Film and TV Appearances:

Interview

Interview (Film)

Screenplay by David Schechter and Steve Buscemi
Based on a film by Theo Van Gogh
Directed by Steve Buscemi
Starring Sienna Miller and Steve Buscemi

Independent Spirit Award Best Screenplay
Sundance Film Festival Official Selection

U.S. and European Theatrical Release
Sony Pictures DVD Release
A political journalist on the skids is assigned to interview a young starlet on the rise. Initially embarrassed by his assignment, he gradually falls under her sway and their evening together turns into a strange game of cat and mouse where the stakes just keep getting higher.

ROLE: Obsequious Maitre D’ attending to starlet (Sienna Miller)

Watch Film Trailer Here
Creating Karma

Creating Karma (Film)

A film by Jill Wisoff
Fantasy Creatures Productions
Winner Best Feature Comedy, Brilliant Light Fest, LA
Official Selection multiple film festivals
An uptight fashion writer loses her job and is forced to move in with her estranged half sister, a new age healer. Together they work through the karma which has kept them apart.

ROLE: Whacked Out Rabbi delivering eulogy
Runaways Film Project

Runaways Film Project (Film)

A Film by Elizabeth Swados
Based on her Tony Nominated Broadway Musical
20th Century Fox
A bohemian composer collects a motley assortment of street kids, many of them runaways, and puts together a musical based on their lives.

ROLE: Lazar (Lead), a teenage punk rocker runaway
Madonna's Bad Girl Video

Madonna's Bad Girl Video (Music Video)

MTV
The wild nightlife of a fashion magazine editor turns out to be her undoing.
ROLE: Madonna’s Right Hand Man
Golddigger

Golddigger (Film)

L.I.E. Productions
Independent Feature
A caper film set in the world of estate sales.

ROLE: Persian Informer
Law and Order

Law and Order (Television)

NBC
“Animal Instinct”
A lab researcher, using rats for his experiments, is murdered.

ROLE: Guest Principal: Dirk Chesney, animal rights activist and murder suspect
Gift of the Magi

Gift of the Magi (Television)

Designed and Directed by Julie Taymor
Nickelodeon
O’Henry’s classic Christmas tale.

ROLES: Eccentric Shopkeeper, Loving Husband
Tribeca

Robert DeNiro's Tribeca (Television)

Fox Television
Gritty stories from the underside of the Manhattan neighborhood.
ROLE: Homeless Gargler (opposite Steven Lang)
The Street

The Street (Television)

Syndicated
Urban stories from tough neighborhoods
ROLE: Smarmy Salesman
Nightclub Cantata

Nightclub Cantata (Television)

Conceived and Composed by Elizabeth Swados
WGBH Public Television, Boston

Boston Emmy Award
Elizabeth Swados’ Obie Award winning musicalization of the poetry and prose of assorted great writers

ROLE: Principal Performer (Flying Pastrami Brother, Ventriloquist, etc.)
The Haggadah

The Haggadah (Television)

Created by Elizabeth Swados and Julie Taymor
WNET Channel 13, Public Television Network Filmed live at The New York Shakespeare Festival, Public Theater
Elizabeth Swados and Julie Taymor’s retelling of the Ancient Jews Exodus from Egypt.

ROLE: Principal Performer (Narrator, Ancient Rabbi, etc)
The Tony Awards

The Tony Awards (Television)

CBS
Presentation of musical excerpts from Runaways, nominated for five Tony Awards.
ROLE: Principal Performer (Runaway)

Theatre Credits (Partial List):

Runaways

Runaways (Broadway)

Book, Music and Lyrics by Elizabeth Swados
Produced by The New York Shakespeare Festival, Joseph Papp
Directed by Elizabeth Swados
Five Tony Award Nominations

Plymouth Theatre, Broadway
The hopes, fears, challenges, dreams and ways to survive of runaways in the big city. Set to music. Most of the cast were actual street kids.

ROLE: Lazar (Lead), a teenage punk rocker runaway
3Penny Opera

3Penny Opera (Broadway)

Book and Lyrics by Bertolt Brecht
Music by Kurt Weill
Directed by John Dexter
Starring Sting as Mack the Knife

Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, Broadway
The hard edged musical from pre-Hitler Germany.

ROLE: Sawtooth Bob
Groundhog

Groundhog (Off-Broadway)

Book, Music and Lyrics by Elizabeth Swados
Directed by Elizabeth Swados
Manhattan Theatre Club
The true story of a homeless schizophrenic street musician and his love/hate relationship with his younger sister who tries to rescue him from his plight.

ROLE: Groundhog (Title Role)
Nightclub Cantata

Nightclub Cantata (Off-Broadway)

Composed and Directed by Elizabeth Swados OBIE Award Winner*
Top of The Village Gate
Elizabeth Swados’ musicalization of the poetry and prose of assorted great writers

ROLE: Principal Performer/Flying Pastrami Brother, etc.*

* Shared OBIE Award
The Haggadah

The Haggadah (Off-Broadway)

A Passover Piece by Elizabeth Swados and Julie Taymor
The New York Shakespeare Festival, Public Theater
A musical retelling of the Ancient Jews’ Exodus from Egypt using live performers and shadow puppets, etc.

ROLE: Principal Performer
Our Country’s Good

Our Country’s Good (Regional)

By Timberlake Wertenbaker
Directed by Ed Stern
The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis
Prisoners and their keepers, in a penal colony in the newly colonized Australia, discover their common humanity as they mount a play together.

ROLE: Captain Phillips/Wisehammer*

*Best Supporting Actor of the Year Award (St. Louis Post/Dispatch)
Temptation

Temptation (Off-Broadway/Regional)

By Vaclav Havel

Directed by Jiri Ziska
American Premiere

The New York Shakespeare Festival, Public Theater Wilma Theatre, Philadelphia
An allegory about the Faustian bargain some citizens of the Eastern Bloc make with their governments.

ROLE: Kotterly
Dispatches

Dispatches (Off-Broadway)

Adapted from the book by Michael Herr
Composed and Directed by Elizabeth Swados
The New York Shakespeare Festival, Public Theater
Told in the form of a rock concert, the show is a musicalization of the bestselling book about soldiers and war correspondents during the Viet Nam War – the “rock and roll” war.

ROLE: Principal Performer (Journalist/Soldier/Rock Star)
The Balcony

The Balcony (Off-Broadway)

By Jean Genet
Directed by Geoffrey Sherman
The Hudson Guild Theater, NYC
Genet’s cry against the hypocrisy of both Church and State, set in a brothel during a violent uprising.

ROLE: Roger (Romantic Lead)
Horatio Alger Music Hall

Horatio Alger Music Hall (Off-Broadway)

Conceived and Directed by Betsey Shevey
The New York Shakespeare Festival, Public Theater
A pastiche of the writings of Horatio Alger Jr, a major voice in the American myth of the self-made man.

ROLE: Female Torch Singer
Under Fire

Under Fire (NYC Tour)

Written, composed and directed by Elizabeth Swados
The New York Shakepeare Festival Summer Tour
A revue about living in the urban war zone of New York’s ghettos.

ROLE: Rover Dose
Goose: Beyond The Nursery

Goose: Beyond The Nursery (Off- Broadway)

Book and Lyrics by Scott Alan Evans
Music by Mark Frawley
Directed by Scott Alan Evans
York Theatre Company, St. Peter’s Church, NYC
The trials and tribulations of Yuppie New Yorkers told through the lens of Mother Goose Rhymes.

ROLE: Yuppie Lead
Woyzeck

Woyzeck (Regional)

By Georg Buchner
Directed by William Driver
Bard Theater, Rhinebeck, NY
A 19th Century tragedy about the ill treatment by those in power of a working class man, driving him to madness and murder.

ROLE: Woyzeck (Title Role)
Tartuffe

Tartuffe (Regional)

By Moliere
Directed by William Korff
Bucks Rock Theatre, CT
Moliere’s classic farce about the hypocrisy of the Church.

ROLE: Tartuffe (Title Role)
Land of the Free, Home of the Brave

Land of the Free, Home of the Brave (Site Specific)

By ABIA artists collective
Site specific performance in Deerfield Massachusetts Reconstruction Museum
An outdoor recreation of the war against the white settlers lead by Metacom the great Native American warrior chief.

ROLE: Metacom, The Warrior Chief
Common Sky: Seven Miracles of Summer

Common Sky: Seven Miracles of Summer (Site Specific)

Created by Jeanne Fleming
Produced by Miracolo! Miracolo!
Site specific performance on farmland in Rhinebeck, NY
In this bucolic outdoor spectacle, Nijinsky leads the audience through seven miracles of creation.

ROLE: Nijinsky
Robin Hood

Robin Hood (US Tour)

Produced by Fran and Barry Weissler
U.S. Tour
A comic retelling for young people of the legend of the outlaw who stole from the rich to give to the poor.

ROLE: The Evil Sheriff of Nottingham
Heartfield

Heartfield (Developmental Workshop)

Directed by Gabriel Barre
Manhattan Theatre Club
The true story of the pioneer collage artist who used his art to protest Hitler’s rise.

ROLE: Heartfield (Title Role)