Romeo and Juliet

CREATIVE TEAM

SHANA COOPER (DIRECTOR)

Recent projects include the Black Swan Lab, a new play workshop series, and The (Un)Fortunates (workshop), a new musical by Three Blind Mice (Oregon Shakespeare Festival); The Three Sisters (The Studio/New York), and A Lie of the Mind (American Conservatory Theater MFA program). Shana is a founding member of New Theater House, where she has directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Whale Play by Victor I. Cazares, and Twelfth Night (in collaboration with actors from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival). Other credits include Oklahoma! (Hangar Theatre, associate director); as well as productions at Willamette Repertory Theatre, Sonoma Repertory Theatre, Cal Shakes Student Company, Washington Shakespeare Festival, Amherst College, and Willamette University (Guest Artist), and Magic Theatre’s Young California Writer’s Project. Shana was the Associate Artistic Director of the California Shakespeare Theater from 2000-2004. She is the recipient of a 2010 Princess Grace Award, Drama League Directing Fellowship, a TCG Observership Grant, the Phil Killian Directing Fellowship (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), and a member of the first annual Jack O’Brien Director’s Lab.  She received her MFA from Yale School of Drama, where she received the Julian Milton Kaufman Memorial Prize. Upcoming projects include Love’s Labour’s Lost at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and The Taming of the Shrew at California Shakespeare Theater.
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GINA LEISHMAN (COMPOSER)

composed the score for Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid at Yale Rep in 1999.  Recent theatre projects in New York include Septimus and Clarissa, Ellen McLaughlin’s adaptation of Mrs. Dalloway; Uncivil Wars, David Gordon’s adaptation of Brecht’s Roundheads and Peakheads; Orpheus X, Rinde Eckert’s adaptation of the Orpheus myth; and 21 POSITIONS: A Cartographic Dream of the Middle East by Abdelfattah Abusrour, Lisa Schleisinger, and Naomi Wallace.  Scores for other plays of Shakespeare include Twelfth Night (Critics Circle Award), Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, and As You Like It (all for Cal Shakes). Collaborations with other artists include directors Robert Woodruff, Lisa Peterson, Daniel Fish, Jonathan Moscone, and Joseph Chaikin, choreographers David Gordon, Bebe Miller, and Deborah Slater, and performance artist John Kelly. She leads various ensembles including Kamikaze Ground Crew, a vehicle for original composition; Mr. Wau-Wa, a quintet dedicated to the songs of Bertolt Brecht, and sundry solo projects.  Recordings can be found on Koch Jazz, New World, Busmeat, and GCQ Records. www.ginaleishman.com
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SEÁN CURRAN (CHOREOGRAPHER)

made his mark as a leading dancer with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and as an original member of the Off-Broadway cast of Stomp. He is the Artistic Director of Seán Curran Dance Company. Choreography projects include Yale Rep's We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Lulu, and The Taming of the Shrew; Broadway: Cymbeline, The Rivals (both at Lincoln Center Theater), James Joyce's The Dead; Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Taming of the Shrew (The Shakespeare Theatre); Nixon in China, Street Scene, La Traviata (Opera Theatre of Saint Louis); L'Étoile, Alcina, Turandot, Capriccio, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Alcina, Acis and Galetea (New York City Opera); My Life with Albertine (Playwrights Horizons); As You Like It (The Public Theater/Shakespeare in the Park); Roméo et Juliette (Metropolitan Opera); and Daphne (Santa Fe Opera). He recently directed Salome for San Francisco Opera and will remount the production for Opéra Montréal this winter. He will direct Daughter of the Regiment for Opera Theatre of Saint Louis next summer. Awards: New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" and New York Foundation for the Arts Choreographer Fellowships.
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PO-LIN LI (SCENIC DESIGNER)

is a third-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where he designed the sets for elijah and Orlando. Other credits include José Rivera’s Flowers and Other Stories (Yale Cabaret); Macbeth, Hello Out There, The Loveliest Afternoon of the Year, Merrily We Roll Along, Emma, and Rent at National Taiwan University, where he received his BA in theatre and drama. www.polinli.com
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LEON DOBKOWSKI (COSTUME DESIGNER)

is a third-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where his credits include La Ronde and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. His other credits include Flowers and Other Stories, Nijinsky’s Last Dance (Yale Cabaret);  Romance/Romance (Cape May Stage);  Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Yale Summer Cabaret); The Leopard and the Fox (Alter Ego, NYIT Award Nomination Outstanding Costume Design); 6969 (59E59); and Smoking Bloomberg (New York Musical Theatre Festival). Assistant design credits include The Little Mermaid, Shrek the Musical (Broadway); as well as productions at Goodspeed Musicals, Paper Mill Playhouse, Signature Theater, Yale Repertory Theatre, Live from Lincoln Center, George Street Playhouse, MCC, Irish Repertory Theatre, Norwegian Cruise Lines, and the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus Gold Unit. Mr. Dobkowski is the 2010-2011 recipient of the Donald and Zorka Oenslager Scholarship in Stage Design. www.leondobkowski.com
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LAURA J. ECKELMAN (LIGHTING DESIGNER)

is a third-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama. Most recently, she designed the world premiere of Bossa Nova at Yale Repertory Theatre. Other credits include elijah, Orlando, Phèdre, and Hamlet (Yale School of Drama); Good Words, Far Away, Radio Station, Hold for Beauty, and Three Sisters, or the Dormouse’s Tale (Yale Cabaret); Fly By Night, The Mystery of Irma Vep, Late: A Cowboy Song (Yale Summer Cabaret); Crave, Somewhere in the Pacific, Scenes from an Execution (Potomac Theater Project); Ghosts and BusStop (Columbia University). She has received regional and national awards from the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival and is a proud alumna of Middlebury College.
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JENNIFER LYNN JACKSON (SOUND DESIGNER)

is a third-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where her sound design and original music credits include Uncle Vanya, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and The Seagull. She is also the sound designer for The Tall Girls at the School of Drama’s Carlotta Festival of New Plays this spring. She has served as assistant sound designer for Compulsion, Rough Crossing (Yale Repertory Theatre); and Les Misérables (Pioneer Theatre Company). She earned her BFA with an emphasis in sound design from the University of Utah in 2008. During the summer, she often spends her time teaching for a youth theatre program in Salt Lake City, Utah. Currently, she is writing her first musical.
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GRACE ZANDARSKI (VOCAL COACH)

has taught voice at Yale School of Drama since 2002. Her vocal coaching credits include The Comedy of Errors and The Master Builder at Yale Rep, as well as productions at the New Victory Theatre, McCarter Theatre, and BAM. Grace has also served on the faculties of Fordham University, A.R.T./Harvard, and The Actors Center. She has taught master classes for the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab and The Public Theater’s Shakespeare Lab. She was named Associate Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework in 1998. She has worked with both actors and professionals from a variety of backgrounds, including the financial sector, law, and sales, as well as celebrity speakers and politicians. Her clients include the ABA, Barclays Bank, the United Nations, and Morgan Stanley. In addition, she continues to work as an actor and director. Acting credits include the McCarter Theatre, Wilma Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and American Conservatory Theater. Education: MFA, American Conservatory Theater; BA, Princeton University.
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RICK SORDELET (FIGHT DIRECTOR)

Fifty Broadway productions, including Disney’s The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Tarzan, The Little Mermaid, and Aida. More than fifty productions all over the world, including Cyrano de Bergerac starring Placido Domingo at the Metropolitan Opera, The Royal Opera House, and the LaScala in Milan. Stunt coordinator for the films 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. Rick sits on the board of the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey and is a company member of Drama Dept. He teaches at Yale School of Drama, The New School for Drama, and The Neighborhood Playhouse; and he is the author of the play Buried Treasure. Rick is a proud recipient of the Edith Oliver Award for Sustained Excellence from the Lucille Lortel Foundation. He is married to actress Kathleen Kelly and has three children: Kaelan, Christian, and Collin.
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KEE-YOON NAHM (PRODUCTION DRAMATURG)

is a second-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where his credits include the things are against us. He has also written the play Out of the Blue, which was seen at Yale Cabaret. He received his BA in English language and literature and Korean language and literature from Korea University in Seoul, South Korea. His writing has appeared in Contemporary Western Theatre Directors, Volume 2 (Korea), and Polish Theater Perspectives (forthcoming).
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KIRSTEN PARKER (STAGE MANAGER)

is a third-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where her stage management credits include La Ronde, Hamlet, The French Play (assistant), and The Robbers (assistant). Her Yale Cabaret credits include The Rocky Horror Show, Underneath the Lintel, Erebus and Terror, and Bones in the Basket. She has also served as assistant stage manager on The Servant of Two Masters and The Master Builder at Yale Rep. She stage managed at the Ensemble Theatre Company in Santa Barbara, CA for two seasons, which included Betrayal, Visiting Mr. Green, The Memory of Water, The Violet Hour, This Is How It Goes, The Clean House, The Uneasy Chair, Thérèse Raquin, The Syringa Tree, and Old Wicked Songs. Before joining ETC, she stage managed a number of productions at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Center Stage Theater, and Santa Barbara City College. She received Bachelor's Degrees in English and Dramatic Arts from UCSB.
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