“I'll Eat You Last: A Chat with Sue Mengers”

This feat of cognitive endurance and emotional recall is brought to you by a lifetime blown sideways among various bohemian tribes. During her 40-year career, Laura has logged time as on-air talent for both TV and radio as well as voiceover talent, photographer, writer and producer along with hundreds of stage, film, audiobook and broadcast production credits most recently Raising Buchanan, (staring Rene Auberjonois, Amanda Melby, Cathy Shim, Terence Bernie Hines and M. Emmet Walsh). TV and radio commercials include APS, Blue Cross/Blue Shield and Delta Dental, and AZ Milk Producers. Favorite principal stage roles include Equus (Dora), Dangerous Liaisons (Merteuil), Grapes of Wrath (Ma Joad), The Heidi Chronicles (Heidi), The Elephant Man (Mrs. Kendal), Lips Together, Teeth Apart, (Sally), Romeo and Juliet (Nurse), Agnes of God (Doctor), Six Degrees of Separation (Kitty). Laura is also a casting director for nationally broadcast television projects on Discovery ID, Lifetime, NatGeo, SyFy and History Channels along with feature films such as Eminence Hill (starring Lance Henriksen, Barry Corbin, Dominique Swain, and Owen Conway). Laura is best known to Valley film and stage performers for her website, durantcasting.com, the most trusted and widely used actor resource in metro Phoenix — now celebrating its 20th anniversary! Laura was named by The Arizona Republic as one of the "Movers & Shakers" among Valley theater women and listed in Arizona Woman magazine as among the Valley's "Women in Film." The AriZoni Awards organization honored Laura with a Distinguished Service Award for her efforts in keeping the Valley theater community connected. A heartfelt thank you to: Chris Haines for the polite nudge to rejoin the living ‐ Rosie Close for her stellar insight, instincts and direction — Bruce Dellis, Aaron Ginn-Forsberg, Christopher Bradley and Maria Amorocho Weisbrod for the regular sanity checks — Sue Maggie Hazard, Maureen Watson and Brenda Foley for leading by example — Duane Daniels for writing the Occam's Razor of acting books — Virginia Senior & Nathaniel Burns of Urban Beans and Aside Theatre for nourishing the mind and body. Love & Misses to Forrest Spencer. Dedicated to Doug Durant — with all my heart.

John Logan received the Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critic Circle and Drama League awards for his play, Red. This play premiered at the Donmar Warehouse in London and at the Golden Theatre on Broadway. He is the author of more than a dozen other plays including Never the Sinner and Hauptmann. His adaptation of Ibsen's The Master Builder premiered on the London's West End in 2003. As a screenwriter, Logan had three movies released in 2011: Hugo, Coriolanus and Rango. His previous film work includes Sweeney Todd (Golden Globe award); The Aviator (Oscar, Golden Globe, BAFTA and WGA nominations); Gladiator (Oscar, Golden Globe, BAFTA and WGA nominations); The Last Samurai; Any Given Sunday and RKO 281 (WGA award, Emmy nomination).

Rosemary has been involved in theater in the Valley for over thirty years. Her work dates back as far as the Arizona Contemporary Theater Company, Northwest Studios and the Glendale Little Theater to name a few oldies. Her onstage credits include: Frozen, Harvey, Chapter Two, Barefoot in the Park, Cabaret, The Balcony, The Way We Live Now, Royal Gambit, Loves Scenes from Romeo and Juliet, Reel to Real, The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, The Maids, Skimpies and The Bad Seed. Her recent directing credits include: last season’s Velocity of Autumn and Hughie, previous season’s Grounded and An Almost Holy Picture. In 1991, Rosemary began her longtime association with the New York theater company, Mabou Mines. She appeared in numerous productions with that company both in Phoenix and New York. The highlight of that work with Mabou Mines was a leading role in the multimedia stage production, Wrath of Kali, directed by the award winning and acclaimed, Lee Breuer. Currently, she is the Managing Director for iTheatre Collaborative and is proud to be a part of the impact iTheatre has made in the Phoenix downtown community.

Chris is a member of Actor's Equity Association, is a theatre veteran with over thirty years of experience as an actor, stage manager, writer, director and designer. He graduated in 1991 from Duke University. Some of his stage work includes: as an actor, the title roles in The Collected Works of Billy the Kid and Danton's Death, Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon, Father Flynn in Doubt, Jack Lawson in David Mamet's Race, Ralph in Frozen, Orson Welles in Orson's Shadow, the Librarian in Underneath the Lintel, the Third Man/Doctor in Baltimore Waltz, Prospero in The Tempest, Vladimir in Waiting for Godot, Alan Seymour in Picnic, Vernon Gersch in They're Playing Our Song, and Mr. Rich in Celebration. He has directed such productions as The Thanksgiving Play, A Bad Friend, Deathwatch, Dogg's Hamlet/Cahoots Macbeth, The Congresswomen, Cat's Paw, Molly Sweeney, The Fish Must Die and Carolina on Our Minds. As a designer his work includes Topdog/Underdog, A Raisin in the Sun, Gunplay, Peter Pan and Wendy, Wizard of Oz, The Colored Museum, The House of Bernarda Alba, and Horn in the West, a 1500-seat outdoor amphitheater in Boone, NC. In 1994, Mr. Haines collaborated with the internationally acclaimed director, Lee Breuer (founder of Mabou Mines), on his project Wrath of Kali, as the director of videography, both in its debut in Phoenix and in New York City. Other design work in video, photography and media includes the Daniel Lentz Group's A Crack in the Bell, such plays as Jack, Reel to Real, Romeo and Juliet, Sweet Thunder, and Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope, and he has worked as the director of photography on the feature films Wake of the Hero and Means of Escape, and was the production designer for the independent film Hack. In 2002, he co-founded iTheatre Collaborative in Phoenix. His work at iTheatre has garnered national attention and recognition with invited performances at the National Black Theater Festival in Winston-Salem, NC, the Black Arts Movement Festival in Austin, TX and the Last Frontier Theatre Conference in Valdez, AK. For iTheatre, he has produced over forty productions in the Valley with numerous regional and world premieres.