CONTRIBUTORS

Colin Mitchell

An American Army Brat conceived in Scotland, born in Germany, a soccer fanatic, a Van Morrison disciple, a Zen-Catholic, the youngest of three brothers, son to a retired two-star general and a Scottish school teacher/painter, a writer, an actor, a director, a producer, a musician, an athlete, a husband, a father…

After graduating cum laude from Seattle University in 1988 with a degree in Psychology and English, Colin worked several years as a counselor for abused adolescents in a residential treatment home, all the while publishing poetry and fiction and acting in amateur theatrical productions.

Buoyed by a small role in the film “The Chocolate War”, he decided to to take the full “artistic-leap” and in 1991 at the tender age of 24, he moved to New York City. Colin was on Broadway at the Lincoln Center in the hit play “Six Degrees of Separation” within a month. For the next three years he was a professional actor. All the while he continued to write, playwrighting became his medium of choice.

Colin’s pursuits eventually led him to Los Angeles.  In late 1993, broke and broken, he scampered north and set up camp on his brother’s couch in San Francisco. For a year he dug in and tried to get his bearings, working at a law firm by day and a blues club by night. All the while Colin continued to write and make theatre, starting a theatre company called “Little Brother Sam”. They quickly became the “Pinter aficionados” of San Francisco.  In 1994 he wrote and performed his one-man show “Linden Arden Stole the Highlights” in the loft of the Scottish pub, The Edinburgh Castle.  It was a smash hit.

Then in 1995 LA came calling again and he returned to the City of Angels to perform in a friend’s play.  He was quickly snapped up by an agency and decided to give Hollyweird another shot.

In the Autumn of 1996 Colin decided to resurrect “Linden Arden”. He produced it by himself in a tiny West Hollywood 25-seat theatre. And lo and behold it was a huge critical success: “A testament to the capacities of storytelling.” – LA Weekly Pick of the Week. “Mesmerizing.” – LA Times Critics Choice. “A masterpiece.” – Backstage West Critics Choice.

But this was LA and the only thing people could see in his performance was “a great movie”. He was encouraged to adapt the piece into a screenplay.  He did.  It was his first.

The reaction was profound and instantaneous. It launched Colin’s career as a professional writer and in the last fourteen years he has written for a dozen production companies, won awards and fellowships, sold screenplays, written comic books for Marvel, adapted several of his own plays into screenplays, had one feature produced and sold to a distributor, written and directed two short films of his own, written a novel and more. And the pace has yet to slacken.

Father to Maxwell Henderson Mitchell, Colin now lives exclusively in Los Angeles and continues to write, direct, act and teach in both cinema and theatre.

LINKS:
http://cinematicmechanic.com

LINKS:
http://cindymariejenkins.wordpress.com
https://sites.google.com/site/cindymariejenkinstheatre
http://twitter.com/cindymariej
http://www.imagineeasthollywood.com
http://www.voicesfromchornobyl.com

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Channing Sargent

Channing Sargent is an actor and writer with a B.F.A. in Drama from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. She also had the honor of studying at the legendary Moscow Art Theater in Russia, through the National Theatre Institute.

Some of her favorite theater roles include Masha in The Three Sisters, Sonya in Uncle Vanya, Vee Talbot in Orpheus Descending, and Susie in Wait Until Dark. She has appeared in numerous independent films, and her solo performance works have been featured at Galapagos Art Space, Williamsburg Art NexXus (WAX), HERE, CounterPulse, Shotwell Studios, The Marsh, 975 Howard, and the SF Theatre Festival. In 2007, Sargent co-founded Observational Science, a company dedicated to the creation of new theater works.  In December 2009, Channing self-produced her original show, Legacy, at the Electric Lodge in Venice, CA.

Channing is the Artistic Managing Director of Chekhov Studio International and Program Director of Arts:Earth Partnership.  She also teaches theatre and writing to at-risk youth in the Los Angeles area through The Unusual Suspects Theatre Company.  She is a member of SAG, AFTRA, The Artist’s Development Lab, and is a collaborating artist with peck peck dance ensemble. Originally from Salt Lake City, Utah, Channing currently lives in Hollywood (and loves it).

LINKS:
http://channingsargent.com
http://thecityobscure.com

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Jordan Young

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Rick Culbertson

Rick Culbertson produced the award-winning world premiere production Divorce! The Musical (now titled ‘Till Death Do Us Part)  which ran for 5 months in Los Angeles, garnering 14 rave reviews including a critic’s choice from The Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, and Backstage, and 6 Los Angeles theater awards.

He is currently working on opening both a Chicago and Off-Broadway production.  He is in development with The Jews of Calabasas, a musical exploring the lives of Jewish woman in the suburbs of Los Angeles, and House of the Wildflowers, a musical about an elderly prostitute living in a retirement home in Mexico City.

On the front side of the stage he served for two years as the Box Office Manager for Merkin Concert hall in New York City where he won one of two grants offered by the International Ticketing Association.

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Trevor Thomas

As a Wyoming native and son of its state geologist, Trevor was able to recite the epochs and eras of the geologic timetable before he could pronounce “proscenium.”  Nevertheless he soon eschewed Ordovician invertebrates for the glamorous life of the stage and began producing theatricals in his basement including a memorable production of “Hansel and Gretel” which featured a trick oven made of cardboard into which the witch (Trevor) would be pushed, only to escape out the back and wait triumphantly in the wings for the squeals of delight from the audience when they discovered the evil hag had vanished.  Always the special effects with this one.

Fast forward some years to UCLA where he received his MFA in music and served for a while on the faculty.  Following that, he spent several seasons as a theater reviewer for the old Drama-Logue, to be eventually swooped up by the Los Angeles Times where he wrote reviews and feature articles for some years.

Longing to be illumed by the gorgeous glare of Broadway, he subsequently landed in New York, though the bright lights turned out to be tungsten street lamps in the Murray Hill section where he co-managed an off-off-Broadway company with a vivacious woman who liked to be called Bertha B. DeMille.  That woman today is Bertha Lewis of ACORN.

A failed season of productions sent him destitute and drunk down to the Bowery  to panhandle and live on rotgut gin.  Well, no, not really, but it did kick off a decade long odyssey working his way down the Eastern seaboard in a variety of jobs, including a stint as a junk bond trader at Merrill Lynch.  Eventually he came to his senses and returned to California.

He is the Southwest Editor and chief theater critic of Edge magazine and is otherwise busy writing stage plays, screenplays, and stuff.  He can still hold forth persuasively on Permian rock formations, Baroque counterpoint, and trap doors.