Life Sucks. at Interact Theatre Company at The Broadwater Main Stage

John Ross Bowie is excited to be making his Interact Theatre Company debut. TV: “The Big Bang Theory,” “Speechless,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” two “CSIs,” “Feel Good” (Netflix), “Brooklyn 99,” “Generation,” “Reno911,” others. FILM: Jumanji: The Next Level, The Heat, He’s Just Not That Into You, and What the Bleep Do We Know? THEATER: Laughter on the 23rd Floor (Garry Marshall Theater), Bad Person (Riot Act), Creature (Teatro De Facto). John’s memoir No Job for a Man was published in 2022 by Pegasus books. If you must: @johnrossbowie on Instagram.

Anne Gee Byrd is a fairly new member of Interact. She has performed locally at The Mark Taper Forum, Kirk Douglas, Geffen, Pasadena Playhouse, La Mirada, and the Ensemble in Santa Barbara as well as across the country, including ACT in San Francisco, The American Shakespeare Festival in Connecticut, The Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, The Great Lakes Theater Festival, Indiana Repertory, The La Jolla Playhouse, The McCarter Theatre, The Old Globe in San Diego, Seattle Repertory, and South Coast Repertory. She is a staunch member of the Antaeus Theatre Company. She has received four Drama Critics Circle Awards and numerous Ovation nominations. Her recent television credits include 911, CSI Los Angeles, How to Get Away with Murder, The Colony, Shameless, Murder in the First, and Rake. Indie film activity includes And Then There Was Eve, Senior Love Triangle, A Good Thing, and Zero Charisma.

Olivia Castanho was born and raised in the small town of South Windsor, Connecticut. She started performing at the age of 6 in community theatre, then moved to Los Angeles at 18 to attend USC’s BFA Acting program, where she won the Jack Nicholson Award for Outstanding Performances in her junior year. In 2021, she won “Best Actress” at the LA Film Awards for her role in the ITC film, “Faultless,” directed by Barry Heins. She has starred in a myriad of short films, indie features, and commercials, most notably of which was a national Progressive ad opposite Flo. Olivia maintains a thriving dubbing career and boats over 45 titles for Netflix, Disney+, and Prime Video. She is an improv graduate from the Upright Citizen’s Brigade and she studies weekly at An Actor’s Space with Rob Brownstein. Aside from acting, Olivia is a certified scuba diver, shark enthusiast, horror aficionado, writer, and singer.

Theater: As You Like It. Love & Information. The Tempest (Antaeus Theater Company)Worst Laid Plans (Upright Citizens Brigade, co-creator); My Break-Up Playlist (Rogue Machine Theatre, writer/performer), Bunny Bunny (The Gary Marshall Theatre); The Glass Menagerie (Ensemble Theatre Company); Neil LaBute’s Filthy Talk for Troubled Times (UK premiere ). Film/TV: She's currently recurring in Apple TV's Physical (Season 1, 2 and 3) and Freeform’s Good Trouble ( Season 5). Rest of credits visit IMDB. Training: BFA NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, The Meisner Studio, Experimental Theatre Wing and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Lily Rains is an Actor and Creative Wingwoman in TV, film, and theatre spaces. Highlights of her credits include recurring roles on TV’s Animal Kingdom (TNT), Super Pumped (Showtime), Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders (NBC) the best friend in 4 Lifetime movies, and over 40 national commercials; Film: We Bought a Zoo, award-winning shorts The Pooka, Impasse, and Interact’s Another Birthday in Bedlam; Stage: Women of 4G (Drive Theatre/Fierce Backbone), and readings of Untitled F*ck M*ss S**gon (Ojai Playwrights Conference), Panorama (East West Players), and Anna Christie (Interact). As a Creative Wingwoman, Lily brings her passion for creating brave and inclusive spaces to all of her collaborations as a teaching artist, intimacy professional, and filmmaker. www.lilyrains.com

Marc's work with Interact includes Doubt, Just Another Birthday in Bedlam, and Tally's Folly. Other favorite theater credits include Chris in All My Sons, Bernard in Boeing Boeing, Rudy in King o’ the Moon and various roles for ten years in Snapshots, the annual Susan Komen benefit. Marc has recurred and guest-starred on many television shows including The Good Doctor, CSI, Desperate Housewives, and Melrose Place. He is a proud graduate of Loyola Marymount University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

Steve Vinovich has been doing this acting thing for a while. He’s been truly blessed. He has actually made a living as an actor. Raised in Peoria, Illinois, attended the University of Illinois and UCLA, before receiving a full scholarship to the Juilliard School which brought him to NY. BROADWAY: Waitress, All the Way, Loose Ends, Lost in Yonkers, The Magic Show, The Robber Bridegroom, The Grand Tour, The Secret Rapture, Love Letters. OFF-BROADWAY: Old Jews Telling Jokes. NATIONAL TOUR: The Dinner Party. REGIONAL: Over 100 plays and musicals. Recently – the American Shakespeare Festival: A Funny Thing Happened Forum. Westport Playhouse: Diary of Anne Frank. Pittsburgh Public: Ben Franklin in 1776. Pasadena Playhouse: The Foreigner, The Little Foxes. Laguna Playhouse: Art, The Price. Reprise: Kiss Me Kate, Strike up the Band, Babes in Arms. Pacific Resident Theater: Awake and Sing, Golden Boy, All My Sons. Stratford: Twelfth Night with Lynn Redgrave. NY Public: A Midsummer Night's Dream. NCT: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, How I Learned to Drive, Inherit the Wind. FILM: Worth, The Intern, Shirley, The Santa Clause, Awakenings, Mannequin, Puffin in The Swan Princess. TV: about 120 guest spots and two series – recently Godfather of Harlem and such iconic shows as Three’s Company, LA Law, Hill Street Blues, Roseanne, Star Trek, ER, Everybody Loves Raymond, Law and Order, Matlock, Touched by an Angel, Malcolm in the Middle, and yes, even Hannah Montana. COMMERCIALS – over 200. TRAINING: Juilliard School under John Houseman, Strasberg Institute, Charles Nelson Reilly, Larry Moss. AWARDS: three LA DramaLogue Awards. www.stevevinovich.com

Andrew Hill Newman made his Broadway debut in Merlin as an understudy for both Nathan Lane and magician Doug Henning. Other Broadway and National Tour credits include Barnum, Big River, and Master Harold...and the boys. Off-Broadway, Andrew starred for two years as Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors in the original production at the Orpheum Theatre. He created the roles of Tom Kelly in Only Kidding! at the Westside Arts Theatre and Dave Schoenfeld in Birds of Paradise, directed by Arthur Laurents at the Promenade. He has also performed at numerous regional and stock theatres including: The Guthrie Theatre, The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, and Theatre Under The Stars in Houston. His previous appearances at Interact include Counsellor-at-Law, Celebrity, and Sex, Sex, Sex, Sex, Sex, & Sex. Andrew has been seen in seven feature films and had recurring and guest-starring roles in dozens and dozens of different television series. Most of them were in the 1990s, but in recent years he has been featured on episodes of Hulu’s How I Met Your Father and NBC’s Good Girls. Also a proud WGA member for three decades, His many writing and producing credits include contributing sketch and monologue material to Saturday Night Live. Okay, only one episode, but still, it was SNL and that’s cool. Partnered with Matthew Perry, he wrote and sold two sit-com pilots and a feature film script, all of which were developed with the studios and networks until they were no longer funny. Teamed with Hank Azaria, Andrew wrote and produced Nobody’s Perfect, which premiered at Sundance and won Best Short Film at the 2004 HBO Comedy Arts Festival. In addition to knowing famous people, Andrew has written and produced children’s television for Nickelodeon since 1999. He was a writer/producer on the sketch comedy shows: The Amanda Show and All That, as well as an original writer on the sit-coms: Drake & Josh, Wendell & Vinnie, The Troop, and Nicky, Ricky, Dicky & Dawn. He was also the Head Writer for 70 episodes of iCarly, a 5-time Emmy Nominee for Outstanding Children’s Program.

Barry Heins is the Artistic Director of Interact Theatre Company (ITC). A graduate of The Juilliard School and alumnus of The Acting Company, Heins has appeared on Broadway, Off-Broadway, at leading regional theaters across America, and in film and TV. Los Angeles stage credits include Much Ado About Nothing at the Ford Theater (Drama-Logue Award, Outstanding Performance) and the critically acclaimed ITC productions of Counsellor-At-Law (Ovation Award, Best Ensemble), Other People's Money, and Nice Fish. He has worked extensively as a voice-over artist, lending his talents to everything from film trailers to political ads, and has been a dialect consultant on Broadway and for PBS. Heins has served on the faculties of several professional actor training conservatories, including NYU Tisch School of the Arts/Playwright's Horizons Theater School and SUNY Purchase College. His producing credits include two series of ITC staged readings for the Los Angeles Public Library's LA Made cultural enrichment program: "The Tony Award® Winners," which was seen worldwide on BroadwayOnDemand.com during the pandemic, and "The Pulitzer Prize Winners: Ten Plays from Ten Decades" (dir: You Can't Take It With You and The Great White Hope). Heins produced and directed two impactful short films for ITC (Faultless and Just Another Birthday in Bedlam), which garnered international recognition and received multiple honors at prestigious film festivals, including a 2021 Bronze and 2022 Gold Telly Award. Both films can be viewed on ITC's official YouTube channel, @InteractTheatreCompanyLA.

Scenic designer Evan Bartoletti (Lechetti Design) is accomplished in design conceptualization and implementation with a host of divergent projects and world premiere productions that showcase Evan’s creative skillset. Projects include the West Coast premiere of Home Front at the Victory Theatre Center along with Pie In The Sky: The Movie, musicals such as Rent or Les Mis for the LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl and the production of Strings Attached for Voices Carry Inc. which successfully combined contemporary dance with abstract puppetry. Work done in a wide range of media and environments, demonstrates Evan’s creative, collaborative and detail oriented approach to scenic design.

Michael is a costume designer, actor, writer, and producer. He’s excited to work on Life Sucks! Among his theatrical design credits are Dreamgirls, The Boy From Oz, Siamese Sex Show, Fugue, When Jazz Had The Blues, Burners, Cabaret, Year Of The Rooster, Fixed, Sweeney Todd, American Idiot, The Legend Of Georgia McBride, A Little Night Music, The Wild Party, Guess Who‘s Coming To Dinner, and L.A. Now And Then. He has received several awards and nominations for his work both onstage and off from such organizations as L.A. Stage Alliance Ovation, L.A. Drama Critics Circle, L.A. Weekly, N.A.A.C.P., StageSceneLA, Stage Raw, Robby, Broadway World, Ticket Holder, Eddon, and Desert Theatre League. Michael hopes you enjoy the show!

Eric Babb [they/them/theirs] is thrilled to be returning to work on props for another ITC production! Their previous ITC prop credits include Nice Fish, and some specialty props for All American Girl. A few of their favorite companies they’ve Prop Mastered for include: Center Theatre Group, The LA LGBT Center, Latino Theatre Company, and Independent Shakespeare Company. Eric’s other Prop Master work this summer can be seen on stage at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Fetch Clay Make Man, and Our Dear Dead Drug Lord.

Gina DeLuca is a stage manager from Los Angeles. She received her Bachelor’s at California State University Northridge in Theater Arts, a certificate of completion in Technical Theater at Los Angeles City College, and a Master's in Stage Management at California Institute of the Arts. She stage managed productions like The Servant of Two Masters, Top Girls, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Waiting for Lefty, Cosi Fan Tutte, The Children, and other productions around the Los Angeles area. She was recently assistant stage managing at the Fountain Theatre for Lifespan of a Fact and the outdoor production of Last Summer at Bluefish Cove. She worked with Interact Theatre Company on their production of Nice Fish and excited to work with them again this year.

Ly is a queer visual artist located in Los Angeles. They are a CalArts graduate with a dual degree in Projection and Lighting Design and combine these skills to create thoughtful immersive installations and shows. They have worked on plays like Love and Information, She Who Was No More, and Kubrick’s Aryan Papers, and have created multiple projection-centered installations. @museumofmess

Dylan Gorenberg is a guitarist from Pleasanton, CA who currently attends the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music for his Doctorate in Musical Arts on full scholarship. Dylan also holds his bachelor’s and master’s degree from the Thornton School. Since moving to Los Angeles in 2015, Dylan has toured throughout the United States, EU, and UK performing in spaces ranging from small clubs to venues that have held over 10,000 people. He has lent his skills to recording projects spanning diverse genres and styles, contributing to feature films and streaming platforms such as Disney+ and TTV (Taiwan Television Enterprise). Notably, he has performed as a featured instrumentalist with the Budapest String Orchestra. Fender Guitars currently contract Dylan under their Fender Play division. Fender Play is a video-centric learning platform that eschews traditional theory-based lessons in favor of instructor-guided videos with over 1 million users Dylan has also maintained a sizable roster of private students in addition to performing and recording. Some of his students have gone on to study at USC, UCLA, the University of Washington, and the University of Idaho on music performance-based scholarships.

Madison Leinster is a classical violinist with over 20 years of training and experience, working alongside artists such as Billie Eilish, Zedd, FINNEAS, and more. After graduating as a music major from Idyllwild Arts Academy in 2015, she moved to Los Angeles to continue pursuing violin and songwriting at Pasadena City College. During her time there, Madison won the 2018 concerto competition where she performed the Butterfly Lovers Concerto with the PCC orchestra, and garnered over 40,000 subscribers on YouTube through her violin cover videos. She has since continued to work with other musicians and artists while also writing and producing her own work.

Sloe is a multi-award winning sound designer. He has designed a multitude of productions including God Looked Away with Judith Light and Al Pacino, Redemption of a Dogg with Snoop Dogg and Life Sucks, the wonderful production you are here to see. He would like to thank the incredible and amazing Gabrieal Griego for her continuous support during all of his creative endeavors. He is proud to be part of this great production.