JASON AUFDEM-BRINKE (Lighting Designer) he/him

We Happy Few Company Member and Resident Lighting Designer. Select WHF designs include: A Midnight Dreary, Kill The Ripper, La Llorona, Desdemona, Lovers Vows, Macbeth, The Tempest, Hamlet. Recent designs elsewhere include HyBall (Pyramid Atlantic), Ascend (Georgetown University Dance Company), Wizard of Oz (Atholton High School), and NextNOW (UMD) Upcoming designs include: The Hobbit (Atholton High School), GUDC (Georgetown University).​

 

RACHEL DIXON (Producer/Co-Artistic Director)

Rachel Dixon is the Co-Artistic Director for WHF. Her previous credits with the company include Desdemona: A Play About A Handkerchief (stage manager), and Loveday Brooke in the Murder at Troyte's Hill (newspaper writer). She is a recent graduate from George Mason University, where she received a BFA in Theater Performance and a minor in psychology. In the past, she has been a teaching artist with Arena Stage's Voices of Now program, and is thrilled to continue her artistic journey with We Happy Few as their managing director. Credits include: Good Dogs (Class Act Players Theater Company), Twelfth Night and Machinal (Mason Players). She also served on the student leadership board and as a member of the Mason Improv Association. 

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PATTI KALIL (Set Designer) she/her

Patti Kalil is a DC-based stage designer and producer. She is founding Co-Artistic Director of Pointless with notable local design credits including the National Players Tour 71 at Olney Theatre Center, Studio Theatre, Flying V,  Adventure Theatre, The Second City, and The Kennedy Center. Patti holds an M.B.A from NYU Stern School of Business, an M.F.A from Maryland Institute College of Art. and a four-time Helen-Hayes nominee 

 

HOWARD KOCH (AUTHOR) 

Howard Koch, outstanding author of radio scripts, plays and screenplays, was born in New York City and grew up in Kingston, New York. He was a graduate of St. Stephen's College (now Bard College) and received a law degree from Columbia in 1925. While practicing law in Hartsdale, New York he began to write plays. Great Scott (1929), Give Us This Day (1933), and In Time To Come (1941) were produced on Broadway. His radio work in the 1930s as a writer for the CBS Mercury Theater on the Air included the famous Orson Welles radio drama The War Of the Worlds (1938), which caused a nationwide panic for its documentary-like portrayal of an invasion of monsters from the planet Mars. In 1940 he launched his career in Hollywood, collaborating on the screenplay for The Sea Hawk (1940). Screenplays written since then include The Letter (1940), Sergeant York (1941), Casablanca (1942), Mission to Moscow (1943), Letter From an Unknown Woman (1948) and No Sad Songs for Me (1950). He won an Academy Award for collaboration on the best screenplay of 1942 for Casablanca. Mission to Moscow eventually led to Koch's blacklisting in 1951. This wartime film, which portrayed Stalin and the Soviet Union positively, ironically was written at the request of President Roosevelt and Jack Warner. As a result of the blacklist, he moved with his family to Europe and eventually took up residence in the United Kingdom with other blacklisted writers where he wrote for five years for film and television under the pseudonyms "Peter Howard" and "Anne Rodney." In 1956, he returned to the United States and settled in Woodstock, New York, where he continued to write screenplays and books and remained actively committed to progressive political and social justice causes. Howard Koch died 1995 in Kingston, New York and is survived by wife, Anne and son, Peter.

 

​​RACHEL MENYUK (Actor 2) 

Rachel Menyuk is a DC based artist and performer. She is excited to be performing with We Happy Few for the first time. Previous acting/design/directing credits with Pointless Theatre include Don Cristobal, Hugo Ball, Doctor Caligari, Sleeping Beauty: A Puppet Ballet, among others. She is currently Co-Board Chair of Pointless Theatre and is a dancer and choreographer with the Performing Arts Repertory Company (PARC). She is particularly grateful to her family especially Erik, Charlie, and Nora, for supporting her return to the stage after 10 years. 

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EMILIA PAZNIOKAS (Actor 3) she/her

​Emilia Pazniokas is a company member with We Happy Few. She has worked in a variety of roles with WHF since 2018, including assistant director for Macbeth and Desdemona: A Play about a Handkerchief, producer and actor for the WHF audio detective plays, co-director for Iphigenia, and most recently an actor for R.U.R. Emilia works in arts engagement in D.C. and sings with the group Six Degree Singers. She is a graduate of Kenyon College.

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JON REYNOLDS (Actor 1) he/him

Jon Reynolds is a company member of We Happy Few. In addition to performing in shows, He also designs sets, devises music, and helps adapt classic literary works for the stage. Most recently, Jon played Tom Parker in WHF's 2025 workshop production of Jane Austin's Sanditon. He has been a member of the DC theatre community for more than twenty years. When not on stage, he's often in front of a microphone, recording audiobooks for the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled.

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MATT RECKEWEG (Director) they/them

Matt Reckeweg  is thrilled to be returning to We Happy Few after directing Rossom’s Universal Robots (RUR) in the fall of 2024. Matt is a queer theatre director and teaching artist based in Washington, D.C. As a founder of a Pointless Theatre, they served as Co-Artistic Director for thirteen years creating innovative original work that blends puppetry, dance, music, and visual arts. Some of their directing credits with Pointless include Rite of Spring, .d0t::a rotoplastic ballet, Doctor Caligari, Hugo Ball: a dada adventure, Gimme a Band Gimme a Banana: the Carmen Miranda Story, Sleeping Beauty: a puppet ballet, and Minnie the Moocher. Most recently, Matt has collaborated with local songwriter Prudence Blowhole on her cabaret show, Sex Monster. As a teaching artist, Matt has worked with hundreds of students across the DMV at such theaters as Arena Stage, Signature Theatre, Atlas Performing Arts, and Dance Place, and Capitol Hill Arts Workshop (CHAW). 

 

GILL RYDHOLM (U/S Announcer 2& 3) she/they

Gill is excited to be returning to We Happy Few for another production! Regional: We Happy Few (The Mannequin, A Midnight Dreary), Chameleon Theater Collective (MUSE: THE WOMEN OF PICASSO), Interact Story Theatre (Kidstory Theatre Festival). Training: George Mason University B.F.A. MT // Website: gillrydholm.com​

 

​MATTHEW SPARACINO (U/S Prof. Pierson, et al.) he/him

Matthew Sparacino is thrilled to be back with We Happy Few, where he last played as Harry Domin in Rossum's Universal Robots and Agamemnon in Iphigenia.  Other select credits include The Rainmaker, Between Riverside & Crazy, Secret Things, The Farnsworth Invention [HHA nomination - Best Ensemble in a Play] and Lobby Hero (1st Stage); A Mirror (Prologue Theatre); Suddenly Last Summer, A Misanthrope, and Illyria (Avant Bard); Six Degrees of Separation (Keegan); The Winter’s Tale and Antony & Cleopatra (Folger); and Fever/Dream (Woolly Mammoth).  A UMD graduate and DMV native, Matt is also a proud company member of Pointless Theatre, with whom he has collaborated on roughly a dozen productions including .d0t:: , Doctor Caligari, Hugo Ball, Canterbury and A Very Pointless Holiday Spectacular.  He is so grateful to be back with many of those old friends for this production.

www.matthewsparacino.com / @matty.cino

 

​MAKENZI WENTELA (Stage Manager) she/her

Makenzi (Kenzi) is a technician and educator who lives and works in the DMV area. She graduated from Michigan Technological University in 2020 with a BS in Theatre and Entertainment Technology, and minors in Art and Performance. Kenzi had been working with We Happy Few since 2022, when she stage managed Desdemona: A Play About a Play About a Handkerchief. Her most recent credit with WHF is from The Mannequin in spring 2026. Kenzi also stage manages for The Smithsonian's Discovery Theater and helps manage Smithsonian Summer Camp. Enjoy the show!

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MICHAEL WINCH (Actor 4/ Sound Designer & Composer) he/him

Mike is a composer and sound designer based in Washington DC. He is a company member of Pointless Theatre Co., and Solas Nua. MFA David Geffen School of Drama at Yale, four time Helen Hayes nominee. Mike is a resident artist at Minnie’s Island Conservancy, and leads the Irish session at the Hunter’s Hound in Chevy Chase every Thursday night. 

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