by Robin Gerber

Directed by Michelle Joyner

Starring Sharon Lawrence*

Lighting Supervisor
Benjamin Bosch

Sound Supervisor
David Bost

Stage Manager
Aspen Blake Jackson*

January 7-12, 2025

Produced by Beacon Artists

This production uses the Artist Engagement Services of the University Resident Theatre Association 

Laura Pates, Technical Director

Marissa Lupkas, Wardrobe

Lauren Reinhartsen, Properties

Please be aware the shotgun used in this production is not a real gun. It is a non-functioning replica. It is a replica that was specifically created to be a prop, and has no functioning parts.

Any video or audio recording of this performance by any means is strictly prohibited.

*Member, Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.

The Professional Theatre of the Department of Dramatic Art Kathryn Hunter-Williams, Chair, Vivienne Benesch, Producing Artistic Director Produced in association with the College of Arts and Sciences The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Sharon Lawrence

Katharine Graham

PlayMakers: Star-Crossed Lovers (1983), The Greeks (1983), The Three Sisters (1982).  

Broadway: Chicago Zorba (with Anthony Quinn), Cabaret (with Joel Grey), Fiddler on the Roof (with Topol).

Off-Broadway/New York: Love, Loss, and What I Wore, The Shot (United Solo Festival).

Regional: The Shot (New Jersey Rep).

Film: Middle Of Nowhere, Solace, The Lost Husband.

Television: “NYPD Blue” (3 Emmy nominations and a SAG Award); “Grey’s Anatomy” (Emmy nomination); “Shameless,” “Joe Pickett,” “On Becoming a God in Central Florida,” “Dynasty,” “Rizzoli & Isles,” “Law & Order: SVU,” “Criminal Minds.”

Education/Awards: UNC-CH, BA Journalism (Distinguished Young Alumni Award); North Carolina Wesleyan University (Honorary Doctorate in the Arts, Distinguished Young Women of America NC participant 1979); Board of Directors (SAG-AFTRA Foundation); Board of Directors (Heal The Bay Santa Monica).

Michelle Joyner

Director/Dramaturg

Michelle has been at the helm of The Shot from its earliest development phase at the Ojai Playwrights Conference. She currently lives in The Berkshires Western Massachusetts, and has helmed plays there with Shakespeare and Co., Berkshire Playwrights Lab, Great Barrington Public Theatre, and Theatre Fest. West coast: Center Stage, Santa Monica Rep, Greenlight Productions, and LA Women’s Shakespeare Co. Internationally: The Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She is an accomplished stage and screen actor with a long career and has written studio screenplays. She is a proud member of SAG-AFTRA, AEA, WGA, and DG. Michelle is also a member of Berkshire Voices Playwrighting Group. She writes the column You Can Go Home Again for the Berkshire Edge, and leads The Long Table, a woman’s writing group.  www.michellejoyner.com

Robin Gerber

Playwright

Robin Gerber is a powerful speaker, best-selling author, and historian. She has appeared on CNN, the History Channel and Biography Channel, as well as The PBS Newshour, CBS and FOX.  Her articles have appeared in USA Today, the Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and numerous other newspapers and magazines. Robin has been a Senior Faculty member at the Institute for Management Studies, where she taught her popular course on Authentic Leadership. She is a former Senior Fellow at the Gallup Organization and at the James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland. Robin is the author of the bestseller, Leadership the Eleanor Roosevelt Way: Timeless Strategies from the First Lady of Courage (Penguin/Portfolio). Her book about the founder of Mattel, Ruth Handler, shown in the Barbie movie, is being made into a television production! Barbie and Ruth: The Story of the World’s Most Famous Doll and the Woman Who Created Her (Harper/Collins).  

www.robingerber.com

A Note From The Playwright

As a feminist and activist, I have always written about women. As historian Arthur Schlesinger said, “Women are the most spectacular casualty of history.” Through my biographies, and my novel about Eleanor Roosevelt running for president (if only), I have tried to move women’s stories out of obscurity. I have tried to untangle the secret, messy, and frightening threads of our lives. I based my first play, The Shot, on my book about Katharine Graham and that part of her life that is hard to look at and understand. Katharine was an abused wife, derided in public, and beaten in private by her husband, Phil Graham, the man who had inherited The Washington Post newspaper from Katharine’s father. After the book was published, I couldn’t stop thinking about the abuse that preceded her famous role as publisher, and that plagues so many women’s lives. I decided to explore intimate partner violence, and interviewed many women survivors. Those interviews and other research informed this imagined story of Katharine Graham’s life inside an abusive marriage. The Shot is a story for this moment. The #metoo movement focus on harassment and abuse outside the home must look inside as well. The first refuge for sexism and misogyny is the treatment of women as objects for abuse. If we can be abused with impunity, we can be paid less, denied opportunity, and control over our bodies. I dream of The Shot playing a role in holding the focus on abuse, empowering women who are abused, and giving the rest of us a window into an abused woman’s soul.

Katharine Graham, publisher of The Washington Post, won a Pulitzer Prize for her courage in revealing the Pentagon Papers. She forced a president to resign after uncovering his abuse of office in the Watergate scandal. She was the first female CEO of a Fortune 500 Company, and she was a survivor of domestic abuse.

This is a work of fiction drawn from the life of Katharine Graham based on Robin Gerber’s book, Katharine Graham: The Leadership Journey of an American Icon.

Administration

Vivienne Benesch, Producing Artistic Director

Artistic

Jeff Aguiar, Director of Engagement
Tracy Bersley, Movement Coach/Choreographer
Chelsea James, Associate Producer
Tia James, Vocal Coach
Gregory Kable, Dramaturg
Jacqueline E. Lawton, Dramaturg
Mark Perry, Dramaturg
Gwendolyn Schwinke, Vocal Coach
Lexi Silva, Dramaturgy Fellow
Adam Versényi, Dramaturg
Andrew Wade, Assistant to Producing Artistic Director

Management

Lenore Field, Special Events Coordinator
Lisa Geeslin, Accountant
Charisse Holloway, Admin Support Specialist
Emily N. Kelly, General Manager
Zoë Lord, Company Manager
Maura J. Murphy, Director of Operations
Ella Hawn, Work Studies

Marketing & Audience Services

TJ Carr, Graphic Designer and Marketing Associate
Rebecca Edmonds, Audience Services Associate
Hannah LaMarlowe, Marketing Specialist
Thomas Porter, Box Office Manager
Rosalie Preston, Director of Marketing & Sales
Jenna Zottoli, Audience Services Manager
Ava Lytle, Cora Willis, Student House Managers
Aryan Kale, Database Assistant
Micah Kennel, Student Box Office Manager
Albert Carlson, Alicia Norman, Sophie Taylor, Maggie Thornton, Student Assistants
Swetha Anand, Lynlee Collins, Kali Dao, Tygia Drewhowell, Evan Jeppson, Gali Jones-Valdez, Lindsay Kanipe, Alex Lankford, Leah Page, Kas Perez, Watson Pope, Dani Urgiles, Ava Wells, Box Office and Front of House Work Studies

Department of Dramatic Art

Kathryn Hunter-Williams, Chair and Associate Professor

FACULTY

Judy Adamson, Professor Emerita 
Milly Barranger, Professor Emerita
Vivienne Benesch, Professor of the Practice
Tracy Bersley, Associate Professor
Pamela Bond, Assistant Professor
James Bray, Teaching Assistant Professor
Jan Chambers, Professor
McKay Coble, Professor
Jeffrey Blair Cornell, Associate Chair, Teaching Professor
Ray Dooley, Professor Emeritus
Samuel Ray Gates, Associate Professor
Julia Gibson, Professor
Douglas Hall, Associate Professor
David Hammond, Professor Emeritus
Rachel Hynes, Teaching Assistant Professor
Letitia James, Assistant Professor 
Gregory Kable, Teaching Professor
Jacqueline E. Lawton, Associate Professor
Triffin Morris, Professor of the Practice
David Navalinsky, Professor
Bobbi Owen, Distinguished Professor Emerita
Laura Pates, Teaching Assistant Professor
Kathy Perkins, Professor Emerita
Mark Perry, Teaching Associate Professor
Rachel E. Pollock, Lecturer
Bonnie Raphael, Professor Emerita
Michael Rolleri, Professor
Gwendolyn Schwinke, Assistant Professor
Lexi Silva, Dramaturgy Fellow
Aubrey Snowden, Teaching Assistant Professor
Craig Turner, Professor Emeritus
Adam Versényi, Professor 
Tao Wang, Assistant Professor

Administration

Weston Barker, Program Specialist
Lucas Branch, KTC Technical Director
Jocelyn Chatman, Costume Inventory Specialist
Lisa Geeslin, Accounting Technician
Taylor McDaniel, Student Services Manager
Karen Rolleri, Business Coordinator
Sarah Tackett, Business Officer

Production

Michael Rolleri, Production Manager

Costumes

Amy Evans, Costume Shop Manager
Marissa Lupkas, Wardrobe Supervisor
Matthew Mallard, Assistant Costume Director
Triffin Morris, Costume Director
Rachel Pollock, Costume Craftsperson
Manda Apony-Moriarty, Jillian Gregory, Kris Kingsolver, Jessica Land, Bailey Mae Doran, Zachery Morrison, Sally Rath, Costume Production Graduate Students
Ellie Steever, First Hand/Stitcher
Katherine Craig, Leah Schraff, Costume Shop Work Study
Arcadia Hilton, Clara “Hock” Hockenberry, Undergraduate Assistants
Natasha Harm, Wardrobe Assistant Work Study

Lighting

Benjamin Bosch, Electrics Supervisor
Nick Rodgers, Production Swing for Lighting & Sound
Alex Mitropoulos, Work Study
Mauridi “Simba” Masumbuko, Undergrad Assistants

Props

Lauren Reinhartsen, Properties Supervisor
Sam Gainer, Props Artisan Leah Jarrell, Props Undergraduate Assistant
Ava Casey, Cami Crocker, Lydia McRoy, Evan Wilker, Work Studies

Stage Management

Aspen Blake Jackson, Stage Manager
Sarah Smiley, Stage Manager
Sarah Patisaul, Production Assistant

Sound

David Bost, Sound Supervisor
Jayden Alexander Peszko, Undergrad Assistant
Nubia Orellana, Work Studies

Scenic

Brandon “Bruce” Hearrell, Production Carpenter
Gwendolyn Van Denburg, Alec Westmoreland, Production Carpenters
Corrinne LaVergne, Scenic Artist
Laura Pates, Technical Director
Diane Zimmerman, Scenic Charge Artist
Rachel Van Namen, Joel Ernst, Benjamin Fink, Roark, Technical Production Graduate Students
Gabrielle Hall, Kee Meh, Charlene Nguyen, Gabrielle Shulikov, Veta “Koa” Torres, Scenic Painting Work Studies
Connor Gould,  Laurel Everett,  Enoch Joo, Ian McDuffie, Kathryn Ouyang, Danielle Mou, Carpentry Work Studies

PlayMakers’ Resident Acting Company

Jim Bray
Jeffrey Blair Cornell
Samuel Ray Gates
Julia Gibson
Kathryn Hunter-Williams
Tia James
Gwendolyn Schwinke

Professional Actor Training Program:

Reez Bailey
Matthew Donahue
Elizabeth Dye
Jadah Johnson
Nate John Mark
Mengwe Wapimewah