Artist website: www.artistsempirepictures.com

Cast
Nate Miller (Juilliard, Macheath in Sam Gold's 3 Penny Opera)
Molly Ward (Public Theater Shakesepeare Lab 2009,
Laura Ramadei (Too Little To Late)
Daniel Abales (Ethan Coen's Atlantic Theater Prod. of OFFICES)

Playwright: Jonathan Ballard Blitstein
A Chicagoan, Jonathan began performing with local Apple Tree Theater as a kid actor, singer and dancer. He graduated NYU Film School in 2004. After pouring many coffees for people like Christine Vachon, Catherine Zeta Jones and Aaron Eckhart, at 23 years-old he was one of the youngest film school grads ever to write/produce/direct and edit a 35mm feature length film. It was made possible with donated negative from Kodak and maxed-out credit cards. It became the 2008 indie film Let Them Chirp Awhile starring Brendan Sexton, Justin Rice and Laura Breckenridge (Finalist NYU Richard Vague Award, Winner - East Lansing Film Festival, Opening Night Woodstock Film Festival). This past year he sold two original screenplays. Jonathan studied acting and writing at The Second City, The Piven Theater, LAByrinth and Primary Stages. Keep Your Baggage With You (at all times) is his first play to be produced in New York.


Director: Daniel Talbott
Daniel Talbott’s most recent work as an actor includes the Theatre for One project in Times Square and around NYC, The Merry Wives of Windsor (Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis), Master Builder (Irish Rep), Rocket City (Alabama Shakespeare Festival),Tartuffe (McCarter Theatre/Yale Rep), Marat/Sade (Classical Theatre of Harlem) and the feature film Pretty Bird and The Big C on Showtime. Recent directing work includes Footprint by Mac Rogers (part of +30NYC for Red Fern Theatre), Afterclap by Daniel Reitz,Birthday and Nobody, both by Crystal Skillman (Rising Phoenix Rep at the Seventh Street Small Stage at Jimmy’s No. 43), The Umbrella Plays (the teacup company/FringeNYC – Overall Excellence Award: Outstanding Play), Fall Forward (Sitelines/River to River Festival produced by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council), and The Reaching (Rising Phoenix Rep). His play Slipping was produced at Rattlestick last summer with Piece by Piece Productions (named one of the top ten plays of 2009 by The Advocate), premiered in Chicago at The Side Project in Chicago, was part of the International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival, and will be published this year by Dramatists Play Service. His play What Happened When was produced at HERE Arts Center and The Side Project and was published as part of the Plays and Playwrights 2008 anthology. He received a 2007 New York Innovative Theatre Award for directing, a Drama-Logue Award, two Dean Goodman Choice Awards and a Judy Award for acting, and was also named one of the 15 People of the Year 2006 by nytheatre.com.He is a member of this year’s 24Seven Lab, a graduate of Juilliard and of Solano College Theatre’s ATP, and a teacher at the Primary Stages Einhorn School of Performing Arts (ESPA). He is one of the literary managers of Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and is the artistic director of Rising Phoenix Rep (recipient of the 2007 NYIT Caffe Cino Fellowship Award).