About

mission

Wheelhouse is dedicated to making bold, theatrical plays. Driven by a collective curiosity we aim to respond to the world around us through the transformative power of dynamic and relevant theater, challenging perspectives and creating community.

Vision

WTC aspires to fortify the importance and necessity of live theater.

core values

Wheelhouse is a Process Oriented, company of Artist Citizens that value:

∙ Collaboration
∙ Collective Curiosity
∙ Process
∙Personal Joy
∙ Shared Communal Experience

Our History

In 2009 a few of the company members created a show for a production slot in their final year at NYU Graduate Acting entitled BACK.  The show was a weird departure from Shaw’s “Back to Methuselah”, incorporating elements of ensemble play and creative devising that proved extremely rewarding and, unbeknownst to us at the time, would be the beginning of Wheelhouse Theater Company.  The business and life took us in several different directions after that production, but the way of working on BACK never left us.  We would occasionally reconvene, as we did with Hamlet, to play with bold ideas, refining our process.  Hamlet was very well recieved (the half of it that we did!), and inspired us to continue creative exploration, digging into Henry IV, Part II.  Again, the focus was heavy on process.  We started to discover our minimalist, process oriented roots with Henry, and were hugely inspired by the extremely positive response.

Matt, David and Jeff then came together to mount Julius Caesar, and officially launched Wheelhouse Theater Company.  Caesar opened to sweeping critical acclaim, so we immediately followed it up with Romeo and Juliet, which was also received very well critically.  Wheelhouse then collaborated with the Slant Theatre Project on the world premiere of Lawrence Dial’s In the Room, which the NY Times hailed as “thoroughly transporting”.  Wheelhouse quickly produced another world premiere of Dial’s titled DANNYKRISDONNAVERONICA.  

Still searching for what truly defined Wheelhouse, we dove into Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People at the historic Gene Frankel Theater.  This production was, as the time, our finest culmination and distillation of classic text made physical and very playful.  Inspired by the direction we were heading, we found a lesser known play written by the famed novelist Kurt Vonnegut, Jr, and Happy Birthday, Wanda June put Wheelhouse on the map.  We received sweeping critical acclaim, critic picks, feature articles in leading publications, and really launched out little company into something more substantial.  From the official inception of Wheelhouse in February 2016, we have produced 6 plays, two world premieres, three classics and one revival.  We are humbled and inspired by all the people we have had the honor to work with along the way, and look forward to continuing to make a valuable contribution to the arts.

meet the company

Jeff Wise (Artistic Director, Founding Company Member)
Jeff is a Tony Award winning producer, actor, director, and founder of Wheelhouse Theater Company.  With Wheelhouse, Jeff has directed the critically acclaimed Life Sucks (NY Times Critics Pick) by Aaron Posner, Happy Birthday, Wanda June (NY Times Critics Pick) by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.,  Ibsens’ An Enemy of the People, Shakespeares’  Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar and the world premiere of DANNYKRISDONNAVERONICA by Lawrence Dial. Jeff produced the Tony Award winning revival of Once on this Island on Broadway. He also co-produced the world premiere In the Room with Slant Theatre Project.  He has also directed productions of Henry IV Part 2, Hamlet, BACK, and Dear Penthouse. Stage credits include Hamlet, Lend me a Tenor, Pajama Game, Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat, BACK, Three Sisters, Six Degrees of Separation, Bus Stop, and La Ronde. Jeff received his MFA in Acting from New York University.

Michael Schantz(Founding Company Member)
Off-Broadway/NY: Othello (New York Theatre Workshop), the Obie Award winning play You Got Older (Page 73), The Slow Room (Performance Space NY), Life Sucks, An Enemy of the People (Wheelhouse Theatre Company), Couriers and Contrabands (TBG Theatre), Fashions for Men (The Mint), The Notebook of Trigorin (The Flea) and Beyond Therapy (TACT). Regional: A Doll's House (The Denver Center Theatre Company), Coriolanus (The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey), Love in the Wars (Bard Summerscape), The Great Gatsby (Virginia Stage Company), A Few Good Men (Alley Theatre), Arms and the Man (Guthrie Theatre), The Winter's Tale (Chautauqua Theatre Company), As You Like It (Continuum Company, Villa La Pietra). Film: Thorp, The Girl in Apartment 3, Goodnight Death, Interference, among other independent feature and short films. TV: Wu-Tang: An American Saga (Hulu),  FBI (CBS), The Blacklist (NBC). He has collaborated with some of the finest theatre artists in the country including Sam Gold, Doug Hughes, Ken Rus Schmoll, Sarah Benson, Annie Dorsen, Ayad Ahktar, Clare Barron and Anne Kauffman. He has performed internationally in both Italy and Chile and has taught Voice and Movement at New York Film Academy and the Chilean American Institute in Santiago, Chile. Michael has also served as a guest director with the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, where he has directed productions of Much Ado About Nothing, Reasons to be Pretty, Closer and Rapture, Blister, Burn. He is a member of New York Theatre Workshop's artistic family the Usual Suspects. He received his MFA in Acting from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

Matt Harrington (Founding Company Member )
Matt has performed in the Wheelhouse production of Julius Caesar and co-directed Wheelhouse’s Romeo and Juliet. Broadway credits include Mr. Wormwood in Matilda the Musical (RSC), Twelfth Night and Richard III (Shakespeare’s Globe), and Harvey (Roundabout Theatre Company). He has performed in regional theaters form coast to coast including Cape Playhouse, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Berkshire Theatre Festival, TheatreWorks Palo Alto, Portland Stage, Weston Playhouse, Syracuse Stage.  Matt has also been involved in readings and workshops at Roundabout Theatre Company, Lincoln Center, Naked Angels, Perry Mansfield, Lark Play Development Center, NYU’s Studio Tisch, and with Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Youngblood collective. His television credits include Boardwalk Empire, Bored to Death, Gravity, The Good Wife. Matt received his MFA in acting from New York University.

Chris Bolan (Founding Company Member )
Chris Bolan is a proud member of the award-winning Wheelhouse Theater Company! Chris has had a career both on and off-Broadway and has performed as an actor with many top regional theater companies in both the United States and Canada while also working in film and television. In 2016 Bolan was Artistic Director for the critically acclaimed European Premiere production of Oh Hell No! at the Alfo Puccini Theater in Milan, Italy and has directed legendary LGBTQ and Civil Rights Activist, David Mixner, in three World Premiere productions at the Florence Gould Theater in NYC. Bolan wrote and directed the documentary feature film, A Secret Love, based on a member of the All- American Girls Professional Baseball League made famous by the Hollywood movie, A League of Their Own. Following a World Premiere at the SXSW Film Festival, A Secret Love will premiere as a Netflix Original in 2020 and was produced by Ryan Murphy Productions, Blumhouse Television, NowThis, and Beech Hill Films. Chris is a recipient of the Jerome Foundation Emerging Artists Award for directing and is also a Founding Partner of Sweet T Productions with recent projects including: The Sound Inside starring Mary-Louise Parker (Broadway/Studio 54); The Visitor starring David Hyde Pierce (The Public Theater);  Jitney (Broadway National Tour); and Endlings (New York Theater Workshop). Bolan is a member of the Board of Directors for LUMBERYARD Center for Film and Performing Arts and is part of the adjunct faculty in the theater department at Western Connecticut State University. Bolan holds his MFA in acting from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. www.chrisbolan.com

David Kenner (Founding Company Member )
New York Theater: Twelfth Night (Shakespeare in the Park, directed by Dan Sullivan), Julius Caesar, Romeo & Juliet (Wheelhouse Theater Company), Stitches (TwoByFour). Regional: Caravan Man, Help Yourself (Williamstown Theater Festival), Hamlet, Red, Outside Mullingar (Capital Rep), Romeo & Juliet, Pride & Prejudice, Hamlet (Pennsylvania Shakespeare), A Christmas Carol for 5 Seasons (McCarter Theater), Old Wicked Songs (BRT), The Overwhelming (Hangar Theatre). Film: Excuse Me for Living, Follow the Leader. BFA from Sam Houston State University. MFA from NYU Graduate Acting.

Associate Artists

​June Ballinger
Reuben Barsky
Jeff Biehl
Chris Bolan
Nadia Bowers
Michael Broadhurst
Kimberly Chatterjee
Craig Wesley Divino
Cary Donaldson
Finn Faulconer
Peter Jay Fernandez
Drew Florida
Rebecca Frank
Perri Gaffney
Ben Graney
Chris Hedges
Andrew Hovelson
Suzy Jane Hunt
Kevin Isola
Barbara Kinglsey
Mairin Lee
Stacey Linnartz
Kareem Lucas
Kate MacCluggage
Nikiya Mathis
Ben Mehl
Chelsea Melone
Christopher Metzger
Rachel Mewbron
Doron Mitchell
Chris Myers
​​Susan Neuffer
Jason O’Connell
Amelia Pedlow
Austin Pendleton
Jacob Perkins
Aaron Posner
Jeremy Rishe
Joshua David Robinson
Rob Robinson
Shayna Small
Jenny Strassburg
JD Taylor
Christina Toth
Brendan Titley
Mark Van Hare
Brittany Vasta
Liz Wisan

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