Creative Team
Music and Lyrics by
Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer
Book, Lyrics and Additional Music by
Tim Maner
Music and Additional Lyrics by
Alan Stevens Hewitt
Based On An Original Concept by
Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer and Tim Maner
Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer
Music/Lyrics
Fresh out of art school in the early eighties, Steven bought a used guitar in a junk shop on St. Marks Place, learned 3 chords, and taught himself to write songs by listening to Dolly Parton records. He insinuated himself into a couple post-punk neo-folk bands in the East Village, but soon discovered the world of downtown theater. Through the late 80s and early 90s, he wrote and performed music in many original experimental productions with Tiny Mythic Theatre Company and directors Kristin Marting and Tim Maner, including musical adaptations of Frankenstein, The Scarlet Letter, and an early incarnation of Lizzie Borden. In 1992, he and Jay Byrd started an act called Y’all, singing original songs and telling stories based on Grand Ole Opry-style country entertainment. The act sprang from the free-wheeling downtown theater scene but went on to play in coffeehouses, churches, retirement homes, community centers, and schools across the U.S. and in Europe. Steven and Jay Byrd were partners on stage and off for 10 years, writing and performing, making records, publishing a book, and going broke. Their last two years together, they lived in a camper on the road with a third partner. Steven made a documentary about that relationship and the final years of Y’all, Life in a Box, which premiered in the San Francisco International Film Festival in 2005 and was screened and well received at several other festivals across the U.S. and Canada. Steven lives in Austin, Texas.
Tim Maner
Book/Lyrics/Additional Music
Tim was a founder and artistic director of the critically acclaimed Tiny Mythic Theatre Company, Inc. and a co-founder and co-director of the award-winning HERE. With them, his theatrical producing/presenting history spanned over a decade and hundreds of productions including: Basil Twist’s Symphonie Fantastique (Drama Desk Nom., OBIE Award), Music Theater Group’s Running Man (Pulitzer Prize Nomination), Target Margin’s Mamba’s Daughters (OBIE Award), and Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues (OBIE Award, Drama Desk Nom.). He has written, directed, musical directed and produced over 20 original theatrical works including: The Hawthorne Project, a six-year collaboration with writer/adaptor Elizabeth Banks, building a trilogy of multi-layered multi-media events adapted from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s three American novels that brought together over 100 artists (performers, musicians, composers, writers, dancers, poets, designers, poets and philosophers); and The Opera Project, a five-year collaboration with composer Matthew Pierce and writer Ruth Margraff, creating a series of original New Wave Operas.
Alan Stevens Hewitt
Music/Additional Lyrics
Born in Philadelphia into a professional performing arts family, ASH began music studies at an early age. As a member of The Low Road (Caroline Records) throughout the 90’s, he released two EPs and three full-length albums and toured extensively with artists such as Los Lobos, Barenaked Ladies and (label-mates) the Ben Folds Five and shared the stage with Pete Townsend, Jeff Buckley, Marianne Faithful, Sinead O’Connor, T-Bone Burnett and Marc Ribot, among others. As a member of the short-lived Raw Ltd., he opened for Nirvana, touring in support of Bleach. With his own group, The Signal Corps, to date he has released an EP (Transitiontransmission) and a 7” single (Cherry Tree b/w You Are Beautiful) of his original songs. Theater: Broadway: Spring Awakening (Eugene O’Neill)—Bass (sub.); Off-Broadway: Everyday Rapture (2nd Stage)—Bass (sub.); Off-Off: Brecht’s Baal (Looking Glass Theatre)— Composer, Musical Director, Keys, Guitar; Alternative: Big Mess Cabaret Orchestra—Bass. Education: BM in Composition from Mannes College of Music/The New School, where he studied with Robert Cuckson. Turns out he is related (distantly, by marriage) to Lizzie Borden.