ABOUT
Happenstance Theater is a professional company committed to creating and producing original theater pieces that rely on the physical performance of the actor. With the simplest means we create a visual and accessible theatrical experience. We seek to elevate the moment when the performers and the audience meet, to lift their encounter beyond the daily and the pedestrian into the realms of dreams, poetry, and art. Meaning is often found by happenstance.
WHO we are:
Mark Jaster/co-artistic director
The Washington Post called Mark Jaster a “clown extraordinaire and one of the most graceful performers you will ever see on a stage.” The Baltimore Sun called him “immensely gifted.” Audiences of all ages and backgrounds have enjoyed his kinetic humor, playful interaction, musical wit and inventive imagination. His skills in mime were developed in training with 20th-century masters Marcel Marceau and his teacher, E. Decroux, along with careful observation of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harpo Marx. Jaster served as teaching assistant to Mr. Marceau in a series of seminars in Michigan, and he teaches frequently in Artist residencies, theatres, and dance programs. In his solo performances, Piccolo’s Trunk, A Fool Named ‘O’, and The Maestro, Mark combines live music on unusual instruments and non-instruments, (like the pipe and tabor and the bowed saw), outrageous acrobatics, (like a dive through an impossibly small wooden hoop), and hyper-advanced communication skills with an honest, gentle humor that has obliterated many a skeptic’s hesitations over Mime. In January, ’07, he created a new show with his wife and partner, Sabrina Mandell, The Seven Ages of Mime, for an extended, sold-out run at the Round House Theatre in Silver Spring, MD. The Washington Post’s review said, “Jaster’s sturdy body, like Chaplin’s and like Marcel Marceau’s…is a jeweler’s tool, adroit and precise…each athletic movement is exquisitely controlled…” In addition to annual appearances as Herr Drosselmeyer in the Maryland Youth Ballet’s Nutcracker, frequent performances with the Washington Revels, and many years as a featured stage act at The Maryland Renaissance Festival, he also collaborates regularly with world-class musicians like Piffaro, Celtic Harper Sue Richards, Hesperus, and the late, great jazz bassist, Keter Betts. Mark is a proud member of The Big Apple Circus’ Clown Care Program, performing at the Children’s National Medical Center and Johns Hopkins University Hospital.
www.markjaster.com
Sabrina Mandell/co-artistic director
From sailing tall ships to painting in oils, from gardening to reading fortunes, Sabrina has played many roles. While living in South Carolina, she wrote, produced, and performed a solo street performance, Poetry for the People: Sabrina VentDeLaMer and her Amazing Game of Chance, for the Charleston Piccolo Festival. She has since performed it at farmer’s markets, in public squares, and for various events in the United States, Canada and Paris. She also has performed original poetry at the National Poetry Slam Championship and numerous other spoken word events, and has self-published a collaborative chapbook of poetry, “Whalebone Ladies”. Since moving to the DC area Ms. Mandell has performed as an understudy in the Shakespeare Theater’s Cyrano, has been the assistant to A Fool Named “O” at the Maryland Renaissance Festival. She is the founder and co-artistic director of Happenstance Theater. With her partner Mark Jaster, she has written, produced and performed Prufbox based on the TS Eliot poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” which premiered at the Capital Fringe Festival in July 2006 and was remounted at both the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, and the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA, as part of their Joseph Cornell exhibits; together she and Mr. Jaster have also created The Seven Ages of Mime for the Round House Theater, and Low Tide Hotel which was voted Best Comedy of the 2007 Capital Fringe Festival and was selected as a Best Bet by the Washington City Paper. Sabrina also performs regularly with the Big Apple Circus’ Clown Care Program in DC and Baltimore.
Scott Sedar/associate artist
Scott Sedar is a Washington DC actor who’s worked at Arena Stage (Three Nights in Tehran, Caucasian Chalk Circle), the Kennedy Center, (Red Badge of Courage, Emperor’s New Clothes, New Visions/New Voices), Maryland Center Stage (Midsummer Night’s Dream), Woolly Mammoth (Harvey) and the Washington Stage Guild (Anna Karenina), among others. His musical credits include roles at the recent reopening of the National Portrait Gallery (1776) and runs at Open Circle Theatre (Peron in Evita), Rep Stage (Dreams of a Summer House) and Round House Theatre, (Man of La Mancha, Three Penny Opera, Butterfinger’s Angel) and Signature Theatre, (Floyd Collins, 110 in the Shade.) When he has the opportunity, he sings
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Featured in WASHINGTONIAN MAGAZINE
Check out the “SPOTLIGHT” section of the November 2007 issue of WASHINGTONIAN magazine! Available HERE online