DADA TEEN MUSICAL: THE PLAY Comes to Central Works

In Dada Teen Musical: The Play Annabelle is 17. She is the only high school student in the world whose Harvard application is an act of rebellion (she comes from a Yale family.) When she hatches a scheme to do a Dadaist version of The Sound of Music to round out her college application, she unleashes chaos into the raging hellscape of social anarchy: high school.

Written by Maury Zeff and directed by Gary Graves, the production's cast includes Zoe Chien, Alan Coyne, Jacob Henrie-Naffaa*, and Chanel Tighman*, with costumes by Tammy Berlin, choreography by MaryBeth Cavanaugh†, original music by Alex Mandel, and sound design by Gregory Scharpen.

The Central Works Writers Workshop is an ongoing commissioning program established in 2012.  Twice a year, in 12-week sessions, 8 local playwrights are selected to develop projects through informal readings and carefully directed discussions. In the 2023 season all of the Central Works season were world-premiere plays developed in the Writers Workshop, and another 2 out of 3 commissioned scripts were produced in the 2024 and 2025 seasons. 

Creative Team:

Maury Zeff (playwright) is a long-time member of the Central Works Writers Workshop. His plays have been performed around the US and in Europe. His writing has been published in American Fiction, Southern California Review, Crab Orchard Review, and elsewhere. He has received commissions and fellowships from PlayGround, the SF Olympians, and the San Francisco Writers Grotto, where he works and teaches. He won the Clark-Gross Novel Award, was nominated for a Pushcart Fiction Prize, and was a finalist for the Ink Slinger Playwriting Award, Acacia Fiction Prize and Tobias Wolff Fiction Prize. Maury earned a creative writing MFA from the University of San Francisco, is a nationally-rated Scrabble player, and won third place in the 2024 O. Henry World Championship Pun-off in Austin.

Gary Graves (director) has been a resident playwright and company co-director at Central Works since 1998. He has been a part of developing 77 world premiere productions with the company, many of which he has either written and/or directed. Titles of plays he has directed include: this season's Push/Pull and The Last Goat, as well as Machiavelli's The Prince, Chekhov's Ward 6, and Boss McGreedy. He also leads the Central Works Writers Workshop, and he teaches playwriting regularly at the Berkeley Rep School of Theater.

Alex Mandel (original music) created the music for the closing song. Mandel is a songwriter, composer & producer best known for writing two songs for Pixar's Academy Award-winning BRAVE. He has scored several films including East Side Sushi, Paper Bag Plan & The Inventor, which featured nine of his songs performed by Daisy Ridley, Marion Cotillard, and Stephen Fry, and a Netflix series “Super Giant Robot Brothers.” For theater, he composed the songs for Norman Rockwell's America (Theatreworks New Works Festival 2014) and is currently developing an original musical, “Stealing Dylan's Guitar.” His most recent album of original songs is “Sliding Doors” (2024).

Gregory Scharpen (sound design) has designed for Central Works for over 25 years, and his work has appeared in productions by Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Shotgun Players, Theatre Rhino, TheatreFIRST, and many others. He is also a film editor (the Emmy-winning series Have You Heard From Johannesburg; Town Destroyer; and most recently Democracy Noir and the short film Post Atlantic) and radio broadcaster (numerous programs on KALX 90.7fm). Under the obscure moniker Thomas Carnacki, he concocts, records and performs “experimental” (read: unlistenable) music; the latest Carnacki releases are the companion records Cadavre Isolé, and Rencontre Fortuite, available in fine local record shops. He is the recipient of a few Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards, a Golden Eagle CINE Award, and – most significantly – one of the very infrequently-bestowed Jolly Trephination Awards for Total Textual Immersion.

Marybeth Cavanaugh† (choreography) Choreography credits include resident choreographer at California Shakespeare Theater for 20 seasons, where she also served as Associate Artist. She also choreographed for Oregon Shakespeare Festival for 5 seasons, Shakespeare Santa Cruz for 9 seasons, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, The New Victory Theater, Yale Repertory Theatre, Brisbane Arts Festival—Powerhouse, BLACK SWAN Theatre Company in Western Australia, Cincinnati Playhouse, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, San Jose Stage, Mills College Repertory, and Summerfest Dance. Directing credits: Following the Wrong God Home, Theatre 212; Possession, United Solo Theatre Festival, New York City; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, TheatreFIRST; Twelfth Night, North Bay Shakespeare Company; and Measure for Measure, Shakespeare at Stinson. MaryBeth is the Director of Classes at Berkeley Rep School of Theatre and is a Continuing Lecturer in the Department of Theatre and Dance at UC Davis. MaryBeth is a member of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. 

Cast:

Zoe Chien (Annabel) is an actor, casting director, and theater producer in the Bay Area. She has a BFA in Theatre from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Zoe is the Casting and Producing Consultant for 3Girls Theatre, and is a PlayGround Associate Producer and company member. Zoe feels lucky to be in this industry at a time when so much art is being made in response to our social and political climate, and is proud to represent her mixed-race Taiwanese and Italian-American community. She is thrilled to be making her Central Works debut. 

Chanel Tilghman* (Mariah) is excited to be making her Central Works debut! Bay Area born and raised, Chanel holds a B.A. in Communication and minors in Theatre and Music Industry from the University of Southern California (Fight on!). Recent credits include: The Two Gentlemen of Verona (San Francisco Shakespeare Festival), Peter Pan (Panto at the Presidio), Evita (San Francisco Playhouse), and The Wizard of Oz (American Conservatory Theater). 

Alan Coyne (Mr Dorfman) has somehow wormed his way into his fifth Central Works show, after playing #AlltheMen in Patricia Milton's Victorian Ladies' Detective Collective trilogy and Niccolo Machiavelli in Gary Graves's The Contest. He is perhaps most infamous for his two-person ShakesPair adaptations: 2ELFth Night (with Adrian Deane at the Edinburgh Fringe, 2019), 2empest (with Anjoli Aguilar at the Eclectic Box, 2024), and MacBoth (with Em Ervolina and BARD Theatre, this August). He has also been begrudgingly permitted to perform with We Players, SF Shakes, Center Rep, Lafayette Town Hall Theatre, and ACT's school tour, among others. He dedicates this performance to his puffin, without whom he would be less than half a shadow of a man, and who particularly dislikes mixed metaphors.

Jacob Henrie-Naffaa* (Tyler) started performing professionally at the age of seven and has been seen on Bay Area stages ever since. Recent credits include Cabaret (CenterRep), Returning to Haifa (Golden Thread Productions) and In the Heights (CenterRep, Berkeley Playhouse). Jacob also works on-camera, recently appearing in commercials for Jolibee and Samsung, as well as dozens of short films and web series. He's currently working on his directorial debut short, which he also wrote, produced and co-starred in, that will be releasing later this year. He'd like to thank his legos for their constant support.