Jim Benton is a veteran of 38 years of musical theater.  Earning a Bachelor of Music Education degree in Choral Music from Howard Payne University, he did graduate work in Vocal/Choral Music and Conducting and completed his graduate hours at Texas A&M University.  He has been music director for dinner theater and professional theater groups including productions of The Music Man, Li'l Abner and Amahl and the Night Visitors as well as many community musical theater and cabaret productions.  Mr. Benton has music directed three Broadway Musical Collaboration premiers under Stuart Ostrow at the University of Houston.  He is in his 12^th year as music director of the Houston Bar Association’s annual musical production, Night Court.  Jim is active in many corporate and charity musical productions and is Music Director for FROWbiz.

Jeffrey S. Lane, a native Houstonian, graduated in 1989 from Sam Houston State University with a degree in Radio, Television & Film.  After beginning his professional career in the Pacific Northwest, Jeff returned to Texas and in 1995 began his 13 year affiliation with Main Street Theatre, where he is currently on staff as Master Scenic Carpenter.  He has performed for Early Stages, Children's Theatre Festival and Express Children's Theatre.  He has several radio, television and film credits with a career highlight being Mary-Lou Rhetton's nationally aired PBS children's show, Mary-Lou's Flip-Flop Shop where he played LZ Bones.  FROWbiz roles include Second Officer Charles Lightoller in Titanic: The Artifact Exhibit, Albert Einstein in the Nobel Exhibit, both at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.  Jeffrey has also played George Buns, Ed Sullivan, Maxwell Smart, Mythbreaker’s Adam Fracage, Teddy Roosevelt, The Mad Hatter and is a founding member of the “Fab Five”, FROWbiz’s Murder Mystery Performance Company.

Barbara Lasater walked on stage at the age of 9 as a dancer.  Eight years later when she went to the University of Texas in Austin, she changed her major to acting and directing.  In reality it was changed for her when the New York City Ballet needed ballerinas who could actually stay on pointe for hours at a time.  Barbara has worked professional for the last &^^%(*&% years on stage and in film and television.  Barbara's great love- professionally - is the stage.  She has taught stage acting for 30 years to all ages.  She coaches adults from the business sector in presentational skills, how to win an audience and sell a product, how to improve your voice so that you are taken seriously and what your body language is screaming to potential clients and customers.  "Not everybody wants to be an actor, but everybody needs the skills of the actor to succeed."

Mark Roberts, a native Houstonian, owes his life in the theatre to an unlikely twist of fate.  Mark’s father, an immigrant from Arkansas and mother, an immigrant from Alabama, making the trek to this great nation by ship, were caught in a fierce tempest.  Mark was washed overboard by a rogue wave and was feared lost forever.  Fortunately, he washed up on a deserted island and was rescued by a family of performing crustaceans.  These crabs treated Mark as their own child and taught him all they knew about acting and entertaining.  In an event rarely spoken of by Mark, again battered by the mighty winds of a tropical cyclone, he and his stepfather, Stone, were washed off the island.  Washed up on the shores of Galveston island, Mark made his way to Houston, putting all he learned about performance to the test, and has performed in numerous productions at Main Street Theater, Stages Repertory Theatre, Curtains, Theater LaB Houston and New Heights Theater, among others.  Mark was eventually reunited with his real parents, and had the opportunity to repay his crustacean family when he saved his stepfather from becoming the main course as a seafood house in Houston.  Mark is a member of the FROWbiz mystery Fab Five and can be counted on to be very silly at a moment’s notice.

Leslie Shaw When Leslie was in the 4^th grade she went on a field trip to the first act of Fiddler on the Roof.  That night she dragged her family to see the rest of the show…and then back two more times.  Leslie has performed as much as possible ever since, with her first part being a Hot Box Chick in Guys and Dolls.  She has since appeared in Seussical the Musical, Annie Get Your Gun and The Crucible.  Favorite roles include Elmire in Tartuffe and Brother Judah in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  Leslie is a mainstay in FROWbiz musical shows appearing for the Periwinkle Foundation, as Belle in the Kramer Princess Birthday Show and most recently as the Gen Y in GE Diversity Cabaret.  When not treading the FROWbiz boards, Leslie is studying vocal performance at San Jacinto College and plans on studying opera at U of H in the coming year.

Gene Smith is a writer and musician, Gene trained in the Texas Renaissance Festival Performance Company, and has zealously preserved the street walker instincts he learned there.  As co-founder of FROWbiz, his roles include everything from talent wrangler to gangsters to Capt. Smith in Titanic:  The Artifact Exhibit, Thomas Jefferson, Leonardo da Vinci, Jean LaFitte and many others, but his  favorite role is Slymon Crawley, the "mean judge" in Associate Idol.

Alex Stutler, a graduate of Rice University 's Shepherd School of Music, and a Texas native, arrived in Houston for school and never quite managed to tear himself away from either.  He is now the school's resident stage manager and properties master for vocal and operatic performances and has been tinkering around behind the scenes in every Shepherd School production since 1995. In addition to his work backstage he has appeared onstage with many local companies including Masquerade, Bayou City Concert Musicals, Galveston's Strand, Unhinged Productions, Theatre New West.  Alex is a mainstay in all FROWbiz musical shows, most notably, 'Till There Was You, An Evening with the Phantom, the low-life Johnny Tunes in All That Jazz, a singing Wolverine and Prince Charming.

Jody Jones Townsley  What do you get when you combine Madonna, a singing elf, one of King Triton's sirens and a 1950s baseball player? Jody Jones Townsley, of course!  This versatile, petite entertainer has been amusing audiences from Kentucky to New York and Germany to Texas for the past 22 years.  As Enya Lapp, a burlesque performer for the Fanny Lafaye's Blue Burlesque show, she threw on an Irish accent and threw off just about everything else!  Then at Six Flags Astroworld, she honed her script writing skills and made audiences spit in their steins with her Renaissance wench character named Jo.  Bunny Beehive, a screaming Beatles fan from the 1960s, has to be Jody's favorite FROWbiz roles to date.  Jody's skills in comedy, dance and interactive theater are undeniably what continue to make her stand out from the traditional cattle-call crowd and land those oh, so coveted roles of fanatics, crazies and blushing beauties.  Let her comedic reign never end!