Artists Repertory Theatre
significantly expands Resident Artist Company
to 20 multidisciplinary theatre professionals
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – April 17, 2014. Artistic Director Dámaso Rodriguez honors the name and intention of Artists Repertory Theatre by expanding the Resident Artist Company to include 20 of Portland’s most lauded professionals from a variety of theatrical disciplines. This significant step follows former Artistic Director Allen Nause’s creation of an acting company in 2008 and Rodriguez’s addition of five artists in 2013.
“Theatre is an art form born of collaboration and a theatrical experience is created by the innovative and inspired work of many disciplines,” said Rodriguez, Artistic Director. “Artists Rep honors this core company of Resident Artists by recognizing their creative contributions to our theatre.”
This step marks a notable reframing of who and what a resident company can be for a theatre organization, and vice versa. Rodriguez envisions that the Resident Artist Company at Artists Rep will provide an artistic home for theatre professionals where both artist and company can mutually benefit. Artists Rep productions will feature the work of a core group of accomplished Resident Artists, each with a shared history and a shorthand for collaboration, working alongside guest artists from Portland and beyond.
These Resident Artists not only populate the stages and back stages of Artists Rep, but also work year-round at theatres elsewhere in Portland, the region and throughout the country. Together, they will drive the expansion of Artists Rep’s education and community engagement programs, and they will contribute to artistic programming by developing new work and piloting new programs with the support of Artists Rep’s administrative staff and board of directors.
These artists represent a diverse mix of actors, designers, directors and writers who are crafting acclaimed careers through a combination of talent, drive and entrepreneurial spirit. They are educators, activists and community leaders who play a major role in defining the cultural landscape of Portland.
THE RESIDENT ARTIST COMPANY AT ARTISTS REPERTORY THEATRE
Linda Alper** (Actor & Playwright), Owen Carey (Resident Photographer)**, Kristeen Willis Crosser** (Lighting & Scenic Designer), Chris Harder (Actor), JoAnn Johnson (Director & Actor), Kevin Jones (Director & Actor), Val Landrum (Actor), Sarah Lucht (Actor), Susannah Mars (Actor), Gilberto Martin Del Campo (Actor), Mary McDonald-Lewis (Voice & Text Director), Michael Mendelson* (Director & Actor), Allen Nause** (Director & Actor), Vana O’Brien* (Actor), Rodolfo Ortega** (Composer & Sound Designer), Sharath Patel (Sound Designer), John San Nicolas (Actor), Vin Shambry (Actor), Andrea Stolowitz (Playwright), Joshua Weinstein (Actor).
*2008
**2013
GROUP PHOTO HERE:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ulmp2pbr8tsz6wk/4-2014%20RA%20Group%20Shot_photocredit%20NashCo%20Photography.jpg
Photo credit: NashCo Photography
Pictured (not in order): Linda Alper, Kristeen Willis Crosser, Chris Harder, JoAnn Johnson,
Val Landrum, Sarah Lucht, Susannah Mars, Gilberto Martin Del Campo, Mary McDonald-Lewis, Michael Mendelson, Allen Nause, Vana O’Brien, Rodolfo Ortega, Sharath Patel, John San Nicolas,
Vin Shambry, Andrea Stolowitz, Joshua Weinstein and Dámaso Rodriguez.
Not pictured: Owen Carey, Kevin Jones
LINK TO RESIDENT ARTIST PAGE:
http://www.artistsrep.org/learn-about-us/the-people/resident-artists.aspx
ARTISTS REP RESIDENT ARTIST BIOS:
LINDA ALPER
Actor/Playwright
A Resident Artist at Artists Rep, Linda has appeared in The Quality of Life, Ten Chimneys, Superior Donuts and The Cherry Orchard. She has played leading roles at Intiman Theatre, Portland Center Stage, Off Broadway, Mark Taper Forum, Seattle Rep, Baltimore Center Stage and other theatres, including 23 seasons with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Linda has also co-written adaptations and translations produced by OSF, ACT in San Francisco, Denver Theatre Center, Santa Cruz, Colorado and other Shakespeare festivals as well as The Acting Company. Currently, she is working on a new adaptation commissioned for OSF’s outdoor stage. Linda has been chosen for critics awards for performance, a National Science Grant for visiting artist to Taiwan, a Fulbright Travel Grant, Fulbright Specialist Roster and an Oregon Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship. She is a graduate of The Juilliard School and a Fulbright senior scholar.
OWEN CAREY
Resident Photographer
Born in Brooklyn, and growing up in NY and NJ, Owen’s first theatrical experience was A Midsummer Night’s Dream – the audio version – with the record of the month club, a gift from his parents for his 4th birthday. He was immediately enthralled with Puck and foolish Jackasses. His first live theatre experience was in High School when he played Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music and met the real Maria. He worked his way through high school and college playing drums and singing in bands in clubs, colleges and recording studios in NY and around the northeast. In his early 20s, he traded in his drumsticks for cameras, and studied at the New School with Peter Moore, who documented the NY avant-garde art world. Owen also assisted artist/experimental film makers, Michael Snow and Joyce Wieland, shooting production stills for them. Through Snow and Weiland he met other filmmakers and playwright Richard Forman (Owen’s first taste of live experimental theatre). By 1974, rather than stay in NY to photograph the art of others, Owen left for Oregon to make music again, and to make his own photographic art and find his “voice.” In 1978 he married actress, Katy Powell, and began shooting plays, actor’s headshots and portraits, and a career was born. After shooting for Artists Rep for 28 years, he is proud to wear the title, Resident Photographer. He currently also loves working with his friends at Third Rail Rep (since 2006), and Oregon Children’s Theatre (for 25 years), and thoroughly enjoyed his 12 years with PCS, bringing them into the digital age. He is so happy to be an integral part of the Portland theatre community, working with fine actors, designers and directors to reflect and support their quality work.
KRISTEEN WILLIS CROSSER
Scenic & Lighting Designer
Kristeen received her BA from Centre College in Danville, KY and received her MFA in lighting design from Wayne State University, Hilberry Company in Detroit, MI. Previously she designed lights for several Artists Rep productions including The Monster Builder, Foxfinder, Ten Chimneys, Red Herring, And So It Goes…,The Cherry Orchard and Eurydice for Artists Rep. Foxfinder also marked her first scenic design for this theatre. She has designed scenery and/or lighting for several area theatres including Northwest Children Theatre’s James and the Giant Peach, Peter Pan, Willy Wonka and Pinocchio, Profile Theatre’s My Children, My Africa, The Road to Mecca, Thief River and Lips Together Teeth Apart, Coho Production’s Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune and The Outgoing Tide, Miracle Theatre’s Mariela in the Desert and How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and Third Rail Repertory Theatre’s The Aliens, A Bright New Boise and Gideon’s Knot . She received a 2012 Outstanding Lighting Design Drammy Award for Oedipus el Rey at Miracle theatre and a 2013 Outstanding Scenic Design Drammy Award for Master Harold and the Boys at Profile Theatre. As always, she is grateful to her husband, Mike, for all of his love and support.
CHRIS HARDER
Actor
Chris Harder (AEA, SAG/AFTRA) is an actor and theatre-maker dedicated to artistic risk and the creation of new work. He recently returned from the Month-Long Intensive Training at Shakespeare and Company in Lenox, MA. A two-time Drammy Award winner for Outstanding Performance and twice Regional Arts and Culture Council grants recipient, he believes that theatre has the power to change people’s lives. He was a founding member of Sowelu Theater Ensemble (1998 – 2004) and regularly featured on stage, working in all areas of production and training in weekly ensemble workshops, studying Meisner technique with Barry Hunt (via William Esper) and Viewpoints (Kim Weild, SITI Co.) Chris teaches adult acting classes and offers private coaching. He led residencies with adult inmates at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility and Columbia River Correctional Institution. He was an ongoing mentor with The Haven Project for five years where he guided young writers through the process of playwriting. He has taught through Playwrite Inc., Sojourn Afield and The Young Players, and continues to direct, teach, and create original plays through Portland Playhouse, Oregon Children’s Theatre and Portland Center Stage. At Artists Repertory Theatre he was Interim Director of Education (2007) and teaching artist with “Actors To Go” for several seasons. Chris has performed in numerous plays, readings and workshops with Artists Rep, Portland Center Stage and many other local companies. Chris developed and self produced two original solo shows (The Centering and Fishing For My Father) and has toured to the Edmonton and Boulder International Fringe Festivals. Film / TV credits include Grimm, Leverage, Restless, Extraordinary Measures, Music Within, Everyman’s War, Rid of Me, Recovery and Thieves. Chris holds a BA in Theater from the University of Wisconsin -Parkside. He loves fly fishing and spending time outdoors with his wife Val.
KEVIN E. JONES
Actor/Director
Most recently, Kevin Jones directed The Motherfucker With the Hat by Stephen Adly Guirgis, August Wilson’s Seven Guitars at Artists Rep, and at Profile Theatre Romulus Linney’s A Lesson Before Dying and Blood Knot by Athol Fugard, which won a Drammy Award for Best Actor in a Lead Role. Prior to that, Jones directed the highly acclaimed production of August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom at Portland Playhouse. Kevin is the principal conjurer and co-creator of The August Wilson Red Door Project – an organization that uses art as a catalyst to transform the racial ecology of Portland. He has enjoyed working on the American stage for more than 30 years. Regional theaters include American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, San Jose Repertory Theatre, Repertory Theatre of St Louis, Asolo Theatre in Saratoga, Florida, Florida Studio Theatre, Fountain Theatre (LA Drama Critics Circle Award for Actor in a Lead Role); Los Angeles Theatre Center, East West Players (LA Drama Critics Circle award for Actor in a Supporting Role); Great Lakes Shakespeare, Magic Theatre, in San Francisco, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Arkansas Repertory Theatre and The Stanford Actor’s Project. Locally he has performed at Artists Rep, Portland Center Stage, Third Rail Repertory and Portland Playhouse where he received a Drammy Award for Outstanding Performance in a Supporting Role for his heartwarming performance of Old Joe in Radio Golf by August Wilson. His TV and film credits include Dr. Quinn, Say Uncle, Deadly Outbreak, War Games, Sweet Valley High and The Bachelor.
JOANN JOHNSON
Actor/Director
JoAnn Johnson is a professional actor, director and choreographer based in Portland. For Artists Rep, she has directed Ballerina, Birdsend, Crumbs from the Table of Joy, Vanya, Blackbird and The Gin Game. She has appeared onstage at Artists Rep as Vivian Bearing in Wit, Flora in Humble Boy, Leo in Indiscretions, Agnes in A Delicate Balance, Mrs. Rafi in The Sea, Margaret Civil in A Perfect Ganesh, Alice in Retreat From Moscow and Hattie in Ten Chimneys. Other acting credits include Sister Aloysius in Doubt and Kate Keller in All My Sons (Arkansas Repertory Theatre); Big Mama in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Mrs. Stavrogin in The Devils (Portland Center Stage); Leni Riefenstahl in Leni (Insight Out Theatre Collective); Sarah Bernhardt in Memoir and Anna in Boston Marriage (Coho Productions); Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit, Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest and Judith Bliss in Hay Fever (Tacoma Actors Guild); Meg in The Birthday Party, Nancy in Seascape and Aunt Sally in Fifth of July (Profile Theatre). Other theatres include The Old Globe, The Empty Space, Pioneer Theatre, Utah Shakespearean Festival, Sacramento Theatre Company, San Jose Repertory Theatre and many seasons with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Directing projects include Masterpieces and boom (Theatre Vertigo); Richard II and King Lear (Northwest Classical Theatre Company); Vita and Virginia (triangle productions!), Watbanaland (Portland Actors Conservatory); A Christmas Carol (Assistant Director, Portland Center Stage); Macbeth (Quintessence Language and Imagination Theatre); Big Love (University of Portland) and The Detective’s Wife (Hellfire Productions). For Artists Rep, JoAnn toured to Asia, Africa and the Middle East in the role of A in Three Tall Women and served as a cultural specialist, teaching at the Shilpakala Academy in Dhaka, Bangladesh. JoAnn was educated at Wells College and the University of Oregon and has a BA in English and a MA in Rhetoric.
VAL LANDRUM
Actor
Val grew up in Wheaton, IL just outside of Chicago. At the age of four she realized that her imagination was pretty cool, so she spent most of her childhood and adolescent years playing make believe as much as possible. She also spent a lot of time begging her parents to pay for acting classes and drive her to auditions, which resulted in her receiving training and gigs at several renowned Chicago theaters including The Piven, Second City and Steppenwolf. After receiving her degrees in Theatre Performance and Sports Communications from Purdue University, she headed off to the East Coast to study playwriting at the University of Massachusetts. She then returned to the Midwest to work at several regional theatres doing mostly musical theatre. It was during this time that Val began work as a theatre teaching artist; specifically with under-privileged youth in Chicago and around northwest Indiana. She moved to Portland in 2000 with a group of fellow Midwesterners to found the now defunkt American Heritage Theatre Project. Her first show with Artists Repertory Theatre was Killer Joe where she played the foul-mouthed, queen of the trailer park, Sharla. Other Artists Rep credits include The MotherFucker With the Hat, The Big Meal, Red Herring, Circle Mirror Transformation, A Streetcar Named Desire and The Cherry Orchard, which earned her a Drammy Award for outstanding actress in a supporting role. She continues to work regionally when she can and has worked locally for Portland Center Stage, Profile Theatre, Portland Playhouse, Third Rail Repertory, and CoHo Productions to name a few. She has been a teaching artist for Oregon Children’s Theatre since 2001, teaches for Portland Center Stage’s High School summer intensive, and privately coaches all ages on audition prep and character development. Some of her film and TV credits include The Sasquatch Gang, Man Maid, What the #$*! Do We Know !?, ER, Cupid and Leverage. She currently lives on a floating home with her three loves: Chris, Finley and Bugger the Dumpster Kitty.
SARAH LUCHT
Actor
Sarah first appeared at Artists Rep in The Artificial Jungle over 20 years ago and has since appeared in numerous productions, including as Liz in Present Laughter, Mrs. Bob Cratchit in Mrs. Bob Cratchit’s Wild Christmas Binge, Beth in Dinner With Friends, Rose in Enchanted April, Gilda in Design for Living, Emilia in Othello, Dolores/Gloria in And So It Goes…, and most recently as Louise Greene in Ten Chimneys. Sarah has also performed at Portland Center Stage (Bus Stop, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Gypsy) as well as Profile Theatre (Bananas in House of Blue Leaves); Lakewood Theatre (Noises Off and Inspecting Carol). She has taught for the Portland Actors Conservatory, Portland Center Stage and currently teaches Shakespeare, playwriting and scene study in area high schools. She is also a founding member of the Portland Shakespeare Project and teaches in their summer conservatory program.
SUSANNAH MARS
Actor
Susannah is thrilled to be a Resident Artist at Artists Rep where she has performed in 11 productions. In other words, she is a most fortunate woman, who has been given a treasured gift of artistic growth from the Artists Rep family. In other theatrical endeavors, she recently appeared at Portland Playhouse as Margaret in The Light In The Piazza, and was Golde in Portland Center Stage’s Fiddler on the Roof. Other favorite roles at Portland Center Stage include Rona Lisa Peretti in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Mother in Ragtime, Mama Rose in Gypsy and Merideth in Bat Boy. At Artists Rep she has performed her holiday show Mars On Life for three seasons, and has also appeared as Dinah in The Quality of Life, Julia in Holidazed, Becca in Rabbit Hole, Mabel in Chaps, and Karen in Dinner with Friends, among others. She was Frieda and Betty at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre in Sunday in the Park with George, and was also Susan in their production of Company. You may also have also seen her on NBC’s Grimm as Drew Wu’s psychiatrist, Dr. Richet. Ms. Mars is the proud recipient of six Portland Drama Critics awards. Her most recent recording Susannah Mars, Call It Home; The Music of Richard Gray is available, along with her first, the MAC nominated Take Me To The World, on LML Music. Find them, and more, at www.susannanhmars.com, including information about her new work currently in development, Good Grief.
GILBERTO MARTIN DEL CAMPO
Actor
Gilberto is a graduate of Portland Actors Conservatory. He has been involved in the Portland theatre community for the past five years appearing in various productions with companies such as Miracle Theatre, Northwest Classical Theatre Company, Artists Rep, as a guest artist at Portland Actors Conservatory, and lately in salon productions for Cerimon House where he adapted, directed and co-produced Lee, Adam & Sam based on John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. He also co-wrote and directed the play That Was The River, This Is the Sea with Claire Willett, which was produced as a stage reading in the 2010 Fertile Ground Festival. He participated in the successful inaugural production of Badass Theatre Co.’s Invasion and has worked in film and television on projects such as Not Dead Yet, Management, Duende: The suit of Lights, Leverage and just finished shooting a web series called The Record keeper for Bigpuddlefilms.com. Gilberto is honored and privileged to be part of this creative process with this talented group of people. He also works as a court- certified interpreter and has a Bachelor’s degree in culinary arts.
MARY MCDONALD-LEWIS
Voice & Text director
The sound, shape, pitch, rhythm, posture, and meaning of human speech fascinates Mary McDonald-Lewis. Capturing where the sound originates – in the mask? The gut? From the heart or the head? – how it is biomechanically produced – this is her quotidian odyssey. MaryMac finds deep and abiding poetry in how speech communicates. How it obfuscates; how it liberates or enslaves with its secrets and lies and wonderful, terrible truths. She loves how it unites and divides us; isolates, identifies, betrays and saves us; how the sounds of humans speaking, as their voices harmonize or their words clash like warring tribes, are all a part of a code we must crack to understand one another. The decoding process is at once a storyteller’s journey and a scientist’s quest, demanding a rigorous academic understanding of speech production, and an artist’s hunger to take in the tongues of the characters in the tale, and speak for them.Contemplating this, crafting tools for acquiring new speech, and coaching this speech is MaryMac’s passion. She has done this in film and television, and in plays too many to mention. Her work encompasses hundreds of accents and dialects and dozens of languages, including dialects of disability and fanciful languages existing solely within the world of the film, television show or play, such as the “Grimmish” she coaches for NBC’s Grimm. Mary McDonald-Lewis holds her MFA in Theater Arts from the University of Portland. She is also an internationally-known voice actor, a stage and on-camera actor, director, and mother to the marvelous Madeline. She is delighted beyond measure to serve Artists Repertory Theatre as its first resident Voice and Text Director, and looks ahead with joy. www.marymac.com
MICHAEL MENDELSON
Actor/Director
Michael is a Resident Artist here at Artists Rep. Recent credits include Felix Artifex in Mistakes Were Made, Alfred Lunt in Ten Chimneys, Andrei Borchevsky in Red Herring, Sherlock in Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Christmas Carol and Alan Raleigh in God of Carnage. Other Artist Rep productions include The Cherry Orchard, Superior Donuts, Othello, Design for Living, Holidazed, Becky’s New Car, Three Sisters, Eurydice, House and Garden, Orson’s Shadow, Mr. Marmalade, Theater District, Present Laughter and Love! Valour! Compassion!. Other local credits include King Lear and Betrayal (Oregon Shakespeare Festival/Portland); Eyes for Consuela, Burn This, The Lisbon Traviata, Klonsky and Schwartz, The Heidi Chronicles and The Glass Menagerie (Profile Theatre); Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, Iago in Othello (Northwest Classical Theatre Company); Fuente Ovejuna (Miracle Theatre); Edward II, Bent and Jeffrey (triangle productions!); As You Like It and The Winter’s Tale (Tygres Heart Shakespeare); The Rivals, Comfort and Joy, Macbeth and Mrs. Warren’s Profession (Portland Center Stage); A Christmas Carol (A Contemporary Theatre) and A Hatful of Rain, Laughing Wild, Waiting for Vern and The Importance of Being Earnest (New Rose Theatre). New York credits include The Merchant of Venice (Revolving Shakespeare Co.); Leontes in The Winter’s Tale (Theatre 1010); The Normal Heart (Lincoln Center/Clark Studio Theatre); Behind These Eyes (Genesius Guild) and Rebecca In Waiting (The Barrow Group). Regional credits include work at PCPA Theatrefest, Paper Mill Playhouse, Saint Michael’s Playhouse, Penobscot Theatre Company, Arkansas Repertory Theatre, First Stage Milwaukee, Idaho Rep, Attic Theater and Wisconsin, Utah and Berkeley Shakespeare Festivals. Michael received a BFA from Wayne State University and an MFA from the University of Washington’s Professional Actor Training Program. Michael is also the Artistic Director of Portland Shakespeare Project.
ALLEN NAUSE
Actor/Director
Allen served as Artists Rep’s Artistic Director from 1988 until 2013 and has directed many of its most popular productions including Killer Joe, Bug, Circle Mirror Transformation, Superior Donuts, The Crucible, Seafarer, The Clean House and Three Days Of Rain. He directed Our Town with Mahesh Dattani in Bangalore, India and led two international tours to Africa and the Near and Middle East, representing American regional theatre for U.S.I.A. Arts America. In 2000, Nause traveled to Vietnam and co-directed a bilingual, bicultural production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and a Vietnamese production of A Glass Menagerie as part of the Vietnam/America Theatre Exchange. In May 2007, he directed All My Sons with the Palestinian National Theatre in Jerusalem. In 2010, Nause directed The Odd Couple in Islamabad, Pakistan. As an actor, he has performed in numerous plays at Artists Rep including Frankie and Johnny in the Claire De Lune, Breaking The Code, Art, The Drawer Boy, Death Of A Salesman, Blackbird, Vanya, No Man’s Land and most recently The Big Meal. Allen will also perform later this season in J.M. Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World, which opens May 20, and direct Ayad Akhtar’s The Invisible Hand next Spring. He has appeared at many other Northwest theatres including Imago Theatre, Portland Center Stage, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Seattle Repertory Theatre, The Empty Space, A.C.T. Seattle and Intiman Theatre. Allen is a Resident Artist at Artists Rep.
VANA O’BRIEN
Actor
Vana has been involved with Artists Rep since 1981 when she and a small group of fellow theatre artists started the new company in the Portland YWCA. Since that time, she has worked on several different Portland stages and seen Artists Rep grow to its current size and well-respected status. Favorite Artists Rep roles include Sister Mary Ignatius Explains it All For You, Long Day’s Journey into Night, Top Girls, Mound Builders, Country Girl, Park Your Car in Harvard Yard, Artificial Jungle, The Laramie Project, A Perfect Ganesh and Superior Donuts. In other Portland theatres, some memorable roles for Vana are in Greek, Faith Healer, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Seagull, Noises Off and particularly the play she and her daughter Eleanor performed together at CoHo Theatre, Collected Stories. Vana joined Artists Rep’s Southeast Asia Arts America tours in 1991 and 1994 performing in Driving Miss Daisy, The World of Carl Sandburg, Three Tall Women and scenes from American comedies.
RODOLFO ORTEGA
Composer/Sound Designer
Rodolfo received his Bachelor’s Degree in Music from the University of Arizona and his Master of Music degree from Manhattan School of Music, where he studied piano and composition. He has composed music and designed sound for Artists Rep for 12 seasons including recent productions of The Big Meal, Mistakes Were Made, Ithaka, Ten Chimney’s, And So It Goes… and Seven Guitars. For Profile Theatre, his credits include designing the music for A Lesson Before Dying, Lips Together Teeth Apart and Master Harold and the Boys. Additionally, he has composed several musicals for Northwest Children’s Theatre including Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, Pinocchio, El Zorrito and Peter Pan. He has also composed many of the productions at Santa Cruz Shakespeare where he is the Associate Artist in Composition, including their recent productions of Othello, Julius Caesar, Man in the Iron Mask and Henry the Fourth Part One, Part Two and Henry V. Additionally, he has composed the music for Denver Center Theatre Company’s productions of Three Musketeers and Romeo and Juliet. For the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, he composed the music for Tenth Muse. Rodolfo was awarded the Drammy in Sound Design and Composition for a season of outstanding work in 2000/01. He received a Drammy for his compositions for Tuck Everlasting for Oregon Children’s Theatre in 2001/02 and again in 2004 for Lorca in a Green Dress.
SHARATH PATEL
Composer/Sound Designer
Portland design credits include The Mother F**ker with the Hat (Artists Rep); The Brother/Sister Plays, Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson, Angels in America, Jitney, King Hedley II, The Scene, The Huntsmen (Portland Playhouse); Eyes for Consuela, The Road to Mecca, Blood Knot, My Children! My Africa! (Profile Theatre); Oedipus el Rey (Miracle Theatre); A Pigeon and A Boy (Jewish Theater Collaborative); Anything But Brilliant (Lights Up!); Hard Times (CoHo); Macbeth (Bag & Baggage); 13: A New Musical (Staged!); Kiss Me Like You Mean It (Third Rail Repertory); Lion In Winter, King John (Northwest Classical); Neverwhere (Northwest Academy); Feral (Compass Works); True West (Our Shoes are Red); A Servant of Two Masters (Portland State University); Conference of the Birds (Willamette University); Red Hands, Pulp Diction 2012 (The Brody). New York and regional credits include designs at Westside Theatre, La MaMa, Playwrights Horizons, Theatre Row, PS 122, HereArts Center, The Cherry Pit, Classic Stage, The Tank, Culture Project, Mint Theater Company, The Brick Theater, Village Theatre, Access Theater, Laurie Beechman Theatre, Crown Point Theater, Sidney Harmon Hall, Virginia Stage Company, Burning Coal Theatre Company, Aspen Conference of Ideas, Berkshires Theatre Group, New York Stage and Film, Ohio Valley Summer Theater, ArtsWest Playhouse and Contemporary American Theater Festival. International and academic professional credits include designs in India, France, England, Germany, Romania, Yale Rep, Yale Dramatic Association, Harvard University, Fordham University, Columbia University, Ohio University, Yale University and Butler University. Sharath holds a BFA from Ohio University and he earned his MFA in Sound Design from the Yale School of Drama. Binding, at PS122, won the 2010 Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Performance Art Production in New York City. Sharath is honored and enthusiastic to be a Resident Artist here at Artists Rep.
JOHN SAN NICOLAS
Actor
John has previously appeared on Artist Rep’s stage in The Ghosts of Celilo, Jack Goes Boating, Standing On Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays (staged reading) and most recently as Jackie in The Motherfucker With the Hat. A Portland resident since 2005, his local appearances include Twist Your Dickens and Shakespeare’s Amazing Cymbeline at Portland Center Stage, Richard III at Northwest Classical Theatre Company, Invasion! with Badass Theatre Co., A Noble Failure and The Pain and the Itch at Third Rail Rep, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and Bingo With the Indians at Portland Playhouse, Far Away with Shaking the Tree Theatre, Reasons to Be Pretty with CoHo Productions/Lucky Apple, The Good Doctor, Lend Me a Tenor and Rumors with Anonymous Theatre, Captured By Aliens and Fall of the House with Action/Adventure Theatre, It’s a Wonderful Life (as George Bailey) with Salem Repertory Theatre, Sonia Flew and Elliot: A Soldier’s Fugue with Miracle Theatre Group and The Pressure Point and The Red Badge of Courage with Oregon Children’s Theatre, . He has also appeared on the television series’ Portlandia and Leverage. John is a die-hard Chargers fan and a rapper, loves naps, plays softball on dry Saturdays, and drinks Jameson on the rocks. His ethnic background includes Chamorro (the indigenous people of Guam) Mexican and Caucasian.
VIN SHAMBRY
Actor
Vin Shambry was most recently seen onstage in Jitney, his fourth August Wilson play at Portland Playhouse, following King Hedley II, Gem of the Ocean and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (Portland Playhouse). He was also recently seen onstage as the executioner in Salome (Portland Opera). Other Portland credits include One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Portand Center Stage); (I am Still) The Duchess of Malfi, Superior Donuts (Artists Repertory Theatre); Songs for a New World (Staged! and Miracle Theatre) and two Oregon Children’s Theatre productions. Broadway credits include Tom Collins in Rent and John in Miss Saigon. He has toured nationally with Rent, Miss Saigon, Honk and Big River. In 2007, Vin was awarded the Audelco Award for Best Actor in a Play for Black Man Rising, and in 2011 he won three Portland Drammy Awards for lead actor, lead musical actor and musical ensemble. Vin has a BFA in musical theatre from the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in NYC. Vin also moonlights as a live storyteller at the Moth and Back Fence PDX and is working on a collection of short stories about his childhood. In his day jobs, Vin directs and choreographs youth performances in local schools and is also a coach for the August Wilson monologue competition through the Red Door Project. www.vinshambry.com
ANDREA STOLOWITZ
Playwright
Andrea Stolowitz’s plays have been presented at theatres nationally and internationally. The LA Times calls her work “heartbreaking” and the Orange County Register characterizes her approach as a “brave refusal to sugarcoat…issues and tough decisions.”A recipient of Artists Repertory Theatre’s $25,000 New Play Commission, Andrea premiered her newest work Ithaka at the theatre in 2013. Her play Antarktikos was awarded the 2013 Oregon Book Award for Drama and was published in July in Theatre Forum magazine. The play world-premiered at The Pittsburgh Playhouse in March 2013 and was workshopped nationwide at The New Harmony Project (IN), Portland Center Stage’s JAW Festival, and at Seattle Repertory Theater. Knowing Cairo world-premiered at the Old Globe Theatre, which earned San Diego’s “Billie” Best New Play Award and an LA Times’ Critic’s Pick. It is published by Playscripts Inc. and continues to be produced nationally and internationally. It was presented at Profile Theater (OR) in 2013. Tales of Doomed Love premiered in Washington, DC at The Studio Theater. As part of the 2008 Fringe Festival, DC Theater Scene called it “one of the finest entries in the Capital Fringe” and the Triangle Independent named its production at StreetSigns Center for Literature and Performance (Chapel Hill, NC) “best new play.” Andrea’s screenwriting work includes Jonathan’s War, a feature-length action film, the treatment for Code Name: Pelicano which was sold to independent producers, and the upcoming web series Crackerjacks. A Walter E. Dakin Fellow at The Sewanee Writers Conference, Andrea has also been awarded residencies at Ledig House, Soapstone, and Hedgebrook, and Arts Grants from North Carolina, Oregon, and private foundations. She is a 2013 Oregon Arts Commission Fellowship winner. An MFA playwriting alumna of UC-San Diego, Andrea has served on the faculties at Willamette University, The University of Portland, Duke University and UC-San Diego. She is a founding member of Playwrights West (www.playwrightswest.org).
JOSHUA WEINSTEIN
Actor
Born and raised in Tallahassee, FL, Josh moved to Portland in 2011 for the 2011/12 Portland Playhouse Acting Apprenticeship. Since then, he has appeared in Body Awareness (CoHo; Drammy Award, Supporting Actor); Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and A Christmas Carol (Portland Playhouse) and Red Herring and Foxfinder here at Artists Rep. Around town, Josh has directed students from Trillium Charter School as part of the Portland Playhouse’s Fall Festival of Shakespeare. Other youth theatre teaching and directing includes Oregon Children’s Theatre and Exploration Summer Programs at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.
ABOUT ARTISTS REPERTORY THEATRE
Portland’s premiere mid-size regional theatre company is led by Artistic Director Dámaso Rodriguez and Managing Director Sarah Horton. Founded in 1982, Artists Repertory Theatre is the longest-running professional theatre company in Portland. For the 2014/15 season Artists Rep will offer eight bold and entertaining plays written by internationally acclaimed playwrights, and guided by esteemed directors. Artists Rep productions will feature the work of a core group of accomplished Resident Artists, each with a shared history and a shorthand for collaboration, working alongside guest artists from Portland and beyond.
Artists Rep’s mission is to engage diverse audiences in fresh, thought-provoking and intimate theatre. We are committed to world-class acting, directing, design and stagecraft that support new playwriting and aspire to embody great literature, moving audiences to truly feel — to experience — storytelling in a way that only the best live theatre can.
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Nicole A. Lane
Marketing & Public Relations Director
Artists Repertory Theatre
503.241.9807 x102 (office)
360.601.4298 (mobile)
[email protected]
1515 SW Morrison St.
Portland, OR 97205
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Is it better to BURN OUT or JUST FADE AWAY?
THE QUALITY OF LIFE
By Jane Anderson. Directed by Allen Nause.
It turns out that true love knows no bounds, family roots run true and there are a few things red wine and a bong hit won’t fix.
Runs through May 11.
Click here to buy your tickets today.
Next season’s lineup announced! Click here to see the eight plays of our 2014/15 season.
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