Tennessee Playboy

Dierdre Friel* (Pearlene Dunbar) Triad Stage: Masquerade, Doubt.

Broadway: Leap of Faith. Film/TV: The Sopranos, My Father’s Will, Pretty Bird (Sundance Grand Jury Prize nominee). New York/Regional: Golden Age (MTC); Dogfight (Second Stage); Lighter (NYMF); Over the Tavern (Portland Stage Co.); Cinderella (Arkansas Repertory Theater); Zorba! (BTF); King Lear, Richard III, The Comedy of Errors (Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, London). Dierdre is also a teaching artist with Walt Disney Theatrical as well as her fledgling company, Great Expectations Theatrical. www.dierdrefriel.com Aaron Brakefield (Stanley Kincaide) Triad Stage debut. Actor and guitarist originally from Beckley, WV. Former teacher for the Hollywood Group in Los Angeles, CA. Recent credits include: Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson, The Long Christmas Ride Home (UNCG); Sight and Sound Theatres in Lancaster, PA; Macbeth (Theatre of the Seventh Sister); The Grapes of Wrath (TSS); Chess (The Ware Center). Education: MFA Acting Candidate, UNCG; BA Music and Theatre, Concord University, Voiceover.

Carroll “Chip” Johnson* (Mitch Dunbar) Triad Stage: Beautiful Star, A Lesson Before Dying, The Rainmaker, North Star. Local: Dearly Beloved, Moon Over the Brewery, American Buffalo, True West, A Poster of the Cosmos, Dearly Departed, The Magic City (Broach Theatre); Wait Until Dark, The Norman Conquests, The Mousetrap, Catch Me If You Can (Barn Dinner Theatre). Education: MFA, UNCG. Other: adjunct professor in the Department of Performing Arts at Elon University.

Bill Cwikowski* (Preacher Jimmy Stykes) Bill is returning to NC for the first time in 45 years having begun his career at Parkway Playhouse in Burnsville. He is a founding member of The Ensemble Studio Theatre in NYC. He has numerous regional and New York City credits in TV, film and theatre and has taught acting for 35 years. He has been singled out for his otherworldly male nurse in an episode of 30 Rock called “Sandwich Day.” He lives in Larchmont, NY, with his playwright wife Kate Long, his children Charlotte and Caleb and trusted canine companion, Lola.

James Kautz (Chuck MacAdie) Triad Stage debut. Off Broadway credits include: Collision (Rattlestick); The Bad and The Better (PJS at Playwrights Horizons); The Pied Pipers of the Lower East Side and Happy in the Poorhouse (PS 122); Adam Rapp’s Ghosts In the Cottonwoods (Theatre 80). Also with Rapp, The Hallway Trilogy (Rattlestick). Also Dedalus Lounge (Royal Family) and Hamlet in HAMLET-Prince of Denmark (Mortals Theatre). Mr. Kautz is the Artistic Director of The AMORALISTS. 12