MEET THE HVSF TEAM DAVIS MCCALLUM Artistic Director Davis is in his fifth season as HVSF’s Artistic Director, and is honored to lead the company alongside Managing Director Kate Liberman. Under their leadership, HVSF established HVStories, a multi-year programming initiative to tell the stories of the Hudson River Valley; and FULL CIRCLE, a year-round community engagement program inspired by 2016’s citizen-driven production of Our Town. His extensive background with Shakespeare and the classics includes productions at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Guthrie, The Old Globe, The Pearl, the American Shakespeare Center, and The Acting Company. A graduate of Princeton, he studied Shakespeare at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and trained as a director at LAMDA. He has taught acting and directing at Princeton and The New School for Drama. He is the father of two sons, Thomas and Angus.
KATE LIBERMAN Managing Director Kate joined HVSF as Managing Director in 2015. She is honored to lead HVSF in partnership with Davis McCallum. Previously, she served as General Manager at The Laguna Playhouse, where she worked on strategic planning, a fiscal turnaround, and capital improvements. Prior to The Playhouse, she served as Associate Managing Director at Yale Repertory Theatre, Managing Director of Yale Summer Cabaret, and Managing Director Fellow at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Kate was Associate Manager of Development at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC where she executed a successful $10M campaign for the 2008 festival, Arabesque: Arts of The Arab World. She holds an MFA in theater management from Yale School of Drama and an MBA from Yale School of Management, and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, summa cum laude. At Yale, she was the recipient of the Morris J. Kaplan Prize for recognition in theater management. She is a recipient of the Harry S. Truman Scholarship and served as President of the Truman Scholars Association. In 2017, Kate received the Business Council of Westchester’s 40 Under 40 Rising Star Award. She proudly serves as the immediate past president of the Cold Spring Area Chamber of Commerce. Originally from the Boston area, Kate lives in Peekskill with her wonderful husband, Eric, and her son, Toby.
TERRENCE O’BRIEN Founding Artistic Director Terrence O’Brien co-founded HVSF with actress Melissa Stern in 1987, and for 27 years, O’Brien was HVSF’s artistic leader. During that time, he directed more than 30 of HVSF’s productions, garnered significant critical acclaim in major press nationally, and built a very loyal audience who enthusiastically returned to our tent theater year after year. He co-authored, with Stern, HVSF’s original Statement of Purpose, he developed and evolved HVSF’s signature performance style, and he remains deeply dedicated to the idea that Shakespeare’s plays can be made accessible without sacrificing any of their depth and integrity. O’Brien was instrumental in developing the design of the HVSF tent theater and in integrating HVSF’s acting style with the theater space. Over several years he developed an informal company of actors and artists, many of whom have developed lasting friendships, marriages, and in some cases, have had children. He performed his original one-man play, Popular Mechanics, for Bedlam in New York City, in Garrison, and in Gainesville, GA. Last May, he directed a cast of prisoners in his own adaptation of On The Waterfront at Sing Sing Correctional Facility. He is currently adapting Investigating Sex into a theatre piece, and he’ll be doing studio work on that project at the Baryshnikov Arts Center this summer. O’Brien is the director of the New World Shakespeare Lab in New York City, a group that seeks to evolve a more spontaneous style of acting Shakespeare. He and his wife, Jane Praeger, live in Manhattan with their daughter, Jenne, and son, Leo.
(In alphabetical order)
SCOTTY ARNOLD Box Office Manager Scotty joined HVSF in 2018 after opening the box office of the Women’s Project in their new home, the McGinn/ Cazale Theatre. He has spent three summers as the resident composer at the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival, and his musical When We’re Gone recently received its world premiere at the Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma. scottyarnold.com
KATE ASHWORTH Company Manager Kate is excited to join HVSF this summer, after spending five seasons in Company Management at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She was previously the Company and Production Manager of Donald Byrd’s Spectrum Dance Theater in Seattle, Washington, and Technical Director for Spectrum’s DanceMotion USA tour to Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.
hvshakespeare.org
67
