spit&vigor
Leaderboard:
SARA FELLINI (Artistic Director) is an award-winning playwright, director, actress, and skilled artisan. Her play HAZARD A LITTLE DEATH was nominated for six awards at the 2014 Planet Connections Theater Festivity including Best Production of a New Play and Best Lead Actress (Sara Fellini), and won Best New Script. She performed as Nannerl in the monodrama THE OTHER MOZART written by Sylvia Milo at The Players Theatre in New York City and toured the production through the Southern US (*winning Cat5 magazine’s Best Theater Production of 2015, “the voice of a crystal bell, Fellini is captivating” –NOLA Defender), and created the role of Maeve Shourd in a site-specific production of IN VESTMENTS, a play of her own writing and winner of two NYIT awards, nominated for Outstanding New Full-Length Script, earning her theater company the prestigious Donn Russell grant, and acclaimed by the NY Times as "wrenching and visually eloquent". She has appeared as the titular character in another play of her own writing, THE EXECUTION of MRS. COTTON (called "darkly humorous" and "deliciously ghoulish" by the NY Times) at IRT Theater as part of their 3B Residency, she played Mary Shelley in MARY’S LITTLE MONSTER by Thomas Kee at the Mudlark Public Theater in New Orleans, Davenport Theatre in NYC as part of the Davenport space grant, and upcoming off-broadway at The Players Theatre. She played Artemisia Gentileschi in her play NEC SPE / NEC METU at The Tank’s July 2017 DarkFest and at Theater Row as part of the United Solo Festival, and Asia Booth Clarke in THE BRUTES ("irresistibly dramatic, legitimately upsetting" - The NYTimes) by Casey Wimpee at The Flamboyan as part of The 10th Anniversary Planet Connections Festivity, nominated for 8 awards including Outstanding Direction and Outstanding Costume Design (both Sara Fellini). THE BRUTES was then specially invited to The Players, the historic club in New York City founded by Edwin Booth, the performance presented by players and members of The Booth Family. She is the Artistic Director of theater company spit&vigor and designs costumes and props for various theater companies in and around NYC.
ADAM BELVO (Executive Producer) is a Brooklyn based actor and theater producer. Recent New York acting work includes Edwin Booth in THE BRUTES (2019 NYIT Outstanding Lead Actor Nominee), John Polidori in MARY's LITTLE MONSTER, Azra Todd in THE EXECUTION OF MRS. COTTON, Danny in DANNY AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA, Father Nathan Shourd in the NYIT Award winning IN VESTMENTS, K.Bus and Muskie in Aztec Economy's BUTCHER HOLLER HERE WE COME (NYIT 2016 Outstanding Lead Actor nominee), Jack in OVER, Georges in HAZARD A LITTLE DEATH (Planet Connections Festival 2014: Best Actor Award Winner), Jaques in AS YOU LIKE IT, El Spectro in COLOR TVs IN TIJUANA, Ryszard in PONTIAC FIREBIRD VARIATIONS (Ice Factory 2011) and Vanya in UNCLE VANYA. Regionally, Adam has toured and performed as K.Bus in BUTCHER HOLLER HERE WE COME (Cincinnati Fringe Festival 2013, New Orleans Fringe Festival 2013, Out-of-the-Loop Festival 2014-Dallas, Revolutions 2016-Albuquerque, NM, Hollywood Fringe 2019, others), he has worked with MTB productions to produce and star in HELPLESS DOORKNOBS (New Orleans Fringe 2012) and as The Stranger in MY AIM IS TRUE (New Orleans Fringe 2011). He is Executive Producer of the Brooklyn based theater company spit&vigor (www.spitnvigor.com), and a collaborating member of Working Man's Clothes Productions and Aztec Economy. His work has been showcased at The 14th Street Y, The Tank, 3LD, The Ohio Theater, The New Ohio Theatre, The Davenport Theater, WestPark Presbyterian Church, The Abingdon Theater (Dorothy Strelsin and the June Havoc,) American Place Theater, Under St. Marks, and IRT Theater, among others.
Company Members:
NICHOLAS THOMAS (Producer) is an actor, writer and director from Melbourne, Australia. As an actor/producer he has has studied at HB Studios has self-produced three full length plays, two of them written himself. He produced The Dreamer Examines His Pillow by John Patrick Shanley at the PIT LOFT, and his sketch comedy troupe has produced two web series and multiple television shows at MNN Studios. He also writes, produces and directs original online content with his company Blunderbuss. Phoenix Reign: Nominated Best Dark Comedy Screenplay, Oregon Short Film Festival (2019); Nominated Best Comedy Television Episode Screenplay, Portland Comedy Film Festival(2018).Return Of the Green Dragon: Semi Finalist The Comedy World Network International Film Festival, (Las Vegas 2018) Businessman ShowdownNominated New York Indie Film Fest 2016. He was the Director of Operations at the Peoples’ Improv Theatre (The PIT) for six years, working as the senior house manager, stage manager, head of Intern program, and a little bit of everything else. He also taught intro-level improv classes and was a member of multiple PIT House Improv Teams.
CAIT MURPHY (Company Member) Cait Murphy is a Brooklyn-based performer, producer, and production manager. She has performed onstage with Aretha Franklin a L’Oréal industrial and Kathleen Turner in Gloria Feldt's Take the Lead. She played the title character in HAPPY HAMSTER BIRTHDAY at the the Leela Theater Festival, and was featured in ZUCCOTTI PARK in the 2016 NY Fringe and as a faceless nun in the site-specific production IN VESTMENTS - called "wrenching and visually eloquent" by The New York Times. Cait has worked in production for programs on Netflix, NBC, MTV, Travel Channel, and truTV. She is thrilled to be a part of the company of spit&vigor!
EAMON MURPHY (Company Member) has appeared as Grant in Agnes Borinsky’s Ulysses S. Grant in the New New World (PAM Residencies); Theseus/Titania, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Little Flame); Jaques, As You Like It (Columbia School of the Arts); the Ghost, The Brutes (spit&vigor), Camillo, The Winter’s Tale (South Brooklyn Shakespeare); Orsino, Twelfth Night (Old Hat); Donald Rumsfeld, Oh What a Lovely War on Terror (Edinburgh Fringe); King Henry, 1 Henry IV (Clare College Cambridge); and Prince Edward, Richard III (PA Shakespeare Fest).
BECCA MUSSER (Company Member) (she/they) An Austin, Texas transplant, they primarily identify as a Shakespeare nerd, budding verse playwright, fight human, musician, and aerialist. Favorite roles include Agravaine, (The Table Round and The Seige Perilous, Turn to Flesh), Iilyan (Damned, Dixon Place), Bardolph/Westmoreland (Henry V, Occupy Verona), Launce (Two [gentlemen] of Verona, Monsterpiece Theatre), Fontaine (The Brutes, spit&vigor), Cressida (Troilus and Cressida, Rosedale Theater), Tybalt (Romeo and Juliet, Rosedale Theater), and Cassandra (The Trojan Women, The Baron’s Men). Since moving to NYC, they've trained with Dylan Hintz of SAGA Action Arts, Jared Kirby/NYCSS, Turn to Flesh, Shakespeare & Company, and The Humanist Project. See their writing in 2021 when their full length play The Lifted Instants Before the Fall will be performed as part of Turn to Flesh’s staged reading series.
PETER OLIVER (Company Member) Peter is a NYC-based actor, musician and educator. Theater credits include Handsome in THE BRUTES, Dionysus in THE BACCHAE, Brandon in SLAUGHTER CITY, Jack in IN VESTMENTS and Richard in RICHARD III. Film and TV credits include Marriage Story, The Boy Downstairs, Law & Order: SVU, The Deuce, and Blue Bloods. He holds a BA from Hamilton College where he graduated Phi Beta Crappa. He has studied under Wynn Handman, Anthony Abeson and Norman Taylor.
NICOLE ORABONA (Company Member) is a collaborative theatre-maker with a passion for interactive, immersive, and devised new works. She has trained with the SITI Company, Frantic Assembly, and The Interactive PlayLab. In addition to spit&vigor, she is a company member of This is Not a Theatre Company and Emit Theatre. Recent credits: Cafe Play, Theatre in the Dark, Play in Your Bathtub (This is Not a Theatre Company), Unmaking Toulouse-Lautrec (Bated Breath, original devising member) Midsummer and Romeo & Juliet (Emit), meg jo beth amy & louisa (Tier5/Hollywood Fringe). BA Boise State University. nicoleorabona.com
XANDRA LEIGH PARKER (Company Member) studied at Maggie Flanigan Studio Conservatory, Colorado State University and Perry Mansfield. She has appeared in Mary’s Little Monster, The Brutes, Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Pizza Man, Italian American Reconciliation, Three Penny Opera, La Llorona, As You Like It, as well as many others. She also has worked on many independent films, cabarets and is the lead singer of Just Fabulous.