Kafka for Beginners at 59E59 Theaters

Jonas Kobberdal is a New York-based actor originally from Oslo, Norway, and the founder of Copper Valley Productions. A graduate of The American Academy of Dramatic Arts and its prestigious NY Company, he’s performed with Yonder Window Theatre Company, Bard City, and the Educational Theatre of New York. Career highlights include performing in the NY Winterfest, producing the short film DISTANT, and appearing in several world premieres. Recent roles include Enoch in F.O.M.O. at Theatre Row and George in Sorry, Wrong Number at Theatre for the New City. Jonas trained in Norway before moving to New York in 2016. At the Academy Company, he performed leading roles in works by Ibsen, Shakespeare, Douglas Carter Beane and Rehana Lew Mirza. Known for blending emotional depth with strong physicality, Jonas is passionate about theater’s ability to connect people. He feels beyond excited to be starring in KAFKA FOR BEGINNERS, in what feels like a true full-circle moment with the company.

Ty Lane is a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and was a member of its prestigious 2018–2019 Academy Company. Ty Lane’s credits include: Romeo & Juliet at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival. A Christmas Carol, A Man for All Seasons, Twelfth Night, The Metromaniacs, and the 2022 Shakespeare LIVE! tour of Romeo & Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey. Much Ado About Nothing at Opera House Arts; Troilus & Cressida, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Cabaret, Into the Woods, and Ragtime at the Scranton Shakespeare Festival; Rapunzel for the Ragtag Theater Company. He has been in the world premieres of

Kane is an Australian actor, voice-over artist and writer based in New York City. His recent works include shooting the short film Phoebe dir. Caroline Mills and playing the cowardly Parolles in Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well dir. Matthew DeCostanza. He is thrilled to be making his Off-Broadway debut in Julian Henry Lowenfeld’s Kafka For Beginners and is excited to take it across the pond to Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Kane is an alum of The American Academy of Dramatic Arts and thanks his friends and family for their support.

Born in Melbourne, Hannah is an Australian/Filipino artist currently based New York City. Hannah trained at the National Theatre Drama School and Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, before moving to New York to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. During her third year, she was granted a place in the prestigious Academy Company, where she lead numerous mainstage productions. Recent U.S. credits include: Remove the Serpent’s Head (Ma-Yi Theatre Company, O.B.), SKIN (Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre O.B.), Single Asian Female (Australian Theatre Festival NYC), Only Remains Remain (MoMA PS1), Helen and I (The Irish Repertory Theatre O.B.), Star-Spangled, (an original musical by Douglas Carter Beane and Lewis Flinn), Spring Awakening (The Academy Company), and The Weight of Home (a film by Rookeward/Cohen productions). Hannah has also been writing music and poetry. Her first collection of poetry Drawing Blood (or On My Mother’s Toes) was published at the end of 2021 and is now available for order.

Poet, playwright, composer, and experienced trial lawyer Julian Henry Lowenfeld is acknowledged to be one of the greatest living translators of Russian poetry into English. Julian is a celebrated authority on the life and work of Russia’s national bard, Alexander Pushkin. Julian’s book, My Talisman, The Poetry and Life of Alexander Pushkin (a combined anthology of Pushkin’s verse and biography of Russia’s most beloved poet), illustrated by Pushkin’s own drawings, received Russia’s prestigious Pushkin Medal in 2020 for “outstanding literary achievement,” as well as the Petropol Prize for Literary Achievement. It was the first time the medals had been awarded to a foreigner, despite the increasingly dark political climate in Russia. He has lectured and performed his translations of Pushkin at numerous venues, including the Russian Academy of Sciences, in concert at the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, at the Hermitage Theatre in St. Petersburg, and at the United Nations in New York. Besides the dark comedy KAFKA FOR BEGINNERS, Julian has written the musical play Thanksgiving, as well as Even Love’s a Melody, a musical adaptation with his verse translation of four plays by Alexander Pushkin. Other works include the novella Rose-Colored Glasses (a love story framed within an almost farcical courtroom drama) and an anthology of poems, mostly about love, entitled Nonetheless.

Laureate of the 2004 Mstislav Rostropovich Foundation Award, the 2012 Rachmaninoff International Competition in St. Petersburg, and the 2013 Vienna International Piano Competition, Maxim Shatalkin graduated from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where he studied piano with Valery Kastelsky, Elena Kuznetsova, and Mikhail Voskresensky, and chamber music with Alexander Bonduriansky, pianist of the Moscow Piano Trio. After winning the prestigious 2006 Swedish International Duo Competition with cellist Alexander Zababurkin, the local press wrote: “Shatalkin revealed himself as a masterfully driven piano artist, where nothing was neglected.” As a member of the Kudriakova–Shatalkin Piano Duo, he was also a prizewinner at the 2015 International Competition Pietro Argento in Italy and the 2016 International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition in Boston (USA). Since 2022, he has been an artist with the internationally recognized Trio Fibonacci, based in Montreal. With the ensemble, he has carried out a concert series at Bourgie Hall of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, performing around 30 different piano trios over the last three seasons. Passionate about teaching, Maxim has given master classes at such prestigious institutions as the Colburn School of Music, Bob Cole Conservatory (LA), Jacobs School of Music (IN), and the University of Michigan (MI). He has also participated in various music festivals around the world.

Cantor Nancy Dubin, a native of Fair Lawn, NJ, has built a dynamic and multifaceted career centered around music. She began her journey as a music major at Brandeis University, concentrating in flute performance, before later earning her B.S.N. from Fairleigh Dickinson University in 1996. Although she spent many years as a dedicated nurse in Pediatrics, Orthopedics, ER, Neuro ICU, and Med/Psych, music remained a constant passion and ultimately guided her toward the cantorate. Her cantorial path has taken her from the Parker Jewish Institute—where she completed Clinical Pastoral Education—to the Jewish Home in the Bronx, and then to Congregation Beth Yam in Hilton Head, SC. There, she was honored to be the first cantor to serve in the Low Country region of the United States. She was ordained in May 2016 by Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion and went on to serve Temple Am Echad from 2016 to 2023. Now back in New Jersey to be closer to her aging parents, Cantor Dubin continues to share her musical gifts as both Cantor and Religious School Director at Temple Beth Rishon. A passionate performer beyond the bimah, she has sung the National Anthem at multiple New York Mets games and occasionally graces the stage at Don’t Tell Mama with her love of Cabaret.