These notes paraphrase published pieces. A short line is quoted only when it appears in the piece. Nothing here is a full article.
The pieces below use the names Zoe Pappas or Zoe Courneya. They match the actor on this site: Twin Cities stages, then yoga, a move connected to Jonas Courneya, and the Gmail name zoecourneya on the parked zoepappas.com page. No article turned up under the exact name Zoe Colglazier Pappas.
A clipping in her files gives one sentence and the name Richard Crawford. The publication and the date are not written on it. Kenickie is named as Sean Nugent. Her May 2009 resume lists Rizzo at Chanhassen Dinner Theaters, directed by Michael Brindisi.
Other strong characters included bad boy Kenickie, played by Sean Nugent, and Zoe Pappas as the sharp-tongued and morally loose “Rizzo.”
Source: Grease.doc. No paper name is in the file.
Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, in a Morning After piece headed 10.18.08. The page also shows a timestamp of December 19, 2013. The review says the show continues through January 31, 2009. It uses the name Zoe Pappas, spelled in the sentence as Ulle.
The piece is mostly about Jay Albright’s Max Bialystock and Michael Brindisi’s direction. On her, it says she has a great set of pipes and that she takes the dumb-blonde stereotype and makes it fresh and her own.
Zoe Pappas, as Ulle, has a great set of pipes, and she takes the dumb-blonde stereotype and makes it fresh and uniquely her own.
MinnPost, “Review: ‘Grey Gardens’ is an odd little musical about a fascinating fall from glitter and sheen.” The web address places it in March 2009. The live page returned an error when opened, and the Wayback Machine has no copy, so this note uses only the passage a search returned. The name in that passage is Zoe Pappas.
The review says three women carry a Park Square Theatre collaboration at the Ordway: Christina Baldwin, Zoe Pappas, and Wendy Lehr. It calls Pappas a terrific musical-theater singer and a striking actress, and a tragic first-act Edie. Baldwin is described as playing Edith, then Edie in the second act. Lehr plays the older Edith.
Pappas, a terrific musical-theater singer and a striking actress, is a tragic first-act Edie.
MinnPost. No Wayback snapshot was found.
Theater Latté Da’s Evita at the Ordway McKnight Theater drew several write-ups. All of them use the name Zoe Pappas for the title role.
Janet Preus, October 6, 2010. She praises the look of the production and calls Pappas a powerful actress with superb range, depth, and an amazing voice. She also objects to a pinched, nasal high style and says a companion’s ears hurt on the high notes. She writes that Pappas is capable of singing in any style she is asked.
Zoe Pappas (Eva) is a powerful actress with superb range and depth.
Brad Richason, Examiner, October 7, 2010. The company’s news page that carried it now returns “not found.” A Wayback snapshot from September 18, 2019 still has the text. Richason thinks the show is impressive but too fast to inspire. He still calls the casting a strength: Pappas is one of the Twin Cities’ finest musical performers, follows tempo shifts easily, and brings zeal to “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.” A later sentence in the same piece spells the surname “Pappa” once.
Thankfully Theater Latté Da has stacked the deck by casting Zoe Pappas, one of the Twin Cities’ finest musical performers, in the title role.
Wayback snapshot, September 18, 2019. The live address latteda.org/news/evita-impresses-but-fails-to-inspire did not load.
October 8, 2010. The blog gives the production three and a half stars out of four and calls it fast and ambitious. On Pappas, it says the performance is towering and often overpowering, which the writer thinks fits Eva Perón, and that she is a first-rate triple threat whose voice could fill a much larger room.
As Evita herself, Zoe Pappas offers a towering if often overpowering performance.
October 21, 2010. The blog calls the show perfectly cast. It says Pappas has worked often with Latté Da, the Chanhassen, and the Ordway, that the role is almost all singing, and that she embodies Eva’s passion, drive, and physical collapse. The same post says Jared Oxborough had co-starred with her in Footloose at the Chanhassen earlier that year.
She has an amazing voice (which is good because she pretty much sings for two and a half hours straight), and also beautifully embodies Eva’s passion, drive, and ultimate physical collapse.
MPR News, Marianne Combs, November 8, 2010. This is a short preview, not a review of a performance. It says Pillsbury House Theatre’s Chicago Avenue Project, themed “Over the Top,” pairs neighborhood kids with professional playwrights, directors, and actors. The pros named are Christina Baldwin, Tyson Forbes, and Zoe Pappas. Performances were free, with cookies and milk afterward.
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, John Berger, June 30, 2011. The name here is Zoe Courneya. Berger reviews Hawaii Repertory Theatre’s Circle Mirror Transformation at Kawananakoa Backstage Theatre and calls the production satisfying. Courneya plays Theresa, 35, who has left a bad relationship in New York. He writes that she gives an impressive performance as a woman who is not quite sure what she wants.
Zoe Courneya (Theresa) gives an impressive performance as a woman who isn’t quite sure what she wants now that she’s escaped her boyfriend.
Cherry and Spoon, “Musical Mondays at Hell’s Kitchen, September 2014.” The blog says that after Evita, Zoe Pappas seemed to disappear, and that the writer now knew she had gone to Hawaii. She was briefly back and sang with others, including a Jason Robert Brown song, “I’m Not Afraid,” which the writer calls beautiful and emotional.
There was a time when Zoe Pappas was in everything, but after playing the title role in Theater Latte Da’s Evita four years ago, she disappeared.
Star Tribune, Graydon Royce, July 31, 2015. “Zoe Pappas: Lured away by love, yoga and the Hawaiian paradise.” The name is Zoe Pappas. Royce traces a stage career from Children’s Theatre Company, including teacher Wendy Lehr, through Edward Albee’s The Play About the Baby at 18, Sam Shepard roles, Lily in Theater Latté Da’s 2004 A Man of No Importance, and Chanhassen Dinner Theatres shows including Les Miz, Grease, and Ulla in The Producers. He writes that she opened fall 2010 as Evita and left for Hawaii three days after it closed.
Quoted from a phone call outside Honolulu, she says the move had been in the works for a year: she had met a man in the military, now her husband, who was stationed in Hawaii. The article names him as Jonas Courneya and says both are from the Twin Cities. She says Evita was exhausting and that she was glad to step back. She had a yoga teaching certificate, was leading classes, and was studying for an advanced license. She says yoga changed her life and that she loves it as much as theater. The piece says Hawaii had community theater but no professional Equity theaters, and that a return to performing, if they moved back, would be less constant than before.
Yoga has been a major passion for me, and it is something I love as much as theater.
The article’s photograph is the beach picture already on this site. The caption reads, “Zoe Pappas lives and teaches yoga in Hawaii.” It is in the gallery.
Empower Fitness Events, a presenter note dated April 9, 2019, with the byline Kristin Tangen. The name is Zoe Courneya. It says she is an RYT-500 who had been teaching yoga for 10 years, six of them in Hawaii, where she opened a new market for a major yoga company and presented at the first Wanderlust Oahu. It says she is the National Education Manager for Yoga with Life Time Fitness. This is a short bio, not a review.
Heal and Grow with Nickie Kromminga Hill, episode 42, “A Conversation with Zoe Courneya,” April 30, 2024. The published description is about a conversation on sobriety, mental well-being, and living on one’s own terms. It points to a travel business and to Instagram accounts under the name Practically Ariel. The page also has an automatic transcript that mishears the surname. Career details in that transcript are not repeated here.
An awards list says there was a positive paper review in the Plainview News for Luisa in The Fantasticks, and a positive paper review in the Star Tribune for the Unicorn in the Children’s Theatre’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Both are marked 12th grade. The articles are not in the file, so nothing is quoted.
Source: Best Lead Award.doc, in the folder saved November 24, 2002. The same file is also at the top of Z:\Zoe.