keep Mama Sane, Centered and Creative and she coaches, writes and edits privately as well. She has also written for sfkids.org, Interaction Associates, Mama’s Resource Network, and countless websites and newsletters. https://www.manuscriptmentor.com
Michael Puzzo
actor
Michael Puzzo is an actor, playwright and proud member of LAByrinth Theater Company since 1997. NYC credits include: John Patrick Shanley’s A Winter Party (Center Stage NY) & Dirty Story (Harold Clurman Theater), Stephen Adly Guirgis’ In Arabia We’d All Be Kings (Center Stage NY) and Between Riverside and Crazy (Second Stage), The Body Politic (59E59), Penalties & Interest (The Public Theater) and Philip Roth in Khartoum (The Public Theater). Regional: The World Premiere of Lynn Nottage’s This is Reading (Franklin Street Station), John Patrick Shanley’s Pirate! (NYS&F Powerhouse Theater) and The Wild Duck (Fischer Center @ Bard). TV: New Amsterdam, Bull. Film: Father Sherman in Doubt.
Lisa Stathoplos
actor
Lisa Stathoplos is an actor, voice artist and special education teacher/behavior specialist. She has been acting on stage, in film and video for forty years and teaching for twenty. Highlights of Lisa’s work on stage include Maire in Friel’s Translations at Worcester Forum. She was a Spotlight Award nominee for creating the role of Marie in Mike Kimball’s The Secret Of Comedy for NY Theater Company, Portsmouth, N.H. She won critical acclaim playing Maria Callas in Terrence McNally’s Master Class at Good Theater. At Portland Stage, she created the role of Marie in Monica Wood’s Papermaker and played Sharon in Jen Silverman’s The Roommate. She is a founding member of Mad Horse Theatre Company, Portland. She performed with Eve Ensler in her Vagina Monologues at Merrill Auditorium, Portland. Her work as the character of Violet Weston in Tracy Lett’s August:Osage County at Good Theater earned her the 2011 Portland PEER Award for Best Performance.
Film work includes Ellie Lee’s Dog Days, Winner, Best Short 2000 Hamptons and Florida Film Festivals, Family Trees by Lars Trodson, Berlin Film Festival, Louis Frederick’s Drink Me and her first speaking role on film with a dog returned from the dead in Stephen King’s Pet Sematary.
Voice work with PocketUniverse Productions for Audible.com includes voicing Nina Locke in Joe Hill’s Locke And Key/ multiple AUDIE Award winner, Diana Fowley in The X-Files, Cold Cases with David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson/2018 multiple AUDIE Award nominee, The Starling Project by Jefferey Deavers playing opposite Alfred Molina/2016 AUDIE Award, Best Original Work, The Vault Of Horror from EC Comics/Winner Best AudioDrama, 2020 Independent Book Awards. She played Captain Frey in Homefront: Expeditionary Forcewith Kate Mulgrew and Zachary Quinto and won a 2019 Earphones Award/Audiofile Magazine for her narration of Mary Gabriel’s Ninth Street Women.
Lisa moved north from her beloved theatrical home, Portland, Maine, and lives in Searsport with michael and a motley collection of adopted furry creatures.
Michael Crockett
set designer
Michael Crockett (book artist and designer for Make Me and Chimera/ A Shapeshifter’s Journey) is a visual artist, actor, director, playwright, and set designer. He has worked with Mad Horse Theatre Company, Portland Stage, The Theater Project and The Public Theater and many others. He is currently working on a memoir telling the complex love story of his fascinating parents. He recently read selections from this work at Memoir Church (manuscriptmentor.com). Michael has retired from Special Education after a 23-year career specializing in behavior. A native of Portland, and father to two wonderful sons, he now lives in mid-coast Maine.
Gelsey Amelia
lobby installation artist
Gelsey Amelia is a queer multidisciplinary artist currently residing in rural Maine. Her work uses performance, illustration, ritual & installation to explore themes of healing through transmutation, gay eroticism, nature, ancestry, mythology, liminal spaces, & utopian/dystopian visions. She is a founding member of New Fruit art collective & has spent the past decade focusing on the creation of collectively-run spaces holding experimental opportunities & experiences within them.
Karen Stathoplos
costume designer
Having always loved theatre, singing and costumes, Karen has performed and provided costumes for many a show including several years of costuming 60 community members for Christmas Revels performances. Some favorite roles (and costumes!) are Guinevere in Camelot, Eliza in My Fair Lady, Aldonza in Man of La Mancha, Baker’s Wife in Into the Woods and Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream with sister Lisa as Helena and Suze directing. As a cast member of Mixed Nuts, she also performed improv with Lisa and Suze. She is psyched to be the costuming part of this glorious new play working again with two of her favorite people. And meeting new favorites!
Iain Odlin
technical diretor, lighting & sound designer
Iain Odlin went to his first community theatre audition in 1986. As he arrived, an angry man stormed out of the building past him. Puzzled, he continued inside and was greeted with the question, "You wouldn't happen to want to be a lighting guy, would you?" Sometimes opportunity knocks the door off its hinges.
Since then, Iain's been 'lighting guy' for over a dozen companies including Good Theater and Vivid Motion. He is also Technical Director for The Hill Arts.