Thank you so much for joining us for a long overdue first at PlayMakers Repertory Company. The wonderful Karen Zacarías is an artist whose work has been seen around the country and whose voice has become truly significant in the American Theatre. She is the first Latinx playwright produced on PlayMakers’ Mainstage, and I’m thrilled that it’s with her brilliantly witty comedy, “Native Gardens.”
As you may know, this production has been a long time in the coming, as we’d originally programmed “Native Gardens” as part of our 2019/2020 season. In fact, we were just three rehearsals into the process when we had to shut down the theatre at the start of the pandemic. I am so grateful that we were able to gather these amazing artists to pick up where they left off. It’s especially poignant as our director, Patrick Torres, who has led Raleigh Little Theatre so beautifully over the past many years, is leaving the Triangle to return to his former artistic home in Austin, TX. He will be sorely missed, but I’m grateful to have welcomed him to PlayMakers for what I hope is only the first time, sharing his warmth and artistic sensibilities.
I love this play because, under its many topical metaphors, it takes as its central premise that we all have moments of behaving badly. It doesn’t matter your background; we’ve all made missteps or stuck our foot in our mouth and instantly regretted it. And Zacarías, through the representation of these two astutely rendered couples, brings deep empathy to the fore and points us in the direction of building better fences. Overseeing the action of the play is an oak tree, poignantly represented in designer Junghyun Georgia Lee’s set design. That tree existed long before any houses or gardens were built and will hopefully (unless humans mess it up) live on long after we’re gone. It positions the entire story in a space that prompts the question, “Whose land is it after all?”
Thank you all for being here, neighbors. Enjoy the show!
Vivienne
Amy Guskiewicz Chair
Joanne Garrett Deborah Gerhardt
Bobbi Hapgood
Janelle Hoskins
Hawkins
Betty Kenan, emerita
Betsy Blackwell Vice Chair
Robert Long, emeritus
Graig Meyer
Morris Noell Peacock Duncan Lascelles Vice ChairWyndham Robertson
Carol Smithwick
Jackie Tanner
Jennifer Werner
Mike Wiley
As chair of the PlayMakers Advisory Council, it is my great pleasure to welcome you back to the Paul Green Theatre for our 2022/23 season.
We are thrilled to offer a six-show Mainstage season that celebrates the best in contemporary and classic theatre, featuring Southern voices, female writers and directors, and a diversity of narratives from the tapestry of cultures that make up the American cultural landscape. We believe that the theatre will have an important role to play in making sense of the complex world in which we find ourselves, and we endeavor to do this by entertaining, challenging, and inspiring our audiences with the best tools of professional, locally produced performing arts. When I walk out of PlayMakers after a show, I always say how lucky we are to have a theater with such world-class performances right here in Chapel Hill.
In addition to an impressive lineup of powerful performances, PlayMakers continues its work serving the Triangle community and beyond. We are privileged to provide unique learning opportunities for K–12 classrooms and UNC students, creating new ways to engage with our local artists and advocates, and make the power and joy of theatre accessible to underserved communities.
Theatre is and always will be a place for community. And it is up to us—the community—to ensure that PlayMakers continues to thrive. Gifts from patrons like you will be critical to our success as we map out a bright future for the theatre, ensuring its sustainability for many decades to come. If you enjoy and believe in the power of the theatre as I do, I invite you to become a Friend of PlayMakers. Please make a tax-deductible contribution to the annual fund, pledge a monthly donation as a Sustainer, or offer a campaign gift to strengthen and sustain PlayMakers’ vision for the future.
I truly believe that there has never been a more important time to support the arts. Join me in championing our local theatre—an organization that makes a difference in our community. As Joan Gillings often said, “You will sit a little taller in your theatre seat, knowing you made a difference, too.”
Warmly,
“One of America’s Best Regional Theatres” (American Theatre Magazine), PlayMakers Repertory Company is North Carolina’s premier professional theatre company, proudly in residence on the dynamic campus of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. The professional company was founded in 1976, growing out of a storied 100-year tradition of playmaking at Carolina. Our mission is to produce relevant, courageous work that tells stories from and for a multiplicity of perspectives. We believe that theatre can have a transformational impact on individuals and entire communities, and we are committed to the work of becoming an anti-racist organization whose work is accessible to all.
At the very heart of the PlayMakers experience is one of the nation’s last remaining resident theatre companies, made up of accomplished performers, directors, designers, artisans, and technicians, and supported by exceptional graduate students in UNC’s Department of Dramatic Art. Our company works side by side with guest artists from all over the world and our alumni include Pulitzer Prize, Tony®, Emmy®, and Grammy Award® winners.
Producing Artistic Director Vivienne Benesch is continuing PlayMakers’ tradition of producing vibrantly reimagined classics, large-scale musical theatre, and significant contemporary work, but is also broadening the company’s reach to become a home for new play development and a true hub of social and civic discourse in the region. Her first six seasons have already given life to ten important new American plays.
PlayMakers seeks to provoke thought, stimulate discussion, and push the boundaries of the theatrical form in everything we do. Whether through our intimate @Play series, our mainstage offerings or our virtual line-up, we look for opportunities for direct, dynamic engagement between audiences, artists, and thinkers. The Vision Series, post-show discussions and a host of unique engagement opportunities including the continuation of last season’s online PlayMakers Keeping You Company enrich our audience’s experience of the live arts.
PlayMakers Mobile is an initiative that seeks to contribute positively to the civic and social life of our region by taking world-class theatre out of our
building and into the community. We create a streamlined production of a play each year and take it to schools, transitional housing facilities, and long-term treatment facilities around the Greater Triangle area. And best of all, it’s all free of charge. We look forward to getting back on the road as soon as we can do so safely.
PlayMakers’award-winning Summer Youth Conservatory is the only professionally supported training program of its kind in the region. The Theatre Quest program provides camps to area middle school students, while the Theatre Intensive and TheatreTech programs allow Triangle high schoolers to apprentice directly with professional directors, choreographers, musical directors, and technicians, culminating in a professional quality production on the PlayMakers mainstage for the whole community to enjoy.
With a commitment to eliminating barriers for attendance when we host live events, PlayMakers offers All Access performances for our patrons living with disabilities. We also offer accessible $20 tickets for all performances and ticket prices are reduced to just $10 for UNC students and $12 for all other students. Our Spotlight on Service program also offers complimentary tickets to local service organizations. This season, we are proud to offer complimentary tickets to front-line workers in honor of their ongoing service to the community. For more information, please contact prcboxoffice@unc.edu.
PlayMakers Repertory Company is North Carolina’s premier professional theatre company, proudly in residence on the dynamic campus of the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. Our mission is to produce relevant, courageous work that tells stories from and for a multiplicity of perspectives. We believe that theatre can have a transformational impact on individuals and entire communities, and we are committed to the journey of becoming an antiracist organization whose work is accessible to all. PlayMakers is devoted to nurturing and training future generations of artists and audiences inextricably linked to UNC’s Department of Dramatic Art.
At the heart of PlayMakers Repertory Company’s mission is the belief that theater has the power to transform individuals and entire communities. There is no more aspirational or urgent a use of that power than working to dismantle the systems of oppression, white supremacy, and racism that pervade American life and consume the American Theatre. PlayMakers continues to assess and evaluate our own practices in order to embed equitable, antiracist policies into strategic planning, our mission, and our operations. PlayMakers Repertory Company, and those of us who work here, commit to the following:
• To work intentionally to create an antiracist culture in our company.
• To continually educate ourselves on the ways in which we can combat racism locally and nationally as we move to create an inclusive, diverse, and equitable sense of belonging for every one of our constituents.
• To demonstrate our values through action in our policies, practices, and procedures.
As a professional theatre company embedded in, and inextricably linked to, the Department of Dramatic Art (DDA) at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, our path forward will be complex and singular. We will therefore be updating our action items and commitments continuously as our work evolves.
We at PlayMakers understand our responsibility not only to the artists, staff, and audiences with which we engage, but significantly, to the many students training here for a career in the theatre. These are not our first steps, and by no means our last. They are not perfect. And they are not enough. But they are steps forward. We invite you to come back to our website and our theater often and monitor our progress. We take our responsibility to this effort seriously and we welcome your involvement and assessment.
We acknowledge that the Center for Dramatic Art is located on the unceded lands of one or more of Abiayala’s (the Americas’) original sovereign nations, the name(s) of which have not yet been affirmed. The unjust acquisition of these Indigenous lands came about through a history of racism, violence, dispossession, displacement, and erasure of cultures by settlers as part of the larger, land-centered project of settler colonialism.
As we look to the future, please join us in acknowledging and learning about the atrocities committed against these Nations and work with us towards inclusion, representation, and a better relationship with citizens of sovereign American Indian and Alaska Native nations.
This statement is part of the continual interrogation of our own participation and complacency in colonial structures and a call for greater awareness, accountability, and intentionality in the work we do. As storytellers, we are committed to learning and telling stories in ways that will have transformational impact in our immediate and extended communities. We are excited by future partnerships with Native Americans and look forward to sharing this journey of knowledge and growth with you.
Learn more: UNC American Indian Center americanindiancenter.unc.edu/
Experience in the Heart of Chapel Hill.
Junghyun Georgia Lee
Dramaturg Gregory Kable
Stage Manager
Aspen Jackson
Sound Designer
NoverVocal Coach Gwendolyn Schwinke
Assistant Stage Manager Sarah Smiley
“Native Gardens” is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. www.concordtheatricals.com
"Native Gardens" was commissioned and first produced by Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park under Blake Robison (Artistic Director) and Buzz Ward (Managing Director).
The Professional Theatre of the Department of Dramatic Art Kathryn Hunter-Williams, Chair Vivienne Benesch, Producing Artistic Director Produced in association with the College of Arts and Sciences The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The opening of PlayMakers Repertory Company’s “Native Gardens” coincides with both National Hispanic Heritage Month and the wealth of campus events celebrating Latinx Heritage Month, running September 15 through October 15, as well as the new campus hub of the Carolina Latinx Center, a venue more than a dozen years in the making. Further afield, our opening also overlaps with the sixtieth anniversary of the Broadway premiere of a seminal American drama by the late Edward Albee. In all respects, the timing for Karen Zacarías play could not be more appropriate. Her work as a dramatist exists on a spectrum of rich contributions by Latinx artists, while the historical link with Albee, who between them run the gamut from A-Z, can serve as a lens through which to consider the wider progress of American theatre over the last six decades.
“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” arrived with the force of an atomic bomb in October of 1962, garnering rapturous acclaim and furious condemnation in equal measure, and sparking controversy of such a pitch that the Pulitzer Prize committee chose not to present an award for drama at all that year rather than bestow the honor on Albee. But his play soon earned its landmark status, and if Zacarías’ work hasn’t yet had time to secure a place in posterity, it’s sufficient for now that its garden setting explores the many ways we mark the land.
“We don’t want to change everything. We just want to add our touch to the landscape.” –“Native Gardens”
Harlem, New York 1920s/30s
Like Albee, Zacarías crafts a fourcharacter piece in which an established married couple and one just laying down roots pass from cordiality to conflict sourced in generational divides, family, career, class, gender, charges of privilege, and a host of explosive issues seething just below the placid surface of modern American life. Both plays are exercises in excavation, with a shared precision in their choice of plot points and skill with dialogue, and their serious intentions leavened by a mutually liberating humor. But ultimately the differences are more telling than the affiinities.
Zacarías is exemplary of a theatre touched by a reckoning, where a greater need for representation what audiences society more broadly, making aspects of past practice appear overly narrow and even provincial in comparison. Although the play has a taut script, “Native Gardens” affords breathing room to address pressing concerns of our historical moment ranging from border disputes to divisive questions of citizenship and legitimacy.
“Native Gardens” can serve as a clarion call to wake us from complacency, a tonic to the toxic notion of a fixed and exclusive dramatic canon. If “Virginia Woolf” is set in a claustrophobic interior, where the past hangs heavy over the present, Zacarías takes us out into the world of nature, even if it’s the delimited nature of suburban America where, despite the stubborn tendency of familiar patterns repeating themselves, there is still the possibility of new beginnings.
America has been characterized by many metaphors salad bowl, a patchwork quilt, a mosaic, a kaleidoscope. Why not, then, as a garden? The range of gardens themselves symbolize the diversity of American society: flower gardens,vegetable gardens, rock gardens, sculpture gardens,
monument gardens, memorial gardens, each distinct but all variations on a theme. Myth, religion, and literature have regularly turned to the garden as inspiration and image. And in his philosophical meditation on gardens as a microcosm of the human condition, Robert Pogue Harrison opens up a perspective to its fullest:
“Where history unleashes its destructive and annihilating forces, we must, if we are to preserve our sanity, to say nothing of our humanity, work against and in spite of them. We must seek our healing or redemptive forces and allow them to grow in us. This is what it means to tend our garden. ‘Our garden,’ a phrase most famously employed at the close of Voltaire’s ‘Candide,’ is never a garden of merely private concerns into which one escapes from the real; it is that plot of soil in the earth, within the self, or amid the social collective, where the cultural, ethical, and civic virtues that save reality from its own worst impulses are cultivated.”
“And those virtues,” Harrison concludes, “are always ours.” Cultivation, collaboration, community. These ideals grace the borders of the garden we share. Guest director Patrick Torres has rightly stressed that Zacarías is as subversive and political as she is comic. And as America’s stages, not least its regional theatres like PlayMakers, commit to expanding the narratives, as we continue to learn how to nurture our garden together, and as we emerge from a punishing pandemic whose alienation and uncertainty were compounded by a clickbait culture addicted to outrage, soliciting us to see others in stark terms of allies or threats, “Native Gardens” encourages us to maintain faith in that latent promise of a more perfect union. We can find ourselves in our stories, dig deeper, rediscover a solid foundation, seek more fertile soil, and establish common ground.
Karen Zacarías was recently hailed by American Theater Magazine as one of the ten most-produced playwrights in the US. Her awardwinning plays include “The Copper Children,” “Destiny of Desire,” “Native Gardens,” “The Book Club Play,” “Legacy of Light,” “Mariela in the Desert,” “The Sins of Sor Juana" and the adaptations of “Just Like Us,” “Into the Beautiful North,” and “How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent.” She is the author of ten renowned TYA musicals (including “Ella Enchanted: The Musical”) and the librettist of several ballets.
She is one of the inaugural resident playwrights at Arena Stage, a core founder of the Latinx Theatre Commons – a large national organization of artists seeking to update the American narrative with the stories of Latinos – and she is the founder of the award-winning Young Playwrights’ Theater (YPT). YPT was cited by the Obama administration as one of the best arts-education programs on the nation.
Karen was voted 2018 Washingtonian of the Year by Washingtonian Magazine for her advocacy work involving the arts. She is an inaugural 2019 Sine Fellow for Policy Innovation at American University and is selected by The League of Professional Theatre Women to receive the 2019 Lee Reynolds Award, given annually to a woman in theater who has helped illuminate the possibilities for social, cultural, or political change. In 2021, Karen was awarded a United States Artists Fellowship award.
Karen lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and three children. www.KarenZacarias.com
PlayMakers: PlayMakers: This marks Jeff’s 28th season with PlayMakers. Recently: Brutus in “Julius Caesar,” Father in “Ragtime,” Uncle Peck in “How I Learned to Drive,” Sipos in “She Loves Me,” and Darren (the Woodchuck) in “Bewilderness.” Some favorites: Henry Higgins in “My Fair Lady,” Caliban in “The Tempest,” Colonel Brandon in “Sense and Sensibility,” Roy Cohn in “Angels in America” and Herr Schultz in “Cabaret.” New York: “Two by Two,” “Down to Earth,” “Serious Business.” Regional: Guthrie Theater, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Pittsburgh Public Theater, Paper Mill Playhouse, Geva Theatre Center, among others. Education/Other: Carbonell Award nominations for Best Actor – “Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me” and “Falsettoland” (Caldwell Theatre – FL). Studied at HB Studios in New York with Uta Hagen, Austin Pendleton, and Elizabeth Wilson. Serves as Teaching Professor/Associate Chair in UNC’s Department of Dramatic Art.
PlayMakers: Debut. Local: “On Your Feet!” (North Carolina Theatre), “Man of La Mancha” (Triad Stage), “In The Heights” (Raleigh Little Theatre). Film: “Luso (Torch)” directed by David Henrie. Voiceover: “CoComelon” Youtube Series (Ms. Appleberry). Education: B.F.A. Acting graduate from UNC Greensboro. @cristinaduchesne
PlayMakers: Company member in her tenth season. “Yoga Play,” “How I Learned to Drive,” “Bewilderness,” “The Cake,” “Ragtime,” “My Fair Lady,” “She Loves Me,” “Twelfth Night,” “An Enemy of the People,” “Into the Woods,” “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” “Love Alone,” “Metamorphoses,” “The Tempest.” Broadway: “Stanley,” “Uncle Vanya,” “‘Night Mother.” National Tour: “The Exonerated.” Off-Broadway: The Public, Shakespeare in the Park, Manhattan Theatre Club, The Roundabout, Classic Stage Company, New York Theatre Workshop, SoHo Rep, Origin Theatre Company, Irish Rep, The Rattlestick, among others. Regional: The Alley, American Conservatory Theatre, The Goodman, The Long Wharf, Yale Rep, George Street, The Arden, Milwaukee Rep, Philadelphia Festival Theatre, Dallas Theatre Center, Chautauqua Theatre Company, and elsewhere. Film/TV/Other: “Michael
Clayton,” “Changing Lanes,” “Blue Bloods,” “Law & Order,” “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” “Spin City,” “So Close,” “One Life to Live.” Directing includes: Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Epic Theatre Company, Gulfshore Playhouse, New London Barn, Portland Stage, Juilliard, NYU. Education/Other: Currently co-head of the Professional Actor Training Program in the Department of Dramatic Art at UNC-Chapel Hill, Fox Fellowship recipient, and 2020 Carolina Women’s Center Faculty Scholar. Narrated over 175 audiobooks.
PlayMakers: Debut. Other: "In the Heights" (Raleigh Little Theatre), “ACCORD(ing)” (Burning Coal Theatre). Artistic Associate and founding member of Black Box Dance Theatre. As a teaching artist, Alfredo has lead workshops and residencies for K-12 students since 2013. Honors: Purple Heart Combat Wounded Warrior who served three tours with the 118th Military Police Company/82nd Airborne Division of the US Army during the Global War on Terror.
PlayMakers: Debut. Education: First generation Latina undergraduate student in her third year at UNC-Chapel Hill majoring in Psychology with a minor in Dramatic Art.
PlayMakers: “Life of Galileo,” “Leaving Eden,” “The Crucible.” Off-Broadway / New York: “PLACAS” (Puerto Rican Traveling Theater). Regional: Recently seen as Romeo in the world premiere bilingual adaptation “Romeo y Juliet” by Karen Zacarías (California Shakespeare Theater). Regional theatre credits include American Conservatory Theater, Arizona Theatre Company, Berkeley Rep, BRAVA Theater Center, California Shakespeare Theater, Center Theatre Group, Golden Thread Productions, Huntington Theatre Company, Los Angeles Theatre Center, Oakland Theater Project, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Round House Theatre, San Francisco Playhouse, ShadowLight Productions, South Coast Rep, Teatro Visión, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, among others. Awards: TCG Fox
Foundation Resident Actor Fellowship in partnership with PlayMakers, RHE Charitable Foundation Artistic Fellowship, California Arts Council Local Impact Award, Center for Cultural Innovation Investing in Artists Award. Education/Other: BA, Stanford University. Sarita is a company member of HERO Theatre and Ubuntu Theater Project.
PlayMakers: Debut. Off-Broadway/Other: “Ghetto Babylon” (59E59, world premiere, National Latino Playwrights Award); Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas’ “Bird in the Hand” (Theater for the New City); “King Lear” opposite Billy Porter, the title role in a national tour of “Romeo and Juliet” (The Acting Company) among others. Regional: The Kennedy Center, Guthrie Theatre, Denver Center Theater, Baltimore CenterStage, the Humana Festival and The Chekhov Project at Lake Lucille, among several others. Film/TV: “Nurse Jackie” (Showtime), “Dates from Hell” (Discovery ID), and the feature film “Emoticon ;)”. Other: Formerly, he served as the Associate Artistic Director for PlayMakers Repertory Company, and as Deputy Executive Director for Arts Ignite (formerly ASTEP). A graduate of Juilliard.
PlayMakers: Debut. Regional: “The Glass Menagerie” starring Sally Field (Assistant Director, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts); “Native Gardens” (Warehouse Theatre); “Papa Day” (Ford’s Theatre); “We Won’t Pay! We Won’t Pay!” (The Hub Theatre); “It’s Lonely Out in Space” (The Source Festival); “Two of Mee,” “Goat Songs,” “Little Red Riding Hood and the Three Pigs” (Hangar Theatre); “Othello” (Southwest Shakespeare Festival); “Much Ado About Nothing,” “Spamalot,” “Sweeney Todd,” “The Whipping Man,” “Perfect Arrangement,” “Memphis,” “Little Shop of Horrors,” “Pippin,” “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder,” “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time” (Raleigh Little Theatre). Education/Awards/Other: Artistic Director of Raleigh Little Theatre, named Young Leader of Color by the Theatre Communications Group, serves on the North Carolina State Arts Council, and developed the After-School Playwriting Program at Young Playwright’s Theater that was Awarded the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award from First Lady, Michelle Obama in 2011. @patricktorrestx @patricktorres
PlayMakers: “Skeleton Crew,” “The Cake,” “Intimate Apparel,” “We Are Proud to Present…,” “The Mountaintop.” New York: “Teenage Dick” (MaYi Theater Company & The Public Theater); “The Chinese Lady,” “Sesar” (Ma-Yi Theater Company); “Intractable Woman,” “Caught” (The Play Company), “Samara” (Soho Rep.). Regional: “As You Like It,” “Sense and Sensibility” (Guthrie Theater); “Tiger Style!,” “Milk Like Sugar,” “Smart People” (Huntington Theater); “North Pole,” “Buzzer,” “Mothers and Sons” (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park). Education: MFA, Yale School of Drama. junghyunleedesign.com
Regional: Washington DC: “1984” (Catalyst Theatre Company, Helen Hayes Award nomination); “Sex with Strangers” (Signature Theatre, Helen Hayes Award nomination); “Fences, “One Destiny” (Ford’s Theatre); “Murder Ballad,” “Queen of Basel” (Studio Theatre); “Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo,” “Gem of the Ocean,” “Ironbound,” “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ”(Helen Hayes nomination) (Round House Theatre); “Mockingbird,” “Blues Journey,” “Teddy Roosevelt and the Ghostly Mistletoe,” “American
PlayMakers: “Seminar.”
Scrapbook” (Kennedy Center); “Love Sick,” “After the Revolution,” “Yentl” (Theater J); “Passion for Justice” (Olney Theatre Center); “Passion Play,” “Valparaiso” (Forum Theatre); “Blue/Orange,” “In On It, “Gross Indecency” (Theatre Alliance); “Pinkalicious,” “Alexander,” “The Happy Elf,” “Holes” (Adventure Theatre); “Noises Off,” “Harvey” (Milwaukee Repertory Theatre); “Noises Off” (Perseverance Theatre Company). Education: Andrew holds a BFA from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and an MFA from the University of Maryland. Membership: United Scenic Artists Local 829.
PlayMakers: Debut. Off-Broadway/New York: “Leave Your Politics” (Laguardia Performing Arts Center, Rough Draft Festival) Regional: “A Streetcar Named Desire” (Palm Beach Dramaworks); “The Cubans,” “Confessions of a Cocaine Cowboy,” “One Night in Miami” (Miami New Drama); “Amparo” (Broadway Factor). University: “In the Red and Brown Water,” “Street Scene” (New World School of the Arts). Education/Awards/ Other: BFA in Sound Design from Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, MA in Folklore from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2019 Carbonell Award nomination for One Night in Miami, 2020 Carbonell Award nomination for “A Streetcar Named Desire.” @abigailjnover
PlayMakers: Associate Dramaturg, 1997 to present. Productions include “A Wrinkle in Time,” “She Loves Me,” “Sherwood: The Adventures of Robin Hood,” “My Fair Lady,” “Sweeney Todd,” “Peter and the Starcatcher,” “An Enemy of the People,” “Into the Woods,” “Private Lives,” “Clybourne Park,” “Red,” “Angels in America,” “Topdog/Underdog,” “The Subject Was Roses,” “Uncle Vanya,” “Violet: A Musical” and “Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde.” Regional: American premiere of “Pentecost,” “Le Bourgeois Avant-Garde” (Yale Repertory Theatre). Directing: “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” “A New Musical,” “Playing for Time,” “Lulu,” “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” “Sunday in the Park with George,” “Danton’s Death,” “Closer,” “The Lady From the Sea,” “Balm in Gilead,” “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “Therese Raquin,” “Hair,” “American Buffalo,” “Miss Julie,” “Curse of the Starving Class,” “Camino Real.” Faculty: Department of Dramatic Art, UNC-Chapel Hill. Education: MFA, Yale School of Drama.
PlayMakers: Company member in her fourth season. Actor: “As You Like It,” “The Skin of Our Teeth.” Vocal Coach: “A Wrinkle in Time,” “Yoga Play,” “Dairyland,” “Native Son,” “Julius Caesar,” “As You Like It.” Voice/Text/Dialect Coach: Favorites include “Merry Wives of Windsor,” “Taming of the Shrew,” “Love’s Labor’s Lost,” “Cymbeline,” “Intimate Apparel,” “Merchant of Venice,” “Two Gentlemen of Verona,” “Ugly Lies the Bone,” “Comedy of Errors,” “Hamlet” (Shakespeare & Company); “Merry Wives…,” “Hamlet,” “The King and I” (Oxford Shakespeare Festival); “Boeing-Boeing,” “Lost in Yonkers” (Atlantic Stage). Actor: Carlyle Brown & Company, Oxford Shakespeare Festival, Frank Theatre, Red Eye Collaboration, Minnesota Shakespeare Project, Atlantic Stage, Old Creamery Theatre, Illinois Shakespeare Festival. Playwright: Plays developed and/or produced by Seattle Repertory Company, Cherry Lane Theatre, The Playwrights’ Center, Red Eye Collaboration, Judith Shakespeare Company, Jungle Theatre. Teaching: David G. Frey Fellow/Assistant Professor of Voice & Speech at UNC-Chapel Hill, Company Member at Shakespeare & Company, Designated Linklater Voice Teacher and Teacher Trainer, Guild-certified Feldenkrais Teacher.
PlayMakers: "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" (Summer Youth Conservatory). Aspen graduated in May of 2019 with a BA in Vocal Performance and Dramatic Arts from UNC-Chapel Hill. During her undergraduate career, she was stage manager for shows such as “Cendrillon,” “Dido and Aeneas” and “ The Pillowman.”
After graduating, Aspen completed an internship with the Walt Disney World Company and she worked as a production assistant for PlayMakers Repertory Company during their 19/20 and 21/22 seasons. Aspen is thrilled to be returning to PlayMakers Repertory Company this season for her debut as Resident Stage Manager.
After a seven-year hiatus in her home state of Florida, Sarah is excited to return to PlayMakers as resident stage manager, having held that position from 2005 –2015. In the interim, Sarah has been the resident stage manager and properties supervisor at freeFall Theatre in St. Petersburg, FL. She has worked with theatres, theme parks, and road houses in seven states and the U.K., including Tampa Playmakers, Tampa Players, Busch Gardens Tampa, the Alliance Theatre Company, 7 Stages, Gulfshore Playhouse, Shadowland Theatre, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff, Wales, and the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds. She is a member of Actors’ Equity Association, and has been active in USITT and the Stage Managers’ Association. She received her M.F.A. from the University of Iowa.
Vivienne is in her seventh full season as a company member and Producing Artistic Director at PlayMakers, where she has helmed productions including “Dairyland,” “Life of Galileo,” “Leaving Eden,” “The May Queen,” “Three Sisters,” and “RED.” In her six seasons with the theatre, she is particularly proud to have produced ten world-premieres and launched PlayMakers Mobile, a touring production aimed at reaching underserved audiences around the Triangle. In 2018, she directed the world premiere of Noah Haidle’s “Birthday Candles” for Detroit Public Theatre and recently made her Broadway directing debut bringing it to Broadway starring Debra Messing for the Roundabout Theatre Company. 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. 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, NY Stage & Film, and Red Bull Theatre, among others. 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, UNCChapel 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 is in his 36th 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, UNC-Greensboro.
The 22/23 season will feature six live, in-person performances featuring works that explore the resilience of family bonds in all their complicated forms, friendships that transcend language, time, and space, and one man’s connection to his community that helps him stand taller than he could alone.
Repertory Company is committed to the safety and well-being of our patrons, artists and staff. We will be following state, industry and University safety guidelines in the 22/23 season.
patrons are encouraged to wear masks while inside the Joan H. Gillings Center for Dramatic Art.
have increased sanitation measures throughout the building and put some new protocols in place to improve safety including:
free electronic
frequent
Center for Dramatic
high-touch
Tuesday-Friday, 12:00p.m.-5:00p.m. and 90 minutes before each performance.
For the safety of all our artists, patrons, and staff, if you feel unwell, please stay home. You may call our Box Office and ask to be reseated for another performance, or request a refund up to 48 hour before your ticketed performance.
If you know you will miss a performance date, we can exchange your ticket for you, based on availability. Please call our Box Office at least 48 hours before your scheduled performance, and please be aware that all exchanges are based on availability and a fee or additional cost may apply. Subscribers may exchange their tickets with no additional fee, but additional cost may apply with a change in performance or section.
Texting and using cell phones, laptops, smart watches, and other devices lightor sound-emitting devices are strictly prohibited during the performance. Please turn all electronic devices to silent, theatre mode, or off during the show.
Taking photographs or videotaping inside the theatre is strictly prohibited during performances. However, before the show, during intermission, and after the show, you are invited to take and share your photos of the stage and scenery.
There are several paid and free parking options available near PlayMakers. We recommend arriving 30 minutes before the show so that you have time to park and pay (Monday-Thursday evenings only) and find your seat. For more information and an interactive map of nearby parking options, please visit www.playmakersrep.org/parking
As a courtesy to our patrons, it is the policy of PlayMakers not to admit children under the age of 5. All of our shows have content ratings for each production (for example: Rated PG-13). If you are considering bringing your child, please refer to website or contact our Box Office for further information. All patrons, regardless of age, must have a ticket.
Our theatres are equipped with sound systems that amplify the sound from the stage. Patrons who wish to use the system may obtain headsets on a first-come, first-served basis from the coat check. Headsets must be returned immediately after the performance.
To minimize disruptions to the actors and other patrons, late seating will be provided at the discretion of the house manager at an appropriate break in the action on stage. Patrons who need to be seated late must be escorted by house staff to seats at the rear entrance of the auditorium, which entails climbing a flight of stairs. Patrons can take their regular seat at intermission.
National Endowment for the Arts, North Carolina Arts Council, The Shubert Foundation, Fidelity Foundation, Truist Foundation, The Educational Foundation of America
Additional Funding for Guest Artists is Provided by Robert Boyer and Margaret Boyer Fund, Louise Lamont Fund, Emeriti Professors Charles and Shirley Weiss Fund
Mebane Lumber, Residence Inn Chapel Hill, Spoonflower, Larry's Coffee, The Siena Hotel/Il Palio Restaurant
De Maison Selections, Aloft
Associates
Cambria Suites
PlayMakers Repertory Company is a program of the Department of Dramatic Art, The College of Arts and Sciences, and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Cultural Resources, recognizes PlayMakers as a professional theatre organization and provides grant assistance to this organization from funds appropriated by the North Carolina General Assembly and the National Endowment for the Arts. PlayMakers is a beneficiary of the Elizabeth Price Kenan Endowment and the Lillian Hughes Prince Endowment.
PlayMakers Repertory Company is a Member of Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for the American theatre.
This Theatre operates under an agreement between the League Of Resident Theatres (LORT) and Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
The scenic, costume, lighting and sound designers in LORT Theatres are represented by United Scenic Artists, Local USA-829 of the IATSE.
The Director and Choreographer are members of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, a national theatrical labor union.
Tracy Bersley, Movement Coach/Choreographer
Chelsea James, Producing Associate
Tia James, Vocal Coach
Gregory Kable, Dramaturg
Jacqueline E. Lawton, Dramaturg
Jeffrey Meanza, Associate Artistic Director
Mark Perry, Dramaturg
Gwendolyn Schwinke, Vocal Coach
Jeri Lynn Schulke, Engagement Associate
Adam Versényi, Dramaturg
Nathaniel Kareis, Artistic Assistant
Kymberly Burkhead-Dalton, Director of Development
Alex James, Company Manager
Kate Jones, Associate General Manager
Lisa Geeslin, Accountant
Maura Murphy, General Manager
Erica Bass, Jazzy Parker, Alison Richard, Practicum 193 Students
Nijal Morgan, Work Study
Hannah LaMarlowe, Marketing Communications Specialist
Diana Pineda, Director of Sales & Marketing
Thomas Porter, Box Office Manager
Rosalie Preston, Associate Director of Marketing
Kori Yelverton, Audience Services Associate
Jenna Zottoli, Audience Services Associate
Kathryn Hunter-Williams, Chair and Associate Professor
Milly Barranger, Professor Emerita
Vivienne Benesch, Professor of the Practice
Tracy Bersley, Associate Professor
Pamela Bond, Visiting Teaching Assistant Professor
Jan Chambers, Professor
McKay Coble, Professor
Jeffrey Blair Cornell, Associate Chair, Teaching Prof.
Ray Dooley, Professor Emeritus
Samuel Ray Gates, Assistant Professor
Julia Gibson, Associate Professor
David Hammond, Professor Emeritus
Letitia James, Assistant Professor
Gregory Kable, Teaching Professor
Jacqueline E. Lawton, Associate Professor
Adam Maxfield, Teaching Professor
Triffin Morris, Professor of the Practice
David Navalinsky, Professor Bobbi Owen, Distinguished Professor Emerita Laura Pates, Teaching Assistant Professor Kathy Perkins, Professor Emerita
Mark Perry, Teaching Associate Professor
Rachel E. Pollock, Teaching Assistant Professor
Michael Rolleri, Professor
Gwendolyn Schwinke, Assistant Professor
Aubrey Snowden, Teaching Assistant Professor
Craig Turner, Professor Emeritus
Adam Versényi, Professor
Lisa Geeslin, Accounting Technician Jordan Clodfelter, KTC Technical Director Karen Rolleri, Business Coordinator
Jamie Strickland, Business Officer
Michael Rolleri, Production Manager
Amy Evans, Costume Shop Manager
Marissa Lupkas, Wardrobe Supervisor
Matthew Mallard, Assistant Costume Director
Triffin Morris, Costume Director
Rachel Pollock, Costume Craftsperson
Costume Production Graduate Students:
Matty Blatt, Jocelyn Chatman, Emma Holyst, Zachary Morrison, Lou Pires, Sally Rath, Athene Wright
Benjamin Bosch, Electrics Supervisor
Emma Anderson, Props Artisan
Lauren Reinhartsen, Properties Supervisor
Lydia McRoy, Undergraduate Assistant
Aspen Jackson, Stage Manager
Sarah Smiley, Stage Manager
Zoe Lord, Production Assistant
David Bost, Sound Supervisor
Anthony Cacchione, Production Carpenter
Adam Maxfield, Technical Director
Laura Pates, Assistant Technical Director
Jessica Secrest, Scenic Artist
Technical Production Graduate Students:
Brock Burton, Joel Ernst, Luke Robinson, Rachel Van Namen, Garrett Weeda
Will Peele, Undergraduate Assistant-Scene Shop
Jeffrey Blair Cornell
Kathryn Hunter-Williams
Samuel Ray Gates Tia James
Professional Actor Training Program:
Julia Gibson Gwendolyn Schwinke
Hayley Cartee, Heinley Gaspard, Jamar Jones, Saleemah Sharpe, Sanjana Taskar, Adam Valentine
Talitha Morena Moniz McMillion, Assistant Director
Adam Maxfield, Production Technical Director
Brock Burton, Assistant Technical Director
Emma Holyst, Assistant to the Costume Designer
Lou Pires, Jocelyn Chatman, Drapers
Sally Rath, Zachary Morrison, First Hands
Matty Blatt, Athene Wright, Stitchers
Emma Holyst, Crafts Assistant
support
PlayMakers is grateful to the members of the Friends of PlayMakers for their generous support. For more information about how to join this dynamic group of supporters, call Director of Development Kymberly BurkheadDalton at 919.962.4846 or visit us at playmakersrep.org.
Director’s Circle ($10,000+)
Anonymous
Betsy Blackwell and John Watson Jr. Thomas and Holly Carr Munroe and Becky Cobey
Mr. and Mrs. David G. Frey Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund Joanne and Peter Garrett
Joan H. Gillings ~
The Charles Goren and Hazen Family Foundation, Trustees Tom and Lisa Hazen
Kevin and Amy Guskiewicz T. Chandler and Monie Hardwick Brian Hargrove and David Hyde Pierce Mrs. Frank H. Kenan
Thomas S. Kenan III John David Ratliff Wyndham Robertson Coleman and Carol Ross Schwab Charitable Shubert Foundation
Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program
Alan H. Weinhouse
Angel ($5,000–9,999)
Anonymous
American Endowment Foundation
Andrew and Katherine Asaro ^ + Robert and Mary Ann Eubanks
Gordon J. Ferguson Drucie French and Steve Cumbie Mr. and Mrs. Matt Hapgood Kim Kwok
Mr. and Mrs. William O. McCoy Paul and Linda Naylor Bobbi Owen
Amy and Nick Penwarden
The Prentice Foundation
The Educational Foundation of America Theatre Projects
John D. Watson Jr. and Lelia E. Blackwell
Mr. and Mrs. H. Edward Wright III Jim and Bonnie Yankaskas
Investor ($2,500–4,999)
Anonymous
Richard and Deirdre Arnold ^ Andrew and Katherine Asaro ^ + Vivienne Benesch
Stephen S. Birdsall Ed and Eleanor Burke Cindy and Thomas Cook Cindy K. Cook Joanne and Peter Garrett Susan E. Hartley Dr. Lyle V. Jones Susan J. Kelly
Dr. Catherine M. Kuhn and Glenn J. Tortorici
Robert and Kathryn Kyle
Mark & Bette Morris Family Foundation Sandy and Ned McClurg ^ Mark and Julie Morris
Amy Penwarden
Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund
Jean and Joseph Ritok
Dr. and Mrs. Edward Smithwick Triangle Community Foundation David and Heather Yeowell
David and Judy Adamson
Ayco Charitable Foundation Steve Benezra ^
Edmund S. Burke
Jeffrey Blair Cornell and Maria Savage Julie R. Daniels
Dr. Carrie L. Donley and W. Patrick Gale John and Diane Formy-Duval
Imre and Aniko Gaal
Dustin and Susan Gillings Gross Carol Hazard and Winston Liao David Howell
IBM Corporation Matching Gifts
Jacobs Preyer Family Foundation Hannelore and Konrad Jarausch
Joanna Karwowska & Hugon Karwowski ^ Howard and Sandra Kaufman Kathryn and Robert Kyle Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust, Inc.
Mr. and Mrs. Mark Morris Panter Foundation
Dr. Abigail T. Panter and Dr. George Huba Rich and Marilyn Jacobs Preyer Lauren Rivers
Perry Branin Silver
Dr. and Mrs. William Stewart
The Rev. Wendy R. and W. Riley Waugh Roger and Marlene Werner YourCause, LLC Trustee for IBM Matching Gifts
Partner
Anonymous (4)
Penny and Howard Aldrich Joan Clendenin Laurence Arthur Cobb Erwin Cohen
Dede Corvinus
Mr. and Mrs. M. Brian Daniels Julie R. Daniels
Jo Anne and Shelley Earp Constance and Robert Eby Dr. and Mrs. John P. Evans Dana R. Greenwood
Robert S. Greenwood
Joseph and Deirdre Haj Clay and Jane Harrell
Ann E. Holloman
Dr. Moyra Kileff and Mr. Brian Kileff Lynn Knauff
Jack Knight and Margaret Brown ^ Gary and Carolyn Koch
Dr. Catherine Kuhn and Glenn Tortorici
Shirley and Tom Kunkel
Douglas and Nelda Lay
Anand and Sandhya Lagoo Scott Levitan and Patrick Francisco
Mort and Cheryl Malkin David and Harriet Martin
Connie and Vernon Matzen
Mr. and Mrs. Ned S. McClurg Holly and Ross McKinney
Dr. Laurie E. McNeil and Patrick W. Wallace
James and Susan Moeser
Paul and Sherrie Norton Bettina Patterson
Lee and Barbara Pedersen
Isaac and Sabrina Presnell-Rockoff
Vikram Rao and Susan Henning Alec Rhodes
Rif Riddick
Rufus M. Riddick
Carole Lynne Shelby David Sontag * Sarah West and Thomas Dominick
Jesse L. White, Jr. Julian D. Wiles Jr. Paul and Sally Wright
Backer ($500–999)
Anonymous (3)
Anonymous friends of Ben Kahn, In memory of Charles Kahn Akin Akinli
Virginia M. Aldige Howard and Penny Aldrich Pete and Hannah Andrews
Dr. Thomas C. Apostle and Sharon E. Lawrence-Apostle Evelyn Barrow
John W. Becton and Nancy B. Tannenbaum Shula and Steve Bernard
Dr. Stanley Warren Black, III Stanley W. Black
Professor and Mrs. Kenneth S. Broun
Julia A. Borbely-Brown Jackson Davis Breaks II and Carolyn Snyder Breaks
Drs. Maurice and Mary Hughes Brookhart Jennifer and Robert Buckmire Keith Burridge and Patricia Saling Ann and John Campbell Philip and Linda Carl Clara Cazzulino Laurence A. Cobb Adrienne and John Cox* Rafael O. DeJesus and Laura Koshel
Brooks de Wetter-Smith and Mary Lou Leiser Smith
David A. Doll
Alexander M. and Georgia Cobb Donaldson
Dr. Carrie Donley
Drs. H. Shelton and Jo Anne L. Earp Bob and Connie Eby
Glen H. and Sandy T. Elder
Eli Lilly & Company Foundation Matching Gifts Program
Mr. and Mrs. Christopher S. Exton
Drs. Richard E. and Donna R. Falvo Thorsten Fjellstedt
Stephen Mark Cumbie and Dr. Druscilla French Shayne C. Gad Bill Cobb and Gail Perry W. Patrick Gale ^ Nichole Gantshar Mike and Bonnie Gilliom Ugo Goetzl
James P. Gogan
Dr. and Mrs. Robert S. Greenwood Priscilla Alden Guild Carolyn and Jim Harris C. Hawkins ^
Mr. and Mrs. David L. Henson Ann Holloman
Betty Block James Julie and Robert Keely* Moise Khayrallah Lynn Koss Knauff
Laura Koshel and Rafael de Jesus Leonard & Ruth Kreisman
Drs. Anand S. and Sandhya Lagoo Randy and Cathy Lambe
Douglas M. Lay and Nelda Kilcrease Lay Douglas Maclean and Susan Wolf
Dr. and Mrs. Morton D. Malkin Michael Maness and Lois Knauff Elaine Mangrum Janet McCarthy* Ed and Connie McCraw
Cecilia D. Moore^
Mary Nunn Morrow
Jill Muti
Stephen Nelson
Linda Williams Norris
George D. Norton
Paul and Cheryl Norton
Liz and Dave Nuechterlein
Lois Oliver
Jo Ann and Gordon Pitz
Mark and Eugenea Pollock
Robert and Joyce Anne Porter
Jodi and Glenn Preminger
David and Lisa Price
Elizabeth Raft
Drs. M. Vikram Rao and Susan June
Henning
Rao Family Foundation
Dr. Terry Rhodes
Victor and Linda Roggli
Jan F. and Anne P. Sassaman
Stephanie Ann Schmitt and Kevin Zachary
Kinlaw
Martha Scotford*
Dr. William W. Smith and Brenda W. Kirby
Dr. and Mrs. Timothy N. Taft
Jackie Tanner*
The Marconi Hoban Tell Fund of Triangle Community Foundation
George Weinhouse Ernest T. Wilkes
Alan Young
+ Women’s Point of View (WPOV) Supporter
PlayMakers Special Event Supporter
~ Deceased
This list is current as of September 1, 2022. If your name is listed incorrectly or not at all, please contact PlayMakers Development Office at 919.962.2481. We will ensure you are recognized for your thoughtful support.
Emma prides herself on being a matchmaker with an impeccable track record. But her best-laid plans are turned upside down by unpredictable displays of affection, unexpected rivals, and Emma’s sudden realization that true love may have been under her nose all along. This playful adaptation turns the Jane Austen classic into a delightful comedy for the 21st Century.
Who needs to swipe right when you have Emma Woodhouse?
Based on the novel by Jane Austen
The season features six productions on the Paul Green Theatre stage, which will be transformed into the heart of the Harlem Renaissance, a usurper King’s court in Denmark, a neighborhood backyard battleground, a queen’s playground in Florida, a meddlesome English matchmaker’s drawing room, and, finally, familiar ground in the South for a young man’s journey of creative self-discovery.
