Bios

Ray Dooley

PlayMakers: Company member since 1989. Most recently: The Storyteller, Ragtime, Dairyland, Life of Galileo, Bewilderness, She Loves Me. Broadway: Macbeth. Off-Broadway: Three seasons with Classic Stage Company (OBIE Award for Distinguished Performance, Peer Gynt). International: European premiere of Doubt (Vienna’s English Theatre); Amadeus, The Lark (Citadel Theatre, Edmonton, Canada). Regional: Folger Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, American Shakespeare Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Huntington Theatre Company, Alliance Theatre Company, among many others. Film/ TV: Trainhopper, Changeover, The Trial of Standing Bear, Stonebrook, One Life to Live, Guiding Light. Education/Other: MFA, American Conservatory Theater; BA, Hamilton College (Phi Beta Kappa). Professor Emeritus, UNCChapel Hill Department of Dramatic Art; C. Knox Massey Award for Unusual, Distinguished and Meritorious Service to the University, Jonathan B. Howes Award for Lifetime Achievement in Public Service. Member Actors’ Equity Association, SAG-AFTRA.

Michael Perlman Director PlayMakers: Associate Artistic Director. Directed Bye Bye Birdie for the Summer Youth Conservatory and Ray Dooley in A Christmas Carol (2017). Michael has directed at Goodspeed Opera House, Cleveland Play House, Trinity Repertory Company, Kitchen Theatre Company, Arvada Theater Center, Boise Contemporary Theater, Creede Repertory Theater, Swine Palace, Maples Rep, Brown/Trinity Playwrights Rep and the Brown/Trinity MFA Programs as well as workshops with The Playwrights’ Center, The Magic Theater and Young Playwrights, Inc. He’s the Associate Director on Fiasco Theater’s Into the Woods which was seen at the McCarter Theater, Old Globe, Menier Chocolate Factory and Roundabout Theater Company, in addition to Noises Off at Roundabout. Michael’s plays include At The Table and From White Plains, which is the recipient of a 2013 GLAAD Media Award and was nominated for New York Innovative Theater awards for Outstanding Premiere Production and Outstanding Full-Length Script. In addition, Michael’s one-person show Flying on the Wing was presented at the New York Fringe Festival, where it was the winner of Outstanding Solo Show. Michael is an Artistic Associate with both Fiasco Theater and Fault Line Theatre. He is proud to be a member of SDC, a Drama League Directing Fellow, and holds a BA and MFA from Brown University, where he has also served on faculty.

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Brandon Reed Sound Designer/Media Coordinator PlayMakers: The Storyteller, Love, Loss, and What I Wore, No Fear and Blues Long Gone: Nina Simone. Company member in his second season as Resident Sound Designer/Engineer. Regional: BEAU with Broadway director Michael Wilson, Sequence, The Enlightenment of Percival von Schmootz, Calling All Kates (Adirondack Theatre Festival); The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, Sex With Strangers (Cardinal Stage Company); Constellations (Lake Dillion Theatre); Fully Committed, Chapatti, Silent Sky (Bristol Valley Theater); Julius Caesar, Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Music Man (Arkansas Shakespeare); Our Town (Chautauqua Theater Company). University: Because I Am Your Queen with Tectonic Theater’s Barbara Pitts McAdams, Twelfth Night, In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play), A Funny Thing Happened…, The Light in the Piazza (Illinois Theatre). Other: 2019 USITT Robert E. Cohen Sound Achievement Award. 2016 Joseph Jefferson Nomination for A Small Oak Tree Runs Red. 2015 Sound Design Fellowship from Chautauqua Theater Company. Alumnus of the Steppenwolf Professional Leadership Program. MFA University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, BS Ball State University. @brandonreedsounddesign www.brandonreedsounddesign.com

Charles K. Bayang Stage Manager Charles is in his thirteenth season with PlayMakers. Work at other regional theatres includes productions at Studio Arena Theatre, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Huntington Theatre Company, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Dallas Theater Center and Dallas Children’s Theatre. Charles holds an MFA from the University of Alabama/Alabama Shakespeare Festival and is a member of Actors’ Equity Association.

Elizabeth Ray Stage Manager PlayMakers: Company member in her fourth full season. Love, Loss, and What I Wore, Everybody, Dairyland, No Fear & Blues Long Gone: Nina Simone, How I Learned to Drive, Jump, Skeleton Crew, Temples of Lung and Air, "A" Train, Tartuffe, Dot, The Cake, Into the Woods, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Private Lives. New York: Shows for Days (Lincoln Center Theater), In the Secret Sea (Theatre Row), Wallenberg, Requiem for Mr. B, Presto Change-O (Frankel Green Production Company), and Welcome to Shoofly (Playwrights Horizons). Work at other regional theatres includes productions at North Carolina Theatre, Theatre Raleigh, Palm Beach Dramaworks, and Cape Fear Regional Theatre. Elizabeth is a member of Actors’ Equity Association.

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Vivienne Benesch Producing Artistic Director Vivienne is in her fifth full season as a company member and Producing Artistic Director at PlayMakers, where she has helmed productions of Dairyland, Life of Galileo, Leaving Eden, The May Queen, Three Sisters, Love Alone, RED, and In The Next Room. For 12 seasons, she served as Artistic Director of the renowned Chautauqua Theater Company and Conservatory, presiding over the company’s transformation into one of the best summer theatres and most competitive summer training programs in the country. She directed more than fifteen productions at CTC including an acclaimed reimagining of Romeo and Juliet featuring the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, Theatre, Opera and Dance companies. She brought CTC’s production of Amadeus, performed with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra and Buffalo Philharmonic, to the Virginia Arts Festival featuring PlayMakers company member Ray Dooley. Vivienne has also directed for the Folger Shakespeare Theatre (Helen Hayes nomination for best direction 2019), The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, Trinity Repertory Company, and Red Bull Theatre, among others. In 2018, she directed the world premiere of Noah Haidle’s Birthday Candles for Detroit Public Theatre and will be directing it again on Broadway in 2021, starring Debra Messing. As an actress, Vivienne has worked on and off-Broadway, in film and television, at many of the country’s most celebrated theatres, and received an Obie Award for her performance in Lee Blessing’s Going to St. Ives. Vivienne is a graduate of Brown University and NYU’s Graduate Acting Program. As an educator, she has directed for and served on the faculty of some of the nation’s foremost actor training programs, including The Juilliard School, UNC-Chapel Hill’s Professional Actor Training Program, Brown/Trinity Rep MFA Program, and at her alma mater, NYU’s Graduate Acting Program. She is the 2017 recipient of the Zelda Fichandler Award given by the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation.

Michael Rolleri Production Manager Michael is in his 34rd season with PlayMakers Repertory Company. He has been Technical Director, Project Manager, Exhibition Technician, and Lighting Designer for industrial shows in the Southeast region, as well as lead carpenter for films, the U.S. Olympic Festival, and scenic studios. He has also been a rigger in the Southeast region and has served on the executive board and as President of IATSE Local 417. Michael is a 30 year Gold Pin member of IATSE. An active member of United States Institute For Theatre Technology (USITT), he is a three-time winner at USITT's Tech Expo. He is a full Professor/Head of the Technical Production Program at UNC-Chapel Hill and was an instructor at High Point University and Tufts University. Education: MFA in Design and Technical Production, UNCGreensboro. 17