I Got Fired: A Revenge Musical

Keith Varney (Book, Music & Lyrics)

Born and raised in small town Vermont, Keith has been a musical theater performer & writer almost all of his life. After a wacky detour into classical music (a degree in voice from the Eastman School of Music), he moved to NYC to pursue his life-long dream of being a struggling actor working as a temp in an office. He has also written the music & lyrics to Elway: The Musical (Book by Devon Goffman) Joshua: The Musical (Book by Tom Hallett) & the ten-minute musical  Scooby Doosical (Book by Steve Wargo) at Tax Deductable Theatre’s Dare Project. Keith is normally an excellent employee and has only been fired once.  www.keithrvarney.com

Steve Bebout (Director)

Steve Bebout is currently the Associate Director of THE ADDAMS FAMILY on Broadway, as well as the show's upcoming National Tour.  He is also working with Jerry Zaks on the World Premiere of Randy Newman's HARPS AND ANGELS, which will play the Mark Taper Forum this Fall.  Steve was the Associate Director of 101 DALMATIANS The Musical, and was involved in various capacities on the Broadway productions of BILLY ELLIOT, CABABRET and EPIC PROPORTIONS.  Regional and Stock directing credits include multiple productions of BUDDY: The Buddy Holly Story, THE FULL MONTY, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, ALWAYS...PATSY CLINE, ALMOST HEAVEN and THE NIGHT THE MUSIC DIED.  He has directed several Off-Off Broadway World Premieres, and developed many new works, including THE BOOTH VARIATIONS, featuring Todd & Michael Cerveris, which was produced by Steve's company, The Moonshine Project. As a guest director for NYU, Steve directed URINETOWN and BYE-BYE BIRDIE.  He is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

Dontee Kiehn (Choreographer)

Doug Oberhamer (Musical Director)

DOUG OBERHAMER- has been involved in musical theater for over 25 years.  He has Music Directed and/or performed in Broadway, Off-Broadway, Regional productions and International tours including Thoroughly Modern Millie(MD), Swing!(MD), Reel To Real(MD/Composer), Wanda's World(MD), Race For Love(MD/Composer), Gemini(AMD), Flight of the Lawnchair Man(MD), Crazy for You(MD), Saturday Night Fever(AMD), Frankenstein(MD), My Vaudeville Man(MD, Arr./Orch.), Nunsense(MD), Hello Dolly(MD), The Sound of Music(MD), Mud Donahue and Son(MD), Foreign Correspondence(MD/Arr./Orch.), Women on the Verge(MD, Arr./Orch.), The A**hole In My Head(MD), Love Stories(MD), Seeing Stars(MD), Romance Romance(trumpet/drums), The Apple Tree, Annie, Seesaw, Little Death(MD,Arr./Orch.), Battling Butler(piano), The Golem(piano), The Asshole in My Head(MD, Arr./Orch), Love Stories(MD, Arr.), Rings(AMD) and No No Nanette.  He can be heard as the featured trumpet soloist on the Sony Classics Grammy nominated recording of Swing! (Original Broadway Cast recording) as well as MCA Records Vanessa Daou "Slow to Burn" and recently collaborated with Nile Rodgers on DoubleTime.  He was nominated for a Jefferson Award for his work on Swing! in Chicago and won a 2008 Bistro Award for excellence in Musical Direction and Arranging/Orchestrating for Little Death.    It is great to be working once again with Keith Varney and this outstanding cast. 

Steve Wargo (Executive Producer/General Manager)

Steve is excited and proud to join the "I Got Fired" team for NYMF 2010. His first producing effort was at the age of 16 in his native Pittsburgh with a production of "Breaking Legs" by Tom Dulak.  In the many moons since, he has worked as an actor, singer, director, designer, educator, writer and box office slave. From 2001-2008, he was the founding Artistic Director of Personal Space Theatrics in NYC. NY directing credits include the first NYC revival of David Ives' "Don Juan in Chicago," the US Premieres of the Canadian comedies "The Duchess... a.k.a Wallis Simpson" and "Orchidelirium," and five stagings of his adaptation of "Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol.'"  NY producing credits include the World Premieres of "Nictotine" by Julien Schwab and "Myth America," an ensemble-written piece by writers Rachel Axler, Ian Cohen, Brian Dykstra, Jason Grote, Israel Horovitz, Arthur Kopit, Matthew Paul Olmos, Theresa Rebeck, Julien Schwab, Saviana Stanescu and Lloyd Suh; the NY Premiere of "Murder" by Israeli playwright Hanoch Levin at PS 122 and the first NYC revival of a revised "BecauseHeCan" by Arthur Kopit. Most recently, he wrote the book for and directed "Scooby-Doosical" with Keith Varney and directed Robert McMaster's "Drawing Jack," both for taxdeductible theatre's Dare Project, and is co-writing the book for "Jurassic Parq: The Broadway Musical" (you heard that right) with Marshall Pailet for the 2010 Fringe.  A proud graduate of Syracuse University's BFA Musical Theater program and member of SDC and the Dramatists Guild, Steve has been fired only once, but dedicates his work on this kickass new musical to the festering memory of the fart-eating cow who canned him from that soulless two-star UWS restaurant way back when.  Twitter: wargodirects.

Stephanie M Leaf (Associate Producer)

This is Stephanie's first production with NYMF and is thrilled to be working with the amazing cast and creatives for I Got Fired. Stephanie has a BA from Pace University in Theatre Arts and an MA from Goldsmiths University in Musical Theatre Producing. New York Production credits include The Tempest, Henry Street Settlement, Into the Woods, Schimmel Center for the Arts, A Perfect Ganesh, Schaeberle Studio, etc. London Production credits include Rent Remixed, The Duke of York, Songs For A New World, George Wood Theatre, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?!, George Wood Theatre, etc.

Liz Ulmer (Associate Producer)

Liz is very proud to join the “Fired” community! (But only for the purposes of this show – she currently holds several jobs and does not wish to be terminated from any of them.)  Liz is an Associate Producer with the New York Musical Theatre Festival, and worked for several months in NYMF’s literary office.  Last year, she co-produced (with Marnie Klar) LIFT: A Concert to Benefit Artists Striving to End Poverty at the Laurie Beechman, with director DJ Salisbury and musical director Brent-Alan Huffman (Broadway's upcoming Leap of Faith).  As a dramaturg and theatre critic, Liz has worked with NYC Opera, nytheatre.com and Astoria Performing Arts Center, as well as with several individual directors and writers.  Her performing credits include roles with New York Stage and Film, Fulton Opera House, Great American Melodrama and The Actors Studio.  Liz originally hails from Lancaster, PA (she has never been Amish, sorry) and graduated from Ithaca College's Department of Theatre Arts.  www.lizulmer.com

Czerton Lim (Set Designer)

Czerton Lim has been fired only once, and to his credit he wasn’t the only one let go when the theater he was working for decided to call it quits four days before Christmas.  He decided that this must be a sign and went back to school to get his MFA at the University of Washington in Seattle where he designed Mother Courage and Her Children, Execution of Justice, Macbeth, and Panophobia for UW School of Drama, and Harvest and The Glass Menagerie for the Ethnic Cultural Theatre.  Now living in NYC with his gainfully employed wife, three cats, and a baby on the way, he recently designed Medea for Theater Mitu, The Fake History of George the Last for Theater for the New City, Tidings Brought to Mary for Storm Theatre, Bye Bye Birdie (w/ Steve Bebout) for CAP21, Out Cry for NAATCO, and Playhouse Creatures and Three Sisters for Columbia University.  Outside of the city, he consistently works for Merry Go Round Playhouse designing Promises, Promises and Man of La Mancha, The Full Monty and Little Shop of Horrors (w/ Steve Bebout – who hasn’t fired him, YET), Smokey Joe’s Café, and Forever Plaid.  He is originally from the Philippines.  www.czlimdesign.com

Joe Trentacosta (Press Representative)

SPRINGER ASSOCIATES PR is a full service entertainment PR firm founded by the late John Springer. The principal of the company is Gary Springer (ATPAM), with associates Joseph Trentacosta (ATPAM). For over 40 years Springer Associates PR has and continues to manage a wide and diverse clientele ranging from theatre and film to personalities and events. Under John Springer, SPRINGER ASSOCIATES represented many theatre, film and television personalities including Al Pacino, Mia Farrow, Ed Harris, Myrna Loy, Shelley Winters, Sally Kirkland, Dustin Hoffman, Lauren Bacall, Jamie Sheridan, Maureen Stapleton, Harry Belafonte, Carrie Fisher, Robert Merrill, Janet Leigh, Maureen O’Sullivan, Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Henry Fonda, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift, Marlene Dietrich, Robert Preston, Bette Davis, Warren Beatty, Julie Christy, Joan Crawford and many, many others.

Theatrically, Springer Associates PR has represented and/or advised clients on Broadway, Off-Broadway and not-for-profit theatre companies. Recent projects include the African American revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (James Earl Jones, Phylicia Rashad, Terrence Howard and Anika Noni Rose), Broadway musical Hot Feet and up-coming Broadway productions of shows include Treasure Island and Busker Alley with Jim Dale. Current Off-Broadway productions include Krapp, 39, Blanche Survives Katrina in a FEMA Trailer Named Desire, The Gazillion Bubble Show (New World Stages, Las Vegas), Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage (Shotgun Players/ Abrons Art Center). Non-Profit Theatre Companies include: AMAS Musicals, Babel Theatre Project, Boomerang Theatre, Broken Watch Theater, Our Time Theatre Company, Resonance Ensemble, TADA! Youth Theater, and Urban Stages.

Theresa Flanagan (Production Stage Manager)

Margaret Morton (ASM, Production Manager)