‘Creative Team’
Kevin Sprague
Kevin Sprague (Marketing Consultant) Kevin Sprague is the Creative Director of Studio Two in Lenox MA and is pleased to support Catherine Taylor-Williams and The Wharton Salon. Kevin and Catherine have collaborated frequently in the past, including working together on the graphic novel Muse.
Catherine Taylor-Williams (Producing Artistic Director) The Wharton Salon: Director Xingu, Summer, and Autres Temps. Catherine founded The Wharton Salon in 2009 with the help of Co-Producer Lauryn Franzoni, photographer and branding strategist Kevin Sprague, playwright and Shakespeare & Company’s Director of Training Dennis Krausnick, and Executive Director of The Mount, Susan Wissler. Catherine was an actor, director and Communications Associate at Shakespeare & Company from 2001-2007. S&Co: Directing: Shakespeare & the Language that Shaped a World, Love’s Labor’s Lost. S&Co: Acting: Vita & Virginia, My Own Stranger, Henry & June, The Servant of Two Masters, The Tamer Tamed and Wharton’s novel The Valley of Decision, also adapted by Krausnick. Catherine is an alumna of the two-year Producers’ Lab at The Women’s Project in New York, and of The John F. Kennedy Center’s 2008 International Arts Management Fellowship. Catherine is grateful to Shakespeare & Company, Tina Packer, Dennis Krausnick and theatre director Normi Noël for pioneering adaptations of the stories of Edith Wharton for the stage at The Mount. She is delighted to be directing this 100-year-old but very modern story, Autres Temps…and to be back again at The Mount to spend another wonderful summer with her friends.
Susan Wissler
Susan Wissler (Executive Director, The Mount) Susan came to Edith Wharton Restoration in September of 2001 as Vice President and COO before becoming the Executive Director in 2008. She graduated magna cum laude from Brown University and received her J.D. from Columbia University in 1986 where she graduated in the top third of her class. For the majority of her legal career, Susan was a corporate attorney with Willkie Farr & Gallagher in New York City. She is admitted to the bar in New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.
Maia Robbins-Zust (Technical Director) The Wharton Salon: Xingu, Summer, and Autres Temps. Maia has a BFA in arts management from the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and is an ETCP Certified Rigger and Entertainment Electrician. Currently she is Technical Director for Williams College’s Department of Theatre. She also owns Berkshire Production Resources, a small production company that provides technical support for the many live performance venues of western Massachusetts including The Wharton Salon. Maia and her company have worked with Jacobs Pillow Dance Festival, Barrington Stage Company, Boston Early Music Festival, Berkshire Theater Festival, Berkshire Opera Company, Capital Repertory Company, The Colonial Theatre and the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center just to name a few.
Dennis Krausnick
Dennis Krausnick (Playwright) The Wharton Salon: Playwright Xingu, Summer, and Autres Temps. Dennis is a founding member and Director of Training at Shakespeare & Company where he is also on the Board of Trustees and Faculty for the S&Co Summer Training Institute. He teaches and directs in theater programs across the country as well as designing and leading the actor training programs for S&Co. He has adapted several stories of Edith Wharton and Henry James for the stage over the past 30 years, the most popular being Ethan Frome, Xingu, Roman Fever and Summer.
Arthur Oliver
Arthur Oliver (Costume Designer) The Wharton Salon: Costume Designer Xingu, Summer and Autres Temps. Arthur has been designing costumes professionally since 1991 at such notable institutions as The Atlanta Opera, The Connecticut Opera, Berkshire Theatre Festival, The Charles Playhouse, The Colonial Theatre, Shakespeare & Company, The Stratford Festival of Canada, The Yard, NYU/Tisch, LSU, Trinity College, Gordon College and The Boston Conservatory. A chapter on his personal views of designing for Shakespeare was published in “Shakespeare Festivals Around the World” (Xlibris Corporation) in 2004. In 2005 he collaborated with Grammy Award recipient Carly Simon and Artistic Director Wendy Taucher (The Yard) on “Created by Carly Simon: Dances at the Yard” with new compositions by Ms. Simon. His Broadway debut was June of 2007 “Broadway Bares XVII-Myth Behavior” produced by Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, Tony award winner Jerry Mitchell and Director Denis Jones. Last year, The Wall St. Journal named him Best of 2010 for his “resplendent costuming.”
Lauryn Franzoni (Managing Director) Lauryn has been a devoted reader of Edith Wharton for many years. In prior fundraising work, Lauryn has helped The Mount and Shakespeare & Company raise private support for new initiatives in performance and education. Lauryn is currently President of Leadership IQ, a leading global research and leadership training company that delivers research, insight, information products and events that inspire dynamic organizational growth, by aligning people, plans and practices around a shared purpose. A creative strategist and inspirational leader, Lauryn has recruited, trained and led high-performing creative and business teams for international research, media, and training companies in the U.S., U.K. and Europe in telecommunications, financial services, banking, energy, health and wellness, social media, education and the performing arts. Lauryn holds an MA from The American University and a BA from Dickinson College. Whenever possible, Lauryn shares her time and skills in work with cultural and educational organizations that are launching new projects and may need an extra set of hands clarifying strategy and implementing fundraising and audience development initiatives.