Axial Theatre is a Grant Award Winner! Thank you ArtsWestchester for selecting us for the Matching Grant and two program grants!
Axial Theater is an ensemble based not-for-profit theater company currently in its 24th season. We are dedicated to supporting the professional development of playwrights and actors through presenting staged workshops, development readings, and full productions.
Nicole Arcieri - Actor
CaNicole Arcieri is excited to be playing the role of Topsy in NOT LIKE US. Her theatre credits include EDEN’S ECHO (Aurora), AN INSPECTOR CALLS (Sheila Birling), and ED THE FOURTH (Lovey), among others. Her film credits include ROADKILL (Lead), NEON DINNER (Lead), and BLACK RETAIL (Day Player), among others. She recently joined Axial Theatre as a company member. For a detailed overview of her experience and to check out upcoming shows she will be featured in, please visit her website www.nicolearcieriactor.com.
Catherine Banks - Actor, Director, Artistic Director Emeritus
Catherine is an actor, director, and instructor. She has been seen recently as Stephanie, POTUS (State Of Play Productions); Miranda, THE SHRINE (Elmwood Playhouse); Mags, MY OWN PERSONAL MERMAID (Spark Theater Festival, NYC); May, FOOL FOR LOVE (Axial Theatre Staged Reading); Tracey, SWEAT (Elmwood Playhouse) and in regional commercials, industrials, and indie films. She is a proud member of Axial Theatre, Elmwood Playhouse and State Of Play Productions. She teaches acting for SUNY Westchester. She has a BA in Theater from UNC Chapel Hill and has studied acting in Chicago and New York and with Rachel Jones and Howard Meyer.
Anthony Barresi, Jr. - Actor
Anthony was most recently seen in Axial's 2018 Twisted Valentine's production as Pete in Lisa Kimball's Miss Pudding Doesn’t Work Here Anymore and as Brian in Dear Crossing in the Spring 2017 production of Glass Ceiling Breakers. Other recent stage credits include: Lawrence in For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls, Demetrius in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Yakov in Chekhov's The Seagull, and several one-act plays, including All’s Fair in Love and Science, Stray Gloves, Balls, One-Hour Martinizing, and Three. Anthony is a proud veteran of the United States Air Force.
Sergio Arguelles Catare - Actor
Sergio is a Peruvian actor who has recently performed in Romeo & Juliet (Romeo) at Brewster Theater Company, Twelfth Night (Sebastian) at Brookfield Theater, and Eden's Echo (John), an original play, at Westchester Collaborative Theater. He has training from Howard Meyer’s Acting Program.
Marilyn Collazo - Actor
Marilyn has performed in several monologue and performance workshops. Axial Theatre credits include the role of Lisa in Gin Joint in the 2017 production of Twisted Valentines and as Maria in Words in a “Book in Hand” reading of Evelyn Mertens’ plays. She has also appeared in Westchester Collaborative Theater’s (WCT) mainstage production, Your New Neighbors, and in several WCT staged readings.
Lori Franzese - Actor
A SUNY Purchase graduate she has performed with many area theaters, as well as producing and co-hosting the local cable show, "Lights Up!" Numerous theatre roles include: Charlotte, Moon Over Buffalo; Lois, Wonder of the World; and M'Lynn, Steel Magnolias; countless episodes of The Play's the Thing on Cablevision; and a featured role on the Canadian paranormal series, Creepy Canada. She has also done radio spots for Gold's Gym, a LanguageMate infomercial, and had film roles in Runaway Overture and Wandering Off, among others.
Missy Flower - Actor
Missy was last seen in Tara Meddaugh’s THE VICTORY GARDEN PLAYS at the Westchester Collaborative Theater. Favorite recent roles include several murderous women, raccoons, rabbits, frogs and the Statue of Liberty.
Gail Greenstein - Actor
Gail has performed as Inez Pierce, in Peter Kelly’s Windows on the World at the Schoolhouse Playhouse in Croton Falls; as the nurse in Brian O’Neill’s Grass Island at HERE in NYC; as Stella in Linda Giulani’s Shroud of Turin; as Miriam in Tony Howarth’s Vigil at the American Globe Theater in NYC; as Nancy in Gabriella Fox’s Freedom Towers; and triple roles in Ryan Mallon’s Woes of the Unwittingly.
Other plays include: Last of the Red Hot Lovers, Mame, Sweet Charity, Fiddler on the Roof, and Westchester Broadway’s Damn Yankees which also toured throughout the Northeast United States, as well as an extensive United States tour of Stop the World---I Want to Get Off!. A former member of the Westchester Ballet Company, Gail has also choreographed and been dance captain for many shows.
Julie Griffin - Actor
Julie Griffin is a graduate of The Theater School at DePaul University in Chicago. She has performed as a member of Gotham City Improv NYC as well as The YES Show NYC. She is a proud member of Axial Theater as well as WCT in Westchester NY, and has performed in multiple plays for both companies. She also Teaches Improv at Theater O in Ossining and is also a Voice Over artist.
Anne Hammond - Actor
Anne Hammond has appeared in The Forced Marriage, The Doctor in Spite Of Himself, and Rhinoceros at Cincinnatti Playhouse-in-the-Park; The Playboy of the Western World, The Tempest, and Under Milkwood at Milwaukee Repertory Theatre; The Maids at Poet’s Theatre, Cambridge; Dos Passos’ USA at Provincetown Playhouse; the film of Tolstoy’s Power of Darkness, and the upcoming films Last Fall and Spotless.
Rachel Jones - Founding Member, Actor
Rachel is a founding member of Axial Theatre and on the faculty of the Howard Meyer Acting Program. She has directed many Axial productions including CRIMES OF THE HEART, DEAD MAN’S CELL PHONE, and co-directed with Catherine Banks VANYA, SONIA, MASHA and SPIKE, which won Broadway World’s Best Play of 2021 (Westchester/ Rockland County). In June of this year she directed the world premiere of OAT SQUARES by George Barnett for Theatre Works New Milford in New Milford, CT.
Lev Harvey - Actor
Most notably he played Happy Loman in New Yiddish Rep’s Death of a Salesman (2016 Drama Desk Nominee-Best Revival). Regional: Shear Madness and An Actor’s Carrol (Ivoryton Playhouse). New York Theatre: Twelfth Night, The Winter’s Tale, The Irish Hebrew Lesson, The Hot L Baltimore and The Last Night of Ballyhoo. Graduate of The American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Marisa Lowe - Actor
Marisa Lowe is an alum of Howard Meyer's Acting Program and the Michael Howard Studios Conservatory. She is an ensemble member of Axial Theatre and Westchester Collaborative Theater. Her most recent credits include staged readings of Selina Fillinger's POTUS: or BEHIND EVERY GREAT DUMBASS ARE SEVEN WOMEN TRYING TO KEEP HIM ALIVE(Jean) with State of Play Productions and Alice Eve Cohen's IN THE CERVIX OF OTHERS (Philomela). She also appeared in Alice Eve Cohen's DAYS OF AWE (Eve) - part of Axial's Best of Cactus Flowers Production.
Evelyn Mertens - playwright
Evelyn has had plays and monologues produced through Axial Theatre’s Life on Earth, Twisted Valentines, Gaslight Tango and Performance and Monologue Workshops; WCT’s one-act and monologue festivals; Irvington Town Hall Theater’s Stage Door series; the Aery 20/20 Festival where she was a finalist in 2015 and 2016; and Manhattan Rep.
Patrick McGuinness - Actor
Patrick has a theater degree from Binghamton University with post-graduate study at Trinity Rep Conservatory in Providence. He appeared in film as Junior in One Eyed King, directed by Academy Award-winning director Bobby Moresco. Theater credits include: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Godspell, South Pacific, Macbeth, Brigadoon, Rope and Arsenic and Old Lace, among many others. Patrick has performed on the Axial stage as J.P. in the world Premiere of Katie Baldwin Eng's Nectar and Charlie in Gabrielle Fox’s The Second Coming.
Najah Imani Muhammad - Actor
Najah Imani Muhammad is an Axial Theatre actor and director. Acting credits include McIntosh, (voiceover) Alhamdu short film (featured in Tribeca & Atlanta Film Festivals), “Mama” in A Raisin in the Sun (Heights Players), and The Dinner Detective, a live improv interactive show in NYC. She is also a teaching artist currently teaching programming for Disney Theatrical Group, The New Victory Theatre, Symphony Space, Summer Performing Arts with Juilliard, Leaders by Choice, a nonprofit organization she runs with her mother. Najah’s podcast, Underrepresented Representatives, is available through Spotify, Apple, and beyond @underreppedreps. @najahknows
Youlim Nam - Actor
Youlim Nam is a Brooklyn-based actor and playwright from Seoul, Korea. Her plays have been produced off-off-Broadway, including the experimental work a connected place, which received the 2021 City Artist Corps Grant and was selected for the Dramatists Guild's Friday Night Footlights® Program, directed by Emmy-winner Cady McClain. Nam performed in NEVER THE SINNER directed by McClain, with Axial Theatre, where she is an ensemble member. She is also a member of the Dramatists Guild and AEA, integrating post-modernist approaches like Six Viewpoints into her work to explore innovative forms of expression in theater.
Sandy Rooney - Actor
Select roles NYC: CHAIN REACTION (The Kraine Theater); THE ATOMIC VIEW MOTEL (Producer’s Club Crown Theater); JUSTICE AND PEACE (Roy Arias Stages); ACT NORMAL (Joria Productions Theater); EMILY (Sanford Meisner Theatre); PRINCE CHARMING (Theater Studio Inc.); MENAGE A FEMMES (American Theater of Actors). Regional: MAYBE TOMORROW; SUNDAY. New/Jersey; 3 MINUTES APART (Philipstown Depot Theatre); NECTAR; ACUSHLA; DREAM LOVER; DOUBLE DATE (Axial Theatre); DEDICATION; IMAGE OF WOMEN; CRAZY LADIES’ NIGHT OUT (Westchester Collaborative Theater). Sandy is a proud ensemble member of Axial Theatre in Pleasantville, and of Westchester Collaborative Theater in Ossining.
Mickey Pantano - Actor
Mickey trained with Robert Neff Williams (Voice and Diction), William Esper (Meisner Method and Master Class), Nikos Psacharopoulos (Williamstown Theater Festival), Joanne Zipay (Shakespeare), Deena Kaye (Singing), and Lloyd Williamson (Actor's Movement Studio). NY credits include: Hamlet (Nuance Theater); The Comic Artist (June Havoc Theater); The Skin of Our Teeth (Playwrights Horizon); Agave (NYC Fringe Festival); The Inner Circle (Sande Shurin Theater); Measure for Measure, The House of Bernarda Alba, and Trick or Treat (Kraine Theater); Burnt Sugar Cake (The Triad); The Secret Language of Circumstance (Ensemble Studio Theater); Court of Two Sisters (The Belt); Sin Chronos City (Raw Space). Regional credits include: Mame; Snow Angel; Anything Goes. Film: Return; Happy Birthday Lady; and The Little Man of the House.
Duane Rutter - Actor
Duane rekindled his love of acting 10 years ago when he became a student in Howard Meyer’s acting program. A graduate of the University of Evansville theatre program, Duane has always worked on both sides of the curtain. Hailing from Ohio, he worked in production at the Cleveland Play House and Cain Park before moving to New York where he has served as the Production, Stage and Operations Manager at Eisenhower Hall Theatre for the past 16 years. Duane is also an avid musician who sang and played throughout the region at clubs and weddings for 10 years.
Tom Ryan - Actor
A resident of Brooklyn, Tom has been training and acting in New York since 2019. While in conservatory at Michael Howard Studios he had his NY stage debut in Axial production Never the Sinner as Nathan Leopold Jr., under direction of Cady McClain and alongside Axial ensemble members. Upon completion of his conservatory training, Tom was signed by Avanti Talent Management, has been auditioning with them and performing various productions with Axial, as well as independent filmmakers throughout the New York area.
Jeff Schlotman - Actor
Jeff is appearing on Axial’s stage for the fourth time. Previously seen as Walter in Stiff Upper Lip for March Madness, he was also Charlie Aiken in 2019’s August Osage County. Other recent appearances include: the Stage Manager, Our Town; Froggy LeSeuer, The Foreigner; Colonel Gillweather, Something’s Afoot; Doctor Zubritsky, Fools; Producer Feldzieg, The Drowsy Chaperone; Nat Miller, Ah, Wilderness!; The Major General, The Pirates of Penzance; and Saunders, Lend Me A Tenor. He loves to don the mantle of “character” actor and “curmudgeon” and to that effect has been busy doing just that. Among his “rogues” are: Henry Higgins, My Fair Lady; Scrooge, A Christmas Carol; Captain Hook, Peter Pan; Juan Peron, Evita; Professor Callahan, Legally Blonde; Fagin, Oliver; Salieri, Amadeus; Oscar Madison, The Odd Couple; the King, The King & I; and Judge Danforth, The Crucible.
Dan Walworth - Actor
Dan Walworth is delighted to return to the Axial stage in the role of Man in THE CONSTITUENT Most recently, Dan appeared in GoJo Clan’s production of CLYBOURNE PARK (Russ/Dan), Axial’s book-in-hand production of FOOL FOR LOVE (Martin), and Barry Malawer’s AT THE THERAPIST (The Man). Earlier roles include RABBIT HOLE(Howie), CRIMES OF THE HEART (Barnette), and A DOLL’S HOUSE (Torvald), as well as countless smaller productions and staged readings in Axial’s Cactus Flowers, Safehouse, and Twisted Valentines series. Dan has been an Axial Ensemble Member since 2015 and has served as Axial Board President since 2024. He lives in South Salem with his wife and two teenage children.
Quinn Warren - Actor
Quinn Warren is an actor based in NYC. Recent work with Axial includes readings of THE SUBWAY PLAY, PROFESSOR SYCORAX, and a workshop production of THE PARK. Off Broadway: Ionesco’s THE KILLER (Theatre for a New Audience, directed by Tony Award winner Darko Tresnjak, starring Michael Shannon). Regional: REAR WINDOW (world premiere, Hartford Stage, Darko Tresnjak Dir., starring Kevin Bacon) TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (Arts Center of Coastal Carolina), Emily Mann’s MRS. PACKARD (world premiere, McCarter Theatre & Kennedy Center, Emily Mann Dir.). Quinn has studied with Howard Meyer and received her BFA in Theatre Arts from Stephens College. Proud member of Actors’ Equity and the Axial Ensemble.
Susan Ward - Actor
Susan Ward AEA is an Award Winning Actress, Playwright and Director currently living in Westchester County, NY In Spring 2024 she was featured in a new play that she co-wrote called “She Takes Flight” at the Chain Theater in NYC. You can see it at The Chain Theater in May/June 2025. Her Solo Show “Wasbian” Directed by Austin Pendelton won Best Autobiographical One Woman Show in the United Solo Festival in NYC. She has performed it in NYC and Westchester since 2019. She is an Honorary Member of Axial Theatre Company and a member of Westchester Collaborative Theater where she teaches Scene Study. susanwardactress.com
