Meet the Fiction Design Team

Erin Gilley (Director) Fiction is Erin's Dragon Productions debut. Previous directing credits include: The Speakeasy  and Equus  [Boxcar Theatre]; Turning Tricks and Counting in Sha'ab [Golden Thread's ReOrient festival]; digital theatre productions Longitude and Peek A Boo [London International Festival Theatre]; The Technology Cave in Taylor Mac’s The Lily’s Revenge [Magic Theatre]; The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Deal and Beautiful [elastic future]; Wreckage by Caridad Svich [Crowded Fire]; The Woods by David Mamet [Theatre in the Woods]; Criminal Genius by George Walker and Making Noise Quietly by Robert Holman [TheatreFirst]. Assistant directing credits include: 12 Angry Men [Bill Kenwright, West End]; The Life of Galileo [Birmingham Rep/Royal Shakespeare Company]; Khandan [Birmingham Rep/Royal Court Theatre]. Erin studied theatre as an undergraduate at Princeton University and received her MFA from Birkbeck, University of London.

David Koppel* (Stage Manager) returns to the Dragon Productions where he last appeared as Jerry in the 2012 production of Harold Pinter's Betrayal directed by Jenny Hollingworth. David has performed and stage managed with a number of Bay Area theatre companies and beyond.  In 2015, he staged managed The Elephant Man at Brava! Theatre in San Francisco and will stage manage the Jewish Circle Theatre's original production of Love Sick at Berkeley's Osher Theatre in January. David recently played Flanders Kittredge in Western Stage's production of Six Degrees of Separation. He has performed with the Yale Rep, Playwrights Horizons, Cutting Ball, Bellarmine Alumni Theatre, TheatreFirst, and Crowded Fire.  In 2008, David founded the San Jose "Shakespeare on the Square Festival" dedicated to multicultural classical and contemporary productions. He serves as an education coordinator with the Palo Alto Children's Theatre and as a consultant for San Jose's Hammer Theatre. David received his M.F.A. in acting from the Yale School of Drama. 

Linsey Almassey (Assistant Stage Manager) is a senior at Notre Dame de Namur University where she is getting her BA in theatre arts with a concentration on performance. She has performed in multiple university productions including Dracula, A Christmas Carol, Picasso at the Lapine Agile, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Linsey received an Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship nomination for her performance in Almost, Maine, and another for her recent performance in The Amateurs. She is currently a production assistant and technician at Palo Alto Children's Theatre and has worked with multiple professional theatre companies in the Bay Area including American Conservatory Theater, Marin Theater Company, and here at the Dragon! Linsey plans to attend graduate school and switch her future endeavors from acting to production management. 

Jesse Ploog (Scenic Designer) Fiction is Jesse’s final show in the Bay area. After graduating from the University of Arizona in 2015, she moved here and quickly became a regular part of Dragon’s team. Jesse has been a variety of rolls at Dragon such as Scenic Designer for Voice of the Prairie, Sunlight, and On The Verge, Stage Manager for Sunlight, Too Much Too Much Too Many ,and Wild Boy, and ASM for The Birthday Party, Take Me Out, Voice of the Prairie, and Or, as well as other shows throughout the South Bay. In January, Jesse will be moving back to Phoenix to begin her Master’s Degree in Secondary Education to become a High School Theatre Teacher. She would like to thank her wonderfully supportive fiancé, the Dragon staff for an amazing two years of work, and all of the other people here who have helped shape her into the artist she is today.

Charles McKeithan (Master Carpenter) has been working in Bay Area theater for over tenyears now as an actor and a carpenter and is happy to be back with the Dragon for another round of fun. His past works include Voice of the Prarie at the Dragon, Walls of Jericho at the Pear, Collosus at SF Playhouse, and countless productions with Ron Gaspernetti under the guise of Thrust Scenic Design.

Dan Garrett (Lighting Designer) is excited to join the cast and crew bringing you Fiction. This is his fourth show with Dragon Productions and brings his twelve years of technical theater experience to Redwood City. A native of the Santa Cruz area, he has supported over eighty productions with twenty different companies in a dozen venues with all aspects of technical work from light to flight. Recent credits include master carpenter for Santa Cruz Shakespeare, lighting designer for Spotlight Youth Conservatory’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and lead flight operator for Cabrillo Stage’s Mary Poppins. linkedin.com/in/dangarrett

Marc Blinder (Sound Designer) Fiction is Marc’s first sound design project for Dragon Productions. Prior to Fiction, he was a co-founder of elastic future and spent fifteen years doing sound designs for directors Erin Gilley and Evren Odcikin, including The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Deal, Equus and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  To pay the bills, Marc spent the last 10 years in tech working at various startups in San Francisco and London.   

Patricia Austin (Costume Designer) Patricia Austin makes her Dragon Productions design debut with Fiction. Other production designs include Fancy Nancy, the Musical, Beauty and the Beast, Elf Jr., and A Midsummer Night’s Dream all with Bay Area Children’s Theatre. Trish also serves as the Costume Coordinator at Aurora Theatre. Much love and gratitude to Tripp, LJ, and Dragon Productions for this opportunity. Go #mixtape.