Theatre Through the Lens
The following blog will document my experiences as I photograph various theatre productions and music performances
Following is a list of the galleries added to the web site for the month of November. Sorry for the delay...with Christmas productions, things have been a little meshuga.
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Mile Square Theatre presented Tom Mula’s Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol. Directed by Jenn Haltman, this clever and dark retelling of the Dickens classic has Jacob Marley tasked with helping to redeem his old business partner’s soul and undergoes his own transformation.
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Music Mountain Theatre presented A Christmas Carol. In this classic story, Ebenezer Scrooge is a prosperous curmudgeon who believes that personal wealth is far more valuable than happiness. But, on Christmas Eve, he's forced to face his selfish ways when three ghosts lead him through his past, present and future.
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The Barn Theatre presented American Son. In the play, an estranged interracial couple must confront their feelings about race and bias after their son is detained by the local police following a traffic stop incident. Their disparate histories and backgrounds inform their assumptions as they try to find out what happened to their son
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The Ocean County College Repertory Theatre Company presented ‘Tis the Wind and Nothing More.
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Vanguard Theater presented The Spitfire Grill in downtown Montclair.
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Dragonfly Multicultural Arts Center presented Real Women Have Curves at duCret School of the Arts in Plainfield. The play by Josefina López, dramatizes—in a comedy—the struggles of five Mexican immigrants working in a tiny sewing factory in East LA.
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Black Box's presented under-produced masterwork: Edward Albee's The Play About The Baby. This hysterically funny yet mysterious and poignant play features a young couple and the absurdist interruption when a strange man and woman appear.
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Bridge Players Theatre Company presentied their first full-length, in-person production since 2020!
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Music Mountain Theatre presented the Holiday classic, A Christmas Story, Set in the 1940s in the fictional town of Hohman, Indiana, the musical follows 9-year-old Ralphie Parker and his quest for the Holy Grail of Christmas gifts—an Official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot Range Model air rifle.
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The Axelrod Performing Arts Center (APAC) is presented Avenue Q, the laugh-out-loud musical that features grown-up puppets. This play tells the timeless story of a bright-eyed college grad named Princeton. When he arrives in the city with big dreams and a tiny bank account, he has to move into a shabby apartment all the way out on Avenue Q.
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Yardley Players presented Neil Simon’s hilarious, semi-autobiographical comedy “Come Blow Your Horn” at Mercer County Community College’s Kelsey Theatre
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John Posada is a New Jersey based freelance photographer specializing in live theatre and music performances. For more than 10 years, John has photographed live music events where he mastered the techniques of timing and capturing fast moving action under challenging lighting conditions to capture that perfect moment that tells a story in a single image. Currently, John has photographed over 70 productions for over 40 different theatres.
Following is a list of the galleries added to the web site for the month of October
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Yardley Players is presenting Neil Simon’s hilarious, semi-autobiographical comedy “Come Blow Your Horn” at Mercer County Community College’s Kelsey Theatre.
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The Rocky Horror Show returned to Music Mountain Theatre in Lambertville, NJ
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Nutley Little Theatre is presenting Third by Wendy Wasserstein
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The smash hit The Play That Goes Wrong is being presented by Dover Little Theatre (DLT)
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The Wag's Halloween Spectacular at The Strand Theatre
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The Atlantic City Ballet performed Dracula at The Strand in Lakewood. Premiering in the Fall of 2006, Phyllis Papa's choreography is based on the story of Bram Stoker's Dracula. The story takes place in Eastern Europe when a young lawyer, Jonathan Harker is captured and imprisoned by Dracula.
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Studio Players presents Destigmatized at Studio Playhouse in Montclair. Modeled after The Vagina Monologues, Destigmatized has introductory and closing scenes, as well as group scenes based off interviews conducted with the women and uterus owners, and original monologues written and performed by both theatre company’s members.
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Old Library Theatre is presenting Fly By Night. This is a new musical about a star-crossed prophecy. There's a lot of music, just not a lot of light.
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Works presents Machinal by Sophie Treadwell at the Theatre at the Wilson School in Weehawken. In this 1928 feminist tour-de-force, a young woman struggles to find her place in a society that was not made for her. Treadwell uses theatrical expressionism to portray a world that has become impersonal and unfeeling; a world that only has room for those who are willing to submit and conform.
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Luna Stage is presenting the World Premiere of Zachary Elkind’s new adaptation of Shakespeare’s Richard II on the MainStage. Streamlined to a fleet 90 minutes, the play features four actors playing 16 roles, and highlights the humor and urgency of this taut, intimate, heartbreakingly political tragedy.
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The Catalyst Theater Company presents Saucy Jack and the Space Vixens at the duCret School of Art in Plainfield. The show finally debuts after a long awaited hiatus due to Covid with a special pre show cabaret every night.
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Center Players explores love, marriage and infidelity with a production of Neil Simon’s Last of the Red Hot Lovers. The play launched their 2022-23 season at Center Playhouse, 35 South St, in downtown Freehold.
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New Jersey Repertory Company presented the National New Play Network premiere of Eden Prairie, 1971
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Music Mountain Theatre is presented A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder. This knock-'em-dead, uproarious hit was the most Tony-nominated show of the 2014 season with ten nominations and four wins, including Best Musical.
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The Chatham Community Players kicked off their 101st Season with the hilarious “Inspecting Carol” by Daniel Sullivan and the Seattle Repertory Theater.
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Pegasus Theatre Company presenting Yasmina Reza’s scathing hit comedy God of Carnage, known for cleverly turning mundane social situations into riotous comedies, quickly strips away all social niceties in God of Carnage to expose two couples trapped in the chaos of marriage and parenthood.
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Cranford’s CDC Theatre presented the Tony Award winning musical Once On This Island. The play comes from the award winning songwriting team of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty (Seussical, Anastasia, Ragtime). This highly original and theatrical Caribbean adaptation of the popular fairy tale, The Little Mermaid, earned eight Tony nominations for its Broadway run, including Best Musical, Book and Score.
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All aboard! The exotic Orient Express is hurtling down the tracks to a murder! Surflight Theatre presented Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express (adapted for the stage by Ken Ludwig)
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John Posada is a New Jersey based freelance photographer specializing in live theatre and music performances. For more than 10 years, John has photographed live music events where he mastered the techniques of timing and capturing fast moving action under challenging lighting conditions to capture that perfect moment that tells a story in a single image. Currently, John has photographed productions for over 30 different theatres. including South Orange PAC (SOPAC), Axelrod PAC, Kelsey Theatre, Music Mountain Theatre, and Spring Lake Theatre to name just a few.
I would like to welcome the following theatres that I will be photographing for the first time this month, in addition to repeat theatres.
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In this Tony and Olivier Award-winning comedy, two sets of parents meet to discuss how to handle a playground altercation between their sons. Over the course of the night, tensions rise, biases are revealed, and the parents’ true humanity (or lack thereof) rises to the surface, resulting in what The New York Times called “ninety minutes of laughter that comes from the gut.”
NJ Stage article
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A Christmas Carol meets The Government Inspector meets Noises Off in this hilarious hit from Seattle. A man who asks to audition at a small theater is mistaken for an informer for the National Endowment for the Arts. Everyone caters to the bewildered wannabe actor, and he is given a role in the current production, A Christmas Carol. Everything goes wrong and hilarity is piled upon hilarity. Perfect anytime, this delight is particularly appropriate at Christmas.
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In October it’s Machinal by Sophie Treadwell. “Your skin oughtn’t to curl - ought it - when he just comes near you- ought it? That’s wrong, ain’t it? You don’t get over that, do you - ever, do you or do you?” The city. A woman is restless. A woman is suffocating. A woman is silenced. The woman revolts. Inspired by the infamous 1927 Snyder/Gray murder trial, this rarely-performed masterpiece portrays the hardened soul of America in the Machine Age. Machinal follows the life of Young Woman who is constrained by a society that favors men and money.
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Atlantic City Ballet
Premiering in the Fall of 2006, Phyllis Papa's choreography is based on the story of Bram Stoker's Dracula. The story takes place in Eastern Europe when a young lawyer, Jonathan Harker is captured and imprisoned by Dracula. Dracula, inspired by a photograph goes to London to meet Jonathan's fiancée Mina where he drains the life of Mina's best friend Lucy Westenera. Dr. Van Helsing leads a crusade to free Mina and the world from Dracula. Set in the 15th century it has been received by sold out audiences.
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Dover Little Theatre
The Play That Goes Wrong
The smash hit The Play That Goes Wrong will be coming to Dover Little Theatre (DLT) . This hilarious play will be co-directed by Larry and Ruthanne Pelham. The Play That Goes Wrong introduces us to the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society, an amateur theatre troupe which puts on a new production each year.
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John Posada is a New Jersey based freelance photographer specializing in live theatre and music performances. For more than 10 years, John has photographed live music performance where he mastered the necessary techniques of timing and capturing fast moving action under challenging lighting conditions to capture that perfect moment that tells a story in a single image.
https://www.posadaphotography.com/
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Activities from September 2022
Following is a recap of the events that I photographed for the month of September
"5 Lesbians Eating A Quiche" at The Theater Project
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The Theater Project presented 5 Lesbians Eating A Quiche at the Burgdorff Cultural Center. The play by Evan Linder and Andrew Hobgood takes place in 1956 when some "bachelor gals" refer themselves as widows to avoid embarrassing questions.
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NJ Stage Feature Article
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"The Fields of Ambrosia" at Surflight Theatre
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Surflight Theatre presented The Fields of Ambrosia. Based on the 1970 film The Travelling Executioner the time is 1918 and the place is rural Louisiana in the American deep South. Jonas is a former con-man and carnival hustler whose world is suddenly turned upside-down when he falls head-over-heels for the most alluring and beautiful woman he has ever met.
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NJ Stage Feature Article
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"Vanities" at StageWorks
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StageWorks presented Vanities at Studio 237. This bittersweet comedy is an astute, snapshot-sharp chronicle of the lives of three Texas girls.
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NJ Stage Feature Article
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"Thou Shalt Not" at Thinkery & Verse
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Thinkery & Verse presented Thou Shalt Not in New Brunswick in Assembly Hall at St. John's. This is a stage-play that reimagines the unsolved Hall-Mills Double Homicide of 1922! Performances start up on the Centennial Anniversary of the tragedy.
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NJ Stage Feature Article
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"Forever Plaid" at The Barn Theatre
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The Barn Theatre presented Forever Plaid. On the way to their gig, tragedy strikes Forever Plaid, a “guy group” specializing in barbershop quartet harmonies and pitch-perfect melodies. Forever Plaid begins when the guys are given the chance to perform from the afterlife.
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NJ Stage Feature Article
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"School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play" at Dragonfly
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Dragonfly Multicultural Arts Center presented School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play at duCret School of the Arts in Plainfield. Beauty, ambition, and fierce humor combine in this comedy by Jocelyn Bioh loosely based on the movie Mean Girls.
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NJ Stage Feature Article
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"Thoroughly Modern Millie" at Music Mountain Theatre
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Music Mountain Theatre revisited the wild and wooly Roaring 20s when Thoroughly Modern Millie comes to the stage. Set in New York City in 1922, this tells the story of young Millie Dillmount from Kansas, who comes to New York in search of a new life for herself.
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NJ Stage Feature Article
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"Once" at Kelsey Theatre
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Once, winner of eight Tony Awards including Best Musical and winner of a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album, is kicking off Kelsey Theatre’s 2022-2023 season.
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NJ Stage Feature Article
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"Hair" at Phoenix Productions
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Phoenix Productions presented Hair. This classic American tribal love rock musical celebrates the sixties counterculture in all its barefoot, long-haired, bell-bottomed, beaded and fringed glory.
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NJ Stage Feature Article
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Pat Guadagno & Small Change Paying Tribute to Tom Waits
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Pat Guadagno, a Jersey Shore legend, along with some very special guests celebrated the music of Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Tom Waits at Monmouth University's Pollak Theatre.
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NJ Stage Feature Article
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"Soft Animals" at Vivid Stage
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Vivid Stage, in residence at Oakes Center at 120 Morris Avenue in Summit, presented a world premiere production of Soft Animals by Erin Mallon. Soft Animals is a comedy with heart that asks, what would your life be like if you couldn’t feel physical pain? What if your body had a mind of its own? What if you never fell asleep? How about if you remembered every single thing you’ve ever felt, thought or experienced?
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NJ Stage Feature Article
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8th Annual Rock the Farm Festival
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The 8th Annual Rock the Farm Festival took place in Seaside Heights. This family friendly event features incredible music all day long, food trucks, beer & wine garden, KidZone, and more. It includes performances by many of the area's top tribute bands covering a variety of everyone's favorite music.
NJ Stage Feature Article
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"Bonnie & Clyde" at StageWorks
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StageWorks at Studio 237 is presented Bonnie & Clyde. Adrift in the Depression-era Southwest, Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker embark on a life of crime. They mean no harm. They crave adventure -- and each other.
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NJ Stage Feature Article
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"Murder on the Orient Express" at Surflight Theatre
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All aboard! The exotic Orient Express is hurtling down the tracks to a murder! Surflight Theatre is presenting Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express (adapted for the stage by Ken Ludwig)
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John Posada is a New Jersey based freelance photographer specializing in live theatre and music performances. For more than 10 years, John has photographed live music events where he mastered the techniques of timing and capturing fast moving action under challenging lighting conditions to capture that perfect moment that tells a story in a single image. Currently, John has photographed productions for over 30 different theatres. including South Orange PAC (SOPAC), Axelrod PAC, Kelsey Theatre, Music Mountain Theatre, and Spring Lake Theatre to name just a few.
PosadaPhotography web site
For the last 12+ years, I've photographed hundreds of bands and musicians. With the reduction of Covid, I observed that all the regional and community theatres were turning their attention back to live productions. It also turned out that the skills I aquired transferred quite nicely to live theatre.
Going forward, I'll be using this blog to bring you into a world that until recently, I didn't know existed. Come join me.
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Testimonials
John is a talented photographer. His ability to capture the essence of the dance makes him stand out among all the professionals who have photographed our company. It is rare to find a photographer who can accomplish this especially during an actual performance.
- Alexandria Pieroni - Managing Director-Atlantic City Ballet
John is a thorough professional and understands the demands of shooting around the rehearsal process. He also sets up great shots. He is always punctual and cooperative, while communicating what he needs to get effective pictures. His work captures the best moments and the energy of live performance.
- Mark Spina, Artistic Director, TheTheaterProject, 973 919-4818
John Posada has been a pleasure to work with. I first knew his work with concerts and his move to theatre has been terrific for us. Theatre companies from community to equity have raved about his photos. We run them all and they get a great response.
- Gary Wien, Publisher, New Jersey Stage
As Artistic Director of Axelrod Performing Arts Center, I highly recommend John Posada as a production photographer. He is professional, reliable and talented, and his perfect “in the moment” images speak for themselves.
- Andrew DePrisco, Artistic Director, Axelrod Performing Arts Center, 732 915-7997
John Posada is an exceptional photographer. He innately understands theater and how to shoot shows. He is unobtrusive in filming, yet comes up with beautiful pictures that portray the extent and emotion of the shows. John is able to capture not only the action of the performances but the essence of the plays. John turns the pictures around quickly, and he is wonderful to work with.
- Catherine LaMoreaux, Artistic Director, DragonflyArts, 908 930-3210
I would like to take this time to let you know how thankful and grateful I was to have John Posada photograph my most recent show, GOD OF CARNAGE at Nutley Little Theatre this past month (December). I have always noticed John's work as many of the local theaters use his services and most recently, our shows of I Ought to Be in Pictures (September) and Third (October/November) were photographed as well. His work demonstrates a professionalism that I haven't seen elsewhere. John worked very closely with me on scheduling for a time that was convenient for myself and my cast and crew. He is prompt, lets me know what he will be doing and how I could arrange the audience seating so he gets the best pictures possible. John captured so many of the moments, that I found hard to capture with my own camera and directorial abilities holding me back, due to the nature of some of the action in the show. His pictures were impeccable.
- Mead Winters - member and director of Nutley Little Theatre
"It is always a pleasure to work with John. From e-mail communication to welcoming him at the theatre, he is professional, kind, captivates our shows nicely, and has provided a quick turnaround on photos for our productions. Thank You, John!"
- Deven Miller, Music Mountain Theatre
"I was happy to receive confirmation that John would be photographing our inaugural season's play and musical. These two shows would represent the start of something big and after researching his work, I was sure that this would be an outstanding representation of our show quality and performance venue. John did not disappoint with the images he provided and permitted us to use for marketing purposes. He was timely, kind and delivered on all he promised. I would be happy to work with John again in the future and assure that you will be grateful to work with him as well."
Jo Ann Ventor, Executive Director/Executive Producer, STAGEWORKS Theatre Group, Inc., (973) 513-9159
"John is an absolute professional. He shows up early every time I book him. He tours the set and speaks to producers and directors to ensure he is getting the best shots possible. His turn around is the quickest I've ever seen with a photographer, and his pictures are fantastic. He frames every shot beautifully and captures the energy and colors of every production. I've worked with him several times now and his work is always sensational. Cannot recommend enough."
- Emily Miller , Producer at Chatham Playhouse, Marketing & Social Media Coordinator at Studio Playhouse and Artistic Direct of Red Mic Rep.
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