THE MASTER BUILDER

The Creative Team

danai gurira (playwright)

was born in the US to Zimbabwean parents and raised in Zimbabwe. She co-created and performed in the award-winning, two-woman play In the Continuum, which premiered Off-Broadway and toured the US (including Yale Rep, 2007) and Southern Africa. For her work on that production, Danai received the 2007 Helen Hayes Award (Best Actress), a 2006 OBIE Award, the 2006 Outer Critics Circle John Gassner Memorial Playwriting Award, and the 2004 Global Tolerance Award (Friends of the United Nations), and was honored by the Theatre Hall of Fame. Her recent acting credits include the film The Visitor and Lincoln Center Theater’s production of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. She is the recipient of a 2008 TCG New Generations travel grant for Eclipsed and has taught playwriting and acting in Liberia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. She is developing a play about the current situation in Zimbabwe with the Royal Court in London and completing another Zimbabwean piece entitled The Convert. She received her MFA in acting from New York University. Back to top.

LIESL TOMMY (director)

previously directed the McCarter Theatre workshop and world premiere of Eclipsed at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. She has also directed the world premieres of A History of Light (Contemporary American Theatre Festival), Angela’s Mixtape (Synchronicity Performance Group, New Georges), The Good Negro (Sundance Theatre Institute, Dallas Theater Center, The Public Theater), and A Stone’s Throw (Women’s Project). Her other theatre credits include Yankee Tavern, Stick Fly (CATF); A Christmas Carol (Trinity Rep); In the Continuum (Playmakers Rep); Flight (City Theatre); Hydriotaphia, Camino Real (Trinity Rep/Brown Consortium); Isaac and Ishmael (Chautauqua Theatre Institute); Small Tragedy, Medea Project (NYU/Strasberg Institute); Split Ends (La MaMa E.T.C.); Bus, Family Ties (Cristian Panaite Play Company) for the Romania Kiss Me! Festival; Misterioso 119 (Berkshire Theatre Festival, Act French Festival/Lark Theatre); Adventures of Barrio Grrrl (Summer Play Festival); Uncle Vanya and Our Lady of 121st Street (Juilliard). She was awarded the NEA/TCG Directors Grant and the New York Theatre Workshop Casting/Directing Fellowship, is a member of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab and Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab, and is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect. Liesl has taught directing at Trinity Rep/Brown University’s MFA Directing Program and acting at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. She is a native of Cape Town, South Africa. Back to top.

germÁn cardenÁs (scenic designer)

is a third-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where his credits include last season’s Jelly’s Last Jam. He received a BA in architecture at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, Mexico City (2000). After working as an architect, Germán co-designed several productions, including Doubt, Mixed Emotions, The Robbers, The Overcoat, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, Venus, El Método Gronhölm, La Piel, Mi Joven Corazón Idiota, and La Nueva Familia, and the musicals Hoy No Me Puedo Levantar, Emperadores de la Antártida, and The Producers. He designed sets and lights for Am Ziel by Thomas Bernhard. Germán is the recipient of the National Fund for Culture and the Arts (FONCA) Foreign Studies Program Scholarship. Back to top.

elizabeth barrett groth (costume designer)

is a third-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where her credits include costumes for Jelly’s Last Jam and the set for American Catnip (Carlotta Festival of New Plays). Other credits include sets and costumes for The Five Fists of Science, One for the Road (Yale Cabaret); Late: A Cowboy Song, The Mystery of Irma Vep, and Fly-by-Night: A New Musical (Yale Summer Cabaret). She has worked as a costume designer and assistant costume designer at the Folger Elizabethan Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Huntington Theatre Company, Boston University Opera Institute, American Repertory Theatre’s Institute for Advanced Theatre Training, and Berkshire Theatre Festival. Her designs for the Silk Road Dance Company’s American premiere of Egypta were nominated for a 2004 DC Metro Dance Award. She received a BA in fine arts and art history from George Washington University. Back to top.

marcus doshi (lighting designer)

previously designed lighting for the Yale Rep productions of The Imaginary Invalid and Iphigenia at Aulis. Recent productions in New York include A Boy and His Soul (Vineyard Theatre); The Blue Rider in Performance (Guggenheim Works & Process); Things of Dry Hours (New York Theatre Workshop); Othello (Lucille Lortel Award nomination), Hamlet (Drama Desk Award nomination) at Theatre for a New Audience; The First Breeze of Summer (Audelco Award, Signature Theatre Company); and With a Single Step: Stories in the Making of America, the permanent exhibition at the Museum of Chinese in America. His other credits include productions at Moving Theater (company member), Khmer Arts Ensemble, The New Group, Soho Rep, The Joyce, The Mint, Lincoln Center, Chicago Shakespeare, Seattle Rep, Portland Center Stage, Hartford Stage, Seattle Opera, Virginia Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Greenwich Music Festival, Florentine Opera; and internationally in Edinburgh, London, Amsterdam, Castres, Venice, Vienna, Mumbai, Delhi, and Phnom Penh, among others. Marcus is a graduate of Wabash College and Yale School of Drama. www.marcusdoshi.com Back to top.

broken chord collective (sound designer/COMPOSER)

composes and designs music and sound for theatre. The sound design and music for Eclipsed was created by collective members Daniel Baker and Aaron Meicht. Other credits include productions in New York at Atlantic Theater Company, Cherry Lane Theatre, Juilliard, Keen Company, La MaMa E.T.C., Primary Stages, Manhattan Theatre Club, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Second Stage Theatre, and Women’s Project. Regional credits include productions at Dallas Theater Center, Geva Theatre Center, Hartford Stage, Long Wharf Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Shakespeare Theatre Company (Washington DC), Weston Playhouse, Westport Country Playhouse, Portland Center Stage, and Passage Theatre Company. www.brokenchordcollective.com Back to top.

walter byongsok chon (production dramaturg)

is a third-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where his credits include The French Play and I Am a Superhero (Carlotta Festival of New Plays). He served as production dramaturg on last season’s production of Rough Crossing at Yale Rep. His Yale Cabaret credits include Be Aggressive and Mask Ritual: Electra. On stage, he appeared as Nachum in Fiddler on the Roof at Edison Theatre in St. Louis. He recently worked in new play development at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference. Walter studied Shakespeare at the Globe Theatre and received his BA in English from Sungkyunkwan University in Korea and his MA in theatre studies from Washington University in St. Louis. Back to top.

RICK SORDELET (FIGHT director)

44 Broadway productions, including Disney’s The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Tarzan, The Little Mermaid, and Aida. He has staged the fights for the opera Cyrano de Bergerac starring Placido Domingo at the Metropolitan Opera, The Royal Opera House, and the LaScala in Milan, Italy; and for over 40 productions on five continents. Film: The Game Plan starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson; Dan in Real Life starring Steve Carell and Juliette Binoche; and Hamlet starring Campbell Scott. He served as the chief stunt coordinator for Guiding Light and staged the fights for First Jedi, a CD-ROM for George Lucas. Rick received the Lucille Lortel Award for Sustained Excellence in 2007. He teaches at Yale School of Drama, The New School for Drama, and The Neighborhood Playhouse. He is a company member of The Drama Dept., a board member of The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, and the author of the play Buried Treasure. He is married to actress Kathleen Kelly and has three children: Kaelan, Christian, and Collin. Back to top

beth mcguire (vocal and dialect coach)

Vocal and dialect coach credits include the Off-Broadway productions of The Overwhelming (Roundabout Theatre Company); The Black Eyed (New York Theatre Workshop); Five by Tenn (Manhattan Theatre Club); People Be Heard (Playwrights Horizons); Candida, Gas Light (The Roundtable Ensemble); Free Market (The Working Theatre); Exit Cuckoo (Midtown International Theatre Festival); and a workshop of In Darfur (The Public Theater). Regional: Death of a Salesman, Lydia, All’s Well That Ends Well, dance of the holy ghosts, The Mystery Plays, The Taming of the Shrew, King Lear, Iphigenia at Aulis, Kingdom of Earth (Yale Rep); Hamlet, Carnival, King John, The Glass Menagerie (Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey); The Cook (Hartford Stage); and Crimes of the Heart (The Cape Playhouse). Ms. McGuire is currently on faculty at Yale School of Drama; is a member of VASTA (The Voice and Speech Trainers Association), Actors’ Equity, SAG, and AFTRA; and is an actress with over 25 years of performance experience. Back to top.

tara rubiN CASTING (CASTING DIRECTORS)

has been casting at Yale Rep since 2004. Broadway: A Little Night Music, Billy Elliot (Adult Casting), Shrek, Guys and Dolls, The Little Mermaid, Mary Poppins, Jersey Boys, The Producers, Mamma Mia!, The Phantom of the Opera, The Country Girl, Young Frankenstein, The Farnsworth Invention, Rock ’n’ Roll, The History Boys (US casting), Les Misérables, Spamalot, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The Pirate Queen, Good Vibrations, Bombay Dreams, Oklahoma!, Flower Drum Song, Imaginary Friends, Metamorphoses (New York casting). Lincoln Center Theater: Happiness, The Frogs, Contact, Thou Shalt Not, A Man of No Importance, Anything Goes (concert). The Kennedy Center: Mame, Mister Roberts, The Sondheim Celebration, and Tennessee Williams Explored. Film: The Producers: The Musical. Members, Casting Society of America. Back to top.

karen hashley (stage manager)

is a third-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where her credits include American Catnip, Good Egg (Carlotta Festival of New Plays); The Ghost Sonata; Pericles; and 99 Ways to F@%k a Swan. She served as assistant stage manager on Yale Rep’s productions of The Master Builder and Passion Play. Other credits include All My Sons, The Last Night of Ballyhoo, Pentecost, and The Trial, as well as the US premiere of Sir Fredrick Ashton’s Cinderella with the Joffrey Ballet. Karen received a BFA in stage management from The Theatre School at DePaul University. Back to top.