Be More Chill

Danny Jonokuchi is a New York City-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, and recording artist originally from Los Angeles. He has performed in some of New York’s finest music establishments and a variety of Off-Broadway shows. His sound can be heard on the radio broadcast for the Ahrens & Flaherty musical Little Dancer as well as many ongoing projects including Charlie Rosen’s Broadway Big Band. He is a graduate of Temple University’s Boyer College of Music, in Philadelphia.

Dan McMillan is happy to be back in Red Bank after being part of Two River’s production of Camelot. A Monmouth County native (Freehold), he studied at Mannes College of Music, BM, MM. Orchestras include the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Princeton Symphony, and Long Island Philharmonic. Broadway: West Side Story (2009 revival), A Chorus Line (2006 revival), The Boy from Oz with Hugh Jackman. He was Associate Producer and drummer for Silence! The Musical. On screen: Music and Lyrics with Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore. Recordings include the Grammy-winning West Side Story revival cast, Stephen Schwartz’s Children of Eden, and Douglas J. Cohen’s No Way to Treat a Lady. He proudly plays Pearl Drums, Paiste Cymbals and Yamaha Concert Percussion. Faculty Member, Guitar Center Studios, East Brunswick. Member of Local 802, American Federation of Musicians.

Josh Plotner is a composer, arranger, and saxophonist/woodwind player. He has received awards for both his writing and playing. He is experienced in many genres, especially jazz, musical theater, pop/rock, and Latin music. Josh graduated Berklee College of Music Magna Cum Laude with a double major in Performance and Jazz Composition. Currently Josh works as an arranger for singers on Royal Caribbean International Cruises, and performs around Boston and New York.

Mike Rosengarten is thrilled to be a part of the Be More Chill band! Mike has performed in over 60 plays and musicals as a musician, actor or musical director. He has played both on Broadway and off, has been on national and international tours and regional stages across the country. He also plays regularly with several bands, including “Joe Iconis and Family” and also teaches private music lessons. A NY native, Mike currently lives in Astoria, Queens. He has the greatest family and friends a guy could ask for, and would really like to get a dog but his landlord won’t allow it. www.mikerosengarten.com

Joe Iconis is a musical theater writer, composer and lyricist. He has been nominated for a Tony Award, four Drama Desk Awards, two Lucille Lortel Awards, two Outer Critics’ Circle Awards, and is the recipient of an Ed Kleban Award, a Jonathan Larson Award, a Richard Rodgers Award, and is a former Ars Nova artist-in-residence. Joe’s musical Be More Chill (with Joe Tracz) debuted in March 2019 at Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre, following a sold-out Off-Broadway run at The Pershing Square Signature Center and a world premiere at Two River Theater. He is the author of Broadway Bounty Hunter (with Lance Rubin and Jason SweetTooth Williams; Barrington Stage Company and Greenwich House Theater Off-Broadway), Bloodsong of Love (Ars Nova, NAMT), The Black Suits (with Robert Maddock; Center Theater Group, Barrington Stage Company), ReWrite (Urban Stages, Goodspeed Opera House), and Theaterworks USA’s The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks and We the People. Musicals currently in development include The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson for La Jolla Playhouse (with Gregory S. Moss; directed by Christopher Ashley), Punk Rock Girl. Commissions: Two River Theater (with Joe Tracz). His music appeared on season two of NBC’s Smash, with his song “Broadway, Here I Come!” hailed by the New York Times as a new entry in The Great American Songbook. Albums: Be More Chill (OCR), which has been streamed over 350 million times; Things to Ruin (OCR); Two-Player Game, and The Joe Iconis Rock & Roll Jamboree, all available on Sh-K-Boom/Ghostlight Records.

Joe Tracz is a playwright with an MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. His adaptation of the first book in the Percy Jackson series, The Lightning Thief (with composer Rob Rokicki) received a Lortel nomination for Outstanding Musical and is now touring nationally with Theatreworks USA. With Chill collaborator Joe Iconis, he is developing a live stage version of Diary of a Wimpy Kid to premiere at Children’s Theatre Company in 2016. This summer, Williamstown Theatre Festival will present a workshop of his original musical Poster Boy (with composer Craig Carnelia) and a production of his play Song for a Future Generation. Other plays have been developed with Manhattan Theatre Club, Second Stage, Roundabout, Ars Nova, and The Flea, and published in Best American Short Plays. Film/TV includes Epic (20th Century Fox) and Lights Out (FX). Joe is a former Playwrights Realm writing fellow, an alumnus of Theater Masters and the Ars Nova Play Group, and, with Two River and Joe Iconis, a recipient of a 2015 Doris Duke Foundation Commissioning Grant. He has a BA from Kalamazoo College.

Ned Vizzini (1981-2013) was the bestselling author of the acclaimed young-adult books It’s Kind of a Funny Story (also a major motion picture), The Other Normals, Be More Chill, and Teen Angst? Naaah…. He wrote for The New York Times, Salon, and The New Yorker. In television, he wrote for MTV’s Teen Wolf. His work has been translated into 25 languages.

Stephen Brackett is a New York City-based director of new plays and musicals. Credits include: Jonathan Tolins’ Buyer & Cellar (Rattlestick and Barrow Street Theaters/National Tour/London’s Menier Chocolate Factory), Anton Dudley’s City Of (The Playwrights Realm), Lucas Kavner’s Carnival Kids (Lesser America), Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief (Theatreworks USA), David West Read’s The Great Pretender (TheatreWorks), Ken Urban’s The Correspondent (Rattlestick), Dan Fishback’s The Material World (Dixon Place), Micheline Auger’s American River (Lesser America), Bekah Brunstetter’s Nothing Is the End of the World (Waterwell/PPAS), Chad Beckim’s After (Partial Comfort), Brunstetter’s Be a Good Little Widow (Ars Nova), The Tenant (Woodshed Collective), Rick Viede’s Whore (Summer Play Festival), Bixby Elliot’s PN1923.45LS01 Volume 2 (Culture Project) and Kilroy Was Here: A Styx Rock Opera (Williamstown Theatre Festival). Stephen is a company member of Lesser America and Partial Comfort, and an alumnus of the Soho Rep Lab.

Chase Brock Broadway: Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, Picnic. Off-Broadway: The Blue Flower (Second Stage, Lortel Award nomination); Tamar of the River (Prospect Theatre Company, Callaway Award finalist); Venice (Public Theater’s Public LAB); Much Ado About Nothing (Public Theater’s Mobile Shakespeare Unit); The Tempest, The Winter’s Tale (Public Theater’s Public Works); Lost in the Stars, Irma La Douce (City Center Encores!); The Cradle Will Rock (Encores! Off-Center); The Mysteries (Flea Theater). Regional: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (La Jolla Playhouse, Paper Mill Playhouse), Twelfth Night (The Old Globe). TV: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), Late Show with David Letterman (CBS). Video games: Dance on Broadway (Nintendo Wii, PlayStation Move). Dance: 26 dances for The Chase Brock Experience including American Sadness; The Four Seasons; Mission: Implausible; Slow Float; Whoa, Nellie! and The Song That I Sing; Or, Meow So Pretty. Opera: Romeo et Juliette (Salzburger Festspiele). Brock is the subject of the documentary film Chasing Dance. Upcoming: Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater’s Alice by Heart and Randy Blair, Tim Drucker and Matthew roi Berger’s Fat Camp; Michael
John LaChiusa’s First Daughter Suite and Sara Bareilles’s Waitress. chasebrock.com

Charlie Rosen is a composer, performer, arranger, orchestrator, music director, and producer. Recent Broadway credits include Be More Chill (Music Sup/Orchestrations), Moulin Rouge (Horn Arrangements), Prince of Broadway (Orchestrations), American Psycho (Assoc MD/Keys), The Visit (Guitar/Zither), Honeymoon in Vegas (Orchestrations), Cyrano de Bergerac (Composer), One Man, Two Guvnors (Music Director, Bass), 13 The Musical (Guitars, Bass, Keys), Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (Assoc. MD, Bass). Off-Broadway/Regional/Other: Moulin Rouge (Orchestrations), The Colonial Theatre; Bounty Hunter (Orchestrations), Barrington Stage; The Boston Pops (Arranger); A Legendary Romance (MD/Orch.), Williamstown Theatre Festival; Miss You Like Hell (Orchestrations) and misc. Shakespeare in the Park, The Public Theater; Pamela’s First Musical (Orchestrations) and Be More Chill (MD/Orch.), Two River Theater; The Black Suits (MD/Orch.), Center Theatre Group; Unauthorized…Samantha Brown, Goodspeed; Bonfire Night, NYSF; Charlie Rosen’s Broadway Big Band (in residency at 54 Below); Chita Rivera: A Legendary Celebration (Orchestrations), August Wilson. TV/Film: The President Show (Composer), Comedy Central; Maya and Marty (MD/Composer/Arranger), NBC; Best Time Ever w/NPH (Orchestrations and Track Production), NBC; High Maintenance (Addl Music) HBO. ASCAP, Local 802, Equity, Berklee, WME. www.charlierosen.com, @CRosenMusic

Nathan Dame Music Director: A Little Night Music (Berkshire Theatre Group); Pretty Filthy (The Civilians); Dying for It (Atlantic Theater Company); Pump Boys and Dinettes (Geva Theatre); The Lightning Thief (Theatreworks USA); Fly Guy and Other Stories (Theatreworks USA); Adam Lives (Goodspeed NMF). Music Supervisor: Mr. Burns by Anne Washburn, music by Michael Friedman (Playwrights Horizons). Assoc. Music Director: What’s It All About? (New York Theatre Workshop); Fly by Night (Dallas Theater Center); Triassic Parq: The Musical (Amas Musical Theatre); Himself and Nora (NYMF, Tritone Productions); Nightmare Alley (NYMF, Tritone Productions). Music Assistant: First National Tour of The Addams Family.

Dane Laffrey at Two River: My Wonderful Day (costumes) and Be More Chill (set). Broadway: set and costumes for Deaf West’s Spring Awakening, set for Fool for Love. Recent Off-Broadway credits include set and/or costumes for Iowa, The Christians and Indian Summer (Playwrights Horizons), Cloud Nine (Atlantic Theater Company), The Glory of the World (BAM Harvey), Bad Jews and Tigers Be Still (Roundabout), Disgraced (Lincoln Center), Arlington (Vineyard), King Liz, American Hero and The Talls (Second Stage), The Maids (Red Bull), I Remember Mama and The Patsy (Transport Group), The Few (Rattlestick). Regional work at the Humana Festival, Mark Taper Forum, Williamstown, Old Globe, Huntington, Denver Center, Deaf West, Goodspeed, Center Stage, Dallas Theater Center, New York Stage & Film, The Studio, Signature, others. International work in Tokyo, Oslo, Osaka, and throughout Australia. Nominations for a Drama Desk Award and four Henry Hewes Awards. www.danelaffrey.com

Bobby Frederick Tilley Costume designs for theater include: the world premiere of Guards at the Taj, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, The Pinter Plays: The Collection and A Kind of Alaska, world premiere of Annie Baker’s Body Awareness, and Birth and After Birth, The Butter and Egg Man (Atlantic Theater Company); The Power of Duff (Geffen Playhouse); The Taming of the Shrew (Virginia Stage Company); world premiere of Open House (Signature Theatre); The Power of Duff, Captors, Sons of the Prophet, and Circle Mirror Transformation (Huntington); Chapter Two (Bucks County Playhouse); The Power of Duff (NYS&F); Sons of the Prophet (Roundabout); world premiere of All New People (Second Stage); Proof (Merrimack Rep); Thinner Than Water (LAByrinth Theater Company); world premiere of Annie Baker’s The Aliens (Rattlestick); The Aliens (Company One, Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Design), Body Awareness (Speakeasy Stage Company); Lizzie Borden (The Living Theatre, Drama Desk nomination); Top Girls (Act 1, MTC/Biltmore); Mel and El: Show & Tell (Ars Nova). His costume designs for film include Hello, I Must Be Going; The Green; Four Lane Highway; Little Kings; and Rubout.

Tyler Micoleau has designed lighting for over 350 live productions including plays, dance, movement-theater, multimedia performance, and puppetry. Designs for Two River Theater: A Wind in the Willows Christmas, Opus, Orestes: A Tragic Romp, The Charlatan’s Seance. Recent Off-Broadway credits: Iowa (Playwrights Horizons); The World of Extreme Happiness (Manhattan Theatre Club); The Invisible Hand (NYTW); The Fortress of Solitude (Public); The Wayside Motor Inn (Signature); The City of Conversation (LCT). Notable design credits: When the Rain Stops Falling (Lincoln Center Theater); The Aliens (Rattlestick); Blasted (Soho Rep); God’s Ear (Vineyard); Bug (Barrow Street). Regional credits: Huntington, Goodman, American Repertory Theatre, Trinity Rep, Old Globe, Dallas Theater Center, Long Wharf, among others. He is the recipient of an American Theatre Wing Hewes Award, two Lucille Lortel Awards, two Village Voice OBIE Awards, the Connecticut Critics Circle Award, a Helen Hayes nomination, four Barrymore nominations, a Jefferson nomination, and the NEA/Theatre Communications Group Career Development Program. He has held visiting artist positions at Yale University, Dartmouth College and for six years served as adjunct faculty at Sarah Lawrence College Department of Dance. www.tylermicoleau.com

Zachary Williamson is very pleased to be designing again for Two River, where previous designs include A Wind in the Willows Christmas, Carry It On, Jacques Brel, Opus, Charlie Brown, 26 Miles, ReEntry, Glass Menagerie, Charlatan’s Seance, Umbrellas of Cherbourg and House of Blue Leaves. Broadway credits (Associate): Lysistrata Jones, The Ritz, and Pal Joey. Off-Broadway credits: Irish Repertory Theater, Second Stage, Origin, Partial Comfort, American Records and Urban Stages. Recent regional credits: Denver Center Theatre Company, Cincinnati Playhouse, Dallas Theater Center, Kansas City Rep, Baltimore Center Stage, Westport Country Playhouse, 5th Avenue Seattle, Ordway Center, Clarence Brown, Long Wharf, Round House, St. Louis Rep, Syracuse Stage, Vermont Stage, Virginia Stage, Pasadena Playhouse, Goodspeed, Asolo, and TheaterWorks Hartford. International credits: Broadway Asia International and Edinburgh Fringe.

UnkleDave’s Fight-House UnkleDave’s Fight-House is a Drama Desk Award-nominated company of fight directors founded by Dave Anzuelo. The core members of the team are Jesse Geguzis, Gerry Rodriguez, Sean Fletcher and Aldo Uribe. Two River Theater credits: El Coqui Espectacular and the Bottle of Doom, Be More Chill, Seven Guitars, A Raisin in the Sun. Broadway credits: Escape to Margaritaville (Marquis), Tuck Everlasting (Broadhurst), An American in Paris (Palace), Disgraced (Lyceum). Off-Broadway: Girl from the North Country; Mother of the Maid and Oedipus El Rey (Public Theater), Downtown Race Riot (New Group). Regional: Oklahoma! (Goodspeed). National Tour: An American in Paris. London: Buried Child.

Adam Caldwell works with Cindy Tolan. Broadway: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Betrayal, Cinderella, The Performers, Lysistrata Jones, Relatively Speaking, That Championship Season, A View from the Bridge, All My Sons, Avenue Q, and Xanadu. Previous productions with Vineyard Theatre, Bay Street, Dallas Theater Center, Playwrights Horizons, The Public Theater, and Lincoln Center Theater. Film: This Is Where I Leave you, The Place Beyond the Pines, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Winter’s Tale, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Blue Valentine, Another Happy Day, It’s Kind of a Funny Story, Letters to Juliet, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, Starting Out in the Evening, Death of a President, The Darjeeling Limited. Upcoming films: Katie Says Goodbye, Breakable You. Television: Odd Mom Out, Deadbeat, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Flight of the Conchords, Fringe, The Return of Jezebel James, and multiple HBO pilots. Member of CSA.

Bertie Michaels (Stage Manager) Broadway: Be More Chill, Come From Away, Beautiful – The Carole King Musical, Thérèse Raquin, A Bronx Tale. Off-Broadway/NYC: Encores! Mack & Mabel, Signature Theatre, Lincoln Center/LCT3, 2ndStage. Regional: Buck’s County Playhouse, Paper Mill Playhouse, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Two River Theater, Dallas Summer Musicals, Shakespeare on the Sound, Folger Shakespeare Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre of NJ. Other: August Wilson’s American Century Cycle with WNYC. Love and thanks to my family and to Sean.