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Membership Information: membership@auroraplayers.org
Playbill Information: playbill@auroraplayers.org
All other questions: info@auroraplayers.org
Phone
Mailing Address
Aurora Players
P.O. Box 206
East Aurora, NY 14052
Q & A with the cast
Director: Rebecca Caufield
Rebecca J Caufield holds a BA in Communication Arts: Theater from Eastern Nazarene College where she earned the Betty Blanchard Rice Award for Excellence in the Creative and Performing Arts and served as Assistant to the Technical Theater Director. There she had her directorial debut with August Strindberg’s Easter. Rebecca’s favorite directing credits include a psychedelic version of Anne Coulter Martens’ Alice in Wonderland, the multimedia piece And Then They Came for Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank by James Still and earned her stage fight cred with Noel Coward’s Private Lives. Her first stage appearance with Aurora Players was in Bright Star (2019). She directed The Jungle Book for Theater in Hamlin Park in 2023 and is a member of Aurora Players’ Board of Directors, where she also serves as the organization’s Recording Secretary.
Choreographer: Rebecca Runge
Rebecca Runge is a graduate of the Musical Theatre Performance Conservatory at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy New York campus and is excited to be making her debut as a choreographer with this show. She has previously been seen on the AP stage in Into The Woods (Witch), Bright Star (Lucy), She Loves Me (Ilona Ritter), Grease (Marty), and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (Gymnasia). Some of her local professional credits include Talley’s Folly (Red Thread Theater), It Shoulda Been You (O’Connell & Co), The Light In The Piazza (Second Generation), Spamalot (Lancaster Opera House), and My Fair Lady (Lancaster Opera House). Rebecca is an active member of the Aurora Players Play Reading Committee and is proud to call Aurora Players her theatre home. Thank you to her husband Evan, and her children Elliot and Oliver, for letting Mommy out of the house for “dance class.”
Music Director: Bob Sowyrda
Bob Sowyrda is a piano technician, multi-instrumental musician, composer and director. He is a recipient of the Mary and Gil Stott Award at Roycroft and a member of the Greater East Aurora Music Hall of Fame. In 1972 Bob received a Best Plays award from the Buffalo Courier Express for composing and directing the music for Aurora Players’ ProjectSTAGE play, No Play du Jour. Other music directing credits with Aurora Players include The Robber Bridegroom, The Fantasticks, Foxfire, Pajama Game and Bright Star. He has acted, playing the part of Rolf in The Sound of Music and a member of the barbershop quartet in The Music Man for Aurora Players. He also played piano for Aurora Players’ productions of Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and Little Shop of Horrors (1997). Bob directed choir for Baker Memorial UMC for 15 years and conducted orchestras for First Presbyterian Church of East Aurora and the East Aurora High School productions of Pajama Game and Anything Goes.
Cast Members
Eric Miller
Ladahlord
Danielle Horton
James
Katrina Leuzinger-Owens
Sponge
Jennifer Grzeskiewicz
Spiker
Bob Mazierski
Grasshopper
Jennifer Horton
Ladybug
Paul Perry
Centipede
Jason Gonser
Earthworm
Jenna Tasker
Spider
Ensemble:
Alexis Groundwater
Lacie Kowalezewski
James Kress
Richard Peresie
Nayadee Wilson
Testimonials
Great show. Great music! Great costumes! Great choreography! Great acting and directing…all great! Don’t miss it!
Magical show! Amazing performers, costumes, staging and music. I laughed and cried; it became a part of me! Highly recommend – it’s a performance for both children and adults!
James and the Giant Peach was superb! Music, dancing, acting, stage design and direction were all of the highest quality! Thoroughly enjoyable.
Awesome show. So glad I got to see this production!
We really enjoyed it!! It was our first time seeing a show there, we’ll be sure to come again.