8 minute read
Bios
from The Storyteller
Sara Jean Accuardi
Playwright Sara Jean Accuardi’s full-length plays include The Delays, BREAK, The Storyteller, <3, Love Scenes, and Portrait of the Widow Kinski. Her writing has been produced and developed around the country, including with Theatre Vertigo, Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, Something Marvelous, Victory Gardens, Portland Center Stage, Chicago Dramatists, The Blank Theatre, and Spooky Action Theater. The Delays received the 2019 Drammy Award for Outstanding Original Script, and The Storyteller won the 2020 International Thomas Wolfe Playwriting Competition. Sara Jean holds an MFA in Writing for the Screen and Stage from Northwestern University, and is a member of the Dramatist Guild and LineStorm Playwrights. Her plays are available on The New Play Exchange.
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Anthony August
Spencer PlayMakers: Everybody, Ragtime. Company member in second year of UNC’s Professional Actor Training Program. Regional: The Hunchback of Seville (Mildred’s Umbrella), Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (The Ensemble Theater), Fade To Black Festival, This is Modern Art (The Landing Theatre Company), Macbeth (Encore Theatre). University: When the Ancestors Call, Dutchman, A Raisin in the Sun, Last Days of Judas Iscariot, The Mountaintop (Texas Southern University) Education: Texas Southern University, B.A. in Theatre. @kingslick
Jeffrey Blair Cornell
Paps PlayMakers: This marks Jeff’s 26th 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, among others. Education/Other: Carbonell Award nominations for
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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.
Ray Dooley
Jimmy PlayMakers: Company member since 1989. Most recently: 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, UNC-Chapel 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.
Kathryn Hunter-Williams
The Lady PlayMakers: Company member for over 20 seasons. Recent and highlights include directing No Fear & Blues Long Gone, Count, plus acting in Julius Caesar, Everybody, Life of Galileo, Skeleton Crew, Leaving Eden, Tartuffe, Dot, Intimate Apparel, The Crucible, Trouble in Mind, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Metamorphoses, The Tempest, Love Alone, A Raisin in the Sun, Imaginary Invalid, Henry IV & V, The Parchman Hour, Angels in America, Fences, Doubt, Yellowman, among others.New York/Regional: Living Stage, The Negro Ensemble Company, Manhattan Class Company, New Dramatists, Archipelago Theater. Education/Other: BFA, UNC School of the Arts; MFA, UNC-Chapel Hill. Kathryn is on the faculty of the Department of Dramatic Art, UNC-Chapel Hill, Company Artistic Associate for PlayMakers Rep and is Associate Director of HiddenVoices, a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing life changing stories into a public forum.
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Tia James
Tiff PlayMakers: Company member for three seasons. Julius Caesar, Native Son. Vocal coaching includes Sherwood, Skeleton Crew, She Loves Me, Bewilderness, Jump, Life of Galileo, How I Learned to Drive, Your Healing is Killing Me. Director PlayMakers Mobile’s Macbeth and PlayMakers Ground Floor’s Constellations. Broadway: The Merchant of Venice. Off-Broadway/New York: The Winter’s Tale, The Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare in the Park). Regional: Richard III (Allentown Shakespeare); Loving and Loving (Stella Adler Studios); Much Ado About Nothing (Two River Theatre); Civilization (all you can eat) (Woolly Mammoth Theater). Television: Nurse Jackie, Treme. Teaching/Coaching/Directing: UNC-Chapel Hill, NYU Graduate Acting, NYU Dance, Atlantic Acting School, Montclair University. Education/Awards: MFA NYU Tisch Graduate Acting Program, BFA Virginia Commonwealth University; Teacher Training under Scott Miller and John Patrick. Recipient of the 2014 NYU Graduate Acting Diversity Mentorship Scholarship, 2003 Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship winner for Best Actor; 2019 Michael Chekhov/Zelda Fichandler Scholarship.
Omolade Wey
Randi PlayMakers: Julius Caesar, Everybody. Company member in second year of UNC’s Professional Actor Training Program. Wilder & Wilder (PlayMakers Mobile); References to Salvador Dalí Make Me Hot (PlayMakers Ground Floor). University: God & Country, By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, Insurrection: Holding History. Education: BSFS in Culture & Politics from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. @omoladewey
Vivienne Benesch
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
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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.
Brandon Reed
Sound Designer/Media Coordinator PlayMakers: 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 17
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. 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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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, UNC-Greensboro.
Coming this December
an audio drama starring Ray Dooley
