BIOGRAPHIES

Cast of  The Beauty of Disaster

(In Order of Appearance)

AMELIA MATHEWS

(Claire)

Classically trained, Amelia has played roles from Shakespeare to Tennessee Williams, working in American regional theaters, Off-Off-Broadway and independent film. She received her MFA in Acting from the University of Tennessee, and has also trained with master teachers in Bali, Italy, Serbia and Japan.

Amelia has played Masha in Chekov's Three Sisters, Constanza Mozart in Amadeus (co-production of Clarence Brown Theater and Knoxville Symphony Orchestra), the Woman in Will Eno's The Flu Season, Solange in Jean Genet's The Maids and Sally Bowles in Cabaret, among others. 

Her first cinematic effort, So Far, was recently accepted into the Short Film Corner at the 2014 Cannes International Film Festival. Upcoming shorts include Catherine in an adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's Long Walk to Forever, Daphne in RSVP and Claire in The Beauty of Disaster.  

Amelia’s first independent feature Yesterday Last Year, is due to be completed early summer 2015.

ROGER WAYNE

(Franklin) 

Maybe it’s Roger Wayne’s Minnesota roots or his two-year stint as a U.S. Air Force radio and TV journalist in South Korea. Regardless, there was something about his quiet, strong, sexy and sometimes enraged demeanor that made him just the ticket for Franklin in The Beauty of Disaster.

Wayne's latest acting gigs include a co-starring role in HBO's Show Me a Hero, directed by Paul Haggis, as well as a role in Jonathan Demme's 2014 release The Center. He also recently played lead roles in two other productions  debuting in 2015: Red Ice, from New Century Pictures, and Victory Blood, directed by Frank Dauro (Blue Bloods).

He has been featured in a long list of theater productions, among them: Times Square Arts Center’s productions of A Better Man and Raft of the Medusa; Theater in the Round’s Lost in Yonkers; two Guthrie Theater productions, A Streetcar Named Desire and M. Butterfly, and Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Co.’s Pirates of Penzance.

Wayne was trained at The Guthrie Theater, John Desotelle Studio, Augsburg College as well as Telsey & Co.

KATHERINE HENLY

(Cleo)

Actor, singer, dancer, cheeseburger aficionado and banana bread enthusiast, Katherine Henly will always opt for more whipped cream and will never turn down the chance to hear a good joke.

Katherine earned her bachelor’s degree in vocal performance from Ithaca College and her master’s degree in vocal performance from Brigham Young University. 

Praised for what has been described as her “captivating” voice and finesse onstage, she has sung as a guest artist with Utah Lyric Opera, the UVU Symphony and Palisades Virtuosi.

Based in New York, she has performed in the New York Musical Theatre Festival (The Hills Are Alive!), The New York International Fringe Festival (Someone To Belong To), The National Music Theater Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, The Royal Opera House in Muscat, Oman; and with Utah Festival Opera, The Glimmerglass Festival, The York Theatre, and Hawaii Opera Theatre.

Equally as passionate about dancing as she is about singing and acting, she was Assistant Choreographer for Before I Disappear (winner of the Audience Award at the 2014 SXSW Film Festival), the feature film version of Curfew (2012 Academy Award Winner for Best Live Action Short Film), and regularly performs with LINKED Dance Theatre, a dance collaborative in New York City. Her choreographic debut, To A Stranger, was selected and performed in the Locally Grown Dance Festival in Ithaca, NY.

She can also be seen, on occasion, singing in Yoruba with Laolu and the Afromysterics, a Brooklyn-based Afrobeat band led by Nigerian artist and musician, Laolu Senbanjo.

REGINA BARTKOFF

(Bunny)

Regina Bartkoff is an actress and a painter. She recently has been seen in leading roles in three Tennessee Williams plays in New York: Now the Cats With Jeweled Claws, with Mink Stole and Everett Quinton at La Mama as well as In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel and The Two Character Play at 292 Theatre.

JANET STILSON

(Sour Woman)

Please see Janet's bio in the "Biographies - Crew" section of this site.