Meet the Cast & Creative Team
Tara Trudel (Creator, Songwriter, Lead Artist)
Tara Trudel is a versatile songwriter and composer based in Los Angeles. She started her career teaching early childhood and elementary school music all over Chicago for The Merit School of Music and Chicago Public Schools. As a teaching artist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Tara performed her students’ original composition with guest artist Yo-Yo Ma. Tara left teaching to perform around the country as a Music Director with the Second City Touring Company. She was lucky to meet some of her favorite long-term collaborators there, and then she asked them all to appear on her album.
Tara’s work has been seen in SXSW, Amazon Prime, Cine Sony’s New Voices, and Vulture’s Best Comedy Shorts Of The Year. Her score for Chelsea Devantez’s short film BASIC won Best Score at the LA Film Awards and the Festigious International Film Festival. Tara also writes theme songs for children’s books, including Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s UNI THE UNICORN. Learn more at www.taratrudel.com.
Carisa Barreca (Sleeping Beauty)
Carisa Barreca is an alumnus of The Second City’s Resident Stage where she wrote and performed in three critically acclaimed revues. She had the honor of performing at Lyric Opera with Patrick Stewart and Renee Fleming in The Second City’s Guide to the Opera. She performed at the Kennedy Center and at Goodman Theater with Twist Your Dickens and she wrote and performed in The Hubbard Street and Second City’s Collaboration, Art Of Falling which premiered at the Harris Theater in Chicago and The Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles. Recently, Carisa could be seen in her long-running, award-winning show, She The People. Her television and film credits include recurring roles as GiGi on Fox’s Big Leap, Lizzie on Fox’s Empire and Sue on POPTV’s Hot Date and her own award-winning webseries Doomsdate. She is thrilled to be a part of this project with such an amazing group of people!
Ashley Nicole Black (Queen)
Ashley Nicole Black is a two-time Emmy-award winning writer, actress and comedian. Her projects include Ted Lasso, A Black Lady Sketch Show, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, and The Amber Ruffin Show. Her career in comedy began at the legendary Second City in Chicago. Now back in LA, she has signed an overall deal with the Warner Bros. Television Group to produce content for their many platforms.
Neal Dandade (Farmer in the Town)
Neal Dandade is an actor, writer, improviser, facilitator, and educator. TV acting credits include TNT’s Sirens, ABC Family’s Kevin from Work, TV Land’s Teachers, Peacock’s Shrink, and NBC’s Chicago Med. While in LA, Neal was a regular performer and core faculty member at The Pack Theater and was a member of the 2016 CBS Diversity Showcase. In Chicago, Neal was a member of the Second City National Touring Company, as well as a regular writer/performer/teacher at the iO and Annoyance theaters. Apart from his acting work, Neal has written and produced web content for online platforms, Second City Network and Mas Mejór (a subsidiary of Broadway Video). Neal holds an MFA in Writing for Screen and Stage at Northwestern University, where he was invited to join as an adjunct lecturer in the department of Radio/TV/Flim.
Chelsea Devantez (Stepmom)
Chelsea Devantez is an Emmy-nominated writer, comedian, filmmaker and podcast host who entered into an overall deal with 20th Television at the beginning of 2022. She is currently a Co-Executive Producer on the ABC comedy, Not Dead Yet. Prior to that, Chelsea was the Head Writer on Jon Stewart’s Apple series, The Problem with Jon Stewart where she was nominated for an Emmy for Best Writing for a Nonfiction Program. She began her TV writing career on Jon Stewart’s never released (nor titled) HBO show. Since her first go-round with the host, Devantez has written on Girls5Eva, Bless this Mess, Abby’s, and Comedy Central’s The Opposition with Jordan Klepper. She has a feature in development with Rideback and Sony Screen Gems titled You’ve Met Your Match about her experience putting her mother-in-law on Tinder. Chelsea’s short film, Basic, which she wrote, directed and starred in, premiered at SXSW 2020 and was released on Amazon Prime. Basic is currently being developed as a feature with Marc Platt Productions, with Meredith Hagner attached to star, and is set to be Chelsea’s directorial debut.
In September 2020, Chelsea Devantez launched her podcast Celebrity Book Club which recaps and celebrates the memoirs of female celebrities. Since then, Celebrity Book Club has garnered over 3 million downloads and put out over 55 episodes, covering memoirs like Jessica Simpson’s Open Book, Gabrielle Union’s We’re Going to Need More Wine, and Ronnie Spector’s Be My Baby, and featuring guests like Stephanie Beatriz, Ashley Nicole Black, Melissa Fumero, Margaret Cho, Gaboourey Sidibe, Cecily Strong, Jenni Konner, Leighton Meester, and Paul Scheer. Celebrity Book Club is completely independent was the very first podcast to be chosen as an Apple Podcasts Spotlight feature, and is a mainstay of their Top 20 list for Books.
Eddie Mujica (Baker in the Town)
Eddie Mujica is a Cuban-American actor, writer, and Emmy-winning producer from Hialeah, Florida. An alumnus of The Second City in Chicago, he starred in two critically acclaimed sketch revues after traveling the country (with Tara and Neal!) on The Second City Touring Company. Eddie was most recently an Associate Director/Executive Producer of the 2023 CBS Showcase and previously a writer/performer. His short film “Dreamer” was an Imagen Award finalist while “Uno Por Uno: The Cuban Missile Crisis” won Best Short at HBO’s NYLFF and Cine Sony’s New Voices. He has appeared in various national commercials and his writing credits include: Connecting (NBC), True Story with Ed Helms & Randall Park (Peacock), and Gordita Chronicles (HBO Max).
Mary Sohn (Fairy Godmother)
Mary is a Korean-American actor, writer and improviser. TV credits include: A.P. Bio, Work in Progress, Bajillion Dollar Properties, Grace n’ Frankie, Miracle Workers and The Neighborhood. Film Credits include: Between Two Ferns and The Boss, as well as various independent short films. You can hear her as “Amber” on the podcast, “Hey Randy” and can catch her improvising at The Elysian Theater and various theaters in LA. She currently lives in LA with a very nice man and a very stinky dog.
Niccole Thurman (Witch)
Niccole Thurman is a Los Angeles-based Actress and WGA award-winning writer. She is also the voice of Jabberjaw, Squiddly Diddly and Dee Dee Sykes in the HBOMax series Jellystone. Past work includes appearances on Grace and Frankie(Netflix), Kenan (NBC), Indebted (NBC), Desperados (Netflix). A Black Lady Sketch Show (HBO), Shrill (Hulu) and Superstore (NBC). She was a correspondent on Comedy Central’s The Opposition w/ Jordan Klepper. As a writer she wrote for the 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards, hosted By Jimmy Kimmel, Sherman’s Showcase (AMC) and Haute Dog (HBO Max), Let’s Be Real on Fox and the Peacock Show, Baking It.
Rachel Trudel (Little Sister)
Rachel is a seasoned piano player & vocalist and a long-time contributor to her sister’s creative pursuits. She is excited to have evolved past harmonized duets over childhood dish duty and is honored to be included as part of this much-anticipated album.
Rachel currently plays in a piano/guitar duo with her partner. They are working on a unique musical experience, “Acoustic After Dark”, which weaves together mellow & soulful renditions of familiar songs, instrumental pieces, and creative mashups in an intimate, candlelit setting.
Rachel is an avid traveler and spends her time living between Florida, Nicaragua and Spain.
Ben Harris (Engineer, Mixing, Music Producer)
Ben is an Engineer and Producer currently based in New York City. He trained at Gravity Studios in Chicago with Chief Engineer Doug McBride (Veruca Salt, Smashing Pumpkins, Cheap Trick, Mavis Staples). He is currently an associate engineer at Manhattan Beach Recording in New York. You can learn more about Ben at http://www.BenHarrisAudio.com.