Melinda Lopez* (Mrs. Warren) (she/her) is a multiple award winning playwright and performer, and is thrilled to return to Central Square Theater. Past work at CST includes replacing a pregnant Debra Wise in Are You Ready My Sister? and writing How Do You Spell Hope and From Orchids to Octopi for the bicentennial of Darwin’s birth — and the 150 anniversary of the publication of Origin of Species. Most recently she collaborated with CST on How Do You Spell Hope,  celebrating the achievements of BIPOC scientists. Melinda is the recipient of the 2019 Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Achievement, recognizing her 20-year career as and playwright, performer and educator. She was a member of the Mellon Foundation’s National Playwrights Residency Program and the Playwright-in-Residence at the Huntington Theatre Co. Recent plays include: Mr. Parent, Lyric Stage Co., Hartford Theatreworks, Geva Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse,  Stir, (Writer/Performer) Old Globe Theatre, Yerma Adaptation, Huntington Theatre Co., Mala (Writer/Performer, Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding New Play, Arts Emerson, Guthrie, Huntington, Old Globe and others, available on Audible.com in Spanish and English.) Other work includes: Back The Night, Becoming Cuba, and Sonia Flew (Elliot Norton Awards for Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Production.) Onstage you may have seen her in Motherfucker with The Hat, Grand Concourse, Appropriate, Anna in the Tropics (SpeakEasy Stage) Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Our Town, Persephone (Huntington Theatre Co) and heard her as part of the Dream Boston audio plays. Ms. Lopez currently teaches the MFA Playwriting candidates at Boston University and  is a  Professor of the Practice at Northeastern University.

Lewis D. Wheeler* (Paul Cook) – Lewis has performed at CST in The Nora Theatre Company’s Emilie, La Marquise du Chatelet Defends her Life Tonight and Underground Railway Theater’s The Life of Galileo. This summer he appears in Israel Horovitz’s Gloucester Blue at Gloucester Stage. Regional credits include No Man’s Land – IRNE Nomination, Best Supporting Actor (American Repertory Theatre); Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Pattern of Life, Muckrakers (New Rep); Chosen Child – IRNE Nomination, Best Supporting Actor (Boston Playwrights’ Theatre); Doubt, An Ideal Husband (Gloucester Stage); The Importance of Being Earnest, A Number, The Glass Menagerie (Lyric Stage); Arcadia – IRNE Nomination Best Actor and Troilus and Cressida (Publick Theatre); No Exit (Payomet); Hamlet and Macbeth (Shakespeare Now); Bald Soprano, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, What the Butler Saw, and five seasons with Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre (WHAT); also American Stage (Florida), Commonwealth Shakespeare, Huntington Theatre, Wellesley Summer Theatre, Stoneham Theatre, Vineyard Playhouse, Wheelock Family Theatre, TCAN Natick. He was a founding member of Harbor Stage in Wellfleet, where he performed in The Seagull and Hedda Gabler and directed David Rabe’s Sticks and Bones. Film/TV credits include The Company Men, Pink Panther 2, Louisa May Alcott (PBS), Brotherhood, pilots Hatfields & McCoys, Gilded Lilys, and the upcoming Kenneth Lonergan film Manchester-by-the-Sea and Whitey Bulger saga Black Mass. Lewis earned his BA in Theatre and Film Studies at Cornell University and his MFA from the American Film Institute. Proud member of Actors’ Equity since 2004.

Amanda Collins (Cecilia Payne) has been seen at Gloucester Stage Company, Boston Playwrights’, Wheelock Family Theater, Underground Railway Theater, The Nora Theatre Company, Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater (WHAT), Cape Rep, Publick Theatre Boston, Orfeo Group, Off The Grid, New Repertory Theatre, and The Modern Theatre. She has also worked with The Outfit in NYC and Philadelphia, American Stage in Florida, and was a founder of the Harbor Stage Company. She is a member of Theatre Espresso, performing interactive dramas exploring issues of social justice in American history. Television credits include Olive Kitteridge (HBO), Castle Rock (Hulu), Boston’s Finest (ABC Pilot), and the film Sea of Trees.

April 2018