Schwartz Center welcomes six professional actors to stage, classroom

The Cornell Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts offers professional-quality theater to its audiences each season with its blend of talented students and professional actors. During its 2004-05 season, the Schwartz Center will feature six professional actors as part of its Resident Professional Teaching Associates (RPTA) program. After an extensive interview and audition process in New York City, these working actors come to Cornell for a yearlong residency, during which they act on stage and teach undergraduate classes.

Last season Schwartz Center audiences had the chance to see the dynamic work of two RPTAs who are returning for their third year: Sarah K. Chalmers and Laurence Drozd. Last season Chalmers played the Abbess in The Comedy of Errors and Joanne in Company. Look for Chalmers this year as Queen Agrippina in The Nero Project. Drozd received considerable attention for his roles as Creon in Antigone, Antipholus of Ephesus in The Comedy of Errors and Jim Casy in The Grapes of Wrath. Drozd will play Linder in the season opening play, A Raisin in the Sun.

Godfrey L. Simmons Jr. returns to the stage for the second time as an RPTA. Last season Simmons played Tiresias in Antigone, Egeon in The Comedy of Errors and Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath. He will be playing the lead role of Walter Lee in A Raisin in the Sun.

Audiences will see three new faces on the Schwartz Center stage: Patrick Rameau, Laura Beth Wells and Peter Zazzali. Rameau has worked in theater regionally and in Europe, including the New York Shakespeare Festival, Ubu Repertory and the international tour of Angels in America. He has appeared in a USA feature film and on "Law and Order Criminal Intent," "One Life to Life" and "Loving." Look for Rameau as Bobo in A Raisin in the Sun.

Wells is a talented singer who has sung and acted in New York as well as regional theater, including Theatreworks, Broadway by the Bay and New Harmony Theatre. She earned her MFA in theater performance from Kent State University. Wells will be a principal singer in the musical revue Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, which will be performed at the Schwartz Center in October.

Zazzali recently has been working with The Acting Company and Target Margin Theatre in New York City. Other regional theater credits include the Utah Shakespeare Festival, New Jersey Performing Arts Center and Fort Worth Shakespeare. Zazzali also has been seen on "All My Children." He earned his MFA from the University of Delaware. Zazzali will be a principal singer in the Schwartz Center's Jacques Brel.

The Schwartz Center's six professional actors will display their talents at the annual RPTA Showcase on Sunday, Sept. 5, at 2 p.m. in the Class of '56 Flexible Theatre. The performance is free and open to the public.