About

DOUG ANDERSON

Doug Anderson is an American poet, fiction writer, and a long-time member of Serious Play’s Board of Directors. He has been a performer/writer/editor for them in the past. Doug grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. He served as a combat medic in the Vietnam War, and after Vietnam attended the University of Arizona, where he studied acting. He started writing poetry after he moved to Northampton, Massachusetts, and worked with the poet Jack Gilbert. Anderson has written about his experiences in the Vietnam War in both poetry and nonfiction. He is the author of the poetry collections The Moon Reflected Fire (1994), the winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and Blues for Unemployed Secret Police (2000). In 2009 he published his memoir, Keep Your Head Down: Vietnam, the Sixties, and a Journey of Self-Discovery and later Horse Medicine for Barrow Street Press, 2015. He presently teaches writing at Western New England University, Springfield MA.

ROBIN W. DOTY (Serious Play Board of Directors, President/ Managing Director)

BIO see SERIOUS PLAY ENSEMBLE / ABOUT

DAVID T. MARTULA (Serious Play Board of Directors, Treasurer)

David T. Martula was born in Northampton and has spent all but 8 years of his life in Hadley MA. He graduated with a BA in French from Amherst College, and earned both a MAT and MBA from Emory University. He taught French and was a soccer coach for six years at the Robert Louis Stevenson School in Pebble Beach, CA. David later returned to the Connecticut River Valley, and after 15 years in the insurance business, he hung out his shingle as a fee-only financial planner and continues that work to this day. David has always been an avid runner and continues to participate in running clubs and marathons each year. His interest in theatre began with his marriage to writer, Tanyss Rhea. Her performance experience, and later her playwriting, introduced him to “serious theater”. That interest continues to this day.  David is pleased to be part of the team actively supporting the work of Sheryl Stoodley and Robin Doty, and Serious Play Theatre Ensemble. “Their passion for their work is unparalleled.”

ELLEN REICH

Ellen Reich’s passion for music, theater, and dance began while watching her parents do the cha-cha and rumba around the living room and when she invented weird sound effects for plays written by her brother Bob.  She received her A.B. in English from Smith College in l992, where she also studied acting with Deborah Lubar and John Hellweg, and voice with Jane Bryden.  Ellen launched into community theater productions in l995 playing the role of Goldie in the Arena Civic Theatre’s production of  ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ , and went on to play Mrs. Winthrop in their production of ‘The Secret Garden’, and Evelyn in Kindertransport. She won best actress in the Western Massachusetts Community Theatre Festival for the role of Judith Keith in The Theater Project’s ‘The Jewish Wife’ by Bertolt Brecht. With the Theater Project she also played Daisy in Alfred Uhry's ‘Driving Miss Daisy’, and Edith Frank in ‘Anne Frank’.  She continued to play Jewish women with Panache Players in Wendy Wasserstein's The Sisters Rosensweig, as the oldest sister, Sara Good, and Boo Levy in Alfred Uhry's Last Night at Ballyhoo. Ellen  has also worked with Soundplays, producing live radio drama. Over the years, she has divided her time in the Pioneer Valley between acting, as a writing instructor for gifted students through Johns Hopkins University, and teaching English at Amherst High School.

SHERYL STOODLEY  (Serious Play Board of Directors, Secretary/Artistic Director)

BIO see SERIOUS PLAY ENSEMBLE /ABOUT