Mark Armstrong (Artistic Director) founded the Production Company with Nicolle Bradford in 2004. He directed the company's premiere productions of Stephen Belber's Melbourne, Elizabeth Meriwether's The Sound in the Throat, Beau Willimon's The Patient and I Am Ned Kelly, Alan Berks' Goats (NY Premiere), Ben Ellis' Falling Petals (US Premiere) and Beneath Us, Brendan Cowell's 967 Tuna, Ross Mueller's Pinter's Explanation and Elise McCredie and Trudy Hellier's The Furies. Other New York credits include Stephen Adly Guirgis' Untitle D, Elizabeth Meriwether's Poor Bob and Jason Grote's In His Bold Gaze, My Ruin is Writ Large (24 Hour Plays), anton dudley's circumvention (Keen Company), Delaney Britt Brewer's Hype Man and Edith Freni's Don't Fear the Shark (Youngblood/EST), Suzanne Bradbeer's Cocus and Doot (Vital Theatre) and Fear and Loathing on the Nile (EST), Nicholas Gray's Dug Out (Lincoln Center Theater @ HERE) and Frank Basloe's Linked (Hypothetical). Academic theater (as guest professional): Columbia, NYU, New School for Drama, USF (Holloway Guest Artist). From 1995-99, he was resident director with Dark Horse Theatre Company in his native Minnesota, where he directed Fat Men in Skirts, The Food Chain, Private Eyes, Five Women Wearing the Same Dress and Orphans. Member, Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers and Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab. MFA, Arizona State University (Dobkin Directing Fellow), where he studied with Marshall W. Mason. Mark is proud to be the Literary Director for Playscripts, Inc.
Nicolle Bradford founded the Production Company with Mark Armstrong in 2004 and has appeared in the company’s premieres of Lally Katz's Goodbye New York, Goodbye Heart, Brett C. Leonard’s Bobo an' Spyder an' a Girl from Down Under, Trista Baldwin’s Terra Australia Incognito, Kate Moira Ryan’s The Fatal Shore, Elise McCredie and Trudy Hellier’s The Furies and Beau Willimon’s The Patient and I am Ned Kelly. Other New York credits include: Church (The Public/Under the Radar Festival - Young Jean Lee Theater Co.), The Phantom Tollbooth (Atlantic Theater Company), You Say Tomato! (Manhattan Theatre Source), Monsters and Mirrors: Heavy at Play (Kick/Stand Dance), Idomeneo re di creta and Jenufa (Vertical Player Rep), and Cocus and Doot (Vital Theater). Australian theatre credits include: Twelfth Night (ATYP Sydney season and NSW tour), The Maze (Hot Young Things Festival), Stags and Hens (PACT) and Riding the Tiger (ARTrage Festival). Nicolle is an alumna of Australian Theatre for Young People and Atlantic Theater Company Acting School. She is an Associate in Drama and Speech from Trinity College of Music, London.
Mary Cross is a founding member of The Production Company. Mary’s Production Company’s credits are Ross Mueller’s Pinter’s Explanation, Veronica Gleeson’s All This Beautiful Life, Courtney Baron’s Not Our Last Hurrah, Trista Baldwin’s Terra Australia Incognito, Elise McCredie and Trudy Hellier’s The Furies and Beau Willimon’s The Patient. She is also a company member of Rivendell Theatre Ensemble in Chicago. She appeared as Meg in RTE’s Wrens which went on to win Chicago’s Joseph Jefferson Awards for Best New Work and Best Ensemble. In addition to RTE, she has worked with many Chicago theatres including Steppenwolf. She was nominated for a Joseph Jefferson Award for best actress for her portrayal of Ruth O’Hare in A Mislaid Heaven at Famous Door Theatre. Mary also has many voiceover credits.
Erin Maya Darke has been a member of The Production Company since 2008 and appeared in Continuing Occupation by Van Badham as part of The Australia Project II. In 2007, Erin was invited by Mark Armstrong to Tampa to perform in the premiere of Barton Bishop's Peaceful Easy. Recent New York credits: a six month run in the apartment-friendly The Sublet Experiment, Waiting: a play in phases (FringeNYC) and Vacuum (Wonderland Play Festival @ Theatre Row). She recently completed work on the first season of the webseries "The Underlings", as well as several student films. Erin is originally from Michigan and graduated from the University of Michigan-Flint, but is thrilled to now call Brooklyn her home.
Ken Matthews became a member of The Production Company in 2008. He can be seen in the upcoming production of The Most Damaging Wound. Ken appeared as Shooter in All My Children this past September and was last seen on the theatrical stage in Billboard at 59 East 59th Street theatre, a joint production for Reverie and Overlap Productions. Other NY credits include Fit & Starts and Sand for Overlap Productions, a staged reading of Shock & Awe at The Public Theatre, and Beowulf for Reverie Productions. Regional credits include How I Learned To Drive at American Stage and Florida Studio Theatre, The Real Thing and Baltimore Waltz for Actors’ Theatre of Phoenix, Arsenic & Old Lace for Phoenix Theatre, and The Macbeth Project and Comedy Of Errors for Shakespeare Sedona. Film credits include Weary Road for Umbrella Productions and Clean Kill, an NYU graduate student film. Ken is a graduate of Maggie Flanigan’s Meisner Studio. www.kpmatthews.com
Megan McQuillan joined The Production Company in 2006 and can be seen in the upcoming production of The Most Damaging Wound. Other Production Company credits are Melbourne by Stephen Belber and Good Bye New York, Good Bye Heart by Lally Katz. Megan is from Nebraska and Montana and received her MFA from the University of Washington, Seattle. Favorite roles there include Natasha in The Three Sisters, Ariel in The Tempest, and Nora in Rona Munro’s Blackburn Award winning play, Bold Girls. Other New York credits: Megan toured the country with The Acting Company, playing Constance in The Three Musketeers, and a Weird Sister in Macbeth. She also performed in the acclaimed production of Shogo Ohta’s silent classic, The Water Station with the Pacific Performance Project at HERE Arts Center. Regional credits: Megan performed at the Guthrie Theater in A Christmas Carol and was recently she was seen at the John W. Engeman Theater in Northport, L.I. in Over the River and Through the Woods, Megan has done many readings and workshops around the city for companies as varied as Clubbed Thumb, New Georges, New York Theater Workshop, New Dramatists, Youngblood, EST and Young Playwrights.
Marni Penning is a founding member of The Production Company. She appeared in the Production Company premiere of Not Our Last Hurrah by Courtney Barron. Marni is a northern Virginia native and co-founder of the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival, for whom she has performed over 35 roles in 10 seasons, including Juliet, Kate, Rosalind, Beatrice, Puck and Hamlet. Marni has performed steadily on New York stages and her credits include Bury the Dead and The Lady Cavaliers‘ Women at Arms Festival. Regionally, her favorite roles include Catherine in Lorenzaccio (The Shakespeare Theatre), Adriana in Comedy of Errors (Folger Shakespeare Theatre), Lady Macbeth in Macbeth (Georgia Shakespeare Festival), Ashley in After Ashley and Mother in Big Death and Little Death (Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company), Mrs. Manningham in Gaslight (Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival), Myra and Myrna in The Mineola Twins (Human Race Theatre, OH), Shelby in Steel Magnolias (Wayside Theatre, VA) and Helen in Machinal (American Century Theatre). She has appeared on Saturday Night Lights, All My Children, Law & Order: SVU, The Sopranos and Mona Lisa Smile as well as appearing in several independent and short films. Marni currently impersonates Sarah Palin in videos on YouTube and around the country for the popular DC comedy troupe Gross National Product. www.marnipenning.com
Michael Szeles became a member of The Production Company in 2006. He has appeared in The Production Company’s Goats by Alan Berks (for which he was nominated for an NYIT award for Best Solo Performance), Famished by Frank Basloe, Pinter’s Explanation by Ross Mueller, Good Bye New York, Good Bye Heart by Lally Katz and The Furies by Trudy Hellier and Elise McCredie. Other credits include Long Day’s Journey into Night directed by Robert Falls at the Goodman Theatre and the role of George Milton in Of Mice and Men directed by Joe Calarco at the Hangar Theatre in Ithaca, NY. OFF-BROADWAY: Urban Stages’ Seven Rabbits on a Pole; E.S.T.’s Thicker Than Water (2004). NYC: HB Playwrights Theatre’s Punk’d by Frank Basloe; Assembly Productions’ Sex and Other Collisions by Trista Baldwin and The Attic by Steven Gaydos; Hypothetical Theatre’s Kryptonite City by Ross Berger. Other credits: Lenny in Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming at Famous Door Theatre (Chicago) and Mark in the Chicago Premiere of Shopping and Fucking.
Stewart Zully has been working for over twenty years as an actor, director, producer, writer and teacher. His acting resume includes the films Wolf (directed by Mike Nichols), For the Boys (directed by Mark Rydell), Bonfire of the Vanities (directed by Brian DePalma) and Malcolm X (directed by Spike Lee). On television, he was recurring on The Sporanos as Tony’s accountant Alan Ginsberg and has appeared on over 20 episodes of Law and Order, Law and Order: SVU, Becker, Columbo and many others. His theater credits include leading roles Off-Broadway, in Los Angeles and in Toronto. Stewart’s Citibank identity theft commercial, where he played "Jake B" was chosen as the 2004 Emmy winner as Best Commercial of the Year. Recently, Stewart co-wrote and co-produced the feature film Perfect Opposites, which stars Piper Perabo (Cheaper by the Dozen, Coyote Ugly), Martin Henderson (Torque, The Ring), Joe Pantoliano, Jennifer Tilly and Artie Lange. The movie, based on the stage play A Piece of My Heart, which Stewart directed at The Odyssey Theater in Los Angeles, was released in 2005. Other producing credits include founding Theatre 40’s Annual One-Act Festival (Los Angeles) in 1990, where playwrights whose work premiered include Arthur Miller, David Lindsay-Abaire, Horton Foote, Robert Schenkhan, Craig Lucas and Jane Anderson
