CAST

Kari Buckley is the recipient of Boston’s 2024 Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Featured Performance in a Play for her role as Harper in Angels in America, pts 1 & 2 with Bedlam/Central Square Theater. Originally from York, ME, Kari returned to the Seacoast in 2023 to play Mimi in the New England premiere of Is Edward Snowden Single? with Bardo Theatre Company/The Players’ Ring, one of her absolute favorite shows to date. Additional past roles include Callie in Stop Kiss, Nora in A Doll's House, and Mandy in Time Stands Still. She’s also in a Lifetime movie if you’re into that sort of thing! Kari is so unbelievably grateful to be back in Portsmouth, the place that encouraged her initial love of theater, to perform with her childhood friend in this beautiful play about growing up. A million thanks to Dylan, Tyler and Tim for being truly inspiring artistic collaborators and friends, her mom for the never-ending support, and of course the sweeties, for everything. Graduate of The Neighborhood Playhouse. IG: @misskaribuckley.

Kari Buckley (Kayleen)

Dylan is thrilled to be returning to The Players Ring for the first time in fifteen years! Broadway: Leopoldstadt, Betrayal. Off-Broadway: Love, Love, Love, Pope. Broadway National Tour: Tina, Beautiful. Regional: Windfall, Grease. TV/Film: We Crashed, A Spectacular Holiday, Mannies (Creator/Writer). Training: Carnegie Mellon University. Thank you to Tyler and Kari and the rest of the creative team here at The Players Ring! Love to my family, my wife Sarah, and our dogs Josh and Warren. @DSWallach

Dylan S. Wallach* (Doug)

CREATIVE TEAM

Photography by Ben Bagley Media.

RAJIV JOSEPH (Playwright) Rajiv Joseph’s play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo was a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist for Drama and also awarded a grant for Outstanding New American Play by the National Endowment for the Arts. He has twice won the Obie Award for Best New American Play, first in 2016 with Guards at the Taj (also a 2016 Lortel Winner for Best Play) and then, this year, for Describe the Night. Other plays include Archduke, Gruesome Playground Injuries, Animals Out of Paper, The Lake Effect, The North Pool and Mr. Wolf. Joseph has been awarded artistic grants from the Whiting Foundation, United States Artists and the Harold & Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust. He is a board member of the Lark Play Development Center in New York City. He served for three years in the Peace Corps in Senegal and now lives in Brooklyn, NY.

TYLER CHRISTIE (Director) is a New Hampshire-grown/Brooklyn-based director of plays and musicals. NY: DECAY (EST/YoungBlood), Six Red Seeds, The Cult of Domina, Mommy and the Pirate (Theater Accident’s Hit & Run Reading Series), Up Strung Down (Fresh Binder@The Tank), Tamra Wasserman presents... (The PIT/Slingshot), SERIALS (The Flea), Father Demo Square (NYTF). Regional: Fully Committed (July 2025), Witch & Deadly Murder (Winni Playhouse, NH Premiere), Is Edward Snowden Single? (Bardo/Players' Ring, NE Premiere), Perfect Arrangement (Bay Area Premiere) & Little Shop of Horrors (Hillbarn Theatre), Rock of Ages (Firehouse Center), Ken Ludwig's Baskerville & In the Heights (SRT, NH premieres), Nine Lives (Chicago MT Fest.) Educational: CANS (Weathervane TYA), Violet (PAPA), Into the Woods, Boeing Boeing, dark play (CCC) and Almost, Maine. Tyler has developed new plays with New Dramatists, The Lark, Page 73, The New Group, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Working Theater, Theater Accident, The Tank, The PIT, Arts on Site and Victory Gardens. He is a Co-Founder of Slingshot Theater Co., an alum of the SDC Observership Class and is currently the Associate Director of the Playwrights’ Lab at New Dramatists, the country’s oldest playwright center. As a theater educator, He has been an artist-in-residence at Natick High School and a summer camp instructor for over 12 years, most recently with Upside Arts. BA in Theatre Direction from Columbia College Chicago.

LAUREN STETSON (Lighting Designer) is so very excited to be working with The Players’ Ring and Bardo. She lives in Melrose, MA spending her days raising her four children while moonlighting as a freelance lighting designer in the Boston area. She spreads her love of lighting to young thespians as a guest lecturer/ advisor for Wellesley College. Most recent credits include Alice by Heart for Boston Conservatory, A Raisin in the Sun and Diaspora! for New Rep Theatre.

KATE DUGAS (Stage Manager) is a theatrical professional based in New England and recently started at New Hampton School as Technical Director and Visual/ Performing Arts Faculty. They went to Saint Anselm College with a BFA in Fine Arts with a concentration in Music and a minor in English in the Theatre Arts. They have been a theatre professional in many capacities all over New England such as Technical Director, Stage Manager, Production Manager, Intimacy Director, Scenic Charge, and many others, most recently at Seacoast Repertory Theatre., The Winnipesaukee Playhouse and Barnstormers. Throughout this year, they are currently working on the Accelerator Program to complete certification with IDC as an Intimacy Director soon.

CLAY CATES (Rehearsal Stage Manager) is a theatre artist and props maker originally from the Seacoast, now located in NYC. Previous stage management credits include the premier of original play PS 306 at NY Theatre Festival, as well as work at Seacoast Repertory Theatre. Production design credits include the premier of the original musical, Apocalypse Truck at Theatre for The New City in NYC. Props credits include Mac Haydn Theatre, Winnepesaukee Playhouse and Weathervane Theatre.

REEGAN CAMIRE (Assistant SM) is happy to be back working behind the scenes at The Players’ Ring. She has previously worked on this stage in shows like Gay Bride of Frankenstein and off stage for The Legend of Georgia McBride and A Tuna Christmas.

*Member of Actors' Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States, appearing under a Special Appearance Contract.