with Peter Fitzsimmons, Jaime Gutierrez, Felix Justice, Hector Osorio, and Nell Schwartz
directed by C. J. Verburg

Fellowship Theater Guild
2041 Larkin St., San Francisco (between Broadway & Vallejo)

TWO ADDITIONAL PERFORMANCES:

Friday, October 14 & Monday, October 17, 2005

8:00 PM

Warning:  Strong Language!

Tickets $20 / Students $18 / $2 off with valid MUNI pass or transfer

For reservations and information call (415) 776-4910 or e-mail fellowshiptheater@yahoo.com

Tickets are available on-line at www.TheaterMania.com and at the TIX booth in Union Square ~ visit theatrebayarea.org for more information.

Fellowship Theater Guild
2041 Larkin St., San Francisco (between Broadway & Vallejo)

For directions and parking information, click here.

REVIEWS  ::  Will be added as they become available

Berkeley Daily Planet   (July 26, 2005)

www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/article.cfm?issue=07-26-05&storyID=21952

SF Weekly "Picks" for 7/30/05    (July 27, 2005)

http://www.sfweekly.com/Issues/2005-07-27/calendar/nightday2.html

SF BayView - Preview Info   (July 27, 2005)

http://sfbayview.com/071305/jesushopped071305.shtml

JESUS HOPPED THE ‘A’ TRAIN  ::  PARTICIPANTS

Peter Fitzsimmons (Valdez) is a native San Franciscan who has been acting professionally since age seven. He earned his B.A. in Theater at UC Santa Cruz and his M.F.A. in Theater at UCLA. After working in television, movies, and commercials in Los Angeles, Pete returned to San Francisco and live theater. In 1990, he co-founded the Fellowship Theater Guild with Felix Justice, where (among others) he produced and acted in Luv and A Member Of The Wedding and directed I’m Not Rappaport. Other favorite acting assignments include Julian Theater’s Back To Back (Drama Critics Award for Best Actor); Berkeley Rep’s Kingdom Come; San Francisco Rep’s Dream Play; Berkeley Shakespeare Festival’s The Tempest; Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Fences; Magic Theater’s Barrancas; Lorraine Hansberry Theatre’s A Raisin In The Sun; and Venture Theater’s Billy Budd, winner of six Dramalogue Awards, including best production, which he also associate produced. With producer/director Stanley Williams of the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, he created and performed the one-man show Forever Free! The Life and Times of Sargent Johnson. Most recently, Pete completed two acting roles for the History Channel’s new T.V. series “Man Moment Machine”: he can be seen this fall as Gen. Colin Powell in an episode about the M1A1 Tank, and as inventor Garrett Morgan in an episode about the Gas Mask /Lake Erie Mining Disaster Rescue. The son of San Francisco jazz trumpeter Allen Smith, Pete is a founding member of Patricia Nacey’s “Friends of Jazz.” He narrated the documentary of San Francisco’s historic jazz nightclubs, “The Legend Of Bop City,” and is proudly involved with the San Francisco Fillmore Heritage Center and revitalized jazz district.

Jaime Gutierrez (Charlie D’Amico) is a native San Franciscan who was bitten by the acting bug in the fall of 2001. After taking a few acting classes at CCSF he has appeared there in The Seagull and Night of the Iguana. Most recently he played Mitch in the Coastal Repertory Company’s production of A Streetcar Named Desire. A UC Berkeley graduate, Jaime is very happy to be a part of this production, and hopes that it will be a springboard to inspiration and creativity for everyone involved.

Felix Justice (Lucius Jenkins) first presented Prophecy in America, a one-man show which highlights key writings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., at San Francisco’s Lorraine Hansberry Theatre in early 1981. Ten years later, he and long-time colleague Danny Glover began performing An Evening with Langston (Hughes) and Martin, which remains popular on the college circuit. Felix grew up in Florence, SC, and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley. His theater teachers were Robert Johnson and John Collins in San Francisco and Julie Bovasso in New York. His stage debut was in a 1961 San Francisco production of Oscar Wilde’s Salome; later he played the lead role in James Baldwin’s Blues for Mister Charlie. He has appeared in scores of productions, including The Private Ear, Antigone, The Curious Savage, The River Niger, I’m Not Rappaport, Henry V, The Death Machines, and Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act. As a director, his work includes Luv, Companions of the Fire, and The Trials of Brother Jero. His interest in African drama led him to direct Danny Glover and Bennet Guillory in Athol Fugard’s The Blood Knot at The Committee in North Beach. Felix is a founding director of Fellowship Theater Guild; he lives in Berkeley.

Hector Osorio (Angel Cruz) grew up not far from where Angel did in New York City, after moving there with his family at age one from Colombia. He studied acting at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, and has appeared on San Francisco stages as Lopakhin in The Cherry Orchard (Studio A.C.T.), Bob the Scientist in Little Red vs. the Undead (Spotted Mushroom Productions), and Ed in The Woman in Armor (Parched Camel / BOA4). He also has had roles in several independent short films shot in San Francisco. Hector is thrilled to have the opportunity to play this challenging role, in a powerful play, with a great cast, crew, and director. www.hectorosorio.com/acting

Nell Schwartz (Mary Jane Hanrahan) was born right here in the beautiful cool gray city of love, San Francisco, and grew up amongst the rolling green hills of the East Bay in Lafayette. She has been juggling her day job as a corporate video producer with studio work at the American Conservatory Theater for the past five years. Right off the heels of her last course, a Eugene O’Neill intensive, Nell was happy to land the role of Mary Jane in Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train, while being introduced to the welcoming community here at the historic Fellowship Church. Some of Nell’s other savory roles include Lyubov Ranevskaya in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, at the Altarena, and Miss Allstop in local writer / performer Sean Kelly’s Measured Cuts. Nell also acted in and produced Academy Award winner John Patrick Shanley’s Savage in Limbo and James McLure’s Laundry and Bourbon. She also played Nell in the short film Chemistry, a black and white comedy about grief and loss by San Francisco filmmaker Stephen Muller.

Courtney Brown (Technical Director) is a classically trained bass-baritone and a dramatic actor who has worked in all phases of theater, including photography, sound design, set design, and lighting. He frequently photographs plays for San Francisco’s Lorraine Hansberry Theatre; his fashion and editorial photography has appeared in national magazines, advertising and newspapers. Courtney’s company, Best of Cabaret, LLC, provides expertise in creating digital media to performers and production companies. This one-stop resource offers a full range of entertainment production services in downtown San Francisco, including a photography studio, a 24 track digital recording studio (http://www.SingersRecordingStudio.com), and an internet/streaming content studio. As a performer, Courtney was a principal in the world premiere of a new arrangement of Scott Joplin’s opera “Treemonisha,”and appeared in the debuts of two new operas by composer Kirke Mechem. He currently studies voice with Marian Kasper, voice judge for San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the Leontyne Price Opera Competition. Music was what led Courtney to study electrical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, and to design a digital sound synthesizer for his senior project. While there he danced & choreographed with the Penn Dance company, under the direction of Mannfred Fischbeck, while performing in various dramatic and musical roles. He also holds a master’s degree in computer science from Stevens Institute of Technology.

C.J. Verburg (Producing Director)’s lifelong passion for playwriting and directing emerged at age one with a cast of stuffed animals. Carol won her first playwriting award in eighth grade; at Mount Holyoke College her script for the 1968 Junior Show became the world’s first rock musical. Although she had already left her heart in San Francisco, publishing called her to Massachusetts, where she became an editor at Little, Brown & Co. and Addison-Wesley, and authored four editions of the international anthology Ourselves Among Others. As head of the Provincetown Playwrights’ Workshop and Theatre Company, she began a 10-year collaboration with the late artist Edward Gorey. At Theater on the Bay (Bourne) Carol produced more original “entertainments” by Gorey, children’s classes, and two coproductions with the Black Theatre Ensemble, including her play Lady Day in Love (later a staged reading at San Francisco’s Eureka Theatre). As head of the Cotuit Center for the Arts theater program, her directing projects included Hamlet, with sets by Edward Gorey, and the unofficial U.S. premiere of Peter Shaffer’s The Gift of the Gorgon. In San Francisco she became coordinator of new play development for the Eureka Theatre; her drama The Abduction was chosen for the Utah Shakespearean Festival’s Plays in Progress series; and her post-Gold Rush play Belle of the West appeared in the Magic Theatre’s Z-Magic Mondays series. She lives in North Beach and rejoices at her good fortune to be working with this outstanding script, cast, and crew. Papa Was a Rolling Stone: A Christmas Story, which she created with Edward Gorey, tentatively will open here at FTG in November.

The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples was founded in 1944

by Dr. Howard Thurman and Dr. Alfred Fisk as the nation's first interracial interfaith congregation.

2041 Larkin Street (near Broadway), San Francisco, CA 94109
Phone: (415) 776-4910 | Email: info@fellowshipsf.org