Vivienne Benesch is a theatre director and former artistic director of the Chautauqua Theatre who is currently artistic director at North Carolina's PlayMakers Repertory Company, a position she has held since 2016. [1] As part of her work at PlayMakers, Benesch focuses on amplifying the work of women playwrights through their @PLAY program. [2]
Benesch trained as an actor and received her MFA from Tisch School of the Arts and has been on the faculty of Juilliard. [3] [4] As an actor, Benesch won an Obie Award in 2005 for her role in Lee Blessing's Going to St. Ives and played opposite Dame Maggie Smith in a 2007 London production of The Lady from Dubuque . [5] In 2017, she received the Zelda Fichandler Award. [6]
In 2019, she made her Washington, D.C. directorial debut with the Folger Theatre production of Love's Labor Lost . [6] In 2022, she directed Noah Haidle's Birthday Candles , starring NYU classmate Debra Messing. [7] [8]
Company is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by George Furth. The original 1970 production was nominated for a record-setting 14 Tony Awards, winning six. Company was among the first book musicals to deal with contemporary dating, marriage, and divorce, and is a notable example of a concept musical lacking a linear plot. In a series of vignettes, Company follows bachelor Bobby interacting with his married friends, who throw a party for his 35th birthday.
Fiona Shaw is an Irish film and theatre actress. Known for extensive work with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, as well as in film and television, in 2020, she was listed at No. 29 on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors. She was made an Honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2001.
Debra Lynn Messing is an American actress. After graduating from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Messing starred in the shortlived television series, Ned and Stacey on Fox (1995–1997), and Prey on ABC (1998). She achieved her breakthrough role as Grace Adler, an interior designer, on the NBC sitcom Will & Grace, for which she received seven Golden Globe Award nominations and five Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, winning once, in 2003.
Evelyn Renee O'Connor is an American actress, producer, and director, known for the role of Gabrielle on the television series Xena: Warrior Princess.
Kathy Ann Najimy is an American actress, comedian, director, writer, producer and activist. She was first nationally known for her feminist play The Kathy and Mo Show, which she wrote and performed with Mo Gaffney. On film, she is best known for her roles in Soapdish (1991), Sister Act (1992) and its sequel (1993), Hocus Pocus (1993) and its sequel (2022), Hope Floats (1998), The Wedding Planner (2001), Rat Race (2001), WALL-E (2008), Step Up 3D (2010), The Guilt Trip (2012), Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas (2013), A Christmas Melody (2015), Dumplin' (2018), Music (2021), and Single All the Way (2021). On television, she is best known for her portrayal of Olive Massery on the NBC sitcom Veronica's Closet (1997–2000) and for voicing Peggy Hill on the animated television series King of the Hill (1997–2010).
Mary-Louise Parker is an American actress. After making her Broadway debut as Rita in Craig Lucas' Prelude to a Kiss in 1990, Parker came to prominence for film roles in Grand Canyon (1991), Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), The Client (1994), Bullets over Broadway (1994), A Place for Annie (1994), Boys on the Side (1995), The Portrait of a Lady (1996), and The Maker (1997). Among stage and independent film appearances thereafter, Parker received the 2001 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her portrayal of Catherine Llewellyn in David Auburn's Proof, among other accolades. Between 2001 and 2006, she recurred as Amy Gardner in the NBC television series The West Wing, for which she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2002. She received both a Golden Globe and a Primetime Emmy Award for her portrayal of Harper Pitt in the acclaimed HBO television miniseries Angels in America in 2003.
Frank William Chase is an American actor, director, and singer, best known for his work on Broadway and for his role as country superstar Luke Wheeler on ABC's Nashville.
Randall Duk Kim is an American actor. He is a co-founder of the American Players Theatre.
The Shakespeare Theatre Company is a regional theatre company located in Washington, D.C. The theatre company focuses primarily on plays from the Shakespeare canon, but its seasons include works by other classic playwrights such as Euripides, Ibsen, Wilde, Shaw, Schiller, Coward and Tennessee Williams. The company manages and performs in two spaces: The Michael R. Klein Theatre and Sidney Harman Hall. In cooperation with George Washington University, they run the STC Academy.
Caroline, or Change is a musical with music by Jeanine Tesori and lyrics and book by Tony Kushner. The score combines spirituals, blues, Motown, classical music, and Jewish klezmer and folk music.
Michael Kahn is an American theater director and drama educator. He was the artistic director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. from 1986 until his retirement in 2019. He held the position of Richard Rodgers Director of the Drama Division of the Juilliard School from 1992 to 2006.
The Soho Repertory Theatre, known as Soho Rep, is an American Off-Broadway theater company based in New York City which is notable for producing avant-garde plays by contemporary writers. The company, described as a "cultural pillar", is currently located in a 65-seat theatre in the TriBeCa section of lower Manhattan. The company, and the projects it has produced, have won multiple prizes and earned critical acclaim, including numerous Obie Awards, Drama Desk Awards, Drama Critics' Circle Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize. A recent highlight was winning the Drama Desk Award for Sustained Achievement for "nearly four decades of artistic distinction, innovative production, and provocative play selection."
Sarah Benson is a British director of avant-garde theatre productions based in New York. As a Director of the Soho Rep, a lower Manhattan-based theatre company with an "audacious taste in plays", she is notable for her "commitment to adventurous new plays with an experimental bent". She has been at the company since 2007, and during her tenure, the company has won numerous Obie awards and Drama Desk nominations.
Marianne Phoebe Elliott is a British theatre director and producer who works on the West End and Broadway. She has received numerous accolades including two Laurence Olivier Awards and three Tony Awards.
Joseph Haj is an American artistic director and actor who is the eighth artistic director of the Guthrie Theater. Before joining the Guthrie, he worked at PlayMakers Repertory Company.
Fairview is a 2018 comedy play written by Jackie Sibblies Drury. The play was co-commissioned by Berkeley Rep and Soho Repertory Theatre. The play follows a middle class African-American family as they prepare for a birthday dinner for their grandmother only to be watched by four white people.
Jennifer Brewin is a Canadian writer, director, and artistic director. She is known for co-creating The Attic, the Pearls and Three Fine Girls and her other work with Common Boots Theatre, formerly known as Theatre Columbus and the Caravan Farm Theatre. In 2020, she was appointed the artistic director of the Globe Theatre in Regina.
Birthday Candles is a play by Noah Haidle. It was originally scheduled to open on April 2, 2020, but was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. It subsequently ran at the American Airlines Theatre from March 18 to May 29, 2022, starring Debra Messing as Ernestine Ashworth and directed by Messing's Tisch School of the Arts classmate Vivienne Benesch.
Ethan McSweeny is an American theatre director. He served as artistic director of the American Shakespeare Center from 2018 to 2021.
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