Theatre Faculty

BA, Marquette University. MFA, Columbia University. One-year Study Abroad, Oxford, England. Actress, playwright, director. Appeared for nine seasons as Pam Shrier, the ballistics detective on Law and Order. Acting credits include Saturday Night Live, One Life to Live; films: Ice Storm, Fatal Attraction; stage: Comedy of Errors, Uncle Vanya, Catholic School Girls, Division Street, The Dining Room. Two published plays: Mama Drama and The Once Attractive Woman. Directed in colleges as well as off-Broadway and was the artistic director and co-founder of the New York Team for TheatreSports. Performed in comedy improvisation throughout the world. SLC, 1991–

Recipient of an OBIE Award, five New York State Council on the Arts fellowships for playwriting and directing, a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship, Creative Artist Public Service Award (CAPS), Best Actor Focus Press Award, Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers (SSDC) member. Broadway: Pacific Overtures, Shimada, Loose Ends, The King and I, Zoya's Apartment, director Boris Morozov, Maly Theatre. Regional/off-Broadway roles: King Lear, Macbeth, Oberon, King Arthur, Autolycus, Chebutykin, James Tyrone, Lysander, Mishima, Caucasian Chalk Circle, director Fritz Bennewitz, Berlin Ensemble. Author of Kwatz! The Tibetan Project, Leir Rex, The Dowager Empress of China, An American Story, Eat a Bowl of Tea, Night Stalker, opera Cambodia Agonistes, all produced off-Broadway; national tours to the Cairo Experimental Theatre and Johannesburg, South Africa. Performed Butoh with Shigeko Suga in Spleen, Accade Domani by Dario Fo, and Sotoba Komachi. Film/TV: 12 Monkeys (director Terry Gilliam), King of New York, Call Me, New York Undercover, Kung Fu. Director/ screenwriter: Mariana Bracetti, Arthur A. Schomburg, Asian American Railroad Strike, Iroquois Confederacy, Lilac Chen-Asian American Suffragette, and Osceola - PBS/CBS. Voice of His Holiness the Dalai Lama on the audiobook The Art of Happiness. SLC, 1995–

BA, Rutgers College. Certificate, London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). Graduate, The Conservatory at The Classic Stage Company (CSC), Playwrights Horizons Theater School Directing Program. Director and producer, off-Broadway and regional productions. Producer/producing artistic director, SLC Theatre Program (1994-2008). Executive producer, Ensemble Studio Theatre, New York; associate artistic director, Elysium Theatre Company, New York (1990-92); Development Program director, Circle Repertory Company (Circle Rep), New York. Recipient of two grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; OBIE Award, Outstanding Achievement Off and Off-Off Broadway (producer). Nomination, Drama Desk Award, Best Revival of a Play (acting company. Director, first (original) productions of 11 published plays. SLC, 1984–

BA, The New School. Has designed sound on Broadway, off-Broadway, and regionally. Designs on Broadway include: The Constant Wife, The Good Body, Bill Maher: Victory…, Three Days of Rain (assoc.), Inherit The Wind (assoc.), Wit (national tour). Designed for the following off-Broadway: Atlantic, MTC, MCC, Playwrights Horizons, Public, Vineyard, Second Stage, NYTW, WP, New Georges, Flea, Cherry Lane, Signature, Clubbed Thumb, Culture Project, Actor’s Playhouse, New Group, Promenade, Urban Stages, Houseman, Fairbanks, Soho Rep, Adobe. Regionally: Minneapolis Children’s Theatre, Bay Street, La Jolla Playhouse, Cincinnati Playhouse, Westport Country Playhouse, Berkeley Rep, Portland Stage, Long Wharf, The Alley, Kennedy Center, NYS&F, South Coast Rep, Humana, Williamstown, Berkshire Theatre, ATF. Television; Comedy Central Presents: Slovin & Allen, NBC’s Late Fridays. Film: We Pedal Uphill. Radio: contributing producer for PRI’s Studio 360; contributor to the book Sound and Music For The Theatre. Two Drama Desk nominations; two Henry Hewes nominations. Awards: Ruth Morley Design Award. SLC, 2009–

BFA, New York University Tisch School of the Arts. MFA, Yale University School of Drama. Extensive experience off-Broadway and in regional theatre, television, and commercials; artist-in-residence, Oberlin College. SLC, 1998–

BA, Goddard College, University of Illinois. ACAT-certified Alexander Technique Teacher, 1979. Inventor of an ergonomic chair, the Sit-a-Round; taught the Alexander Technique in many venues: the Santa Fe Opera, Riverside Studios in London, Utrecht in the Netherlands; dancer, Judson Dance Theatre, Alwin Nikolais, Anna Halprin, and others; direction and choreography off-Broadway; appeared in Innovation (PBS); Off-Off Broadway Review Award, 1995-1996. SLC, 1987–

BA, Sarah Lawrence College. MFA, Yale School of Drama. Film Direction: Coach, All Saints Day (winner, best narrative short, Savannah Film Festival) Beloved. Stage Direction, Off Broadway: Still Life (MCC), Rainbow Kiss (The Play Company), The Water’s Edge (Second Stage), Pen (Playwrights Horizons), Terrorism (The New Group/The Play Company), Omnium Gatherum (Variety Arts), Where We’re Born and God Hates the Irish (both at Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre), Get What You Need (Atlantic 453), and Kid-Simple (Summer Play Festival). Regional: Romeo & Juliet, Bus Stop, The Water’s Edge, and A Servant of Two Masters at the Williamstown Theatre Festival; The Pillowman at George Street Playhouse; Hay Fever and The Price at Baltimore CenterStage; Sleuth at the Bay Street Theatre; Our Lady of 121st Street (Steppenwolf Theatre); Omnium Gatherum (Actor’s Theatre of Louisville). Artistic Director, Yale Cabaret, 1999-2000 season. Recipient of Boris Sagal and Bill Foeller directing fellowships. 2010–

Graeme Gillis: Artistic Director of Youngblood , the company of emerging playwrights at Ensemble Studio Theatre (2012 Obie Award). Director of the EST/Sloan Project, a $1.5 million program that fosters plays about science, technology, and economics. Worked as a playwright at theatres throughout the US and Canada, including EST (Youngblood, Marathon of One-Act Plays); Rattlestick; Cherry Lane; Vampire Cowboys; Williamstown Theatre Festival; Source Theatre (DC); Tarragon Theatre (Toronto). Published by Dramatists Play Service and Applause Books. Member of the Actors Studio and EST.

Founded City at Peace, Inc. in Washington, DC, in 1994, then founded and now leads City at Peace-National—a nonprofit that uses the performing arts to empower teenagers to transform their lives and communities across the United States. Directed the creation and performance of 10 original musicals written from the real-life stories of diverse groups of teens and has overseen the creation of 30 more. City at Peace now has programs in seven US cities, several communities in Israel, and in Cape Town, South Africa. Prior to his work with City at Peace, he was co-director of the Theater of Youth, a company member of the No-Neck Monster Theater Co. in Washington, D.C., a member of Impro-Etc. performing improvised Shakespeare classics in England and Scotland, and a student/performer with Ryszard Cieslak from Jerzy Grotowsky’s Polish Lab Theater. Honored as one of Tomorrow's Leaders Today by Public Allies, he also received the Hamilton Fish Award for Service to Children and Families. He and City at Peace have appeared in numerous venues across the country, including the Arena Stage, The Public Theater, “Nightline” with Ted Koppel, and HBO in a documentary on the City at Peace program. SLC 2008–

BA, Sarah Lawrence College. Performances in New York at Dance Theater Workshop, PS 122, La MaMa E.T.C., Danspace, The Kitchen, St. Ann’s Warehouse, and at alternative presenters throughout the United States and the United Kingdom. Recipient of a Village Voice OBIE Award in 1990 for solo adaptation of Nathanael West’s A Cool Million and the 2000 New York Dance and Performance (“Bessie”) Award for Everyday Uses for Sight, Nos. 3 & 7; recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, and a 2002-2003 Guggenheim fellowship and of grants from Creative Capital, the Rockefeller Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Mary Cary Flagler Charitable Trust, and the New England Foundation for the Arts. Recipient of the Alpert Award in the Arts for Theatre, 2004. Former teacher at Bowdoin, Bennington, Barnard, and Princeton. SLC, 1997–

Diploma in Sculpture and Painting, Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, Paris. Playwright, director, and designer, with productions throughout the United States and Europe; co-founder, OBIE Award-winning Paper Bag Players; founder, The Painters’ Theatre. Directing credits include Ensemble Studio Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, UBU Repertory, La MaMa E.T.C., Ensemble Studio Theatre, Music Theatre Group, New York Performance Works; guest director/playwright, St. Archangelo, Italy; directed new works by Richard Greenberg, David Ives, Leslie Lyles, Eduardo Machado, Denise Bonal, Keith Reddin, and Arthur Giron. Writer/lyricist, Rockabye. Designer, Ben Bagley’s Cole Porter Shows, US and European tours; created interactive theatre workshops for The Kitchen and New York City museums; developed original ensembles on major arts grants. Winner, Golden Camera Award, U.S. Industrial Film and Video Festival; finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for her play, The Connecticut Cowboy; recipient of Westchester Arts Council Award in Education and Excellence Award, the Ensemble Studio Theatre. Founder and codirector, Sarah Lawrence College Theatre Outreach. SLC, 1975–

BA, Empire State College (SUNY). MFA, Sarah Lawrence College. Published plays include Chimera and White Buffalo in the French Performance Journal Collages and Bricollages. Recipient of the Lipkin Playwright Award and Drury College Playwright Award. Plays produced in New York City at La Mama E.T.C. and other venues; directed plays in New York and regionally; acted in New York City and regional theatre, on television and in cult films by Michael DiPaolo. Artistic director of the Water Street Theatre Company in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. Conducted theatre and creative-writing workshops for participants of all ages in New York City, South America, and throughout the United States. SLC, 1998–

BFA, Carnegie Mellon University. Designed sets, puppets, and video animation for dance, theatre, and new opera in New York and Europe; resident artist of La MaMa E.T.C.; worked with companies in Siberia, Ukraine, Poland, Italy, and Japan; received a Jim Henson Foundation grant for his puppet epic, Hoplite Diary, and grants from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Meet the Composer (with Yara Arts Group), and the NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Designers. SLC, 2005–

BA, New England College. MFA, Sarah Lawrence College. Actor, writer, director. Taught for two years at the Universidad Nacional in El Salvador. Staff writer for Jones Entertainment and Gates Productions. Has written PSAs, commercials, industrials, documentaries, and 60 hours of local and regional live television in Los Angeles. Film acting credits include Clean and Sober, Alien Nation, Come See the Paradise, and Weird Science; television acting credits include Guiding Light, Law and Order, Cheers, Quantum Leap, LA Law, and Night Court; stage credits include Holy Ghost, End Game, Up, Down, Strange, Charmed, Beauty and Truth (director), Platypus Rex, Mafia on Prozac, North of Providence, Only You, To Kill A Mockingbird, and The Weir. SLC, 2000–

Designed lighting for hundreds of plays and musicals in New York and around the United States, as well as in Europe, Australia, Japan, and the Caribbean. Designs have included original plays by Edward Allan Baker, Cassandra Medley, Stewart Spencer, Richard Greenberg, Warren Leight, Lanford Wilson, Romulus Linney, Arthur Miller, and David Mamet. Continues to design the Las Vegas production of Penn & Teller and to work as resident designer for the 52nd Street Project. Received an American Theatre Wing Maharam Award nomination for his lighting design of EST’s Marathon of One-Act Plays and has taught lighting design at Sarah Lawrence College since 1990. SLC, 1990–

BA, Bowdoin College. Songwriting with Paul Simon, 1969, NYU; taught Singing Workshop with John Braswell at Sarah Lawrence (1971-77); scored musicals at Sarah Lawrence, Astor Place Theatre, and Cafe LaMaMa, New York City; composed, orchestrated, and musical-directed three rock operas off-off Broadway and at Sarah Lawrence. (The first, Joe’s Opera, was twice optioned for Broadway production; animated the second, The Sea of Simile, on a full-length DVD.) Toured and recorded (1977-1998) from Vietnam to Vienna, New York City to Sun City, with Dire Straits, Bryan Adams, Cyndi Lauper, Tina Turner, Bon Jovi, B-52’s, the Pretenders, Nils Lofgren, Little Steven, Peter Wolf, Ian Hunter/Mick Ronson, two former NY Dolls, Live at CBGB’s, the Spinners, Shannon, John Waite, and Pavarotti. Returned to Sarah Lawrence in 2000 to work with Shirley Kaplan, William McRee, and Thomas Young. Fields of expertise: Hammond organ, rock-and-roll piano, synthesizer programming and sequencing, piano accompaniment, popular and progressive music of the 1950s-199’s. SLC, 1971-77, 2000–

BA, Jacksonville University. MFA, Sarah Lawrence College. Co-founder and artistic director for Jacksonville’s A Company of Players, Inc.; productions with The Actor’s Outlet, Playwrights Horizons, Summerfest, and the Ensemble Studio Theatre. SLC, 1981–

Writer for film and television. Most recently produced plays include: Cell, Ensemble Studio Theatre (Dramatist Play Service, June 2011); Daughter, Ensemble Studio Theatre (Broadway Play Publishing, 2009); Noon Day Sun, Diverse City Theater Co. (Broadway Play Publishing, August 2008); Relativity, L.A. Repertory Theatre (Broadway Play Publishing, February 2008), featured in online radio broadcast and produced by Kuntu Repertory Theatre of Pittsburgh, Southern Repertory Theatre of New Orleans (2007), the Ensemble Studio Theatre (May 2006), the St. Louis Black Repertory Theatre (February 2006), and the Magic Theatre in San Francisco (June 2004). Recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts Grant in 1986 and a New York State Council on the Arts Grant for 1987; finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award in Playwrighting in 1989; winner of National Endowment for the Arts Grant in Playwrighting in 1990, the New Professional Theatre Award and the Marilyn Simpson Award in 1995, the Theatrefest Regional Playwriting Award for Best Play in 2001, the Ensemble Studio Theatre 25th Anniversary Award for Theatre Excellence in 2002, and the Going to the River Writers Life Achievement Award in 2004. Relativity won the Audelco August Wilson Playwriting Award in 2006 and was featured on Science Friday, National Public Radio; Noon Day Sun was nominated for the August Wilson Playwriting Award in 2008. Ms. Mae is one of several individual sketches that comprise the Off-Broadway musical, A....My Name is Alice, which was first produced at the Women's Project and Productions, received the Outer Crtics Drama Award in 1984, and continues to play in regional theatres across the United States. SLC, 1989–

BA, University of Kansas. Stage manager of original productions of works by Tom Stoppard, Neil Simon, Laurence Fishburne, Doug Wright, Charles Busch, Larry L. King, Ernest Abuba, and Lillian Garrett-Groag, among others. Broadway, Off Broadway, touring, dance, opera, and concert work includes productions with Manhattan Theatre Club, Circle Rep, WPA, Pan Asian Rep, Vineyard Theatre, La MaMa E.T.C., The Women’s Project, Radio City Music Hall, Carnegie Hall, and New York City Opera. Co-founder of Modern Times Theater. SLC, 1998–

Production manager for the Sarah Lawrence College Theatre program. Other production management work includes seven seasons with the Westport Country Playhouse, also Shakespeare and Company, Classic Stage Company, The Working Theatre, The Colorado Festival of World Theatre, East Coast Arts Theatre, Berkshire Public Theatre, and The Jerash Festival in Amman, Jordan. Production stage management credits include productions with the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Mabou Mines, New York Theatre of the Deaf, and Fast Folk Musical Magazine. Member of AEA. SLC, 1999–

As artistic director of advanced beginner group, work presented in New York at P.S. 122, Dance Theater Workshop, Central Park SummerStage (collaboration with John Giorno), Celebrate Brooklyn, and Symphony Space (collaboration with Laurie Anderson). Featured dancer in the works of Susan Marshall, Jane Comfort, Sally Silvers, Annie-B Parson & Paul Lazar’s Big Dance Theater, and club legend Willi Ninja; previously a member of Doug Varone and Dancers and an original member and collaborator for eight years with the Doug Elkins Dance Company. Over the past 20 years, choreographed or performed with directors Hal Hartley, Laurie Anderson, Robert Woodruff, Lee Breuer, Peter Sellars, JoAnn Akalaitis, Mark Wing-Davey, and Les Waters; recently appeared in Orestes at Classic Stage Company, choreographed The Bacchae at the Public Theater, and performed in a duet choreographed with Mikhail Baryshnikov. SLC, 2007– 

OBIE Award for Beauty’s Daughter, which she wrote and starred in at American Place Theatre. Toured extensively with the Nuyorican Poets Cafe (Real Live Poetry) throughout the United States, Europe, and Australia. Her play, Monster, premiered at New York Theatre Workshop in November 1996. Attended Sundance Theatre Festival Lab for four summers developing new plays. The Gimmick, commissioned by the McCarter Theatre, premiered on its Second Stage on Stage and went on to the Long Wharf Theatre and New York Theatre Workshop. Yellowman was commissioned by and premiered at the McCarter in a co-production with the Wilma Theater and the Long Wharf Theatre. Vintage Books and Dramatists Play Service published Yellowman and a collection of earlier work. Pulitzer Prize award finalist and Drama Desk award nominee as an actress in Yellowman, which premiered at Manhattan Theatre Club in 2002. Susan Smith Blackburn award finalist with The Gimmick in 1999 and won for Yellowman. Recipient of an NYFA grant, the Helen Merrill Emerging Playwrights award, a Guggenheim, and the 2005 Pen/Laura Pels Foundation Award for a playwright in mid-career. Won a Lucille Lortel Playwrights Fellowship in 2006. In 2007, completed a new commission, called Bones, for the Mark Taper Forum and premiered a new work, The Blue Album, in collaboration with David Cale at Long Wharf. Currently working on a play called Horsedreams and Dancefloors, as well as a memoir, Character. SLC, 2008–

BA, Brandeis University. Costume designer for Ping Chong & Company; resident designer for UBU Repertory Theatre; founding member of Yara Arts Group; extensive work in off-Broadway and experimental theatre; venues include La MaMa E.T.C., Theatre for the New City, UBU Rep, and Theatre Row, along with festivals in Kiev, Lviv, and Kharkiv, Ukraine. SLC, 1993–

MA, New York University, Video Art and Performance. BA, Northwestern University, Art History. A digital media artist working in video, film, sound, installation, interactive design and performance, Lauren is a longtime collaborator of multi-disciplinary artist Shaun Irons. Their work has been exhibited in diverse location in New York and internationally including the Brooklyn Museum, Ocularis at Galapagos, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Havana, Cuba), and was broadcast on PBS’s Reel NY. Their video design work has been seen at venues such as St. Ann’s Warehouse, The Public Theater, HERE Arts Center, PS 122, the Pompidou Center, Paris, Holland Dance Festival, the Noorderzon Festival, the Venice Biennale, and the BAM Next Wave Festival. Awards include two NYFA Fellowships, grants from the NEA, NYSCA, Jerome Foundation, the Greenwall Foundation, the Experimental TV Center, and the Asian Cultural Council, as well as residency fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo and the Tokyo Wonder Site. Lauren is a lecturer at The International Center of Photography. SLC, 2012-

BA, Adelphi University. MFA, Sarah Lawrence College. Film, television, and theatre actress; member, Robert Lewis Acting Company and Green Gate Theatre; director and actress, regional and educational theatre; University of Virginia Artist-in-Residence program; founder, In Stages theatre company; recipient of two grants from the New York State Council on the Arts; co-director of London Theatre Intersession ’88. SLC, 1985–

BFA in scene design, University of North Carolina School of the Arts. École Jacques Lecoq, Paris. Theatre work includes designing sets, puppets, and costumes and directing, choreographing, and performing. Drawn to incorporating puppetry, movement, and live music to the theatre, frequently making shows from the ground up. Work has been seen in many New York theatres, including HERE Theatre, La Mama E.S.T., P.S. 122, St. Mark’s Church, Dixon Place, and One Arm Red. Past collaborative work includes Electric Bathing, Wind Set-up, White Elephant, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, What’s inside the egg?, How I Fixed My Engine with Rose Water, and Etiquette Unraveled. As an artistic associate with the Hip Pocket Theatre in Fort Worth, Texas, designed sets and puppets for a multitude of productions over the years, presented seven collaborative theatre pieces, performed in more than 30 world premieres, and launched its Cowtown Puppetry Festival. Puppet/mask designer for New York Shakespeare Festival, Signature Theatre Company, My Brightest Diamond, Division 13, Kristin Marting, Doug Elkins, Cori Orlinghouse, Daniel Rigazzi, and various universities; puppetry associate for War Horse on Broadway. Awarded a variety of grants and awards for theatre work. SLC, 2012–

BA, Lawrence University. Author of numerous plays performed in New York and around the country, including Resident Alien (Broadway Play Publishing). Other plays include In the Western Garden (Broadway Play Publishing), Blue Stars (Best American Short Plays of 19931994), and Sudden Devotion (Broadway Play Publishing). A playwriting textbook, The Playwright’s Guidebook, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2002. Recent plays are Alabaster City, commissioned by South Coast Rep, and Judy Garland Died for Your Sins. Former literary manager of Ensemble Studio Theatre; fellow, the Edward Albee Foundation; member, Dramatist Guild. SLC, 1991–

BA, Vassar College. Postgraduate training at London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), Sonia Moore Studio, and with David Kaplan (author, Five Approaches to Acting). President and artistic director, Cygnet Productions, National Equity Theatre for Young Audiences company; leading performer, Boston Shakespeare Company; guest faculty at Storm King School, Western Connecticut State University, and Vassar College; advanced actor/combatant, Society of American Fight Directors (SAFD); winner of the Society of American Fight Directors’ 2006 Patrick Craen award; designated practitioner, Stough Institute of Breathing Coordination; certified teacher, Alexander Technique. SLC, 1991–