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DOTTIE: THE LITTLE
GIRL WITH THE BIG VOICE
Play Mates: Cast and Crew
I must introduce
you to the wonderful cast and crew who made my world come alive!
Dawn
Westlake—writer/producer/director/Dottie & Curator
Dawn is President
of Ron de Caña Productions, Inc. in Los
Angeles, California. She is a graduate with honor of Northwestern University’s Radio-TV-Film program and
winner of the university’s Richter Scholarship for a thesis she wrote
on TV3, Televisió de Catalunya
(Barcelona, Spain
). She won the Mark of Excellence
Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for a televised interview
with former President Jimmy Carter on the subject of international human
rights violations. She's made 6 short films in the U.S. and Portugal since 2000 which have played in hundreds of venues on every continent and which have won a total of 34 international prizes.
Tom & Joel Moser—animation directors
Thomas and Joel
Moser told their first stories at an early age. Their shared bedroom in the
small town of Moultrie, Georgia served as a studio and
housed their tools - an electric typewriter, a tape recorder, and a video
camera. The stars of the early work included Star Wars figures, furniture, and
of course the young filmmakers themselves. Today, the Moser Brothers continue
writing and making movies, having traded the typewriter for screenwriting
software, the tape recorder and video camera for digital editing equipment,
and the action figures for real actors. However, the same childhood love for
storytelling remains. Thomas and Joel currently work as directors of
animation and live action. Their recent work includes content for the web,
television, and film for clients from VH1 to Revolution Studios. Among their
credits are the Annie-nominated series "Bill Bilkman",
and the half-hour comedy series "Camp Chaos". A recent live action
project, "The Fountain", recently won the Director's View Film
Festival and is set to screen at the Newport Beach Film Festival, the Nashville Film Festival, and the San Diego Film Festival, as well as several
other festivals around the country. The Brothers are currently developing
projects for TV and film. They just won the 48Hour Film Project for their
live action short "The Pitch", and have been named "Filmmakers
to Watch" by IFILMpro.
You can visit their website here.
Tamara C. Bick—Mrs. McGoogle/Mom/Paramedic #2
A native of Toronto, Tamara has worked at Shaw
Festival, with Wild Pig Theatre, Tarragon Theatre and the Second City Mainstage Company where she created and performed in two
award-winning shows. She was also a regular on "Morningside" on CBC
Radio. Since moving to Los Angeles, she's done some televison including a series regular role on "Men
Behaving Badly" and guesting on
"Seinfeld" (as George's girlfriend Louise), "Then Came
You" and "Two Guys and a Girl". She spent the Summer of 2003
on stage in England and Scotland.
Conrad Cimarra—Brenda/Stationmaster/Paramedic #1
Raised in the Bay
Area, Conrad was trained at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco and was also a member of the Tony
Award-winning San Francisco Mime Troupe where he acted,
taught, wrote, directed and did set design before moving to Los Angeles. He recently finished working
again with the San Francisco Mime Troupe in the crtically-acclaimed 1600 Transylvania Avenue. He often performs around the United States with Aspects a series of
dramatic monologues about racism and tolerance, which is produced by Will
& Co. Also with Will & Co., he played Mercutio
in Romeo and Juliet, which garnered him
critical praise from The Los Angeles Times, The L.A. Weekly and Backstage West. Other
classical roles with noted Bay Area theatre companies such as San José
Stage Company, San José Repertory and Theatre Works include Caliban in The Tempest, Malcolm in Macbeth,
Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Costard
in Love's Labour's Lost. As a performer,
Conrad has appeared on stage at The Kennedy Center and has toured the continental United States, Alaska, Russia, and Japan. He also works in the film and
television industry. He has appeared in commercials and TV shows such as
"JAG" and "Judging Amy". He can be seen in Celestial
Pictures' "The Debut", directed by Gene Cajayon.
His other film credits include Anita Weiner's critically acclaimed short
"The Rhumba Lesson", and again as Mercutio in "Romeo and Juliet" - with Mystery
Men's Kel Mitchell. He recently finished working on
the film "Outcasts" for Anomaly Films. You can visit his personal website here.
David Razowsky—Charlie/Dad/Museum Guard
A Chicagoan, born
and raised, David is the Artistic Director of the Second City Los Angeles, the LA satellite of Chicago’s venerable comedy venue.
David has written and performed in ten Second City Chicago revues, as well as
having directed Second City LA’s, Encino Evil, The Second
City Untitled Project, Second City Detroit's acclaimed 19th Nervous
Breakdown, and The Second City National Touring Company. He directed and
co-wrote Amsterdam’s Boom Chicago Theatre's
critically acclaimed production Live at the Leidseplein
- Your Privacy is Our Business, the Netherlands’s most popular show of last
year. He is a member of the world famous Reduced Shakespeare Company, and
recently performed a wildly successful run of The Complete Works of
William Shakespeare, Abridged at the prestigious Kennedy Center in
Washington, D.C. David performs with his writing partner, Tamara Bick, and
just showcased their hilarious material for Fox Entertainment’s Area 51
space in LA. He is the voice of Dixon, the world’s coolest adult,
in ABC’s animated series, "The Weekenders".
Bruce Rheins--Narrator
Bruce is a
producer for "The CBS Evening News with Dan Rather", based in the Los Angeles bureau. Assignments have taken
him all over the globe, from Minnesota to Antarctica and Montana to Fiji! Before moving to Los Angeles, Bruce was an Emmy Award-winning
producer for KGO-TV (an ABC O&O) in San Francisco. In Chicago, he won 5 Emmys, 1 UPI and 2 AP
awards as a field producer, working closely with legendary broadcast
journalists Max Robinson, Ron Magers and Carol
Marin at WMAQ-TV (a NBC O&O). He's also worked in New York with Joan Lunden
for ABC Entertainment's "Good Morning America
". Bruce had a
3.5-month stint in
Kuwait and Iraq
, covering the war for CBS News in 2003. In 2007, he won a Genesis Award from the Humane Society of the U.S. for a report on the brown bears of McNeil River, Alaska.
Florence Westlake—opening
& closing theme music
Florence was the producer’s grandmother. Sadly,
she passed away at age 93 in 1998. Before raising three children and working
as the Congregational Church organist in Elburn, IL for 40 years, Florence accompanied the silent films with
ragtime and improvisational piano music at theatres in her area. She rarely
got to preview the reels and had to play music to set the tone of the scene
by the seat of her pants! The music heard in this film was recorded during a
practice session for a performance at the producer’s wedding in 1989.
(The applause at the end is Florence’s son, Donald Westlake, the
producer’s father, who taped the practice session.)
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