"Speed Freaks" Cast and Crew

	DAVID COTE — “Karl” David Cote is the theater editor and chief drama critic of Time Out New York. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Maxim and Opera News. He is a member of the New York Drama Critics Circle and appears as a contributing critic on NY1’s On Stage. In 2005, Hyperion published his book, Wicked: The Grimmerie, a behind-the-scenes look the Broadway hit musical Wicked. In 2007, Random House published a similar book about Jersey Boys. In the 1990s, Cote was a performer, mostly in avant-garde productions below 14th Street by Robert Cucuzza, Assurbanipal Babilla, Richard Foreman, Richard Maxwell and others. He co-founded and edited a ’zine called OFF: A Journal for Alternative Theater from 1996 to 1998. In 1997, he performed in the international tour of Pearls for Pigs. Under Cucuzza’s direction, he appeared in Rich White Farmers, Unconscious Motives of the Motion Picture Industry, Be Emphatic! and Speed Freaks. He blogs at www.histriomastix.typepad.com. LAURA KACHERGUS — “Molly” Laura moved to NYC as a teenager to pursue acting at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. After graduating, she spent a year in the UK appearing in commercials and on stage as Ophelia in an acclaimed production of Hamlet. Other stage credits include Tony Kushner’s Homebody/Kabul (NYC and LA), Will Pomerantz’ adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s Prater Violet, The Seven Deadly Sins and Martini Ceremony with the SITI Company, multiple productions of Moliere, Chekhov, Strindberg, Ionesco, Fassbinder and the original Speed Freaks stage extravaganza. This September, Laura can be seen playing Michael Douglas’s wife in Mike Cahill’s upcoming feature debut, King of California, which premiered at this year’s Sundance and Toronto film festivals and was produced by Alexander Payne and Michael London. Currently, she can also be seen playing various characters in the improvisational series Greg the Bunny on the Independent Film Channel. Other film and television includes Little Black Dress (opposite Rosario Dawson), Pigeonholed, The Danny McKay Project, Last Man Running, Medium and Law and Order: SVU. Ms. Kachergus currently resides in Los Angeles. JOSH STARK — “Jacob” Josh Stark plays upright bass with Gloria Deluxe, as well as Brooklyn's Matty Charles and the Valentines. He has worked as a performer with many NYC Theater companies, including Richard Foreman's Ontological-Hysteric Theater, Collapsable Giraffe, and Big Dance Theater. In film he can be seen in DJ Mendel's Make Pretend, and Planet Earth: Dreams. He is currently the Music Tech at SUNY New Paltz, and plays drums with legendary punk outfit SLAPBACK! ROBERT CUCUZZA — “Ivan”/Screenwriter/Director/Producer/ Editor Robert Cucuzza is a theater artist, filmmaker, actor and acting teacher. As a playwright, theater director and producer he spent six years as an artist-in-residence at the Ontological Theater in New York City where he mounted many highly-acclaimed original plays and developed a devoted following. His latest play Confidence, Women! recently completed a run at Axis Theatre. As a filmmaker, he has written and directed the feature films The Invincible Ecksteins and Speed Freaks, as well as several shorts. His latest film The Armed Boy— a silent featurette created to accompany Karl Jenkin’s modern choral mass "The Armed Man"—was commissioned by the Rackham Symphony Choir and recently premiered in Detroit. As a film actor, he has played lead roles in Speed Freaks, Memoirs of My Nervous Illness (opposite Tony-award winner Jefferson Mays) and The Strange Case of Marie France (currently on the festival circuit), as well as a featured roles in Planet Earth: Dreams, Tiger: His Fall and Rise (with the late great Adrienne Shelly) and in Salvatore Interlandi's Charlie, which recently premiered at the 2007 Method Fest. As a theater actor he has performed at the Ontological-Hysteric Theater and across Europe in Richard Foreman’s Panic! (How to be Happy!), Permanent Brain Damage, and My Head Was a Sledgehammer. He is currently playing the role of Tom Buchanan in European and U.S. tours of Gatz — a complete staging of the entire text of "The Great Gatsby" — by the vanguard theater company Elevator Repair Service, with whom he also appeared in the U.S. and abroad in Total Fictional Lie and the Bessie Award- winning Room Tone. Also in New York, he played the title role Off-Broadway in Axis Company's Listen Houdini and has performed in dance-theater works by David Neumann and Big Dance Theater. As an acting teacher he has taught popular classes in New York City and in his home state of Pennsylvania. In 2006 he founded ACME Acting Lab. Originally from Bradford, PA, Cucuzza is a 1990 graduate of Carnegie Mellon University where he received a BFA in Literary and Cultural Studies with a minor in Theatre. He was the recipient of a 1990 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship for a one-year independent study of experimental theater in Europe where he traveled extensively, seeing over 100 productions from all over the world, and taking workshops and master classes with such theater luminaries as Jerzy Grotowski, Peter Stein, Ludwik Flaszen, Monika Pagneux, and Philippe Gaulier. He lives in Beacon, NY with his wife and daughter, Heather and Amelia. SALVATORE INTERLANDI — Cinematographer Cinematographer on numerous shorts and features most notably, Make Pretend, Speed Freaks, and Benny and Lenny. After years of working and experimenting on a few shorts of his own, Salvatore teamed up with friend Till Neumann to create the film The Bakery which was awarded Best Cinematography at VisionFest Film Festival. His own feature film, Charlie, recently premiered at the MethodFest and is currently playing at festivals around the globe. As an actor he has performed in numerous short films, most notably, Gravity, an award-winning WWII short film written and directed by Erik S. Weigel, with whom he later teamed up to write El Camino, a feature length script that wrapped production in November 2006. MEROPE VACHLIOTI – Production Designer As the resident set designer for Theater By The Blind she designed Hamlet (Mint), Oedipus (Mint), Dial M For Murder (Blue Heron), When I'm 64 (Blue Heron), Ten Little Indians (Blue Heron), Brecht On Brecht (Blue Heron), Murder In Baker Street (Mint), Misalliance (Mint), The Unexpected Guest (30th Street Theatre), and Blind Spots (Irish Repertory). Last season she designed three shows for the Penobscot Theatre in Maine - The Crucible, The Smell of the Kill and Long Day's Journey Into Night. Over 20 productions in New York include: Long Road Home (Hudson Guild), The Unconscious Motives of the Motion Picture Industry (Ontological-Hysteric), The Mysteries of Eleusis (BAM), and The Lady From The Sea (Mitzi E. Newhouse). Recent projects: Mehmet Gömert Exhibition Stand (Hilton Hotel, Istanbul), and a summer resort called Garp made out of simple materials in Babakale, a small village in Turkey, which is the most western point of Asia. JOHN COLLINS — Sound Design John Collins began designing sound for theater in 1991 and has since designed for several independent film projects including Pills (2006), Wrong Guys (1997) and, most notably, Speed Freaks (2007). John has worked as a sound and lighting designer for several companies, especially for Target Margin Theater and for The Wooster Group. For his work with Wooster, he has received two Bessie Awards, a Helpman Award and two Drama Desk nominations. In 2003 he received a Bessie Award for his lighting of ERS' Room Tone. In 2007, he was nominated for a Lucille Lortel Award for his sound design work on Target Margin's Faust. John founded Elevator Repair Service Theater (ERS) in 1991. He has acted as ERS' director, producer and sometimes sound and lighting designer for almost sixteen years. Since 1991, the company has generated a loyal following and a substantial body of work that includes 14 original theater pieces and several short pieces. ERS has been seen across the U.S. and Europe. John has directed all of the group's pieces. John was born in North Carolina and raised in Georgia. John flies small planes and has held a private pilot's certificate since 2002. RICK MARTIN — Gaffer With Robert Cucuzza: lighting design for the plays The Sticky Banister and Speed Freaks; theatrical lighting for the film The Invincible Ecksteins. Other theatre work includes The Bitter Tears of Petra van Kant at Henry Miller’s Theatre; Dominant Looking Males, Dreamlandia, Seven and Joe Louis Blues for Thick Description in San Francisco (and New York) and thirteen years at the Idaho Shakespeare Festival. Opera: To Be Sung, Les Pèlerins de la Mecque and Yvonne Printemps – A French Diva Unveiled (L’Opéra Français de New York), Hester Pryne at Death (Stephen Paulus) for the 92nd Street Y, Firebird Motel (David Conte) for Thick Description in San Francisco and Der Wildschütz and The Two Widows at Manhattan School of Music. Designs for dance include works choreographed by Dana Reitz, Gordon Pierce Schmidt, Alex Beller, Mira Kingsley, Daniel Pelzig, Peter Anastos, Mark Godden, Petter Jacobsson, Thomas Caley as well as many projects for the Grand Rapids Ballet. RILEY McMAHON — Composer, “See the Bears” Bio to come. JOHANNA S. MEYER — Choreographer Johanna S. Meyer is a choreographer and performer based in New York City. Her two full-length dance works include Every Hotel TV Plays On (2001) and Teaser (1999); she is currently developing an evening-length show called Bearshow. She has also created eleven short pieces, many in collaboration with Alexandra Hartmann. Meyer's dances have been presented at PS 122, The Ontological Theater, Joyce SoHo, Movement Research at the Judson Church, The Kitchen's Dance-In-Progress series and most recently at the University of Santa Barbara Summer Theater Lab. Comedic and intricate, her work sometimes employs video and often draws on historical material such as burlesque routines, medical textbooks, and vintage films. Meyer participated in a residency at the White Oak Plantation, facilitated by The Field; Every Hotel TV Plays On was commissioned by Dixon Place with funds from the Jerome Foundation. She was a 2005 Artist-in-Residence at Movement Research, where she presented sections of Bearshow last year and this year completed a residency through Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Swing Space grant. She has also choreographed for theater works by a number of directors-in-residence at the Ontological Theater at St. Marks Church, including DJ Mendel, Robert Cucuzza, Ann de Mare, Juliana Francis and Ken Nintzel. Her choreography was featured at the 2003 Williamstown Theater Festival in a production of Chuck Mee’s Big Love directed by Amanda Charlton. Johanna choreographed “Girlshow” by Judy Bauerlein at the University of California at Santa Barbara Summer Theater Lab facilitated by Naomi Iizuka. Meyer has also performed in the work of numerous choreographers and directors, including OBIE-winner Richard Maxwell, Tory Vazquez, Nami Yamimoto, Karen Sherman and Tanya Gagne, Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel, and Nina Martin. She holds a BFA in dance from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. R. SIKORYAK — Poster Design R. Sikoryak has adapted the classics for anthologies such as Drawn & Quarterly, Raw, and Hotwire. His cartoons and illustrations have also appeared in Nickelodeon Magazine, the New Yorker, Fortune, and Business 2.0, among other publications; on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and in The Daily Show Presents America (The Book); and in the upcoming Our Dumb World: The Onion's Atlas of the Planet Earth. Sikoryak is the co-author, with Michael Smith, of The Seduction of Mike (Fantagraphics), a comic book funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. He was awarded artists fellowships from The New York Foundation for the Arts and The American Antiquarian Society for his comics adaptations of the classics. He is in the speakers program of the New York Council of the Humanities and teaches in the illustration department at Parsons School of Design. Since 1997, he has presented his cartoon slide show series, Carousel, around the United States and Canada. His artwork and animation will appear in the upcoming dance-mocumentary The Bentfootes.	FULL"SPEED FREAKS" CREDITS SPEED FREAKS Written and Directed by Robert Cucuzza Starring Josh Stark as "Jacob" Robert Cucuzza as "Ivan" David Cote as "Karl" Laura Kachergus as "Molly" Sally Eberhardt as "Ms. Fuentalba" Vladmir Ambia as "Senor Santangelo" Shauna Kelly as "Tiffany Taylor" Herman L. Eberhardt as "Paw-Paw" CINEMATOGRAPHY Salvatore Interlandi 1st ASSISTANT DIRECTOR Rachel Wood PRODUCTION DESIGNER Merope Vachlioti SCRIPT SUPERVISOR Sharon Watt GAFFER/GRIP Rick Martin SOUND MIXER/BOOM OPERATOR Martin Beauchamp DANCING BEAR CHOREOGRAPHER Johanna S. Meyer AIDE-DE-CAMP David Letwin EDITOR Robert Cucuzza SOUND DESIGNERS John Collins Robert Cucuzza SET BUILDERS Stephen Beatrice Andy Biscontini ASSISTANT TO MR. CALLAHAN Herman Eberhardt PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS Pierre Bacarro Michelle Borth Cristina Chapman Colleen DiVincentis Lucas Joaquin Nichol Lovett Luke Marchetti Chandra Oppenheim Alexis Sottile "SEE THE BEARS!" Music by Riley McMahon Lyrics by Robert Cucuzza Recorded at New Warsaw Studio Brooklyn, NY SPECIAL THANKS TO Randy Sharp and Brian Barnhart of Axis Company Richard Foreman and the Ontological-Hysteric Theater DJ Mendel and his beloved Canon XL-1 (R.I.P.) THANKS TO Joanna P. Adler, Ryan Bronz, Doorika, Yehuda Duenyas, Shawn Fagan, Hal Hartley, Cynthia Hopkins, Whit MacLaughlin, Tom Murrin, Richard Nagel, Newspaper Russell, Cristina Nunes, Madeleine Perlman, Kosta Potamianos, Christian Rogers, Secret Agent Gel, Dan Sharnoff, Richard Sylvarnes, James Urbaniak, Tory Vazquez, Tal Yarden This movie would not have been possible without the generous support of: Joanna P. Adler, Karl Barnhart, Steve Bodow, Paul Boocock, Cleo Cacoulidis, Allison Colby, Jeanne Cucuzza, Bill Dye, Dr. and Mrs. H. Eberhardt, Herman Eberhardt. Jr., Elevator Repair Service, Richard Foreman, Ben Harley, Jessica Holbrook, Ceci Costanzo Hull, Stephen Jordan, Blake Koh, Ralph and Jeannie Lamb, Donald Levit, Scott Mascena, Mary K. McBride, Tom Murrin, Ron Papanek, Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar, Antonio Santoro SPEED FREAKS A Great Zambini Productions motion picture Adapted from the Hangdog Theater stage production Presented at the Ontological Theater New York, New York Copyright 2007 by Robert Cucuzza All rights reserved.