CITY IN A SWAMP
Political Comedy | Live Shows | Media Productions
Cast
(For Capitol Comedy Performers, click here!)
(For Take My Candidate... Performers, click here!)
(For You Can't Be Serious! Performers, click here!)
Jessica Amal
Jessica Amal was born and raised in Los Angeles. She has performed for young children all over the USA and Europe in The Jumpitz Finding Fun Tour, sponsored by Armed Forces Entertainment. She was also seen performing with the Jumpitz on Nick Jr. She starred as Alice in the Off-Broadway production of Alice in Wonderland. Jessica started
playing Donald Trump before the 2016 election with her sketch comedy team Femmebot PhD (Sacramento Comedy Fest, Palm Springs International Comedy Fest, LA Diversity in Comedy Festival). You can see her perform regularly at the Pack Theater in Hollywood.
Audrey Brinkley
Audrey Brinkley is new to the DC area, but not to musical theater. She spent three years teaching theater and dance in Abu Dhabi, and while there she played Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes and Cathy in 9 to 5, both productions of the Abu Dhabi Folklore Theater. She has appeared in a number of musicals, including White Christmas, Spamalot, and Into the Woods. As a dancer, she is skilled in tap, ballet, pointe, and modern. Audrey appeared in City In A Swamp’s production of My Funny Valentines at the Arts Club of Washington.
Natascha Corrigan
Natascha Corrigan played Sarah Palin in City In A Swamp’s productions of Rock ‘N’ Ridicule, Oh, Momma! & Obama, and How Obama Got His Groove Back, in which she also portrayed Hillary Clinton. She played Natasha, a Russian spy, in Obama Spy Drama. A member of Actor’s Equity, some of her favorite So Cal performances include Savin’ Up For Saturday Night (Lucinda), Sacred Fools; Man of La Mancha (Antonia), Rubicon Theatre; Chess (Florence), Moonlight Amphitheatre; Wait Until Dark (Susy), SCRT; City of Angels (Mallory), McCallum Theatre; Louis & Keely Live at the Sahara (Keely u/s) Sacred Fools & Matrix Theatres. She enjoys performing all over Los Angeles with her band, L.A. Rhythm Crew. Natascha also teaches voice privately.
Courtney DeCosky
Courtney DeCosky played Ann Romney, the North Korean aide, Ping, and an improv student, Kali, in City In A Swamp’s production of How Obama Got His Groove Back. She played Martha Stewart and other roles in Rock ‘N’ Ridicule. Other California theatre credits include The Christmas Carol at South Coast Repertory, Night of the Iguana and Henry IV at A Noise Within, Six Actors in Search of a Director at The Odyssey, Savin' Up For Saturday Night at Sacred Fools and The Grove, The Woolgatherer at Coachella Valley Rep, Plastic Crystal at Open Fist Theatre, and Stoneface at Sacred Fools. Film credits include Tentacle 8, The Haunting of Salem, Red Moon and The Atheist. She was a founding member and Managing Director of Rogue Theatrics, a theatrical based production company in Columbus, Ohio and a graduate of Ohio University with a BFA in Acting. She is a Lifetime Member of the Actor's Studio.
Travis Dixon
Travis hails from Sand Springs, OK. After he received his BFA in musical theatre from the University of Oklahoma, he stripped across the country in The Full Monty national tour as Keno. He can be see naked in True Blood, dead on NCIS, selling edibles on My Crazy Ex and hanging with Dre on Black-ish. To pay off his student loans, he won the ABC game show Wipeout. Favorite roles include a very young Pseudolus in A Funny Thing..., a roller skating Snoopy in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, a tap dancing Swan in Cannibal: The Musical and as The Balladeer, Guiteau, and Sam Byck in Assassins. He wrote and produced the short film A Glory Sewn with music by Danny Elfman and most recently in the feature film The Riot Act. Find more at www.MrTravisDixon.com
Emily Goglia
Emily Goglia is a singer, actor and comedian residing in Los Angeles. She recently sang with Christina Aguilera in her "MasterClass" online video, and you may have also caught her in FOX's "Grease, Live!" or on NBC's "The Sing Off" leading the fierce female powerhouse group, ELEMENT. Other favorite roles include Maureen in Rent, Baker's Wife in Into the Woods, Carrie in Carousel, and Sam in Woody Allen’s Husbands & Wives. Emily's one-woman show, “STAGES” has been performed to sold out crowds at New York's hottest supper clubs, Feinstein's/54 Below, The Metropolitan Room, LA's Rockwell Table & Stage, and most recently at the Hollywood Fringe Festival, where she was nominated for Best Solo Performance and won the Encore Award. Throughout the year, Emily travels the nation with the USO Show Troupe, performing for the military and their families.
Maureen Kerrigan
Maureen is an Emmy Award winning actor, singer, teacher and radio host. Her musical credits include, "Lady in the Dark, "Chicago", "Cabaret", Arena Stage's "South Pacific" and the Moscow tour of "Peter Pan".
She is the cohost of the Broadway themed "Takoma Cabaret" on WOWD Radio and has appeared on film in "The Accidental Tourist", "The Murder of Mary Phagen", "St. Elsewhere" and "House of Cards".
Adam LaSalle
Adam LaSalle is a New York City-based actor, singer, and multi-instrumentalist. Before the shutdown, Adam was fortunate enough to work on the Chicago premiere of Forbidden Broadway’s Spamilton: An American Parody, serving as the show’s pianist, music director, and King George, a part he was lucky enough to reprise Off-Broadway for a limited time. Described as “a cheap producer’s dream” (the Chicago Tribune), a “comedic musical genius” (Chicago Theatre Review), and “certainly not on track to be a doctor” (his mother), he is happy to be working with Capital Comedy on their newest review. Learn more about him at www.adamalasalle.com
Chris Lewis
The latest in a long line of humans who had children, Chris Lewis has been mucking about on stage since middle school, where he pretended to know what he was doing in a school production of The Velveteen Rabbit. Since then he has ventured into musical theatre, on-camera work, and Voiceover. While he was made in China, he grew up in North Carolina, where he first cut his teeth in comedy with the comedy troupe Pineapple-Shaped Lamps, where he performed sketch comedy, improv, Musicals, and even Shadowcasts! He has since moved to the impossibly traffic-filled streets of Los Angeles and joined the sketch comedy troupe The Fun Police. Some personal favorite roles were as a Japanese Native American Chief (long story) in a stage adaptation of Cannibal! The Musical!, The Great Mage Steve in She Kills Monsters, and Rocky in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. There’s also a long list of fun sketches from 7 years of sketch comedy, but this bio is running long. If you’d like to see more of his face, check out his instagram.
Justin McEllroy
Justin McEllroy - a resident of New York and originally from Erie, PA, he has been a part of numerous New York projects including Evening-1910 (Axis Theatre Company), Sayonara (Pan Asian Repertory Theatre) and Fictitious (Sound Bites Festival). Film/TV Credits: Featured Role in “Forgetting Sandy Glass” (SAG Independent Feature) and work on “Wall Street English”. Justin has also done voiceover work for Cartoon Network. Other performing credits include The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (Theatreworks USA); The Sound of Music (Syracuse Stage); being a featured vocalist at Carnegie Hall with EVUSA and performing at the Fringe Festival in Scotland. Justin is a proud member of Equity and and a graduate of Syracuse University’s Musical Theatre program.
Alan Naylor
Alan Naylor has moved audiences across the country with his varied talents as an actor, singer, pianist, and organist. Highlights have included performances with: Washington National Opera, The Minnesota Orchestra, The American Boy's Choir, Signature Theatre, Studio Theatre, Olney Theatre, the St. Louis MUNY, as well as countless solo cabarets and concerts. He received a Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Musical (2015). Alan holds a Bachelor of Music from St. Olaf College, a Masters of Music from Washington University in St. Louis, and spent 2 years in the Artist in Training program of Opera Theatre St. Louis.
Hadiyyah Noelle
Hadiyyah Noelle is a Singer, Comedian, Actress and Writer in Los Angeles California. After graduating with a BFA in Acting from Florida State University she headed home to West Palm Beach Florida where she played Gary Colman in Avenue Q, Daniela from In the Heights and The Proprietor in Assassins. After deciding she needed to be far away from Mar-a-Lago she packed up her car and dog and drove cross country and landed in North Hollywood. Since then she has been Marjan in the world premier of Esther: the musical, Joanne Jefferson in Chicabarent: an original cabaret, Daria in both the original production and workshop productions of Project Mayhem: an original rock opera and many more musicals. You can also find her as Hads in Two Lost Black Girls a webshow which she co-wrote, and you can catch her performing her stand up all over LA at famous places like Flappers comedy club and the Comedy Store or see her making a fool of herself with her improv group the Aces of Improv. For more information follow her on social media @Hadiyyahnoelle on Facebook and Instagram and @Hadiyyah_noelle on Twitter or visit her website www.Hadiyyahnoelle.com
Josh Odsess-Rubin
Described as "winningly adorkable" and "endearingly awkward", Josh Odsess-Rubin is an accomplished actor in film, TV, and theater. Learn about his endeavors at www.joshorubin.com
Constance Reese
Constance Reese played Michelle Obama in City In A Swamp’s productions Oh, Momma! & Obama and How Obama Got His Groove Back at the Fremont Theatre in South Pasadena, CA. She received her bachelor’s degree from the School of Theater, Film, and Television of the University of California, Los Angeles. Some of her other stage credits include George C. Wolfe’s The Colored Museum, the internationally touring hit Still Standing, and the Off-Broadway nationally touring interactive comedy The Boychick Affair, which she assistant directed. She played the character Lashawna in the romantic comedy film, Worth The Weight, which received its Hollywood premiere as part of the 2012 Dances With Films Festival. She was the 2011 Miss Black California.
Derek Reid
Derek Jeremiah Reid started doing comedy in Austin, TX, at Esther’s Follies. He studied at The Groundlings and Upright Citizens Brigade. He was the director of Hashtag, a mainstage featured sketch team, and a regular writer and performer in Top Story! Weekly, both at the iO West Theater in Hollywood. For City In A Swamp, he played Barack Obama in Rock ‘N’ Ridicule, Oh, Momma! & Obama, and How Obama Got His Groove Back, which he also directed. He has done vocal impressions of Ben Carson and other characters in City In A Swamp animated videos.
Lena Seikaly
Named “one of Washington’s preeminent jazz singers" and "brightest voices in jazz" (The Washington Post), as well as a “major league young talent in jazz" (Duke Ellington’s biographer, Dr. John Hasse), jazz vocalist and Washington, DC area-native LENA SEIKALY is already making her mark in national and international jazz circles as a revivalist of traditional jazz vocals, as well as an innovator in contemporary vocal jazz styles. She was one of eleven semi-finalists for the prestigious 2015 Thelonious Monk Institute International Jazz Vocals Competition in L.A., and is an alum of the Betty Carter Jazz Ahead program in DC, the Jazz Aspen Snowmass program directed by Christian McBride, and the Strathmore Artist-in-Residence program in Maryland. As the leader of her own trio, quartet and quintet, Lena has performed many prestigious institutions and venues across the country. Lena has released three albums under her name, and a fourth album — a duo project with guitarist Steve Herberman entitled “A Little Closer" — was released at Blues Alley in February of 2018. Her music is played regularly on DC’s jazz station WPFW 89.3, and “A Little Closer" was featured on Washington DC’s NPR station, WAMU 88.5 shortly after its release. Visit www.lenaseikaly.com to learn more about Lena.
Doug Smith
Doug Smith has been performing in the Washington, D.C. area for over thirty years. He has sung with Hexagon, the British Players, the A Capella group “Brock and the Rockets”, and now sings with the barbershop quartet The Brothers Flanagan. He still works part time at Montgomery College as a a counselor/ advisor and is an avid golfer.
Chris Smith
Chris Smith is originally from Michigan where he studied theater and secondary education at Central Michigan University. He has appeared in many TV shows and movies in Los Angeles and New York City. Some credits include Mad Men, All My Children, and Dirty Sexy Money. Chris played Vladimir Putin in City In A Swamp’s Obama Spy Drama, Rahm Emanuel in Rock ‘n’ Ridicule, Bill Clinton in How Obama Got His Groove Back, and several roles in Oh, Momma! & Obama. For more information go to www.christopherrobertsmith.com.
Phillip Wilburn
Phillip Wilburn, originally from Texas, is known for his ability to imitate almost any voice, from Tom including those of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, and Donald Trump. He played several parts in Oh, Momma & Obama and How Obama Got His Groove Back, as well as in City In A Swamp animated videos. He produced and starred in videos that have been featured on MSNBC’s Countdown, Hardball with Chris Matthews, CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, ShowBiz Today and Funny or Die. His TV credits include How I Met Your Mother, The Middle, The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Kimmel Live and CONAN. For more info go to www.phillipwilburn.com.
Instrumentalists
Steve Herberman, guitar
Steve Herberman is a graduate of Berklee College Of Music majoring in Jazz guitar performance. He began playing a seven-string guitar in 1993. Steve has recorded numerous CD's as both leader and sideman and is a respected jazz educator. Steve Herberman's original composition "What We Do" won first place in the jazz category of the 2018 USA Songwriting Competition. Steve has over 50 video lessons published on Mike's Masterclasses and has toured across the US and Europe playing and teaching. He is featured in the book The Great Jazz Guitarists by Scott Yanow. Steve is an endorser of Comins Guitars and GLB Sound amps and is based in the Washington DC area. Visit www.steveherberman.com for more information.
Frank Russo, percussion
Frank Russo joyfully paints colorful soundscapes with his highly skilled, passionate, musical drumming. He's an in demand performer, recording artist and educator who currently resides in Maryland and teaches at Towson University. He is also an artist/educator for Bosphorus Cymbals, MD Drums and The Vic Firth Education Team. Raised in the NYC area, Frank was steeped in the rich musical heritage of the jazz legends at an early age and carriers on the legacy of a musical family. Visit www.dcjazz.com/frankrusso/ for more information.
Eliot Seppa, bass
Eliot Seppa is a bassist, composer, arranger, and bandleader from Washington, DC.
He began playing the upright bass at nine years old and the electric bass at 14. Eliot graduated from Howard University with his Bachelor’s degree in 2013 and his Master’s degree in 2018, both in Music - Jazz Studies. Eliot leads jazz groups ranging in size from a trio to a big band. Eliot’s music embraces rich harmonies, syncopated rhythms, and organic interplay between the band members. Eliot was chosen as one of six Artists in Residence at the Strathmore Music Center in Maryland for the 2019 season. His month of residency is March 2019. Visit www.eliotseppa.com for more information.
Barbara Twigg, piano
Barbara Twigg is a DC-based pianist and collaborator for City in a Swamp Productions.