Holly (Thomas) Cerney

Trap Door credits

Acting
  • And Away We Stared
  • Mother Peep / The Killer
  • 25/25 – Trap Door Celebrates 25 Years
  • Man One / The Locketteer
  • Tiki Wiki / Fantasy Island for Dummies
  • Sister Anna / John Doe
  • Sassafrass / Vatzlav
  • Wife / They Are Dying Out
  • Genevieve / Me Too, I am Catherine Deneuve (Chicago, Atlanta, Washington D.C., and France)
  • Wife / Horses at the Window (Chicago, Lexington, Virginia, and Romania)
  • Eva / Eva Peron
  • Babushka / The Fourth Sister
  • Emma / Amerikafka
  • Sheep / The Garden of Delights

Website Manager

Website manager and grant editor Holly (Thomas) Cerney (she/her/hers) has been a part of the Trap Door community since 2006 and served as the grant manager and development director from 2008 to 2015. She received a BA in theater arts from the University of Oregon and an MLIS from Dominican University.

Cerney’s favorite lines from Trap Door productions:

“Black bottles” —Garden of Delights

“With my ass out the window” —Eva Peron

Gallery

St. Dziuk’s staging is funny, frighten-ing, and, thanks to Wesley Walker’s Walpurg and Holly Thomas Cerney’s Anna, unexpectedly beautiful.

Tony Adler, Chicago Reader

Anchoring the production are Walker and Cerney’s raw, revelatory performances. Cerney, more so than the other actors, portrays her character’s interior state through body language, including rapid movement, awkward contortions and coiled limbs.

Barnaby Hughes, Chicago Stage Review

It’s a strange trip but also strangely exhilarating in its unapologetic indulgence, anchored by hypnotic performances by Wesley Walker as poet Alexander Walpurg, and by Holly Thomas Cerney as achingly vulnerable Sister Anna…

Kerry Reid, Chicago Tribune

a gutter-regal central performance by Holly Thomas as Eva

Kris Vire, Time Out Chicago

Holly Thomas’ Eva is a regally demanding, humorously wicked creation; she anchors the production with a statuesque grace and haughty sense of amusement

Brian Krist, Chicago Free Press

Beata Pilch, Nicole Wiesner, Carolyn Shoemaker and Holly Thomas anchor and carry the frantic absurdist farce – Trap Door Theatre’s ensemble has so much fun it becomes contagious.

Tom Williams, Chicago Critic

In a play full-to-bursting with striking visual metaphors, the pas de trois among Kahara, Thomas and a cello is first among equals

Kris Vire, Time Out Chicago

Holly Thomas’s inclusion of live cello music to her characterization renders lovely additional depth and melancholy

Venus Zarris, Chicago Stage Review

A counterpoint to all of them is wan, delicate Holly Thomas, half naked and bowing her rich-toned cello while John Kahara’s husband raves about the creative power of war.

Tony Adler, Chicago Reader

Thomas captures Genevieve’s implacable belief that she can only find herself by pretending to be somebody else.

Kerry Reid, Chicago Tribune

The entire cast is sharp, but Holly Thomas shows exceptional comic style as a mogul’s wife

Tony Adler, Chicago Reader