Meet the Czars

Director Czars

Angeline Lonardi

Angeline began her musical theater love journey as a tour guide on a glorified bus (read: Hershey Trolley) which brought her all the way to Director’s Depot. She is known for being up-to-date on the latest trends, and yes, she switched to a middle part and threw away her skinny jeans the day that Glamour article came out. Don’t let the fact that she had never seen the WAP music video fool you, as evidenced by the Babes and Studs.

Along her road trip to success, her love for stool grew massively as she discovered a passion for gastroenterology deep within herself. She never wasted a moment during rehearsal and was easily moved by the dulcet tones of medical students. Catch a small glimpse of her overflowing creativity in her heart song, “Bella Poopay.” Angeline is soft and tender with no guarding and is sure to excrete great things in her career. She’d like to thank her Number 2 for all of his support.

Suzie Shoffner

The very definition of “Type A,” Suzie Shoffner (affectionately known to many as “Big Suze”) was just what the doctor ordered to get the first ever Smoker Movie off the ground. Between rescheduling her Covid-Era wedding, working towards her PhD, buying a house and playing with her adorable aussiedoodle, Freddie, this future physician-scientist managed to become one of the most kick-ass director czars in the history of the Smoker. Her previous experience as the Music Director for the UMMS acapella group, “The Auscultations,” definitely helped when it came to showcasing the many talented vocalists who took part in the 2021 Smoker. Cast members are especially thankful for the seemingly infinite hours she spent making part-tracks for the songs in the show and running virtual rehearsals. Her fellow czars are grateful to her for spear-heading countless other tasks that have relentlessly plagued us from the beginning. It pays to have Ivy League graduates in your corner. The first ever virtual Smoker Movie could never have happened without our Big Suze!

Producer Czars

Braden Engstrom

Our perfect guide to a Greek mythology based play given his undergraduate major: Classics. He set about his first Herculean Smoker labor as an M1 pitching another mythological idea (Gomer’s ileum?), not knowing that three years later this dream would take off and the labors would really begin. Navigating the switch from stage play to movie like Odysseus, yes it really did take us that long to settle on how best to bring this Smoker home, he navigated this storm like a true sailor. Unlike Hector, he never turned to flee. Braden ran head first into the world of virtual production, pouring more time into LEGO stop motion than Narcissus spent staring in his lake.

Legend has it that Braden will go on to serve the littlest heroes, training as a pediatrician at University of Chicago. We cannot wait to see how far the journey will take him, and look forward to recounting tales of great endeavors over hoppy IPAs in years to come

Carl Engelke

Though it may feel that Carl is as old as the Smoker, he is actually younger than 103. Barely. “M14” Carl has been a stalwart of the Smoker for nearly a decade, and has reached the point where incoming M1s think he is a Smoker daddy like Bob Bartlett. While some may have a heart of gold, Carl has lungs of brass as he has mastered almost every brass instrument (still learning the flugelhorn). While he has been an active part of the Life Sciences Orchestra, it is the Smoker Band where Carl has put his musical might to work. For years he has played in, conducted, and brought the music to our musicals. As Producer/Music/Band Czar this year he found a way to bring their collective energy to everyone's screen, despite recording each instrument's part for each song separately. His fellow czars are grateful for his tireless audio editing skillz, institutional memory, steady hand, and reverence for Greek mythology, which somehow surpassed that of his Classics major co-czar. Whenever he finally decides to graduate medical school, we know he will thrive both as a surgeon and an OR music DJ.

Alex Farthing

Bears shit in the woods. Unicorns fart rainbows. Alex Farthing can fix darn near anything. These are true things that are true. Even from their earliest days in the Smoker, it was common to hear this refrain called out around the shop, “hey Alex! Can you come take a look at this?” And in a Smoker year when there couldn’t be a single room where it happened, they wrote like they were running out of time and helped the show rise up to be the gem you are about to enjoy tonight. When Alex packs up their toolbox and starts seeing patients, we know they will elevate all those around them. And as much as all of the other czars would enjoy seeing you as a patient someday, chances are high that Alex will already have fixed you and sent you home from the ED.

Music Demi-Czars

Steph Kim

Steph asked many deep questions this past year. Would niche expertise of the T-cell Golgi apparatus be the key to understanding coronavirus pathophysiology? Does exquisite skill in every string instrument lead to better patient outcomes? Just what is the max distance achievable on a Peloton? While she failed to answer these questions, her unending love of the Smoker drove her to sneak into Mendelssohn theater to record all of her tracks there while quietly sobbing between takes.

Bobby Porter

Bobby "Bobbae" Porter's gift for music is divine. Before Bobby's time on earth, Zeus himself asked him to stand in for his famed Cherub harp orchestra, but Bobby modernized the outfit as a nondenominational but very funky wind ensemble. On earth, Bobby made his start in The Smoker as an actor and is best known for his breakout role as extra #54. Seeking even greater glory, he worked up the ranks of the musical world and now enjoys a place at the pinnacle of musical performance in The Smoker Band. In his free time you can find Bobby power lifting boulders, fighting hydras, and organizing his iconic wig collection.

Dance Demi-Czars

Nicole Honey

Honey sounds like she would be the sweetest demi-czar to grace the stage, but the way she shakes what her mama gave her shows that she gets down and dirty. As a D1 athlete, she would sneak out at night to breakdance with various hip hop and bhangra dance crews hoping her coaches would not find out about her double life. The only reason she went to medical school was so that she could train the future physicians of America in body rolls and twerking. I guess it all worked out because she will be continuing her education with the Orthopaedic Surgery residency program at the University of Michigan.

Ariella Iancu

Growing up on the mean streets of LA, Ariella has always used dance battles to solve all her life problems. After years of semi-successfully popping-and-locking her way through "Adulting", this fresh prince-ess of Bel Air has been recruited for one last great dance battle--Babes and Studs! After the Smoker, she plans on retiring to the halls of Children's National Hospital, where she plans on making guest appearances as 'that old lady twerking' in TikTok videos.

Sanjana Prasad

When Sanjana started her dance journey as a 4-year-old in tap shoes she couldn't tie, she had no idea she would one day be conquering the biggest challenge yet: teaching Mancers how to body roll over Zoom. A year of learning and teaching dance choreography virtually has showed her the value of the teach-back method beyond standardized patient encounters. She's hoping to keep practicing those skills next year as a family med physician, prescribing a daily dose of booty-shaking and shimmying to patients of all ages.