Mark Wilding is a television writer and producer who lives in Los Angeles. Mark has written for and served as producer in both the sitcom and drama worlds for almost thirty-five years. His sitcom credits include Ellen, Dave’s World, Jesse, Caroline in the City, The Naked Truth, Becker, and Working. In 2005, The Cell, a pilot he co-wrote, was hailed by The New York Times as the “funniest unproduced script in Hollywood.” Drama credits include Jake 2.0, Charmed, Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, Good Girls, Promised Land, and Sheriff Country. Previously produced plays at Theatre West include The Goddamn Couple Down the Hall (Oh … and Merry Christmas) and Our Man in Santiago. The latter ran Off-Broadway for two months at the ADT Theatre in 2022.

Charlie directed Mark Wilding’s hit comedy Our Man in Santiago at New York’s Off-Broadway AMT Theatre after a successful run at Theatre West. He also directed Mark’s holiday comedy The Goddamn Couple Down the Hall … Oh, and Merry Christmas! Also at Theatre West, Charlie directed Beau Bridges and Emily Bridges in the original production of Acting: The First Six Lessons, Without Annette and co-produced, with Ray Bradbury and his Pandemonium Theatre Company, Ray’s play Falling Upward with Pat Harrington Jr. He produced Jim Beaver’s play Verdigris. As the artistic director of the critically acclaimed Chestnuts Theatre program at Theatre West, Charlie also produced and directed Seascape, Gaslight, The Fantasticks (with Lee Meriwether), and Waiting in the Wings (with the Ovation-nominated Betty Garrett), and earned a “Best Play in LA” Ovation nomination for his staging of Waiting for Lefty. Charlie’s own plays include The Leather Apron Club and Against the Wall (both at Theatre West), Trumpets and Table-Tipping (Theatre 40), The Spirits of Walpurgisnacht (Wicked Lit), and Here Be Dragons (Whitefire Theatre). Along with Jeff Rack, Charlie is the co-artistic director of Arcane Theatreworks, where they created Martians: An Evening with Ray Bradbury (at the Whitefire Theatre, in which Charlie played the title role), as well as the award-winning dramatic podcast The Mysterious Card as part of the series Theatre of the Mind. Charlie is also a professional magician who appeared on the television special Magic’s Greatest Illusions, hosted by Jason Alexander, and performs regularly at the world-famous Magic Castle in Hollywood. He is married to the wonderful Arden Teresa Lewis, an Emmy-winning filmmaker, playwright, and director. charliemount.com

Garry Kluger is an author and award-winning playwright with three books, nineteen plays, two television pilots, and twelve documentaries to his credit.

Garry’s plays A Thorn in the Family Paw and Walking in Space, which premiered at Theatre West, both won Best New Play from the Stage Scene L.A. Awards, with the former also winning Best Writer from the Valley Theatre Awards. He won the DFAP International One Act Festival for The Other Half; the Gold Award for Office Hours; the Silver Award for In a Yellow Wood from the World Series of Screenwriting; and a Highly Recommended designation from the Segora Playwrights Festival in France for Prodigal Returns. He was twice a finalist at the Sterts Theatre in London for The Other Half and Brotherhood. Garry has produced Theatre Rocks, Turkey Tales, Love Is a Journey, Family Only, The Man Who Saved Everything, WestFest, Walking in Space, Sally Spectre, The Goddamn Couple Down the Hall, Cassatt, Twisted, and several other shows.

Bella Balsamo is an actor with over twenty years of stage and screen experience. She was raised in Los Angeles but grew up in New York, where she studied at Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute while working as an actor and producer across multiple performing arts mediums in the U.S. and internationally. She has made a significant splash in the underrated theatre scene in Los Angeles and recently acted opposite David Arquette in Killing Hitler, directed by Danny A, to be released in 2027. She is a working member of The Actors Studio and has recently branched out into directing theatre. When she was fourteen, Bella declared publicly that she would win an Oscar by age twenty-six. She just turned twenty-seven.

Danielle Weeks was a member of Sunday Company at the famed Groundlings Theatre. Selected television and film credits include Will & Grace Reunion, How I Met Your Mother, Cougar Town, Scrubs, and Campus Ladies. Most recently, Baby Love, a pilot that Danielle co-wrote and starred in, premiered at SXSW. She has been seen in over 100 national commercials.

John was recently seen in Charlie Mount’s new play Here Be Dragons at the Whitefire Theatre while also appearing at the Morgan-Wixson Theatre in the classic comedy You Can’t Take It with You, directed by Cate Caplin. At Theatre West, John was in The Home Depot and Leaky Brain Syndrome and won an “Outstanding Actor” award for his performance in Mark Wilding’s comedy The Goddamn Couple Down the Hall (Oh! and Merry Christmas). John also received an award for his work last year in Becky’s New Car at Theatre 40 (also directed by Cate Caplin). John has worked with many theatre companies in D.C., New York City, and Los Angeles (e.g., Antaeus, Circle X, Present Company, and Gangbusters), as well as regionally. He has also done lots of television shows and films, most recently the feature film The Dollkeeper, plus a heck of a lot of commercials. John’s favorite role is Joe Keller in All My Sons—which he has done three times! John is grateful to be a part of this new Mark Wilding play.

*Courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association.

Clara Rodriguez enjoys writing, acting, and directing. Theatre West productions include Pointy Scissors, which she wrote and directed, and many WestFest shows. Clara was recently seen in Inside the Box (performed as part of the Hollywood Fringe) and Harold and Maude, True West, The Game’s Afoot, and In My Mind’s Eye at Group Rep Theatre, where she’s also a member.

Theatre credits include North Coast Repertory: Beau Jest; Latino Theater Company: Mix-Mix; Theatre West: The Goddamn Couple Down the Hall; International City Theatre: Myra, Deathtrap; Wallis Theatre: The Bluest Eye (workshop production); Open Fist Theatre Company: Ofelia, Anna in the Tropics; West Coast Jewish Theatre: Kate, Broadway Bound; Mark Taper Forum: Ensemble, Body of Bourne (world premiere); Laguna Playhouse: Germaine, Picasso at the Lapin Agile; and South Coast Repertory: Sofia, Two Sisters and a Piano (West Coast premiere). Television and film credits include Matlock, Bosch: Legacy, 9-1-1, Yellowstone, This Is Us, The Neighborhood, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Good Place, Made for Love, and Criminal Minds. Voice-over credits include Zom 100, Demon Slayer, The Grimm Variations, In/Spectre, Blue Exorcist, and Lupin Part 6, as well as several video games.

Steve Nevil is very happy to be reunited with the creative team of playwright Mark Wilding and director Charlie Mount, having most recently worked with them on the Christmas comedy-mystery The Goddamn Couple Down the Hall. Previous to that, he appeared as the thirty-seventh president, Richard Nixon, in Mark’s critically acclaimed comedy-thriller Our Man in Santiago, first at Theatre West and the next year Off-Broadway at the AMT. Steve studied at Circle in the Square in New York and received his master’s degree in acting at UCLA. It was there he was discovered in an acting competition by legendary actress Olivia de Havilland. From there, almost fifty years of film and television appearances have followed (see his IMDb). Steve was a regular as son Chris on the ill-fated McLean Stevenson Show and was recurring on the NBC series Mama’s Family (in the ’80s) and Hope and Gloria (in the ’90s). He was proud to have worked with Gregory Peck on the classic CBS miniseries The Blue and the Gray (over a hundred million viewers at the time). Steve also played the lead in the very first HBO series pilot, Over Here, Mr. President, a comedy that took place in the White House.

Steve’s Los Angeles theatre appearances include The Tempest (with Roscoe Lee Browne and John Rubinstein), Carl Reiner’s Something Different (West Coast premiere, with four—count ’em, four—sets of twins), The Genius (with Mare Winningham, Taper Forum), Period of Adjustment (directed by Marcia Rodd), and The Fantasticks (with Lee Meriwether, directed by Charlie Mount). Steve also directed the critically acclaimed production of Chris Durang’s A History of the American Film at the CAST Theatre, as well as playing the Fonda-created Tom Joad character in the show.

As a playwright, Steve’s one-person show As Always, Jimmy Stewart (created at Theatre West’s Writers’ Workshop and approved by the Stewart family) has been touring the U.S. for twenty-two years and was recently taped for PBS. His Elayne Heilveil–directed play Welcome to Heretofore won the Hollywood Fringe Better Lemons Award in 2017. The following year, his full-length play The Night Forlorn, a western inspired by Beckett, Peckinpah, and Sam Shepard and directed by Emmy winner Arden Teresa Lewis, won the Valley Theatre Award for Best Play of the Season. His upcoming projects include The Full Moon High of Steve McQueen, about the last year in the life of the famous film star, and—with co-writer John Hammond—The Caine Rehearsals, about the turbulent backstory behind the creation of the ’50s Henry Fonda–Charles Laughton Broadway hit The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial. Steve is extremely excited to be part of this amazing creative team and the wonderful cast of The Feel Good Story America Needs Right Now.

Sam Gregory is one half of Sam Hill Productions, an independent production company that creates absurd comedy shorts. She has appeared in stage productions of Forum, Top Girls, Rocky Horror, Mark Wilding’s Goddamn Couple, Cassatt, various Shakespeare adaptations, etc. Notable television credits include a recurring role on NBC’s Good Girls as a fun junkie, or “funkie,” as no one is calling it.

Casey Alcoser is a Los Angeles–based actor who recently made his Theatre West debut earlier this year in Michael Van Duzer’s Incitation to the Dance. A graduate of the Stella Adler Art of Acting Studio, his other credits include theatre: Our Town, My Spirits Soar, Unhappily Married in Valencia, As You Like It, RANT, Mirror, Mirror, Vivian Vance Alive and Well, Arena: A House Music-al, Gideon and the Blundersnorp, Landscape of the Body, and All’s Well That Ends Well; television: The Stanford Prison Experiment and Feeling Bad; and film: The Faithful Brethren of Pitt Street. You can find him on Instagram @quotablecasey or check out his direly-in-need-of-updating website, caseyalcoser.com.

It’s wonderful to be back onstage at Theatre West in Mark Wilding’s new play and to work with Charlie again. Paul was last seen as Leslie in Edward Albee’s Seascape, earning an Ovation nomination for his self-designed lizard costumes; Joe in Waiting for Lefty, which received an Ovation nomination for Best Play; Beck in Martians: An Evening with Ray Bradbury at the Whitefire Theatre; Hamlet in Classic Couples Counseling, which received the Valley Theatre League Award for Best Play at the Secret Rose Theatre; and Al in The Baby Dance, for which he received a Drama-Logue Award for his performance at Renegade Theatre. He co-stars as William S. Paley in the Paramount+ miniseries The Offer, about the making of The Godfather. paulgunning.net

Jeff has worked in many different areas of the film and entertainment industry over the last forty years, including as an art director for films and commercials, working on ride show vehicles for Universal and Disney, and as an EFX artist on major films.

Probably best known to Los Angeles theater patrons for his award-winning set designs, Jeff has designed and built over 400 productions from Santa Barbara to Edinburgh, Scotland, and New York.

Jeff was one of the founders of Unbound Productions and its very successful flagship production, Wicked Lit, which took classic horror literature and presented it theatrically in alternative venues. His adaptations, many of which he also directed, are available through Dramatists Play Service.

Some of his recent directing credits include the world premieres of Power and Light, Death, with Benefits, and Villainy, about serial killer H. H. Holmes. Under his own theater company, Arcane Theatreworks, he directed two other world-premiere plays, Stories from the Zone and Martians: An Evening with Ray Bradbury, which, with Ray’s blessing, he co-wrote and co-produced with his partner Charlie Mount. Some other shows Jeff has directed are Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, PEN, The Mystery Plays, and The Birds.

Sarah Acuna is delighted to be a part of the Theatre West family as their stage manager. Sarah’s previous work includes Incitation to the Dance, Sleighful of Songs, and The Age of Aquarius. She holds a BA in theatre from California State University, Northridge. Sarah is deeply grateful for the unwavering support of her friends, family, and her dog, Milo.