Artistic Director

Blake Bradford is a writer/director that hails from the small Appalachian Mountains town of Marion, North Carolina and is also an Emmy-award winner for his work at Live at Lincoln Center: Madama Butterfly. Blake's theatrical work has appeared all over the US and internationally in Mexico, Greece, Scotland, Denmark and Italy. His original plays Dance at Bataan, The Last Cloud, Bitter, Bitter, Burnt and Gay Slave Handbook are actively seen in the regional circuits and have all been produced in NYC. As a director, his most acclaimed work has been with Emmy winner Joan Darling and Christopher Award winning playwright Bill Svanoe. Blake has directed Ms. Darling all over the US in Svanoe's Lost and Found, Pants on Fire, Callback, The Last Silver Zephyer, and The Last Laugh. For Phare Play he has directed The Twilight of the Golds, Snake in Fridge, Callback, The Cherry Orchard, The Tempest, and Dark of the Moon ("ingenious" - Backstage). He's most proud of his work with Christine Vinh in creating the theatre company Phare Play Productions, where he now serves as Artistic Director.

Blake is currently on the writing/script staff for The Big Gay Sketch Show (LOGO/MTV), Showtime at the Apollo (NBC), Live at Lincoln Center (Madama Butterfly, Camelot) (PBS), Drama Desk Awards (PBS) and Arthur Ashe Kids Day at the US Open. Blake teaches graduate level courses on directing each August for the University of Wisconsin at Shake Rag Alley Center for the Performing Arts. Member: SSDC, DGA, WGA, AFTRA.

Executive Director

Christine Vinh Weems has performed in over a dozen shows since coming to New York, including Giulia in Gay Slave Handbook, Hannah Swindon in Dance at Bataan, Conjur Woman in Dark of the Moon and Hippolyta and Oberon in an all-female production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. She is also a director, having helmed No Sex Please, We're British, Carl the Second, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [Abridged], Fragments and recently Art, amongst many others. As a theatrical producer, she has produced with her business partner, Blake Bradford, eighteen shows in their first year of collaboration, garnering positive reviews from BackStage, Show Business Weekly, and Curtain Up to name a few and now in their fourth year of collaboration together, they work to bring Phare Play to the next level. She is a corporate attorney in New York, as well as being licensed in California and Texas. For more information about Christine, please go to her website.

Marketing Director

Eddie Rodriguez has come to acting later in life while still in the midst of an active legal and political career. He has worked actively on several shows and movies being shot in New York City as well as abroad - having appeared in the latest James Bond film,Quantum of Solace. Having worked on several successful political campaign, Eddie brings his knowledge of fundraising and marketing to the theatrical arena.

Creative Development Director

Michael Weems joined Phare Play Productions in May of 2007 as Associate Marketing Director and now serves as their Creative Development Director. Prior to joining Phare Play, Michael was an active member of St. Bart's Players in New York City, Height Players of Brooklyn, NY, Act 2 Theatre of New Haven, Connecticut, and Seacoast Repertory Theatre in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He successfully completed an acting internship with the Weathervane Theatre in New Hampshire, an Equity theater where he and the other selected interns performed in several professional main stage and children shows running in repertory over the course of the summer. He is also a writer having had his plays produced and his writing published: Fragments (Little Hibiscus, New York, NY; Festival 56, Chicago IL); Subtlety (Algonquin Theatre); Burden Me and Bludgeon the Lime(Phare Play Productions) as well as Developing Acts' upcoming productions of Quiet Bed and Phare Play's upcoming production of his play Necessary Adjustments. For more information about Michael, please go to his website.

Company Manager

A graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy, Circle-in-the-Square Theatre School and New York University, Ms. Zuckert has been working in the theatre for forty years. The daughter of well-known actors Bill Zuckert and Gladys Holland, she started performing at the age of three in such plays as The Little Clown That Forgot How to Laugh and a French-language version of Sleeping Beauty as well as appearing in television shows like Sanford and Son, Baa Baa Black Sheep, and Days of Our Lives. As an adult, Ms. Zuckert has been a performer and director with theatre companies such as Love Creek Productions, Foolish Mortals and Phare Play Productions, performing as Josie in Moon for the Misbegotten, April in The Hot L Baltimore, Bottom in an all-female version of A Midsummer Night's Dream with Ms. Vinh and directed by Mr. Bradford, and Marie in Maiden's Progeny (Off-Broadway), as well as appearing at the Fringe twice before, in Sleep With Me and Pamme's Play. She has been a director for the past fifteen years, on such shows as Orpheus Descending, A Doll's House, Closer, and Shirley Valentine, and has worked with Phare Play on Snake in Fridge, Dark of the Moon and The Cherry Orchard.

Technical Director and Resident Fight Choreographer

Matt Klane had previously performed with Phare Play in Arcadia and Gay Slave Handbook at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, as well as being a writer and performer for Mindbleach. Matt's acting and writing have been recently featured on CNBC, AMC, National Lampoon Network, The New York Times, NBC.com, and Cracked.com. Matt is a professional fight choreographer as well as an active member of the SAFD, having choregraphed fights for shows as diverse as A Midsummer Night's Dream, Snake in Fridge and Gay Slave Handbook amongst many others. SAGe

Resident Lighting Designer

Michael Megliola is thrilled to continue his love affair with PPP, where his favorite designs include Dance at Bataan, The Twilight of the Golds, and The Complete Works...Abridged. NYC highlights: Hell's Kitchen, The Musical (Hudson Guild); Follies and Some Enchanted Evening (St. Bart's Players); The Bear, The Scarf, and The Ballad of Baby Doe (Chelsea Opera); What is to be Dead? (Castillo Theatre); Auntie Mayhem (Wings Theatre); Eugene Lang dance showcases 2007-2009 at the Ailey Citigroup Theatre; and Love Creek Productions' 2007 summer rep at 59E59.

Resident Costumer

Peggy Queener joined the board in its second season as Events Coordinator. Prior to that time, she had appeared in several Phare Play productions including Madam Ranevskaya in The Cherry Orchard, Vixen in The Eight: Reindeer Monologues and Violet in Snake in Fridge, in addition to handling costuming duties on Under a Cowboy Moon and assisting with the costumes on Dark of the Moon. She has also appeared in New York in The Cocktail Hour, Dear Brutus, For Tiger Lilies Out of Season, The Church of Empirical Human Cartology, and Daisy Mayme (u/s). She's also currently working on a one person show about her alter ego, Fifi La Grange. Peggy currently works at the designer boutique, 202, in Manhattan's Chelsea district. She continues to build upon her success, relating information and building sales of European antiques to a very select clientele. She has studied visual merchandising at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology, and she holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from Wright State University (Dayton, Ohio).

Founding Board Members