the team | quimbini

Team Whammy!

Chuck Harper

Director - Sound Designer - Performer/Quimby

Chuck currently serves as Artistic Associate at HotCity Theatre of St. Louis, and Associate Professor of Performance at SIUE. His most recent original production, The Probe: An Inquiry into the Meteoric Rise and Spectacular Fall of Orson Welles in Hollywood, premiered at the The Theatre at St. John’s (HotCity) and played the following summer at the Prague International Fringe Festival. Overseas directing credits include the European premiere of Charles Mee’s Big Love (Ardeo Theater Project, St. Julien l’Ars, France) and the European premiere of Doug Wright’s Quills (Black Box International Theatre, Prague and Drak Divadlo, Hradec Kralove). His production of Quills was named “Theatrical Event of the Year” by the Prague Post and was subsequently remounted in Prague’s historic Cinoherni Club and at FOIO Theatre in Berlin. Other directing work in the US includes At Play in the Valley of the Shadow of Chet (Circle X Theatre, Los Angeles); The Life and Times of Tulsa Lovechild (The Mad Scene, Los Angeles); Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom, Slasher, and The Scene, (HotCity Theatre, St. Louis); Wilhelm Reich in Hell, Search and Destroy, and Absent Friends (Strawdog Theatre Company, Chicago); Three Days of Rain and Accidental Death of An Anarchist (University of Washington Summer Arts Festival, Seattle).

Mikey Butane Thomas

Movement Activities - Scenic Drawings - Performer/Quimby

Mikey is currently the Director of Movement Activities, an aerial arts and performance group from in Columbus, Ohio. Most conspicuously identified as a choreographer, he is also a dancer, teacher, visual artist and arts administrator. He is the recipient of an MFA degree in choreography from the Ohio State University, with notable associations including: guest-in-residence and aerial dance and modern dance instructor at Taiwan National University for the Arts (Taipei, Taiwan), dance faculty at SIUE Edwardsville (2003-2008), dance faculty at Savannah College of Art and Design, company manager, dancer and instructor at Ballet Met University, and the Perry Mansfield Performing Arts School. While living in New York City, Mikey maintained a living-working studio in Brooklyn where he created work for the Sean Curran Company, and presented work as an independent artist. Mikey is a recipient of a National College Choreography Award (2002) for work he presented at Lincoln Center with SMU dance. Additionally, he has received an outstanding citation for choreography at the Toronto Fringe Festival for his work with MadCo (MO).

Maggie Conroy

Associate Director - Performer/Quimby

Maggie Conroy is an actor and dancer who has been a part of the Whammy! creative team from its original workshop performances through its festival premiere at Xfest and its full premiere at HotCity Theatre. A Saint Louis native, she has co-created several original plays including Rocket88 with Dream Machine Press, Tokyo with Theater 310b, and This is Not Funny with Stray Dog Theatre. Other professional credits include The Hairy Ape (Upstream Theater),Slasher and Neighborhood 3:Requistion of Doom (HotCity Theatre), Arabian Nights (St.Louis Shakespeare). Maggie has trained in the Suzuki, Viewpoints and Composition methods with the SITI Company and received her B.A. in Performance and Dance from Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville.

Jeff Skoblow

Performer/Dr. G

Jeffrey Skoblow was born in New York City in 1955 and has been Professor of English Language & Literature at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville since 1987. His acting career spans a quarter century of work with the Arts League Players of Edwardsville, a community theater group, as well as with SIUE theater productions, including leading roles in works by Shakespeare (Measure for Measure, Twelfth Night, Hamlet), Gorky (The Lower Depths), Beckett (Play), Odets (Awake and Sing!), Albee (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), Stoppard (The Real Thing, Arcadia), Mamet (Oleanna), and Kushner (Angels in America), among many others

Greg Fenner

Performer

Greg is very proud to be returning to this amazing, energetic show. He previously performed in "Whammy!" with HotCity Theatre, where he also starred in "Neighborhood 3:Requisition of Doom." He has worked with Stray Dog Theatre in "Angels in America: Parts 1 & 2," "Six Degrees of Separation," and in "Fully Committed," for which he received a St. Louis Theater Circle Award for Best Actor in a Comedy. Other works include "Cyrano de Bergerac" and "The Taming of the Shrew" with St. Louis Shakespeare. He has worked with The Black Rep and Metro Theater Company, and performed in numerous shows such as "Greater Tuna" and "Purlie Victorious" at his Alma Mater SIUE, where he also directed The Pillowman. Greg is also the creator, writer, and co-director of the comedy web series Classy Noodle. Check us out at www.classynoodle.com.

James Wulfsong

Lighting / Projection Design

James is currently the Chair of the Department of Theater and Dance and has been on the SIUE design faculty for over twelve years. Prior to moving to Edwardsville, Mr. Wulfsong worked professionally in Illinois and on productions at The Guthrie, Ordway, and Mixed Blood Theater in Minnesota. He also served as the technical director for the Hartman Center for the Performing Arts at Bradley University. He has lent his skills to the premier production of Disney’s Lion King and toward many Sesame Street Live productions. Some of his scenic design work at SIUE include: bobrauschenbergamerica, Ruthless: The Musical, Antigone, As You Like It, A Mato Mosaic, What the Butler Saw, and most recently Distracted. He received his M.F.A. from the University of Minnesota.

Kristina Cirone

Stage Manager

Anna Skidis

Performer

Anna Skidis is a graduate of SIUE with a B.A. in Theatre, and a recipient of the St. Louis Theatre Circle award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Musical. Her recent Saint Louis credits include Shlemiel the First with New Jewish Theatre, Psycho Beach Party, Spring Awakening, Urinetown, The Who’s Tommy, and Evil Dead: the Musical with Stray Dog Theatre, Godspell with Mustard Seed Theatre, Adding Machine with R-S Theatrics, Whammy! and This is Not Funny with Theatre 310b. SOLI DEO GLORIA.

Alex van Blommestein

Scenic Design

Originally from the great white north of Canada, Lex moved to the states to get his MFA in scenic design at the Wayne State University’s Hilberry Theatre on the rough streets of downtown Detroit. Learning from a Russian émigré, Lex has developed a style of emotional expressionism mixed with North American eclecticism. Lex previously taught and designed at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and some of his favourite shows he designed there were Whammy! (where it all started), Intimate Apparel, The Importance of Being Earnest and Ubu Roi. Professionally he has designed for The Black Rep – The Real McCoy, HotCity Theatre – Slasher, Oleanna and Whammy!, St. Louis Shakespeare Company – Twelfth Night and The Merchant of Venice, Insight Theatre – The Glass Menagerie, as well as Cincinnati Shakespeare Company – A Comedy of Errors, Arms and The Man, The Lion in Winter, Miss Julie and Othello. Now Lex is based out of Raleigh, N.C., teaching design for theatre at Meredith College. He has designed scenery and lights for Machinal, lights for Step on a Crack, and scenery for Electra and A Little Night Music. Lex would like to thank his wife and costume designer, Em Rossi, for being there and putting up with him and riding along in his chaotic whirlwind while he is in his designing frenzy, and bearing with him while he further transforms into a Quimby. Cheers.

Originally from Las Vegas, NV, Kristina moved to the midwest to get her degrees in Theater Performance and Anthropology from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Kristina has dabbled in nearly every aspect of theatre she possibly could from floor crew to performing and directing. On stage credits include Distracted (Mama), What the Butler Saw (Geraldine), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Peaseblossom), Ubu Rio (Czar), and Beyond Therapy (Charlotte). Backstage she has been a part of stage managing shows like Whammy!, Anton in Show Business, and The Sound of Music as well as directing original shows like SIUE's Black Theatre Workshop for two years in a row. She is proud to say that she has been a part of the Whammily since the first production and is thrilled to see how far this bizarre, wonderful show has come! Enjoy, and thanks for choosing live theatre over yet another movie about vampires.

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