Mad Cow Theatre

Is it possible to capture a lifelong love story in a single image? To render the nuances of ephemeral memory with brushstrokes? In Tina Howe’s prize-winning comedy Painting Churches, artist Mags Church returns home to paint a portrait of her aging parents while she still has them around … but her canvas may not be big enough, nor her colors varied enough, to capture all the passion, poetry, outrage, and zest of Fanny and Gardner Church.

An Obie winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist, the play has been described by The New York Times as “beautifully written. . . . A theatrical family portrait that has the shimmer and depth of Renoir portraits."

Photos by Tom Hurst. 

Scott Stoney as Gardner Church, Kate Young as Fanny Sedgwick Church, and

Ame Livingston as Margaret Church

Ame Livingston as Margaret Church, Kate Young as Fanny Sedgwick Church, and 

Scott Stoney as Gardner Church

Ame Livingston as Margaret Church and Kate Young as Fanny Sedgwick Church

Kate Young as Fanny Sedgwick Church and Scott Stoney as Gardner Church

background: Ame Livingston as Margaret Church

Ame Livingston as Margaret Church

background: Kate Young as Fanny Sedgwick Church and Scott Stoney as Gardner Church

Kate Young as Fanny Sedgwick Church, Scott Stoney as Gardner Church, and 

Ame Livingston as Margaret Church

Meet the cast & crew of Painting Churches!

AME LIVINGSTON* (Margaret Church) is in that play at Mad Cow about the crazy family, dealing with life struggles, around a dinner table. Oh, yeah – she was Essie Carmichael in You Can't Take It With You this past fall! Nope, not that one. Then you mean August: Osage County (Karen Weston). Nope. Is it Table Manners (Annie) then? Not what I was thinking. Got it, Dinner With Friends (Karen) last summer. Huh. Ame seems to have a running streak with shows about a family around a dinner table. She’s also been in shows with Orlando Theatre Project, played Blanche Dubois in a reading of A Streetcar Named Desire at Orlando Shakespeare, done readings at PlayFest, acted in Fringe shows and at Winter Park Playhouse, and sung for Disney for many a year. Huh, I thought she looked familiar.

SCOTT STONEY* (Gardner Church) hails from Dayton, Ohio, where he has made his artistic home and is a founding resident artist of the Human Race Theatre Company, a professional regional theatre that will be celebrating 30 years this fall. Favorite roles with that company include Sweeney Todd, Malvolio, Roy Cohn, Count Dracula, Werner Heisenberg, Papa Charlie, and Scrooge. He will return to Dayton this spring to direct Terrence McNally’s Master Class for the Human Race, but for now he is grateful to Mad Cow Theatre for giving him this opportunity to leave the snow belt just in time. Scott is a proud member of Actors’ Equity.

KATE YOUNG* (Fanny Sedgwick Church) makes her first appearance at Mad Cow opposite a favorite acting partner, Scott Stoney. At the Human Race Theatre Company they have been paired for Other Desert Cities and Retreat From Moscow. Recent: Florida Repertory Theatre's Unexpected Guest and Lend Me a Tenor, Miami Theater Center's Hedda Gabler, Gulfshore Playhouse's The Importance of Being Earnest (Naples Daily News Award for Best Comedy, 2013), and freeFall Theatre's Bernarda Alba (Theatre Tampa Bay Awards nominations, 2013). Other regional credits: Chicago Shakespeare, Milwaukee Shakespeare, Royal George, Drury Lane, Light Opera Works, Northlight, ShawChicago, and Pittsburgh Public. A career highlight was the Irish tour of Major Barbara as Lady Britomart with Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre. A native San Franciscan now living in Chicago, Kate trained in London at LAMDA and at Brown University, the University of Pittsburgh, and New England Conservatory. (www.kateyoung.biz)

Direction by Tony Simotes**

Set Design by Lisa Buck

Lighting Design by Eric Haugen^†

Costume Design by Charlie Nebe

Sound Design by Waylon Lemasters

Props by Lisa Buck

Stage Management by Melissa Riggins 

*Members of Actors' Equity Association 

**The Director is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, a national theatrical labor union. 

^†The lighting designer of Painting Churches is represented by United Scenic Artists, Local USA 829 of the IATSE.

"For 'Painting Churches' director, art mirrors life"

Click here to read the full article from the Orlando Sentinel.

"what lingers after the lights come up on this touching family portrait is an emotion all too real." 

Click here to read the full review from the Orlando Sentinel. 

"Mad Cow's PAINTING CHURCHES is a Touching 'Memory' Play with a Top-Notch Cast"

Click here to read the full review from BroadwayWorld.com.

Click here to read the full review from Ink19.