Meet LTYM: New York City Director/Production Team!

After the LTYM shows closed last spring, various bloggers began asking about a 2012 NYC production. For the first couple emails that came in, I thought Fun idea! No way!! I knew that putting up a show on The Great White Way (or off-off The Great White Way) involved more than what the typical LTYM process required in any other city, and fell outside my personal ability.

Julie Nemitz–blogger at StageMama.com–followed LTYM from its inception and voiced her desire to help expand the project. I remember her email after my 2010 show “Congratulations, you birthed a beautiful baby show!” Julie saw enormous potential for LTYM. For 2012 she saw an LTYM in front of thousands in the famous Town Hall, complete with Broadway actors and original compositions. Let me tell you, Julie has the connections and where-with-all to make that happen, but LTYM wasn’t ready to take that leap. Yet. We kept the conversation going. Meanwhile, actress and author Amy Wilson and I created a Page To Stage workshop for BlogHer’11 and she offered her extensive theatrical experience and NYC connections to help bring LTYM to NYC. Before I knew it, Varda Steinhardt, seasoned director/producer, and Holly Rosen Fink, marketing and television professional,  jumped on board.

Once we had a TEAM of not only bloggers–but NYC bloggers with professional theater, marketing, and production background–assembled, LTYM could move forward. Having an LTYM in NYC is beyond what I could’ve imagined two years ago, and I can’t wait to see where these incredible women take it.

p.s. If you feel a tad intimidated by what you read below? So do I. And? THANK GOD, because their experience is the only reason LTYM is making this foray onto the NYC theater scene.

Amy Wilson

Amy Wilson (Director) is the author of When Did I Get Like This? The Screamer, the Worrier, The Dinosaur-Chicken-Nugget Buyer, and Other Mothers I Swore I’d Never Be. She has an essay included in Wedding Cake for Breakfast: Essays on the Unforgettable First Year of Marriage (Penguin, May 2012). She is also the creator and performer of the one-woman show Mother Load, which toured to sixteen cities across the United States after its hit engagement off-Broadway in 2007.

Amy is also an actress who appeared on Broadway as “Sunny Freitag” in the Tony Award-winning play The Last Night of Ballyhoo. She was a series regular on the sitcoms Norm (ABC) with Norm MacDonald and Daddio (NBC) with Michael Chiklis, and had a recurring role on Felicity. Other TV guest appearances include Blue Bloods, Ed, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Deadline, Boston Common, and All My Children. Her film credits include Kinsey, Kissing Jessica Stein, Keeping the Faith, and Ira and Abby.

Amy has served as contributor to Parenting and Babytalk magazines, and has written for Redbook and American Baby, as well as for websites like Huffington Post, Babble, iVillage, Yahoo! Shine, and CNN.com. She blogs at whendidigetlikethis.com.

 

Varda Steinhardt

Varda Steinhardt (Producer) is a native New Yorker who has traveled the world but is currently back in her city of origin, keeping busy as the full time mother to a pair of 9 year-old twin boys, one of whom is on the autism spectrum. She is also the caretaker of her elderly, recently widowed mother. This is how she earns her nom de blog “SquashedMom,” which is also her handle on Twitter (where she spends way too much time). She writes for her own blog The Squashed Bologna: a slice of life in the sandwich generation, as well as Hopeful Parents, a special needs parenting site.

In her previous life, B.C. (before children) Varda was most recently a producer and director of educational and documentary television and high-end corporate communications. She has also directed numerous productions off-off Broadway and worked with performance artists in the development of their one-person shows. Varda is thrilled that producing New York City’s Listen to Your Mother Show is a the perfect opportunity to connect her deep theater and performance world roots with her current mom-centric life.

 

Holly Rosen Fink

Holly Rosen Fink (Associate Producer), has a career that spans the world of television and publishing, including positions at Lifetime Television, Nickelodeon/MTV and John Wiley & Sons. As a marketing consultant her current client list includes Ruckus Media Group. She is also now founder of MamaDrama Consulting and WestchesterIRL. Holly is the editor of The Culture Mom and regularly contributes to CBS New York,  AChildGrows.com and Project You Magazine. She also contributes to the ABC Million Mom Campaign and has joined the ONE Moms mission. Holly lives in Larchmont, NY with her husband and two children.

 

Julie Nemitz

Julie Nemitz (Associate Producer) brings her passion for all things show biz, pop culture and parenting to her writing.  With her unique perspective and humorous voice, Julie entered the blogosphere during a Morphine/Percocet daze in 2009, shortly after the birth of her second child Eliza (yes, as in Doolittle) who joined sister Lucy (yes, as in Ball) and husband Rich, a hunk of a guy who is not afraid to admit he knows all they lyrics in “A Chorus Line” yet boldly refuses to let his wife hang a giant, framed picture of Judy (Garland) in the family room.

A near Encyclopedic knowledge of all things theatrical, her career has run the gamut from child actress through stints in regional theatre and summer stock, bus and truck live theatre and concert productions, children’s youth theatre director and educator, jingle and studio singer to award-winning nightclub chanteuse. Julie also taps into her talents from her decade-long career in marketing, with sales and marketing stints at media companies Time Inc., Meredith Corporation, Scholastic and currently Triad Retail Media.

You’ll find Julie blogging merrily along at JulieNemitz.com and on Twitter @Stage_Mama.  She has also been published on Associated Content, Role Mommy Writer’s Network and Technorati Women and as a contributing editor to MTIShowspace.com .  Her writing for the Silicon Valley Moms Blog has been syndicated nationally.  Julie and her family reside — harried but happy — in Maplewood, New Jersey.

 

Tagged as: Amy Wilson, Holly Rosen Fink, Julie Nemitz, Varda Steinhardt