Cast & Artistic Staff Bios

CAST

Nick Apostolina (Hally) is a recent graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and is very excited to be making his Syracuse Stage debut. His recent work includes The Solid Life of Sugar Water by Jack Thorne at Deaf West Theatre, Born on a Monday by Outside Chance at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and Bent by Martin Sherman at The Guildhall School. Thanks to Mom and Dad.

L. Peter Callender (Sam) is artistic director of African-American Shakespeare Company in San Francisco, CA; resident director at American Stage Company in Saint Petersburg, FL; Westcoast Black Theater Troupe in Sarasota, FL; and associate artist at New York Classical Theatre. Mr Callender is thrilled to return to Syracuse Stage since this was the stage that offered him his very first professional job (Season 8: The Comedy of Errors directed by Arthur Storch.) In addition to “Master Harold” . . . and the Boys, Peter has performed in several Fugard plays: Boesman and Lena, Siswe Bansi is Dead, The Island, My Children! My Africa!, and A Lesson From Aloes. As a playwright, his play Strange Courtesies will get its staged premiere at San Jose Stage next season. On Broadway, he played in Prelude to a Kiss, and off-Broadway in Black Eagles at Manhattan Theater Club. He is a multi-award-winning actor and director having performed in 23 Shakespeare plays and appeared at over 12 regional theatres, nationally. He recently played Louis Armstrong in Satchmo at the Waldorf for American Stage and will return to direct Romeo and Juliet in late summer. Mr Callender's full bio and upcoming work can be viewed at www.lpetercallender.com.

Phumzile Sojola (Willie) is a native of Port Elizabeth, South Africa. He recently was seen as Ubaldo Piangi on the Phantom of the Opera’s North American tour. He made his Broadway debut as Peter in the Tony award-winning Porgy and Bess. He originated the role of Lord Pinkleton in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella. Other credits include American Repertory Theater and the critically acclaimed Three Mo’ Tenors internationally. He has also performed with Jason Moran at the Venice Biennale, Work Songs. His operatic credits are L’etoile, as Herrisson and Troubled Island as Popo, New York City Opera; Robbins in Porgy and Bess with Opera National de Lyon and The Edinburgh International Festival; the Leader in Lost in the Stars with Skylark Opera; and Rodolfo in La Boheme with Missouri Symphony Orchestra. Other notable performances Monostatos in The Magic Flute, Remendado in Carmen with Dayton Opera and Jacksonville Symphony, and Cincinnati Opera in La Traviata, Turandot, and The Magic Flute. He has been

CAST

featured in concert with the Orpheus Radio Orchestra in Moscow, the Krasnoyarsk Ballet Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, and Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra. His recordings are the Broadway cast recordings of Cinderella as well as The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. Other recordings include Treemonisha with the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra, featured in Kahlil Kwame Bell’s Homeland and on the American Spiritual Ensemble’s The Spirituals. This fall Phumzile will make his Metropolitan Opera debut in Porgy and Bess.

ARTISTIC STAFF

Riw Rakkulchon (Scenic Design). Selected credits: Twelfth Night (Yale Repertory Theatre), The Waiting Game 59E59), Free and Proud (Edinburgh Festival Fringe),Antony + Cleopatra (Yale Cabaret), Loose Canon (Fringe Encore), and Far From Canterbury (Fringe NYC), Cymbeline (The Public Theatre), as well as collaborations with Atlantic Theatre Company, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Kitchen Theatre Company, Opera Ithaca, and Ithaca Shakespeare. He has assisted designers such as Riccardo Hernandez, Wilson Chin, and Jason ArdizzoneWest on productions at Center Theatre Group, La Jolla Playhouse, Old Globe Theater, and Berkeley Rep, among others. He holds a B.F.A. from Ithaca College and an M.F.A. from Yale School of Drama. riwrdesign.com, @riwrdesign

Kara Harmon (Costume Design).Off-Broadway credits include: Dot (Vineyard Theatre) and Lockdown (Rattlestick). Select Regional credits include: Eclipsed (Milwaukee Rep), Steel Magnolias and Guys and Dolls (Guthrie Theatre), The Wiz! (Helen Hayes Costume Design Award, Ford’s Theatre), The Purists, The Niceties, and A Guide for the Homesick (Huntington Theatre), Nina Simone: Four Women (Arena Stage), The Color Purple (Portland Center Stage), Barbecue (NAACP Outstanding Costume Design Award, Geffen Playhouse), Much Ado and The Comedy of Errors (OSF), and world premieres: Goodnight, Tyler and Angry…Gorgeous (Alliance Theatre). Her assistant costume design credits for television include The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon), Daredevil (Netflix) and Boardwalk Empire (HBO). Training: NYU Tisch School of the Arts. KaraHarmonDesign.com.

Rachael N. Blackwell

(Lighting Design) is a native of the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. She received her Bachelor of Arts in theatre arts with an emphasis on technical theatre from Alabama State

ARTISTIC STAFF

University in Montgomery, AL in May 2016. She received her M.F.A. in lighting design & technology in May 2020 at CCM, University of Cincinnati in Cincinnati, OH. Rachael is a freelance designer who enjoys working on original and new works as well as opportunities that allow her to stay connected to her African American roots. She was the 2020 recipient of both the Gilbert Hemsley Lighting Internship and the Judy Dearing Design Competition for Lighting, presented by the Black Theatre Network (BTN.) Rachael currently has design experience in lighting for live events, drama, opera, and dance and has worked with the Cincinnati Ballet, Yale Repertory Theatre, The Alley Theatre, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Montgomery Ballet, NSU Theater Company, and The VA Arts Festival.

Amy Altadonna (Sound Design). I am a sound designer, teacher, aunt, and nature-lover. Favorite design credits include Eureka Day, Dry Land, Joan (Colt Coeur), Marie Antoinette, Sweat (UMass), Time Stands Still, Merry Wives of Windsor, HIR, The Children (Shakespeare & Company), Treasure Island, Skin of Our Teeth (Perseverance Theatre), The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (Yale University), All’s Well That Ends Well (OSF), The Hampton Years (Virginia Stage Company), On the Verge (Warehouse Theatre), and Julius Caesar (Actors Shakespeare Project). I currently serve as the undergraduate program director at UMass Amherst, where I teach sound design and music creation. This first show back after the last year has been a wonderful experience; thank you to Gil, the whole team, and the wonderful people at Syracuse Stage for including me in this endeavor. amyaltadonnasounddesign.com

Anthony Salatino (Choreographer and Fight Coordinator). A graduate of the Juilliard School, Tony has choreographed for many opera and dance companies throughout the United States. He has choreographed for New York City Opera; Connecticut, Fort Worth, and Naples (Florida) Opera; Glimmerglass; and Pittsburgh Opera. He was also the artistic director of the Fort Worth Ballet, associate artistic director of the Hartford Ballet, and director of the Hartford Chamber Ballet. For Syracuse Stage, he has directed and choreographed Rent, Little Women, Fiddler on the Roof, The Sound of Music, West Side Story, and Peter Pan. He choreographed The Wizard of Oz, Big River, and My Fair Lady, to name a few. A former associate professor of dance at the Syracuse University Department of Drama, Tony directed and choreographed Sweeney Todd, Nine, A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine, and A Little Night Music. He conceived, directed, and choreographed three original productions: Bravo Piaf!, The Table (Der Tisch), and The Clowns. He co-directed and

ARTISTIC STAFF

choreographed The Wind in the Willows at the New Victory Theatre in New York City. He is the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships and the winner of four SALT Awards for direction and choreography.

Bridgett Jackson (Dialect Coach) [she/her/ hers] is a dialect coach, accent coach, speech/ diction coach, and a certified speech-language pathologist. She is delighted to join Syracuse Stage. She is a professor of voice, speech, and dialects at Muhlenberg College, and has been a guest lecturer with the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. She holds a Master of Science degree from Howard University with a specialization in dialects and accents. She is a member of the American Speech-Language Hearing Association (ASHA) and was the recipient of the ASHA Ace Award in 2018. Her dialect coaching credits include The Equalizer (Season 1, CBS), Ain’t No Mo’ and Cullud Wattah with The Public Theater in New York, NY, and Cost of Living (2018 Pulitzer Prize Winner) with The Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles, CA. She was the dialect coach with The Baker Theater at the Muhlenberg College Department of Theatre and Dance for A Raisin In the Sun in Allentown, PA. In addition, she was the dialect coach for The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis for Dreaming Zenzile. Her most recent projects include The Luck of the Irish with The American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, NY, and The Memory Motel with Two River Theater in Red Bank, NJ. Some of the regional dialects and accents she has coached include: General American, Southern, Western, Midwestern, Eastern, Irish, British, Australian, Venezuelan, Nigerian, Korean, Xhosa, New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Maryland, Boston, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Kentucky, California, Detroit, Chicago, London, West Africa, South Africa, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico, just to name a few.

Greg Homann (Dramaturg) is a multi-award winning South African born theatre director, playwright, dramaturg, and academic living in the UK. For over 15 years he worked in South Africa where he was associated with some of the most successful, hard-hitting, and critically acclaimed work staged in that country in its recent past. He is the editor of a collection of post-apartheid plays called At This Stage and co-editor of two books on South African theatre, drama, and performance—one being the Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary South African Theatre, which includes a chapter by Dennis Walder on Athol Fugard. Greg has headed up two of the foremost higher education theatre and performance departments in Johannesburg. He has designed and taught directing, playwriting, and acting courses, and has lectured

ARTISTIC STAFF

on post-colonialism, theatre history, and identity studies. For three years he was the resident dramaturg of The South African State Theatre and was part of the artistic committee of South Africa’s renowned National Arts Festival (Makhanda/ Grahamstown). He has been lauded for his dramaturgy and directing of productions of new work, having directed ten premieres—six of them new South African plays. His playful and cheeky takes on world classics are also a key feature of his body of work. In 2014 he was the recipient of South Africa’s highest award for theatre, the prestigious Standard Bank Young Artist of the year.

Stuart Plymesser (Production Stage Manager) is in his 24th season at Syracuse Stage where he has stage managed over 100 plays, musicals, and special events, working with such talents as Jason Alexander, Olympia Dukakis, Frank Langella, Elizabeth Franz, and Phylicia Rashad. Stuart has worked at numerous regional theatres around the country and in Cape Town, South Africa, and has toured nationally. Locally, he has also stage managed events for Syracuse Fashion Week. In addition, Stuart is adjunct faculty for Syracuse University’s Department of Drama and has been a guest speaker/lecturer for Syracuse Stage’s professional development classes, Ithaca College, Wells College, SUNY Oswego, and the Zabalaza Festival in Cape Town. Outside of theatre, Stuart has trained at Aikido of Central New York for over a decade and holds the rank of Shodan (first degree black belt.) Stuart is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers.

BLACK CUB PRODUCTIONS

Black Cub Productions, LLC, is a creative agency that helps brands adapt to the fast-growing media age. Driven by curiosity it comes up with solutions that create emotional connections between brands and consumers. It offers services from a strategy and production standpoint to ensure content meets the requirements for the most engagement possible. Black Cub was created by two young African American men who wanted to give a platform for underrepresented cultures, starting with their own. They banned together using the skills that they acquired in higher education of photography, videography, design and storytelling at Syracuse University. Here they began to learn trades of working in the media industry, starting with local companies and growing to larger industries in the Greater NY Area.

PLAYWRIGHT

Athol Fugard is an internationally acclaimed South African playwright whose best-known work deals with the political and social upheaval of the apartheid system in South Africa. He was educated at the University of Cape Town. His plays include The Captain’s Tiger, Valley Song, My Children! My Africa, A Lesson from Aloes, The Island, and the award-winning Sizwe Banzi is Dead. Mr. Fugard has received six honorary degrees from esteemed colleges and is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

DIRECTOR

Gilbert McCauley is delighted to be directing his first production at Syracuse Stage. He is presently a professor in the Department of Theater at the University of Massachusetts. He has served as the producing artistic director of the Oakland Ensemble Theatre, resident director at Rites and Reason Theatre, as an acting company member of the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, and he is an alum of the New York Drama League’s Directors Project. Mr. McCauley has directed Off-Broadway and at regional theatres around the country including Arena Stage, Arkansas Repertory Theater, Goodman Theatre, New Century Theatre, Old Globe Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Playwrights Horizons, Seattle Repertory Theatre, and the National Theatre of Ghana. His directing credits include, Lynn Nottage’s Sweat, The Mountaintop by Katori Hall, The Call by Tanya Barfield, Cheryl L. West’s Jar the Floor, The Whipping Man by Matthew Lopez, Gees Bend by Elyzabeth Gregory-Wilder, Hell in High Water and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi by Marcus Gardley, Peter Morgan’s Frost/ Nixon, August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson and Fences, Charles Fuller’s A Soldier’s Play and Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie.

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Robert Hupp is in his fifth season as artistic director of Syracuse Stage. He recently directed Annapurna, Talley’s Folly, Amadeus, Noises Off, Next to Normal, and The Three Musketeers for Stage. Prior to coming to central New York, Robert spent seventeen seasons as the producing artistic director of Arkansas Repertory Theatre in Little Rock. He directed over 30 productions for Arkansas Rep ranging from Hamlet to Les Miserables to The Grapes of Wrath. In New York City, Robert directed the American premieres of Glyn Maxwell’s The Lifeblood and Wolfpit for the Phoenix Theatre Ensemble. He also served for nine seasons as the artistic

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

director of the Obie Award-winning Jean Cocteau Repertory. At the Cocteau, Robert’s directing credits include works by Buchner, Wilder, Cocteau, Shaw, Wedekind and the premieres of the Bentley/Milhaud version of Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children, Seamus Heaney’s The Cure at Troy, and Eduardo de Filippo’s Napoli Millionaria. He has held faculty positions at Pennsylvania’s Dickinson College and, in Arkansas, at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and Hendrix College. Robert served as vice president of the Board of Directors of the Theatre Communications Group and has served on funding panels for the New York State Council on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, the Theatre Communications Group, the New Jersey State Council of the Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. While in Arkansas, Robert was named both Non-Profit Executive of the Year by the Arkansas Business Publishing Group, and Individual Artist of the year by the Arkansas Arts Council. He and his wife Clea ride herd over a blended family of five children, one dog, and two cats.

MANAGING DIRECTOR

Jill A. Anderson has served as managing director of Syracuse Stage since 2016. Jill is responsible for Stage’s nearly $6.5 million operating budget and has oversight of fundraising, marketing, and operational matters within the organization. Prior to joining Stage, Jill spent a decade as general manager at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford, CT. During her tenure, the O’Neill completed a $7 million capital campaign and campus expansion, doubled its operating budget, and was honored with a 2015 National Medal of Arts and the 2010 Regional Theatre Tony Award. Under the O’Neill’s aegis, Jill also developed the Baltic Playwrights Conference, an annual international new play development retreat held in Hiiumaa, Estonia. Previously, Jill spent five years in the production office at Washington, D.C.’s Arena Stage, after working as a stage manager in Minnesota, New Mexico, and Massachusetts. In addition to her work at Stage, Jill is an instructor in the Theater Management program of the Syracuse University Department of Drama, building on her work with high school and college students elsewhere, including at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. Jill was recognized as part of the Central New York Business Journal’s “40 Under Forty” awards in 2017 and has served on numerous municipal and non-profit boards. Jill is delighted to call Central New York home, but will always be a proud cheesehead, originally hailing from Marshfield, Wisconsin.