Artist Bios

Maureen Coyne (Nell) played the Mother in Cutting Ball’s reading of Infestation for Risk is This…The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival. Recent shows include Hedda Gabler, True West and Strindberg's A Dream Play with the Actors Ensemble of Berkeley, and Morning's at Seven, at the Altarena Playhouse in Alameda.

Paul Gerrior (Nagg) has appeared in Cutting Ball’s productions of Roberto Zucco and As You Like It as well as the workshop production of Trevor Allen’s Chain Reactions for Risk is This…The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival.  Other credits include Othello with Guerrilla Shakes and Chain Reactions with C.A.F.E.  His film credits include The Seagull Project and Saloon Song. Originally from Boston, Paul moved to the Bay Area thirty years ago. 

Avery Monsen (Clov) played Grumio in Cutting Ball’s production of The Taming of the Shrew. He has also been in Artistic Director Rob Melrose’s productions of The Love of Three Oranges and As You Like It. He recently graduated from Oberlin College where he received his B.A. with high honors in theater.  Favorite roles there include Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet, Baz in A Bright Room Called Day and Woody in Six Degrees of Separation. He has also trained at the Moscow Art Theater and with the Upright Citizens Brigade in Los Angeles.

David Sinaiko (Hamm) has appeared in Cutting Ball’s productions of The Taming of the Shrew, As You Like It, The Sandalwood Box, Ajax, for instance,Macbeth, 365 Plays/365 Days, Woyzeck, The Hidden Classics Reading Series and Chain Reactions, part ofRisk is This . . . The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival. He was a founding member of Chicago's New Crime Productions where credits include The Balcony, Heart of a Dog, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Methusalem, and Alagazam!. He was seen in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Goodman Theater, The Big Show with The Actor's Gang, and recently in the one-man production of David Sedaris‚ SantaLand Diaries. Film and television credits include The Grifters, Bob Roberts and The Untouchables. David is an alumnus of NYU’s Experimental Theater Wing and the Stella Adler Conservatory.

Carlos Aguilar (Props & Assistant Set & Costume Designer) is excited to be working on his third production with Cutting Ball having previously worked on The Taming of the Shrew and Woyzeck. In December, he created conceptual designs for all three plays in Risk is This…The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival. Other credits include work with the Magic Theatre and Pullover Productions. He is a graduate of San Francisco State University with a degree in Set Design.

Heather Basarab (Lighting Designer) designed lights for Cutting Ball’s production of The Taming of the Shrew and The Maids. Other recent Bay Area designs include The Forest War with Shotgun Players; We Are Not These Hands, One Big Lie, and Maid with Crowded Fire; Birdhouse Factory and Highwater Radio with the Pickle Circus; Philip Kan Gotanda’s Floating Weeds and Fist of Roses, both with Campo Santo; and the scenic design for Shotgun Players’ Cabaret. Heather’s work has also been seen with Project Bandaloop, the Dorsch Gallery in Miami, LACMA, Thick Description, The Magic Theatre and the Joe Goode Performance Group, with whom she received an Isadora Duncan Award for the production design of Drowsy.

Cliff Caruthers (Sound Designer) has designed and composed for several Cutting Ball productions including The Taming of the Shrew, Woyzeck, The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, AvantGardARAMA!, Macbeth, No Exit, and The Vomit Talk of Ghosts.  Other credits include ACT's Brainpeople, San Jose Stage Company's Tenders in the Fog, Crowded Fire's Anna Bella Eema, 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 for Cutting Ball Theater's Fighter Airplanes was part of the interactive design exhibit at the Prague Quadrennial 2007.

Brad Chequer(Dramaturg) wrote Lighthouse, which was one of three plays featured in last December’s Risk is This…The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival. His play, Ghost Trio, premiered at the San Francisco Bay Area One Acts Festival and was then produced by Teatro del Navile in Bologna, Italy, in an Italian translation. Shoshannah,Melos, Words for a Play without Words and Le Jeune Peintre are his best known works. Brad’s one-act play, The Interview, was recently published by Evergreen Press.

Shay Henley (Stage Manager & Assistant Technical Director) is working on her first production at The Cutting Ball after relocating from Ashland, Oregon where she stage managed, managed proprieties and ran lights and sound for the Oregon Stage Works productions of Orphans and On Golden Pond as well as filling the role of Assistant Stage Manager for there production of Scroogical.

Fred Kinney (Set & Costume Designer) designed sets for Cutting Ball’s production of The Taming of the Shrew and has recently worked at Cats Talk Back & Sub-Urban Stories (NYC Fringe Festival); Intimate Apparel (San Diego Rep) W.E.T. (Moxie Theatre) On Golden Pond, Bus Stop, Proof, Angel Street (Triad Stage); Ghosts, The Fastest Woman Alive, Dragons, Six Hands & The Night Watchman (Luna Stage); The Good Daughter, The Adjustment, Color of Flesh and Winterizing a Summer House (New Jersey Repertory Theatre); Fully Committed, Stones in His Pockets (What Exit? Theatre); The Grouch (The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey); Underneath the Lintel (Beowulf Alley). Additional credits include Peter Pan and Wendy at Prince Music Theatre in Philadelphia and Serious Money at Yale Repertory Theatre. He is a recipient of the NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Designers and holds an M.F.A. from the Yale School of Drama and a B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin.

Rob Melrose (Director) is the artistic director and co-founder of The Cutting Ball Theater where he has directed The Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth, Hamletmachine, As You Like It, The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, Mayakovsky: A Tragedy, My Head Was a Sledgehammer, Roberto Zucco, The Vomit Talk of Ghosts (world premiere), The Sandalwood Box, Pickling, Ajax for example, Helen of Troy (world premiere) and Drowning Room (world premiere) and has translated No Exit, Woyzeck and Ubu Roi. He has directed at The Guthrie Theater: Pen; The California Shakespeare Theater: Villains, Fools, and Lovers; Actors’ Collective: Hedda Gabler; Alias Stage: Creditors; Crowded Fire: The Train Play; C.A.F.E.: Chain Reactions; Perishable Theatre: All Spoken by a Shining Creature (world premiere); Yale Summer Cabaret: Endgame, The Shawl; Princeton Summer Theater: Twelfth Night. As assistant director he has worked at Berkeley Repertory Theatre: The Pillowman (Les Waters, director) American Conservatory Theatre: Indian Ink (Carey Perloff, director); The Guthrie Theater: Othello (Joe Dowling, director) Yale Repertory Theatre: Twelfth Night (Mark Rucker, director) and currently at The Public Theater: Hamlet (Oskar Eustis, director). Rob is a recent recipient of the NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Directors. He has an M.F.A. in directing from the Yale School of Drama and graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University.

Paige Rogers(Associate Artistic Director) co-founded The Cutting Ball Theater in 1999 and has appeared in their productions of My Head Was a Sledgehammer, As You Like It, The Vomit Talk of Ghosts, Macbeth and The Taming of the Shrew.   As a director her work with Cutting Ball includes Life is a Dream for The Hidden Classics Reading Series, 1000 South Kelly and Learning English as part of Suzan-Lori Parks’ 365 plays/ 365 days and Lighthouse forRisk is This…The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival. In 2009 she will direct Mud by Maria Irene Fornes.