Three Sisters

CREATIVE TEAM

SARAH RUHL (PLAYWRIGHT)

is thrilled to be back at Yale Rep for the fourth time. Her plays include The Clean House (Yale Rep, world premiere, 2004; Susan Smith Blackburn Award, Pulitzer Prize finalist, PEN/Pels Foundation Award), Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Demeter in the City (NAACP Image Award nomination), Eurydice (Yale Rep, 2006), In the Next Room (or the vibrator play) (Pulitzer Prize finalist; Tony Award nomination, Best Play), Late: a cowboy song, Orlando, Melancholy Play, Passion Play (Yale Rep, 2008; Fourth Forum Freedom Award from The Kennedy Center), and Stage Kiss. Her plays have been performed at Arena Stage, Clubbed Thumb, Cornerstone Theater, Goodman Theatre, Lincoln Center Theater, Madison Repertory Theatre, Piven Theatre Workshop, Playwrights Horizons, Second Stage Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, and The Wilma Theater, among other theatres across the country. Her plays have produced internationally and translated into Arabic, German, Korean, Norwegian, Russian, and Spanish. Sarah is originally from Chicago and received her MFA from Brown University, where she studied with Paula Vogel. She is the recipient of a Helen Merrill Award, Whiting Writers' Award, PEN/Pels Foundation Award, and a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. She is a proud member of New Dramatists and 13P and is an Associate Artist at Yale Rep.

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LES WATERS (DIRECTOR)

previously directed Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice at Yale Rep. An OBIE Award winner, Les has served as associate artistic director of Berkeley Rep since 2003. In the last six years, his shows have ranked among the year’s best in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Time Magazine, Time Out New York, and USA Today. In 2009, he made his Broadway debut with Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room (or the vibrator play), which began at Berkeley Rep. His other productions at Berkeley Rep include the world premieres of Concerning Strange Devices from the Distant West, Fêtes de la Nuit, Finn in the Underworld, Girlfriend, and To the Lighthouse; the American premiere of TRAGEDY: a tragedy; the West Coast premiere of Eurydice; and extended runs of The Glass Menagerie, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, The Pillowman, and Yellowman. Les has numerous credits in New York, his native England, and at theatres across America. He led the MFA directing program at University of California, San Diego and is an associate artist of The Civilians in New York.

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ANNIE SMART (SCENIC DESIGNER)

Design credits at Berkeley Rep include Big Love, Concerning Strange Devices from the Distant West, Fêtes de la Nuit, Heartbreak House, In The Next Room (or the vibrator play) (also on Broadway), The Mystery of Irma Vep, Passing Strange, Suddenly Last Summer, Taking Over (also at The Public Theater), Tiny Kushner (also at the Guthrie Theatre and the Tricycle Theatre), To the Lighthouse, Yellowjackets, and Yellowman. Her other Bay Area work includes Auctioning the Ainsleys, Brooklyn Boy, Theophilus North (TheatreWorks); A Doll’s House, Night and Day, The Threepenny Opera (American Conservatory Theater); An Ideal Husband, John Steinbeck’s Pastures of Heaven, Man and Superman, Private Lives, and The Tempest (California Shakespeare Theater); A Long Day’s Journey Into Night and The Weir (San Jose Rep). Annie is originally from London, where she designed for Joint Stock Group, The National Theatre, and The Royal Court, among many others. She currently teaches costume design at University of California, Berkeley.

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ILONA SOMOGYI (COSTUME DESIGNER)

Recent New York area productions include A Small Fire, Clybourne Park (Playwrights Horizons); Jerry Springer: The Opera (Carnegie Hall); Almost an Evening, Scarcity (Atlantic Theater Company); The Piano Teacher (Vineyard Theatre); Fever Chart, Controversy at Vallalodid, Fucking A (The Public Theater); The American Pilot (Manhattan Theatre Club); Hot 'n' Throbbin' (Signature Theatre Company); Savannah Bay (MCC); as well as God of Hell, Wit, Swimming with Watermelons, Unwrap Your Candy, Tabletop, and Hard Times. She also designed Princess Wishes for Disney on Ice, currently on tour. Her many regional credits include We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Battle of Black and Dogs, Passion Play, As You Like It (Yale Rep); The Crucible, Gem of the Ocean, Tom Sawyer, Noises Off, A Midsummer Night's Dream (Hartford Stage); Lil's 90th (Long Wharf Theatre); The Torchbearers, The Autumn Garden, Sweet Bird of Youth, Top Girls, On the Razzle (Williamstown Theatre Festival); Suddenly Last Summer, tick, tick...BOOM!, Scramble, Vigil, and Sedition (Westport Country Playhouse). She was also associate costume designer for Spamalot, The Crucible, and Art on Broadway, and the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Ilona is a proud graduate of Yale School of Drama and is a member of its faculty.

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ALEXANDER V. NICHOLS (LIGHTING DESIGNER)

Theatre credits include the Broadway production of Carrie Fisher’s Wishful Drinking and the Off-Broadway productions of Danny Hoch’s Taking Over, Marga Gomez’s Los Big Names, Rinde Eckert’s Horizon, and Sarah Jones’s Bridge & Tunnel. Alexander has created production designs for American Conservatory Theater, Arena Stage, Berkeley Rep, the Huntington, La Jolla Playhouse, the Mark Taper Forum, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and Seattle Rep. His dance credits include several seasons as the resident designer for American Repertory Ballet, Hartford Ballet, and Pennsylvania Ballet. Alexander is the resident visual designer for Margaret Jenkins Dance Company and was the lighting designer for American Ballet Theatre at the Metropolitan Opera and elsewhere. His designs are in the permanent repertory of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Boston Ballet, the Hong Kong Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, ODC/SF, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, and the Singapore Dance Theatre. Recent projects include the museum installation Circle of Memory, in collaboration with Eleanor Coppola, in Salzburg, and video and visual design for Life: A Journey through Time with photographer Frans Lanting and composer Philip Glass.

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DAVID BUDRIES (SOUND DESIGNER)

is the Sound Design Advisor at Yale Repertory Theatre, where his credits include POP!, Happy Now?, Trouble in Mind, Black Snow, and Safe in Hell, among many others.  His New York credits include Souvenir; Ah, Wilderness!; A Long Day’s Journey into Night; Our Country’s Good; Other People’s Money; Measure for Measure; And a Nightingale Sang; From the Mississippi Delta; Search and Destroy; End of the Day; Playland; and Marisol. His regional theatre credits include productions at Long Wharf, Hartford Stage, CENTERSTAGE, McCarter Theatre, Huntington Theatre Company, Dallas Theater Center, Berkeley Rep, La Jolla Playhouse, Ford’s Theatre, South Coast Repertory, Trinity Repertory Company, and Alliance Theatre. Mr. Budries chairs the Sound Design department at Yale School of Drama and is a freelance producer of music and radio programs.

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RACHEL STEINBERG (DRAMATURG)

recently was last season’s Peter F. Sloss Literary & Dramaturgy Fellow at Berkeley Rep and has served on selection committees for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival and the Playwrights’ Center of San Francisco. A native Canadian, Rachel received her BFA from New York University and MA in drama from the University of Toronto.

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GRACE ZANDARSKI (VOCAL COACH)

has been a member of the voice and speech faculty at Yale School of Drama since 2002. Her vocal coaching credits include The Comedy of Errors, The Master Builder, and Romeo and Juliet at Yale Rep, as well as productions at the Signature Theatre Company, The Public Theater, 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. 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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AMY POTOZKIN, C.S.A. (CASTING DIRECTOR)

is in her 22nd season with Berkeley Rep where she is Artistic Associate and Casting Director. She has also had the pleasure of casting projects for American Conservatory Theater, Arizona Theatre Company, Aurora Theatre Company, B Street Theatre, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Dallas Theater Center, Marin Theatre Company, The Marsh, San Jose Repertory Theatre, Social Impact Productions Inc., and Traveling Jewish Theatre. Amy cast roles for the film Conceiving Ada, starring Tilda Swinton; two Josh Kornbluth films: Haiku Tunnel and the soon to be released Love and Taxes; and the upcoming feature film Beyond Redemption by Britta Sjogren. Amy received her MFA from Brandeis University, where she was also an artist-in-residence. She has been a coach to hundreds of actors, teaches acting at Mills College and workshops at Berkeley Rep's School of Theatre and numerous other venues in the Bay Area, and is a member of C.S.A.

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JANET FOSTER, C.S.A. (CASTING DIRECTOR)

Broadway: The Light in the Piazza (Artios nomination), Lennon, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Taking Sides (co-cast), and the upcoming Broadway revival of Talley's Folly. Off-Broadway: Lucy, Close Ties, Brundibar, True Love, Endpapers, The Dying Gaul, The Maiden's Prayer, Dream True, and Trojan Women: A Love Story. Playwrights Horizons: Floyd Collins, The Monogamist, A Cheever Evening, Later Life, and many more. Regional: Intiman Theatre, Seattle Rep, California Shakespeare Theater, Berkeley Rep, Dallas Theater Center, Pittsburgh Public, Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf, The Old Globe, CENTERSTAGE, Westport Country Playhouse, and American Repertory Theatre. Film, television, radio: Advice from a Caterpillar, Cosby (CBS), Tracy Takes on New York (HBO), and The Deal by Lewis Black. For BBC World Services and Blackhawk Productions: The Day That Lehman Died (Peabody, SONY, and Wincott Award winner). Ms. Foster is relocating to San Francisco where she will be the Casting Director/Artistic Associate at the American Conservatory Theater.

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JAMES MOUNTCASTLE (PRODUCTION STAGE MANAGER)

has been at Yale Rep since 2004. He has stage managed productions of The Master Builder, Passion Play, Richard II, Eurydice, a new adaptation of The Cherry Orchard, and the world premieres of We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Clean House. A professional stage manager for more than twenty years, he has worked in regional, stock, and Broadway theatre. Broadway credits include Damn Yankees, Jekyll & Hyde, Judgment at Nuremberg, The Boys from Syracuse, The Smell of the Kill, Life x(3), and Wonderful Town. Mr. Mountcastle spent several Christmas seasons in New York City as stage manager for the now legendary production of A Christmas Carol at Madison Square Garden. Broadway national tours include City of Angels, Falsettos, and My Fair Lady. He served as Production Stage Manager for Damn Yankees starring Jerry Lewis for both its national tour and at the Adelphi Theatre in London’s West End. In addition, Mr. Mountcastle has worked at The Kennedy Center, CENTERSTAGE in Baltimore, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and elsewhere.

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