Production Team

Born in New York and raised in Boston, Matt Malsky is a composer whose diverse body of musical works have been performed and acclaimed both locally and internationally. His compositional style is characterized by its rhythmic vitality and dramatically crafted gestures, and has been described as eloquent, intellectually rigorous, and emotionally compelling. His virtuosic works for acoustic instruments with live computer processing have been championed by outstanding soloists. He has released two commercial compact discs including one through the Centaur label with three string quartets, and a second with recent chamber music. GEOGRAPHIES & GEOMETRIES, an aural map of emotions, is available on PARMA Recordings with performances by the Boston-based Radius Ensemble and the Worcester Chamber Music Society (WCMS). One of these works, a duet for two violas, was called “astounding” by Gramophone Magazine. His film music runs the gamut from historically-informed scores for silent films through modern collaborations with contemporary filmmakers. A Dill Pickle is his first opera. But he’s already at work on his second. Leave Your Dignity Outside is set in 1919 and imagines a scene between four historical figures around the anarchist Emma Goldman and the notorious Chicago bohemian Dil Pickle Club.

Matt studied composition with Conrad Pope and Harold Shapero as an undergraduate at Brandeis University. He holds a Ph.D. in music composition from The University of Chicago where he studied with Ralph Shapey, Shulamit Ran, and Howard Sandroff. His work has been recognized with awards and grants from ASCAP, Brandeis University, Kurt Weill Gesellschaft, the Hillery Family Charitable Trust, NSF/Chicago Materials Research Center, Hultgren Solo Cello Works Biennial, American Composer’s Forum, and others.

Matt has been at Clark University since 1994 where he has served as Associate Provost and Dean of the College, chair of the Department of Visual & Performing Arts, director of the Music program, the interdisciplinary Communication & Culture program, and two terms as the George N. & Selma U. Jeppson Professor of Music. He is currently the Sweeney Professor of Music, the director of the Higgins School of Humanities and the Media, Culture & the Arts program.

Kirk Jackson (Director) has performed on and off-Broadway and throughout the United States in nearly 200 productions, including the world premieres of Terrance McNally’s Love! Valour! Compassion! (Broadway), Doug Wright’s Quills (New York Theater Workshop) and Interrogating the Nude (Yale Rep.), David Lindsay-Abaire’s Wonder of the World (Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Washington, DC), Samuel Beckett’s one-man Stirrings Still (Center Stage, Baltimore), and the United States premiere of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Three Birds Alighting on a Field (Manhattan Theater Club).

He directed the United States premiere of Howard Barker’s Uncle Vanya and has assisted Belgian director Ivo van Hove on groundbreaking productions at New York Theater Workshop: Scenes from a Marriage, The Little Foxes, The Misanthrope, Hedda Gabler, and More Stately Mansions. Jackson’s other directing credits include Rigoletto and Gianni Schicchi for Hubbard Hall Opera Theater; Legends!, The Internationalist, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and Take Me Out (2005 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Production) at Studio Theatre, Washington, DC; The Busy World Is Hushed, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Nickel and Dimed, and Gray’s Anatomy at Actorstheatre, Phoenix, Arizona (multiple Zoni Awards and nominations); Strange Interlude at Washington Shakespeare Co. (Helen Hayes Award nominations); Take Me Out and ART at Capital Rep. in Albany, New York, and The English American (Best of Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe Festival).

For the MFA program at the Old Globe Theatre (University of San Diego) he has directed Tartuffe, The Importance of Being Earnest, Uncle Vanya, An Absolute Turkey, and Six Characters in Search of an Author. He recently played Sherlock Holmes at Dorset Theatre Festival. A founding member of the Obie Award-winning Cucaracha Theater, Jackson has taught and directed at Princeton, New York University, and CalArts. BA, Binghamton University (Don A. Watters Award for outstanding achievement); MFA, Yale School of Drama (Carol Dye Award for outstanding achievement as an actor). Jackson has taught at Bennington since 2001.

Stephen DiRado (Scenery/Background Projection Design) is a professor in the Studio Art Program at Clark University, Worcester, MA. Stephen has over 40 years experience in the field of documentary photography, filmmaking and conceptual art. He is a recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim in 2012, Bob and Diane Fund in 2019, two fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and two fellowships from the Massachusetts Artist Foundation. DiRado’s book With Dad, published by Davis Publications in 2019, illustrates a loving and changing relationship between father and son as Stephen’s father succumbs to Alzheimer’s. Presently DiRado is documenting the societal effects of Covid-19.

Soren Sorensen (Video Design) is an award-winning filmmaker specializing in documentary film and television with an emphasis on social and cultural issues. His first feature-length documentary, My Father’s Vietnam (2016), combines interviews and never-before-seen photographs and 8mm footage of the era, to tell the story of three soldiers, only one of whom returned home from the Vietnam War alive. The film premiered at the 2015 Rhode Island International Film Festival, where it won the Soldiers and Sacrifice Grand Prize. My Father’s Vietnam is currently available on streaming video-on-demand platforms, and on Blu-ray and DVD. Sorensen’s most recent film is the short documentary, With Dad. Based on the book of the same name by photographer and Clark University Studio Art professor Stephen DiRado, With Dad features DiRado’s still photography, specifically during the painful 20-year period of his father’s decline and eventual death from Alzheimer’s disease. The film premiered at the 2020 Rhode Island International Film Festival, where it won the Youth Jury First Prize for Best Short Documentary. The film also won awards in 2020 at the Houston International Film Festival, the Massachusetts Independent Film Festival, and the Mystic Film Festival. In 2021, With Dad won two awards, for Best Short Documentary and Best Editing, at the Red Dirt Film Festival in Stillwater, OK. Soren is currently in post-production on his second feature-length documentary, on the life and music of the Cuban-born pianist and composer, Omar Sosa.

Soren received a B.A. in Music with a concentration in Film Scoring from Berklee College of Music in 1998; an M.A. in Art with a concentration in Media Studies from Rhode Island College in 2012; and an M.F.A. in Film with a concentration in Documentary Production in 2019. He joined the Department of Visual and Performing Arts at Clark University in Fall 2019.

John Freyermuth (Audio/Livestreaming) is a published, award-winning music educator, audio engineer, and computer musician. John comes to Clark University with eight years of college-level teaching experience. In 2014 he was appointed the Chair of Commercial Music, Visual, and Performing Arts at Lamar State College-Port Arthur, where he served as an academic and administrative leader to over 200 students. He is the recipient of a 2017 National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development (NISOD) Excellence Award, recognizing his outstanding commitment and contribution to students and colleagues. In 2017 he was awarded the Southeast Texas Arts Educator of the Year Award by the Southeast Texas Arts Council. John’s current research focuses on the development of acoustic solutions for non-purpose-built spaces. John received a Masters of Fine Arts in Sound Design from Savannah College of Art and Design and a Bachelor of Arts in Audio Production from Emerson College. John is a member of the Cinema Audio Society (CAS) and the Audio Engineering Society (AES).

Charles Schoonmaker (Costume Designer) has extensive credits in television, theatre, and dance. He is the recipient of four Daytime Emmy Awards for his work in television. Theatre productions in New York include Love, Sex and Death in the Amazon (The Paradise Garage), Limonade tous les Jours (The Cell Theatre), 9/11 Portraits (Union Square Theatre), and Portrait of Jennie (Henry Street Settlement).

His works on Boston area stages include Venus in Fur, God of Carnage and A Long and Winding Road at the Huntington; Tarzan (North Shore Music Theatre); Nine, Reckless, and The Light in the Piazza (SpeakEasy Stage Company); Harriet Jacobs (Underground Railway Theater); 33 Variations and Grey Gardens (Lyric Stage Company); and Speed the Plow, Long Days Journey into Night and The Clean House (New Repertory Theatre).

Other credits include The Nibroc Trilogy, Love Song, and Blackbird (Chester Theatre Company), and The Einstein Project, Faith Healer, End Game, and The Birthday Boy (Berkshire Theatre Festival). His regional credits include Chicago, La Cage aux Folles, and Cagney! (Riverside Theatre, Vero Beach, Florida), and Miss Margarida’s Way (Bay Street Theatre, Sag Harbor, New York).

In the field of concert dance his credits include Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, The Limon Company, The Atlanta Ballet, The Richmond Ballet, and The Julliard School.

His television credits include “Another World,” “All My Children,” and “As The World Turns.”

He holds an MFA from New York University, and he serves on the faculty at Bennington College.

Kevin McGerigle (Lighting Design) is Technical Director & Theater Designer in the Theater Program at Clark University. Kevin has been a part of over 150 productions throughout New England as a designer, director and producer. Kevin’s work includes Ballet, Opera, Stage Plays, Musicals and Live Concerts. Kevin studied at Clark University and went on to receive his MFA from Goddard College. He is currently the Technical Director for the Majestic Theater and the Director of Production for the Albany Berkshire Ballet.