Girls in mobcaps, “Oliver Jr”
Mission
Unity Stage Company (USC) brings high quality performing arts programming to the communities of Western Queens to support local youth and audiences of all ages. USC provides drama and musical theater programming to students in grades 2-7 through our own annual Children’s Musical Theater program and teen productions for actors in grades 8-12.
Training
Our programs offer literacy enrichment through the advanced vocabulary of our show script. Rehearsal sessions explore characters’ motivations and histories, deepening our young actors‘ understanding of behavior. On the physical side they learn to support their voices, and move their bodies with strength and purpose. Oh, and they’ll have fun with their friends and make new friends, too.
Actors in grades 8 thru 12 hone their skills on theater classics and explore recent works of significance to the lives of young people. On hiatus until 2024 season.
Pictured: “Godspell” directed by M.J. Geier & Daniel Weiner
Sofia Landon Geier
Sofia founded Unity Stage Company to bring the wonder of live theater to her Western Queens hometown. She launched her own storied theater career as a stage actor, studying drama at Northwestern University where she performed everything from Greek tragedy, Shakespeare and restoration comedy to Second City Improv. Sofia acted with several of America’s leading repertory companies, including Connecticut’s Long Wharf and Stamford Theatres, Baltimore Center Stage, Albany’s Capital Rep (which she co-founded), and Actors’ Theatre of Louisville. Sofia received a Drama Desk nomination for her Off-Broadway performance of the title role in Peg O’ My Heart. On Broadway, Sofia played Clelia in Larry Shue’s comedy The Nerd.
Sofia is honored to be one of that bunch of New York actors lucky enough to play a featured role on TV’s Law and Order (Benevolence). She has the unique distinction of having “died” while co-starring in three daytime dramas — accidentally with a fireplace poker on Guiding Light, driving her car off a cliff on Another World, and being stabbed to death on As the World Turns! She then spent fifteen years as an Emmy award-winning dialogue writer for numerous television “soaps.”
As a playwright Sofia adapted the novels “The Railway Children” and “Mysterious Mansions” into works for the stage. She directed Yellow Face by David Henry Hwang at Queens Theater in the Park (Outrageous Fortune Co.) With Unity Stage Company Sofia directed her own adaptation of Moliere’s Pretentious Young Ladies (with original songs by Tom Ashton), Six Cylinder Love, Loyalties, Spreading the News, many of the pieces in 2011’s and 2012’s Figgy Pudding Short Play Fest and all of Unity Stage’s Children’s Musicals from 2009 through 2012. Her directing work with teens includes Urinetown, the Musical!, A History of the American Film by Christopher Durang, and Like You Like It, a rock musical version of Shakespeare’s As You Like It. Sofia’s proudest accomplishment is that of mom to her two brilliant, creative, and kind daughters, Martha Joan (M.J.) Geier – President of Ticking Clock Productions, and Hallie K. Geier.