topimage2


ALUMNAE


May Adrales (2006-2008)
Suzanne Agins (2004-2006)
Shelley Butler (2004-2006)
Gisela Cardenas (2008-2010)
Heidi Carlsen (2008-2010)
Rachel Chavkin (2008-2010)
Lear deBessonet (2006-2008)
Linsay Firman (2008-2010)
Gia Forakis (2006-2008)
Susanna Gellert (2008-2010)
Jyana S. Gregory (2006-2008)
Dyana Kimball (2008-2010)
Wendy McClellan (2008-2010)
Meredith McDonough(2004-2008)
Shannon O'Donnell (2004-2006)
Teresa K. Pond (2004-2006)
Alice Reagan (2008-2010)
Lauren Rosen (2004-2006)
Lisa Rothe (2004-2008)
Linnet Taylor (2004-2006)
Daniella Topol (2004-2008)
Gaye Taylor Upchurch (2008-2010)
Kara Lynn Vaeni (2006-2008)
Meiyin Wang (2006-2008)
Donya K. Washington (2008-2010)
Kim Weild (2006-2008)

Click here for a list of the current 2010-2012 Lab Directors.

 


MAY ADRALES
Contact: May Adrales

May Adrales has directed and developed work at The Goodman Theatre; Williamstown Theater Festival; The Public Theater; Second Stage Theatre; New York Theater Workshop; The Hangar Theatre; Long Wharf Theatre; Partial Comfort Productions (Time Out NY Critics pick); P73; SoHo Rep; Women's Project; Midtown International Theater Festival (Best Solo Show); Ensemble Studio Theater. Awards: SSDC Denham Fellowship; Van Lier Fellowship, NYTW Fellowship, SDCF Observership, and Drama League Directing Fellowship.  She served as the Artistic Director of the Yale Cabaret.  She is an alumnus of the SoHo Rep Writers/Directors Lab and Women's Project Directors Lab.  May worked as an Artistic Associate at The Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival from 2006-08, where she played a leading role in the development of the Public's classical acting program, The Shakespeare Lab, as well as the education and community outreach efforts.  She has directed work at Bard College; NYU; Juilliard; and Fordham University.  Currently, May is in residence at The Lark Play Development Center as the recipient of the TCG New Generations Grant. Faculty, Public Theater Shakespeare Lab.  MFA, Yale School of Drama, directing. Upcoming: Mary, by Thomas Bradshaw at (The Goodman Theatre, Chicago); The Wife by Tommy Smith (Access Theater, New York); The Last Pair of Earlies by Joshua Allen (Juilliard, New York).

 

SUZANNE AGINS
Contact: www.SuzanneAgins.com

Suzanne Agins is a freelance director.   She recently directed the critically acclaimed world premiere of Jailbait by Deirdre O’Connor for the Cherry Lane Theatre. Ms. Agins served as Artistic Associate at Williamstown Theatre Festival from 2005-2007. Other recent directing projects include: Fallen Angels by Noel Coward at Dorset Theatre Festival, The Burden of Not Having a Tail by Carrie Barrett at the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, My Fair Lady at Princeton University, Mann Seeking Man: Jesus Lovin’ Schoolgirl Seeks Soulmate created with Ryan Migge (soloNOVA festival at the DR2),  Wing It, a new musical inspired by Aristophanes’ The Birds, by Gordon Cox and Kris Kukul (World Premiere, Williamstown Theatre Festival), Lucy and the Conquest by Cusi Cram (World Premiere, Williamstown Theatre Festival), Silence by Moira Buffini (Roundtable Ensemble), Spin Moves by Ken Weitzman (Summer Play Festival at Theater Row), The Secret Narrative of the Phone Book by Gordon Cox (World Premiere, Kraine Theater), Maddy Mann’s Church Camp Jamboree created with Ryan Migge and Andrew Hansen (Dixon Place), Jailbait by Deirdre O’Connor (Cherry Lane Mentor Project, workshop production), Dusty and the Big Bad World by Cusi Cram (workshop production, The Juilliard School), Lascivious Something by Sheila Callaghan (Cherry Lane Mentor Project), Big Love by Charles Mee (Fordham University). She holds an MFA in Directing from the University of California, San Diego, where she received the KPBS Patté Award for Outstanding Direction (Life’s a Dream) and two San Diego Playbill Awards for Outstanding Direction (Life’s A Dream, Arrangements by Ken Weitzman).She is the recipient of a 2006 Princess Grace Directing Fellowship (Robert & Gloria Houseman Theater Award), an adjunct faculty member at Princeton University (her alma mater), a founding member of the Play Development Collective, and a member of SDC and the Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab.  


SHELLEY BUTLER

Shelley Butler splits her time between New York and Los Angeles and is also equally devoted to directing both new plays and classics.  Shelley recently directed the world premiere of John Glore’s adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time for South Coast Rep.  Directing credits include:  No Way to Treat a Lady (The Colony Theater, CA), The Brand New Kid, Charlotte’s Web, James and the Giant Peach (South Coast Repertory, CA)  Agamemnon 2.0 (Cadbury Theatre, UK), The Nightshade Family (SPF, NYC), the NYC premiere of Adam Rapp's Mistral (Drama League, NYC), the world premiere of Eric Coble's Straight On 'Til Morning (Great Lakes Theater Festival, OH), Much Ado About Nothing (Powerhouse Theater, NY),  Kid Simple (UNC PAPT, NC), Karen Hartman's Gum (Red Hen Productions, OH), Romeo and Juliet (Beck Center, OH),  Shelley spent two seasons as artistic associate in charge of new play development for Hartford Stage and three seasons as artistic associate for Great Lakes Theater Festival. She has directed and developed new work for Hartford Stage, South Coast Repertory, New York Stage and Film, the Lark Play Development Center, Dixon Place and NYU’s Department of Dramatic Writing.  Shelley is a member of The Lincoln Center Director's Lab, a Drama League Fall Directing Fellow, a 2005 Director’s Guild of America Trainee with rotations on E.R., BONES, THE UNIT and multiple pilots and a member of SDC.  Editing is currently under way for her first short film Carnophobia by Cheri Magid.

 

 


GISELA CARDENAS
Contact: Gisela Cardenas

Gisela Cardenas is a director based in New York City interested in working with classics and adaptations from a contemporary perspective. Has an M.A in Performance Studies (NYU) and an M.F.A in Directing (Columbia University). Past credits: Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” (Riverside Church Theater), Garcia Lorca's “Don Perlimplin” (Repertorio Espanol); Aeschylus “Agamemnon” (Drama Desk Nomination 2006/Directing); "Antigone" adapted by Jose Watanabe ("Sibiu International Theater Festival—Romania), New York Revival of Kander & Ebb's “Kiss of The Spider Woman” (Vortex Theater Company); HotInk Festival 2008; Part 1 of "An Oresteia" (Classic Stage Company). Awards: Princes Grace Theater Fellowship (2007), 2008 Phil Killian Directing Fellow (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), 2008-10 Women's Project Director’s Lab, recipient of the 2008 Josephine Abady Award (League of Professional Theatre Women) and recipient of the TCG/ NEA 2009/2011 Career Development Program for Directors. Upcoming productions include Euripides Medea and Richard III.

 


HEIDI CARLSEN
Contact: Heidi Carlsen

“Theatrically and personally I am curious about the border between the surreal and pedestrian worlds.” This curiosity, most recently, brought
Heidi Carlsen to Poland to study on a Fulbright Scholarship. There, she conducted research and directed her most recent original dance/theater work, + - INFINITY (a site-specific work in an old tram warehouse). Her recent Los Angeles directing and devising credits include: Ice Maker, self authored/created (Highways Performance Space); a reading of The Great White Way by Sigrid Gilmer (Metro Gallery); until soon…, self authored/created (NYTW, REDCAT, Portland Art Center, Highways Performance Space). CalArts directing credits include: Dr. Faustus byChristopher Marlowe; Fantasias of the Immoderate by Jennifer Tsuei (reading/outside performance event); Mud by Maria Irene Fornes; The Pragmatists by Stanislaw Witkiewicz. Heidi is a proud member of TENT, a company unique in its insistence that everyone in the company take on all production and creative roles when making a new performance. Carlsen has trained with Rena Mireka and Zygmunt Molik, former members of Jerzy Grotowski’s Theatre Laboratorium, Piesn Kosla (Song of the Goat) and Dijana Milosevic of Dah Theatre. She has assisted Karin Coonrod, Kristy Edmunds, Chris Kondek and Linda K. Johnson. As a director and experimental theater artist, Heidi wrote and produced many new works before graduating with an MFA from CalArts.

 


RACHEL CHAVKIN
Contact: Rachel Chavkin


Rachel Chavkin is an Obie Award winning director, educator and Artistic Director of award-winning collaborative ensemble the TEAM (www.theteamplays.org). With the TEAM Rachel has directed/co-authored Particularly In the Heartland, Give Up! Start Over! (In the darkest of times I look to Richard Nixon for hope), Howl, based on the poem by Allen Ginsberg, and Architecting, which was co-produced by the National Theatre of Scotland and which made its U.S. premiere at the Public Theater (Under the Radar 2009). Outside of her work with the TEAM she has collaborated on a number of new works, including Three Pianos, co-written by Rick Burkhardt, Alec Duffy, and Dave Malloy, which premiered at the Ontological Spring 2010 and will return as part of NYTW's Mainstage 2010-11 season, collaborations with performer/playwright/composer Taylor Mac on the five-hour extravaganza The Lily's Revenge at HERE and Peace (based on the play by Aristophanes), playwright/composer Molly Rice and composer Ray Rizzo on Canary, playwright Steve Yockey on Wonder (NYU Grad Acting program), and playwright Talaya Delaney and composer/lyricist Dave Malloy on Haarlem Berlin. She has directed All the Great Books (Abridged) by the Reduced Shakespeare Company (Hangar Theatre), Chekhov's Uncle Vanya (Columbia University downtown at Classic Stage Company), and the NYC revival of Kurt Vonnegut's Happy Birthday, Wanda June. As a dramaturg or assistant director she has worked with Elevator Repair Service on Sound and Fury, at NYTW in April 2008, the Civilians on Anne Washburn's The Ladies - assisting director Anne Kauffman, choreographer Pavel Zustiak on Le Petit Mort and Blind Spot, the SITI Company on Macbeth - assisting director Leon Ingulsrud, and Project 400 on Measure for Measure - assisting director Diane Paulus. Rachel is an Artistic Associate at Classic Stage Company (where she has served as a Shakespearean text coach for Mandy Patinkin, and directed both readings and open rehearsals), a New Georges affiliated artist, an alumnus of the Women's Project Lab, and a Drama League alumnus. She earned her B.F.A. at NYU where she now serves on the directing faculty at Playwrights Horizons Theater School, and earned her M.F.A. at Columbia University.

 

lear photoLEAR deBESSONET
Contact: www.StillPointProductions.org

Director Lear deBessonet has been developing new works for theatre in New York since 2003. Her new music-theatre piece, On the Levee, is being developed under commission from Yale Repertory Theatre with playwright Marcus Gardley and composer Todd Almond. In May 2009, her site-specific Don Quixote, a collaboration with playwright Lucy Thurber and the punk-gypsy ensemble The Psalters, will premiere in Philadelphia. She has assisted Martha Clarke, Anne Bogart, Marianne Weems, and Bartlett Sher, and was named one of Time Out New York’s “25 People to Watch” in 2006. Recent productions include Brecht’s Saint Joan of the Stockyards at Performance Space 122, a collaboration with country-blues singer Kelley McRae, and transFigures produced Off-Broadway by Women’s Project in 2007 (originally a site-specific performance at Calvary Church in 2003). Through her production company, Stillpoint Productions, she also conceived and directed Deborah Stein’s Bone Portraits at Walkerspace and Death Might Be Your Santa Claus, a site-specific work performed at an abandoned bank next to the NY Stock Exchange. Other New York credits include The Eliots (Center Stage), The Female Terrorist Project (HERE Arts Center), Flying on the Wing (NY Fringe, Outstanding Solo Show), and A Short Time After (a site-specific piece by Caridad Svich). Her production of the musical OLIVER!, which re-imagined Dickens’ classic in the context of global sex trafficking, opened at New York University’s Experimental Theatre Wing this fall. Internationally, Lear conceived and directed a new tri-lingual musical for the National Opera Theatre of Kazakhstan (In the Dark Ages) and conducted a workshop production of a new piece (Revisions) exploring immigrant identity at the Focus Theatre in Dublin. Freelance directing work includes When I Was A Ghost (Guthrie Theatre, Dowling Studio), A Year With Frog and Toad (Dorset Theatre Festival) and Equus (Hangar Theatre). She has trained with DAH Theater of Yugoslavia and the SITI Company in New York, and has worked as an assistant director at Lincoln Center Theatre, the Metropolitan Opera, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. In 2008, Ms. deBessonet was honored with the first annual Presidential Award for Artistic Excellence by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council alongside Mayor Bloomberg and Edward Albee. She is an alumnus of the Women’s Project Directors Lab and the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, a Drama League Directing Fellow, and a Jefferson Scholar. Lear teaches acting at New York University. She is a native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and resides in Brooklyn.

 

 

LINSAY FIRMAN
Contact: Linsay Firman

Linsay Firman’s NYC productions include Rachel Bond’s Anniversary, Garrett M. Brown’s Americana and Jose Rivera’s Flowers all at the EST Marathon, Perdita by Pierre Diennet (Lion Theater), Joy Tomasko’s Unfold Me, Catherine Trieschmann’s Crooked, Heather Lynn MacDonald’s Pink (all at Ariel Tepper’s Summer Play Festival), Anne Washburn’s Apparition (chashama; named one of Time Out New York’s ten best plays of 2003), Howard Barker’s The Power of the Dog and The Possibilities, Joe Orton’s Loot, Peter Rose’s Snatch (Soho Rep). Linsay is the Literary Manager at EST and the Associate Director of the EST/Sloan Project. She began working in new play development as the Associate Director of Soho Rep, where she worked from 1998 - 2004. While there, she founded and ran Soho Rep's renowned Writer/Director.  Additionally she was a 2003/2004 Resident Director at New Dramatists, a Director/ Dramaturg in The Lark's 2007/2008 Meeting of the Minds writer’s group and is an Associated Artist of New Georges. She received her M.F.A. from CalArts. Upcoming:  Photograph 51 by Anna Ziegler at EST.




GIA FORAKIS

Contact: Gia Forakis

Gia Forakis is known primarily as director for the theater and acting teacher (One-Thought-One-Action©). Her aesthetic focuses on a detailed physical and highly visual approach to storytelling. She sees directing as a medium of time and space and is most attracted to projects that feature an attention to language and/or push the boundaries of form and style, often employing choreographed movement as an avenue to the subtextual landscape. Recent credits include: The Seagull: A Comedy In Four Acts By Anton Chekhov (NAATCO, Theatre For a New City, NYC); premiere of Song From The Uproar, The Lives And Deaths Of Isabelle Eberhardt, a multi-media opera, conceived and composed by Missy Mazzoli, (Galapagos Art Space DUMBO Brooklyn NY); NNPN rolling world premiere of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize nominated Love Person by Aditi Brennan Kapil (Marin Theatre Co. Mill Valley, CA.), Blue Before Morning by Kate McGovern--nominated for seven NY Innovative Theater Awards including Outstanding Director (world premiere, terraNOVA Collective, NYC); Hot Damn by Casey Wimpee (The Binge Festival, Working Man’s Clothes Productions, NYC); The Jewish Wife by Bertolt Brecht (Stone Soup Theatre Arts Staged Reading Series, NYC); Heart’s Desire by Caryl Churchill (Atlantic Theatre Company Acting Program, NYC); Remounting of I Want What You Have by Saviana Stanescu (Women’s Project, NYC, and Make Mine A Million, Pace University, NYC); Gates Of Equality by Stanton Wood (Urban Stages, NYC, Educational Outreach Program). Additional credits include: I Want What You Have by Saviana Stanescu, (Women’s Project’s Girls Just Want To Have Fund$ site specific work for The World Financial Center, NYC); Picnic by William Inge (Bay Theatre Company, Annapolis, MD); The Rivals by Richard B. Sherridan (Hudson Valley Shakespeare, Cold Spring, NY); The Real Inspector Hound by Tom Stoppard (The Lee Strasberg Institute, NYU/NYC); Acts Of Mercy: Passion-Play by Michael John Garcés (Rattlestick Playwright’s Theater, NYC); The Winter's Tale (Milwaukee Shakespeare, Milwaukee, WI); Port Authority Throw Down by Mike Batistik (workshop, Cape Cod Theatre Project); Iron by Rona Munro (Kitchen Theatre Company, Ithaca, NY); Dancing At Lughnasa by Brian Friel (NYU's Tisch School of the Arts); Frag by Michael John Garcés (HERE, NYC); Coathanger by Mac Wellman (WOW-PAC-Benefit, Long Wharf Theatre, New Haven, CT). Film: directed, produced, and adapted a short film based on Michael John Garcés’ Frag. Education: Gia holds a BFA in Acting from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, and an MFA in Directing from Yale School of Drama. Affiliations: member of SDC (Stage Directors and Choreographers Society), Women’s Project Directors Lab alumna, affiliated director with The Lark Play Development Center, New Georges Affiliated Artist, and member artist of Wingspace collective (www.Wingspace.com). Teaching & Guest Artist/Lecturer Credits include: Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute, NYC; NYU Tisch School of The Arts, NYC; Atlantic Theatre Company, Conservatory Program; University of Texas, Austin; Fordham University, NYC, Neighborhood Playhouse School, NYC.

 


SUSANNA GELLERT
Contact: www.WingSpace.com

Susanna Gellert most recently directed Bar Joke by Sam Allingham (Old American Can Factory) and Open the Dark Door by David Nugent (New York Music Theater Festival). Other recent credits include Visiting Day by Andy Bragen (Sewanee Writers’ Conference), Fugue States (PS 122), You Can’t Take It With You (University of Rochester), The Boss in the Satin Kimono (New York International Fringe Festival), The Duchess of Malfi (FSU/Asolo Conservatory), and Marat/Sade (The Fisher Center for Performing Arts at Bard College). New York directing credits include The Lacy Project (Soho Think Tank’s Ice Factory ’07, the Ohio Theater), adaptations of Tamburlaine the Great and Valkyrie (Target Margin Theater’s Laboratory), Match and L’Interieur (American Living Room), as well as workshops at the Lark, EST, and NYU. Chicago directing credits include The Winter’s Tale, The Bathhouse, Electra, and Joe Whyte’s Nebraskoblivion. Yale School of Drama: The Duchess of Malfi, The Lacy Project, Measure for Measure, The Shoemaker’s Prodigious Wife, and Devil Caught Rope. Yale Cabaret: Request Concert, Tuesdays and Sundays, and Two Rooms. She is a member of Wingspace Theatrical Design Group and a recipient of SDCF’s Sir John Gielgud Fellowship and the Julian Milton Kaufman Memorial Prize. Susanna is a graduate of Yale School of Drama and The University of Chicago. This September she will begin coursework in Columbia University’s Doctoral Program in Theater Studies.

 


JYANA S. GREGORY
Jyana Photo
Contact: Jyana S. Gregory

Jyana Gregory is currently directing a new adaptation of Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis for City College in Harlem. She is the Artistic Director of NYC-based ACTIVE EYE (www.activeeye.org) for whom she has directed Hard Lovin' Ever After, Dojoji, Woyzeck, and Senjo. Jyana spent 2 years at Cleveland Public Theatre as a Future Leaders Fellow (sponsored by Theatre Communications Group) being mentored in Artistic Direction. She helped produce 2 seasons of work and also directed Suzan-Lori Parks' Venus and Wallace Shawn's The Designated Mourner as well as works-in-progress of Adam Rapp's Nocturne and Jill Levin's The Lawyer Play. Other directing includes Your Nightgown is Jealous When You Dream (collectively devised, mugwumpin, SF & Denver), Siegfried's Nerve (Target Margin Theater's Lab Festival, NYC), Cosi Fan Tutte (Chrysalis Opera, Boston), Zeami's Izutsu (Lincoln Center Directors Lab/HERE, NYC), Handke's Kaspar (Blueprint Series, Ontological Theatre, NYC), and a reading of Whooping Momma and Dookie Braids (Young Playwrights, NYC). She has assisted Chen Shi-Zheng, David Herskovits, and Diane Paulus and worked for Richard Foreman. Jyana is a member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab. She is a graduate of Yale University and has studied traditional and contemporary performing arts in Japan.


DYANA KIMBALL
Contact: Dyana Kimball

Lisa PhotoDyana Kimball is a founding member of Ontik and the founder and former Artistic Director of Boston Directors’ Lab in Boston, MA. NYC productions include: CONVERSATION by Alexis Clements (University Settlement, Emerging Artist Theatre and Dramatists Guild); NUMBERS by Kieron Barry (Manhattan Repertory Theatre); YOUR OWN PERSONAL APOCALYPSE by Alexis Clements(Chashama and OMFM); Georg Buchner's WOYZECK (Central Park); Elmer Rice's THE ADDING MACHINE (Theatre at Riverside Church); Bertolt Brecht's BAAL, ISLAND OF SLAVES by Marivaux, and Bixby Elliot's LOVE AND LITERATURE (Schapiro Theatre at Columbia); LIBRARY PLAY by Paul Cohen (J. Houseman Theatre), STILL LIFE by Emily Mann (Belt Theatre), RUBBER by Tom Sleigh (RAW Space) and CHOPPING by Magdalena Gomez (HERE Arts Center). Regional: ORESTES 2.0, by Charles Mee Jr.-Brookville, NY (LIU, CW Post guest director); DON GIOVANNI, by Mozart-Juneau, AK (Opera-to-Go); WHAT WILL I DO WHEN YOU'RE GONE, by Neil Bell-Cambridge, MA (The Market Theatre/BTM); TRAVELING NAKED, by Debra Lake Fortson-Boston, MA (Boston Playwrights Theatre); THROUGH THE LEAVES, by Franz Xaver Kroetz-Boston, MA (BDL); TRANSFIGURATION OF BENNO BLIMPIE, by Albert Innurato-Boston, MA (BDL). Dyana received her MFA in directing from Columbia University and currently teaches directing at Marymount Manhattan College. She is also a teaching artist in several NYC public schools and is the head of Columbia University's Theatrical Collaboration Program for High School Students.



WENDY MCCLELLAN
Contact: Wendy McClellan

Wendy McClellan’s world premieres include: Liz Duffy Adams’ Or, (Women’s Project, New York), Deborah Stein’s Wallflower (Stages Repertory Theatre, Houston), Laurie Brook’s Brave No World (The Kennedy Center), Jennifer Maisel’s Birds (Rorschach Theatre, DC) and Goody Fucking Two-Shoes (Actors Theatre of Louisville), Gregory Gunter’s Antigone. Tertiary. Sexxx. (LA Weekly Award Nomination Best Comedy Direction), the anthologies Neon Mirage, Uncle Sam’s Satiric Spectacular, Fast and Loose, and Trepidation Nation (all Humana Festival of New American Plays), and Leon Martel and Penka Kouneva’s musical Steel: John Henry and the Shaker (LA Ovation Award Nomination Best New Musical). Developmental workshops include: Julia Pearlstein’s Rat Bastards (Mabou Mines Suite), Olga Humphrey’s Cornbury (New Georges), Kara Manning’s Sleeping Rough (MCC Theater), Sarah Hammond’s Green Girl (SPF at The Public) and House on Stilts (New Dramatists). Musical development includes: Loewe Award Winners Liz Duffy Adams and John Hodian’s The Listener of Junk City, Erin Kamler and Carson Kreitzer’s Runway 69 (both at New Dramatists). Other regional credits include: Glen Berger’s Underneath the Lintel (Actors Theatre of Louisville), Barbara Field’s A Christmas Carol (Actors Theatre of Louisville), Shaw’s Misalliance (Alabama Shakespeare Festival). She has held staff positions at Red Bull Theater, Actors Theatre of Louisville, A.S.K. Theater Projects, Mark Taper Forum and Great Lakes Theater Festival. She was the recipient of the 2006 New York Coalition for Women in the Arts and Media’s Collaboration Award. Wendy is an Affiliated Artist with New Georges, a member of SDC, and a member of the Women’s Project Directors Lab 2008-2010. She is a graduate of The University of North Carolina’s School of the Arts.

 


MEREDITH MCDONOUGH
Contact: Meredith McDonough

Meredith McDonough most recently directed the workshop of Megan Mostyn-Brown's The Rest of Your Life at LAByrinth Theatre's Intensive, as well as the regional premiere of Alena Smith's Alice, Eat Your Words at Northwestern University. Her NY credits include the premieres of Adam Rapp's Members Only, Gary Winter's The Impotent General, and Betty Shamieh's Again and Against (New Georges). Regionally, Meredith is directing the premiere of Megan Mostyn-Brown's The Secrets Lives of Losers this winter with UMKC's graduate department and directed the premiere of Alison Moore's Hazard County at Actors Express in Atlanta. She will also be directing Driving Miss Daisy for Delaware Theatre Company in March 2007. During her 3 seasons at Actors Theatre of Louisville, she directed the world premieres of Kuwait, A Bone Close to My Brain, Heaven and Hell, and Backstory in the Humana Festival of New American Plays. She was also the 2004 Boris Sagal Fellow at the Williamstown Theatre Festival where she directed Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice on the Nikos Stage. Other favorite credits include Angels in America, Full Circle, Balm in Gilead, Baltimore Waltz and A Bright Room Called Day. In addition to her work developing new plays, she also works with new musicals, and was the New Works Program Director for the National Alliance for Musical Theatre. She holds an MFA in directing from UCSD and a BS in Performance Studies from Northwestern University, and is a 2006 Drama League Directing Fellow. (Photo: EURYDICE by Sarah Ruhl, Directed by Meredith McDonough, Williamstown Theatre Festival.)

 


SHANNON O’DONNELL
Contact: Shannon O'Donnell

Shannon O’Donnell is currently Resident Director and Dramaturg at People’s Light & Theatre Company, outside Philadelphia, where she is directing the world premiere of Jason and the Golden Fleece by John Olive. Last spring, Shannon directed the critically praised Philadelphia premiere of 4.48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane at Theatre Catalyst. Last winter, she directed the world premiere of A Higher Place in Heaven by Pamela Parker, now nominated for a 2005 Barrymore Award for Best New Play. At People’s Light, she directed the world premieres of The Forgiving Harvest by Y York and The Thoughts & Travels of Nicki by Russell Davis, in addition to The Cuban Swimmer, Trying to Find Chinatown, The Moon Please, The Little Prince, The Secret Garden, and Last Train to Nibroc. In spring of 2006, she will direct Yemaya’s Belly by Women's Project Playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes. Shannon has produced a series of summer festivals of new and experimental plays at People’s Light, and is currently Producer for six new play commissions. She received grants to establish the Young Women’s Ensemble, an advanced student ensemble that created and performed three original works for theatre. Shannon was awarded the 2000 Princess Grace Theatre Apprenticeship Award for Directing, and is a member of the Directors’ Forum at the Women’s Project in New York. Starting this fall, Shannon will be working as a Research Associate for Harvard Business School, traveling to Copenhagen, Denmark and other European countries to interview artists about their art-making process and create written and film documentation.


TERESA K. POND

Contact: Teresa K. Pond

Teresa K. Pond Recent work includes Richard III (New York Classical Theatre); Off-Broadway production of Pinkalicious (in its 3rd year of an ongoing run) and international debut of Pinkalicious in Toronto (ongoing run); premiere productions and readings including Knife, Fire, and Fang by Kathryn Walat  as part of the Directors Lab with The Women’s Project Theatre.  Other New York productions include Barber of Seville (Bleecker St Opera), Princess of Riverside Drive, Extraordinary! (Vital Theatre), Much Ado About Nothing (Loft Theatre), and others.  Award-winning premiere of Half Life (starring Anna Chlumsky) hailed as the top show of The New York International Fringe Festival (New York Magazine).  Regional theatre both east and west coasts: Opera - Suor Angelica, Paggliacci (Anchorage Opera), Amahl and the Night Visitors; Theatre - Caroline or Change, Sylvia, Shakespeare in Hollywood (Cyrano's Theatre, AK); The Clean House and Nickel and Dimed (Western Stage Theatre, CA); The Foreigner, Perfect Wedding (Millbrook Theatre, PA)plus Of Mice and Men, West Side Story, among numerous other plays and musicals while she was artistic director of ACT in Anchorage, Alaska.  Teresa received her MFA in Directing from UC-Irvine where she directed Tartuffe, Macbeth (L.A. Times review) and west coast premiere of The Day Maggie Blew Off Her Head, as well as developing original feminist theatre work such as the collaborative production Woman (Re)Considered.   Teresa has directed at New York University and Stella Adler Conservatory, and she is a member of The Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab, The Women’s Project Directors Forum, and a co-leader of the NYC playwright-director company NewShoe. A proud member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers (SDC).

 


ALICE REAGAN

Contact: www.AliceReagan.com and Morgan Jenness, Abrams Artists Agency.

Alice Reagan is a freelance theater director based in New York City.  She most frequently directs classics and new plays that experiment with form and content.  Directing credits include Happy Thoughts by Alexander Wright (Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson); The Verge by Susan Glaspell with Performance Lab 115 (Ontological-Hysterical Theater, NYC); Caucasian Chalk Circle with PL115 (Chocolate Factory, Long Island City, Queens); What of the Night? by Maria Irene Fornes (Barnard College/Columbia University, NYC); a workshop of the new musical Le Fou by Bekah Brunstetter (New Georges, NYC); Sprinkler by Katherine Ryan DirectorFest, Drama League, NYC); The Knights, adapted from Aristophanes by Rob Handel (Target Margin Theater, NYC);Alice in War by Steven Bogart (Summer Play Festival, NYC); Women of Trachis by Katherine Ryan (Target Margin, NYC);A Small Hole by Julia Jarcho (The New York International Fringe Festival, NYC); Pickford with Beth Kurkjian (Blueprint Series at the Ontological-Hysteric Theater, NYC); Dawn Powell’s 1932 satire Big Night Bates College, Lewiston, Maine); and a workshop of Ghost Stories by Heather Dundas Lincoln Center Directors Lab, NYC).  She received a chashama A.R.E.A. Award to direct Euripides’ Alcestis on East 42nd Street.  She collaborated with Performance Lab 115 on a new translation/adaptation of Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk Circle through the Mabou Mines/SUITE Resident Artist Program.  Alice was a Dean’s Fellow in the M.F.A. theatre directing program at Columbia University; while there she directed Machinal by Sophie Treadwell, Exit the King by Eugène Ionesco, The Vise by Luigi Pirandello, and many new plays.  She also holds an M.A. in performance studies from NYU/Tisch School of the Arts where she won the Amankulor Award.  She is a Resident Artist with Performance Lab 115, and was formerly Artistic Associate with Target Margin.  Princess Grace Award.  Drama League Directing Fellow.  Denham Fellowship Finalist.  Current new play projects: an adaptation of Euripides' Alcestis by Caridad Svich (New Georges mini-workshop); Rotten by Bekah Brunstetter (Women's Project Backroom Reading), and This Lingering Life by Chiori Miyagawa (New Dramatists workshop).


LAUREN ROSEN
Contact: Lauren Rosen

Lauren Rosen is currently directing Boy Gets Girl at SUNY Stony Brook. Other recent credits include her adaptation of Carson McCuller’s Wunderkind as part of the Women Center Stage Festival at Culture Project, August Strindberg’s A Dream Play, Abingdon Square (Brick Theatre, NY), Failure to Thrive (Culture Project, NY), Closer (Guest Artist, Johns Hopkins University), Not I (Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab), an adaptation of E.B. White’s The Door (Howard Studio, Burlington, Vermont), Miss Julie (MXAT Conservatory, in Russian), The Ghost Sonata (CSV, NY). She assistant-directed Verdi’s Otello, and Puccini’s La Boheme at Hawaii Opera Theatre. Ms. Rosen has been a guest director at Johns Hopkins University and Fordham University. She is a member of Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab, The Women’s Project Directors Forum and she is a New Georges affiliate artist. She has had the opportunity to collaborate with New York playwrights on the development of new scripts by directing workshops, readings and offering dramaturgical feedback. MFA in directing from Moscow Art Theatre / A.R.T. Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University.


LISA ROTHE

Contact: www.lisarothe.com and Kate Navin, Abrams Artists Agency.

Lisa Rothe is currently the Director of Offsite Programs and Partnerships at the Lark Play Development Center.  She is passionate about new work and has developed and directed work at many places, including Ensemble Studio Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, Epic Theatre Ensemble, The Women’s Project, The Getty Villa,  National Actors Theatre, New York Music Festival (NYMF), Summer Play Festival (SPF), The Culture Project, The New Harmony Project, Voice and Vision at Bard College, Manhattan Theatre Source, HERE, Dixon Place, and Keen Company (Keen Teens). Her recent credits include: My Ohio by Dana Yeaton and Andy Mitton (Vermont Stage Company); Eyepiece written and performed by Rinde Eckert (co-director at Hancher in Iowa City); Interpreting William by James Still (Indiana Repertory); Looking for the Pony by Andrea Lepcio (Synchronicity Performance Group @ Seven Stages in Atlanta); Penelope by Ellen McLaughlin and composer Sarah Kirkland Snider (Getty Villa, Gallatin School in NYC, Princeton University); and Couldn’t Say by Christopher Wall (Midtown International Theatre Festival - Best Director Award). Lisa also received an EST/Sloan Foundation grant along with composer Kim Sherman and librettist Margaret Vandenburg for current development on Ada, a new opera. She is an alum of the Women's Project Director's Lab, a Drama League Fellow & Fox Fellow and is a frequent guest director at numerous universities around the country, including NYU Graduate Acting, Yale School of Drama and The Juilliard School. She holds an MFA from New York University’s Graduate Acting program. 

 


LINNET TAYLOR

Contact: Linnet Taylor

Linnet Taylor is from London and attended Cambridge University. She is a winner of Britain’s Woolwich national playwriting award. London credits include The Roaring Girl (BADA). U.S. credits include The Winter’s Tale, Gilgamesh, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Lysistrata, Archie Loves Nathan, El Gato Sin Amigos (the last three at the Hangar Theatre’s Wedge space), and The City of Kites and Crows (an adapted Coriolanus for three actors). New York productions include Such a Beautiful Voice is Sayeda’s by Yusef El Guindi, Passengers by Betty Shamieh, and Eastern Standard. She has been a Drama League directing fellow (2002 and ongoing), a directing fellow at Geva Theatre, Rochester, and a member of the Women’s Project Directors Forum (ongoing). She is directing Twelfth Night with her own company, Fifth Estate, for private performances during winter 2005.



DANIELLA TOPOL

Contact: www.DaniellaTopol.com and Sarah Douglas, Abrams Artists Agency

Daniella Topol is a New York based freelance director primarily focused on working with writers to develop and direct relevant, theatrical and adventuresome new plays and musicals.  For Women’s Project: Sheila Callaghan’s LASCIVIOUS SOMETHING, Trista Baldwin’s SAND.  Other recent productions include: Janet Allard and Niko Tsakalakos’ POOL BOY (Barrington Stage, MA), Susan Bernfield’s STRETCH: A FANTASIA (People’s Light and Theatre Company, PA), Maria Irene Fornes’ SARITA (Fordham University), Jeff Hughes/Scott Ethier’s ROSA PARKS (Richard Rodgers Development Award at Queens Theatre in the Park/Playwrights Horizons), Nicki Bloom’s TENDER (Summer Play Festival), Susan Yankowitz’s NIGHT SKY (Power Productions/Baruch Performing Arts Center), Leslie Ayvazian’s CAROL AND JILL (EST), Caridad Svich’s INSTRUCTIONS FOR BREATHING (Passage Theatre), Jakob Holder’s HOUSEBREAKING (Cherry Lane), Trista Baldwin’s FORGETTING (Workhaus Collective), Sean Hartley, Kim Oler and Alison Hubbard’s LITTLE WOMEN: THE MUSICAL (Village Theatre), Judith Thompson’s PALACE OF THE END (Epic), Peter Gil-Sheridan’s TOPSY TURVY MOUSE (Cherry Lane Theatre), Stanton Wood’s SNOW QUEEN (Urban Stages), Susan Bernfield’s TINY FEATS OF COWARDICE, and Sheila Callaghan’s DEAD CITY (New Georges). Daniella is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University and has been the Artistic Program Director of the Lark Play Development Center, New Works Program Director of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, and the Associate Producing Director of City Theatre.  She is a board member of the Lark, an NYTW Usual Suspect, and member of EST.   Upcoming productions: Anna Ziegler’s PHOTOGRAPH 51 (Theatre J, DC), Willy Holtzman’s THE MORINI STRAD (City Theatre, PA). 


GAYE TAYLOR UPCHURCH
Contact: Gaye Taylor Upchurch

meiyin photoGaye Taylor Upchurch is currently working with Sam Mendes as the Associate Director of the Bridge Project, a joint venture between BAM and London's Old Vic Theatre (2009 productions included The Cherry Orchard and The Winter's Tale). Rehearsals begin this fall for The Tempest and As You Like It. Gaye Taylor will take the productions on an international tour to include Hong Kong, Singapore, Paris, London, Greece. Other directing credits include: Paper Dolls (FringeNYC Outstanding Ensemble Award); Jordan Harrison's Fit for Feet (Drama League); Minor Gods (SPF); Naomi Iizuka's Language of Angels (Lincoln Center Institute). She has also directed and developed new work at The Kennedy Center, LCT Directors Lab, Dixon Place, EST, and Fordham University. Alumna of Drama League, Wake Forest Univeristy and NC School of the Arts.


KARA-LYNN VAENI
Vaeni
Contact: Kara-Lynn Vaeni

Kara-Lynn Vaeni's recent projects include the premiere of Deviant by A. Rey Pamatmat (nominated for IT "Best Production" Award), Molly Rice's Medea Unharnessed at The Drilling Company, Hell the Opera at PS 122 (Associate Director), a new translation of Life is a Dream at U-Mass Amherst, and Lee Blessing's Two Rooms in NYC. This year she was a Guest Artist at Hofstra University where she taught acting and directed her adaptation of Calamity John's Cowboy Musical, a feminist parody of King John, for which she also wrote original lyrics. She has directed other productions and workshops at The Flea, New Georges, The Lark, South Coast Repertory, Ma-Yi and the NY Fringe. Currently she is staging fights and dances for Don Juan in Hell, based on Mozart's Don Giovanni for the Estates Theatre in Prague and for Nextwave at BAM. Next up is the national tour of Lost in Yonkers for Montana Repertory Theatre. She recently received her MFA from the Yale School of Drama, where she was won a Presidential Public Service Fellowship and the Julian Milton Kauffman Prize for Directing.


MEIYIN WANG
Contact: Meiyin Wang

meiyin photoMeiyin Wang is the associate artistic director of Singapore Repertory Theatre and a co-founder of theatrewagon, an international collective, in NY. Her work has been seen around the U.S, Singapore and Italy. Highlights include Sarah Kane's Cleansed,; Scratch/Medea; A Lover's Discourse; Mother Courage; Ivanov; Bullet for Unaccompanied Heart at the Theater of the Riverside Church, Theater Row, Prospect Theater, Barrow Group, Yale University Theatre, Premio Dams Festival(Bologna, Italy) among others. In Singapore - Postcards from Persephone (Best Director, Best Script finalist for National Life! Awards; Betrayal (SRT, National premiere, starring Indian film legend Shabana Azmi); The Good Citizen (SRT). Meiyin's work has been descrbed by Singapore Straits Times as " Bold, Brisk and Brilliant" and she was featured in the national news as the top female director to watch. She has assisted Robert Woodruff, Eduardo Machado, Lisa Peterson and has worked at ART, The Public Theater, INTAR, Prospect Theatre, Classic Stage Company and Long Beach Opera. As a writer, Meiyin's work has been recognized by Hewlett Packard, Singapore Youth Festival and Singapore National Arts Council. She is currently the Associate Producer to Mark Russell for Under The Radar 2007. Meiyin is also a musician, photographer, cook and travelor. Upcoming: C4 The Chekhov Project; La La Lear Sisters; Dead Letter Office. Training -- Columbia M.F.A, Yale B.A., in Political Science.



DONYA K. WASHINGTON

Contact: Donya Washington

kimphotoDonya K. Washington: Now The Cats With Jewelled Claws (Target Margin Theatre), Spunk (Penobscot Theatre, Bangor, ME). New York: Jump Jim Crow: How To Produce Your Own Minstrel Show by Jesse Alick, music and lyrics by Justin Levine (Subjective Theater Company), Penang by Jim Larocca (Boo Arts and NY Midtown Int’l Theatre Festival), Dear Diary by Alicia Ramsay (MCC Youth Company FreshPlay), Bear Market by Kara Manning (Women’s Project Lab), Cold Keener (Target Margin), The Minstrel Show Of Minstrel Shows! (Brown/Trinity Consortium), Poof by Apples Vargas (MCC Youth Company FreshPlay), 30 Patriot Actors by Erin Browne (Columbia), a reading of Menders by Erin Browne (Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre). Brown/Trinity Consortium: The Cure at Troy, Taming Of The Shrew, Cloud 9. Brown New Play Festival: Forever Never Comes by Enrique Urueta, Cipher by Cory Hinkle. Williamstown: Before Breakfast, Unwrap Your Candy, Sorry Wrong Number. Has worked with The Civilians as a Research Dramaturg and Assistant Director on This Beautiful City (Vineyard Theatre/The Civilians).   Also as assistant director: Leonard Foglia on Let Me Down Easy by Anna Deavere Smith (Second Stage); Kevin Moriarty on Richard III (Trinity Rep); Amy Morton on Dublin Carol (Trinity Rep) various shows with Will Frears, among others. Training: MFA, Directing - Brown University/Trinity Repertory Consortium; BFA, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU. Member of the 2008/2010 Women's Project Lab. Van Lier Directing Fellow 2009, Second Stage Theatre.


KIM WEILD
Contact: www.kimweild.com

kimphotoKim Weild is a director, performer and teacher. She is the 2006 Bill Foeller Directing Fellow to The Williamstown Theatre Festival where she conceived and directed the new play Paradise Now. She is a Kennedy Center Directing Fellow, the recipient of a Kennedy Center Fellowship, a Columbia University Theatre Fellowship and has held the David Parsons Chair at LACHSA. She is the Artistic Director of Burning Wheel which is dedicated to the creation of new work, the dynamic re-imaginings of the classics and the training of theatre artists. Most recent productions include, Uncle Vanya, The Eccentricities of a Nightingale and Endgame. The design of her production of Uncle Vanya has been chosen for exhibition in the Prague Quadrennial and the show itself will be performed in Prague in June. Kim received her BFA from New York University-Tisch School of the Arts (University Honors Scholar) and is an MFA candidate (2007) in the directing program at Columbia University. Her thesis production will be the N.Y. Premiere of Charles Mee Jr.'s Fetes de la Nuit opening February 14, 2007. Current plays in development are new adaptations of Miss Julie with playwright Luis Alfaro, Racine's Phaedra, and a new play entitled FAUN.