Ryan Dohoney didn't realize what a difference a birthday would make in his life. He was taken to a performance of Longmont Theatre's Company's production of The Foreiger. After the show was over, he was offered a tour of the theater, and was invited to come to strike the set the next day. He thought it sounded like fun. He hadn't had any previous theater experience. He was cast as Boy Fan #2 in Damn Yankees and he was hooked. He started coming to almost every set constriuction for next couple of years. Each show has a Set Construction Chief. Le Donahue was the chief and Ryan was his assistnt chief for One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest. He then became the youngest Crew Chief in LTC's history, at age 14, when he was in charge of the set for Fuddy Meers. He is now 15 and just crew chiefed Brigadoon.

Ryan is a sophomore at Skyline High School and plans on pursuing a career in theater, but probably not acting. His favorite class is Stage Craft, and then math among his core classes.

LTC has benefitted greatly from that birthday persent. Thanks Ryan for your hard work and love of theater.

Brie Michaels has been a valuable asset to LTC since 1979 when she appeared in her first play, The House of Blue Leaves. She sat on the Board of Directors for a number of years and she is a current member of the Production Committee.

Over the years, she had done a lot of acting and directing with the company. She has won numerous TARAs (Theater Arts Recognition Awards) both for acting and directing.

Some of her favorite plays were Noises Off, which she has directed 3 times, The Foreigner, which she has directed twice and The Diary of Anne Frank, which she has also directed twice. She also tried her hand at directing a musical with Jesus Christ Superstar and Cabaret, both of which met with critical acclaim. She is treading the boards again, rehearsing for Communicating Doors, which opens at LTC in November. She is a senior accountant by trade, an avid traveler, and a Roman history and Silent Movie buff.

Thank you Brie for sharing your talents with us for 30 years and counting.

Marian Bennett has been active in Longmont Theater longer than anyone else. Over the years, since 1969, she has worn many hats. It’s hard to believe that for six years she worked backstage as props mistress, a prompter, an assistant director, make-up artist, creating programs and costumes. In 1975 she got her first speaking role as Juror#8 in Twelve Angry Men. From then on she has had a variety of roles ranging from a Madam of a house of ill repute to a mother superior.

She served on the board of directors from 1976 until 1988. For many years she designed our programs. She has served on the Reading Committee for 20 years; the first 10 as a member and the last 10 as Chair.

She has come a long way from Juror #8. Her most challenging role was King Lear in Shakespeare’s King Lear. Her most difficult role was 16 year old Kimberly Akimbo in Kimberly Akimbo and her most fun role was Ethel in Moon Over Buffalo. She is currently in rehearsal for Brigadoon, opening September 18th.

LTC would like to thank Marian for all her years of dedicated service and look forward to having her around for many more years.

In just a few years, Jim Porter has become a valuable member of LTC's "core group".

He first took the stage in a school play in Mexico, and got his face slapped for his efforts. He did youth theater in Kalamazoo thirty years ago (where he shared the stage with Steve Carver, LTC's Board President), then put theater aside for many years.

When his daughter joined Longmont Theatre's production of "The Hobbit", he built Golum's boat, and rediscovered his love for theater. Jim has played many parts, on stage and off. On stage, he's been in mainstage shows, youth productions, CCTC entries, reader's theater, and the summer Shakespeare shows, and appeared as a king, a god, a ghost, a donkey, and lots of other father figures. Off stage, Jim has done set design and construction, lighting design and operations, produced shows, been part of the stage crew, served as general gofer and printer for the marketing team, runs this web site, and serves as company manager and administrator for LTC's educational outreach program, A Taste of Shakespeare. Jim has also added timeliness to the company. A poster touting the new show is the window soon after the previous show closes. The programs are always printed, folded and ready for every performance.

We are all so glad that Jim rediscovered his passion. Thanks for all you do.

James David "Dave" Dahl has been an invaluable volunteer for at LTC for the past 13 years. He says he has loved theater since, at the age of 7, he performed in the opera Carmen. He founded Orange County Shakespeare before coming to Colorado.

He first came to LTC because he happened to live next door to some other LTCers, who asked him on board to run lights. Since then he has taught acting, coaches actors, writes scripts, directs and appears in shows. He has also been very involved in LTC’s educational outreach "A Taste of Shakespeare". He was a founding member of the "ShakeShops", which have been going for 5 years. Once a month people can come and get a free coaching seminar. The Shakeshops have drawn people from Colorado Springs to Cheyenne. He and friend, Nanci Van Fleet started Godot Theater Company to perform Shakespeare. In their three year existence, they mounted Twelfth Night and Midsummer Night’s Dream.

We are so lucky to have this data base programmer give us his artistic side. Thank you Dave for all you do.

Tracy Cravens keeps Longmont Theatre in the spotlight for our community. She has run our marketing committee for the last few years, and was recently elected to the board of directors. In her continual efforts to promote our theater, she has made contacts across the Front Range, garnering us attention in Longmont, Boulder County, and from Fort Collins to Denver and beyond. She coordinates the marketing staff to produce print advertisements, web materials, and other venues.

In her spare (ha!) time, Tracy also has worked as producer and other rolls on several shows. Her husband, Chris, has appeared in shows over the years as well, including "Joseph...", "Fiddler". Without Tracy, we'd be performing in an empty theater!

He has 28 years of experience in theater. He has two BA degrees and an MFA in Acting. He is a member of Actors Equity Association with over four dozen acting and stage management credits. He also designs sets and writes plays. He volunteers for LTC even though, as you can guess, he has often been paid for his work.

He directs at least one show for LTC each season. He is involved with Taste of Shakespeare on a regular basis. He has directed for Littleton's Town Hall to critical acclaim, CU Fringe Festival, Front Range Community College, Festival at Theater Company of Lafayette and Boulder Ensemble Theater Company’s 24 hour play festival. He is also a valued member of the Production Committee of LTC.

As you can imagine it is wonderful for LTC and others to have such a professional in our midst. Many thanks to John for making LTC his Colorado Theater home.

Misfortune turned to good fortune when Arthur T. Orgeta, Jr. came to the aid of LTC's The Mikado as the rehearsal accompanist in 1999, and stayed. Since then Arthur ("Art" to his friends) has been on stage in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Clue. He was also the musical director for Clue. He has served as musical director for several other shows, including Into the Woods, Oliver!, Damn Yankees and Two by Two, for which he won our TARA award. He also provided musical direction for the world premiere of "Suspenders". In between times, he has helped out by playing the piano and brass instruments in the pit. Wanting to learn more about “straight” plays, he was assistant director for Wait Until Dark. While he has volunteered with Coal Creek Community Theater and Woof! Productions, we are fortunate that he mostly volunteers with us.

He is currently the Secretary of the LTC Board of Directors and he is a student of piano performance with Dr. Janet Landreth, the piano chair at Colorado State University. To round out his life, He is a software engineer and a divemaster with PADI, the Professional Association of Diving Instructors. Art says, "A senior software engineer by day and a Music Director at night is a perfect balance".

We at LTC sincerely thank Art for his countless hours of volunteering his time and talent.

Debi came to us to learn more about the theater process. She took the producer’s class because she and her friend, Nina Davis, had written an original musical, Suspenders, and wanted to know more about how to get it produced. Debi composed the music and Nina wrote the libretto. LTC hosted the world premiere of Suspenders in June 2008 and it was a great success.

Even though Debi often gets paid for playing the piano, she volunteers her time and talents to LTC. After the producer’s class, she jumped in with both feet and produced or co-produced 5 shows in a couple of years. She accompanies for auditions. She is on the Production Committee and heads up the Musical Reading Committee. The Production Committee chooses the LTC Seasons and the Musical Reading Committee reads musicals and rates them as to the suitability for our audience and talent pool. She is currently doing the vocal arrangements for Spoon River Anthology, for the 2009-2010 season.

She realized what a mess the props room was and took an inventory and keeps it up to date. She house manages on almost every show and holds a house manager class to train new house managers.

To pay the bills, as all LTC volunteers need to do, she teaches English, English as a second language, Japanese and piano.

LTC feels it was a lucky day when Debi Stevenson came our way.