John Dillon

Director, Theatre Program

Courses: Acting Shakespeare, Directing Shakespeare, Theatre Forum

B.A., M.A., Northwestern University. M.F.A., Columbia University (Danforth and Woodrow Wilson Fellow). Associate director of Tokyo’s Institute of Dramatic Arts (where his productions have twice won Japan’s highest theatre award) and serves on the editorial board of the Kennedy Center’s Opening Stages magazine. Former artistic director of the Milwaukee Rep (during his sixteen-year tenure launched innovative exchanges with theatre companies in Mexico, Russia, Ireland, Chile, Japan, and England). Former board member of the Theatre Communications Group and the Executive Committee of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers; former panelist for the NEA and the U.S.-Mexico Fund for Culture. Former senior contributor to American Theatre magazine and, for seven years, artist-in-residence at the North Carolina School of the Arts. Staged productions at leading theatres in England, Russia, Japan, and Egypt and has directed new works by such noted playwrights as David Mamet, Romulus Linney, Larry Shue, Y York, Anthony Clarvoe, Joanna Glass, Ariel Dorfman, David Rambo, and Amlin Gray. Staged productions at over two dozen of the country’s leading regional theatres, including Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre, D.C.’s Arena Stage, Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, New Haven’s Long Wharf, the Missouri Rep, Seattle’s ACT Theatre, Chapel Hill’s PlayMakers Rep, Syracuse Stage, the Georgia Shakespeare Festival, the Seattle Children’s Theatre, the Berkeley Rep, and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (where his staging of WITwon him a Backstage West Garland Award). SLC, 2004-

Ernest H. Abuba

Courses: Creating a Role

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. 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, The Singer in 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. Collaborated/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, Bill Cosby Show, Kung Fu. Director/ screenwriter: Mariana Bracetti, Arthur A. Schomburg, Asian American Railroad Strike, Iroquois Confederacy, Lilac Chen-Asian American Suffragette, and Osceola produced by PBS/CBS. Voice of His Holiness the Dalai Lama on the audiobook The Art of Happiness.SLC, 1995-

Edward Allan Baker

Courses: Baker Workshop, Playwrights at Play, Stage(play) to Screen(play), The Art of Characterization

University of Rhode Island. A published and frequently produced New York City playwright/screenwriter whose plays are produced all over the U.S. and Europe. Has written for HBO and Showtime and received a Theatrical Excellence Award from the Ensemble Studio Theatre of New York. SLC, 1995-

Kevin Confoy

Courses: Breaking the Code, DownStage, The Play’s the Thing: Workshop for Directors

B.A., Rutgers College. Certificate, London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Graduate, the Conservatory at the Classic Stage Company, the Playwrights Horizons Directing Program. Director/producer of off-Broadway and regional productions. Former executive producer, Ensemble Studio Theatre, New York. OBIE Award for Outstanding Achievement Off-Broadway, 1994 (producer); Sloan Foundation Award for Proof! (director). Director of seven first (original) productions of published texts. SLC, 1994-

Michael Early

Courses: Acting the Poetic Text

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

June Ekman

Courses: Alexander Technique, Breath and Speech

B.A., Goddard College, University of Illinois. A.C.A.T.-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, the Netherlands; dancer, Judson Dance Theater, Alwin Nikolais, Anna Halprin, and others; direction and choreography off-Broadway; appeared in Innovation(PBS), the Off-Off Broadway Review Award, 1995-1996. SLC, 1987-

Christine Farrell

Associate Administrator

Courses: Comedy Styles and Performance, Comedy Workshop

B.A., Marquette University. M.F.A., Columbia University. One-year Study Abroad—Oxford, England. Actress, playwright, director. Has appeared for the last nine seasons as Arlene 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. Has directed in colleges as well as off-Broadway and was the artistic director and co-founder of the New York Team for TheaterSports. Has performed in comedy improvisation throughout the world. SLC, 1991-

Peter Jay Fernandez

Courses: Contemporary Scene Study

BFA, Boston University, School for the Arts. Acting work: (Broadway),'The Merchant of Venice', 'Jelly's Last Jam', 'Henry IV', 'Julius Caesar'. (Off Broadway), more than twenty productions; Public Theatre, Second Stage, Playwright's Horizons, Classic Stage Co., New Federal, La Mama, B.A.M, Delacorte etc. (Regional), Long Wharf, Arena Stage, Seattle Rep, Old Globe, Milwaukee Rep, Alliance, Williamstown, Goodman, Cincinnati Playhouse, Cleveland Playhouse, ACT,Seattle, Hartford Stage and more. Numerous Independent, Feature and Episodic appearances. SLC, 2006-

Amlin Gray

Courses: Gateway to Theatre: History and Histrionics: The Theatre Through Time, Playwrights at Play, The Profession of Dramaturge, Defiant Acts: Trends and Singularity in Latin American Theatre

Graduate of the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, New York (Richard Burton Scholarship, ADAM Award). Professional course, Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London. His plays, which include How I Got That Story, The Fantod, Wormwood, Kingdom Come, and Mickey’s Teeth, have been produced throughout the United States and in Canada, England, Scotland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan; won an OBIE Award and fellowships with the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts; translated plays and other writings from Spanish, German, French, and Greek and wrote texts, in company collaboration or independently, for performance by the London Mime Theatre, the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, the Eureka Theatre (San Francisco), Steptanz Theater Basel, and Noche Flamenca (Madrid and New York); playwright in residence at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater for seven years and dramaturge of Berkeley Repertory Theatre for two; currently a member of the Dramatists Guild, an alumnus of New Dramatists, and former board member for Theatre Communications Group and the Dramatists Play Service; as a freelance dramaturge, worked with the Midland Playwrights Conference on new plays and productions with the Huntington Theatre (Boston) and Atlanta’s Georgia Shakespeare Festival. SLC, 2005-

Dan Hurlin

Courses: Composition A, B, Dance Making, Invention, Projects, Puppet Central

B.A., Sarah Lawrence College. Performances in New York at Dance Theater Workshop, P.S. 122, La MaMa E.T.C., Danspace, The Kitchen, St. Ann’s Warehouse, and at alternative presenters throughout the U.S. and the U.K.; 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 (a.k.a. “Bessie”) Award for Everyday Uses for Sight, Nos. 3 & 7; recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts 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; 2002-2003 Guggenheim fellowship. Recipient of the Alpert Awardin the Arts for Theater, 2004. Former teacher at Bowdoin, Bennington, Barnard, and Princeton. SLC, 1997-

Shirley Kaplan

Director, Theatre Outreach

on leave second semester

Courses: Acting Conference, Making New Work: Painter’s Theatre, Methods of Theatre Outreach, New Musical Theatre Lab

A.A., Briarcliff College. Diploma in Sculpture and Painting, Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, Paris. Playwright, director, and designer with productions throughout the U.S. and Europe; co-founder, OBIE Award-winning Paper Bag Players; founder, The Painters’ Theatre; directing credits include Ensemble Studio Theatre One-Act Marathons, Playwrights Horizons, UBU Repertory, La MaMa E.T.C., Ensemble Studio Theatre, Music Theatre Group, New York Performance Works, Zipper Theatre; guest director/playwright, Festival St. Archan-gelo, Italy; writer/lyricist, Rockabye (documentary for the March of Dimes); winner, Golden Camera Award, U.S. Industrial Film and Video Festival, 1990; directed new works by Richard Greenberg, Jane Willis, Stuart Spencer, Cassandra Medley, Leslie Lyles, Eduardo Machado, Denise Bonal, Keith Reddin, and Arthur Giron; finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for The Connecticut Cowboy; playwright, The Dream Box, Neon, Floating Cathedral, and many others; designer for all of Ben Bagley’s Cole Porter Shows, U.S. and European tours; created interactive theatre workshops for The Kitchen and New York City museums; arts educator with Connecticut Commission on the Arts Project Create; past faculty at Barnard College and guest artist at colleges throughout the U.S.; developed original ensembles on major arts grants; recipient of the Westchester Arts Council Award in Education 2003 and Excellence Award, the Ensemble Studio Theatre (2003); developed Theatre Outreach Programs within the Yonkers schools (1975); worked with senior centers teaching groups; was one of the designers of the Fairfield, Conn., Children’s Museum in 1986 and the Bronx Heritage Museum in 1988; has conducted workshops with teachers in media and curriculum throughout the U.S. and Europe training theatre artists for in-school residencies. SLC, 1975-

Woodie King, Jr.

Courses: Global Theatre: Africa and the Black Diaspora in the Caribbean and America

Will-0-Way School of Theatre, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; Lehman College, New York; MFA in directing, Brooklyn College. He is the Founder and Producing Director of New Federal Theatre in New York City. New Federal Theatre (NFT) has presented over 225 productions in its 37-year history.

Mr. King has produced and directed Off-Broadway, on Broadway in regional Theatres, and in universities across the United States. He co-produced For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf, What the Wine Sellers Buy, Reggae and The Taking of Miss Janie (Drama Critic Circle Award). His directional credits are extensive and include work in film as well as theater. He directed productions at the Cleveland Playhouse, Stage West, Virginia Museum Theatre, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse, North light Theatre, New Federal Theatre, The Ensemble Studio, Arena Stage, GeVa Theatre, American Place Theatre, Jomandi Theatre, Center Stage of Baltimore, Indiana Repertory Company, Studio Arena In Buffalo, New York Shakespeare Festival, and Crossroads Theatre Company.

He has received an Obie Award for Sustained Achievement and the Theatre Communications Group Peter Zeisler Memorial Award among other honors. He has taught at Oberlin College, Florida State University, Ohio State University, Yale, Penn State, North Carolina AT&T, Columbia, NYU, Hunter, and Brooklyn College School of Contemporary Studies. 2007-

Allen Lang

Associate Director, Theatre Outreach
Artistic Director, Theatre Program

Courses: Methods of Theatre Outreach

University of Wisconsin; B.A. Empire State College, SUNY; M.F.A. 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 and other venues; Directed plays in New York and regionally; acted in New York City and regional theatre, on television and in the 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.

Tom Lee

Courses: Design Techniques in Media and Puppetry, Scenic Design I, Scenic Design II, The Director/Designer Dialogue: From the Page to the Stage

B.F.A., 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-

Doug MacHugh

Courses: Acting for the Camera

B.A., New England College. M.F.A., 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 sixty hours of local and regional live television in Los Angeles. Film acting credits include Clean and Sober, Alien Nation, Come See the Paradise, Weird Science; television: Guiding Light, Law and Order, Cheers, Quantum Leap, LA Law, Night Court; stage: Holy Ghost, End Game, Falling Man, Platypus Rex.SLC, 2000-

Greg MacPherson

Courses: Lighting Design I, Lighting Design II, The Director/Designer Dialogue: From the Page to the Stage

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 Playsand has taught lighting design at Sarah Lawrence College since 1990. SLC, 1990-

Thomas Mandel

Musical Director

Courses: Singing Workshop

B.A., Bowdoin College, Philosophy, Electronic Music, Theory and Composition, under Elliot Schwartz and Robert Beckwith. Paul Simon Songwriting Class, '69, NYU. Taught Singing Workshop with John Braswell at Sarah Lawrence, '71-'77. Scored his musicals at SLC, Astor Place Theater, and Cafe LaMama, NYC. Composed, orchestrated, and musically directed three "rock operas" off Off Broadway and at Sarah Lawrence. The first, Joe's Opera, was twice optioned for Broadway production. The Sea of Simile was released on a full length DVD. Toured and recorded '77-'98, from Vietnam to Vienna, from New York City to Sun City, with Dire Straits, Bryan Adams, Cyndi Lauper, Tina Turner, Bon Jovi, Nils Lofgren, Little Steven, Peter Wolf, Ian Hunter/Mick Ronson, 2 former NY Dolls, Live at CBGB's, The Spinners, Shannon, John Waite, and Luciano Pavarotti. Fields of expertise: Hammond organ, rock and roll piano, synthesizer programming and sequencing, piano accompaniment, popular and progressive music of the 50's-90's. CD's of songs and instrumentals available at iTunes Store and cdBaby.com. SLC, 2000-