Our Story
We’re five friends from the Pittsburgh area who love theatre! We met in 2022 on tour for a local theatre company, performing for thousands of students in the greater Pittsburgh area. After working together for two years and spending many, many hours in a tour van, we realized we had become not only best friends, but a great ensemble too. And we realized we never wanted to stop creating art together. We think it’s that ensemble-based production style that makes us unique.
While most theatre companies select a project to produce and then assemble a team, we decided to flip that process on its head. We assembled our team and have been designing a project and a process around the concept of collaboration and our team member's specialized skill sets. This gives us the freedom to explore and create in ways we might be unable to in a more traditional theatre setting. And it allows us to bring stories to audiences that might not be seen otherwise.
As the actors, playwrights, directors, designers, and producers, we definitely have our hands full, but we’re passionate about every step of the process, from the first day of writing all the way to closing night. We hope this passion brings our audiences into real, human stories that can start conversations and make connections.
The Ensemble
Who We Are
Lexie Hellinger
Actor, Puppet Master
Lexie Hellinger is a young actor and puppet fanatic excited to start this journey! Growing up in the North Hills, she always wanted to be a performer and spent most of her school days performing in plays, musicals, and dance recitals. Lexie attended Seton Hill University where she was introduced to the world of puppetry and fell in love! She loved how these inanimate objects can come to life with intricate movements. She then started working with Puppets for Pittsburgh where she gets to perform outdoor puppet theatre all over the Pittsburgh area for children. There she learned how puppets can be a fantastic teaching tool for younger audiences as well as create such fantastical creatures. It wasn’t until recently was she introduced to the wonderful world of shadow puppets! Lexie was fascinated by how a simple move of a light can create such a big effect on the shadow puppet. She was fortunate enough to be a part of a production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet where most of the characters are portrayed in shadow or as shadow puppets themselves. This is her first time undertaking the challenge of designing and creating puppets for a full production, but has had wonderful guidance and encouragement from past teachers, mentors, and her current team. While working on this show, she continues to learn and fall in love with puppets more and more and hope you all do too when you see the show!
Lauren Scheller-Wolf
Actor, Writing Lead
Lauren Scheller-Wolf grew up in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood, where she quickly developed a love for books and stories. Her parents introduced her to theatre at a young age (for which she is eternally grateful), and from the time she was old enough to comprehend what was happening onstage, Lauren knew she wanted to be involved in theatre. When she was five, her parents took her to her first Shakespeare production, and she immediately fell in love. As she grew up, Lauren took theatre classes and summer camps, and performed in her first production when she was eight. Lauren’s love of theatre, Shakespeare, and storytelling continued in college at the University of Pittsburgh, where she earned a Bachelor of Philosophy in Theatre Arts and English Writing (Fiction Track) and wrote a thesis entitled “Language, Relatability, and Ease of Access: Bringing the Works of Shakespeare to a Wider Audience.” After graduation, Lauren has worked as an actor, teacher, and/or stage manager at several theatre companies around the Pittsburgh area, including teaching for the same theatre summer camps she attended as a child, helping students write original shows that they then perform. It was the skills she learned from teaching, along with what she learned in college as a writing major, that helped Lauren hone the skills she needed to lead the collaborative writing process for Stargazers productions. Lauren is thrilled to have this opportunity to continue to tell stories and play pretend with some of her best friends, and to be able to share those stories with the wider world.
Michael Kirk
Actor, World Builder
Michael Kirk grew up playing pretend with his brothers in the far northeast reaches of Pennsylvania. From a young age he’s had a love of music, art, and all things fun. Starting his acting career as a high school sophomore, Michael has been performing every chance he can get. After earning a Bachelors Degree in Performance for Baritone Voice from Duquesne University, Michael has made it his goal to combine his love for the stage with his love for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is over the moon to have the chance to make unapologetic, cool art with his friends in his favorite city in the world.
Shane Callahan
Actor, Lighting Designer
Shane Callahan has grown up in Pittsburgh, PA as a young kid, now living in Bethel Park, PA as an adult. Starting out he has wanted to be a Physical Therapist when he grew up due to his love of sports and how many he has played, but he fell in love with acting after participating in chorus and his chorus teacher telling him to audition for the spring musical where he got his first lead. So, he has been acting since middle school and is now acting professionally in Pittsburgh! He graduated from California University of Pennsylvania (now Pennsylvania Western University - California Campus for some reason) in 2022 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Theatre (Musical Theatre Concentration) and a minor in Communication Studies. He took several classes there to hone his singing and acting skills, as well as picking up some lighting designing skills which allowed him to be able to help craft this show. He loves how when programming lighting into shows, you think of how so many tense moments can have certain lighting effects with warm colors, where those more playful moments can be brighter with cooler colors. Designing the lights for his first show as lighting designer is a challenging, yet rewarding experience and he is proud to be supported by his other co-workers. Shane is very excited to be able to be a part of this amazing group of actors and perform an original play they all wrote and created together from the ground up, while being ambitious and starting this amazing Stargazers Theatre Ensemble company as one awesome unit!
Trevor Buda grew up in the South Hills watching Jim Carrey and fantasy movies. For as long as he can remember, he strived to entertain his three older brothers and his friends by combining the two - creating kooky characters that fight with swords. In college, he leapt at every opportunity to learn about acting, stage combat, and many offstage duties, finding a bit of a specialty in Shakespeare. He’s worked with props, lighting, sound design, music, fight choreography, construction, and more, in addition to performing onstage in dozens of shows across Pittsburgh and Northeast Ohio. Now, he’s thrilled to bring all those skills together with his best friends and their wide range of skills to produce this banger of a show. He even got to write some original music for this production, something he has been doing for half of his life. Being onstage with a sword on his hip and a guitar on his back is a dream come true. If things go well, he may just become a real life bard.