FARAN FONTE

Faran’s spark for acting began at a very young age.  However, growing up in Arkansas there was not much opportunity to pursue his dream.  The only exception was his first film acting class at the age of ten, which was conducted by a visiting old Western star Clu Gulager and his son John (director on Project Greenlight 2005).  Despite not having a thriving theater or film market in his own backyard, he was fortunate enough to build the foundation for any good actor – a well-rounded life rich in experience and adventure. 

Thanks to his free-spirited Mom he was able to mix the charm of growing up in a small town with the life lessons he gained from seeing all 50 states and over 14 countries, which included living in Kenya for six months (including two months in the bush with the Maasai tribe), all by the time he was thirteen. 

Upon moving to California when he was fifteen, Faran was finally able to begin the journey.  Doing several plays in High school, he also began taking classes with Gary in 1996, which really fueled his momentum and passion for acting and film.  In college he was first a film major at SMC and CSU Long Beach, writing and directing (as well as acting) in a number of his own short films.  During this time he also acted in film and stage productions at USC, Art Center College, The Odyssey Theatre, etc.  He eventually got his B.A. in Theatre at UCLA, and enjoyed many more performances onstage there, as well as the chance to sharpen his skills ranging from improv and sketch comedy to Shakespeare.  Outside of school he has worked extensively as an intern for New Regency Productions and Fox Feature Casting, gaining a thorough understanding of the business from all sides.  He is an avid writer, having completed and continually working on several scripts and short stories.  He has also been awarded with a fellowship from The Scriptwriter’s Network for scriptwriting.

Faran has been assistant teaching with Gary since the Spring of 2002.  In 2004 he helped teach and establish an after school drama program at Van Nuys Middle School.  Being a part of the Playground has been a dream, and teaching has always been a great opportunity to understand and refine his own craft and share his passion with others. 

EMILY HAASE

Though she started acting as a young teen, Emily fell in love with the paradoxical discipline and freedom of the stage in college. She realized that as we grow older, many of us stop playing and start worrying about "how it’s going to turn out." And usually, the best art happens when you’re having fun and making discoveries in the process, not stressing about how it’s going to come out. About that time, she started working as an instructor at a drama camp for kids, and found kids were really good at figuring out how to have fun and still make great art.

REBECCA KLINGLER

Rebecca Klingler knew she wanted to be on stage at the age of 4, playing 45 records of Peter Pan over and over as she danced around the living room in rural Indiana.
Cut to: Twenty-six years later.  On Rebecca’s 30^th birthday she began rehearsals for her beloved story in the title role at Playhouse on the Square in Memphis, Tennessee.  Beforehand, she acquired some experience, of course, including a Bachelor’s degree in Theatre from the University of Evansville in Southern Indiana, which gave her the opportunity to play a leading role in All the Way Home at the Kennedy Center as part of The American College Theatre Festival.

A youthful passion for social change then led Rebecca to New Hampshire, where she had worked with a variety of theatre companies, including The Kitchen Sink Mime, with whom she toured throughout the state, performing and conducting acting workshops in public grade schools.

After a year of repertory theatre in Memphis, Rebecca headed for San Francisco, where she spent the next six years with the not-so-silent, San Francisco Mime Troupe, doing musical political satire.  Rebecca was part of the ensemble of the Troupe’s Obie Award-winning production of Seeing Double, a poignant farce about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.  With The Mime Troupe, Rebecca taught Commedia dell ‘Arte workshops in schools throughout Northern California. While in San Francisco, Rebecca shot her first film, Copy Cat, playing the killer’s wife.  At that point, Hollywood beckoned.  She made the move to the South Land to pursue her acting career, and to investigate a long-time goal of teaching acting to kids, hopefully with the help of a guy she had heard was the best kids’ coach around, Gary Spatz. Since her arrival in 1996, Rebecca has played memorable roles in films including Titanic, LA Confidential, The Green Mile, and Best Laid Plans.  Her television roles include Angel, The Practice, Judging Amy, and Las Vegas.   She studied at the BH Playhouse for ten years, and at last, in 2004, Rebecca met Gary Spatz and has become a happy member of the Playground staff.

BOB KUNDRAT

Minnesota native Bob Kundrat started acting in plays when he got cut from his high school baseball team.  His first role was a bit part in The Sound of Music.  His interest grew quickly and by his senior year he was performing in Edward Albee’s Zoo Story. Bob earned his B.A. in Drama from Kenyon College in Ohio, where he acted in numerous plays and studied playwriting under Wendy MacLeod.  After college, Bob pursued acting in Minneapolis and directed a group of young actors in a film about teenagers in rural Minnesota. 

LAURA MACCABEE

After playing Hermia in her fifth grade twenty-minute abridged production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Laura was hooked on theatre.  Seeing shows was easy, as she grew up a quick train ride away from New York City, but participating was another story altogether: plead as she did, her parents did not share her dream, and Laura was relegated to high school plays and the local summer theatre company. She studied theatre and film at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, where she won a recurring role on a supernatural local public access TV Soap Opera called Magic and Mud. While at school, Laura acted in a number of student films and plays (definitely no musicals).      

DARCY JO MARTIN

Darcy hails from an itsy-bitsy town called Horseheads in upstate New York.  She lived there with her unbearably cool parents and little brother doing every school play and community theater production she could get her hands on.  Her mom and dad (bless their hearts) took on second full-time jobs chauffeuring her to auditions, rehearsals and dance classes from the age of 7. She studied acting and dance at both Corning College and SUNY New Paltz and was an actor at the New York Stage and Film produced Vassar summer theater program where she had the opportunity to perform in the world premiere of Cellini, written and directed by John Patrick Shanley. 

During her time in N.Y. she taught ballet, jazz, tap, and hip-hop to kids ages 5 to 13, and just tried to get on stage as much as humanly possible.

At 19, Darcy moved to Los Angeles with a red suitcase having only been on a plane once before, and having never even been to California.  She took the next three years off from school and traveled as much as possible.  She lived in Budapest, Hungary for 9 months, drove all over Ireland, and spent time in Prague, Vienna and Malta.  Upon settling back in Hollywood, she decided to finish her Bachelor’s in Acting at UCLA.  During this time, she did numerous student and independent films, performed with a few L.A. based modern dance companies, and landed a couple guest spots on television.  Upon graduation, she got an agent and a manager and has since been working steadily in commercials with the occasional independent film credit.

These days, she is a member of the Alliance Repertory Theater Company and Open At The Top, and spends her days auditioning, taking all kinds of dance classes including belly dance and hula hooping, and collaborating with friends on short film projects.  Darcy is thrilled to now be a part of The Playground family.  If acting is her first passion, kids are her second, and she feels blessed to be able to marry the two here.

LEE SHERMAN

Lee Sherman hails from Denver, Colorado where the creativity bug hit early on as she started classical ballet at the age of 4, attended special programs for dance, singing and acting and in her teens performed with the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble.  She then made a transition to the runways and camera lenses in the US and Paris.   After graduating magna cum laude from The University of Denver, the theatre called and Lee answered with a resounding YES! As a thespian Lee has received favorable reviews in the Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, Backstage West and Tolucan Times. 

CASEY STRAND

Casey Strand is originally from Seattle, Washington where she did professional theater, musical theater, and dance from an early age.  She attended Willamette University and graduated cum laude with a major in English and a focus on Theater and Operatic Voice.  Casey studied theater in London and performed in Zurich, Switzerland before moving to Los Angeles nine years ago. Since then, Casey has worked steadily as an actress.  She’s done numerous commercials and has co-starred and guest-starred on such shows as, “Frasier,” “CSI:  NY,” “Jake in Progress,” “My Boys,” “Out of Practice,” “Notes from the Underbelly,” and “My Name is Earl.” 

She’s also performed in many films, the most recent being, “Evan Almighty.”  Casey has enjoyed working in the anchor/host arena, as well.  She hosted 16 episodes of, “Blue for Music T.V.,” anchored the news for 1KTV Los Angeles, and has been the spokesperson for Disney Vacation Club for the past three years.

While working as an actress, Casey has made it a point to keep children in her life.  She is an active volunteer with the outreach programs, Coach Art and Bookpals.  Focusing on early education and confidence development, Casey has worked with young children for the past eight years.This is Casey’s sixth year teaching with Gary Spatz.  Combining her talents for educating children with her theatrical knowledge and experience continues to be a rewarding endeavor.  Casey knows commitment, skill, laughter, and, most importantly, joy and confidence in oneself equals success.  As a teacher and in the rest of her life activities, she strives to open people’s eyes to their own potential.

KERRY SULLLIVAN

Kerry Sullivan grew up as the middle of five children in Lowell, Massachusetts.  After earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance and Economics from The University of Massachusetts at Lowell, she moved to New York City to pursue her passion for acting.  While juggling a full time job at Merrill Lynch during the day, Kerry took on a second job as a House Manager at The Jean Cocteau Classical Repertory Company. Her respect and love for the craft of acting grew deeper as she watched and learned how a classical repertory company thrived.  She trained and studied vigorously at The Actors Center and was soon accepted as a member of the Joseph Papp Public Theater’s Shakespeare Lab. 

She later studied at The Chautauqua Conservatory where she played Rosalind in As You Like It and Rebecca in Our Town.  In 1998, she was accepted into the Masters of Fine Arts program at The American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.  Here she spent three years studying acting full time; playing roles such as Gwen in The Fifth of July, Emelia in Othello and Dorinda in The Beaux Strategem.  After graduating in 2001, Kerry moved back to NYC to pursue her acting career.  She worked with such companies as New York’s Hudson Stage Company, The Rude Mechanicals, La Mama, E.T.C. and Vermont’s Northern Stage Company.  Kerry married her fellow classmate Jamie Rosenblatt in 2004 and moved to Los Angeles in 2005 to develop a career in film and television.  She became a member of North Hollywood’s Open At The Top Theater Company in 2006 and produced The Baby Dance, playing Wanda while she was 8 months pregnant.  In May of 2007, Kerry welcomed the birth of her son Owen into the world, and has been happily enjoying motherhood while living with her family in Silver Lake.

KELLI TAGER

Kelli Tager is originally from the tiny town of Saratoga, California – located in the Bay Area. An avid fan of movie musicals from the time she was born, she started participating in children’s theater from the age of six. When she entered high school, she began studying acting at various local theaters, such as the San Jose Repertory and American Musical Theater of San Jose. Kelli chose to earn her Bachelors at UCLA as a Theater Arts major. During her time there, she studied acting through both the theater and film departments, working with many graduate film directors. She was also heavily involved with the UCLA Shakespeare Group. As a junior, she participated in the Education Abroad program and studied acting over in England at the University of Birmingham.

DANIELLE VERNENGO

A native southern Californian, Danielle has been performing since she was a young girl and began working professionally as a teenager.  Her first significant job was booking a Toyota commercial with her identical twin sister, Deanne.  She continued to train through college, taking a Bachelor of Arts degree in theatre from California Sate University of Fullerton. She currently resides in Los Angeles with a cat, a dog, and a husband whom she met while performing opposite him in their high school production of Guys and Dolls. Since discovering her passion for the performing arts, she has participated in countless theatrical productions, films and television shows including the cult hit, Veronica Mars.