A Modicum of Guilt

Cory caught the acting bug after winning, in high school, the Maine State “Spears Speaking Competition” with an excerpt of a dramatic monologue from Johnny Got His Gun by Dalto Trumbo. As an undergraduate at Bowdoin College, Cory joined the Masque and Gown where he worked as a costumer and delved further into acting, playing diverse roles, such as George in Sqrieux de dieu, Hotspur in Henry IV and Kolenkov in You Can’t Take It with You.

A few years of traveling brought Cory to graduate school where his academic focus combined his two passions – theatre and French, culminating in a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto.  His research and work (in French) specialize in Quebecois drama – literary analysis utilizing communications and discourse theories and theatre semiotics. 

After obtaining his doctorate, Cory returned home to care for his mother.  During those years, he rekindled his desire to act.  Currently, he is a founding member and treasurer of Theatre Nouveau, a fulfilling creative experience both off and on the stage.  Memorable roles with Theatre Nouveau include Addiction Speaks (Host), Treasure Island (Squire Trelawney), The Madwoman of Chaillot—Uncensored (Ravi, Baron, Ragpicker), Addiction Speaks Again  (Chorus leader), The Shakespeare’s Lonely Hearts Club (Walter, Henry)and  A Christmas Carol (Scrooge).

Other roles he’s enjoyed playing locally include: Millet in Is He Dead and McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Belfast Maskers), as well as Rev. Parris in Midcoast Actors’ Studio’s The Crucible and Mosca in Volpone with Everyman Repertory Theatre. 

Andrea is delighted to be part of this production.  She has had a passion for theatre since seeing Annie at the Hershey Theater in Hershey, PA when she was seven.  Since then she earned a degree in Educational Theater from NYU and has been a part of numerous productions (mostly behind the scenes) in Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts and Maine. Andrea is a member of the Board of Directors for The Belfast Maskers Theater and a member of the Theatre Nouveau company.  In her spare time, Andrea can be found playing with her Border Collie, attempting to cook French cuisine and laughing during Improv. She thanks Lydia, Poppy and the cats for their support and understanding.

Trinity, a student at Belfast Area High School, has worked in both theatre and media production. She has worked on productions with Counter/Current Collective in stage management and running tech for The Aliens by Annie Baker. She also helped out on their production of Lungs by Duncan MacMillan. This is the first time she is working with Theatre Nouveau and is very excited to be a part of the production!

This is Beverly’s fourth production with Theatre Nouveau, having previously been seen in The Madwoman of Chaillot (Gabrielle), AddictionSpeaks Again (Story #1 and Story #6), and A Christmas Carol (various roles).  For Midcoast Actors’ Studio, she appeared in Cabaret (Fraulein Kost) and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (Old woman and various roles). She has also been seen as Robert and Vixen in Everyman Repertory Theatre’s The Threepenny Opera, and as La Poncia in Heartwood Regional Theater’s The House of Bernarda Alba.

Beyond her acting credits, Beverly was a company member of Faustwork Mask Theatre and IMAGO Theatre, performing mask/movement theatre in over forty states and abroad. While on tour with IMAGO Theatre, she performed in Germany, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong. She was on “Good Morning America,” and with Faustwork Mask Theatre, was on “Good Morning South Africa.” She has been an educator and artist-in-residence in drama, mask-making and mask theatre for Horizons Arts Program in Camden/Rockport; The Maine Alliance for Arts Education (integrating theatre/social issues/curriculum) in rural Maine high schools; and Heartwood Regional Theatre’s outreach programs for their local schools. She also taught theatre at the Sitka Fine Arts Camp for fourteen years. Her training includes: theatre improvisation with Keith Johnstone; clown with Sue Morrison and Avner Eisenberg; Action Theatre with Ruth Zapora; and Jacque Lecoq technique and Commedia dell’arte with IMAGO Theatre. She has also studied Sanford Meisner technique with Larry Silverberg, physical theatre with Davis Rider Robinson, and African and modern dance with Garth Fagan.

Nate is excited to be returning to the stage with Theatre Nouveau. Nate has performed in Belfast for the past three years. Notable performances include Jasper in The Aliens (CounterCurrent Collective), and Pierre in The Madwoman of Chaillot (Theatre Nouveau). He has also worked with the Belfast Maskers and Mary Weaver’s Playhouse. In his spare time, Nate enjoys caring for his houseplants and deciphering hand-weaving drafts.

Suzanne has worked in academic and professional theatre for almost 50 years where she has performed in or directed over eighty productions. These have included, among other styles and genre, Greek Tragedy, Shakespeare, Comedies of Manners, contemporary drama, opera, musical theatre, new plays, devised theatre, and plays for social justice.  

Some favorite plays and musicals that she has directed include Company, The King Stag, An Ideal Husband, The Importance of Being Earnest, Machinal, The Country Wife, Painted Alice (a new musical), Cabaret, The Madwoman of Chaillot, The Threepenny Opera, Lock Up Your Daughters (musical), The Pirates of Penzance, The Comedy of Errors, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ opera, Riders to the Sea, and two original “Docu-dramas:” AddictionSpeaks and VetSpeak.

Favorite Roles include Martha (Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), Maggie (Kathleen Tolan’s Memory House), Kate (Harold Pinter’s Old Times), Jessie (Marsha Norman’s ‘Night Mother), Blanche (Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs), Aase (Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt), Mere Ubu (Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi) and Susanna (Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro - opera). 

As a writer, Suzanne has adapted, devised or written twenty-some original pieces for the stage. Additionally, her numerous workshops focusing on performing period style, singing for the stage, directing, and “Laban-based” movement have been held all over New England.

For 30 years, Suzanne was Professor of Theatre Arts at Bridgewater State University where, in 2003, she was honored with the university’s distinguished teaching award. She has taught all levels of acting, voice, movement, and directing. She has also taught special classes for Trinity Repertory Company (Providence, RI) and American Repertory Theatre, (Cambridge, MA). Additionally, she has worked as a professional dramaturge and script evaluator for regional theatre, as well as a playwright, choreographer, vocal coach, music director, and theatre critic. Her directing has achieved high honors from The Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival and the New England Theatre Conference. Her passion for Theatre for Social Justice has culminated in the founding of “Theatre Nouveau– a new theatre with a social conscience” in Belfast, Maine, where she now resides with her husband Ed. In her spare time, Suzanne can be found doing dog agility with Ffin - her Border Collie, writing, “antiquing,” or in her studio creating mixed-media art.

Jay lives in Belfast and was educated at The School of Theater at Temple University. He spent the next 30 years in and out of the theater. During the 70s and 80s, he was the Sound designer for Arena Stage

in Washington, DC.  In Belfast, he has designed lights and sound for The Midcoast Actors’ Studio’s productions of All in the Timing and The Playwright’s Showcase; and he was the sound designer for their The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Cabaret, August - Osage County, and Skylight. He also performed in their production of Hedda Gabler. In the past six years, he has done the sound designs for about sixty per cent of The Belfast Maskers’ productions. Additionally, he has designed sound and acted for Mary Weaver’s Playhouse.

Lisa has been a stage, voice, and film actor for a long while. She earned her Theatre Arts degree at UMaine/Orono back in the seventies and has studied acting extensively since. She co-created some of Portland’s notable, professional theatre companies: Mad Horse, Maine Theater, Highwire Theater and Portland Playback.
She is featured in two recent short films, Eureka! (Harapeko Productions) and Temperance (Scratch Off Productions). Lisa appeared as Helen in the World Premiere of Roland Tec’s haunting, What We Get To Kee,p in co-production with Pink Plot Productions and The Hill Arts, Portland, Maine, to be filmed this winter with the original cast in Westport, CT. 
Lisa is an original founding member of Mad Horse Theatre Company, Portland, now in its 40th season. Her portrayal of Violet Weston in Tracy Lett’s August: Osage County at Good Theater earned her the 2011 Portland PEER Award for Best Performance. She played Anna in Louis Frederick’s adaptation of The Passion Of Anna at Out of Cake and, The Woman in Suze Allen’s adaptation of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper at Oak Street Theatre, and Maire in Brian Friel’s Translations at Worcester Forum.
Lisa was a Spotlight Award nominee for Emily in Mike Kimball’s world premiere of The Secret of Comedy at NY Theater Company, Portsmouth, NH.  She received universal critical acclaim for Maria Callas in Terrence McNally’s Master Class at Good Theater, Portland, and as Marie in the world premiere of Monica Wood’s Papermaker at the Portland Stage Company, where she also recently played Sharon in Jen Silverman’s The Roommate and the beloved Mrs. Rizzo in Withers’ String Around My Finger. 
Film work includes Mom in Ellie Lee’s Dog Days ( Winner, Best Short/2000/Hamptons and Florida Film Festivals); Martha in Family Trees by Lars Trodson (Berlin Film Festival); Natalie in Elevation by Mike Gillis and Lars Trosdon, Drink Me, by Louis Frederick. Her first speaking role in a major motion picture was Jud’s Mom — with a dog returned from the dead — in Stephen King’s cult classic Pet Sematary; and she appears in the documentary about the making of the film in Unearthed & Untold: The Path to Pet Sematary.
  Audie Awards for her voice work for Audible.com with PocketUniverse Productions include multiple ensemble Audie Awards: Nina Locke in Joe Hill’s and Gabriel Rodrigez’s brilliant graphic novel Locke and Key, Diana Fowley in The X-Files with Duchovny and Anderson, The Starling Project by Jefferey Deavers, co-starring with Alfred Molina. Lisa has narrated many audiobooks for audible.com and Hachette Audio. She earned an 2019 Earphones Award from Audiofile Magazine for her narration of Mary Gabriel’s Ninth Street Women. 

Stacey Stewart moved to Belfast in June 2023 after ten years in the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre at the University of Notre Dame, where she taught Musical Theatre History and handled departmental outreach and communications. Prior to Notre Dame, she spent nine years at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., where she worked in the ticketing, executive, and development departments before serving as Director of Education, Schools & Professional Development. In that role, she directed the Student Playwrights Project, an in-school arts education program that reached up to eight hundred young people each year; she also served as director of Arena's Allen Lee Hughes Fellowship and Internship Program and as staff liaison for the Actors Arena, a professional development and community-building program for D.C. professional actors.

Christine has been seen in numerous roles n the Midcoast area, including: 

Volpone -  Lady Would-be-Politic, Everyman Repertory Theater, 2025 (reading)

Great Escapes - Mom, Belfast Maskers One Acts, 2021

The Humans - Fiona “Momo” Blake, Midcoast Actors’ Studio, 2019

A Doll’s House, Part 2 - Anne Marie, Everyman Repertory Theater, 2018

Is He Dead? - Madame Bathilde, Belfast Maskers, 2018

Lucky Guy – Debbie Krenek, Everyman Repertory Theatre, 2016 (staged reading)

Good People – Dottie, Midcoast Actors’ Studio, 2015

Uncle Vanya – Marina (a ten-month study with performances) Midcoast Actors Studio, 2015

August: Osage County – Violet, Midcoast Actors’ Studio, 2014

Funny Girl - Emma, Mrs. O’Malley, Chorus, Northport Music Theater, 2012

Hedda Gabler - Miss Juliann Tesman, Midcoast Actors’ Studio, 2012 (opening production)

A Christmas Carol - Ghost of Christmas Present, Scavenger Charwoman, Narrator, Belfast Maskers, 2010

In 2014, Christine competed the 30-day Meisner Training Program with Larry Silverberg.

Christine wishes to acknowledge and thank the great set designer and teacher, John Bielenberg, for his mentorship and friendship, and for giving her her first role in Midcoast Maine. She has never looked back and claims, “It has been a fabulous fifteen years.”

Zafra Whitcomb is a recovering theater professional, with management, technical production, and artistic credits in New York City (HERE Arts Center - Co-Director; American Place Theater - Managing Director; Clubbed Thumb; Classic Stage Company; Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center); Washington, DC (Studio Theater); Charleston, SC (Spoleto Festival USA - Target Margin Theater); Italy (Polverigi Festival di Danza-Teatro - Annie-B Parson/Big Dance Theater); and Maine (Portland Stage Company, Belfast Maskers). He studied Acting and Directing at Bard College and Performing Arts Management at Brooklyn College-CUNY. Currently, he is the resident lighting supervisor, frequent lighting designer, and occasional stage director for the Belfast Maskers.