Mission & Vision
Best Medicine Rep is a 501c3, nonprofit, professional theater company that specializes in new comedies. We are dedicated to the artistic, educational, and cultural development of the Gaithersburg and Montgomery Village areas of Maryland.
Why are we here?
To entertain. To bring joy. To foster community and learning through shared laughter. To lighten our shared burden of existence for a short while.
Why comedy?
Broadly defined and properly presented, comedy encompasses all of human experience. It can make us laugh and make us cry. It can bring joy and it can bring anger. It makes us think and makes us forget. It exalts and ridicules. It can divert, and it can focus. Comedy levels life’s playing field.
Why theater?
Story is that which gives comedy context. It is what allows empathy and purpose. Performed stories (theater) provide for the communal experience, the shared joy of laughter that we seek to achieve. Theater brings a community together, eliciting pride and engagement, a sense of ownership and cooperation. We believe that the comic theater is the cure for what ails us. But, having declared the above, we would like to make one thing clear: Shakespeare is dead. And if we see another production of A Midsummer’s Night Dream, we will collectively puke.
Board & Staff
President & Artistic Director
John Morogiello
is a Playwright in Residence at the Maryland State Arts Council. His plays have been produced off-Broadway and in Los Angeles, Europe, and across the country. His comedies Engaging Shaw and Blame It On Beckett have both been published by Samuel French. His other plays include The Consul, The Tramp, and America’s Sweetheart, Play Date, Stonewall’s Bust, Irish Authors Held Hostage, Men & Parts, Gianni Schicchi, Jack the Ticket Ripper, and The Match-maker’s Guide to Controlling the Elements. Happy Hour, a film adaptation of Men and Parts, was named Best Short Comedy at the 2003 New York Independent Film and Video Festival and was distributed in Europe by Britshorts.
Awards include: Winner 2015 Dayton Playhouse Futurefest, 2015 Julie Harris Playwright Award, 2015 Boomerang Fund for Artists Grant, The Kennedy Center Fellowship of the Americas, Holland New Voices Playwright Award (Great Plains Theatre Conference), Mountain Playhouse International Comedy Playwriting Award, and Baltimore Magazine’s “Best Up and Coming Playwright.”
He is a frequent contributor to Flagpole Radio Cafe. Mr. Morogiello’s articles have been published in The Washington Independent Review of Books, American Theatre, Dramatics, and in programs and study guides for Long Wharf Theatre, Huntington Theatre Company, Everyman Theatre, and Belmont Playhouse.
Awards include: Winner 2015 Dayton Playhouse Futurefest, 2015 Julie Harris Playwright Award, 2015 Boomerang Fund for Artists Grant, The Kennedy Center Fellowship of the Americas, Holland New Voices Playwright Award (Great Plains Theatre Conference), Mountain Playhouse International Comedy Playwriting Award, and Baltimore Magazine’s “Best Up and Coming Playwright.”
He is a frequent contributor to Flagpole Radio Cafe. Mr. Morogiello’s articles have been published in The Washington Independent Review of Books, American Theatre, Dramatics, and in programs and study guides for Long Wharf Theatre, Huntington Theatre Company, Everyman Theatre, and Belmont Playhouse.
Vice-President
Rebecca A. Herron
holds a BFA in Theatre performance from the University of Miami. She has performed professionally in New York, Florida, Texas, Utah and Nevada and has been performing in DC-area theatre, TV and film for nearly 18 years. Rebecca is a Helen Hayes Award nominee and been awarded several acting awards for short & feature film roles. She has been with Kaiser Permanente for 16 years and currently works on a national configuration team, holding several Epic software certifications and has been part of software implementations for the Mid-Atlantic region. She has been involved with Girl Scouts for several years and currently leads a troop of Cadets (6th graders). She was recently the sole fundraiser for a playwriting program at Fox Chapel Elementary, bringing local history to life in plays the 75 fifth graders wrote and performed with Mr. Morogiello. Ms. Herron first met Mr. Morogiello in 2004, working on his play Bushwa for the Kennedy Center's Page-to-Stage reading series. Since then, she has enjoyed seeing, reading and performing his many plays. As Vice President of Best Medicine Rep, Ms. Herron is actively recruiting new board members, othertheatre artists and helping this company grow and flourish.
Secretary
Stan Levin
has a degree in Film and Theater from New York University. He studied directing at the Circle in the Square Playhouse in New York as well as a graduate program at the Catholic University of America. He worked off-Broadway in technical theater, and directed his first off-off-Broadway show in 1970. He has directed theater locally for various companies including original plays for New Playwrights Theater of Washington. Among his accomplishments was directing the American premiere of Howard Goodall’s British musical Girlfriends, about the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force in World War II. His original one-act play, The Adjudicators, won nationally for the American Association of Community Theaters, and a production that he directed was performed in New York. In addition, Stan was a documentary filmmaker for the government, and an award-winning writer/producer of radio and television commercials. He teaches film history classes for Johns Hopkins’ Osher Program. For Best Medicine Rep, he directed the productions of Blue Over You, Philosophus, and The Consul, The Tramp, and America’s Sweetheart. Stan is a retired Rabbi.
Treasurer
Mary Roberds
is a retired pharmacist, former business owner and perpetual volunteer. She has served as a board member and leader for various non-profit organizations over the past 25 years, primarily relating to education and the arts. Her commitments have included management of fundraisers, volunteer organization, and event coordination for parent-teacher organizations, booster groups, Boy Scouts, and quilt guilds. Most recently, she has volunteered extensively with the Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance, including co-chairing the 2018 World Conference in Dallas. She is privileged and excited to share her experience with a new organization.
Directors
SALLY B. FRENCH
ALEXANDRA PARKER has been an administrative professional for healthcare, health research, and health policy companies for several years. She has MHA and MBA degrees from the University of Maryland University College, with an eye towards patient advocacy. A committed volunteer with Holy Cross Hospital, Rebuilding Together Montgomery County, and over thirteen years with Presbyterian Disaster Assistance repairing homes impacted by natural disasters. Her life-long interest in creative arts, love of theater, and laughter make her eager to be part of the growth of Best Medicine Rep.
SETH POLANSKY is an audio engineer, producer, attorney, and unabashed gamer. He began working with Cavegirl Productions in 2007, and his career is split between his law practice and his independent film work. Seth’s location and post-production work can be heard in many independent projects, including 2016’s Of Dice and Men and, most recently Eye of the Beholder: The Art of Dungeons and Dragons. Seth regularly works with illustrator’s rights organizations, and teaches courses about intellectual property and contract law. In addition to his law degree, in undergrad he triple-majored in philosophy, political science, and religious studies – those subjects one should avoid during polite conversation. He currently lives in Maryland with his wife Kelley and their psychopathic cat.
TERI POOL has been a resident of Montgomery Village for more than 20 years, and is excited to be on the Board at Best Medicine Rep after seeing many hilarious productions. Her family is full of theater and music people, but those genes jumped past her to her son. So she has been a theater and music parent volunteer for most of his life. Now that he is a sophomore in college, she has gone back to school as well, to obtain a masters in paralegal studies so she has something to do when she isn’t volunteering. She hopes to practice in civil rights or immigration law. Her giant dog, Bear, is often at her side as she does homework and dabbles in watercolor painting and writing poetry.
DR. SHEILA SAMADDAR
ALEXANDRA PARKER has been an administrative professional for healthcare, health research, and health policy companies for several years. She has MHA and MBA degrees from the University of Maryland University College, with an eye towards patient advocacy. A committed volunteer with Holy Cross Hospital, Rebuilding Together Montgomery County, and over thirteen years with Presbyterian Disaster Assistance repairing homes impacted by natural disasters. Her life-long interest in creative arts, love of theater, and laughter make her eager to be part of the growth of Best Medicine Rep.
SETH POLANSKY is an audio engineer, producer, attorney, and unabashed gamer. He began working with Cavegirl Productions in 2007, and his career is split between his law practice and his independent film work. Seth’s location and post-production work can be heard in many independent projects, including 2016’s Of Dice and Men and, most recently Eye of the Beholder: The Art of Dungeons and Dragons. Seth regularly works with illustrator’s rights organizations, and teaches courses about intellectual property and contract law. In addition to his law degree, in undergrad he triple-majored in philosophy, political science, and religious studies – those subjects one should avoid during polite conversation. He currently lives in Maryland with his wife Kelley and their psychopathic cat.
TERI POOL has been a resident of Montgomery Village for more than 20 years, and is excited to be on the Board at Best Medicine Rep after seeing many hilarious productions. Her family is full of theater and music people, but those genes jumped past her to her son. So she has been a theater and music parent volunteer for most of his life. Now that he is a sophomore in college, she has gone back to school as well, to obtain a masters in paralegal studies so she has something to do when she isn’t volunteering. She hopes to practice in civil rights or immigration law. Her giant dog, Bear, is often at her side as she does homework and dabbles in watercolor painting and writing poetry.
DR. SHEILA SAMADDAR
