Candace Orrino
Candace Orrino (Director) is an actor, audiobook narrator, and director. At BETC, she directed JQA and Dorothy’s Dictionary. Other directing credits include Good People (Ouray’s UpstART Theatre), The Real Inspector Hound (University of Colorado), and Double Gothic (University of Central Missouri). She has also assistant directed for BETC (Tiny Beautiful Things), Miners Alley Playhouse (Misery) and Denver Center for the Performing Arts (Hamlet). Onstage, you may have seen her in BETC’s Pride and Prejudice as Lizzy, or with theatre companies throughout Colorado over the past 15 years. Proud member of SAG-AFTRA. www.candacejoice.com
Jessica Robblee
Jessica Robblee (Producing Artistic Director) is a director, writer, teacher, producer, and Equity actor who has created theatre in Colorado for over twenty years. She’s proud to have acted with Buntport Theater, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, the Arvada Center Black Box Repertory Company, UpstART Theatre, Theatre Aspen, Miner’s Alley Playhouse, the Butterfly Effect Theatre Company, Curious Theatre, SisTryst Productions, Square Product Theatre, Wonderbound, and the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.
For twelve seasons, her heart grew bigger and bigger as she co-directed and co-produced Buntport Theater for All Ages—collaboratively creating and performing in several live comedy series and touring productions, plus designing and teaching arts-integrated programs for children throughout the Denver metro area. She has partnered with the Denver Art Museum, Warm Cookies of the Revolution, the Arts Students League, Lighthouse Writers Workshop, Black Ink Presents, and East High School– helping to deliver 8 seasons of a site-specific theatrical series inspired by visual art, four audio tours, multiple superhero drawing contests, one game show of rock band contestants, and an original play based on teens’ lives and the Civil Rights movement. She holds a BA in Theatre and English from Davidson College, an MA in Theatre Education from the University of Northern Colorado, and her work has been honored by True West Awards, the Henry Awards Committee, Westword, The Denver Post, and a kindergartener with a drawn-on moustache who said the play he’d just seen her in “sure was a long movie.”
She enjoys volunteering when she can at Project Worthmore, getting to know people far braver and more worldly than she is.
Mark Ragan
Mark Ragan (Managing Director) is an actor, director and producer working in the Denver and Boulder theater scene. Mark’s last directing credit was the 2021 Christmas show, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” which was nominated for six Henry Awards and won three.
In 2019, Mark directed William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet“ at the Dairy Arts Center in Boulder. John Moore described the production as a “refreshing change for those who don’t cling to their Shakespeare with too much reverence.”
As an actor, Mark performed the role of Scrooge in the 2021 production of “A Christmas Carol” at the Breckenridge Backstage Theater and was last scene as Laertes in the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s production of Mary Zimmerman’s the “Odyssey.”
Shakespeare has been at the heart of Mark’s theater career, having performed the roles of Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet; Lord Capulet at Chicago’s First Folio Shakespeare Festival; Lysander, Bottom and Peter Quince in productions of Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Rude Mechanicals in Washington D.C., where he was also seen as Angelo in Measure for Measure and Hotspur in Henry V.
Mark was a co-founder of Peak to Peak Players based in Gilpin County, which produced both professional and children’s theater.
Mark received his classical theater training at the Folger Shakespeare Theater in Washington D.C., studying with Floyd King and Edward Gero.
A former national political reporter who covered the White House and Congress in the 1980’s and 1990’s, Mark is also the owner of a nationally recognized content and communications company based in Chicago.
He lives in Highlands Ranch with his wife Jamie, a Juilliard-trained classical pianist. He has three daughters, all named after Shakespeare heroines: Juliet, Kate and Olivia.
“O they doth teach the torches to burn bright.”
Erin Thibodaux
Erin Thibodaux (Lighting Design) is a lighting designer, director, and writer whose work has been seen across the country. Last season, she joined the BETC team as an Associate Producer. Recent lighting design credits include: The White Chip, Enemy of the People, Coal Country (BETC); Sweeney Todd (The Arts HUB); Waitress,Shakespeare in Love, Matilda, Rent (Quincy Community Theatre); Alice by Heart, Annie, Little Women, SPACE, The Prom, Lost Girl, The Play that Goes Wrong (Ghostlight Theater Camp). She also recently directed the staged reading of Spain as part of BETC’s Plays with Fire series. Erin is excited for the 20th season and to continue her work with BETC.
Katie Hopwood McCleaf
Katie Hopwood (Stage Manage / Properties Design) is excited to be working with BETC again, this time as Stage Manager and Props Designer! You might remember her as the Stage Manager for BETC’s production of Eden Prairie, 1971! Her prop work was most recently featured in BETC performances The White Chip, Hope & Gravity, Enemy of the People, Holly, Alaska!, The Children, The Royale, Eden Prairie, 1971, and the touring truck shows – Amelia’s Big Idea and Dorothy’s Dictionary. Her prop work has also been featured in Curious Theatre Company shows Exhibit and Downstate. She graduated from Salisbury University with a degree in Theatre Production. She looks forward to working on more productions in the community!