Lora Workman & Monica Olejko: Confessions of Two Middle-Staged Party Girls - Friday, August 13

Two of the hardest working actresses in Cleveland bring an evening of comedy to the suburbs in this hysterical two-woman show for one weekend only.

About the Performers...

Lora Workman, a graduate from Baldwin-Wallace’s Conservatory of Music,
has studied the genre of cabaret in Italy, New York and was selected to
participate in the 2007 Cabaret Conference at Yale, where she worked with
Tony Nominee Tovah Feldshuh, Jason Graae, and Julie Wilson. She was a
semi-finalist in the 2003 San Francisco Cabaret Competition, performed at Don’
t Tell Mama’s in NYC and created The Cleveland Cabaret Project with Charles
Eversole (www.clevelandcabaret.com). Having worn many theatrical hats
throughout the Cleveland and regional theater area, she directed and
choreographed the critically acclaimed The Will Rogers Follies at Berea
Summer Theatre, which was awarded a Times Newspaper Tribute for Directing
and has also directed. She has also produced five Cabaret Samplers and Miss
Gulch Returns!, which have been seen in Kennedy’s at PlayhouseSquare.
Lora is probably best known in this area for her choreography and has worked
on shows at Beck Center, Cassidy Theatre, Huntington Theatre and
Weathervane Theatre. This past June she completed her 12th season as the
choreographer of The North Coast Men’s Chorus, having choreographed
dance numbers which were featured in the Linda Eder Concert at Severance
Hall and the March 2008 Bernadette Peters concert which was in the Allen
Theatre at PlayhouseSquare. Lora is the Educators’/Community Liaison at
PlayhouseSquare where she assists over 50,000 students and teachers each
year attending Career Days, Jump Start Days, and the Children’s Theater
Series School Performances.

Monica Olejko remembers in April of 1961, during her final First Holy
Communion rehearsal at St. Stanislaus in Lorain, Ohio, getting the hiccups.  All
her classmates laughed.  That afternoon on the playground a miracle
happened.  Being a bright albeit short child, little Mo realized her sudden
popularity was because she made her classmates laugh.  She was hooked.
Over the next four decades, she became an actor and her dad went on to
become the Mayor of Lorain.  Both noble professions. She sang and danced
her way through Ohio, won some awards and went on to "strut her stuff" at the
Malemute Saloon in Fairbanks, Alaska.  She also performed at the Harare
International Festival of the Arts in Zimbabwe, Africa. A bit of a control freak,
she found directing and choreographing the way to be part of the artistic world,
make some money and still make people laugh, but without having to put on
makeup. God loves it when you laugh.  The sisters at St. Stan's taught her
that.  So laugh at her or with her, it doesn't matter which, but for the love of
God…laugh.

Tom Bonezzi (Piano) currently a junior at the Baldwin-Wallace College
Conservatory of Music, is majoring in Music Education. As a 2008 graduate of
Medina High School, Tom has already acquired an extensive background of
music for piano, violin and voice. As an accompanist, he has played for
workshops, auditions, shows and recitals around Northeastern Ohio. Tom
serves as Associate Music Director at St. Ambrose Catholic Church in
Brunswick and as accompanist for the B-W Men’s Chorus.

Craig Klonowski (Bass) has his bachelor’s degree in music education from
The Ohio State University, and is currently completing his master’s, also in
music education, at Cleveland State University.  He has performed with the
College Light Opera Company, Central Ohio Symphony, Springfield Symphony
and Ashland Symphony.  He wrote an original score for an animated short,
When the World Goes Dark, which won a student Emmy for the Academy of
Television Arts this spring.  He also maintains a private studio of piano and
string students, as well as a string quartet, which plays in the Cleveland area.  
He worked as the Assistant Music Education Director at the Cleveland Play
House as was the Music Director of The Reading Company.