Artistic Director

Blake Bradford is a writer/director that hails from the small Appalachian Mountains town of Marion, North Carolina. 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 has performed in over a dozen shows in her two years since coming to New York, including Conjur Woman in Dark of the Moon and Hippolyta and Oberon in an all-female production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. She has also appeared in films as diverse as Office Space and the upcoming Robert De Niro film, What Just Happened. She has recently directed on stage The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [Abridged]. 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. She is a corporate attorney in New York, as well as being licensed in California and Texas.

Marketing Director

Eddie Rodriguez is one of the most sought after men in the world of political campaigns and Phare Play is pleased to have him on board as our Marketing Director. More info to come on Eddie

Publicity Director

Michael Weems joined Phare Play Productions in May of 2007 as Associate Marketing Director. Prior to joining Phare Play, Mr. Weems 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 of the course of the summer. Michael received a Bachelors of Science in Psychology and Human Services from Lyndon State College in Vermont. He currently serves as Executive Assistant to the Radiologist-in-Chief, at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City, an orthopedic Hospital which was recently named #1 in the nation in Orthopedics and #3 in Rheumatology by US News and World Report.

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

Roland is one of Phare Play's most valued members. You can find him onstage, directing and desiging. He's pretty much a triple threat. More info to come on Roland

Outreach Director

Lulu Mire is a director, actor and teacher based in New York City. She has directed and worked on numerous shows with Phare Play, including Bill Svanoe's Callback starring two-time Emmy winner Joan Darling. As an actor, she has credits in New York, Texas and in foreign markets. In the educational realm, Ms. Mire works with children in the NYC public school system on projects to promote reading. She travels to China in the summer to teach English, Creative Writing and Italian. Ms. Mire brings the worlds of education and theatre together. This past season, during poetry month she directed Under a Cowboy Moon, a play based on cowboy poetry, followed by an open mic for poets of all ages and genres to share work.

Events Coordinator

Peggy Queener has appeared in several Phare Play Productions before joining the board as Events Coordinator including Madam Ranevskaya in The Cherry Orchard, Vixen in The Eight: Reindeer Monologues and Violet in Snake in Fridge. 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).

Resident Costume Designer

Not only did she give Phare Play our first baby company member, but she's been designing our amazing costumes for over a year. Carrie's fantistic design and building skills have made it possible for Phare Play to present top notch period pieces like Dark of the Moon, The Cherry Orchard, and The Tempest.

Resident Lighting Designer

Mike Megliola has honed his acting and technical skills both on- and offstage since the age of twelve, participating in musicals and straight plays throughout high school at Greensboro Day School and while studying at the University of Virginia, where he graduated with honors in Psychology and French Language and Literature in 2004. Favorite backstage roles have included assistant technical directorship of three full-scale student theatre musicals and directorship of a twenty-six-member production of Victor/Victoria with First Year Players, as well as stage management for Phare Play Productions and the Castillo Theatre in New York City. Having recently returned to the artistic instincts he cultivated through graphic design and independent study courses, he is thrilled to apply his diverse theatrical experience to the creative field of lighting design. Memorable recent credits include the Ailey Citigroup Theater (for New School University) and 59E59 Theaters (for Love Creek Productions).

Publicity

Tamara Cacchione is an alum of Vassar College with a B.A in Drama, Stella Adler Conservatory, and the National Theater Institute. She has performed in a countless number of shows, since making her debut at the age of 3 as a tap dancer at Carnegie Hall, including Phare Play, Tri-Arts at Sharon Stage, Love Creek Productions, and the Snug Harbor Cultural Center. Favorite roles include Vanda in The Last Cloud (written and directed by Mr. Bradford with Ms. Vinh), Demetrius in an all-female production of A Midsummer Night's Dream (with Ms. Vinh and Ms. Zuckert, directed my Mr. Bradford), Callie in Stop Kiss, April in Hot L Baltimore (for which she won Best Actress from the Philaletheis Society at Vassar), and Winnifred in Once Upon A Mattress. She is also a certified fitness instructor, has choreographed over 20 productions, has appeared in music videos, as a model for an installation of art that has toured the world including the Whitney, and is featured in the documentary "Dreams and Possibilities" among other films.