WHO WE ARE
The Vicious Circle was founded in 2010 by Jerry Marsini, Meredith Lynsey Schade, and Tony Speciale to create, develop and produce new, ensemble-based works. The company is currently represented on Broadway with The Inheritance by Matthew Lopez.
Past projects have included producing the international Gun Control Theatre Action Week festival of plays with NoPassport, the development of the play Buyer Beware or “How Lenny Bruce Found a Safe Space” (and lost it again) by Michael Weller, Locust Song by Jerry Marsini, Unnatural Acts by Plastic Theatre (Classic Stage Company), and Soulographie: Our Genocides, a series of 17 plays written by Erik Ehn on human rights issues – the latter of which was produced across the nation over the course of two years, culminating in a two-week marathon at La MaMa in November 2012.
Jerry Marsini
Playwright | Performer | Producer |
Creative Director | Graphic Designer | Production Designer
Jerry Marsini is a NY based actor, writer, creative director and visual artist. Theater: Brecht on Brecht (Accidental Repertory Theatre), Bald Diva! and I, Claudius Live (Theatre Askew), The West Village Fragments (Peculiar Works Projects), Antony and Cleopatra and The Stranger (DM Theatrics), MONO (Another Urban Riff), Drinks Before Dinner (Inside Art Theatre Co.), Hamlet and The Viscount (Gemini Collision Works), Mephisto (Theater of Necessity and Reverie Prods) and Charles Ludlam’s Der Ring Gott Farblonjet (Nada Show World Ridicu-Fest). Film: The Likes of Us, A Rogue in Londinium, Man With Midnight Eyes and Exodus 20:13. Mr. Marsini is a member AEA and Accidental Repertory Theater. He is a graduate of Duke University and The Actors Center Conservatory. www.marsini.com
Meredith Lynsey Schade
Creative Producer
Meredith Lynsey Schade is a two-time Tony Award-winning commercial and non-profit producer with two decades in the theatre industry. Recent credits include the Broadway productions of The Inheritance; Hadestown; Network; What the Constitution Means to Me; The Glass Menagerie; A Doll’s House Part 2; Hello Dolly; The Front Page; Spring Awakening; Bridges of Madison County; and Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (Tony Award). Off-Broadway: Nevermore: The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe (New World Stages); Uncle Vanya with Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Saarsgaard, The Forest with Diane Wiest, and Venus in Fur (Classic Stage Company). As a founder of The Vicious Circle, she has produced the international Gun Control Theatre Action Week; the two-year, international, 17-play cycle by Erik Ehn titled Soulographie (including its two week marathon of performances at La Mama); and the developed the devised play Unnatural Acts (Classic Stage Company). The former Executive Director of ArtWallah, she also founded the e-play periodical StageReads and has worked in various capacities with Classic Stage Company, Ars Nova, Dee Gee Theatricals, the Center for New Performance, Connecticut Repertory Theatre, Barrington Stage Company, and on a number of independent films. As Producing Director at HERE Arts Center, she premiered the techno-opera Looking at You by Rob Handel, Kristin Marting, and Kamala Sankaram; Leah Coloff’s ThisTree, and Rob Roth’s Soundstage. She was the general manager of the six-month long celebrated revival of Basil Twist’s Symphonie Fantastique, and oversaw the U.S. premiere of the Royal Opera House’s 4.48 Psychosis at the 2019 PROTOTYPE Festival. She serves on the board of The Assembly and has consulted with a number of organizations in creating new strategic and board development plans.
Tony speciale
Director | Writer
Director Tony Speciale conceived, coauthored and directed the Off-Broadway world premiere of Unnatural Acts (Classic Stage Company—Drama Desk Award nominee, GLAAD Media Award nominee). From 2015-2018, Tony served as Artistic Director of Abingdon Theatre Company, an off-Broadway theatre company dedicated to developing and producing new American work. NYC: The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey (Dixon Place, Westside Theatre); A Midsummer Night’s Dream featuring Bebe Neuwirth, Christina Ricci, Steven Skybell and Taylor Mac (Classic Stage Company); The Boy Who Danced On Air, The Dork Knight, The Gentleman Caller (Abingdon Theatre Company); and Matthew-Lee Erlbach’s Handbook for an American Revolutionary (The Gym at Judson). Regional: Angels in America: Millennium Approaches & Perestroika (St. Louis Rep); The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey (National Tour: Kirk Douglas, Old Globe, Bay Street, Hartford Stage, Laguna Playhouse, Philadelphia Theatre Company); Barry Manilow’s Harmony (Alliance Theatre, Ahmanson Theatre); and Romeo and Juliet (Actors Theatre of Louisville). Tony has developed new work at Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor, The Goodman Theatre’s New Stages Festival, Sundance Theatre Lab at Mass MoCA and The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival. His work has also been seen at the New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF), HERE Arts Center and La MaMa. As a solo writer, his play Delirium was presented at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where it was honored with a British Writers’ Guild Award. Tony spent four seasons at Classic Stage Company (CSC) as Associate Artistic Director where he helped found, directed and taught for The Young Company, CSC’s award-winning Education and Outreach Initiative. A former Actors Theatre of Louisville apprentice, he studied musical theatre at The Boston Conservatory and holds an MFA in Directing from Columbia University. He currently teaches as an Adjunct Professor in Theatre at SUNY New Paltz and Columbia University, and is the proud recipient of a Princess Grace Theatre Honorarium and Suzi Bass Award. tonyspeciale.com