Passion Play by Sarah Ruhl

The Creative Team

LUCINDA COXON (Playwright)

has worked at The Bush Theatre, Soho Theatre, The Royal Court Theatre, and the National Theatre in London; and in the US at South Coast Repertory, Magic Theatre, and Ohio Theatre in New York. Her plays include Waiting at the Water’s Edge, Wishbones, Three Glances, The Ice Palace, Nostalgia, Vesuvius, I Am Angela Brazil by Angela Brazil, The Shoemaker’s Incredible Wife, and Happy Now?. Her screenplays include Spaghetti Slow, The Heart of Me, Lilacs, and Wild Target which is currently shooting in the UK in September starring Bill Nighy. She has just finished work on The Danish Girl, a screen adaptation of David Ebershoff’s novel, and is currently writing a new play, Persistent Illusions, for the National Theatre. Back to top.

liz diamond (Director)

is a Resident Director at Yale Repertory Theatre and serves as Chair of the Directing Department at Yale School of Drama. Previous Yale Rep productions include the world premiere of Marcus Gardley’s dance of the holy ghosts: a play on memory; Richard Nelson’s translation of Strindberg’s Miss Julie; Sunil Kuruvilla’s Fighting Words (American premiere) and Rice Boy (world premiere); Seamus Heaney’s The Cure at Troy; Paul Schmidt’s translations of Molière’s The School for Wives and Brecht’s St. Joan of the Stockyards; and the world premieres of Suzan-Lori Parks’s The America Play (also at The Public Theater) and The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World. A longtime collaborator of Parks, Liz also directed the world premieres of Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third at BACA Downtown and Betting on the Dust Commander at the Working Theater. National credits include Lisa Loomer’s Distracted, Octavio Solis’s Gibraltar, and Kenneth Cavander’s translation of Euripides’ The Trojan Women (Oregon Shakespeare Festival); Racine’s Phèdre (American Repertory Theatre); and Of Mice and Men (Arena Stage). Liz is a winner of the OBIE Award and Connecticut Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Direction, and has won fellowships and grants for her work from the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Asian Cultural Council, and the SDC Foundations. She currently serves as Artistic Advisor to the Women’s Project, where most recently she directed the critically-acclaimed production of Catherine Trieschmann’s Crooked. Back to top.

SARAH PEARLINE (Scenic Designer)

is a third-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where her credits include Good Egg and Pericles. Her New York credits include The Rockae, The Uses of Enchantment (Prospect Theater Company); Buck Fever (terraNOVA Collective); Straight on ’til Morning (78th St. Theatre Lab); Never Tell (The New York International Fringe Festival); Primetime (Abington Theatre); It’s About Time (The Chocolate Factory); The Kaspar Hauser Project (American Theatre of Actors); Thicker Than Water (The Ensemble Studio Theatre Festival); Bye, Mom (Primary Stages); Clean, Sincerity Forever (Urban Stages); The Suicide and Blithe Spirit at New York University, where she received her BFA. Her regional credits include Circus Flora (National Tours, Spoleto Festival) and Cyrano de Bergerac (Hangar Theatre). Back to top.

HEIDI HANSON (Costume Designer)

is a third-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where her credits include A Month in the Country. Her other design credits include Estrella Cruz [The Junkyard Queen], WASP (Yale Cabaret); the 2008 Dwight/Edgewood Project (Yale Repertory Theatre/Yale School of Drama); Dance Theatre (Yale Dance Club, Baryshnikov Arts Center); Much Ado About Nothing (Commonwealth Classic Theatre Company); Six Characters in Search of an Author (California State University, Long Beach); and 22/7 (NSDF & Stephen Joseph Theatre). She has served as assistant designer on Scramble! (Westport Country Playhouse), L’Etoile (Wolf Trap Opera Co.), Lulu (Yale Repertory Theatre), Hurdy Gurdy (Miro Dance Company), as well as a dance photography project for Getty Images. BA, California State University, Long Beach. Back to top.

matt frey (Lighting Designer)

previously designed the lighting for Yale Rep’s productions of All’s Well That Ends Well, Landscape of the Body, and Mrs. Warren’s Profession. Recent work includes Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Corn Exchange, Dublin, Ireland), Tragedy: A Tragedy directed by Les Waters (Berkeley Repertory Theatre), Frau Margot (Fort Worth Opera), Gorecki’s Symphony No. 3 (Ridge Theater and Brooklyn Philharmonic at Brooklyn Academy of Music), Tan Dun’s The Gate (also at BAM), and Bach’s St. John Passion with Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Other credits include David Lang’s opera The Difficulty of Crossing a Field (Ridge Theater), Steve Reich and Beryl Korot’s The Cave (The Barbican, London; Cité de la Musique, Paris), as well as productions in New York at The New Group, Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan Class Company, New York Theatre Workshop, Signature Theatre Company, Theatre For A New Audience, and at theatres across the US and abroad. Back to top.

DAVID BUDRIES (Sound Designer)

is the Sound Design Advisor at Yale Repertory Theatre, where his credits include the recent 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 Hartford Stage, CENTERSTAGE, McCarter Theatre, Huntington Theatre Company, Dallas Theater Center, 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. Back to top.

PAMELA PRATHER (VOCAL AND Dialect Coach)

Coaching credits at Yale Rep include Miss Julie and Fighting Words (both directed Liz Diamond), Black Snow, and The Psychic Lives of Savages. Her other regional theatre credits include the world premiere of Ken Ludwig’s An American in Paris, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, Othello (Alley Theatre); Our Town, and Othello (Hartford Stage Company). In New York: Macbeth, Mary Stuart (New York Classical Theatre); Fighting Words (Underwood Theatre); Trust (The Play Company); Living Room in Africa, Now That’s What I Call a Storm (Edge Theatre Company); Hiroshima Maiden (St. Ann’s Warehouse DUMBO); Blood Cherries (Dance Theatre Workshop); and The Winter’s Tale (Hampton’s Shakespeare Festival), as well as work at the Ellis Island Foundation, HERE Arts Center, Women of Color Festival, Six Figures Theatre Company, and Hidden Treasures Productions. Pamela serves on the acting faculty at Yale School of Drama. She received her MFA in Acting from UCLA and is certified in Fitzmaurice Voicework, Laughter Yoga, and Prana Yoga. www.pamelaprather.com Back to top.

DAVID DeBESSE (FIGHT DIRECTOR)

previously served as fight director for Yale Repertory Theatre’s productions of Black Snow and The People Next Door. Other credits include Spamalot (Broadway), Wonder of the World (Manhattan Theatre Club), Danny and the Deep Blue Sea (Second Stage Theatre), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (Goodspeed Musicals), Pericles (Red Bull Theater), Lovers and Executioners (Arena Stage), and Wait Until Dark (The Cape Playhouse). David has assisted Rick Sordelet on many productions including The Scarlet Pimpernel and Tom Sawyer on Broadway and recently served with Rick as co-fight director for the premiere production of The Toxic Avenger Musical at George Street Playhouse. David also works as a stunt coordinator for Guiding Light. Back to top.

SARAH BISHOP-STONE (PRODUCTION Dramaturg)

is a second-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama. Before coming to Yale, she worked for several years in the literary office of Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and stage managed new plays for companies such as Soho Rep (The Thugs, Everything Will Be Different), Pig Iron Theatre Company (Pay Up), Clubbed Thumb (Quail), New York Stage & Film (Quiver and Twitch), and New Dramatists. She has also worked with The Civilians, The O’Neill Playwrights Conference, and Second Stage Theatre, and is a producer and dramaturg for Nerve Ensemble. She holds a BA in English and comparative literature from Columbia. Back to top.

TARA RUBIN CASTING (CASTING)

has been casting at Yale Rep since 2004. Broadway: The Country Girl, Billy Elliot, Shrek, Guys and Dolls (upcoming), Young Frankenstein, The Little Mermaid, Mary Poppins, The Farnsworth Invention, Rock ’n’ Roll, The History Boys (US casting), Les Misérables, Spamalot, Jersey Boys, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The Producers, Mamma Mia!, The Phantom of the Opera, The Pirate Queen, Good Vibrations, Bombay Dreams, Oklahoma!, Flower Drum Song, Imaginary Friends, Metamorphoses (New York casting). Lincoln Center Theater: The Frogs, Contact, Thou Shalt Not, A Man of No Importance, Anything Goes (concert). Off-Broadway: Second Stage Theatre. Regional: Williamstown Theatre Festival; La Jolla Playhouse (New York casting); Mame, Mister Roberts, The Sondheim Celebration, and Tennessee Williams Explored at The Kennedy Center. Film: The Producers: The Musical. Members, Casting Society of America. Back to top.

amanda spooner* (stage manager)

is a third-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where she has stage managed productions including Richard III and Baal, and she currently serves as vice president of the School of Drama Student Government. Amanda served on Yale Cabaret’s 2007–08 Board of Artistic Associates, and has worked on numerous productions there. At Yale Rep, she was assistant stage manager on last season’s Boleros for the Disenchanted. Other work includes Off-Broadway and regional theatre productions, national tours, and large-scale industrial events. Originally from California, she received her bachelor’s degree in technical theatre and design from San Francisco State University. Back to top.

*MEMBER OF ACTORS’ EQUITY ASSOCIATION, UNION OF PROFESSIONAL ACTORS AND STAGE MANAGERS IN THE UNITED STATES.