DEB GOTTESMAN

Co-Director

Deb Gottesman is a founder and Co-Director of The Theatre Lab. She is also a professional actress who has performed frequently at Woolly Mammoth Theatre as well as at Arena Stage, Signature Theatre, Keegan Theatre, Theater Alliance, and with the Washington Shakespeare Company, among many others. She has directed more than fifteen productions at The Theatre Lab, including Ragtime, The Crucible, The Grapes of Wrath and Jane Eyre, as well as productions for National Geographic and Catholic University’s Musical Theatre Department. Deb received her M.F.A. from Catholic University and has taught drama at the Round House Theatre, Woolly Mammoth and American University. She is a 2003 recipient of the prestigious Linowes Leadership Award for her contributions to arts education. Along with Buzz Mauro she is the founder of Center Stage Communications, a unique consulting firm specializing in the application of acting techniques to the business world. Together they are the authors of three books on applied acting: The Interview Rehearsal Book, Taking Center Stage, and The Best Answer, all published by Berkley Books, a division of Penguin Putnam.

BUZZ
MAURO

Co-Director

Buzz Mauro is a founder and Co-Director of The Theatre Lab and a Helen Hayes Award nominee who has performed with Signature Theatre, Ford's, Studio, The Shakespeare Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, and many other companies. He received his B.A. from Yale University and has an M.F.A. in Acting from Catholic University. Along with Deb Gottesman he is the founder of Center Stage Communications, a unique consulting firm specializing in the application of acting techniques to the business world. Their applied acting blog can be found at www.ActingInYourOwnBestInterest.blogspot.com. Together they are the authors of three books on applied acting:The Interview Rehearsal Book, Taking Center Stage, and The Best Answer, all published by Berkley Books, a division of Penguin Putnam.

Jeanette Buck

Jeanette Buck is a writer, director and stage manager who has taught screenwriting and directing at Ohio University for the past five years. She is the writer of There Are No Strangers, a one-woman show that premiered at Theater J in DC. Her feature film Out of Season received a theatrical release in the US, was screened internationally on the festival circuit and is available on Netflix. Her most recent short film, Lie Together, is currently on the festival circuit.

Jessica Burgess

Jessica Burgess is the founding Artistic Director of The Inkwell, Washington DC’s resource for new plays by emerging artists (www.inkwelltheatre.org). Her directing credits include productions, workshops and staged readings at Active Cultures, Actors Theatre of Louisville (Humana Festival & Apprentice Company), Adventure Theatre, Texas State University’s Black & Latino Playwrights Conference, Catalyst Theater Company, the DC Beckett Centenary Festival, Duke Ellington School of the Arts, eXtreme eXchange, Forum Theatre, Hatchery Festival, The Hub, Imagination Stage, Woolly Mammoth’s PlayGround, Rorschach Theatre, Solas Nua, Theater Alliance, Young Playwrights Theatre, and The Inkwell. She is a proud alumna of Middlebury College and the 2005 Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab, a member of the Round House Kitchen and Round House Artists’ Council, on the Board of Directors of Active Cultures, on Forum Theatre’s Artists’ Council, a co-producer of the DC Non-Equity/EMC Open Call, and a three-time recipient of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Young Emerging Artist grant.

Renee Calarco

Renee Calarco, a playwright and performer, last appeared onstage as “Jew” in Charter Theatre’s Fat Gay Jew. She has performed with Precipice Improv and WIT, and is a founding member of Dropping The Cow. Her play Short Order Stories received the 2007 Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play. Her adaptation of If You Give a Cat a Cupcake has been “Helen Hayes Recommended” and her new play The Religion Thing is scheduled for production at Theater J in January 2012. Other plays include Keepers of the Western Door and The Mating of Angela Weiss (a one-act). Short plays include Warriors, Semper Fidelis, Leaves, and Heavy Mettle. Renee is an artistic associate at First Draft/Charter Theatre and is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.

Rick Foucheux

Rick Foucheux’s credits include a twenty-six year stint in the fine theatres of Washington, DC, where his many roles include Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman at Arena Stage, Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night at the Shakespeare Theatre, Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof at the Olney Theatre Center, Claudius in Hamlet at the Folger Theatre, and Erie Smith in Hughie at the Washington Stage Guild. He is a company member at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and originated the role of the dead man, Gordon, in their premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s Dead Man’s Cell Phone. Mr. Foucheux is an artist in residence at Theater J for the 2010-11 season. He received the Helen Hayes Outstanding Lead Actor Award in 2000 for the title role in Edmund at the Source Theatre, and in 2006, for the role of Mason Marzac in Take Me Out at the Studio Theatre.

George Fulginiti-Shakar

George Fulginiti-Shakar is well known in the Washington, DC area as a music director, teacher, vocal instructor, composer and pianist. He has received a Helen Hayes Award for his music direction of Cabaret at Arena Stage, and in addition has received seven Helen Hayes Award nominations for his work on such shows as Camelot and South Pacific at Arena Stage and The Oedipus Plays at the Shakespeare Theatre. He was invited to the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center's National Music Theatre Conference as music director, and has performed extensively as music director and pianist for cabaret artists here and in New York. Mr. Fulginiti-Shakar is also on the board of the DC Cabaret Network, is a cofounder of the Alliance for New Music Theatre, and is on the faculty of the Studio Acting Conservatory.

Michael Gabel

Michael Gabel is an award-winning actor, director, talk show host, producer and educator. An accomplished stage performer; Michael has been concentrating lately on film and television. He has appeared in over 60 films and numerous television shows. He did five years of voice work for the series The Wire. He co-hosted The Morning Show with Brook Stevens on WVIE. Michael has taught acting at American University, Catholic University, Montgomery College and The Smithsonian Institution. He has been the recipient of two A.I.R Awards (Achievement in Radio-Talent Division), the 2008 Silver Award, the 2010 Silver and Gold Peer Awards, and the 2009 48-Hour Film Festival Award for Best Acting.

George Grant

George Grant made his professional theatre debut in 1979 at The Goodman Theatre in An Enemy of the People directed by Gregory Mosher. Locally he has appeared at The Shakespeare Theatre Company (with Patrick Stewart), Washington Shakespeare Company, Catalyst Theater Company, and many others. His recent forays into directing include the wildly successful Am I Black Enough Yet?, originally mounted in 2008 and remounted in 2009, for Charter Theatre Company, Bulletins from Fatland for Horizons Theatre Company, and his own adaptation of Antigone for Actor’s Repertory Theatre at The National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts, where he is a Senior Faculty Member. George has been a Visiting Professor of Theatre at Howard University and Lawrence University, and is a Master Teaching Artist for The Shakespeare Theatre Company. He holds a BA in Theatre/Drama from Lawrence and an MFA in Classical Acting from ACA.

Naomi Jacobson

Naomi Jacobson holds a Masters Degree in Acting from Temple University and has been a professional actress and teacher for the last 25 years. A Woolly Mammoth Company Member, she’s performed at The Shakespeare Theatre Company, Arena Stage, the Kennedy Center, Signature Theatre, Olney Theatre Center, Round House Theatre, as well as Arizona Theatre Company, The Goodman, Milwaukee Repertory, Delaware Theatre Co., and the Berkshire Theatre Festival. Naomi has taught acting at George Washington University, University of Maryland, Catholic University and many professional theatres in the area. She’s coached all kinds of professionals in public speaking from architects, lawyers, preachers and vice presidents of major corporations. She has received a Helen Hayes Award along with twelve nominations for her work as an actress, as well as a Lunt-Fontanne Fellowship and an Individual Artist Grant from the D.C. Arts Commission.

John Judy

John Judy is a DC area actor-writer-director who has performed on stages here as well as in Los Angeles and Chicago. His more notable credits include “Homicide: Life on the Street” and writing and performing in over 150 original sketch shows at the IO West Theatre in Hollywood. Back in DC John has taught at The Bethesda Academy of the Performing Arts and the Rockville Jewish Community Center. John is a member of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. He can next be seen in the upcoming film The Possession, a thriller from the creators of The Blair Witch Project.

Brenna McDonough

Brenna McDonough, actor and author, has 30 years' experience as a successful actor in commercials and corporate videos. She founded her own studio, On-Camera Training, in 1995. Brenna began her career in her home town of Chicago. She then worked in Los Angeles and New York before settling in the Washington, DC area. Brenna continues to work in voice-overs as well as on-camera, including various feature films shot in the DC area. She has taught her on-camera acting class at New York University and her book You Can Work On-Camera is used in several universities including George Washington U. and NCDA. She and husband John Leslie Wolfe are the parents of two children who are actively involved in theatre and on-camera careers of their own.

Paul Douglas Michnewicz

Paul Douglas is one of the founders and has recently been the Artistic Director of Theater Alliance, where he has directed 13 productions including the critically acclaimed Lazarus Syndrome, Gospel at Colonus, The Spitfire Grill and 3/4 of a Mass for St. Vivian (nominated for the Helen Hayes Charles MacArthur Award). He continues his long relationship with VSA arts, directing 18 world premier productions for the Playwright Discovery Program at the Kennedy Center, where he also directs the International Young Soloists Concert and has been the Start with the Arts Festival Director. He has directed for the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities, the Source Festival, the Chicago Humanities Festival, Madcap Players, Scena Theater and others, the Virginia Opera and the Maryland Opera Studio, and has assistant directed at The Washington Opera, Houston Grand Opera and Wolf Trap Opera. He holds an MFA from the Yale School of Drama.

Donna Migliaccio

Donna Migliaccio is a fixture on the DC theatre scene, where she has been performing for over twenty years. Most recently, she appeared as Betsy Ross in the world premiere of Liberty Smith at Ford’s Theatre. On Broadway, she portrayed Emma Goldman in the 2009 revival of Ragtime, and toured the country as General Cartwright in the 50th Anniversary Tour of Guys & Dolls. Donna is a two-time Helen Hayes Award winner and has been nominated an additional ten times for her performances in such roles as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd, Sara Jane Moore in Assassins, Abby in The Musical of Musicals, the Reciter in Pacific Overtures, Rose in Gypsy and Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance. She will portray Sister Berthe in the Olney Theatre’s upcoming production of The Sound of Music, opening November 16.

Scott Morgan

Scott Morgan is a 1991 Helen Hayes Award recipient and a 1996 nominee for Lead Actor in a Musical. He has done stage work at Arena Stage, Ford’s Theatre, The Kennedy Center, Washington Stage Guild and the Washington Jewish Theatre. Scott’s television credits include NBC, ABC, HBO and a ten-year run on Home and Garden Television. On film, he has been in several bad Hollywood movies and appears regularly in the avant-garde films of John Waters. Scott has his own media training and public speaking consultancy and most recently, he joined a Spanish/English performance group called Musica Aperta.

Dorothy Neumann

Dorothy Neumann is a pioneer in the small professional theatre circuit, having directed in the Washington area for over 33 years. She has received three Helen Hayes nominations for Outstanding Direction—for Top Girls, Johnny Bull (both Horizons productions) and Unidentified Human Remains… at Signature—and served as Artistic Director for D.C. Stage and Goosebump Theatre. An Artistic Associate at Source Theatre, Horizons and Signature, Dot has taught at The Theatre Lab for the past 16 years in addition to being an adjunct faculty member for American University and consultant for Arlington County Schools. She is a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers. Her most recent directing credit is Night Sky by Patricia Connolly for the 2011 Fringe Festival.

Elizabeth Pringle

Elizabeth Pringle is a playwright, director, actor, and arts & media producer/educator. She has written plays, musicals, opera and zarzuela adaptations, operettas, articles, poems, websites, grants, a film and more. She loves working with language and image to discover meaning and hopefully make art. She has taught emerging playwrights and actors in DC (Theatre Lab, Kennedy Center, Duke Ellington School of the Arts, Young Playwrights) and beyond. Elizabeth is also the creator/director of The Shortie Awards: International Film and News Festival, celebrating and promoting youth-made media.

Tonya Beckman Ross

Tonya Beckman Ross has appeared as an actor at Shakespeare Theatre Company, Ford's Theatre, Folger Theatre, Round House Theatre, Studio Theatre, Theater J, Charter Theatre, Taffety Punk, The Actors' Salon, Olney Theatre, and the Kennedy Center. Regional credits include Center Stage, Cleveland Play House, Cumberland Theatre, Fulton Theatre, and Purple Rose Theatre Company, among others. She has taught at Baldwin-Wallace College, Ohio University, Shepherd University, Duke Ellington School for the Arts, Everyman Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Imagination Stage, and the Cleveland Shakespeare Festival, as well as for The Theatre Lab’s Summer Acting Camp for Kids and Summer Acting Institute for Teens. Local dialect coaching credits include productions for Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Theater J, Longacre Lea, The Theatre Lab, and Constellation Theatre. Tonya holds an MFA from Ohio University’s Professional Actor Training Program and a BFA from University of Wisconsin. She is a company member of Taffety Punk Theatre Company.

Michael Russotto

Michael Russotto is a longtime Washington actor and director, who has appeared in shows on many local stages, including The Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Arena Stage, Theater Alliance, The Kennedy Center, Theater J, The Folger Theatre, MetroStage, Olney Theatre, Rep Stage and Studio Theatre. Recent roles include Yvan in Art at Signature Theatre, and Man in House of Gold at Woolly Mammoth. Michael has directed at The Actors' Theatre of Washington (cofounder), MetroStage, Source Theatre, The Washington Shakespeare Company, Studio Theatre, and The National Academy of Dramatic Arts. He is a proud member of the Woolly Mammoth Acting Company, and is also a narrator of recorded books for the Library of Congress.

Oran Sandel

As a 23-year veteran and former Artistic Director of Living Stage Theatre Company, Arena Stage’s improvisational outreach theater, Oran Sandel received national recognition working with at-risk youth and disenfranchised adults. Today, he works as a freelance consultant, teacher, writer, director and performer to keep alive the vision of Living Stage’s late founder, Robert Alexander: to demystify the creative act and remind us all that we were born to create. The last few years have seen him performing at venues such as Horizons Theater, The Washington Revels, Discovery Theater, the Library of Congress, Adventure Theatre and Creative Cauldron. Teaching credits include: The Smithsonian Associates, The Shakespeare Theatre, Center Stage, Center for Inspired Teaching, Theatre Lab, Strathmore Arts Center, Centronia and the Sitar Arts Center. Recently, he co-directed African Continuum Theatre’s outreach company, BobCo (Back on the Block Company) with fellow Living Stage veteran and African Continuum’s founder and Artistic Director, Jennifer Nelson.

Kim Schraf

Kim Schraf has performed at Arena Stage, The Kennedy Center, Studio Theatre, Ford’s, Round House, Signature, Woolly Mammoth, Everyman, Theater J, The Theatre of the First Amendment, and the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland. Credits include starring roles in Sabrina Fair and The Carpetbagger's Children at Ford's Theatre; Angels in America at Signature; Skylight and Frozen at Studio; Measure for Pleasure, Freedomland and The Gene Pool at Woolly Mammoth; and Proof and Light Up the Sky at Everyman. A graduate of St. John's College in Annapolis, she has been teaching for twenty-five years, most recently at the Parkmont School. She is also a successful narrator of audio books and a speech coach. Kim helped launch the Honors Conservatory for The Theatre Lab in 2006 and continues to serve as one of its directors.

Shirley Serotsky

Director of Literary and Public Programs at Theater J, where she directed The Rise and Fall of Annie Hall. Other recent productions include: Crumble (lay me down Justin Timberlake) and We Are Not These Hands at Catalyst Theater, References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot at Rorschach Theater (2007 Helen Hayes nomination for outstanding direction of a resident play), Sovereignty (Humana Festival of New Plays), Two Rooms (Theater Alliance), The Diary of Anna Frank (National Theater for Arts and Education), As American As and After Darwin (Journeymen Theater), Steel Magnolias (The Ice House), Powerhouse (2008 CapFringe), Cautionary Tales for Adults (2007 CapFringe), LUNCH (2007 New York Musical Theater Festival & 2006 CapFringe), Upshot (forum theater), Titus! The Musical. (Source Theatre), The Winter’s Tale (Sonnet Repertory ), The Superfriends of Flushing, Queens (Columbia University), Starlet for Sale (Expanded Arts). BFA in Directing, North Carolina School of the Arts.

Judy Simmons

Judy Simmons has been a cabaret performer and actress in Washington for many years. She has taught at American and Catholic Universities. Judy is delighted to be directing cabarets for local artists, and has directed musicals at Montgomery College, Catholic University and for the GMCW. Theatres she has worked at include: Signature, Studio, Source, Shakespeare, Cumberland, Everyman, The Kennedy Center and The Smithsonian. Her cabaret shows include: Not In Kansas Anymore, Here And Now, Get Happy, The Eccentrics, What Were We Thinking?, Much More, Sondheim Tonight! and most recently, A Date With Judy. She attended the Cabaret Conferences at Yale University and at The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. Judy is the Executive Director of the DC Cabaret Network and was the Director of Cabaret at Signature Theatre for seven years.

Deidra Starnes

Deidra LaWan Starnes is a two-time Helen Hayes Award nominee who has performed with Rep Stage, The African Continuum Theatre Company, Scena Theatre, Studio Theatre, Olney Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Cumberland Theatre, Portland Center Stage, New Federal Theatre, and the Connecticut Repertory Theatre. Credits include The Violet Hour, I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document..., Two Trains Running, Anna Lucasta, Personal History, Spunk, Blues for an Alabama Sky, Seven Guitars, and The Old Settler. Deidra has taught theatre and directed productions at Hearst Elementary School, the Bethesda Academy of Performing Arts, and Renbrook Summer Adventure Camp. She also taught theatre at the Unversity of Connecticut where she received her M.F.A. Presently she teaches at Howard University and Duke Ellington School of the Arts. Additionally, she is one of the Directors of The Theatre Lab's Summer Acting Camp for kids.

Delia Taylor

Delia Taylor has many local theatre credits, including leading roles in Happy Days, Medea, Antony and Cleopatra, and Metamorphosis and directing Twelfth Night and The Taming of the Shrew for Washington Shakespeare Company. She is on staff at Theater J and there directed world premieres of There Are No Strangers and Sleeping Arrangements. She's been a frequent guest artist at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College, Indiana, where she directed The Women and Agnes of God and played the title roles in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and The House of Bernarda Alba. She is proud of her twelve-year association with The Theatre Lab, which has given her the opportunity to co-teach with her mother Creating a Role (Othello, Electra, The Way of the World and Our Town).

MaryBeth Wise

MaryBeth Wise is an actor, teacher and narrator of audio books. Her acting credits include Frozen at The Studio Theatre Secondstage, The Importance of Being Earnest at Arena Stage, The Mineola Twins at Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Midwives with Roundhouse Theatre, Perfect Pie and Piaf with Potomac Theatre Project, Vita and Virginia at Rep Stage, and numerous productions at Olney Theatre including Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker (Helen Hayes Award Nomination). She has performed with The Shakespeare Theatre, Ford's Theatre, The Kennedy Center, and The Folger Theatre. MaryBeth has toured nationally with the Kennedy Center and the National Players, and internationally with Music Tours, Inc. and USIA. She narrates audio books for the Library of Congress, received her BA from Barry University in Miami and holds an MFA in Acting from The Catholic University of America.