A BIT ABOUT US
NEW VOICES, INC. WAS FOUNDED BY
ERIC LEVY & KATHLEEN VAUGHT
Eric Levy has been acting, directing, producing and teaching theatre for over thirty years. It all started when he was a sophomore in college (well, it actually started in the fourth grade, when he had the lead role in Mrs. Hurst’s class production of Rip Van Winkle, but that was long ago – before cell phones). He spent a summer at Oxford University taking a class on Shakespeare in performance, where he and his classmates got to see the Royal Shakespeare Company perform eight different plays and then interview actors, directors and designers from the RSC about their creative processes. He has been in love with theatre ever since.
Since that fateful (in a good way) summer, Eric has acted in or directed over fifty shows. In fact, he loved theatre so much that he quit his job as a lawyer in 2002, got a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Staging Shakespeare from the University of Exeter in the UK and went on to teach hundreds of drama students from ages eleven to nineteen, including a stint as Head of Drama at one of the oldest all-girls schools in the world.
At her core, Kathleen Vaught is a creative theatre artist who has always been a storyteller in one form or another – actor, director, artisan and writer of poetry, fiction, non-fiction and drama. Kathleen has an established track record of theatrical endeavors dating back to her first appearance onstage as Third Rock from the Right in her 2nd grade performance of The Billy Goat’s Gruff.
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Hindsight Productions (founding member from post college to pre-parenthood)
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Abbreviated Enlightenment Productions (playwright/performer during early-ish parenthood)
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Allen’s Community Theatre (early days board member, regular performer)
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Mkat Reclamations (owner/creative artist 2013 – present)
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Dark Night Players (founding creative director from 2015 to present)
His greatest theatrical achievement (other than meeting his wonderful wife Lissa while they were both performing in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night – his Malvolio to her Olivia) has been organizing three separate student performance tours to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the largest performing arts festival in the world. Family brought him back to North Texas (and alas, back to the law as his day job), but his commitment to not just directing and performing in theatre, but making it, is stronger than ever.
Eric is a strong believer in theatrical process over product. Yes, people come to (and pay for) the end result, but the journey that the ensemble makes along the way, whether they are rehearsing an existing play or creating their own piece of theatre, is where the real magic happens. Eric also believes that everyone can make a contribution to theatre, and he is constantly impressed when his colleagues come up with new, interesting and engaging interpretations of plays or themes that seem to have been done to death. Finally, he believes that theatre offers people the opportunity to tackle complex and sensitive issues with compassion, maturity and a critical eye. If a person is willing to work hard, take risks, get back up whenever he or she falls down creatively and commit to giving audiences something to think about when they leave the theatre, Eric wants to work with them!
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Favorite Quotations:
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.”
~ Henry Ford
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“Acting is not a genteel profession. Actors used to be buried at a crossroads with a stake through the heart. Those people’s performances so troubled the onlookers that they feared their ghosts. An awesome compliment. Those players moved the audience not such that they were admitted to a graduate school, or received a complimentary review, but such that the audience feared for their soul. Now that seems to me something to aim for.”
~ David Mamet
Kathleen formed the Dark Night Players as a way to combine original and newly-imagined short-works using all variations of theater, music, art, dance and improv through a swift-moving, audience-driven show. The shows are scheduled and performed on nights when the theatre is dark. A versatile and talented ensemble of humans continue to perform self-written works through an evening of gameshow antics and audience participation.
When the moon is just right and the waves of insight find their path from Kathleen’s heart to her brain, she continues to compose poetry – mostly haiku – at MKatReclamations.com.
Kathleen earned her BA in Drama at the University of North Texas and, when not concocting new ways to revolutionize theatrical pursuits for herself and as many of her willing collogues as she can find, continues to perform in the North Texas region as often as possible. She also serves on the volunteer Boards for Hope Rising and Allen Contemporary Theatre.
Kathleen lives in Allen with her husband and partner of over 32 years, and together they have two amazing adult children.
Favorite Quotations:
“O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
the brightest heaven of invention,
a kingdom for a stage, princes to act
and monarchs to behold the swelling scene!”
~ Henry V, William Shakespeare
“You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”
~ Maya Angelou
Deep autumn circles
Find me once again alive
Faith is a whale’s song.
~ Kathleen Vaught