Creative Team
 Composer David Shire and music director Kevin Stites Photo by John Baer |
Kevin Stites (Music Director) has been part of Take Flight from its inception. Broadway: A Tale of Two Cities; The Color Purple; Titanic; Sunset Boulevard; Pamela’s First Musical, Children and Art, Les Misérables; The Threepenny Opera; Fiddler on the Roof; Nine; Oklahoma!; On the Town. National tours: The Color Purple; Martin Guerre; Miss Saigon; The Phantom of the Opera; Les Misérables; Titanic. Arranger and music supervisor for Little House on the Prairie. Chicago: music director for over 60 productions; 6 Joseph Jefferson Awards for Sweeney Todd, Chess, Pal Joey, Sunday in the Park with George, Baby, and Windy City. Guest conductor: Grant Park Symphony; The Hollywood Bowl’s Guys and Dolls and Les Misérables. TV/Film: Rosie Live, Reefer Madness, Letterman, Rosie, Thanksgiving Day Parade, Tony Awards, and others. Upcoming: Maury Yeston, Thomas Meehan, and Peter Stone’s Death Takes a Holiday.
Lisa Shriver (Musical Staging) Broadway: Ring of Fire; The Farnsworth Invention; The Story of My Life (associate director). Off-Broadway: Yellow Face (The Public); After the Ball (Irish Rep); The Oldest Profession (Signature); Stephen Sondheim’s 75th Birthday Celebration. Regional: Fetch Clay, Make Man (McCarter); Where’s Charley?, The 60’s Project (Goodspeed); Caesar and Cleopatra, The Scottish Play (Stratford Shakespeare); Hot ’n’ Cole (Westport Country Playhouse). Directed and choreographed An Evening of Guys and Dolls Music with Tony Bennett, Marisa Tomei, and Vanessa Williams. Film choreography: A Christmas Carol (with Jim Carrey); A Beautiful Mind; Hysterical Blindness; Tony ‘n’ Tina’s Wedding; House of D. Assistant choreographer on the films Center Stage, The Polar Express, and Mixed Nuts. Assistant choreographer on eight Broadway shows including The Producers, Oklahoma!, and Into the Woods.
David Farley (Set & Costume Design) Broadway: the current revival of A Little Night Music; the new musical 13; the revival of Sunday in the Park With George (2 Tony nominations, sets and costumes; Outer Critics Circle nomination, costumes; Outer Critics Circle Award with Timothy Bird, Best Set Design). West End: A Little Night Music; Sunday in the Park with George (Olivier, Evening Standard, and Critics Circle Awards for Best Set Design with Mr. Bird); Little Shop of Horrors; La Cage Aux Folles (original set). Other: Daddy Long Legs (world premiere; Rubicon, Theatreworks, Cincinnati Playhouse); Kiss Me, Kate (Stratford, Ontario); Oklahoma! (Chichester); Rocky Horror Show (Europe); Sweeney Todd (Gate Theatre); Tick, Tick…Boom! (Chocolate Factory, Rubicon Theatre, Westport); Corpse! (Salisbury Playhouse); The Lemon Princess (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Macbeth (Sheffield Crucible Studio).
Ken Billington (Lighting Design) just opened his 92nd Broadway show, Sondheim on Sondheim. Also this season in New York: Bye Bye Birdie, Dreamgirls, Finian’s Rainbow, Looped, White Christmas, and the long-running Chicago. Current touring productions: Annie, Chicago (worldwide), Dreamgirls, The Drowsy Chaperone, Fiddler on the Roof, and High School Musical 2 (worldwide). Other projects include New York’s Radio City Christmas Spectacular from 1979 to 2005, the Las Vegas spectacular Jubilee!, and Shamu Rocks! for Seaworld Orlando and San Diego. Ken has received numerous awards, including the Tony, NY Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Awards, the Ace Award for Television Lighting, and The Lumen for his architectural work.
Ken Travis (Sound Design) Broadway designs: Memphis, The Threepenny Opera, Barefoot in the Park, Steel Magnolias. Numerous regional theaters and companies including: 5th Avenue Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Guthrie Theater, L.A.’s Center Theater Group, Dallas Theater Center, McCarter Theatre, Paper Mill Playhouse, Playwrights Horizons, The New Group, NYSF/The Public Theater, Classic Stage Company, SoHo Rep, The Civilians, Mabou Mines, and festivals across Europe and the US. When not designing theater, Ken is a FOH and monitor engineer for rock bands and groups across the globe.
John Miller (Music Coordinator) Broadway (including): La Cage Aux Folles; Sondheim on Sondheim; A Little Night Music; Ragtime; Rock of Ages, Burn the Floor, The Story of My Life, Jersey Boys, Hairspray, Young Frankenstein, Happiness, The Producers, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, Xanadu, Tommy, Les Misérables, Nine, Follies, Beauty and the Beast, Lennon, Movin’ Out, Little Shop…, City of Angels, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Urinetown, 42nd Street, La Bohème; Grey Gardens, Follies, Oklahoma!, Smokey Joe’s Café, Rocky Horror Show, The Threepenny Opera, The Music Man, Fosse, Swing!, Parade, Footloose; Titanic. Studio Musician (bass): Michael Jackson; Madonna; Peter, Paul and Mary; Portishead; Eric Clapton; B.B. King; Frank Sinatra; Carly Simon; Celine Dion; Smashing Pumpkins; Pete Seeger; NY Philharmonic. His album Stage Door Johnny – John Miller: Takes on Broadway is available on PS Classics Records.
Laura Stanczyk, CSA (Casting Director) has cast the last 4 seasons at McCarter. Broadway: Ragtime; Impressionism; The Seafarer; Radio Golf; Translations; Coram Boy; Damn Yankees (Encores! Summer Stars); Urinetown (plus national tour). Also: Terrence McNally’s Nights at the Opera (Kennedy Center); The Shawshank Redemption (Dublin/West End); Beckett/Gate (Lincoln Center Festival); Don’t Dress for Dinner (Royal George, Chicago); Dirty Dancing (national tour); Long Day’s Journey Into Night, The Cripple of Inishmaan (Druid/Atlantic); National Anthems (Old Vic, London); Once Upon a Mattress (ABC Television); My Brilliant Divorce (Druid); The New Moon (City Center Encores!); Opening Doors (Carnegie Hall); The Glorious Ones (Lincoln Center; Pittsburgh Public); Tryst (Off-Broadway). Broadway: Three Generations (Kennedy Center). She also works with Rough Magic Theatre Company, Gate Theatre (Dublin), Wilma Theatre, Alley Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Drury Lane, Philadelphia Theater Company, and others.
Cheryl Mintz (Production Stage Manager) is in her 19th season, 15th as Resident Stage Manager, and has production stage managed over 65 productions for McCarter Theatre and 21 productions with Artistic Director Emily Mann. Past highlights include Production Stage Manager for the McCarter and Broadway run of Nilo Cruz’s Anna in the Tropics, the McCarter and Kennedy Center run of Emily Mann’s Mrs. Packard,and the world premiere of The Brother/Sister Plays by Tarell Alvin McCraney. Cheryl has enjoyed 13 collaborations with Maestro Gian Carlo Menotti and the Spoleto Festivals in USA and Italy. Cheryl spent five seasons with the New York City Opera where she has stage managed 40 operas and musicals, three tours and three PBS telecasts. Cheryl has six Broadway shows to her credit, spent 15 years as an Executive Board Member of the Stage Managers’ Association, and received her MFA from the Yale School of Drama.
Alison Cote (Stage Manager) is in her 14th season at McCarter, where production stage management credits include: Fetch Clay, Make Man; Twelfth Night; Mrs. Warren’s Profession; Talley’s Folly; Argonautika; Tartuffe; A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Miss Witherspoon; Hamlet; Polk County; Candida; Fräulein Else; Fiction; Sorrows and Rejoicings; The Cherry Orchard; Lackawanna Blues; and The Importance of Being Earnest. Other credits: Tarell Alvin McCraney’s The Brother/Sister Plays at The Public Theater; also Playwrights Horizons, Second Stage, Paper Mill, Kennedy Center, Long Wharf, Mark Taper Forum, Berkeley Rep, True Love Productions/Bard Summerscape, The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, A Spoleto Evening at Lincoln Center, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Williamstown, Westport Country Playhouse, InterAct, and Philadelphia Shakespeare.
