Mother of Invention Acting School — Los Angeles — Blog

I am again proud to announce the latest addition to the Uranium Madhouse Advisory Board, Elena Faro:

Elena Faro is a native New Yorker and has been a tax accountant for over twenty years. She has run her own business for the last thirteen years and serves a clientele who work as freelancers in the Arts and film industry. Ms. Faro has a bachelor’s degree in literature and classics from Hunter College of the City University of New York. In her spare time, she is the mother of two beautiful children.

Welcome Elena!

I am very excited to announce the latest addition to the Uranium Madhouse Advisory Board, Matthew McCray, artistic director of the acclaimed Son of Semele Ensemble here in Los Angeles.

Matthew McCray is the Founding Artistic Director of Son of Semele Ensemble. A multi-faceted artist in many theatrical disciplines, Matthew enjoys working professionally throughout the year as a producer, director, performer, musical director, composer and teacher of theatre. Originally from Fort Collins, Colorado, he moved to California in 1994 to attend Chapman University. After earning a BFA in Theatre Performance and a minor in Vocal Music from Chapman in 1998, he moved to Los Angeles. He currently resides in Eagle Rock, California.

In 2004, Matthew was featured on the cover of American Theatre Magazine for his work with SOSE. As a director Matthew’s work includes both original and published work. Most recently, his 2006 production of Iphigenia (A Rave Fable) received six LA Weekly Award nominations and Matthew received an award for his work as the Video Deisgner. Other directing work includes his own original plays A Few Moments Behind The Mask, Earthlings and Amended which premiered in REDCAT’s Studio Festival, as well as Animal Farm, the west coast premiere of Back Story, a workshop production of What The Moon Saw by Stephanie Fleischmann and most recently a workshop production at CalArts of Lear’s Wild Rose by Sibyl O’Malley. Matthew is currently collaborating with Center Theatre Group to assist in producing the yearlong festival of work by Suzan-Lori Parks called 365 Days / 365 Plays.

In 1999 Matthew created a theatre program for children in Newport Beach called Musical Theatre Playground (MTP) that produces reduced musicals and Shakespearean plays with child actors (K-6). As the program’s sole producer, adaptor and director, Matthew has presented over 30 productions, inspiring countless children to become theatre-goers and theatre-makers. Now in his 8th year of producing and directing for MTP, Matthew’s earlier MTP cast members have gone on to specialty high schools for the performing arts to continue their studies in the theatre.

Matthew has appeared on the stage, as well as in film, television and commercials. His credits include the experimental stage of REDCAT as well as nationally-recognized musical theatre organizations REPRISE! and Musical Theatre West. For Son of Semele Ensemble his acting credits include the role of Abraham in The Mysteries, the role of Boxer in the Los Angeles Stage Alliance Ovation Award-nominated cast of Animal Farm, Jacob in the NAACP Theatre Award nominated cast of The Tower and Paul Antonelli in Film is Evil: Radio is Good. His television work includes the recurring role of Jasper on the Emmy Award-winning television show Will & Grace, Boston Legal and, most recently, a pilot called The Cure. He has also been seen and heard singing in a Discover Card commercial, and in 2003 he carried a supporting role in the independent film The Commission, starring Martin Sheen, Edward Asner and Martin Landau. Matthew is a member of Actors’ Equity Association and the Screen Actors Guild.

Matthew has authored three plays: Amended which premiered at REDCAT’s Studio Festival in 2004; Earthlings which Son of Semele Ensemble premiered in Los Angeles in 2001; and, A Few Moments Behind The Mask which premiered in 1998 at Chapman University. His musical writing includes choral work, musical scores and incidental music for the theatre. His two published choral works for voice and piano are When We Two Parted, published in 1995 with Twin Elm Publishing, and The Paper Reeds By The Brooks, published in 1998 with National Music Publishing. When We Two Parted was performed by The Choral Project in Santa Cruz and San Jose in 2004. In 1996 his musical anthology of Lewis Carroll poetry was added into a theatre work about Alice Liddell, subsequently performed at Chapman University. Additionally, in 1998 he directed a complete evening of his choral compositions, also at Chapman.

Matthew currently teaches Musical Theatre at Chapman University. Other teaching credits include a performance workshop at California Lutheran University, as well as private singing instruction at Pacific School of Music and the Arts. Last year Matthew was asked to join a panel at California Institute of the Arts to speak with students about the formation of ensemble theatre companies.

Welcome Matthew!

I am thrilled to announce the newest member of the Uranium Madhouse Advisory Board, my close friend Joanne Butcher. Joanne joins David Chambers, Dr. Amir Eshel, Elisa Carlson, and Karim Javeri on the Advisory Board for Uranium Madhouse, the theater company I am forming in Los Angeles.

JOANNE BUTCHER, M.A., Fund Development Consultant

Joanne has been developing organizations for 25 years. For the first 21 of those years, in South Florida- one of the most well-funded cultural centers in the U.S.- her work was entirely in time-based arts: theatre, media and dance. There she was the Executive Director of the much loved Alliance Cinema and IFP/Miami, film school; partner with the Brazilian Film Festival for 10 years, and co-founder and Education Director of the Festival’s Trade Show. Working on the funding side, Joanne served at State and Regional levels for a variety of projects, administered a Statewide program funding Florida interdisciplinary artists by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Andy Warhol Foundation.

In more recent years Joanne focused her efforts on capital campaigns volunteering as an organizational development consultant and steering an organization from zero to building and running a $7 million Assisted Living Facility for By the River, Inc in Sebastian County, FL; moving to the Bay Area as Development Director for the YMCA of San Francisco’s $38 million campaign to build a new Y in the Tenderloin; and beginning and completing a $5 million capital campaign for Youth Radio.

Joanne now works in the Bay Area as a consultant specializing in organizational
development, capital campaigns, and fund development.

In addition to her work in organizational development, Joanne has worked extensively in film and television production. Joanne Butcher worked as assistant producer on the 2010 TLC TV Series Addicted (2010); (Script) Consultant on Lost Everything (2008) a Festival Award-Winning straight to DVD indie (Regent Distribution); Production Manager for the late cult-filmmaker Doris Wishman’s last distributed film, Satan was a Lady (2001).

On the other side of the business, Joanne ran a first-run cinema in Miami Beach and brings a rare knowledge of the marketing, distribution and exhibition of independent film. Joanne has served as a reader of producer’s business plans and reels for ITVS (Independent Television Service) and NALIP (National Association of Independent Film Producers). She also created a project called the Florida Statewide Film competition which provide to producers with a script and a business plan to compete for a prize of $25,000 cash and $175,000 in goods and services. In addition to the winning film, at least two other of the films have been completed. One, Full Grown Men, was screened in July, over a weekend in July 2010, as part of the San Francisco Film Society’s programming.

Welcome Joanne!

I am very pleased to announce the fourth member of the Uranium Madhouse Advisory Board, Karim Javeri:

Karim Javeri is based in London, UK and is Director and Project Manager at Public Value Consulting Limited. His work focuses on advisory and consultancy services to the nonprofit and social enterprise sector. In the past he has conducted research for the Bank of England through the London School of Economics and recently completed a dissertation on performance measurement in the public sector. He holds a Masters of Public Administration from the London School of Economics in Public and Economic Policy.

Before moving to the United Kingdom, Karim lived in Canada and held various service delivery and leadership positions in nonprofit organizations in Toronto. He has Bachelor of Social Work degree from McGill University and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania.

Karim joins David Chambers, Dr. Amir Eshel and Elisa Carlson on the Advisory Board for Uranium Madhouse, the theater company I am forming in Los Angeles

Welcome Karim!

I am thrilled to announce that Elisa Carlson, who has worked as a voice and speech coach at the Guthrie and other major regional theaters and is a graduate of the stellar MFA acting program at the University of Delaware, has agreed to join David Chambers and Dr. Amir Eshel on the Advisory Board for Uranium Madhouse, the theater company I am forming in Los Angeles.

Here is more about Elisa:

Elisa Carlson was on the Artistic Staff of the Guthrie Theater for eight years where she coached voice, speech and text for 31 productions. Other coaching credits include multiple productions Off-Broadway and at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Children’s Theater, Alliance Theatre and Georgia Shakespeare.


Elisa has a special interest in new plays, having coached world premieres of plays by Tony Kushner, Kia Corthron and Ellen McLaughlin, among many others, and the premiere of the Michael Korie/Ricky Ian Gordon opera The Grapes of Wrath. Her acting credits include the Guthrie, The Shakespeare Theater and the Alliance. She has performed internationally with companies in Finland, Germany, Greece and The National Theatre of Cyprus.


Film credits include acting in and coaching text for Campbell Scott’s film of Hamlet starring Blair Brown. She was dialect and foreign language coach for the feature film Sweet Land starring Alan Cumming, winner of the 2006 Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature, and created language for the multiple award-winning short Ana’s Playground.


Elisa has B.F.A. in acting from Florida State and an M.F.A in acting from the University of Delaware’s Professional Theatre Training Program. She recently moved home to Atlanta and is a Resident Director and Associate Professor at the Gainesville Theatre Alliance.

Welcome Elisa!