magis logoWHO WE ARE

George headshot GEORGE DRANCE has performed and directed in over twenty countries on five continents. New York credits include The Public Theatre/New York Shakespeare Festival, The Metropolitan Opera, La MaMa’s resident company the Great Jones Rep and Ralph Lee’s Mettawee River Theatre Company. With La MaMa, he has toured throughout Europe and Asia, working on several of Ellen Stewart’s original pieces and performing in the Andrei Serban/Elizabeth Swados’ epic Fragments of a Greek Trilogy. Regional credits include The American Repertory Theatre, The New Rep, ImprovBoston, and The Stonington Opera House. He earned his BA from Marquette University and his MFA from Columbia. He currently serves as Artist-in-residence at Fordham University has been a guest artist and lecturer at Columbia University, Cornell University, Marquette University, Marymount Manhattan College, Hebrew Union College, and Boston College. He has been on the faculty of the Marist International Center in Nairobi, Kenya, at Red Cloud High School on the Oglala Sioux Reservation. Film credits include Solidarity and The Light of Eons.
margi headshot MARGI SHARP has performed as a singer and actor in Off-Off Broadway venues such as HERE, PS 122, and the Connelly Theater and regionally at the Orlando UCF Shakespeare Festival and at the Opera House Arts in Stonington, Maine. Favorite roles include Hermione in A Winters Tale, Kate in Taming of the Shrew and Madeline in a new play Freudian Slips. She has worked on plays with director and puppet master Ralph Lee, regional directors Dennis Delaney and Russell Treyz, and internationally acclaimed director Andrei Serban. Margi received her BA from Duke University in Drama and English as well as a Certificate of the Arts for her work in dance and theater. She also holds an MFA from Columbia University in Acting. She is a co-founder and the Producing Director of Magis Theatre Company, which had their Off Broadway debut last year with an adaptation of C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce. She is also a member of Crossing Jamaica Avenue theater company and has performed numerous roles with them such as Edna in Chiori Miyagawa's Awakening, and most recently the Contemporary Woman in Thousand Years Waiting.
Frank headshot FRANK MIHELICH has worked extensively in theatre: Off-Broadway, Off-Off Broadway and regionally. Frank has also worked in both commercials and film. Some recent theatre credits include the Magis Theatre Company’s Off-Broadway production of C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce. Last spring Frank played Freddy in T. Schreiber Studio’s production of Picasso At The Lapin Agile. Regionally Frank has worked for such companies as the Two Rivers Theatre, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, and the Arizona Repertory Thearte. Frank is a company member of Magis Theatre Company and a founding member of Threads Productions, a theatre company seeking to create theatre from the Christian Worldview. Frank graduated from Columbia University in 2004 with his MFA in acting. Frank would like to thank God, his wife Allison, and his Grandma for their love and support.
Erika headshot ERIKA IVERSONwas last seen with the Magis Theatre Company as Cecilia in Frances Burney's The Witlings. She has been featured in Magis productions and co-productions as Perdita in The Winter's Tale, Fruttarola in Caravaggio Chiaroscuro, and as Pam/Artist Ghost/Bright Spirit in last year’s world premiere of The Great Divorce. Other favorite roles include Elena in Haircut and The Pupil in Ionesco's The Lesson with George Drance, which won first place at the Piatra Neamt Teatrul Tineretului International Theatre Festival in Romania after a successful run at La MaMa E.T.C.. Her solo performance work with the Cosmic Joke Collective has been seen at the Knitting Factory and the Cornelia Street Cafe. Erika is a founding member of Magis and serves as the Director of Development in addition to her role as an actor/trainer.
Elizabeth headshot ELIZABETH MUTTON New York productions include The Great Divorce at Theatre 315, Church at P.S. 122, Paulina and Autolycus in A Winter’s Tale. Mrs. Smith in Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano at LaMama, Liz Embry in The Philadelphia Story at the Brooklyn Gallery Players, and various roles in one-acts in the ChekhovNow Festival. She has also performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in The Duchess of Malfi and in Umbria Italy for LaMama as part of the EASY Project. She is currently working on a one woman show Anywhere You about the life of Lotte Lenya. She is a member of the Magis Theatre Company and a graduate of Tufts University and Columbia’s MFA Acting program.
Casey headshot CASEY GROVES has appeared in several productions at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC. He has also had two Off Broadway productions of the one man play Damien about the missionary priest who served at the leprosy settlement in Hawaii in the 1800s. Last fall Casey toured Damien throughout the Hawaiian Islands. In 2005 He played Angelo in Measure for Measure with the Garson Theatre Company in Santa Fe. Over the past three years working with Magis, he has played Polixines in The Winter's Tale and the Big Man and the Tragedian in the Off Broadway production of The Great Divorce. Healso has a recurring speaking role on One Life to Live as Officer Maloney. Casey has written two full length plays, Excavating Katrina and The Wise Man of Nyokodo which he hopes to have full productions of in the coming year. He recently graduated with an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College in Vermont. He is an adjunct theatre professor at St. Peter's College in Jersey City, NJ, and he has been a guest artist and lecturer at NYU and Well's College.
Wendy headshot WENDY MAPES New York Stage credits include Twinkle, Twinkle, Desdeomona: A Play About a Handkerchief, The Parables of Chang Chou, Animal Farm, Murder, The Comedy of Errors, Cowboy Mouth, Uncle Vanya, California Suite, and Our Town. Wendy played the lead in the short films Fear of Falling(Dusty Award Winning Film), Last Summer and Barnyard. She is a graduate of The New Actors Workshop and Antioch University’s MA program in Theatre. Wendy teaches Acting for contemporary and classical plays at St. Jean Baptiste High School.
Elizabeth M. headshot ELIZABETH LEE MALONE is a current MFA Candidate in Acting at Columbia University. With Magis, she played The Tousle-Headed Youth and the Artist Spirit in The Great Divorce at Theatre 315. Other credits include: Julie in Miss Julie at Chashama, Anastasia in OTMA (Atlantic Stage 2), and Church with Young Jean Lee's Company at The Public. She is a member of Magis Theatre Company and Threads Productions. BFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, MFA Candidate Columbia University.
Gabriel headshot GABRIEL PORTUONDO is a native of Brentwood, Long Island. BSBA, Bucknell University; MFA in Acting, Columbia University. With Magis, Gabe played the roles of Frank & Reginald in The Great Divorce.TV and film credits include: Hip-Hop Hope (TriBecca Film Festival), Shaft, Little Nicki, Autumn in New York & For Love of the Game. Theater Credits: Javier in When Santo Domingo Isn’t Enough best play for 2006 at the Cherry Lane Theater’s Downtown Urban Theater Festival. Andres in Breaking Walls, Cherry Lane Theater ’06,Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Horatio in Hamlet, Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey. Count Orsino in Twelfth Night, Manhattan Repertory Theater; Hamlet, Prince Hal in Henry IV Part One, Henry V in Henry V, Marc Antony in Julius Caesar, and Mercutio in Romeo & Juliet with Shakespeare Saturdays; Demitrius, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Richmond, Richard III and the Porter from Macbeth with The Inwood Shakespeare Festival; Underground Griots (National Black Theater Festival), and La Tempestad (Manhattan Enseble Theater). Writing Credits: Urban Aura, National Finalist for the playwriting competition “Nuestras Voces” for Repertorio Espanol.
d THOMAS PIPER has appeared in numerous Off-Off Broadway productions including Richard 3 (Richard), La MAMA ETC (directed by Andrei Serban); As I Lay Dying, Ohio Theatre; We Killed Kurt Cobain, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Trojan Women, American Studio Theatre; and in Magis productions The Winter’s Tale (Florizel) and The Great Divorce (C.S. Lewis). Regionally, Thomas has appeared in Andrei Serban’s Pericles at American Repertory Theatre; A Christmas Carol and the upcoming Doubt, The Alliance Theatre; Metamorphoses and Measure for Pleasure, Florida Studio Theatre; Our Town, Waiting for Godot, and Summer and Smoke, Theatrical Outfit; The Diviners and Cash on Delivery, Theatre in the Square, Barefoot in the Park, Aurora Theatre; One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, Dad’s Garage Theatre; Hamlet and As You Like It, The Stonington Opera House, and once again Hamlet (title role), Othello (Iago), Macbeth (title role), Taming of the Shrew (Petruchio), and Much Ado About Nothing (Benedick and Dogberry) with Piper Theatre Productions (no relation… no kidding). TV and Film: “Law and Order:SVU”; “As The World Turns”; Open Book, Vodka Rocks, Doomer Chicks. Thomas has also directed several productions regionally and in New York. He is an Artistic Associate with Dad’s Garage Theatre in Atlanta, GA and a member and trainer with Magis Theatre Co. in NY. Thomas is a graduate of Duke University and has a MFA in Acting from Columbia School of the Arts.