SAG-AFTRA Foundation and BroadwayWorld have partnered for a filmed Conversations Q&A series to recognize and celebrate the vibrant theatre community in New York City and the actors who aspire to have a career on the stage and screen.
Please join us for a Conversations Q&A with the cast and creators of The Band's Visit, David Cromer, David Yazbek, Itamar Moses, Katrina Lenk, John Cariani, Sharone Sayegh and Jonathan Raviv, moderated by BroadwayWorld's Richard Ridge of "Backstage with Richard Ridge!"
Estimated program end time: 5:45 PM.
PANELIST BIOS
KATRINA LENK - Actor
Katrina Lenk originated the role of “Dina” in Atlantic Theater Company's Off-Broadway production of The Band's Visit (Lucille Lortel Award for Best Actress in a Musical, Dorothy Loudon and Clarence Derwent Awards). Broadway: Indecent, Once, Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, The Miracle Worker. Off-Broadway/Regional includes: Indecent (Vineyard Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Yale Rep), Touch (59E59), iWitness (Mark Taper Forum), Lost Land (Steppenwolf Theatre), Elemeno Pea, The Caucasian Chalk Circle (South Coast Rep), Camille (Bard SummerScape), and Lovelace: A Rock Opera (LA Weekly, LADCC and Garland Awards). TV/Film: “The Good Fight,” “The Get Down,” “Elementary,” “The Blacklist,” Look Away, Evol, FracKtured, Crime Fiction, among others. She is co-creator of the comedy web series “Miss Teri” and a member of several bands including her own, moxy phinx. katrinalenk.com
JOHN CARIANI - Actor
Broadway: Something Rotten! (OCC nomination); Fiddler on the Roof (Tony nomination; OCC Award). Recent Off-Broadway: Picnic, Come Back Little Sheba, and Almost, Maine (Transport Group).Television: “Blacklist,” “The Good Wife,” and “Homeland.” Recurring roles on “Law & Order” (CSU Tech Beck), “Numb3rs,” and “The Onion News Network.” Several films. Playwright: Almost, Maine; Last Gas; LOVE/SICK, all available through Dramatists Play Service.
JONATHAN RAVIV - Actor
New York work includes: The Boy Who Danced On Air at Abingdon Theatre Company (New York Premiere), The Lightning Thief - The Percy Jackson Musical at The Lucille Lortel (Drama Desk nomination for Best Musical), The Band's Visit at the Atlantic Theater Company (World Premiere), Martyrs Street at Theater for the New City, The Ragged Claws at Cherry Lane, Lies My Father Told Me with the National Yiddish Theatre and My Name Is Asher Lev at the Westside Theatre (Outer Critics Circle award for Best Play). Other regional credits include: The Boy Who Danced On Air at Diversionary Theatre (World Premiere), Love’s Labour’s Lost at Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, Fiddler on the Roof with the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Oklahoma! at Portland Center Stage, Homebody/Kabul with Curious Theatre Company, Arabian Nights at Berkeley Rep., The Chosen at Chicago’s Writers’ Theatre, Lady Madeline at Steppenwolf Theatre and The Light In The Piazza at both Arena Stage & Goodman Theatre. Television credits include: “The Blacklist,” “Zero Hour,” and “Pan Am.” @jonathanraviv
SHARONE SAYEGH - Actor
Sharone Sayegh is honored to be bringing The Band’s Visit to Broadway. As an actor of Israeli/Iraqi descent, it’s incredibly exciting to bring this new Middle Eastern musical to life. Broadway: Mamma Mia! Off-Broadway: Anna in The Band's Visit (Atlantic Theater Co, World Premiere), title role in Scheherazade (Prospect Theater Co) and the world premiere of The Wildness (Ars Nova). Regional: Maria Elena in Buddy (The Muny), Aouda in 80 Days (Florida Rep), Vidya in Disconnect (San Jose Rep, BACC Nom.). Workshops: Margaritaville (Dir. Christopher Ashley), Hazel (Dir. Lucie Arnaz), Sheila Levine (Dir. Susan Stroman), Hooray For Iceboy (Dir. John Rando), War is F*cking Awesome (Dir. Leisl Tommy), Bengal Tiger… (Lark). BFA: Syracuse University. This one’s for Eema, Abba, ha mishpacha, and her Yossi. sharonesayegh.com @sharonesayegh
DAVID YAZBEK - Music & Lyrics
A varied career as a recording artist, EmmyAward-winning TV and screenwriter, music producer, and pianist has somehow led Yazbek to become one of Broadway’s preeminent composer/lyricists. His three shows, The Full Monty, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown have received a combined 24 Tony Award nominations, including three for Best Score. His newest musical, The Band’s Visit, earned him an Obie, New York Drama Critics Circle, Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle and two Drama Desk awards for the Off-Broadway engagement at Atlantic Theatre Company. As a recording artist, Yazbek is responsible for five albums: The Laughing Man, Tock, Damascus, Tape Recorder and Evil Monkey Man. He has written and/or produced for such acts as XTC, Ruben Blades, The Persuasions, Joe Jackson, Tito Puente and many others. He also produced the original cast albums of his Broadway shows. He has three Grammy Award® nominations. In the past couple of years, he has scored the final season of HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire,” composed music for Larry David’s Fish in the Dark and written songs and music for Much Ado About Nothing at Central Park’s Delacorte Theater, all while opening productions of Scoundrels and Women on the Verge in London’s West End. In past lives, he has written dozens of scripts and many songs for television and film, won an Emmy Award® for his stint on “Late Night with David Letterman” and wrote the unrelenting theme song for “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” David is seven.
ITAMAR MOSES - Book
Itamar Moses is the author of the full-length plays Outrage, Bach at Leipzig, Celebrity Row, The Four of Us, Yellowjackets, Back Back Back, Completeness and The Whistleblower; the musicals Nobody Loves You (with Gaby Alter), Fortress of Solitude (with Michael Friedman) and The Band’s Visit (with David Yazbek); and the evening of short plays Love/Stories (Or But You Will Get Used To It). His work has appeared Off-Broadway and elsewhere in New York, at regional theaters across the country and in Canada, Hong Kong, Israel, Venezuela, Turkey and Chile, and is published by Faber & Faber and Samuel French. Awards for his work include Lucille Lortel, New York Drama Critics Circle, Outer Critics Circle and Obie awards in New York, as well as awards from the Portland, San Diego, Dallas, and Bay Area Theatre Critics Circles. He’s received new play commissions from The McCarter, Playwrights Horizons, Berkeley Rep, The Wilma Theater, South Coast Rep, Manhattan Theatre Club, Lincoln Center, and Goodman Theatre. On television, Itamar has written for TNT’s “Men of a Certain Age,” HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire,” and WGN’S “Outsiders.” He holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU and has taught playwriting at Yale and NYU. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild and is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect. Born in Berkeley, CA, he now lives in Brooklyn, NY.
DAVID CROMER - Director
Recent credits include: Man from Nebraska (Second Stage); the Off-Broadway premiere of The Band's Visit (Atlantic Theatre Company); The Effect (Barrow Street Theatre); Come Back, Little Sheba (Huntington Theatre); Angels in America (Kansas City Rep); and Our Town at the Almeida Theatre in London, which he also directed in Chicago, New York (Barrow Street Theatre), Los Angeles, Boston and Kansas City. Additional New York Credits include: Women or Nothing at Atlantic, Really Really at MCC, The House of Blue Leaves and Brighton Beach Memoirs on Broadway, When the Rain Stops Falling and Nikolai and the Others at Lincoln Center Theater as well as Tribes, Orson’s Shadow (Barrow Street) plus Adding Machine, which was a BST production at the Minetta Lane. Originally from Chicago, his credits there include Sweet Bird of Youth (The Goodman), A Streetcar Named Desire, Picnic and The Price (Writers Theatre), Cherrywood, Mojo, and The Hot l Baltimore (Mary-Arrchie), The Cider House Rules (co-directed with Marc Grapey at Famous Door), and Angels in America (The Journeymen), among others. For his work he has received a Drama Desk, three Obies, three Lortels, four Jeff Awards and in 2010 was made a McArthur Foundation Fellow.
