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Ant Farm
Written by Ben R. Williams
Directed by Todd Ristau
Performed May 26th - 31st, 2009.

Cast:
Hank: Brian O'Sullivan
Maisy: Collette Riddle
Doris: Diane Heard
Walter: Austin Ray Alderman
Luke: Jason Burton

Bios:
Austin Ray Alderman (Walter)
Austin is one half of the acting duo, the Closet Matadors, who can be seen on a fairly regular basis at No Shame Theatre (Fridays at 11 PM at Studio Roanoke). He has been in a number of plays and dramatic readings, the most recent being Gavrilo, by Jonathan Van Gils. Austin is also the drummer for the band 3 AM Friday (www.3amfriday.tk). He currently lives in Roanoke with his girlfriend.

Jason Burton (Luke)
A writer and actor for No Shame Theatre and erstwhile member of Big Lick Conspiracy, Jason is acting in his first play. Jason resides in Radford and in his free time collects root beer.

Stephen Glassbrenner (Stage Manager)
Steve was raised in Roanoke, and has recently discovered theatre. He writes and performs weekly here at Studio Roanoke's No Shame Theater, and is also in the process of resurrecting Roanoke's Slam Poetry scene.

Diane Heard (Doris)Diane Heard (Doris) Diane has performed in roles both on and off stage, including Madame Ranevsky in The Cherry Orchard, where she was last on stage at Virginia Western Theatre in April. Other favorites have included Elizabeth Proctor in The Crucible, Paulina in Death and the Maiden, Mrs. Van Daan in The Diary of Anne Frank, Daisy in Driving Miss Daisy, Amanda in The Glass Menagerie, and Grace in Grace and Glorie. She also enjoyed being stage manager in Arms and the Man at Star City Playhouse and Of Mice and Men at Showtimers. In her day time life, Diane works for Select Group in Salem. Diane has performed in roles both on and off stage, including Madame Ranevsky in The Cherry Orchard, where she was last on stage at Virginia Western Theatre in April. Other favorites have included Elizabeth Proctor in The Crucible, Paulina in Death and the Maiden, Mrs. Van Daan in The Diary of Anne Frank, Daisy in Driving Miss Daisy, Amanda in The Glass Menagerie, and Grace in Grace and Glorie. She also enjoyed being stage manager in Arms and the Man at Star City Playhouse and Of Mice and Men at Showtimers. In her day time life, Diane works for Select Group in Salem.

Jess Hilden (Technical Director)
is a graduate of Mary Baldwin College where she majored in theatre and acted as Assistant Technical Director from 2006 until 2008. She has interned at the Oak Grove Theatre as well as East Carolina University's summer theatre program.

Philip Johnson (Assistant Stage Manager)
Philip is excited to be involved in theatre once again. He acted in 9 productions at Glenvar High School as a student. This is the first time he is involved in a theatrical production without a part in it. He is also a Theatre Arts minor at Virginia Tech.

Brian O'Sullivan (Hank)
Brian made his acting debut at 8 years old in Gypsy, and has performed in more than 200 plays and musicals since. He is also a director, playwright, and stage manager with experience in virtually every aspect of theatre production. He was a member of the Michicagn State Performing Arts Co., and the only undergraduate to date who was allowed to direct a regular departmental production. He chose to remain at Michigan State to pursue graduate school, and was hired by the Colorado Shakespeare Festival as a principal actor where (despite stiff competition) he was cast to play Sir Toby (Twelfth Night), Rodorigo (Othello), and Salisbury (Richard II). Near the end of his third and final year at Michigan, Brian was cast in the Magic Theatre of San Francisco's production of Neon Psalms, a new play which went on to win the CBS/Dramatist Guild Award for Best New Play of 1985. Before locating to the Roanoke Valley, Brian spend several years in New York City, most notably as a principal actor with Gorilla Rep and as a drama teacher at the Calhoun School. He has authored several short plays and musicals, some of which have been showcased with New York Rep.

Collette Riddle (Maisey)
Collette is a senior at William Byrd HS. She has performed in such plays as Soup, Soap, and Salvation, Big River, and Oliver! She has also been enrolled her in several acting and singing classes such as Mill Mountain theatre camps, the KJPAS Ensemble and summer performing arts camps, as well as Center for the Performing Arts at Arnold R. Burton.

Todd Wm. Ristau (Director)
Todd is a distinguished graduate of the Iowa Playwright’s Workshop. He serves as Artistic Director of Studio Roanoke and also Program Director for the Playwright’s Lab at Hollins University, a unique graduate program in playwriting. Todd’s work has been performed in theatres across the US and England, including London’s West End. He founded No Shame Theatre in 1986 and oversaw its evolution into a national network of venues for new works in dozens of cities. He worked for four years with Mill Mountain Theatre as Literary Associate and oversaw its Underground Roanoke alternative programming and the CenterPieces Reading series.  In addition to his expertise in playwriting, Ristau is an accomplished director, designer, and an actor who has performed over 400 roles in academic, professional, and amateur theatres. He is an Active Member of the Dramatists Guild as well as a member of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of America. 

Ben R. Williams (Playwright)
Ben is a poet, novelist, and 2007 graduate of Roanoke College. Since 2006 he has been a regular writer/performer at No Shame Theatre at MMT, and demonstrated a real talent for writing for the stage. Ben recently published a collection of his poems and No Shame pieces in a volume titled Hard Times for Ugly Men and will enter the graduate playwriting program at Hollins University this summer. He is a native of Bassett, VA.

Sunny daSilva, our Resident Dramaturg (and also a student in the Playwright's Lab at Hollins University) worked closely with the playwright and director on this production. She prepared the following note:

You see an ant farm, one of those unholy looking ones with an glaringly artificial gel replacing the sand, and you peek into the futile lives of the occupants, trying to form a reality out of a falsely created circumstance. So are the characters lives displayed on stage in Ben R. Williams’s new play. As Williams says, we watch their lives in their most intimate of experiences, “no hiding.” This is the predominant image of the play as the actors scurry in, an undefined explosion is heard, and they descend down a steep ladder into the fallout shelter where they will try to keep a sense of normalcy, try to create patterns to keep them from losing their minds, allowing them to survive.

Williams agrees that it is a dark play, but during its inception he was preoccupied with the sense of turmoil apparent in out society. Prior to the Presidential election, Williams believed the country could have gone in a variety of negative directions, and then with the fall of the financial markets and the ensuing economic turmoil, people began to feel – and still do – trapped in their current situations. It is at this time, when people’s backs are to the wall and it all hits the fan, that’s when, “you find out what people really are underneath.”

And so we are given Ant Farm, this realistic and compelling tale that reveals a testing of our humanity at its most basic level.