Welcome to the web version of the program for Ghost Quartet by Dave Malloy, showing at the Dairy Center for the Arts in Boulder from January 18 to February 8, 2025. For tickets, click here
The Catamounts proudly present
GHOST QUARTET
By Dave Malloy
THE GHOST QUARTET
Monk, The Astronomer, Edgar, The Driver
Jeejay Maccariella
Scheherazade, Pearl White, Soldier, Lady Usher, The Victim/Pearl
Courtney Navarre
Shah Zaman, The Bear, The Fool,The Pusher
Neyla Pekarek*
Dunyazad, Rose Red, (Starchild), Roxie, The Photographer/Rose
Maggie Tisdale
*Appears courtesy of Actor’s Equity Association
CREATIVE, DESIGN, AND PRODUCTION TEAM
Costume and Scenic Designer Gleason Bauer
Director Amanda Berg Wilson
Lighting Designer Monica Bowker
Associate Producer Nika Garcia
Sound Designer and Engineer Jess Jewell
Technical Director Aaron Klass
Prop Designer Linda Lea
Music Director Jeejay Maccariella
Production Manager Lara Maerz
Wardrobe and Crew Sophia “Phi” Le
Stage Manager Rain Young
A GUIDE TO GHOST QUARTET
Ghost Quartet is part concept album, part musical.
Consider these your liner notes.
THE CHARACTERS
❖ Scheherazade, Dunyazad, Shah Zaman, and Monk live in 14th century Persia.
❖ Rose Red, Pearl White, The Astronomer, and Bear live in 17th century fairy tales of blurred Germany and Japan.
❖ Edgar, Lady Usher, Roxie, and The Fool are a family living in gothic 19th century England
❖ The Soldier lives in 20th century Sarajevo
❖ The Photographer/Rose, The Victim/Pearl, The Driver, and The Pusher
live in 21st century New York City.
❖ (Starchild) kind of lives in all times.
❖ The Fool grows up to be The Pusher.
THE SETTINGS AND TIMES
Persia, 14th Century: Dunyazad and Scheherazade tell stories to Shah Zaman, those of: Rose Red & Pearl White; The Family of Usher; The Subway; and The Camera Shop. A piano player tries to invoke the ghost of Thelonious Monk.
Germany/Japan, 17th Century: Rose Red & Pearl White are sisters. Rose loves the Astronomer; but the Astronomer steals Rose’s work and publishes it, and then falls in love with Pearl White. Rose is furious; she visits a Bear, and asks him to kill the Astronomer and turn Pearl White into a crow. He says he will if he receives four items: A Pot of Honey, A Piece of Stardust, a Secret Baptism, and a Photo of a Ghost. Rose Red travels in time to gather the items.
England, 19th Century: The Usher’s daughter, Roxie, is tempted by her invisible friend, Rose, to kill herself; Rose is in fact Roxie’s dead sister, who died when a baby. Lady Usher reads Roxie the Arabian Nights at bedtime.
New York City, 21st Century: Rose, Pearl and the Pusher wait for a subway. Pearl plays a video game on her phone. The Pusher snaps, hearing voices in his head about the apocalypse. Rose is a witness.
THE GHOST QUARTET
JEEJAY MACCARIELLA (They/them; Music Director and Monk, The Astronomer, Edgar, The Driver) National Tour: Jesus Christ Superstar, Associate Music Director/Keys 2. Regional: Waitress, Arvada Center, Associate Conductor/Keys 2. Theme Park: Coming Home for Christmas, Music Director/Keyboards.
COURTNEY NAVARRE (She/her; Scheherazade, Pearl White, Soldier, Lady Usher, The Victim/Pearl) is making her Catamounts debut in Ghost Quartet. Recent credits: Die Zauberflöte (Boulder Opera), A Christmas Story (Breckenridge Backstage Theater), The Impresario (Midwest Opera Theater), La finta giardiniera, La cambiale di matrimonio (UMKC Conservatory) as well as Into the Woods, The Sound of Music, and The Merry Widow. She is a co-creator/producer of New Musical Project and the Director of Voice and Theatre at Parlando School of Musical Arts. BM in Vocal Performance (MSU Denver) and MM in Vocal Performance (UMKC Conservatory).
NEYLA PEKAREK (She/her; Shah Zaman, Bear, The Fool, The Pusher) is so delighted to be making her Catamounts debut. Past credits include: Brownie (as well as Composer/Lyricist) in Rattlesnake Kate with the DCPA Theatre Company (2022 Henry Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Musical, Outstanding New Musical, and Outstanding Production of a Musical); Mary Bolkonsky in Natasha, Pierre and The Great Comet of 1812 at the Arvada Center; and Futurity at Aurora Fox. Neyla was an original member of the GRAMMY nominated band, The Lumineers. Her debut solo album, Rattlesnake is available now.
MAGGIE TISDALE (She/her; Dunyazad, Rose Red, Starchild, Roxie, The Photographer/Rose) is a Catamounts company member, and has appeared in Impossible Things, Small Ball, Shockheaded Peter, United Flight 232, You On The Moors Now, The Rough, Pride of the Farm, and The Last Apple Tree. Other credits include Caroline, or Change and The Pavilion (Aurora Fox), Dial M for Murder and Shakespeare in Love (Colorado Springs FAC), and Sister Act (Arvada Center). TYA credits include Goodnight Moon (Denver Center), Sleeping Beauty and Ramona Quimby (Denver Children’s Theatre), A Year with Frog and Toad, Junie B. Jones, and Charlotte’s Web (Arvada Center). BFA in Drama: NYU Tisch/Atlantic Theater Company.
CREATIVE and DESIGN TEAM
GLEASON BAUER (They/them; Costume and Scenic Design) is an educator and multi-faceted theatre artist. The Associate Artistic Director of square product theatre, they won the True West Award for their direction and production design of Slab, as well as a Colorado Theatre Guild nomination for Best New Play. Gleason is a co-founder of Zoo District, a Los Angeles ensemble that earned an international and award-winning reputation, receiving 44 nominations and 26 Ovation, Garlands, and LA Weekly Awards (several of which honored their work as a director and designer). Gleason currently teaches at Naropa, where they received an MFA in Contemporary Performance. www.gleasonbauer.com
AMANDA BERG WILSON (She/her; Director) is co-founder and Artistic Director of The Catamounts, and a freelance theatre artist specializing in site-specific, immersive, and boundary-pushing performance. With The Catamounts, she has conceived and directed several original immersive and site-specific works in collaboration with and/or on commissions from the City Westminster; Hanzon Studios and the Museum of Outdoor Arts; 3rdLaw Dance/Theater; and Anythink Libraries. She has been a core creative on several of Colorado’s large-scale immersive works, including as an original cast member of Sweet & Lucky, director of The Wild Party and Between Us: The Whiskey Tasting, and as assistant director and performer in Theater of the Mind by Mala Gaonkar and David Byrne, all with DCPA Off-Center. Amanda and her work have been the recipients of 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2021 True West awards; 2017 and 2018 Henry nominations; a 2023 National Endowment for the Arts grant; a 2024 OPERA America grant; and a 2025 Broadway World award, among others.
MONICA BOWKER (She/her; Lighting Designer) is so excited to make her debut with The Catamounts. With over a decade of experience Monica’s design credits include Let The Right One In (University of Colorado Boulder), Avenue Q (California State University, Chico), The Glass Menagerie (Blue Room Theatre), and Giselle (Northern California Ballet). Assistant Lighting Design credits include In the Heights (Oregon Cabaret Theatre), and Carmen (Utah Festival Opera). Monica has a BA in Theatre Arts from California State University, Chico, and currently calls Loveland, Colorado her home.
JESS JEWELL (They/them; Sound Designer and Engineer) has been a sound designer for six years and an audio engineer for nine. They got their start in the Denver theatre community pre-Covid with Equinox Theatre, engineering and designing shows such as Be More Chill and Sweeney Todd (2019 BroadwayWorld Denver’s Best Sound Design of a Musical). They have engineered and designed at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Vintage Theatre, Local Theater, and many others. Jess is currently pursuing a Masters of Science in Recording Arts at CU Denver, where they are also an adjunct professor of live sound reinforcement.
LINDA LEA (She/her; Props Designer) This is Linda Lea’s seventh experience working with The Catamounts in her role as Props Designer. In previous work with museums, video production companies, PBS TV stations and a local cable TV channel, Linda has designed props for a wide range of productions. She enjoys working on site-specific, audience immersive, live theater experienc that offer the challenges of weather, live action, and audience participation with the props.
DAVE MALLOY (He/him; Composer and Librettist) is an award-winning composer, writer, performer, and orchestrator. He has written music for eighteen musicals, including Three Houses, a post-pandemic open mic night parable about magic, madness, and the end of the world; The Witches, an
adaptation of Roald Dahl’s novel at the National Theater in London; Love Around the Block, a musical commissioned by Hermés for the grand opening of their new flagship store in New York City; Moby-Dick, a four-part music reckoning with Herman Melville’s epic; Octet, a chamber choir musical about internet addiction; Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, an electropop opera based on a slice of Leo Tolstoy’s War & Peace (12 Tony nominations, including Best Musical, Score, Book, and Orchestrations); Ghost Quartet, a song cycle about love, death, and whiskey; Preludes, a musical fantasia set in the hypnotized mind of Sergei Rachmaninoff; Three Pianos, a drunken ro through Schubert’s “Winterreise”; Beowulf—A Thousand Years of Baggage, an anti-academia rock opera; Beardo, a reinterpretation of the Rasputin myth; Sandwich, a musical about killing animals; and Clown Bible, Genesis to Revelation told through clowns. He has won three Obie Awards, a Smithsonian Ingenuity Award, a Drama Desk Award, a Lortel Award, a Theater World Award, the Richard Rodgers Award, an ASCAP New Horizons Award, and a Jonathan Larson Grant; has been a MacDowell fellow and Composer-in-Residence at Ars Nova; and is a Residency 5 Writer at the Signature Theatre. Upcoming: A musical adaptation of the film Black Swan. He lives in New York www.davemalloy.com
PRODUCTION TEAM
NIKA GARCIA (She/her; Associate Producer) is a Boulder-based singer, musician, actor, and dancer. She has performed professionally since childhood in Denver theater and television, and is trilingual in Spanish, English, and Portuguese. She toured Europe with her jazz band, released two records, and founded Five Star Music Productions in Miami Beach. Nika recently music directed for The Catamounts’ FEED: Apres, FEED: Plant, and FEED: Dry, and played La Catrina in The Last Night of Red Barker. A BFA graduate from the New School in NYC, she teaches music and yoga, performs regularly at Dagabi in Boulder, and works as the Associate Producer for The Catamounts.
AARON KLASS (He/him; Technical Director) is thrilled to be working with The Catamounts for the first time. He is a producer, technician, performer, director designer and playwright. Most recently, he has worked in an ensemble role and as an understudy on An Enemy of the People and as an understudy on Ballot of Paola Aguilar with BETC, as Production Manager on the “First Storytellers
Festival” with Creative Nations Arts Collective, and Production Manager and Scenic Designer on Sin with Blunt Force Drama. He has worked on CU presents and CU Sandbox productions as well as coordinating the CU New Play Festival.
SOPHIA “PHI” LE (She/her; Crew) is a 2023 graduate of NYU’s Production and Design Program, with a BFA in Costume and Scenic Design. Phi was previously a member of the Creative Board for NYU’s Tisch New Theater and helped as a creative member for their during and post-pandemic productions. Notably, Phi worked under Scenic Designer Christine Jones, for Sam Golden’s production of Macbeth and the Chicago release of The Devil Wears Prada. Phi is in her second season, working as Wardrobe and Wig Crew at DCPA.
LARA MAERZ (She/her; Production Manager) is thrilled to be working with her friends The Catamounts yet again. Most recently, Lara was the stage manager for Impossible Things this past summer. Lara is a freelance stage and production manager and theatrical consultant in the Denver/Boulder area. She has worked with Local Theater Company, Curious Theatre, Theatre Aspen and many more. This spring Lara will be one of the stage managers for the Denver Center Theatre Company’s New Play Summit.
RAIN YOUNG (She/her; Stage Manager) is excited to be stage managing her fourth production with The Catamounts. Previous Catamounts productions include After the End, Pride of the Farm, and Small Ball. Previous credits also include Avaaz, The Lehman Trilogy, Cebollas, A Christmas Carol, and A Little Night Music (Denver Center Theatre Company), From on High (Oddknock Productions), and various children’s shows with Performing Arts Academy.
SPECIAL THANKS
CU Theatre & Dance; The Arvada Center; Performance Now Theatre Company; Give 5 Productions; The Students of Jefferson County Open School; JP Lubo Christine Woods; Stephanie Jorgensen; Temple Emanuel AV Team; Dr. Emily K. Harrison and square product theatre; Amaya Egusquiza and the Fine Arts Center of Colorado Springs; Ben Wilson for lending us so much music stuff (promise you’ll get it back); Burt Rubinowitz and Leslie Lea; The Catamounts’ Board, Company, Donors, Granting Agencies, and Sponsors. And you! You’re spending an evening taking a chance on adventurous art. We are so grateful.
Have a cool photo that you’re posting to the socials?
Please tag us: FB and IG: @thecatamounts
The Catamounts create audacious contemporary theatre, empowering arts education programs, and singular community events. A not-for-profit organization, we believe the necessity of new work, the power of collaborative creation, the constant innovation of artistic forms, and the role performance plays in enriching and inspiring our communities and lives.
COMPANY AND STAFF
Amanda Berg Wilson Artistic Director and Core Company Member
Joan Bruemmer-Holden Core Company Member
Nika Garcia Associate Producer
Sam Gilstrap Core Company Member
McPherson Horle Founding Executive Producer and Core Company Member
Caulene Hudson Education Director
Jason Maxwell Core Company Member
Maggie Tisdale Core Company Member
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Tom Christol President
Roni Chen Vice President
Michael Alt Treasurer
Mary Campbell Member-at-Large
Colette Herwitt Member-at-Large
FOR MORE INFORMATION
thecatamounts.org
facebook.com/thecatamounts
instagram.com/thecatamounts
The Catamounts’ 2024-25 season is made possible by grants from the Boulder Arts Commission (a City of Boulder agency), the Boulder County Arts Alliance, Community Foundation Boulder County, the Colorado Gives Foundation, and the Scientific a Cultural Facilities District (SCFD)
GHOST QUARTET is possible because of the generous support of these individuals. Donors listed gave between September 1, 2024 and January 16, 2025. Please let us know if we omitted your name.
(CATAMOUNTS: $1000 and above) Kathleen and Michael Alt, Justin Berg, Shirley and George Berg, The Berg Wilsons, Mary Campbell, Tom Christol, Burt Hong, Mark Ragan, Kathy Raybin, Nancy and Quentin Wilson
(COUGARS: $500-$999) Roni Chen, Jim and Anne Christol, Carol and Garry Horle, Amanda Paulson
(PANTHERS: $250-$499) Jessica Austgen, Leslie and Larry Cormier, Brent Rice, Marty Schettler and Maggie Tisdale, Jody and Kemper Will, WORKSHOP8
(PUMAS: $100-$249) Patty Bank, Tracey Baumgardner, Pete Bochek, Karin Boerger, Abby Boes, Mark Collins, Jeff Kagan and Paige Doughty, Nika Garcia/Heartsong Music Studio, Teresa Gingras, Jean Hodges, Sara Horle, Kate Horle, Chris Kendall, Robert Kleeb, Melissa Lockman, Patricia Long, Lara Maerz, Deanna and Jason Maxwell, Christopher H Merrell, Richard Padgett, Nancy and Joel, Portnoy-Silverman, Matt Richmond, Nina Rolle, Pesha Rudnick, Felice S, Ron and Cheryl, Sandgrund, Aleta Sherman, Sharon Stolt, Douglas M. Tisdale, Elizabeth Upper, Zoe Wedel
(PAINTERS: $1-$99) Lari Abraham, GerRee Anderson, Anonymous (x2), Lauren Bahlman, Kit Baker, Heather Beasley, David Becher, Kate Berry, Douglas Blondin, Christina Book, Elisabeth Bowman, Laura D Brieser-Smith, Doug & Sue Brown, Joan Bruemmer-Holden and Trent Holden, Bud Coleman, Brian Colonna, Kristen Daly, Clint Enman, Jolie Evans, Meghan Frank, Karmen Franklin, Sam Gilstrap, Bob Goldrick, Ellen K Graham, Christy Granger, Kathleen Ham, Emily K. Harrison, Josh Hartwell, Jim Hunt, Jody Igo, Andrea Johnson, Linda Lea, Kerry Lightenburger, Suzanne Linder, Len Matheo, Billie McBride, Michelle Metz, Charlie Miller, John Moore, Susan Nedell, Jeffrey Neum
Josh Nims, Anne Oberbroeckling, Juliana Phelps, Julie Rada, Jay Rawlings, Erin Rollman, Leo and Kathleen Schettler, Sam Schmitz, Lauren Shepard Wilkinson, Mindy Smolowitz, Elizabeth Spreen, Cathy and Joe Storey, Sara Tisdale, Matt Wagner, Sarah Wyble
Thank you to our business sponsors for Season 14
