Evan Yionoulis is an award-winning director who has helmed new plays and classics in New York and across the country. She has enjoyed collaborations with major American playwrights, including Adrienne Kennedy (the critically acclaimed productions of He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box and Ohio State Murders, Lortel Award for Best Revival, Theatre for a New Audience) and Richard Greenberg (the premieres and New York productions of The Violet Hour, Biltmore Theatre, Broadway; Everett Beekin, Lincoln Center Theatre; and Three Days of Rain, Manhattan Theatre Club, Obie Award for direction).
In her twenty years as a resident director at Yale Repertory Theatre, she directed Richard II, Cymbeline, The Master Builder, George F. Walker’s Heaven, Brecht’s Galileo, Gozzi’s The King Stag (which she adapted with composer Mike Yionoulis and Catherine Sheehy), Caryl Churchill’s Owners, Guillermo Calderon’s Kiss, and numerous other productions.
Credits include work at the Mark Taper Forum, Huntington, NY Shakespeare Festival, the Vineyard, Cherry Lane, 2econd Stage, American Music Theatre Festival, Dallas Theatre Center, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Williamstown, Denver Center, Portland Stage, PlayMakers Rep, and many others. She directed SEVEN, a documentary theatre piece about extraordinary women from across the globe who work for human rights, in New York, Boston, Washington, Aspen, London, Deauville, and New Delhi. She serves on the Executive Board of SDC, the labor union representing stage directors and choreographers as Secretary, and is a Princess Grace Foundation Awards recipient. She is the Richard Rodgers Director of the Drama Division at the Juilliard School. http://evanyionoulis.com/wp/evan-yionoulis-theatre-director/
Paul David Young's 2017 Trump satire, Faust 3: The Turd Coming, or The Fart of the Deal, performed by four clowns at Judson Church, was featured in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, New York Magazine, Time Out New York, Village Voice ("Voice Choice"), The Wall Street Journal, and Hyperallergic. Upstage Downstage picked his play Kentucky Cantata, at HERE in New York, as one of the top 13 plays of Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway for 2015. Erik Haagensen of Backstage selected his In the Summer Pavilion in NYCFringe and at 59e59 Theaters as a "Critic's Pick." His No One But You won the Kennedy Center’s Paula Vogel Playwriting Award and was a finalist for the Kendeda Fellowship. His one-act Aporia was a finalist for the Kennedy Center's John Cauble Short Play Award. His translations, with Carl Weber, of Heiner Müller’s Anatomy Titus Fall of Rome and Macbeth were published as Heiner Müller: After Shakespeare. A contributing editor at PAJ (MIT Press), he writes regularly for Hyperallergic. His book newARTtheatre: Evolutions of the Performance Aesthetic, about visual artists appropriating theatre, was issued by PAJ in 2014. He has had residencies at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's Workspace, Millay Colony, Djerassi Resident Artists Program, and Ensemble Studio Theatre's Summer Conference. LMCC awarded him a five-month Process Space residency on Governors Island for 2015, where he conceived and performed Curtain Wall Part 3: An Immersive Landscape Theater Performance of Christopher Marlowe's Hero and Leander, in which he swam across New York Harbor.
Richard Gallagher's credits include Broadway: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, 1984, The Front Page, The Lyons, The Importance of Being Earnest, Other NY credits include: The Pearl (Major Barbara), WP Theater, Lark Theatre, 59E59 Theaters. Selected regional credits include: Actors Theatre of Louisville (Angels in America parts 1 & 2), McCarter Theatre, Studio Theatre (Tribes), Baltimore Centerstage, Yale Repertory Theatre and The Norman Conquests at Northern Stage, Dorset Theatre Festival (directed by Evan Yionoulis) and Weston Playhouse. Film: Naked Singularity (with John Boyega & Olivia Cooke), El Camino (with Elisabeth Moss). TV: Recurring roles in Orange Is the New Black and Turn: Washington’s Spies. Other television: Blacklist, Quantico, Chicago P.D., Person of Interest, Blue Bloods, Law & Order, As the World Turns, Looking for Kathleen, Wallflowers. MFA, Yale School of Drama.
Brian Hastert is a founding member of The TEAM, a Brooklyn-based theater ensemble under the artistic directorship of Tony award-winning director Rachel Chavkin. With The TEAM, Brian has helped create seven original works and created roles in Mission Drift, Particularly in the Heartland, and others. As an educator, Brian was the founding head of Pace University’s BFA program in Acting for Film, Television, Voice Overs, and Commercials where he developed a new path for training actors and preparing them for a career in a world of digital media. Since graduating their first class in 2017, you can find FTVC alums working at every level of the industry including major roles in studio feature films, television series, radio and tv commercials, and theater. He received his MFA from the Yale School of Drama, where he was the recipient of the Jerome L. Greene Foundation fellowship and the Oliver Thorndike Award in Acting. Similar information with better pictures can be found at brianhastert.com.
Deborah Hedwall has been acting, teaching and directing in New York and Los Angeles for over 25 years. She received her professional acting training with Sanford Meisner and Uta Hagen. Deborah has created many roles in new plays On and Off Broadway, including the original production of Sight Unseen at Manhattan Theater Club for which she received an OBIE award and a Drama Desk Nomination for Outstanding Performance. Other NY productions include Savage in Limbo at New York Stage and Film, Extremities at the Westside Arts Theater, and Horton Foote’s Blind Date at Ensemble Studio Theater. Most recently Deborah was seen Off-Broadway in The Fall To Earth, directed by Joe Brancato at 59 East 59. Regionally she has worked at The Actor’s Theater of Louisville, The Eugene O’Neill Theater Conference, The Arena Stage, The New Play Festival at Sundance, The Long Wharf Theater, Yale Repertory, and Baltimore Center Stage where she appeared in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf directed by Ethan McSweeny. Since then she has worked at the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor in Men's Lives (directed by Harris Yulin), at Barrington Stage in Breaking the Code (directed by Joe Calarco), and at Hartford Stage in Christopher Shinn's new play An Opening in Time (directed by Oliver Butler). Film and Television credits include Netflix's Jessica Jones, Homeland, HBO's Barry Levinson's You Don't Know Jack with Al Pacino, The West Wing, Law & Order, The Big C, Delocated, and Vera Farmiga's Higher Ground. For two seasons Deborah played the mother in the Emmy Award winning series I’ll Fly Away with Regina Taylor. Currently she plays Ina Muldoon on the new Edward Burns series Public Morals. Hedwall has maintained an acting studio in New York for over 25 years.
Jonathan Hogan is a graduate of The Goodman Theatre and School of Drama. Credits include Broadway: Comedians, Otherwise Engaged, Fifth of July, The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, As Is(Tony and Drama Desk nominations for Best Actor), Burn This, Taking Steps, and The Homecoming. Off Broadway: Hindle Wakes (Mint Theatre Co.) – Gus Kaikkonen Dir., Hold On To Me Darling(Atlantic Theatre) – Neil Pepe Dir., Pocatello (Playwrights Horizons) – Davis McCallum Dir., A Picture of Autumn (The Mint) – Gus Kaikkonen Dir. Regional: Outside Mullingar (Dorset Theatre Festival), Anna Christie (Berkshire Theatre Fest), Morning’s at Seven (Berkshire Theatre Fest), Heroes (Merrimack Repertory) – Carl Forsman dir, A Delicate Balance (Berkshire Theatre Fest) – David Auburn dir, Molly Sweeney (Long Wharf) – Charlotte Moore dir, Morning’s at Seven – Vivian Matalon Dir., Uncle Vanya (McCarther Theatre & La Jolla Playhouse), The Rhythm Club (Signature Theatre), Ctrl-Alt-Delete (George Street Playhouse), Book of Days (Repertory Co. of St. Louis & Hartford Stage), Voices in the Dark (George Street Playhouse), Down the Road (La Jolla Playhouse) FILM/TV: Woody Allen Fall 2017 Project, 40 North, As The World Turns, One Life To Live, L.A. Law, Quantum Leap, Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order: Trial by Jury.
Melissa Friedling is a film and video artist, writer, and commercial web video producer. Her creative work has been selected for numerous international festivals and has also been presented in galleries and museums including PS1 MoMA (NY,NY), Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center (Buffalo, NY), The Athens Institute for Contemporary Art (Athens, GA), and Apex Art (NY,NY). She has been an artist in residence at the International Studio and Curatorial Program (NY, NY) and is the recipient of a Fulbright Award and artist’s grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the New York State Council for the Arts. In 2006, she also founded her own web video production company, Slouch Productions. In addition, her writing on film, art, and culture has been published widely including essays in Flash Art International, Afterimage, and Discourse and a book, Recovering Women: Rhetoric, Feminisms, and Addiction (Westview Press, 2000). She has been teaching courses in film and video production and aesthetics at the New School since 2004 and has also taught at The Pratt Institute, Hunter College, and Syracuse University. Overall, she teaches with an eye towards the “total filmmaker” who is not just trained to perform a series of technical skills, but who can also see the big picture, use techniques and tools critically and purposefully, and is appreciative of a wide range of film traditions and modes.
Donald Holder is an American lighting designer in theatre, opera, and dance based in New York. He has been nominated for thirteen Tony Awards, winning the 1998 Tony Award for Best Lighting Design as well as the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lighting Design for The Lion King. He won a second Tony in 2008 for the revival of South Pacific. His lighting design for Ragtime has been nominated for a 2010 Tony Award for Best Lighting Design of a Musical. Additional Broadway credits include: Big Fish, Annie (2012 Broadway revival), Golden Boy, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, Arcadia, The Motherf**cker With The Hat, Promises, Promises, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Radio Golf, The Little Dog Laughed, Movin' Out, The Times They Are a-Changin', A Streetcar Named Desire, Holiday, Cyrano de Bergerac, and Prelude to a Kiss. He was the theatrical lighting designer for seasons one and two of the NBC-Universal television series Smash. Holder studied forestry at the University of Maine, where he graduated from in 1980. He also worked for the Portland Stage Company in Maine. He holds a Masters of Fine Arts from the Yale School of Drama and is a student of Jennifer Tipton. He was the head of lighting design from 2006-2010 in the School of Theater at the California Institute of the Arts, and is currently Head of Lighting Design at the Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts.
Ao Li is a set designer and visual artist that has worked internationally. His designs include: Scraps (Flea Theatre), Real (The Tank), As You Like It (Columbia University), Waiting for Godot (Alfred University), Lucretia (Cantata Profana), Where is My Maple Town (Theatre Row), Kiss (Yale Repertory Theatre), 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (Yale School of Drama), Titus Andronicus (Iseman Theatre), Yale Cabaret credits include: The Apple Tree, Xander Xyst, Dragon:1 and The Styx Songs. His work in Shanghai include: Cao Zhi (Academy Theatre), Blind (Shanghai International Arts Festival), Everything in the Garden (Duanjun Theatre) among others. Ao associate designed Soft Power (The Public Theatre), The Orphan of Zhao at Beijing Poly Theater and assisted on productions including Judgement Day (Park Avenue Armory), The Twilight Zone (West End), Tamerlano (Frankfurt Opera), Le Nozze Di Figaro (Theatre Des Champs-Elysses) and Scenes From Court Life (Yale Repertory Theater) etc. His artwork has received three solo exhibitions including Expression, 2009 and Childhood. He holds an MFA in Set Design from Yale School of Drama and a BFA in Stage Design from Shanghai Theatre Academy. He is the co-founder and former president of the Intercultural Performance Studio in Shanghai. He is the winner of Donald and Zorca Oenslager Travel Fellowship Award in Design, Richard Harrison Senie Scholarship and Donald M. Oenslager Scholarship in Stage Design. http://aoliarts.com/about
Teresa Snider-Stein is a twenty-five year veteran of New York and Regional theatre, who has designed costumes for nearly a hundred productions. Selected credits include: I’m not Rappaport (Broadway & regional tour); Everett Beekin (Lincoln Center); the original productions of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Young Man from Atlanta, (Signature Theatre, Huntington Theatre, and Alley Theatre); Raised in Captivity, (Vineyard Theater and South Coast Rep); and 36 Views (Huntington Theatre, Boston, MA). For nine years as the resident costume designer at Signature Theatre in New York City, Ms. Snider-Stein particularly enjoyed the intensive yearlong collaboration with the various playwrights in residence. She designed the costumes for over thirty-five productions by Romulus Linney, Lee Blessing, Edward Albee, Horton Foote, Adrienne Kennedy, Sam Sheppard, Arthur Miller, John Guare, and Maria Irene Fornes. Working directly with each of the playwrights she was able to focus on specificity of character and tap into each author’s particular point of view. Through participation in this in-depth exploration of individual playwrights’ work, she was part of the team that helped cement the Signature Theatre’s playwright-centric techniques. New York credits include Playwrights Horizons, the Public Theater, Lucille Lortel Theatre, Classic Stage Company, the Vineyard Theatre, Irish Repertory Theatre, The Jewish Repertory Theatre, Mabou Mines, Village Light Opera Company, Ensemble Studio Theater, and Women’s Project & Productions. Regionally she has worked at South Coast Rep, Goodspeed Opera Company, The Alley Theatre, New York Stage and Film, Dallas Theatre Center, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Ford’s Theater, Coconut Grove Playhouse, the Huntington Theatre Company, George Street Playhouse, Portland Stage Company, and Paper Mill Playhouse. Most recent theatrical costume designs include the NYC premieres of HIM(Primary Stages); The Hereafter Musical (Theater 80); and MIKA created in answer to Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s initiative to end violence against women worldwide and presented at the Trusteeship Council Chamber at the United Nations, NYC. Ms. Snider-Stein was awarded the Bronze Medal for Costume Design at the 2005 World Stage Design International Exhibition and is a member of United Scenic Artists local 829 and USITT. She holds an MFA in Design from the Yale School of Drama and is currently Head of Costume Design and Assistant Professor of Theatre at Brooklyn College, CUNY.