Creative Team

Charissa Bertels (Concept & Actress)

Charissa is a Broadway actress and champion of new musicals. She received rave reviews for starring in her original one-woman musical, My 80-Year-Old Boyfriend, at Merrimack Repertory Theatre (IRNE award for Best Solo Performance), Arizona Theatre Company, Human Race Theatre Company (Best Leading Actress in a Musical) and Idaho Repertory Theatre. Previously, she toured the country in the first national tour of If/Then, starring Idina Menzel. She made her Broadway debut in the original Broadway cast of Pasek & Paul’s Tony-nominated musical, A Christmas Story, and later reprised her role at Madison Square Garden. As part of the singing ensemble for New York City Center Encores’ productions of Lady Be Good and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, her work can be heard on the subsequent cast recordings, featuring Megan Hilty and the legendary Tommy Tune. In addition to her own writing and producing projects, she is currently a professor at New York Film Academy’s Professional Conservatory of Musical Theatre, an MFA graduate through the University of Idaho, and a proud member of Actors’ Equity and SAG-AFTRA. www.charissa .nyc

Christian Duhamel (Book & Lyrics)

Christian Duhamel is a recipient of the Kleban Award for Most Promising Musical Theater Librettist and the BMI Jerry Harrington Award for Outstanding Creative Achievement in Songwriting. He also had the privilege of serving as a Songwriting Artist-in-Residence with Oriental DreamWorks (Pearl Studio). His other works include: The Girl Who Turned Into a Feather (Emerald Phoenix Productions, Something Marvelous Festival, Human Race Theatre Company); Reeling (Exquisite Corpse Company Playwriting Lab); and X-MAS: A Merry Mutant Musical (Uncanny Experience, The PIT, The Pocket Theatre). He has presented concert works at The Duplex, 54 Below, The Neon, Martin’s Off Madison, New Voices, and The Battersea Barge, and has received commissions from theaters across the country, such as Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre, Seattle Shakespeare Company/Wooden-O, and The Human Race Theatre Company. As an actor, he has been seen onstage at the 5th Avenue Theatre, Village Theatre, and the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, among others.

A native of Kellogg, Idaho, Christian grew up in the Seattle area and is an alumnus of DePaul University, Wright State University, and the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. After spending a decade in NYC, he currently resides, once again, in Seattle where he is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild of America, the Off-Broadway Alliance, AEA, NATS, and VASTA. www.christianduhamel.org

Ed Bell (Music & Lyrics)

Ed is a writer, musician and educator. With Christian Duhamel he wrote the award-winning musical My 80-Year-Old Boyfriend for Broadway actress Charissa Bertels. The show has run at the Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Arizona Theatre Company, the Human Race Theatre and Idaho Repertory Theatre. Other writing includes The Way Through the Woods (ADC Theatre, Edinburgh Festival), Gary of the Antarctic (Britten Theatre) and lyrics for the legendary Puy du Fou theme parks. He was also an Artist-in-Residence at Oriental DreamWorks (Pearl Studio) in Shanghai. Ed’s music has been performed at Brasserie Zédel, The Battersea Barge, The National Portrait Gallery, The Duplex, the ATC Theatre and more. As music director, Ed has worked on projects at the Soho Theatre, Leeds Playhouse, Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre, The Signature Theatre, The Marjorie S. Dean Little Theatre and The Nate Holden Performing Arts Center.

Ed is also well-known as a music educator. He created The Song Foundry, one of the internet’s leading songwriting education sites, in 2014, and is the author of seven popular books on songwriting including The Art of Songwriting and How to Write a Song. Ed is a graduate of Cambridge University and the Royal College of Music, an alumnus of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop and a proud member of ASCAP and the Dramatists Guild of America. edbell.com

Sean Daniels (Director)

Sean is an internationally known theater director, writer, and Artistic Director, known for new work and innovative community-based leadership. He is a leading voice in using the arts to defeat addiction and the Executive Director of the Recovery Arts Project. He is one of the few artists to be a NYTimes Critic Pick as a writer and a director.

His play, The White Chip, a NYTimes Critics Pick and Drama League nominee for Best Revival, has been performed around the world as a catalyst for community conversation and connection. It currently just closed Off-Broadway produced by Hank Azaria, Jason Biggs, and Tony winners John Larroqutte and Annaleigh Ashford. “Plays save lives in all kinds of ways. I would bet that The White Chip has and will.” — The New York Times. The White Chip just finished playing commercially in London.

As a playwright, his work has appeared at Traverse (Edinburgh), Tron (Glasgow), Merrimack Repertory (Massachusetts) City Theatre (Pittsburgh), Theatrical Outfit (Atlanta), Actors Theatre of Louisville and commercially at 59E59 (Off Broadway) and MCC (Off Broadway).

As a director, his work has appeared at Manhattan Theatre Club and Lynn Redgrave Theatre (NYC) Southwark Playhouse and St. James (London), Club eX, Prince Hotel Shinagawa (Tokyo), Daegu Festival, Culture and Arts Theatre CT (Seoul) and many wonderful regional theatres around the US of A (Kennedy Center, Geffen, ACT, Arena, Old Globe, etc.). He is the former Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Dad’s Garage in Atlanta, GA.

In the arts world, Sean has been named “one of the top fifteen up and coming artists in the US, whose work will be transforming America’s stages for decades to come” and “One Of 7 People Reshaping and Revitalizing The American Musical” by American Theatre magazine.

Milton (Muse & Amusor)

Milton is an octogenarian with a love of all things Boswell & Johnson. He enjoys poetry, Jeopardy, creating amateur knockoffs of famous paintings and beating Charissa at backgammon. He believes all life is chance and that we should “take the cash and let the credit go.” www.whatthehellisawebsite.com