2026 Artistic Team

Laura Bassin

The Bell Lyre is Laura’s first performance the Virginia Theatre Machine. Laura has performed at Firehouse Theatre in Richmond, VA in a staged readings, workshops, Pop-Up Premiers and productions: THE BELL LYRE and A SINGLE PRAYER both by K. Jenkins; Aiden Orr’s HOLDING, Bruce Slater’s DILEMMA OF ESCAPE; MARRIAGE PLAY and THE MAN WHO HAD THREE ARMS for the Edward Albee Festival; Lunchtime Theatre RUSSIAN ROULETTE and TALES FROM CHEKHOV by Roy Proctor. Meisner trained at Bennington College, VT and Neighborhood Playhouse/2-year program with Bill Alderson in NYC. Laura is a career coach with Fordham University, enjoys writing poetry and is a member of the Indolent Poets of Richmond. For Words on Fire – Happy Hour Poetry quarterly event at Firehouse, she was a Showcase Poet (2017) and over the decade has frequently joined in the Open Mic segment. Published poetry in the 2025 One Page Poetry Anthology, and the River City Poets anthology, Lingering in the Margins.

Mikaela Craft

Mikaela (they/she) has been performing with the Virginia Theatre Machine since 2023. Mikaela is a multidisciplinary artist with a love for all types of performing, from singing, dancing, and acting, to aerial silks, puppetry, and playing the spoons. This love of the arts has taken them from the stage with Opera Carolina, to the York Theatre showcase in NYC, to Roehampton University in London, on a couple of cross-country tours, and now back to Richmond where they were born. Most recently, you may have seen them on stage at Firehouse Theatre, The Lynne Theatre, Swift Creek Mill, Virginia Rep, the Virginia Theatre Machine, and the Dogwood Dell Festival of the Arts. Their latest passion project is as lead singer and song writer of the Richmond based alternative jazz and funk collective Mickey and the Crash.

Lian-Marie Holmes Munro

The Bell Lyre is Lian-Maries’s first performance with the Virginia Theatre Machine. Lian-Marie is a multi-disciplinary theatre artist and movement instructor. As a professional actor, her NYC credits include: Classic Stage Co., The Flea, HERE, Target Margin, The Ohio, Lark Playwright’s, EST, Lynx Ensemble, PST, The Public (UTR Festival), E.A.T. Metropolitan Playhouse. Regionally, she’s frequented Trinity Rep. Co., Wellesley Summer Theatre, The Berkshire Theatre Festival, Stageworks/Hudson., Burning Coal Theatre Co., The Touring Theatre of NC, 2nd Story Theatre, Living Literature, Firehouse Theatre & 5th Wall. Principal film work includes THE CRUCIBLE & DEAD SILENCE. As a theatre instructor, specializing in movement for actors she has been on the faculty of The New York Film Academy, Davidson College, Wellesley College, Greensboro College, Boston Ballet, and Bennett College. She has also given guest lectures and presentations at Clemson University, Salem College, and the Southeastern Theatre Conference. She received her MFA in Theatre from Trinity Rep.and is a certified Pilates & MELT® instructor. Her most important role is that of Mom to two wonderful boys. www.lianmarieholmes.com.

K. Jenkins

K. has been resident playwright/dramaturg with the Virginia Theatre Machine since its inception in 2008. Kay graduated from Trinity Rep Conservatory in Providence, RI and worked with Perishable Theatre in Providence as a director and playwright (WOMEN IN A BOOK, ROADKILL LITERATURE, and several scripts for young audiences). She founded and directed (1992-1995) Perishable’s International Women’s Playwriting Festival that ran for 14 seasons. She holds a BA/MA in Religious Studies from Brown University (1996) and a Ph.D. in Sociology (2002) from Brandeis University. She is a Professor of Sociology at William & Mary and has published several ethnographies, including (2021), Walking the Way Together: How Families Connect on the Camino de Santiago with Oxford University Press. She collaborates with Mark Lerman on Virginia Theatre Machine (VTM) productions, most recently co-writing/directing H&G, THE RIFT and their upcoming work, AUTORITRATTO IN PIAZZA DEL DUOMO. Her full-length play, A SINGLE PRAYER, had its world premiere in Richmond Virginia at Firehouse Theater in April 2022. A first draft of her new full-length play, The Bell Lyre, had a reading at Firehouse Theater in 2024, a staged reading in the Spring of 2025 in the Pop-up Premier series, and is now in development with Virginia Theatre Machine for touring to community spaces.

Mark J. Lerman

Mark is the Founder/Director of the Virginia Theatre Machine and a freelance theatre director. He served as the Artistic Director at The Perishable Theatre in Providence, RI from 1990 to 2005. During this time, Perishable Theatre was at the forefront of introducing new voices to the American Theatre, and became nationally recognized as an incubator for the development of new plays. At Perishable, Mark produced and/or presented over 140 productions. This body of work ranged from new plays to classics and included performance art, puppetry and dance. During his tenure, he also oversaw seven on-going performance series that included: The International Women’s Playwriting Festival; The Providence Puppetry Festival; and The Multimedia and Performance Art Festival. In addition to his directorial work at Perishable, Mark brought Perishable Theatre’s world premiere production of Only In America, by Providence playwright Aishah Rahman, to both the Ensemble Studio Theatre in NYC and the National Black Theater Festival in North Carolina, and directed the 1999 production of A Christmas Carol at the Trinity Repertory Company. Mark has also served on grant panels for Theater Communications Group, Theatre Communications Group/ National Endowment for the Arts Residency Program for Playwrights, The New England Foundation for the Arts, Virginia Commission for the Arts, Massachusetts Cultural Council, and The Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. He was a board member of both the National New Play Network and Rhode Island Citizens for the Arts, as well as a member of the Steering Committee for the Arts and Business Council of RI. In Rhode Island Mark taught at The Rhode Island School of Design and served as guest dramaturg for the Brown University Graduate Playwriting program. The Mayor of Providence proclaimed June 20, 2005 “Mark J. Lerman” day and presented Mark the Key to the City in “gratitude for his integrity-laden loyalty to high art, committed art, and to serving our community”. Mark was a lecturer in the Department of Theatre, Speech and Dance at William & Mary from 2011-2022. In Virginia Mark’s directing credits include: A Single Prayer (world premiere), An Oak Tree, and Maple and Vine at Firehouse Theatre in Richmond, A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Virginia Shakespeare Festival, and The Gift of the Magi (world premiere) at Virginia Premiere Theatre. Mark has an MFA in performance pedagogy from VCU, a conservatory degree from the Trinity Rep Conservatory, and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania.

Ed Whitacre

Ed has been performing with the Virginia Theatre Machine since its inception in 2008. He has performed in the Tidewater Virginia theatre community for over 40 years in both community and professional theater venues. Ed performed with the Virginia Theater Machine for over 10 years as Ebenezer Scrooge. Some of his other favorite roles include: The Common Man in A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS (Wedgewood Renaissance/Virginia Shakespeare Festival); Caesar in JULIUS CAESAR (VSF); Sweeney Todd in SWEENEY TODD (Panglossian Productions); Vladimir in WAITING FOR GODOT (RLR Productions); C.S. Lewis in FREUD’S LAST SESSION (RLR Productions/Panglossian Productions); Charlie in the premier production of A SINGLE PRAYER, by K. Jenkins (The Firehouse Theater).

Jeremy Woodward

Designer/Fabricator of the Virginia Theatre Machine mobile stage and resident puppet designer from 2008-2023. Jeremy Woodward designs settings, scenery, props, puppetry, and all manner of large and unusual objects; usually for feature films, television shows, advertisements, and live theater, but also a variety of commercial, non-profit, and governmental clients. Feature films he has designed which have been particularly noticed include Sound of Metal, Thoroughbreds, and Antebellum. Films he has designed have been seen at Sundance, at TIFF, and been nominated for Best Picture at the 93rd Academy Awards. A long, long, time ago, Jeremy matriculated at Rhode Island School of Design to study architecture. This was after an earlier couple years spent at Wesleyan University studying natural science and writing. During his time at RISD he also began to work with a performance troupe performing screwball mystery rock and roll shows wearing giant, loud and smelly, foam-rubber mask and puppet costumes. Thus began a turn away from pursuing a respectable profession, and by the time he was graduated with a Bachelor's of Fine Arts, and a Bachelor’s of Architecture, Jeremy had transitioned into using his design education and experience and impulses to build a career configuring form, color, texture, sequence, and structure in the service of narrative storytelling. Whenever he is not away working on a movie or some other adventure, Jeremy can be found enjoying the company of his wife Caroline, and daughters Ruby and June, at their home in Winchester, Massachusetts, or in their little cabin, deep in the north woods of Maine.