PROGRAM 4

(3RD FLOOR)

Reflections from the Shallow End of the Dating Pool by Debbi Hobson

Time's Up by Kenneth Keng

Two Weddings by Mark Melton

BIOS

Debbi Hobson

Playwright and Performer

Debbi has spent the last 20+ years as a costume designer for theatre and film, and very happily so.  Then the world stopped in 2020 and she had too much free time, so she started writing again.  As she shared her writings with friends and colleagues she discovered that her experiences were not unique, they were in fact, universal.  Her career in theatre as a creative artist helped her to shape and build the world of the show, plus a little assist from Jane Austin. Debbi has always gravitated towards comedy, and while this show is funny, it is also the vulnerable story of a woman coming into her own in middle age and discovering not only how to date again, but who she is as a person.  

Shelby Pickelny - Stage Manager

Shelby is a stage manager, producer, and writer of theatre and television who believes art is a tool for empathy and social justice. Recent: STILL at the DR2 (2024). Television work includes development of I Am Shauna Rae (TLC, writer/Creative Producer) and all seven seasons of Drive By History, as well as Drive By History: Eats (Associate Producer). General Management work: 101 Productions Ltd., KGM Theatrical. Playwright and producer of Dead Babies (2021: Chain Theater), The Art of Peaking Too Soon (2021: La Teatro Latea), and out skirts (2023: Chain Theater). Thank you to Debbi & the wonderful team. @shelbspickles 

Paige Seber - Lighting Designer 

Paige Seber is a New York City based lighting designer for live performance. Credits include Titanique (Off-Broadway: Asylum NYC & The Daryl Roth), Is Anyone Alive Out There? (Minetta Lane), Blackbirding (WP- Pipeline Festival), What Else Is True (Egg & Spoon), Ready. Set. Play! (Virgin Voyages), The Consul (SF Conservatory of Music), Powerline Road (Theatre NOW), Cunnicularii (Good Apples Collective), The Slow Dance (59E59), and Swann: A Digital Opera Short (Catapult Opera), Inspired by True Events (OOTB Theatrics). United Scenic Artists 829. seberlighting.com

Jeanne Travis - Sound Designer

Jeanne Travis (Sound Designer) is a sound designer/composer/flutist for film and theater most known for her sci-fi designs: Mac Roger's The Honeycomb Trilogy, Jon Hohce's Galactic Girl in : Attack of the Starbarians and Nat Caslsidy's The Temple, or Lebensraum (2015 NYITA Outstanding Sound Design) Film: Kris The Cat (2022 LA Film Fest Finalist), White Knuckle (Front Wheel) Recent theater: The Sweet Spot (59E59) Echoes in the Garden (The Chain Theatre), The Magazine (Carnival Girls), Luft Gangster (The Sheen Center)

Playwright- Kenneth Keng

Kenneth Keng is a Filipino-Chinese playwright and performer who makes work about falling in love with a culture that is devouring their own. They are a 2023/24 Artist-In-Residence with the Performance Project at University Settlement, which staged their postcolonial Filipino space opera Brought Up. Their solo piece about their Chinese grandmother’s life in the Japanese occupation of Manila AMA is slated for staging at Brooklyn’s Target Margin Theater for the 2025 Exponential Festival. They were selected as a Finalist at The Civilians/Princeton’s Next Forever Initiative 2024 for Harmonic Tremors, a documentary play about Philippine civil society’s response to the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption, co-written with Guelan Luarca. Other plays they’ve written and subsequently staged include one with giant robots (Going Up), one with giant swords (Wake Up) and another with a giant hawk (Time’s Up), because subtext is for cowards and titles are hard. Website: kennethkeng.com

Director- Giancarlo Abrahan

Giancarlo Abrahan is a Filipino director, writer, producer, translator, performer & educator. He recently directed Mr. Serapio’s Trial by Paul Dumol and Barbies, Bodies, Bondage by Zandra Paxton at HERE Arts Center in New York; Mad Child’s Far Away by Caryl Churchill in the Philippines. Dagitab (Sparks), his debut feature, was awarded Best Director & Best Screenplay at Cinemalaya, hailed Best First Feature by the Young Critics Circle, and listed Best Film & Best Screenplay by Pinoy Rebyu in its annual poll of Filipino film reviewers in 2014.  Paki (Please Care), his second film, won Best Film, Best Director & Best Screenplay at Cinema One Originals 2017. He directed & produced Sila-sila (The Same People), which won Best Film,

Best Screenplay & Audience Award at Cinema One Originals 2019. He is currently a lecturer at the University of the Philippines Film Institute. Website: giancarloabrahan.com

Stage Manager & Sound Designer- Goran Popovic 

Goran Popovich is a versatile NYC-based actor/dancer/singer/painter/director with extensive experience in Europe and New York both on stage and in film. As a creator and visionary, his latest projects include the roles of the Artistic Director and Producer for visual narratives "Separation Means Collision," “Amor Fati”, AD for “Sunset-short film” art director for "Threnody short film", choreographer for "Brought up play", actor for "Dracula's Abby", actor in “Storme”, actor in “Infernal the Musical”,  Sound Designer/ Stage Manager for “Time’s Up -Play”

As a multifaceted artist, Goran integrates his background as an actor, dancer, singer, and a painter in trying to create a layered narrative that might resonate for the viewer. Goran’s previous and current work involves development of true personal experience and exploring it through theater and film projects. His directing credits include “The Lion King- musical”, adaptation of “Chicago-the Musical”, “In Search for a Princess- Musical”, “The Bald Soprano- play”, “Woman-The Bomb- play”, to name a few. 

His work thus far, both in the field of culture has won him awards such as “Shubert Foundation Full-Bright Scholarship”, granted by the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, “The most successful cultural individual”, “Best Comedy Actor” by The National Theatre Festival in Bosnia and Herzegovina,”King of Waacking” at the International Modern Dance Competition in Bosnia and Herzegovina to mention a few. Goran Popovich is inviting viewers to contemplate the impact of genuine, unfiltered expression.

Lighting Designer- Zee Hanna

Zee Hanna is a light designer and performer originally from Florida and currently working in Brooklyn. As a light designer, she aims to turn the atmospheric qualities of light into their own breathing character in support of and conversation with the rest of any performance. As a performer, her work explores grief and the countless living ghosts of our everyday lives, and she believes the best theatre has some combination of love, a haunting, and a blood ritual. She encourages her audience to join her in experiencing these aspects of her performances, to ask themselves what roles they play in the silent griefs of those around them in the hopes that we may all come closer together. Zee holds an MFA in theatre and performance from Sarah Lawrence College, and has light designed and performed at the Kraine Theater and The Tank. Website: zeehannald.com

Actor (Primitivo)- Patrick Elizalde

Patrick is an actor, singer, and mover based in New York City. Having discovered his love for acting in college, much of his early life was dedicated to music and martial arts–so much so that his Saturdays consisted of a morning of taekwondo training followed by an afternoon of violin lessons and orchestra rehearsals. While his violin career had ended by high school, he continued to foster his love for music through a brief stint studying alto sax and then voice, which continues to this day. He holds a first dan Kukkiwon-certified (internationally recognized) black belt in taekwondo and is a former youth national champion in sparring, and is passionate about comprehensive healthcare (ask him about it!)

Patrick holds a BA in Theatre Arts and Performance Studies from Brown University, where he graduated with honors after writing his undergraduate thesis on Filipino political theatre made under the Marcos Regime of the 1970’s and 1980’s. Since graduating in 2021, he’s worked on productions with Leviathan Lab, Columbia University, UC San Diego, Plaza Broadway Long Island, Bristol Valley Theatre, Broadway Bound Theatre Festival, and Frigid NYC. Website: patrickelizalde.com

Actor (Myrna)- Leyla DeMolina

Leyla DeMolina is a Brooklyn-based actor and creator originally from Queens, NY. In 2019, she graduated from Brown University with Honors, receiving a B.A. in Theater Arts and Performance Studies as well as English. 

Leyla has trained in Shakespeare, Viewpoints Technique, Alexander Technique, Voice and Speech, and Contemporary Dance. She studied Directing for five months at Dublin’s Trinity College. She has split her time between many film and theater projects. Most recently she performed in an outdoor immersive performance called Off the Trail for Squeak and Squawk at the Stamford Nature Center with Stage Partners and a devised collaborative theater piece with the Underground Skills Exchange's SpeakART program surrounding making home, making space, and slowing down in NYC which premiered May of 2022.

Leyla writes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Forever excited about new storytelling forms, she created and co-wrote the fictional, magical audio adventure Whisper Bits about mothers, archives, and prophecy. Leyla has also served on a combination Shakespeare and site-specific theater board (two things she loves a lot) and as the Literary Chair of the Brown Theater Department’s Sock & Buskin producing board. Website: leylademolina.com

Actor (Death)/Puppeteer- Julia VanTrees Cowitt

Julia VanTrees Cowitt is a multidisciplinary artist: a writer, actor, director, puppeteer, and theatre educator. She earned her BA in Anthropology at SUNY Purchase and her MFA in Theatre at Sarah Lawrence College. In her free time, she loves to read, crochet, and hang out at her community theater, Arc Stages. Originally from Los Angeles, Julia currently resides in New York. She wears her heart on her sleeve and her socks inside out. Website: juliacowitt.com

Tobey Archibald (Costume Designer) is a graduate from the Fashion Design program at FIT and has spent the last year working in the fashion industry in bespoke design and development. With a strong interest in costume, he is super excited to be working with Mark on this production! Instagram: @tobeyarchibald

Annie Holstein (Mickey) is a New York City-based performer originally from the suburbs of Chicago (Her mother is going to be upset that she said originally). She recently graduated & received a BFA in Theater Performance! Favorite credits include Horse Girls (Margaret), Little Women (Laurie), and The Yellow Boat (Benjamin). “Special thanks to Mark & my super awesome family- you guys rock!” annieholstein.com

Jordan McLaughlin (Casting Director) )recently graduated from Hofstra University with a degree BFA in Drama Performance, and she is now based in New York pursuing casting. She would like to thank Mark for giving her awesome opportunities like this!

Mark Melton (Playwright, Director) is a New-York based writer and director from Illinois. Coming from a Chicago comedy background, Mark is thrilled to be back in New York at the Chain One Act Festival after writing and directing the play Rocket in 2023’s lineup. He has also written, directed, and produced three sketch comedy variety specials, Take Me Out (To The Ball Game, Of Course), Rides, Rides, Rides!, and Oops, All ‘Tisements! and worked as a Production Assistant for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Thank you so much to our Two Weddings team here, the gracious Chain Theater, Coast to Coast, Paul Zimmerman, Tacoma FD, Spencer Giles, Drew Howard, and Geoffrey Tarson!

Allison Sass (Laney) Now a Manhattan-based performer and creator, Allison Sass was raised in the Chicago suburbs, got her BA in Theatre Arts and Cinema from the University of Iowa, and gravitates toward theatre that makes you think, art made by and/or about women, and (almost) all forms of improv. Select credits include An Unnecessary Stain on Silence (Abicus), A Sketch of New York (Host, Ensemble), The Happening: Nolita Nexus (White Rabbit Guide), Logic Before Authority (Lowly, Mr. Dawn), Ugly Lies the Bone (Jess), The Children's Hour (Martha Dobie). Love to Mom and Taylor. allisonLsass.com

Jessica Wimmenauer (Isla) is an NYC-based actress and recent Hofstra University graduate. She is excited to work with Mark again after previous involvement in Rides Rides Rides, Oops! All ‘Tisements, and Rocket. Jessica would like to thank her two sisters and their weddings for giving her a point of reference for this show!