Special Guests: River Bend Film Festival 2023

Mary Chieffo

Featured Film: Every Morning | Screening + Q&A
SATURDAY, April 22 | 11:30 A.M.
Goshen Theater Ballroom
$12 or Pass

Featured Event: Movement for Actors and Improvisors
FRIDAY, April 21 | 1:00 P.M.
GoDance Studio
$12 or Pass

Mary Chieffo (she/her) is a queer actor/producer known internationally as the Klingon Commander turned Chancellor L’Rell on the Paramount+ series Star Trek: Discovery, returning as her iconic character for the highly popular Star Trek Online. After playing numerous Shakespeare roles including the titular characters in King Lear and Macbeth, Chieffo received her BFA from Juilliard in 2015, along with the prestigious Elizabeth Smith Voice and Speech Prize and the Saint-Denis Prize for “Outstanding Achievement and Leadership in Drama.” When she wasn’t covered in prosthetics and speaking Klingon, Mary produced, wrote, and starred as Iago in Operation Othello – a feminist, gender, and color-conscious VR adaptation of Shakespeare’s Othello alongside Viola Davis and Julius Tennon’s JuVee Productions in the spring of 2018 (Official Cannes XR and Raindance XR Selection). She has since developed her female interpretation of the notorious villain for Iago: The Green-Eyed Monster, a Musical AR Experience co-created with Josh Nelson Youssef in collaboration with JuVee and Verizon, premiering at Tribeca Film Festival in June 2022 (Tribeca X Finalist). Recent acting credits include guest star roles on NCIS, Girls5eva, and leading roles in Bespoke Plays’ staged readings of Heretics by Ellie Pyle in New York, Analogue by Christine Boylan, Lady Face and Systems by Madi Goff in Los Angeles. Mary is a current conservatory student at genre and narrative-based Impro Theatre School and a frequent collaborator with all-female/genderqueer Ripley Improv. Mary stars opposite Madi Goff in the short film Every Morning, a queer sci-fi love story, also written by Goff (Indie Short Fest WINNER Best Acting Duo, Best Original Score, Outstanding Achievement LGBTQ Short, and Official Hollywood Shorts Fest Selection). Chieffo served as executive and creative producer on the film in partnership with Dr. Erin Macdonald’s LGTBQ+ owned Spacetime Productions.

Madi Goff

Featured Film: Every Morning | Screening + Q&A
SATURDAY, April 22 | 11:30 A.M.
Goshen Theater Ballroom
$12 or Pass

Featured Event: Movement for Actors and Improvisors
FRIDAY, April 21 | 1:00 P.M.
GoDance Studio
$12 or Pass

Madi Goff (they/she) is an actor, writer, and born and raised Texas “cowgirl” who brings heart to comedy and hope to drama in writing and performance. They are a Groundlings Sunday Company alumni and current guest in the Groundlings’ live show in LA: The Crazy Uncle Joe Show. Madi is a member of Ripley Improv, an all female and genderqueer collective that produces improvised films, plays, and streaming content. They are a company member with Impro Theatre, which performs fully-improvised plays in theaters across the globe from LA to Dubai. Madi will be performing in Jane Austen UnScripted with Impro Theatre at the Gary Marshall Theatre in Los Angeles in the Spring of 2023. As a playwright, Madi is a current member of The Road Theater’s Under Construction Playwright’s Group. In 2022, Bespoke Plays produced Equity staged readings of two plays, LADY FACE and SYSTEMS, both written by and starring Goff. Most recently, Madi wrote, produced, and starred in EVERY MORNING, a short sci-fi love story between two women produced by Erin Macdonald with her company Spacetime Productions (Indie Short Fest WINNER Best Acting Duo, Best Original Score, Outstanding Achievement LGBTQ Short, and Official Hollywood Shorts Fest Selection).

Kelly Lohman

Featured Event: Every Morning | Screening + Q&A
SATURDAY, April 22 | 11:30 A.M.
Goshen Theater Ballroom
$12 or Pass

Kelly Lohman is a director and actor based in Los Angeles. She recently directed “Every Morning”, a women-led sci-fi short, and a fully-improvised series called “As We Go Along”.  Kelly has also directed and assistant directed with Interact Theatre Company, Fremont Centre Theatre, Vs. Theatre Company, and The Car Plays (Moving Arts). Kelly is a recurring guest star on “Show Offs”, a completely improvised (and musical) series on BYUtv. She has also appeared in “Bones”, “Gilmore Girls”, “Days of Our Lives”, “ASK What Could Be the Harm”, and “The Hillside Strangler”. Kelly has performed sketch and improv across Los Angeles at Impro, Comedy Central Stages, Second City, UCB, iO West, the Hollywood Fringe Festival, and more. She is a member of Ripley Improv and Impro Theatre Company.

David Anspaugh

Feature Film: Rudy | Screening + Q&A
FRIDAY, APRIL 21 | 7:30 P.M.
Goshen Theater
$20 or Pass

David Anspaugh was born in Decatur, Indiana,  graduated from Indiana University and studied at the USC Graduate School of Cinematic Arts.  His work as an associate producer on television movies led to his producing and directing Hill Street Blues, for which he won three Emmy Awards, two Golden Globes, two Black Image Awards, and earned two nominations from The Directors Guild of America for Best Hour TV Drama Directing and Anspaugh and won the DGA award for Best Hour Drama for Hilll Street Blues and was also  nominated for an episode of St. Elsewhere. He directed episodes of Miami Vice, before making his feature film debut with Hoosiers, starring Gene Hackman and Dennis Hopper. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, and Anspaugh won a Special Achievement Award from the Heartland Film Festival, and was nominated by the Independent Spirit Awards for best direction of a first time  feature film director.

Additional screen credits include Fresh Horses, starring Molly Ringwald, Ben Stiller, Vigo Mortensen, and Andrew McCarthy; Rudy, starring Sean Astin, Jon Favreau, Ned Beatty, and Vince Vaughn; Moonlight and Valentino, starring Whoopi Goldberg, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kathleen Turner, and Jon Bon Jovi;  Wise Girls, starring Mira Sorvino, and Mariah Carey; The Game Of Their Lives, starring Gerard Butler; Little Red Wagon, starring, Anna Gunn, and Francis O’Conner. Anspaugh also directed a number of Television Movies and Television Pilots, starring a long list of outstanding talent: Andy Garcia, Ben Foster, Cheryl Ladd, Harry Belefonte, Mary Stuart Masterson, James Whitmore, Denzel Washington, Helen Hunt, Jane Kaczmarek.

Hoosiers and Rudy were both included in AFI’s 100 Yeasr…100 Cheers; America’s Most Inspiring Movies. ESPN voted Hoosiers the best sports film in it’s list of the 25 Best Sports Movies from 1979-2004. Hoosiers and Rudy were both featured in Today’s poll of the Top 10 Sports Movies of All Time, with Hoosiers ranked number one.  And, in 2001, Hoosiers was selected for preservation in The United States National Film Regestry by The Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. Anspaugh’s other awards include The Peabody, The Humanitas Prize, People’s Choice, Heartlands Crystal Heart Award, IU’s Thomas Hart Benton Mural Medallion, 100 Of The Most Famous Hoosiers, Indiana Living Legend, Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame. He has directed over 50 national commercials including, Xerox, Chevrolet, Kellogs, Nike, and won the Silver Lion at the Cannes International Commercial Film Festival.

Jillian Speece and Nathanial Paul Hoff

Featured Film: State of the Unity | Screening + Q&A
SATURDAY, April 22 | 5:00 P.M.
Goshen Theater
$12 or Pass

Featured Event: The Bergamot Concert
SATURDAY, April 22 | 8:00 P.M.
Goshen Theater $25 or Pass

The Bergamot is an American indie folk/rock duo based in Brooklyn, New York. The group formed in 2010 in South Bend, Indiana and consists of Jillian Speece (vocals/cajón) and Nathaniel Paul Hoff (vocals/guitar/keyboard). The duo is known for their songwriting, uplifting music and entertaining shows. Their sound is often compared to Of Monsters and Men, Benjamin Gibbard and Mac Demarco. In 2017 The Bergamot won the Project Aloft Star competition and People Magazine said they were the,“hottest emerging music talent” while EARMILK wrote that, “The Bergamot is the perfect blend.” The duo has opened up for X-Ambassadors, Gavin Degraw, Bea Miller,Young The Giant and in 2019 they got invited to open for OneRepublic.

The Bergamot has released 7 albums and 1 EP while constantly touring across North America and Europe. Hoff and Speece started writing together in 2003 after their high-school art teacher Kitty Gunty invited them to write a song to submit to Project XL, an Indiana state-wide arts and songwriting competition. And in the spring of 2004 the duo’s song “Seasons Change” was accepted as a top 10 finalist.

Since their early years together The Bergamot has released Smile EP (2010), Haven (2011), Live at The Morris (2017), A South Shore Christmas (Live at The Acorn, Three Oaks, 2019) and 4 studio albums Static Flowers (2012), Tones (2016), Mayflies (2019) and Far Out (2022). The duo set out on January 2nd, 2016 from New York City to launch “The Unity Collective USA Tour.”

While on The Unity Collective tour Hoff and Speece would perform in all 50 states while spreading a message of unity and peace to all Americans during a tumultuous 2016 election period. Two months before the conclusion of The Unity Collective tour The Bergamot would get a lucky break as their story got picked up by NBC Washington Channel 4 “Driving for Unity” and spread their message further into the fabric of America. At the end of this 8 month tour they would go on to released the dreamy anthem P.D.R. This single was discovered by Matt Wiggins (Adele, U2, Florence and the Machine) and achieved rave reviews being called “The hottest emerging music talent” (People) and “a gorgeous sound” (Daily Mirror).