PSYCH DRAMA COMPANY - Key Persons
Alex Aponte has been performing and directing in local theatres for the past twenty years, and was Vice President of Attleboro Community Theatre. Favorite roles include Lucien in "The Boys Next Door", Scrooge in "The Trial of Ebeneezer Scrooge", Dr. Einstein in "Arsenic and Old Lace", Mike Tolman in "Wait Until Dark", and Nunzio in "Over the River and Through the Woods". Alex is a retired Police Sergeant for the City of Attleboro.
Doug Greene was bitten by the theater bug in 1976 and has pursued it in many forms since then-- first as an actor, then moving into technical theater. His horizons expanded into media, film, and video production. Doug served as the director of video production for 14 years at the University of Rhode Island's Ryan center and most recently did a 3 season stint with the National Football League as an audio specialist. But live theater has always been his greatest love and heartfelt enjoyment.
Director Wendy Lippe revises and lightly re-mixes the text of Shakespeare's "Macbeth" for this Psych Drama Company audio production, creating a taut 90-minute radio play that focuses on the work's psychological horrors.
Psych Drama Company Founder Wendy Lippe on her company's two ambitious new audio productions
Wendy Lippe climbs over hurdles with the same grace and enthusiasm that she has stepping onto theatrical stages.
When the founder and producing artistic director of the Brookline-based Psych Drama Company saw a missed opportunity in how much lovers of theater could learn about not only shows but themselves after the curtain drops, she flipped the format and started a philanthropic-minded troupe that's celebrating its decade anniversary this year. So it's fitting that while some stage companies went dark in 2020, Lippe, a practicing clinical psychologist, found a way to keep the box office open through the pandemic, virtually and with significant vision.
"We wanted to do something really big and it was in the middle of COVID," Lippe said in a recent interview. "We were aware of a lot of artists and painters being underemployed and unemployed, and we wanted to do an interdisciplinary program and have collaborators come together across platforms."
In seeking a silver lining for her company, for their 2021 outings Lippe recruited partners including ArtLifting, a "social enterprise that champions artists impacted by homelessness or disabilities through the sale and celebration of their artwork," and Zarko Dragojevic, an accomplished composer from the Marin Držić Theater in Dubrovnik, Croatia. The Psych Drama Company's core mission is to "unite creative artists across the world in profit-sharing collaborations," and their current (virtual) marquee speaks to that end and then some.
Gail Chesler spent almost her entire career working for non-profits in many capacities. Her association with the performing arts began when she produced outdoor concerts on Long Island, managing all technical, booking, and fundraising aspects. Her later career was primarily in fundraising, with a specialty in Planned Giving. Gail received a Master's in Performing Arts Administration from NYU. Long an advocate of making one's avocation one's vocation, in 2000, Gail was made Director of Planned & Special Gifts at the Metropolitan Opera, which she considers the culmination and highlight of her career. She retired from the Met in 2012 but she is still a voracious consumer of opera, which she considers her "art of choice." During the pandemic, she and her partner have been watching opera streams several times a week. Gail serves on three boards of directors-she is the president of her co-op board; she also serves on the boards of Two Pianos: Playing for Life and the American Lyric Theater. She is proud to be working with the Psych Drama Company because she is a strong believer in its unique mission.
Larry Segel is a veteran of dozens of theatre productions, as an actor, director, lighting designer, producer, and many other jobs behind the scenes. He has directed dramas: The Cherry Orchard, Iphegenia in Aulis, Little Women, Our Town, and Under Milk Wood, as well as comedies: The Underpants, The Inspector General, Midsummer Night's Dream, Mornings At Seven, and Auntie Mame. For The Psych Drama Company, he has directed Edward Albee's At Home at the Zoo and The Lion in Winter; and he was the stage manager for A Streetcar Named Desire.
They'll have a psychoanalyst come and discuss the production after [the show's run is over]. With ours, every single performance has a clinical psychologist to lead a discussion afterward, and some have also worked with our actors and creative team during the rehearsal process. At our last production, we had people from Harvard Medical School and social workers leading a discussion after every performance. The mission was to help people think more deeply about relationships and their lives.
Mark Prokes' Gooper hasn't got as much to work with, or as many sterling lines, as most of the other characters, but Prokes finds and calibrates Gooper's rage and tendency toward connivance. McAuliffe, meantime, squares up nicely against Lippe; the former is venomous under her too-sweet decorum, while the latter is driven by desperation... and maybe (just maybe!) genuine love for her husband.
Zachary McConnell, audio designer for the performances, also appears as a character in "MacBeth." Dr. Lippe described Mr. McConnell as a brilliant magician. "He's in the play and he's doing the full audio design, bringing all the pieces together."
In her work as a psychologist, Dr. Lippe said she often helps her patients "find creative pursuits in their lives as a source of healing."