Little Known Facts with Ilana Levine

Jessica Stone worked as an actress on and off-Broadway, in television and in film for decades before transitioning to directing. Broadway credits included Anything Goes, Butley, The Odd Couple, The Smell of the Kill, Design for Living, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and Grease. Her directing career began in earnest with her all-male 2010 production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum for the Williamstown Theatre Festival. She has since been directing all over the country at such theaters as The Old Globe, A.C.T, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Huntington Theatre Company, Two River Theatre Company, and the Williamstown Theatre Festival among others. Productions include As You Like It, Kate Hamill’s Vanity Fair, Barefoot in the Park, Dancing at Lughnasa, Bad Dates, Ken Ludwig’s Robin Hood! (world premiere), Ripcord, Bad Jews, Arms and the Man, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Charlotte’s Web, June Moon, Last of the Red Hot Lovers, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and Absurd Person Singular, Kimberly Akimbo (off-Broadway premiere at the Atlantic). Most recently, Stone directed the original Broadway musical Kimberly Akimbo, which opened in November 2022. She currently lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two sons.

Jessica Stone went from working actress to one of the most in-demand Broadway directors. Listen as she describes how she manages a thriving career, marriage and motherhood and… who were the directors in her life that helped shape how she runs a rehearsal room and why now that she has found directing she really doesn’t miss being an actress - plus a deep deep dive Into the journey of Kimberly Akimbo how it went from workshop to Broadway - all that and more this week on the Little Known Facts with Ilana Levine podcast.

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Classically trained actor Nicholas Podany is quickly making a name for himself in the world of entertainment. Nicholas started his career on Broadway in the wildly successful play Harry Potter and The Cursed Child as Albus Potter.

Nicholas will next be seen in the upcoming Apple TV+ series Hello Tomorrow! alongside Billy Crudup, Hank Azaria and Allison Pill. The series, which is set in a retro-future world, centers around a group of traveling salesmen hawking lunar timeshares. It will premiere in February of 2023.His other television credits include: the CW’s Hart of Dixie and Netflix’s Archive 81.

Nicholas is also a singer songwriter, who served as a singer/bassist for the rock band Across Coves. The band has embarked on many tours across the country, opening for bands such as Maroon 5. Nicholas has also released four solo songs, including “Telling Myself” which was released in February 2020.Nicholas is a Juilliard graduate who currently resides in New York City. 

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Jennifer Simard is a Tony Award, four-time Drama Desk Award, three-time Drama League Award and Lucille Lortel Award nominee.

Broadway credits include: Company (Sarah); Mean Girls (Adult Woman); Disaster! (Sister Mary Downey, Tony nomination); Hello, Dolly! (Ernestina); The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (opposite Mo Rocca); and the companies of Sister Act and Shrek the Musical.

Off-Broadway credits include the original companies of Forbidden Broadway: SVU; The Thing About Men; and I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change. Film credits include The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, Wish You Were Dead and Sisters.

Television credits include: "Girls5Eva," “The Good Wife,” “Law & Order,” “Law & Order: SVU,” “The King of Queens”, and “Younger.”

Jennifer can be seen playing the role of 'Patsy' in Ray Romano's upcoming Feature Film directorial debut dramedy.

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Tamsen Fadal is known as a primetime evening news anchor in New York City and the host of a nationally syndicated entertainment show, and while reporting is her profession, she has won 13 Emmy awards.

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Liz Garbus is one of America’s most celebrated documentary filmmakers. She has received two Academy Award nominations, two Primetime Emmy Awards, two Peabody Awards and a Grammy nomination for her body of work, which includes “Harry & Meghan”; “The Farm: Angola, USA”; “What Happened, Miss Simone?”; “Bobby Fischer Against the World”; “Nothing Left Unsaid”; “The Fourth Estate”; “All In: The Fight for Democracy”; and “Becoming Cousteau” among others. Her scripted feature debut, “Lost Girls,” premiered at Sundance in January 2020. Since then, she’s continued her foray into the scripted world by directing the season 4 finale of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which earned her an Emmy nomination. In 2019, Garbus co-founded, alongside her Academy Award- and Emmy Award-winning husband, Dan Cogan, Story Syndicate, a premium film and television production company that provides a home for talented filmmakers, producers, journalists, thinkers and artists to create innovative, ambitious and elevated visual content.

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Jenny Gersten serves as Line Producer for Beetlejuice on Broadway and National Tour, Executive Producer for the musical Born for This, Producer of Musical Theater for New York City Center, and Interim Artistic Director of the Williamstown Theatre Festival. She sometimes produces commercially, including the award -winning Off Broadway “pie shop” production of Sweeney Todd. She works with Jessica Hecht on The Campfire Project, an arts program that primarily serves Syrian and Ukrainian refugees overseas. Previously, Jenny served as Executive Director of Friends of the High Line and as the Associate Producer of The Public Theater in New York City. At sea, she is the Creative Producer of Virgin Voyages.

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Tony, Grammy, and Olivier Award winning lyricist, director, writer, and conceiver, Scott Wittman co-wrote the lyrics for the hit musical Hairspray (Tony, Grammy, Olivier Award winner) with creative partner Marc Shaiman. Wittman also served as an executive producer on the hit film starring John Travolta. 

Scott was nominated for a Golden Globe, Grammy, and two Emmy Awards for the original songs on NBC’s musical drama Smash. While working on the show, he co-wrote songs for Jennifer Hudson, Uma Thurman, Bernadette Peters, and Liza Minnelli. Shaiman and Wittman’s original score for the Marilyn Monroe musical Bombshell was released by Sony Records. 

Scott & Marc’s Broadway writing credits include Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me, which Scott also directed, Catch Me If You Can (Tony nom. for Best Musical), and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on Broadway and the West End. 

Scott has created and directed two Broadway shows, three studio recordings, and three sold-out Carnegie Hall concerts for Patti LuPone. He has created solo shows for Christine Ebersole and Nathan Lane, as well as writing for Bette Midler’s 2015 Divine Intervention World Tour. Off-Broadway, he conceived and directed Jukebox Jackie starring Justin Vivian Bond, Cole Escola, and Bridget Everett at La Mama., and Bridget Everett’s Rockbottom at the Public Theatre.

His notorious and legendary Downtown shows are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York

Marc and Scott also wrote the score to Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns starring Emily Blunt, Lin Manuel Miranda, and Meryl Streep. Directed by Rob Marshall. Their song, “The Place Were Lost Things Go” was nominated for an Oscar.

He recently joined the Marvel Universe with his song cowritten with Marc for “Rodgers:The Musical for “Hawkeye”.

They have written a new musical version of “Some Like It Hot” to premiere on Broadway in the fall of 2022.

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Michael Canzoniero is an award winning writer/director working out of his film studio MCM Creative in midtown Manhattan. Born in the Bronx, and raised on the east end of Long Island, Michael grew up obsessed with making movies alongside his cousin Marco Ricci. After attending the University of Notre Dame, where he had his first taste of Hollywood working as a production assistant on the iconic sports movie “Rudy”, Canzoniero was accepted to NYU Graduate Film, alma mater of his directing hero Martin Scorsese. But it was his apprenticeship of maverick indie filmmaker Abel Ferrara (King of New York, Bad Lieutenant) that he credits as the formative piece in learning to make his own highly personal, independent films. After Canzoniero’s thesis film “Pishadoo” was awarded the Princess Grace award for the nation’s best student film, Michael and his cousin Marco co-wrote and co-directed the popular 2009 SXSW comedy “The Marconi Bros.”. He followed this with several more comedic indie films starring his Tony-winning friend and frequent collaborator Dan Fogler (who recently portrayed Francis Coppola in Paramount’s The Offer). In 2022, Canzoniero theatrically released his fifth feature “Making The Day” which had its premiere at Cinequest Film Festival and is now available on Amazon video.

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Quentin Plair was recently seen in the Peabody Award-winning Showtime series The Good Lord Bird, and a lead role on Roswell, New Mexico, Quentin will star this November 22nd in the Hulu Limited series, Welcome to Chippendales, opposite Kumail Nanjiani. Quentin trained rigorously to dance for this breakout role as ‘Otis,’ the first and sole Black dancer at Chippendale’s at its inception. Otis is taken under the wing of self-made founder Steve Banjeree (Nanjiani) in this fictional crime series (based on true events). Below is the Vanity Fair first look image of Quentin in the role and here is the teaser trailer. Quentin will then star opposite Kathryn Hahn in the Hulu series Tiny Beautiful Things (early 2023) based on author Cheryl Strayed’s NYT bestseller and helmed by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine Productions.

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Micayla Brewster is a freelance Social Media Manager who oversees the digital presence of brands within the world of Arts & Culture. Past and current clients range from museums to musicals, books to bands, podcasts to performers, and films to forums on advocacy, to name a few.Formerly, she was an Account Manager at Marathon Digital, a social media agency that represents Broadway shows and live entertainment clients in NYC and around the world. While there, she led innovative social media campaigns for shows such as HAMILTON, Hadestown, Be More Chill, and Freestyle Love Supreme, among others.Previously, she has worked at media and entertainment companies such as theSkimm and Paramount Pictures. She is deeply passionate about the strategy behind creative digital marketing campaigns, as well as re-watching The Office. @MicaylaBrewster, www.MicaylaBrewster.com

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