For Immediate Release
January 14, 2009

MANASSAS –Vpstart Crow Announces Leslie Rizor Joining the Company

Leslie Anne Rizor earned her BFA in theatre at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA. Since graduating from VCU, Ms. Rizor has worked in regional theatre in the Washington, DC area in all facets of production to include acting, scenic painting, costume design, and box office. She was last seen on stage in Vpstart’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Other credits include Fifth of July, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Guys for NVTA 2005 (winner Judges Discretionary Award for Best Ensemble), The Most Massive Women Wins for NVTA 2003 (winner Best Supporting Actress; winner Best Overall Production), The Man Who Came to Dinner, Fiddler on the Roof and The Crucible. Other Shakespearean productions include The Merchant of Venice, Macbeth, All’s Well That Ends Well, Much Ado About Nothing and a previous production of Othello. She has also worked on the original play A Couple for the Connoisseur and wrote and performs a one woman show Daybreak for the Bohemian Girl about the life of stage actress Blanche Yurka. Ms. Rizor was a founding member of the short-lived theatre group Company III.ii which produced Romeo and Juliet and For Whom The Southern Bell Tolls.

ABOUT VPSTART CROW PRODUCTIONS, INC.
Founded in 1994, Vpstart Crow Productions, Inc. (pronounced “upstart”) is a non-Equity and non-profit professional theatre company dedicated to performing the works of William Shakespeare and other theatre classics. Vpstart Crow’s mission is to produce live theatre as a vital, accessible and exciting part of community life. Employing a resident company of local professional actors and artists of the highest caliber, Vpstart Crow is dedicated to breaking down the barriers between audience and actors in a performance style that is thought-provoking and altogether vpstartling.

The term “vpstart crow” comes from one of Shakespeare’s rival English playwrights, Robert Greene. In his 1592 pamphlet, Groats-Worth Of Wit Bought With A Million Of Repentance, Greene criticizes Shakespeare: “… for there is an vpstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his tigers hart wrapt in a players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes factotum (“Johnny-do-it-all” or “Jack-of-all-trades”), is in his owne conceit the onely ‘Shake-scene’ in a countrey.” In fact, Vpstart Crow spells its name with a “v” rather than a “u” in reference to the way the English language was written in Shakespeare’s day.