Harold team casting continues to embrace change within program

The February-May 2018 cycle of WIT’s Harold team program will welcome 12 new players into the program and feature several changes to the composition of the teams. Every team in the program has a casting change.

While the total number of teams will remain the same, the teams TableCat and Work Wife will be retired and two new teams will be formed. In addition, players from continuing teams will be redistributed to both new and existing teams.

“The continued evolution of our Harold team line-ups is the product of player input, coach feedback, and evaluations of team performances,” said WIT Artistic/Executive Director Mark Chalfant. “As the Harold program team grows and becomes more and more fiercely competitive, we plan to continue injecting constructive change within teams to foster player and ensemble development in subsequent cycles. I’m very proud of the work Harold team players and coaches bring to the program and I’m excited to see these new combinations take the stage together.”

The returning teams for the upcoming cycle are (bold denotes a player new to the program, italics denote a returning player new to the team):

• After Pie: Aaron Merrill, Alex Kazanas, Ariela Kaiser, Ben Taylor, Cassie Barnum, Catherine Fullerton, Justine Hipsky, Molly Graham, Vic Whitten
• LIZARD GIRL: Bryce Slinger, David Brescia-Weiler, Jared Smith, Jasmine Jiang, Jessica Norman, Lauren Woody, Michael Blunschi, Shealy Molpus, Tyler Laminack
• Tiovivo: Adam Levine, David Shadburn, Diego Hernandez, Erin Murray, Ginnie Seger, Henry Ring, Melissa Gedney, Nina Hsu, Renan Snowden
• Wonder Whale: Angela Karpieniak, Geoffrey Corey, Kara Kinsey, Kelsey Peters, Krystal Ramseur, Mikail Faalasli, Peter Narby, Sherry Edmonds, Tom DiLiberto
• Captain PhD: Adriana Usero, Cara Popecki, Chris Orvin, Erick Acuña, James Jelin, Jesse Chimes, Morgan Smalley, Saleh Karaman, Tess Higgins

The new teams for the upcoming cycle are:

• New team coached by Donna Steele: Alan Prunier, Bizzy Fain, Brady Peters, Elizabeth Fulton, Jeffrey Friedman, Joey Breems, Mary Ann Badavi, Matt Strote, Stacey Axler
• New team coached by Virginia Lyon: Andrew Dickinson, Bill Nelson, Karyn Wilson, Kevin Koeser, Lauren Boston, Nora Boedecker, Ray Simeon, Samantha Watson, Tonya Jordan

This cycle also sees five new Harold team coaches. Mark Chalfant (iMusical) will coach After Pie, Patrick Fleury (iMusical, Improv Actually) will coach LIZARD GIRL, and Eli Sloan (King Bee, Citizens’ Watch) will coach Tiovivo. Hellcat’s Donna Steele and Love Onion’s Virginia Lyon will both coach new teams. Returning coach Liz Sanders will coach Captain PhD while Matt Mansfield will continue to coach Wonder Whale.