Biographies

Writer/Director/Producer/Co-Editor: Cindy L. Parrish is the author of 11 screenplays and numerous stage plays for children including, The White Cat, and the recent Larger Than Life. Her family screenplay, RIVER RATS, co-written with director, Dan Hall, was produced by VMS Video and premiered on Showtime in February, 2005. INSIDE THIS CIRCLE, based on Bob Roberts’s memoir, My Soul Said to Me, tells a true story from inside Louisiana’s infamous Angola State Prison; the script is currently under consideration by Richard Gere, Robin Williams and Warner Bros. Her editing credits include The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship, and Charlotte’s Web. Parrish is a collaborating writer on the novel, Feeding Christine, by Barbara Chepaitis, Bantam, 2000, and the co-author, with Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez, of the non-fiction biography and screenplay, JOLIE ROUGE (the true story of two real-life women pirates). A founding member of the storytelling trio, The Snickering Witches, Parrish teaches humanities in an interdisciplinary first-year program at the University at Albany where she received her Doctor of Arts degree in 1992. HEROIC GIRLZ is her film directorial debut.

Director of Photography / Co-Editor: Joel Nisson has been a professional photographer since 1980, and a cinematographer since 1997. In 2004 he directed, and was director of photography for RHYTHMS OF THE BRAIN a documentary about brainwave biofeedback. Nisson was the DP and principal editor for "Romeo," a short narrative film written and directed by Shane Amsterdam (2003). From 2001-2002 he was a cameraman for Argentina National Television News. In addition, Nisson is an experienced writer, the author of The Superinsulated Home Book, John Wiley & Sons, 1985, and founder and editor, Energy Design Update newsletter, published by Cutter Information Corp., Newton, Mass.

Assistant Director/ Acting Coach / Play Director: Meg Agnew has been a dancer and movement theater artist for most of her life, training actors in physical theater at NYU’s Experimental Theatre Wing, as well as teaching professional actors and children in the United States, and in Switzerland and Denmark. She is the co-founder of the DaK Theatre Company in New York City, and is a dance and theater teaching artist for Capital Region Center for Arts in Education in Albany, NY. Agnew is the 2005/2006 artist-in-residence at the Mountain Road School in New Lebanon, NY where she runs an arts-in-education program and directs plays for children (including The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship, 2004, Charlotte’s Web, 2005, Heroic Girlz, 2005, and Larger Than Life, 2006). Agnew is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts Drama Department and was for some years a member of the Ko-Motion Movement Theater Company.

Composer: Mark Kelso has more than 75 solo and collaborative recordings to his credit, including a number of award-winning video soundtracks. He composes and records music that is at once evocative and uplifting. Video credits include documentaries featuring Huston Smith and Andrew Harvey, yoga videos by the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lenox MA, a documentary about ALS, and a film about the Amistad slave ship by the American Missionary Association. Kelso’s music has been featured on A&E and HBO, and he has performed from Jamaica to Vancouver and in such venues as Madison Square Garden, the National Music Center, and with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Art Director: Laura Yurko is a counselor and Visual and Expressive Arts practitioner, working as a school adjustment counselor for children from pre-K through 6 grade and as an addictions counselor in a residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinic. She’s counseled many individuals and groups utilizing expressive arts techniques. Yurko holds a Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology from Antioch New England Graduate School and a Certificate in Creativity Mentoring and Expressive Arts Therapy from the New York Expressive Arts School in New York.

Actors/Writers: Thea Ezinga, Elon Michaud, Emma Parrish Post, Devyn Yurko all were part of a cooperative enrichment program for the 5th/6th grade at Mountain Road School in New Lebanon, NY. One day a week in the 2004-2005 school year, they met to research, compose, enact and make art around HEROIC GIRLZ, their social sciences/humanities project, as well as to do fieldwork in the physical sciences. All of their work was designed to allow them to reflect on themselves coming-of-age as a female in present-day society. All four girls have been very involved in theater at Mountain Road School performing in The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship, Mary Poppins, Charlotte’s Web, and The White Cat.