Each year the Directors Lab West is host to numerous GUEST ARTISTS who collaborate with us to make each year’s event special. Our core STEERING COMMITTEE runs the lab and selects each year’s participants. We also are lucky enough to have devoted PRODUCTION COORDINATORS & LAB INTERNS through the years.
THE STEERING COMMITTEE
Click photo for website
CHE’RAE ADAMS started her career in the Entertainment Industry as an actor at the early age of ten years old. She experimented with directing in college and has been developing and directing new work ever since. She has been the Producing Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Writers Center since 2007 where she develops new scripts with local writers. She has also been a Development Executive for Playhouse Pictures studios, Co-Artistic Director of the Road Theatre Company, and has worked in theatre, film and television in Los Angeles for over 15 years.
Focusing primarily on developing and directing new work, Che’Rae was in the development department at Showtime Networks, and the Canadian based Alliance/Atlantis Film & TV. Before she worked in film and TV, she assisting the Staff Producer at The Mark Taper Forum where she worked on the writing workshop of the Pulitzer Prize winning Angels in America, Part II: Perestroika. Also for the Taper, she coordinated the 1991 Taper Lab Series and Mentor Playwright’s series where she directed the first reading of Alice Tuan’s critically acclaimed Dim Sums. During her early training period in the theatre, she assisted many prominent directors including Tom Hulce and Jane Jones on the premiere of another Pulitzer Prize winner, The Cider House Rules, at The Seattle Repertory Theatre; David Saint on Travels With my Aunt, also at SRT; Steven Hollis on the premiere of Tennessee William’s Notebook of Trigorin, starring Lynn Redgrave at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park; and John DiFusco on both the 10th and 20th anniversary productions of Tracers.
Che’Rae has directed the West Coast premiere productions of several new plays including Chesapeake, by Lee Blessing for Venice Theatre Works; Freak of Nature by Ken Hanes at The Road Theatre Company; Back Bar by Steve Simon and Jose Gregorio by Patricia Cardosa, both at the Lee Strasberg Theatre; Fixing Frank by Ken Hanes at the Celebration Theatre; Pandora’s Trunk by Blaine Teamer at LATC starring Kim Fields and at the National Black Theatre Festival starring Tanya Pinkins; she co-authored and directed Fish Stories, which premiered at the HBO Workspace and went on to the Duplex Cabaret in New Yor.; From Bonkers to Botox, at the Stella Adler Theatre & Aspen Comedy Festival; Nothing to See Here at the Comedy Central Space staring “Reno 911” star Carlos Alazraqui; Flying Standby at The John Anson Ford Theatre; Tender for The Syzygy Theatre Company; and Walkin’ Thru The Fire at the Hayworth Theatre. She has also directed for Cincinnati Opera Outreach, Disney/ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop, Highways Performance Space, and the Los Angeles Theatre Festival.
Che’’Rae has taught acting and writing workshops at various institutions such as The Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Catholic University, Miami Dade University, California State University, Fullerton, UCLA Extension, and The Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival. She has also been a presenter for the Director’s Lab West which is an annual event at the Pasadena Playhouse. In addition, Che’Rae has served on the Board of Directors for several theatre organizations such as The Road Theatre Company, The Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival, and Venice Theatre Works.
She has an MFA in directing from The University of Cincinnati, College Conservatory of Music and a BA from California State University, Northridge.
In 2009 she returned to her acting roots by playing Gladys Presley in the new Cirque du Soleil show Viva Elvis. She currently resides in Los Angeles and is preparing to direct the premiere of Jon Bastian’s new play Strange Fruit with the Syzygy Theatre Group later this year.
JESSICA BARD has been involved with the Directors Lab West since 2002, originally as the Production Coordinator and recently as a Steering Committee member. She has lived and worked in Los Angeles as a Director, Stage Manager, Producer and Teaching Artist since 2001. She has served as the Associate Artistic Director for The Virginia Avenue Project, an after-school arts mentoring program. At the Project she has taught acting classes, mentored kids in Playwriting classes, tutored, directed, produced, and stage-managed. Directing Projects: Peace in Our Time (Antaeus), Learning How to Drive (Pacific Resident Theater), ‘night Mother (Miles Playhouse) Cousin Bette (Assistant Director, Antaeus), Fiction and Collected Stories (Pacific Stages), Pinup (EastWest Players), Red
River Valley (Boston Court), [sic] for Project 601, and co-produced and co-directed Dime, a Director’s Festival. She has also been a teaching artist for Center Theatre Group’s Performing for Los Angeles Youth’s (P.L.A.Y.) program, and Pasadena Playhouse’s Allies in Art program. She received her B.A. in Theater from Hampshire College. Her current project is being a mom to her infant daughter, Penelope.
Click photo for website
ERNEST FIGUEROA has been a dedicated director, producer, actor and playwright in theatre, film and television throughout the country. As a founding director of Directors Lab West, he has served on the Steering Committee from 2000 to the present which now boasts over 300 alumni. He was a member director and presenter for the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab in New York in 1998 and 1999. He directed the New York premiere of Dos Corazones representing the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab Festival @ HERE in New York. Since 2008 Figueroa has served as Producer at the state-of-the-art Broad Stage, a 541-seat presenting house located at the new Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center. There he assists on the programming and coordinates production of the season that includes notable artists in the fields of opera, jazz, choral, chamber and orchestral music, theatre and dance. He served as Artistic Director of The Group Rep at the Lonny Chapman Theatre in North Hollywood from 2009- 2010 and as a Director and performer with the second longest running show in Los Angeles, the American Girl Revue from 2004-2006. He was the Associate Artistic Director for the Sacramento Theatre Company from 1996 – 1998 where he also served as casting director and literary manager. Previously, he worked as the national Education Director for Plays for Living, Inc. in New York City and worked twice on the professional staff of the Pasadena Playhouse. He currently works as a Director and Producer with Bonnie Franklin’s outreach program, C.C.A.P. – Classic and Contemporary American Plays. With C.C.A.P. he has directed a large variety of staged-readings including All My Sons starring Ms. Franklin, A Touch of the Poet starring David Birney, Death of a Salesman starring Michael Gross, and Broadway Bound with Harold Gould. In 2001, he was honored as a Drama League Fellow serving as the Associate Director on Blue starring Phylicia Rashad, first working on the production at the Roundabout Theatre Company in New York, then working on the production at the Pasadena Playhouse, finally guiding the play onto the Arizona Theatre Company, Coconut Grove in Florida, and the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey starring Leslie Uggams. His award winning productions include Oleanna at the Third Street Theatre and The Effect of Gamma Rays . . . at the Alternative Repertory Theatre. He has launched two active Improv companies, “Loose Screws” in Hawaii and “Metro North Improv” in Connecticut. Figueroa won the ’96 W.A.V.E. award for his talk show “Adelante!” featuring Hispanic role models. He received his Masters of Fine Arts in Directing from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and his Bachelor of Arts in Speech and Theatre Education from McPherson College in Kansas. His professional training includes improvisation studies at the Groundlings School in Los Angeles and studies at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Figueroa is a Member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.
Click photo for website
BRENDON FOX is a consultant and former Associate Producer for L.A. Theatre Works, directing many acclaimed radio plays for NPR as well as numerous national tours. He has worked as Associate Director at the Tony Award-winning Old Globe Theatre in San Diego for seven years. Regional directing credits include: The learned Ladies, Texas Shakespeare Festival; Opus and Angels in America, Playmakers Repertory Theatre; the L.A. premiere of The Lady With All The Answers, Pasadena Playhouse; As You Like it, Weston Theatre Company; Assassins, University of Northern Colorado. Upcoming projects include Opus at Portland Center Stage. Mr. Fox has taught and/or directed students at the University of Evansville, University of North Carolina, The Old Globe/University of San Diego Professional Actor Training Program, the Academy of Classical Acting. He holds a BS in Performance Studies at Northwestern University and an MFA in Directing at UCLA. Reviews, pictures, and a more extensive bio can be found at www.foxdirector.com.
Click photo for website
CINDY MARIE JENKINS is a Storyteller and Online Outreach Consultant based in Los Angeles. Her theatrical work often fuses with community outreach, often as Resident Artist at The Indy Convergence & Associate Artist for A Committee of One, a nonprofit company committed to connecting artists with the means and support to fulfill their vision. Current projects are the premiere of Phantoms Go Down by Ariel Shepherd-Oppenheim, MYTHistories: the mythology of history (seeking collaborators)& The Blue Dragon Scribe Shoppe. Cindy is a member of the Los Angeles Writers Center and the LA FPI (Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative.
As an Outreach Consultant, Cindy works with nonprofits and community organizations to strengthen their online capacity and engage target audiences. She’s worked as a teaching artist, running arts education and professional development programs at LAUSD. Cindy became obsessed with outreach while working in the Wild West of LA Theatre and the city of Los Angeles neighborhood councils. She volunteers as Community Consultant for a new school celebrating arts integration, is Outreach Chair for the Atwater Village Neighborhood Council and wrote an Awareness project that raises money for the children of Chernobyl through interactive theatre. Cindy regularly contributes to publications such as ArtJob (Arts For LA), LA Stage Times, Atwater Village Now, The Inspired Classroom, and LAFPI as well as covering Art For Social Good. She’s presented her workshop, “Self-Promoting Without Annoying Your Friends” and “Finding Your Online Voice” at various community and professional development seminars. Clients include entrepreneurs, nonprofit schools for special needs, and arts organizations specializing in social good such as The Global Theatre Project.
Click phot for Linked In profile
KAPPY KILBURN recentlyserved for four years as the Associate Director of Artistic Development at Pasadena Playhouse where she created and produced their new play development program “Hothouse at the Playhouse.” Under her watch, Hothouse launched numerous projects which have gone on to successful runs around the world including Ray Charles Live! (opening on Broadway in 2011 as Unchain My Heart), Sister Act the Musical (West End, London; Broadway in 2011), Looped (Broadway), Night is a Child (produced as well at Milwaukee Rep), Hollywood Arms (a tribute workshop with Carol Burnett to explore adaptation into a musical), and Number of People (with Ed Asner.) Through Hothouse, she artistically and dramaturgically aided over 30 new plays and musicals.
Producer: Pal Joey revision workshop for Peter Schneider Productions; Stephen Sondheim’s 75th: The Concert at the Hollywood Bowl; NEA’s Shakespeare in Los Angeles kick off event at the Mark Taper Forum; All About Gordon Farewell Gala for Gordon Davidson. Kappy was the Special Projects Coordinator for Center Theatre Group’s Founding Artistic Director Gordon Davidson; the Company Manager for The World of Nick Adams celebrity staged reading benefiting Paul Newman’s Hole in the Wall Gang Camps at the Kodak Theatre; the Production Stage Manager for Relentless Theatre Company; Production Coordinator at George Mason University’s Institute of the Arts; and Assistant to the Managing Director at Theatrical Outfit in Atlanta, Georgia.
Director: 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Cape Fear Regional Theatre), Scarcity (Need Theatre – LA Times Critics Choice), Painting Churches (Group Rep), Psycho Beach Party (Chapman University), Safe (Circus Theatricals – LA Times Critics Choice), Isn’t It Rich – A Sondheim Celebration (Pasadena Playhouse), Shh! Art!, Work and Hindsight (Hothouse at the Playhouse), ABC’s Diversity Showcase, Three Hotels (Freemont Center Theatre), The Man Who Could See Through Time (Balcony Theatre at the Pasadena Playhouse), Romancing Stereotypes (LATC), Fast and Furious at Sacred Fools, multiple AMDA Showcases, Burn This (Corner Playhouse), All My Sons for Directors Lab West. Assistant Director: Mark Taper Forum: Frank Galatti (Homebody/Kabul by Tony Kushner, also at BAM), Gordon Davidson (The Talking Cure by Christopher Hampton), Lisa Petterson (Body of Bourne by John Belluso), Diane Rodriguez (The Lalo Project); Kirk Douglas Theatre: Scott Ellis (The Little Dog Laughed); Ahmanson: Sir Peter Hall (Romeo & Juliet), Lynne Meadow (Tale of the Allergists Wife and National Tour); Kansas City Rep’s Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure as Associate to David Ira Goldstein. She has worked with David Esbjornson on Broadway (Bobbi Boland) and Off Broadway (My Old Lady by Israel Horovitz).
She is a Founder and Co-Producer for Directors Lab West, a spin off of Lincoln Center Theater’s Directors Lab in NY of which she is an alumna. Kappy is a graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia, proud Kappa Kappa Gamma and Associate Member of SDC.
____
ANNE CATTANEO (Honorary Chair), is the dramaturg of Lincoln Center Theater and the creator and head of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors’ Lab. A three term past president of Literary Mangers and Dramaturgs of the Americas, she is the recipient of LMDA’s first Lessing Award for lifetime achievement of dramaturgy. She has worked widely as a dramaturg on classical plays with directors such as James Lapine, Robert Wilson, Adrian Hall, Robert Falls, Mark Lamos and JoAnne Akalaitis. As the director of the Playworks Program at the Phoenix Theater during the late 1970′s, she commissioned and developed plays by Wendy Wasserstein (Isn’t It Romantic) Mustapha Matura (Meetings) and Christopher Durang (Beyond Therapy). For the Acting Company, she created two projects: Orchards(published by Knopf and Broadway Play Publishing) which presented seven Chekhov stories adapted for the stage by Maria Irene Fornes, Spalding Gray, John Guare, David Mamet, Wendy Wasserstein, Michael Weller and Samm-Art Williams, and Love’s Fire (published by William Morrow) responses to Shakespeare sonnets by Eric Bogosian, William Finn, John Guare, Tony Kushner, Marsha Norman, Ntozake Shange and Wendy Wasserstein. Her own translations of 20th Century German playwrights include Brecht’s Galileo (Goodman Theater 1986 starring Brian Dennehy) and Botho Strauss’ Big and Little (Phoenix production starring Barbara Barrie, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.) She is currently on the faculty at Juilliard.
