November 7 – 23, 2025
The Cast
Tavis Evans – John
Tavis lives in south Salem with his family and loves to do theater. He has done shows with KHT, Brush Creek Playhouse, Pentacle Theater and Verona Studio. In his off time he likes tacos, binge reading wikipedia and procrastination.
Nyla McCarthy – Elanor of Aquitaine
Once upon a time, Nyla earned a living and won awards while working in over 50 theatre, film and audio productions as equity actor, director, and puppeteer.
When, as the single mother of two young children, she encountered too many theatre professionals disturbed by the idea of kids at rehearsals, she re-channeled her energies. She became the best mother she could; worked in human rights activism, abuse prevention and investigation and disability advocacy, to pay the bills.
Throughout her years Nyla helped birth professional theatres such as Oregon Repertory, Artists Repertory, and Cygnet Productions. She danced with Big Bird, agreed with Tony Kushner about evolving text to fit changing audiences, presented at Oxford on her work adapting Brecht for the empowerment of people with disabilities, and once, wept with frustration after Fidel Castro targeted her from the podium as “another representative of imperialist industrialism” during the International Women’s Conference where she’d been invited to co-facilitate the Women in Politics Delegation.
Happier memories include being featured alongside her son on the Montel Williams Show (her daughter was studying in Japan) for his groundbreaking 1990’s episode showcasing model GLBTQI families. Go, Montel!
After years and years away, Nyla is honored to return to the stage as Eleanor of Acquitaine for KHT.
She wishes to dedicate her performance to David and Erinna, who never got to know their mom as a professional theatre artist.
Janice Munk – Alais
Janice is grateful to be making her Keizer Homegrown debut. Some of her previous credits include Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Orlando Shakes), Jane Bingley in Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley (Pentacle Theatre), and Fanny Dashwood/Lady Middleton in Sense and Sensibility (Snow Blackbox). Before moving to Keizer a year ago, Janice taught Acting, Voice Diction, and Improv at Brigham Young University – Idaho. She has an MFA in Acting from the University of Central Florida and also enjoys working in film.
Rick Sanders – King Henry II
Rick is very excited to make his debut at KHT playing the dream role of King Henry II. He was most recently seen playing seven roles in Albany Civic Theatre’s production of Bullshot Crummond. Some favorites roles over a lifetime of theatrical opportunities include Pterodactyls (Arthur Duncan, Theatre Vertigo), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Egeus/Peter Quince, Tygres Heart), Tempest, A Musical (Prospero and Composer, Calamity Productions), and Twelfth Night (Malvolio, Hillsboro Artists Rep). He enjoys composing and arranging music, reading, and all things Hawai’i. So many thanks to so many people including the Linda and all the good folks at KHT, and to Nikki for everything else.
Nathaniel J. Pierce – Richard the Lion Heart
Nathaniel is an Oregon and New York based Technical Director, Actor and Designer, who is ecstatic to be working with the local youth. He is most known for his work in New York with Second Stage Theater, MCC Theater, Evan Bernardin Productions, New World Stages, and The Schubert Foundation. Nathaniel has worked on various shows in New York, such as the original production of Dear Evan Hansen, The Wrong Man, The Play that Goes Wrong, Avenue Q, and many others.
Nathaniel is a graduate of the American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA), and would later assume the role of Technical Director for the academy. At AMDA, Nathaniel taught the students the industry standard of stage construction, set design, lighting, and stage operation, as well as providing them the tools and resources to succeed in the technical field of theatre.
Nathaniel is proud to be back in Oregon and a part of our local community once again. His most recent shows in Oregon include the Evil Dead The Musical, Lion in Winter, Waiting For Waiting For Godot, Lifespan of a Fact, James and the Giant Peach, Legally Blonde, Kinky Boots, Silent Sky, and much more. He enjoys the fact that he is always moving forward, creating ideas, forming new relationships, and investing all of his time and efforts into his community and his theater projects. He thanks all of those that have supported him along the way, and hopes to inspire and mentor more along there journey through their career and further their path within the theatre industry.
Robert McMorris – Geoffrey
Paul Nielson – Phillip, King of France
The Play…
For many, being with family during the holidays can be quite a strain– The estranged uncle shows up unannounced, arguing politics with anyone unwise enough to engage; Grandma has just said something startlingly racist within earshot of your new partner of Japanese descent; the wife that you imprisoned for treason is stirring up trouble as your sons vie for your throne and the right to rule twelfth century England. Christmas in particular can be a bit rough, especially if you are the Plantagenet family in 1183.
The Lion in Winter by James Goldman smartly combines lofty problems (such as the latter of my three examples) that are completely alien to the lives of us peasants in the twenty-first century with experiences that are common across not only the world but also across time. King Henry II and his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, plot against one another after essentially putting their careers before love. Richard, the eldest of the princes, struggles to reconcile his sexual identity, Geoffrey, the middle child, is often overlooked and under appreciated. The youngest, John, is used to being pampered. Somehow Goldman makes us not only understand but also empathize with these towering, remote figures, as is further evidenced by his naturalistic dialogue, which is modern in its vocabulary and elegant in its simplicity.
Goldman’s work is not terribly historically accurate and takes a great deal of artistic license to tell its story. In addition to the dialogue, there was no Christmas court at the fortress of Chinon in the year in question. There is no consensus amongst historians that Richard was gay, nor is there any real evidence that Alais was Henry’s mistress. Naturally, The Lion in Winter also has to guess how its real-life characters felt at certain events for lack of a solid emotional roadmap, filling in blanks that are left in the absence of kingly diaries and queenly blog posts. But instead of making the entire affair a straightforward tragedy of Shakespearean proportions Goldman suffuses the goings-on with comedy and love in addition to the expected drama and hardship. In short, Goldman makes these larger-than-life historical figures reflections of our own lives.
T. Jordan Reid