Cast Bios
COLLEEN BAUM (Virginia Cooper) is happy to be back at Pioneer Theatre Company, where she was last seen in Oliver!, Much Ado About Nothing, Our Town, The Heiress, Lost in Yonkers and You Can’t Take It With You. Other theatre credits include The King’s Men at The Sting & Honey Company; at the Caine Lyric Repertory Company in Arsenic and Old Lace, You Can’t Take It With You, Blithe Spirit, Always Patsy Cline, Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) and Blood Brothers; at Plan-B Theatre Company in Not One Drop, Based On A True Story, The Laramie Project, Animal Farm, War of the Worlds and Tragedy: A Tragedy; and at Salt Lake Acting Company in Course 86B in the Catalogue, End Days, Rabbit Hole and Kimberly Akimbo, among others. Baum is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association.
TODD GEARHART (Jake Bellamy) Broadway: Bye Bye Birdie. NY: Lincoln Center Theater, Cherry Lane Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, Roundabout Theatre Company, Playwrights Horizons, Vineyard Theatre, Beckett Theatre, The McGinn/Cazale, HB Playwrights. Regional: Guthrie, Hartford TheatreWorks, Alliance Theatre, George Street Playhouse, Ford’s Theatre, The Ogunquit Playhouse (IRNE Award Best Actor nominated), Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, The Cleveland Playhouse. TV: “Blue Bloods,” “Gossip Girl,” “Lipstick Jungle,” “Law & Order,” “Law & Order: SVU,” “The Education of Max Bickford” and Nicky in the upcoming Starz Dramatic Series “Sweetbitter.” Film: The Dark Knight Rises, Dogs Lie, Moving Mike. Gearhart has a BFA from the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music and studied at HB Studios with Uta Hagen.
KATHLEEN McELFRESH (Sarah Cooper) Broadway: Present Laughter. Off-Broadway: Taking Care of Baby (Manhattan Theatre Club); Greek Holiday and The Frugal Repast (Abingdon Theatre Company); Jester’s Dead (PIT). Regional: The Second Girl and Brendan (Huntington Theatre Company); Uncle Vanya and The 39 Steps (Weston Playhouse); Boeing Boeing (Hartford Stage); Circle Mirror Transformation (Studio Theatre); Slight Hitch (New York Stage and Film); The Women (The Old Globe); Pride and Prejudice (Dallas Theatre Center); The Jammer (Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Fringe First). TV: “Law and Order” CI and SVU; “Royal Pains.” Film: A Lotus ’Til Reckoning. MFA from the Yale School of Drama (Williams Acting Award). BFA from Florida State University.
NAFEESA MONROE (Beth Denton and others) happily makes her Pioneer Theatre Company debut with i. Theatre credits: Off-Off Broadway: Hello Herman (Sheyla Duvall). Regional: Chautauqua Theater Company’s Romeo & Juliet (Nurse); CATF: The Wedding Gift (Onjah); Pittsburgh Public Theater: Disgraced (Jory); Queens Theatre: To Kill A Mockingbird (Calpurnia); Folger Theatre: Julius Caesar (Soothsayer/Artimedorus); Annapolis Shakespeare Company: Hamlet (Gertrude); and Shakespeare & Company: Love’s Labour’s Lost (Rosaline), Mother Courage (Yvette). Film and television credits: I’m Through with White Girls, “Madame Secretary” and “Blue Bloods.” As a poet, Monroe opened for Jewel, appeared on HBO’s “Def Poetry” and performed alongside bestselling author Neale Donald Walsch. Education: Meisner School of Acting; MFA from The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Academy for Classical Acting. She founded and is artistic director of “Classics in Color: An INclusive Theatre Company” (www.ClassicsInColor.com).