Psittacus Productions

Louis Butelli (Executive Director) Born and raised on Long Island, New York, Louis has spent the past fifteen years working as an actor, teacher, director, and writer. From 1998-2008, he was Artist-In-Residence and Company Clown for the Aquila Theatre Company. During that time, he played in over 25 productions of the works of William Shakespeare and other classical playwrights, appearing Off-Broadway, at major regional houses, on tour in 49 US states and across Europe; taught over 300 masterclasses; wrote, adapted and appeared in a new production of "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde;" and authored numerous successfully funded grants. Other credits include La Jolla Playhouse; LA Shakespeare Festival; Shakespeare Theatre Co, DC; Folger Theater; Yale Rep; Long Wharf; Orlando Shakes; Two River Theater, NJ; Alpine Theater Project, MT; Seaside Shakespeare of Nantucket; La Scala Opera's West Side Story in Milan, Beirut, Nagoya, Fukuoka, Osaka, and Tokyo; many others. TV: The Unusuals, and All My Children (ABC), Law & Order, and L&O: Criminal Intent (NBC). Louis is on faculty at the School of Theatre, University of Southern California, where he teaches a course in Comedic Acting. This year, in addition to producing Psittacus Productions' "A Tale Told By An Idiot" and "CYCLOPS," he collaborated with Robert Richmond to make the short film, "Dreadful Sorry," financed by a generous grant from the South Carolina Film Commission, "The Lost Colony" on Roanoke Island on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and "Henry VIII" at the Folger Theater in the nation's capital, for which he won the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Supporting Performer. Louis is a proud resident of Los Angeles, and misses his cats.

Chas LiBretto (Managing Director) Chas was born in Manhattan and raised in northern New Jersey. He started acting at a young age, and discovered a love for Shakespeare while playing the titular character in Hamlet at age 8. He has received BAs in drama, English Literature, and Creative Writing at Washington College in Maryland, studied in and traveled across Europe, and trained in a variety of disciplines at the Atlantic Theater Company Conservatory in New York City. As an actor, he's performed in New York and at regional theaters, in classical and modern work alike. As a director, he has staged David Mamet's "Sexual Perversity in Chicago," R.C. Sherriff's World War I play "Journey's End," and a long-form, structured improvisation based on transcripts from Brecht and Miller's testimonies to HUAC. As a freelance videographer, he's worked at "Saturday Night Live," "Late Night with Conan O'Brian," "The Today Show," "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," and, most surreal of all, for the Media Pool at the 2008 Republican Convention. He writes fiction and drama, and is a proud member of the Screen Actors' Guild. He co-founded Psittacus Productions last February, and "CYCLOPS" is the second show he's produced through the company, following 2010's summer hit, "A Tale Told By An Idiot." He lives in Los Angeles.