Resident Artists

Heather Basarab

Heather Basarab, Lighting Designer.  Heather is proud to have collaborated with Crowded Fire on productions of 'Maid, One Big Lie, Slow Falling Bird, Juan Gelion Dances for the Sun, We Are Not These Hands, and Big Death and Little Death.  Additionally, her designs have been seen with Campo Santo, Shotgun Players, Thick Description, the Magic Theater, the New Pickle Circus, the San Francisco Circus, and the Joe Goode Performance Group, with whom she received an Isadora Duncan Award for production design.  Heather also production manages and stage manages for several Bay Area companies, and teaches technical theater and design at Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley.

Cliff Caruthers

Cliff Caruthers has designed and composed for theaters throughout the Bay Area, including Crowded Fire's Anna Bella Eema, Porcelain, and Slow Falling Bird, Cutting Ball Theater's Woyzeck, The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, and Macbeth, ACT's Hilda and Yohen, California Shakespeare Theater's The Seagull, San Jose Stage Company's Tenders in the Fog, Moxie Theater's Wet, and The Clean House, Baby Taj, Arcadia, and M. Butterfly for TheatreWorks where he is Resident Sound Designer. Mr. Caruthers' electronic music has been featured at the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, Deep Wireless, Quiet American's Field Effects series, and the San Francisco Tape Music Festival. His design work will be featured as part of the interactive design exhibit at the Prague Quadrennial 2007.

Alycia Dymond

Alycia Dymond graduated last spring from San Francisco State University with a degree in Drama and emphasis in Technical Theatre. She has also worked with San Francisco SketchFest, C Venues at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and the East Bay's Ragged Wing Ensemble. Her first production with Crowded Fire, Anna Bella Eema, went so well that the folks at Crowded Fire decided to keep her. Alycia enjoys note-taking and spread sheet-making.

Jarrod Fischer

Jarrod Fischer is a lighting guy. He's designed for the Shotgun Players, the Aurora, the Lorraine Hansberry, the Willows, Killing My Lobster, Just Theater, and others. He's been an artist with Crowded Fire for three years, and people said especially nice things about his design for Porcelain. You can find out more than you want to know about him at http://www.stupendousfish.net/lighting. In his other life, Jarrod is a preschool teacher, and is getting a master's degree in early childhood education.

Erin Gilley

Erin Gilley is the former Managing Director of Crowded Fire, and is currently an actor, director, and video artist with the company. Erin currently works in the artistic office of the Magic Theatre, and is also the founding Artistic Director of elastic future. elastic future directing credits include Abducted, Beautiful, The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Deal, and the short film Joiners. In addition to her work with elastic future, Erin has directed and acted for several other theater companies in the Bay area, including Last Planet Theatre, TheatreFIRST, Shotgun Players, Theatre in the Woods, and AlterTheatre. Erin studied theater at Princeton University where she was awarded the Frances LeMoyne Page Award for directing. Erin is originally from the mountains of northwest Georgia. www.eringilley.com

Melpomene Katakalos

Melpomene Katakalos is a founding member of Crowded Fire. In that time, she has designed ten CF productions including three world premieres. She is the recipient of the SF Guardian’s Best Set Design Award for her design of One Flea Spare for Crowded Fire. Mellie has been a Bay Area designer since 1997 where she has designed scenery for over 50 productions at many theatres, including La Jolla Playhouse, ACT Conservatory, Magic Theatre, San Francisco Mime Troupe, Cornerstone Theatre in Los Angeles, Marin Theater Co, Aurora Theatre, Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, Thick Description, A Travelling Jewish Theatre, Word for Word, and Shotgun Players. In 2004, she won the San Diego Playbill Award for her design for the West Coast premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice, directed by Daniel Fish, and in 2005 for Marat/Sade, directed by Stefan Novinski. Mellie divides her time between teaching design at the theatre departments at UC Berkeley & Sonoma State and freelance design. She received her MFA in design from UC San Diego, and her BFA from Ithaca College, NY. She lives in Potrero Hill with her wonderful husband Tim. You can visit her on-line at: www.melpomenekatakalos.com

Michele Leavy

Michele Leavy has been seen in Crowded Fire’s productions of Top Girls, A-A-America! and Big Death and Little Death. A bay area native, she has performed locally with such companies as the American Conservatory Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Center Repertory Company, California Conservatory Theater, and TheatreWorks, among others. In farther locales, she has appeared with Theatre Key West (Florida), and The Elephant Theatre Company (Los Angeles). Trained in classical ballet, she continues to dance and collaborates with the Alameda Civic Ballet. Michele earned her MFA from the Professional Actor Training Program at UC Davis, where she serves as adjunct faculty in the undergraduate program, and also serves on the faculty of the American Conservatory Theatre’s Young Conservatory.

Lawrence Radecker

Lawrence was last seen as the Dad in Crowded Fire's Big Death & Little Death. He was also in CF's Juan Gelion Dances for the Sun. Other theatre credits include productions for Marin Theatre Company, Brava! For Women in Arts, Golden Thread, and Uncle Buzzy's Hometown Theatre Show.

Juliet Tanner

Juliet Tanner is a founding member of Crowded Fire and has appeared in twelve of the company's shows, including the world premieres of We Are Not These Hands (Moth), Juan Gelion Dances for the Sun (Mariana Perez), Slow Falling Bird (Leyla), One Big Lie (Juli), and 'Maid (Emily). Her other CF credits: Slaughter City (Textile Worker), Top Girls (Lady Nijo/Kit), Trojan Women: A Love Story (Cassandra), One Flea Spare (Morse), Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (Brotherton), and Greek Salad (Cassandra/ Electra/ Bacchante). She appeared in the world premiere of 'Bot (Clara) at the Magic Theatre, Picasso at the Lapin Agile (Suzanne/ Countess/ Female Admirer) at CenterREP, and has worked with California Shakespeare Theater, Shotgun Players, Woman's Will, NCTC, and Word for Word.

Mollena Williams

Mollena is a founding member of Crowded Fire and has appeared in Greek Salad, A Hard Heart, Top Girls, Slaughter City, 'Maid, and One Big Lie. She is also the playwright of her hit solo shows 69 Stories and No Good Deed.

Marissa Wolf

Marissa Wolf is a free-lance director in the San Francisco Bay Area. She currently holds the Bret Harte Young Directors’ Internship at the Berkeley Repertory Theater. She is a lead artist of Crowded Fire Theater, and a company member of FoolsFURY Theater. Recent directing work includes her adaptation of Gertrude Stein's poem, Lifting Belly, as well as three pieces in Suzan-Lori Park’s Week 9 of her 365 Days/ 365 Plays cycle (FoolsFURY Theater), Contours: A Shakespeare Project, an original work based on Shakespeare's women (Matchbox Workshop, Crowded Fire Theater), and The Malady of Death by Marguerite Duras (Fury Factory). Marissa has her degree in drama from Vassar College, and received additional training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.