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CREDITS

Original English Translation: M. Cody Poulton
Original English Title: "The Happy Lads"

Set Design: Tomoyuki Ikeda
Lighting Design: Rie Ono
Music and Sound: Udi Pladott
Costume Design: Bianca Toscano
Choreography: Lisa Giobbi

Production Stage Manager: Kanako Morita

PR: Lanie Zipoy

Production Staff
Eriko Ogawa (Theatre Arts Japan)
Futoshi Miyai (Theatre Arts Japan)
Yukako Yamazoe (Theatre Arts Japan)
Matthew Paul Olmos (woken' glacier)
Ronit Muszkatblit (woken' glacier)




HideoTsuchida
Mr. Tsuchida is one of the up-and-coming young playwrights who have emerged from the Kansai region in recent years and received attention. He began performing in 1985, at the same time he entered Ritsumeikan University. In 1989, he formed the troupe B Kyu Practice (now MONO) and based his activities in Kyoto. TSUCHIDA has been handling all this troupe's writing and directing since 1990. His style tends toward entertainment spectacle, so he is much in demand to write for commercial theaters such as Bungakuza and Seinenza, which cast popular star actors, as well as scripts for television dramas. He is considered a very promising popular writer. TSUCHIDA specializes in situation comedies on the theme of universal human sadness, and when well-matched actors perform together with their own unique intervals and tempo, their dialogue will fill the stage with laughter tinged with pathos. He received the OMS Drama Award for The Happy Lads. Since September 2003, TSUCHIDA was in the United Kingdom on a year-long overseas study program for up-and-coming artists administered by the Agency for Cultural Affairs.

M. Cody Poulton
Teaches Japanese literature and theatre at the University of Victoria, Canada. Publications include Spirits of Another Sort: The Plays of Izumi Kyôka (2001), twenty entries for The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance (2003), and numerous translations of both kabuki and modern Japanese drama, including: Kara Jûrô's A Cry from the City of Virgins , Betsuyaku Minoru's Sick , Ohashi Yasuhiko's Godzilla , Hirata Oriza's Tokyo Notes and The Yalta Conference , and Tsuchida Hideo's First Love . He is the coeditor of a book, Dreams, Shadows: essays in honour of A.V. Liman ( Prague : Karolinum, in press). Poulton is currently working on two other book projects: A Beggar's Art: scripting modernity in Japanese drama, 1912-1933 , and (with Mitsuya Mori and J. Thomas Rimer) The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Drama . He is currently Chair of the Department of Pacific & Asian Studies.

Matthew Paul Olmos
Received his B.A. in Playwriting from UC Santa Barbara, where he received a Corwin Award for Best Full-Length Play, The Tragedy of Catalina's Lover. While there he acted in The Shadowbox, Romeo and Juliet, The Birthday Party, a guerilla production of Gallow's Humor and the film Clarimonde from the 1999 Reel Loud Festival. His directing credits include the original scripts Confessions and Walk of Pride. He then attended UCLA's School of Film , Theatre and Radio where he was given the GOP Award for Graduate Playwriting. Finally, he earned his MFA in Playwriting from The Actor's Studio Drama School . As a playwright, he has been produced several times in Santa Barbara and was part of the THAW festival at HERE in NYC. He was part of the 2003 and 2004 Latino Festivals at New School University and his children's play, Cingo Amigos, was produced at Colegio de St. Augustinos in Spain . His plays The Vampire Lesson and the beautifulest room were produced through The Actor's Studio Repertory at Westbeth. He was the 2004 Alternate Recipient of New Dramatists Van Lier Award. His plays seal sings its song was produced at the Gene Frankel Theatre in New York City in the winter of 2005. The following spring his plays Wonders of the Human Body and locomotive were both produced at the Gene Frankel Theatre as well. He currently does marketing at the Lark Play Development Center, meanwhile is both a founder and the Artistic Director of woken'glacier theatre company.

Eriko Ogawa
Born and Raised in Tokyo, Japan, Eriko has an MFA Directing at the Actors Studio Drama School. She is a resident director and a founding member of woken'glacier theatre company and Theatre Arts Japan, and a member of Lincoln Center Directors Lab 2004 & 2005. She is a receipant of Japanese Government Overseas Study fellowship Program for Artists. Eriko is an associate member of Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers. Recent directing credits include: Rhythm Method (Tokyo in Japan), Tokyo Nostalgia (NY Fringe Festival), Japanese Plays from the early 20th century (Common Basis Theater), seal sings its song (Gene Frankel Theatre), Audience, Down the Road (ASDS), 12 Billion (NY Fringe Festival), When You Wake (HERE).

Ronit Muszkatblit
Born in Germany , raised in Israel . Graduate of the Actor's Studio Drama School . Member of posttheater ny/berlin and a founding member of woken'glacier theater company. Recent Credits include: Writing collaborator - Director of Matchmaker Matchmaker - The idea of the shtetl as the ideal home. (Stadts Bank Berlin), Cop Out/Talking Dog by John Guare (Gene Frankel Theater, NYC), Struwwelmensch - multi media investigation of the different Shock Headed Peters, creator and director (Rohkunst Bau Festival, Berlin) Quartet (Westbeth Theater, NYC) Readings: “The Child Dreams” by Hanoch Levin (59E59, NYC), ATA by Nanna Hadikwa Mwaluko (wokenglacier reading series 06) , Cloud Burst by Miriam Kainy (Haaretz Reading series 06). La Mama Umbria.

Gili Getz
Graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (NY), where he received the Kirk Douglas Scholarship and was a member of the Academy Comapny. As a Company member, favorite performances included Charlie's Aunt (Babberly), Modigliani (Zbo), and Fishing (Rob.) He has performed in several plays in New York and Los Angeles, including: Off-Off Broadway R.U.R . (Gall) at the Mazur Theatre; Off Broadway Retzach (Flushed ); Skin & Teeth (Orion), for which he was nominated for Best Actor in a Drama (Artistic Director's Award); Astroglide/That's What (Man), which he also wrote; The Broadway Play (Lieutenant); Garbo's Cuban Lover (Thalberg).

Christopher Loar*
Graduated last June from Circle in the Square Theater School. Since then he appeared in Noemie LaFrance’s Agora II, the New York Clown Theater Festival and the New York Downtown Clown Revue. His play Airport was just featured as part of the Winter Strawberry One Act Festival. He is very pleased to be a part of this play.

Moti Margolin
Grew up in Brooklyn, went to Stuyvesant High School, and New York University where he majored in history, journalism, and Russian. He began to pursue acting a few years after finishing university. He attended the Actors Studio Drama School and graduated in 2004. Since then he has been working almost without pause on every kind of theatre project imaginable. Recent credits include: Billy Torch Murphy in Lawrence Fishburne's "Riff Raff" with the Subteranean Theatre Ensemble; Old Mahon in John Millington Synge's "Playboy of The Western World" with Aisling Arts; King John of France in Shakespeare's "Edward III" at The American Theatre of Actors; Slim in Sam Shepard's and Patti Smith's "Cowboy Mouth" at the Big Little Theatre directed by Alyssa Silver; a staged reading of Hanoch Levin's "The Child Dreams" performed at Primary Stages and directed by Ronit Muskatblit as a collaboration with Woken Glacier and Voice Theater; Henry Wirz in Saul Levitt's "The Andersonville Trial" with TEST Theater Company, etc. Film credits include "Cotton Candy", directed by Carl Wooley with Namshub Productions, finalist at the Akira Kurosawa Film Festival 2005; Yun Sun Cho's "First Date" which was featured at the Korean Film Festival; and numerous other independent projects.

Josh Peters
Theatre: Beyond Reason (Blue Heron), Baby With the Bathwater, O Chang Guns Toenail (Cherry Lane), Do You Create or Destroy and Hoopla Such is Life (Elysium Theatre Company). Film: Caroline By Committee, Waking Fiction. Received his MFA in Dramatic Arts from the Actors Studio Drama School. Josh is also a professional painter who
exhibits around New York.

Andy Schneeflock
Moved from St. Joseph, MO to New York in the fall of 2002 to study acting at the Atlantic Theater Company Acting School.? After graduating from their two year conservatory in 2004 he has continued to explore acting, and himself, in Committed Impulse an amazing acting training created by his friend Josh Pais.? He is a member of the New England Youth Theatre in Brattleboro, VT and is co-founder of 16 Tons Theatre Company and performed with the in the?Philadelphia Fringe Festival in the past two summers.? Both shows, "Ghost Stories" and "The Rise and Fall of 16 Tons Theater Company" where very well received.

Tomoyuki Ikeda
Tomoyuki Ikeda majored in Scenographer at scenic design course of MusashinoArt University in Tokyo, Japan and started his career as a designer of storedisplay. He joined a theatrical company in 1988, performed the first set design, he became a scenographer, regularly designed for the play of his company and other companies at their requests. Established Ikeda Design Office of own in 1995, also he studied in the professional school of architecture. In 1998, Tomoyuki received "Kisaku Ito award, Freshman prize" from Japan Stage & Television Designers Association. He submitted the stage
design works for Prague Quadrennial and went to London to learn the stage design as a Japanese student abroad from the Ministry of Cultural Affairs and certified B.A.-equivalent Diploma in Theater Design, Central St. Martin College of Art and Design, London UK. A piece of work "Tempest" designed while in collage was accepted as the collage collection of masterpieces. Returning to Japan in 2000, he is currently performing stage designs of standard plays, operas and traditional plays all over Japan, mainly in Tokyo, recently received "Kisaku Ito award" for the best stage designer of the year in 2006.

Rie Ono
Recent credits include: All This Intimacy (Second Stage Theatre Uptown), Thousand Years Waiting (P.S. 122), My Price Point (P.S. 122, Boston Center for the Arts), Full Bloom, Rebound and Gagged (Vital Theater), The Nastiest Drink in the World, Radiant Ruby (Vital Children’s Theater), As an Ugly Duck (Joyce Soho), 10 Minute Play Festival (Bard College) Hanjo (Here), Another Gay Play (CAP21), The Waiting Room (Fifth Floor Theater), Opera Nightingale (Present Theater Theatorium), The Hoffman Circus and Cirque Boom’s Circus of Vices and Virtues 2003 (Brooklyn Lyceum, Underwater Theater), M2O Plays Tango (La Mama E.T.C.), Tamagawa Taiko and Dance Group (Kennedy Center). She also collaborated with Yoshiko Chuma and the School of Hard Knocks for A Page Out of Order: M at Dance Theater Workshop. Rie holds an MFA in Lighting Design from NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

Udi Pladott
Crossing over from the technology industry into sound-making, Udi has followed a winding career path from musicological studies, through the DJ circuit both in Israel and the NY area, animated film scoring, as well as composing modern-classical and experimental concert pieces. Stylistically he has gone from laying down beats for electronic dance tracks, through creating interactive multi-channel sound installations, to composing for a full orchestra. His work for theater has allowed him to stretch his artistic muscles, being called on to provide a musical backdrop for a different dramatic vision in each production. Udi scored the short 3D animation film “Tea Time” by Guy Hoffman, and has written incidental music and designed sound for theater productions in collaboration with the woken’glacier theater group (“Seal Sings Its Song”, “Quartet”, “The Child Dreams”), Red-Radar Productions (“Cop Out” and “Talking Dog”) and Milk Can Theatre (“Impossible Lorca – a Theatrical Hat Trick”). His live performances include electro-acoustic concert pieces conceived in collaboration with Patrick McCarthy – “Short Set” and “Sifting and Sorting”, live electronics in Keren Rosenbaum’s “Diffusion” with the Reflex Ensemble at Symphony Space’s Thalia Theatre and the Chelsea Museum, electronics in improvisation with vocalist and inter-disciplinary artist Sharon Gal at the Abaton Garage Gallery, as well as DJ engagements, most recently on “The Disorient Express” at the Burning Man arts festival in Nevada. www.udi.pladott.org

Bianca Toscano
Bianca’s desire for drawing and design was summoned at a young age with the discovery of her brother’s militia of action figures. Armed with an extensive collection of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and GI Joe figurines, little Bianca found inspiration in their dynamic nature which led to her first series of drawings. The myriad possibilities of artistic interpretation has intrigued her ever since. Years later, while studying theatre at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, TX she seized the opportunity to explore scenic art and set design. She’s worked on shows including the Tempest, Madwoman of Chaillot, Uncle Vanya, and Equus which also included costume design. In New York City, Bianca has worked on woken'glacier productions: seal sings its song and wired. She is thankful to have the opportunity to further her craft by costuming these real life figurines for this, her third production with woken'glacier

Lisa Giobbi
After graduating from the Julliard School in New York , joined MOMIX, collaborating and performing with Moses Pendleton throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas for eight years. She choreographed and performed with Pilobolus, creating a number of pieces including “Televisitation”, “Return to Maria La Baja” and “Lands Edge” which remains in their repertoire. Lisa collaborated and performed with Martha Clarke in the “ Garden of Earthly Delights ”, “ Vienna : Lusthaus”, “ Vienna : Lusthaus Revisited”, “Endangered Species” and “A Midsummer Nights Dream”.

Lisa founded her company, Lisa Giobbi Movement Theatre in 1991, premiering with “Motion Pictures” a movement work exploring the fusion of circus arts and dance. She developed ideas for these works in collaborating with Circus Flora, a European style-touring circus, based in St. Louis . Lisa also further expressed her dance/theatre fusion ideas with the Big Apple Circus, where she was the creative consultant and choreographer for five years.

Lisa Giobbi Movement Theatre (the company) has toured throughout Europe and the United States firmly establishing Lisa's reputation as a major innovator in aerial dance. She performed her critically acclaimed aerial work throughout the world, most notably at the Joyce Theater in NY, La Fenice Theatre in Venice , The Boston Dance Umbrella Aerial festivals, the 2004 Frequent Flyers Festival in Boulder CO , and the Santa Rosalia Festival in Palermo Sicily . Lisa was commissioned to work with the famed opera house La Scala in Milan Italy to premiere a work for the company. In recognition of her breakthrough work, Lisa was a guest artist in the Deutche Oper in Berlin , on three different occasions.

Lisa was asked by choreographer Danny Ezralow to perform aerial dances from her show, in his production of selected artists from around the world in “Daniel Ezralow and Friends” which played to packed audiences and critical acclaim in Milan and Rome .

In recognition of her work in music videos, Lisa has been nominated for two M.T.V. choreographer awards for videos, notably Gloria Estefan and Tommy Lee's “Hold Me Down”

Lisa continues to explore new venues and formats for her work developing, in collaboration with the English band, The Tiger Lilies, a variety style evening of music, movement and circus arts in a form of theatre popular in Europe . The performance piece “The Tiger Lilies Circus “started in 1996 and continues to be produced in theatres throughout Europe . Lisa also performed her own choreography in Variety Theater at the Wintergarten Variety in Berlin , at the Apollo in Düsseldorf, the Friedrichbau in Stuttgart .

She has choreographed and performed in numerous movies (Robin Williams and Annabella Sciorra in “What Dreams May Come” and “Temptesta”). She has worked as a choreographer on numerous independent films, music videos, commercials, fashion shows (Victoria's Secret 2000, 2001 and 2003 runway shows), benefits, television specials, cabaret theater, gala presentations, rock concerts (2005 Amsterjam with Snoop Dog and the Chili Peppers) and Off Broadway theatrical productions including David Rabe's “Those the River Keeps” and David Lynch's “Industrial Symphony #1”.

Kanako Morita
She started her stage-managing career in Japan , and worked with numerous shows including “Beauty and the Beast” (Assistant Stage Manager, Tokyo production) and “The Lion King.” (ASM, Tokyo production.) Some of her highlights in New York include “Pacific Overtures” (Supertitle Stage Manager, Avery Fisher Hall and Kennedy Center productions), “Macbeth” (SSM, Brooklyn Academy Music). She is currently the Production Stage Manager for Vital Theatre Company National Tour production for “Cinderella's Mice,” “The Bully,” and “My New York.”

Futoshi Miyai
Futoshi has worked as a stage manager and production coordinator in various major theaters and showcases since 1988 both in Japan and United States. In 1996, he received a scholarship from the Saison Foundation in Tokyo and moved to US. He received his MA from the Program of Arts Administration at Columbia University. He currently works as senior production coordinator at the Performing Arts Program of the Japan Society in NYC, where he has worked for many tours in NYC as well as all over the United States for Japanese artists, such as Rinko-gun Theater Company, Mizu to Abura, Mansaku-no-kai (Traditional Kyogen Theater), Seinendan Theater Company, Kayoko Shiraishi, Yosuke Yamashita Jazz Trio, Tessenkai Noh Theater Company, Akira Kasai, Ko Murobushi, Dairakudakan, Tadashi Suzuki Company, Basil Twist and others. He has been working as a freelance Stage Manager, Technical Advisor and Production Coordinator as well. His freelance works includes, Pappa Tarahumara, Yubiwa Hotel Theatre Company, Ku Nauka Theater Company, Fukuro Ishikawa, International WOW Company. He formed Theater Arts Japan with Eriko Ogawa and Yukako Yamazoe to share his experience as a liaison for theater artists for both the United States and Japan.

Yukako Yamazoe
Graduated Nippon University of Art, Yukako came to US in 1996. While working for New York and regional theatres in US as a stage manager, she also, directed stage reading of “The Letter”, also as directing intern, “Macbeth”, “The Importance of Being Earnest”, “Twelfth Night” and others at Theatre At Monmouth. She also noticed how well written Japanese plays are unnoticed in US and felt the strong urge to introduce Japanese plays to US. Her first attempt was producing and directing Masahiko Shimada’s “Luna – A Story of metempsychosis”. After forming Theatre Arts Japan with Eriko Ogawa, she produced “Japanese Plays from Early 20th Centuries” (also directed a piece) and “Tokyo Nostalgia” and directed Stage reading of “Dust storm” and “Gunpowder Man” in TAJ’s Stage Reading series She is also a production associate of Lori Russo’s Catwalk Production where she produced “Mrs. Dally has a Lover” and “Love, Isadora” (The Ensemble Studio Theatre). Her most recent success as a producer is Janis Stevens’ “Vivien” (A life story of Vivien Leigh) which was nominated for 2006 Drama Desk Award and currently in process of being seen in Philadelphia and New York Off Broadway.