PROGRAM 5
13th Grade Prom by Schuyler Iona Press
13th Grade Prom
by Schuyler Iona Press
Synopsis: If Neil Simon was sitting next to your mother on the bus while she was heading to the hospital to give birth to you wouldn’t you want to write about that too? 13th Grade Prom is an original musical play that encapsulates the emotions, triumphs and tragedies of growing up and waking up.
Schuyler Iona (Writer/Director/Performer) is a native New Yorker currently living in Los Angeles to Attend California Institute of the Arts where she is majoring in Music Composition and Performance. At CalArts she has had the opportunity to study with incredible composers and guitarist such as Thomas Leeb, Mark Lowenstein and Miroslav Tadic. She is a songwriter who performs all original sets on the guitar and piano. Schuyler is influenced by a wide variety of performers and music genres from folk to pop to musical theater to punk. Her guitar style features detailed chord progressions along with deft fingerpicking. She has opened for performers such as Ellis Paul and Loudon Wainwright III and has worked with many broadway performers and directors including Michael Greif (Rent, Next to Normal, Dear Evan Hansen) as an actress. Her first music video “Playground Museum” had its premier at the International Film Festival Manhattan and is a winner of the My HERO International Film Festival.
Lindsay Rosenberg (Bass) is an upright and electric bassist based in NYC. She is a versatile performer of classical, musical theater and pop who has played with Opera Italiana in Central Park to the Broadway Sinfonietta alongside Laura Bell Bundy and at The Duplex for “To Be A Diva”, an LGBTQ+ Cabaret. She is an adventurous, creative solo performer who has commissioned new composers works such as Kirsten Ewart’s “Childlike”, (double bass and doorstops) and of Dan Langa’s work, “After Nothing Comes”, (small ensemble). Lindsay is also a passionate music educator, pioneering a general music program in Brooklyn. She holds her Master’s in String Performance from NYU and Bachelor’s from the Hartt School.
Marcus Kreiger (Percussion) is a musician, producer and composer based in New York. He has a BM from the Hartt School of Music in Percussion Performance, where alongside classical music, he specialized in world music traditions, studying from percussion masters in Cuba/Latin America, Haiti, Brazil, West Africa and the Middle East. This deep knowledge of cultural traditions is weaved in with an intuitive passion for mainstream pop, R&B and hip hop, through 3 EPs written for his personal project, Marcus World Soul. His versatile musicianship translates into the studio, where he produces hip hop, pop and world music, among other genres, for licensing companies; Signature Tracks, FlikTrax, Lift Music and Fine Tune music. Recent projects include arranging traditional brazilian songs for Mambembe, an NYC based samba band, composing Latin Jazz influenced underscoring for unconventional Shakespeare productions at the University of Hartford, and writing songs for virtual education for grades K-12 through Marquis Studios. As a musician, he performs regularly as a Bata player for Regla de Ocho - Cuban religious ceremonies, and on congas accompanying Haitian dance classes. He is well versed in approaching and understanding the philosophies and spiritual mindset of people from different backgrounds, and loves to explore how those concepts then present themselves through music and sound - “the place where intangible ideas and tangible creation meet”.