LENOX, MA (September 5, 2024)— WAM Theatre and Central Square Theater are proud to announce casting for their Fall Main Stage production of Galileo’s Daughter by Jessica Dickey (The Amish Project, The Rembrandt, Row After Row), directed by Reena Dutt (Chester Theater Company’s Guards at the Taj). The production will run at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre, Shakespeare & Company, Lenox, MA from October 18 – November 3, 2024, and will then transfer to Central Square Theater in Cambridge, MA from November 14 – December 8, 2024. Tickets are now on sale.
“WAM Theatre and Central Square Theater encountered a wide variety of powerful and multi-faceted actors from the Berkshire and Boston region during the casting process,” said Genée Coreno, WAM’s Artistic Director. “We are overjoyed to be in company with Caroline, Sandra, and Diego— whose dynamism, craft and presence will undoubtedly bring this beautiful and poignant story to life on stage with Reena Dutt directing the way.”
WAM Theatre and Central Square Theater are excited to share that this regional premiere of Galileo’s Daughter will feature a stellar ensemble of performers from across the state. Caroline Kinsolving will play the role of the writer who travels to Florence to research the letters between famed scientist Galileo Galilei and his daughter Maria Celeste. Caroline is an experienced regional theater and television actor who works in Los Angeles, New York and the Berkshires. Her credits include: Venus in Fur (San Diego Rep – Critics Circle Best Actress Nomination), Cry It Out (Hartford Stage) and Love, Loss and What I Wore with Christine Baranski and Mia Farrow.
The role of Galileo will be performed by Diego Arciniegas, a Colombian-American actor, director, and educator based in Boston, Massachusetts. While this is Diego’s debut at WAM Theatre, he has performed in Ada and the Engine and Operation Epsilon at Central Square Theater, and received Elliot Norton Awards for his roles in Amadeus and God’s Country (both at Merrimack Rep).
Finally, Sandra Seoane-Serí will return to WAM Theatre and Central Square Theater in the role of Maria Celeste. Sandra performed in the last WAM/Central Square co-production of Pipeline, a show that she credits with launching her professional career. She has since performed in K-I-S-S-I-N-G and The Art of Burning at The Huntington, and Berkshire audiences might remember her from Christmas at Pemberley (Shakespeare & Company) as well as, WAM Theatre’s Fresh Takes Play Reading of In Her Bones last summer.
Seoane-Seri states that: “it is an honor to tell Maria Celeste’s story, one of the many stories of influential women and queerfolk that get lost in time.” She goes on to dedicate her performance to: “my foremothers, who have sacrificed their dreams and their autonomy in order to be “safe” in the harsh man’s world.”
WAM Theatre is proud to offer equitable seating for this production and encourage patrons to select the ticket price that best fits their needs. Tickets range from $25-$100. WAM invites audience members to choose from one of the suggested price levels, while keeping in mind that the higher ticket price you are able to select, the more we will be able to donate to our recipients (who will be named later this month). WAM Theatre also offers group tickets (for groups of ten or more), and $5 for EBT card holders.
Tickets to the performances of Galileo’s Daughter are now on sale. To purchase tickets, visit wamtheatre.com or contact Shakespeare and Company Ticket Office by calling (413) 637-3353. For more information about the 2024 Season and WAM Theatre’s programs, events, and artists, please visit www.wamtheatre.com.
TICKETS
Tickets for Galileo’s Daughter are on sale now. For tickets and more information about WAM Theatre’s 2024 Season, programs, events, and artists, please visit wamtheatre.com.
MORE ABOUT GALILEO’S DAUGHTER ARTISTS
Jessica Dickey (playwright, Galileo’s Daughter) is an award-winning playwright and actor. Playwriting: Jessica’s most recent play, The Convent, a dark comedy about a group of women who try to live like nuns in the middle ages, premiered Off-Broadway this year in a sold out co-production with Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Rising Phoenix, and WeatherVane, and is now being developed into a series for Sarah Jessica Parker’s company, Pretty Matches. Jessie’s play The Rembrandt (about a museum guard who decides to deliberately touch a Rembrandt painting) had a sold out run at Steppenwolf starring John Mahoney. Other plays have been premiered Off-Broadway in New York and produced around the country: The Amish Project, about the 2006 Nickel Mines school shooting in an Amish community; then Charles Ives Take Me Home, about a violinist father and his basketball star daughter; and Row After Row, a dark comedy about Civil War reenactors. Her next world premiere is coming up this season on the west coast: Nan and the Lower Body is a dark comedy about the creation of the Pap Smear and her maternal grandmother (commissioned by Manhattan Theater Club and the Sloan Foundation). Acting Credits include: Cry It Out (Humana Festival), Pocatello (Playwrights Horizons), and performances at Manhattan Theater Club, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Barrow Street, Cherry Lane, Keen Company, the Guthrie, McCarter, the Huntington, Denver Center, and George Street. TV Credits include: Homeland, Shades of Blue, The Big C, Law & Order, and the Lifetime movie Amish Grace. Memberships & Awards: Jessica is a member of the exclusive New Dramatists and a recipient of the prestigious Stavis Award. Contact: jessicadickey.com
Reena Dutt (director, Galileo’s Daughter) is dedicated to new and reimagined texts that catapult polarizing conversations through unexpected stories with the bodies, voices, and life experiences of the underheard. Theatre Credits: Her Broadway debut was on The Collaboration at MTC as Assistant Director to Kwame Kwei-Armah of the Young Vic in London, and she most recently assisted Leigh Silverman on Merry Me at NYTW. New York: Columbia University, Playwrights Realm, A.R.T. West Coast: UC Riverside, Artists At Play, Coeurage Ensemble, UC Riverside, Greenway Court Theatre, East West Players, Sacred Fools. Upcoming: An Experiment with an Airpump (CalArts), Pang Spa (World Premiere, Chalk Rep). Film: Reena is also a film director and producer, having screened films at over 80 festivals worldwide including Sundance, LAFF, Outfest, Frameline, Cucalorus, NBCUniversal, BET, PBS/Latino, and HBO. Her most recent short film, FOUND, brings voice to transracial adoption through fictional storytelling from the adoptee’s point of view and is currently touring the festival circuit in conjunction with private events with adoption organizations across the country. Dutt directed TOO MANY BODIES, a socially driven music and dance piece advocating for gun reform, which was picked up by NoRAnow.org and Survivors Empowered and received numerous awards in music video and social justice categories. She directed 3 PUFFS OF GOLD, a magical realism piece about domestic violence, and was a finalist for New Filmmakers Los Angeles: On Location competition with her film “SNAPSHOT!” (2011), which explored Angelinos and their diverse roots. Community Activism: Reena was the first South Asian Community Liaison at the Ford Amphitheatre in Los Angeles and served on the board of Theatre of NOTE. She produced panel discussion connecting 99-seat theater to large theatre houses in the LA area at the Hollywood Fringe Festival and acted as an Associate Producer for Directors Lab West/Connects during the pandemic. Fellowships: Drama League NY Directing Fellow, LCT Directors Lab, Directors Lab West, Project Involve at Film Independent, SFFilm, and Trans Atlantic Partners with the Goethe Institut (Berlin). Connect: reenadutt.com
Caroline Kinsolving is an actor and director who works in New York, Los Angeles, and the Berkshires. Current role with WAM: the writer in Galileo’s Daughter WAM Theatre: debut. Selected Theatre Credits Elsewhere includes:Venus in Fur (San Diego Rep – Critic’s Circle Best Actress Nomination); Cry It Out (Hartford Stage); Monica: This Play Is Not About Monica Lewinski (59E59th and Edinburgh Fringe); Tartuffe (Shakespeare Theatre); Peer Gynt (Boston Symphony Hall); Twelfth Night (The Old Globe); Private Lives (ICT); Chapter Two (ECT and Laguna); Little Women (North Coast Rep); The Taming of the Shrew; Twelfth Night, As You Like It (Kingsmen Shakespeare); Much Ado About Nothing (Woodshill); Almost, Maine (The Colony Theatre), Love/Sick (Arc Stages), Last Gas (Shadowland Stages); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, All in the Timing (Harold Clurman Rep); Coriolanus (Shaw Theatre); The IcePick Killer (Guild Hall); Word Play (Playwrights Horizons); Love, Loss and What I Wore with Christine Baranski and Mia Farrow. Additional artistic credits: Television: Medium, Criminal Minds (with Tim Curry), Cold Case, Satisfaction, My Crazy Ex, Sam Has 7 Friends, Headhunters” (Pilot), Whistleblowers (Pilot), The Blue Marble (Pilot), Law and Order (with Reid Scott and Mehcad Brooks), and Three Women (with Dewanda Wise). Film: The Watcher (with Edi Gathegi), Krankenhaus, The Pink Conspiracy, Break The Adventures of Umbweki, Noobz, Puppy Love, The Collaboration. Membership/Affiliations: AEA, SAG-AFTRA. Selected training: Caroline graduated from Vassar and studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London through NYU, Stella Adler NY, Yale, Steppenwolf, and with Jeff Perry, Gerald Shoenfeld, Kristin Linklater, and Mike Nichols. Awards/proudest achievements: Critic’s Circle Best Actress Nomination, An independent short she made last year just placed at several international film festivals. Her project, FOEMS (Film+Poems), brings poetry to the screen and has a strong following of international students, teachers, and poetry lovers on YouTube. Three years ago, she developed Yoga and Theatre for Good: classes open to everyone and by donations, which are pooled and paid forward to various causes. Caroline’s class has raised and donated $160,000 for charities benefiting the local community and the world at large. Etc: Caroline is the product of two writers and lives in Connecticut with her husband, violinist Gary Capozziello, and their dog, Petruchio. Final word: Thank you, truly, for supporting the theatre and therefore, humanity. Connect: www.CarolineKinsolving.com
Diego Arciniegas is a Colombian-American actor, director, and educator based in Boston, Massachusetts. Current role with WAM: Galileo et al. WAM Theatre: debut Selected Theatre Credits Elsewhere: Opera: El Duende in Maria de Buenos Aires, (Gotham Chamber Opera, NYC). Theatre: Charles Babbage in Ada and the Engine, Werner Heisenberg in Operation Epsilon (Central Square Theatre, Cambridge, MA), Firenzuola et al. in Two Men of Florence, Father di Leo in The Rose Tattoo, and Hunk in Dead End (Huntington Theatre, Boston, MA), Voltaire in Legacy of Light, Lord Goring in An Ideal Husband, Valère in The Miser, Nicky Lancaster in The Vortex, Lady Enid, et al., in The Mystery of Irma Vep, Harry Trench in Widower’s Houses, and Morris Townsend in The Heiress (Lyric Stage Company of Boston), Vanya in Vanya And Sonia And Masha And Spike (Gloucester Stage Company), Hamlet in Hamlet, Leontes in The Winter’s Tale, Malvolio in Twelfth Night at The Publick Theatre, Boston. Additional artistic credits: Artistic Director, Publick Theatre Boston (2001 – 2011), Director: Private Lives (Gloucester Stage Company), From Orchids to Octopii (Central Square Theatre, Cambridge, MA) Creative inspiration: Performance led to directing, which led to teaching, which reminds one constantly of what is essential in performance, and, boy, does one need constant reminding! Membership/Affiliations: Actors Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, American Association of University Professors, Wellesley Organized Academic Workers-UAW, . Selected training: Williams College, B.A., British and European Studies Group London (B.E.S.G.L.) Awards/proudest achievements: Elliot Norton Award: Mozart in Amadeus (Merrimack Rep), The Skinhead in God’s Country (Merrimack Rep), Elliot Norton Nomination: Thom Pain in Thom Pain, director of White People (New Repertory Theatre) IRNE Award: Guildenstern in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (New Repertory Theatre), Malvolio in Twelfth Night (Publick Theatre Boston), Heisenberg in Operation Epsilon (Ensemble Award – Central Square Theatre, Cambridge, MA) IRNE Nomination: Bernie/Martin in Some Men, (Speakeasy Stage Company, Boston, MA) Final word: Diego has held an academic appointment at Wellesley College since 1996, where he still serves as Senior Lecturer in Theatre Studies. His essay, ‘Retracing Antonio: In Search of the Merchant of Venice’, was published in Shakespeare’s Sense of Character, On the Page and from the Stage,(2012).
Sandra Seoane-Serí is a freelance film and stage actress based in Boston and New York. Current Role with WAM Theatre: Maria Celeste in Galileo’s Daughter Selected WAM Theatre Credits: In Her Bones (Fresh Takes Play Reading), Pipeline (WAM/CST 2019-2020). Selected Theatre Credits: Romeo and Juliet (Actors’ Shakespeare Project), Lenelle Moïse’s Elliot Norton award winning K-I-S-S-I-N-G, (The Huntington/The Front Porch Arts Collective), Kate Snodgrass’ The Art of Burning (The Huntington/Hartford Stage), Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley (Shakespeare & Company), Invisible (The Front Porch Arts Collective’s Reading Series), Truth or Consequences by Andrew Siañez De La O (FreshInk Theatre’s), BLKS, (SpeakEasy Stage Company), She Eats Apples (Artists Theater of Boston), Pipeline (WAM Theatre & Central Square Theater). Selected Training: BA in Theater at the University of Massachusetts, Summer Shakespeare Intensive at Shakespeare & Company. Awards/Proudest Achievement: Having three of their films screened in festivals, Gordon Chan’s “Figure of Speech” screening at the 2024 Seattle Film Festival and the 2024 Roxbury International Film Festival, Michelle Falcón Fontánez’s “Maria” that premiered at the 2023 Boston International Film Festival and a Daniela Martinez film “Shift” which was selected for the 2021 Roxbury International Film Festival. Final Word: This performance is dedicated to my foremothers, who have sacrificed their dreams and their autonomy in order to be “safe” in the harsh man’s world. It is an honor to tell Maria Celeste’s story, one of the many stories of influential women and queerfolk that get lost in time. Contact: SandraSeoaneSeri.com
Genée Coreno (Artistic Director WAM Theatre) is a director and producer with a passion for devised theater created in collaboration with women, girls, and non-binary artists and designers. WAM Theatre: Artistic Director. Selected Directing Credits:Outside (Culture Lab, LIC), Madge Love (Theater Mitu & The Brick), The Hopelessly Hopeless Story of All Good Girls (The Brick), “Is This Clear Enough?” (The Poetry Project), Dutchman (UnUrban Cafe, LA), Selected Producing Credits: The Possessed Girls of St. Mary’s (Reading, at Brick Aux), thisamericanplay (pop-up theater by Blue Flamingo), The Stronger & Mother Love (Alchemical Studios), The World is Round (BAM Fisher). Select Company Management Credits: Under the Radar Festival (The Public Theater), The Outer Space (The Public Theater), National Mobile Unit Tour of Sweat (The Public Theater), Mobile Unit’s Twelfth Night (The Public Theater), Various Performances (Big Dance Theater). Community Engagement/Activist Work: Former Manager of Development and Engagement at Every Mother Counts and Clinic Escort at Choices; Adjunct Professor at Purchase College, Women and Performance. Training: MA in Performance Studies, NYU; BA in Drama Studies, Purchase College; Embodied Voice: Intensive Vocal Workshop; The Song of the Goat; SITI Company Summer Intensive; Theater Mitu Artist Fellowship (Japan). Creative Inspiration: I’m inspired by large-scale international work that demonstrates a commitment to dance theater practices and film-making. Connect: (website) www.fringeandfur.org. IG: @Genéealyse_c
WAM SUPPORT
WAM Theatre’s 15th Anniversary Benefit Performance of fragments of Outside is supported by many individuals and foundations including: Baystate Financial, Berkshire Bank, Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, Brabson Family Foundation, Brava/Ombra, Doctor Sax House, The Feigenbaum Foundation, GKV Foundation, Lee Bank Foundation, the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC), Scarlet Sock Foundation, and WomenArts. WAM’s season sponsors include Adams Community Bank, Blue Q., Berkshire Roots, Black Writers Read, Blue Spark Financial, Carolyn Butler, Greylock Federal Credit Union, Garden Gables Inn, Guidos Fresh Marketplace, Handful Photography, Mill Town Foundation, Inc., Higher Bar, Health Professional Coaching, Heller & Robbins Attorneys at Law, Interprint, Onyx Specialty Papers, Outpost Productions, RB Design Co., T Square Design Studio, a. von schlegell & co, and the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts. With additional support from Local Cultural Council Grants from the Dalton Cultural Council, Lee Cultural Council, Lenox Cultural Council, Pittsfield Cultural Council, Northern Berkshire Cultural Council, Otis Cultural Council, Sandisfield Cultural Council, and Washington Cultural Council. WAM was also the recipient of recent support from the New England Foundation for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, and U.S. Small Business Administration’s Shuttered Venue Operators Grant.
ABOUT CENTRAL SQUARE THEATER
Central Square Theater (CST) explores social justice, science and gender politics through theater. Combining artistic excellence, cross disciplinary collaboration and community engagement, CST creates theater where points of view are heard, perspective shifts, and change can happen. Central Square Theater, the oldest female-led theater organization in Greater Boston, engages over 35,000 people annually through live performance, rigorous youth education, and community programs. CST works closely with MIT on Catalyst Collaborative@MIT (CC@MIT), one of the only nationwide partnerships between a world class research institute and a professional theater. CC@MIT creates and presents plays that deepen public engagement with science, while providing creative and emotional experiences not available in other forms of dialogue about science. Central Square Theater’s education programs serve youth throughout Cambridge and Greater Boston via in-school residencies, onsite programs, and collaborations with community partners. Youth Underground (YU), CST’s award winning youth development program, provides a platform for members to broaden their own perspectives and understand others’, and to come to a deeper understanding of self as they cultivate their artistry. Visit CentralSquareTheater.org.
ABOUT WAM THEATRE
WAM Theatre is a professional theatre company based in Berkshire County, MA, that operates at the intersection of arts and activism. Now celebrating its 15th Anniversary Season, WAM creates theatre for gender equity and has a vision of theatre as philanthropy. In fulfillment of its philanthropic mission, WAM donates a portion of the proceeds from their Mainstage productions to carefully selected recipients. Since WAM’s founding in 2010, they have donated more than $100,000 to 26 local and global organizations taking action for gender equity in areas such as girls education, reproductive justice, sexual trafficking awareness, midwife training, and more. WAM Theatre has been widely recognized for having a positive impact on cultural and community development in the region. WAM is the recipient of the Creative Economy Standout Berkshire Trendsetter Award and previously, was named Outstanding Philanthropy Corporation of the Year by the Western MA Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. For more information, visit www.wamtheatre.com