Mary Poppins at Lyric Theatre Thelma Gaylord Academy

Dave Florek

Favorite Interact Productions include Our Town, Second Story Man, Reckless, and The Root. Memorable Interactivity Projects include I Never Sang for My Father, Vikings, Marvin's Room, Early One Evening at the Rainbow Bar and Grille, and Desert Wolf. He has worked on and Off-Broadway and regionally coast-to-coast. Series regulars include Grace Under Fire, and Nicklelodeon's Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide. Recurring roles include Coach Smiley on the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Shooter, and Law and Order. He was most recently seen in the season premiere of NCIS and The Rookie. His most recent stage production, Paradise, is scheduled to be made into a feature film this spring.

Christine Estabrook

Christine Estabrook has starred in hit Broadway shows, won accolades and acting awards for off-Broadway performances, and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale Drama School. After graduation, Christine spent four years performing at the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference. She trod the boards in Durang's "Baby With the Bathwater," "Blue Window," and won a coveted Obie Award for "Pastorale." She starred in numerous Broadway and off-Broadway plays earning Drama Desk nominations for "North Shore Fish," "Win/Lose/Draw," and winning one for "The Boy's Next Door." Christine spent the better part of 2007-2009 in New York performing Adult Women (5 different women) in the Tony Award-winning musical "Spring Awakening." She has taught acting courses and workshops at ART Institute at Harvard University, in the MFA program at the University of California in San Diego, at Niagara University, at AMDA, Los Angeles, and served as a guest lecturer at SUNY Oswego. Ms. Estabrook has had memorable roles in film and television. You can see her work in "Mad Men," "American Horror Story," "Designated Survivor," "Desperate Housewives," 911," "Penny Dreadful," "City of Angels," and others.

Philippe Bowgen

Philippe Bowgen is thrilled to make his Interact debut. His New York credits include Homos, or Everyone in America (Labyrinth Theater Company), The Changeling (Red Bull Theater), Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 (59E59 Theaters), workshops of Stuck Elevator (New York Theatre Workshop), and productions at MCC, Potomac Theatre Project and Atlantic Theater Company. Regional credits include Picasso at the Lapin Agile (Old Globe), The Tempest opposite Kate Burton (Old Globe), War (Yale Repertory Theatre), Pericles (Two River Theater), Cloud 9 directed by Michael Kahn for which Philippe received a Helen Hayes nomination (Studio Theatre), Antony and Cleopatra directed by Emily Mann (McCarter Theatre Center), Oedipus El Rey (Dallas Theater Center), Macbeth and La Dispute directed by Darko Tresnjak (Hartford Stage), The Liar (Westport Country Playhouse), Caviar on Credit (Guthrie Theater), Vanya and Sonia... (Paper Mill Playhouse) and numerous others. Television credits include "The Mick," "Veronica Mars," and "Supernatural." Film credits include the award-winning "A Nightmare Wakes" now available on AMC/Shudder, “The Samuel Project” starring Hal Linden; “Hedgehog” opposite Madeline Brewer of “The Handmaid’s Tale”; “The Renovation”; “Hamlet”; and “Sobrevivo.” He is a graduate of the M.F.A. Acting program at Brown/Trinity Rep, the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts and Georgetown University.

Shyaam Karra

A decade ago, Shyaam quit his Master’s program and lucrative desk job and flew across the country to LA without telling his family. Though he had never acted, he was compelled to overcome his fears. This turned out to be the most fulfilling decision of his life. He has performed in commercials, feature films, and tv shows. You can catch him this year on Minx (HBO) and Me Time (Netflix). Alongside his passion for acting, he writes screenplays, plays tennis, and volunteers for animal rights organizations.

Aoife Carty

Aoife (pronounced EE-fah,) is an LA based actor, writer, and occasional human person. She is a graduate of the Atlantic Theater Company's conservatory program, and recently completed advanced improv training with The Groundlings. Career highlights include appearing as a blurry-faced audience member at a Conan taping, to which she purchased a ticket. Aoife is both thrilled and humbled to be working with Interact Theatre Company on A Long Day's Journey Into Night.

Eugene O'Neill

See play(s) Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was born in a Broadway hotel room in New York City on October 16, 1888. O'Neill won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1936 and Pulitzer Prizes for four of his plays: BEYOND THE HORIZON (1920); ANNA CHRISTIE (1922); STRANGE INTERLUDE (1928); and LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (1957). O'Neill is credited with raising American dramatic theater from its narrow origins to an art form respected around the world. He is regarded as America's premier playwright. O'Neill's father, James O'Neill, was one of nineteenth century America's most popular actors. Young Eugene spent much of his early years on national tours with his father. In 1906 he entered Princeton University but was soon expelled. In 1909 he married, had a son, and was divorced within three years. By 1912, O'Neill had worked as a gold prospector in Honduras, as a seaman, and had become a regular at New York City's flophouses and cheap saloons. That year he became ill with tuberculosis and was inspired to become a playwright while reading during his recovery. O'Neill's career as a playwright consisted of three periods. His early realist plays utilize his own experiences, especially as a seaman. In the 1920s he rejected realism in an effort to capture on the stage the forces behind human life. His expressionistic plays during this period were influenced by the ideas of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, psychologists Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg. During his final period O'Neill returned to realism. These later works, which most critics consider his best, depend on his life experiences for their story lines and themes. O'Neill continued to write until 1944 when he was stricken with a debilitating neurodegenerative disease known as cortical cerebellar atrophy which prevented further work. A revival of his work in 1956 led to the first production of LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, for which he won his final Pulizer Prize posthumously in 1957. LONG DAY’S JOURNEY is considered by many to be one of the greatest plays ever written.

Oliver Muirhead

OLIVER MUIRHEAD has directed several productions and readings for Interact Including the award winning OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY, THE DEVIL'S DISCIPLE, THE CHERRY ORCHARD and, most recently, PRIVATE LIVES- in front of a live audience during a brief window before Omicron shut us down... again. He is also an actor seen most recently in the reboot of CSI VEGAS as the director of a freak show.

Brian Christopher Russell

Brian is thrilled to work with Interact Theatre Company for this production. After getting his start in remote theatrical productions, Brian has become a Broadcast Engineer and Digital Media Designer for various remote and hybrid productions: debris, projections designer (Ella Martine, PENANCE); TogetherLA: A Virtual Stage Festival, assistant production designer/broadcast engineer (Schmedake Lighting Design); A Christmas Carol Cocktail Spectacular, video designer/editor (After Hours Theatre Company); The Parrot Trap, Public Heroics Commission, DO NOT GO MY LOVE, and Cindy the Dreamer (or No Small Potatoes), digital media designer/broadcast engineer (Hudson Stage Company); Just Another Birthday in Bedlam, streaming engineer and Faultless, digital media designer (Interact Theatre Company); Swingin’ with the Mouse: A GRAMMY® FYC Event, broadcast designer/engineer (The SWTM Band); UCLA Commencement, video 1 (Radar Creative); Live Weekly Cabaret, digital media designer (Pixel Playhouse); The Arcanum, digital media designer/broadcast engineer (Dungeon Masters Diary); Funny Bonz, The Perfect Year, Greater Tuna, Beautiful Thing, Tech Talk with Ethan, and Breaking It Down with Jodi Marks, digital media designer/broadcast engineer (P3 Theatre Company).

Barry Heins

Barry Heins was born and raised in El Paso, Texas. Upon graduation from The Juilliard School (BFA, Drama), he toured forty-five states with five plays as a member of The Acting Company, including Michael Langham's production of "Twelfth Night" and Alan Schneider's 25th Anniversary production of "Waiting for Godot." Broadway: "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" starring Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan, and the Royal Shakespeare Company production of "Good" starring Alan Howard. Off-Broadway: "An Enemy of the People" starring Roy Dotrice (Roundabout Theatre), "The Boys Next Door" (Lambs Theatre), "On the Verge" (John Houseman Theatre), "Ten by Tennessee" (Lucille Lortel Theatre), and "Spring Awakening" (NYSF/Public Theatre). Favorite film and TV roles: "Baby Boom," "Fear of a Black Hat," and "Grace and Frankie." Favorite regional theater roles: Ben in "The Sunshine Boys" with Eddie Bracken and Lou Jacobi, and Norman in "And a Nightingale Sang" with John Slattery. Los Angeles: Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles's production of "Much Ado About Nothing" at The Ford Theater (Drama-Logue Best Actor) and Interact's productions of "Other People's Money" (Pico Playhouse) and the West Coast premiere of the Mark Rylance & Louis Jenkins comedy "Nice Fish." In addition to his work as a voiceover actor, Heins has taught voice and speech at the professional actor training programs of NYU Tisch School of the Arts/Playwright's Horizons Theater School, SUNY Purchase College, and at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (NYC). Heins produced ITC's "The Pulitzer Prize Winners: 10 Plays from 10 Decades" for the Los Angeles Public Library, directing "You Can't Take It With You" and "The Great White Hope." He recently produced and directed ITC's first forays into short films, "Faultless" and "Just Another Birthday in Bedlam," receiving Best Indie Filmmaker at Top Shorts Film Festival and a 2021 Telly Award for Best Remote Production Online.