Credits

About the Team of Bladder Interrupted

Mechele Leon (Producer, Writer, Performer)

Mechele Leon is a theatre director, translator, writer and director based in Lawrence, KS where she is a Professor of Theatre at the University of Kansas. Born and raised in New York City, and a graduate of the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, Mechele earned her BA from Empire State College, SUNY and a PhD in Theatre from Cornell University. She is author of the award-winning book Molière, The French Revolution, and the Theatrical Afterlife (2009) and A Cultural History of Theatre in the Age of Enlightenment (2017). Her acting roles have taken her from Paris to tours through almost every state in the U.S. She is an experienced director, working on translations/adaptations of French drama, as well as a range of classic and contemporary plays and musicals. She was diagnosed with muscle-invasive bladder cancer in March 2016 and is thrilled to be a Bladder Cancer survivor. This is her first solo performance piece.

Theresa Buchheister (Director, Dramaturg)

Theresa Buchheister is a director/writer/curator/performer, originally from Manhattan, KS and based in New York and Lawrence, KS. They are a founding member and artistic director Title:Point and Vvital Joint. Artistic Director of The Brick theatre. Theresa is the founder of The Exponential Festival, a Brooklyn-wide festival of performing arts. They have worked with Richard Foreman, Judith Malina, Barbara Vann, Jeff Stark, Jeff M. Jones and many other astounding artists and activists.

Ashley Bilke (Puppet Design)

Ashley Bilke, recent graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute, is owner and operator of Black Feather Studios, a freelance costume/puppet/prop business that creates for theatres, cosplayers, schools, and libraries. Bilke studied puppetry with Paul Mesner and Mike Horner of Mesner Puppet Theatre. Bilke has won awards for puppetry and Maker Faire 2016, 2017, and from the Silicon Web Costumers Guild at the 74th World Science Fiction Convention. Bilke’s support on Patreon allows her to bring interactive theatre to the public with the hope to bring a little magic and inspiration into the mundane world. Support at patreon.com/blackfeatherstudios.

http://ashbilke.wixsite.com/ashley-bilke/puppets

Taylor Smith (Stage Manager)

Taylor is thrilled to be a part of Kansas City’s 2017 Fringe Festival and Bladder Interrupted. Taylor will graduate from UMKC this December with a degree in Theatre Design and Technology with an emphasis in Stage Management. Past credits include: SM for UMKC Theatre’s A Comedy of Errors, ASM for KC Rep’s Antony and Cleopatra, Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre’s Mary Stuart and Not About Heroes, PA for Spinning Tree’s Nine and UMKC Theatre’s world premiere of Freedom Rider. She thanks her friends and family for their love and support.

Rendi Renee Doran (Assistant Producer)

Rendi Renee Doran is ecstatic to be a part of this production and the Fringe Festival as a whole. Rendi is an undergraduate student at the University of Kansas studying Theatre Performance. Past Credits include: The Rehearsal and the Hypochondriac in the role of Toinette, Picnic in the role of Flo Owens, Frankenstein (Lawrence Arts Center) in the role of Elizabeth, Company in the role of Kathy, and The MotherF***er with the Hat (A Staged Reading) in the role of Victoria. She is thankful for a family that supports her art wholeheartedly, for a faculty that has given her the tools to follow her passion, Mechele Leon for casting her in first role at the University of Kansas and giving her the confidence to become a passionate, driven actor, and for the Lord who deserves all the glory and recognition for the talents and success she has received.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to

University of Kansas, Department of Theatre, for support of show interns and technology
University of Kansas Medical Center, Urology Department, for everything
Paul Lucas, for expert advice
Rachel Blackburn, for the voice of The Moth
Rana Esfandiary, for photography
Raymond Doran, for all-around super helper
DNA Illustrations (www.dnaillustrations.com), for permission to use their illustration of muscle invasive bladder cancer.

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