MARK GAYLORD (Composer/Lyricist) is the author of Chatham Songs, a short music-theatre play produced in MCC’s Class1Acts series. MCC also developed his full-length work Birdwatchers, with book by Anna Theresa Cascio. His score of Far From the Madding Crowd, adapted from Thomas Hardy’s novel, was staged in workshop at San Francisco’s ACT Conservatory, directed by Carey Perloff. As a performer, Mark appeared in Stravinsky’s L’histoire du Soldat at Saratoga Performing Arts Center as le Soldat, a role he also danced with the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Other stage appearances include Love’s Labour’s Lost at the Public Theatre, the Hal Prince revival of Showboat in Vancouver and A Capella Hardcore at MCC. Regional acting credits include the Alley Theatre in Houston, Colorado Shakespeare Festival in Boulder, Great Lakes Theatre Festival in Cleveland, Asolo Theatre in Sarasota and the Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami. He holds an MFA in acting from the University of Washington, a BFA in musical theatre from SUNY Fredonia and is an alumnus of the BMI Lehman Engel Workshop. Mark’s songs are frequently featured in the weekly Tuesdays@9 reading series at Naked Angels. His collaboration with playwright Tom Diggs includes two future projects: The Omega Point and Saint Nicholas Inc.