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Letter from Viv. Vivienne Benesch, Producing Artistic Director

Welcome to PlayMakers and Steel Magnolias!

There are certain plays that feel like gatherings more than performances, and Robert Harling’s beloved Southern classic is certainly one of them. From the moment rehearsals started, it has felt like a room full of old friends telling stories, laughing freely (with gossip-tinged relish), building a rhythm together, and providing a sense of home for each other.

The fact that these “old friends” are also incredible artists is what you, our audience, now get to enjoy. We are honored to welcome back tv, stage, and screen star Sharon Lawrence, gracing the Paul Green stage where she first trod the boards as an undergraduate here at UNC–Chapel Hill. She’s joined by an all-star team made up of long-time company luminaries Julia Gibson and Kathryn Hunter-Williams, two fabulous young actresses from our Professional Actor Training Program, Elizabeth Dye and Caroline Marques, and wonderful guest artist Thursday Farrar, making her PlayMakers debut.

And that’s just the talent on the stage! At the helm of this home-grown production is director Lisa Rothe, who is both one of my favorite artists and humans and has a true gift for making people feel seen and understood, both on stage and off. Lisa has assembled an equally brilliant and compassionate creative team including set designer Narelle Sissons and costume designer Grier Coleman, both of whom call PlayMakers a foundational artistic home in their careers. Their’s and the other designers’ work—brought to life by our incredible production team made up of staff, faculty, and MFA students in Technical and Costume Production—have built this show with love, talent, and grit(s).

So, y’all enjoy the last entry in what has been a really wonderful season here at PlayMakers! I’m so proud of the range and scope of work that we’ve made and the stories we’ve told. I can’t wait to share all that’s ahead in our 50th Anniversary season. This production of Steel Magnolias feels like the perfect kick-off: a touch of southern comfort and a whole lot of creativity happening in your HOME for great theatre!

Warmly

Vivienne

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Here we are, the tomorrows continue to fly by, and what a show we have for you to end what has been an incredible season. We have had excellent audience turnout and want to thank you all for your support.

As we move forward to our next season, Legacy Forward, (we hope to see you again as) we take a look back at theatrical history with a view that enables us to move ahead. Live theatre continues to matter in a landscape riddled with uncertainty, and I could not be more proud of the opportunity PlayMakers provides us to reflect, feel, laugh, and to see ourselves and the world anew.

As we look to the future, we do so with gratitude and anticipation. Thank you for being part of this journey, for supporting the art, and for sharing these moments with us. We hope you’ll spread the word and bring your friends through this season and beyond, and we warmly invite you to celebrate with us at our Ball on May 2nd—an evening sure to be one to remember. While we will be honoring our 50th birthday, I would like to acknowledge Vivienne’s 10th season with the company. Her impact has been profound and PlayMakers is better for her vision and talent.

Warm wishes to you all,

Jackie Tanner, Chair

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PlayMakers Advisory Council

Jackie Tanner, Chair

Marie Andreasen, Andrea Bates, Betsy Blackwell, Patrick Brennan, Deborah Gerhardt, Susan Gross, Amy Guskiewicz, C. Hawkins, Zach Howell, Lillian Jenks, Diane Robertson Kibbe, Duncan Lascelles, Stuart Lascelles, Robert Long, emeritus, Graig Meyer, Julie Morris, Paula Noell, Jodi Patalano, Haley Swindal, Jennifer Werner-Cannizzaro, Mike Wiley, Ford Worthy

About the Author

Robert Harling was born in Dothan, Alabama in 1951. He attended Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana (the factual setting for his play’s Chinquapin Parish), later obtaining a Doctor of Law degree from Tulane University in New Orleans. Feeling unsuited to practicing law, Harling pivoted to acting, pursuing work in New York City before writing Steel Magnolias as a tribute to his younger sister Susan, who died in 1985. With the 1987 play’s phenomenal success, including a three-year run Off-Broadway, a national tour, a Hollywood movie, translation into seventeen languages, and a 2005 Broadway revival, Harling discovered his true career path. He adapted his play for the 1989 film version, and continued with screenwriting through Soapdish (1991), The First Wives Club (1996), and Laws of Attraction (2004). Expanding his talents, Harling wrote and directed The Evening Star (1996), a sequel to 1983’s Oscar-winning Terms of Endearment. He developed the 2012 ABC series “GCB”, co-created the 2015-2016 series “Telenovela “for NBC, and continues involvement in announced musical adaptations of Soapdish and the 2008 film, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.

By Gregory Kable, Dramaturg

Steel Magnolias: Theatre at the Speed of Life

By Gregory Kable, Dramaturg

In the fast-moving 1980s, ‘hair today, gone tomorrow’ would have seemed the prospects for a modest, regionally-flavored, female ensemble comedy set in a beauty parlor. Steel Magnolias defied those odds, finding immediate critical and commercial success, and a durable appeal as rare then as now in the ephemeral realmof the theatre. As we approach the play’s fortieth anniversary, it’s worth pausing to consider some of the facets of its achievements and legacy.

In the preface to his novel Look Homeward, Angel, Chapel Hill’s Thomas Wolfe maintained that “fiction is fact arranged and charged with purpose”. The wisdom of that distinction isevident in Robert Harling’s play. Based on a true-life event in the dramatist’s family, his play transcends mere documentation, instead transforming that story into art.

While Harling may not have invented the phrase “steel magnolias”, he might as well have, as his play and its two film versions have come to define that metaphor. Quite a feat for a first time playwright who composed the piece in a brief ten days. “More remembered than written,” as Harling describes the process, and that immediacyprovided the charge that has held audiences across the years and around the globe.

Vivid, textured, and eminently quotable, Steel Magnolias chroniclespersonal history along with a feeling for life in the South; its leisurely pace, archetypal figures, colorful incidents, and patterns of speech.

In contrast to previous urban stage and screen classics such as The Women and All About Eve, pitting women as adversaries, Steel Magnolias presents a healthier portrait of female allies, even if their intimacy leaves ample (and delicious) opportunitiesfor trading gossip and throwing shade. Through conversation, coffee, and comb-outs, we share in small acts of ritual care, conveyingresilience in the face of conditions, and the desire to leave a productive mark on the world.

The hair, of course, is big but everything was supersized in the Eighties: the economy, food portions, news coverage, ambitions: “champagne wishes and caviar dreams” was an emblematic tagline of the day. Stylists themselves gained celebrity status, and hair care passed from maintenance to modern art. The highest profile salons became shrines, while even the most humble beauty shop promised a cloistered place to reflect, recharge, and reinvent yourself. A new image could signal a new identity while affording space to relax and breathe and slow the pace of life outside.

With the effort required to achieve those epic looks, style spoke to a different idea about power. If corporate empire was one aspect of the decade, the hairstyles speak less of domination than self-expression, of play, not work, and creativity instead of acquisitiveness. The blow dryer and the briefcase are opposing symbols: the former a tool of individualism, the latter of conformity; the latter tied to an appetite for consumption, the former of cultivation, clearly a more benign and preferable window on the age.

That nurturing impulse carried through to the culture at large. Although equity for women proved elusive with the defeat of the 1982 Equal Rights Amendment, women’s standing in the arts, as in society more gradually, was a different matter. On America’s stages throughout the Eighties, female experience was explored to a greater degree than ever before. From the humorous (Beth Henley’s Crimes of the Heart), to the harrowing (Marsha Norman’s ‘night, Mother), to the heroic (Wendy Wasserstein’s The Heidi Chronicles), major shifts linked to Seventies feminism sparked decisive change.

Both gender and genre were examined in the theatre, with film and television continuing the trend. Hollywood’s Terms of Endearment, 9 to 5, and Beaches affirmed the powerful bonds between mothers and daughters, coworkers, and lifelong friends. On the small screen, career women made All My Children, Dynasty, and Murphy Brown compulsive viewing, while Designing Women mined generational values, and The Golden Girls made maturity majestic.

In the Eighties, Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton, and Oprah Winfrey became industries. Southern novelists like Alice Walker and Anne Rice topped bestseller lists with The Color Purple and The Queen of the Damned, as Cyndi Lauper, Whitney Houston, The Bangles and The Go-Gos ruled the airwaves. Madonna exploded into an icon, while Tina Turner and Cher became legends.

Harling’s liberated women fit smoothly among these liberating examples, sidestepping the neurotic Southerners of Lillian Hellman and Tennessee Williams, and also passing the ‘Bechdel Test”, a means of challenging limited representations of women, popularized by the graphic artist Alison Bechdel in 1985, through assessing whether female characters converse together and on a topic other than men. But the play’s resonances go even deeper.

Steel Magnolias captures an America that was vanishing as it was being preserved: when unhurried communication moved at a pace soon displaced by the digital revolution and the universal fear of missing out. A lovingly observed, apparently casual, realistic play poised on the threshold of momentous events inevitably evokes comparisons with Anton Chekhov, whose masterpieces of Russia’s passage from the nineteenth into the twentieth centuries set both the template and the bar. Like Chekhov, Harling finds the extraordinary in the everyday, refusing to crowd the stage with conventions or sensationalize his material for dramatic effect.

“The stage is the quintessence of life” insisted Chekhov, “and there’s no need to introduce anything superfluous on to it”. Considering that Harling’s decade began with the celebrated film Ordinary People and closed with that “show about nothing”, Seinfeld, the affinities make perfect sense. Steel Magnolias is Chekhov. Only American. And with sass.

As in Chekhov, Steel Magnolias acknowledges the cycles that comprise our lives; those of fate, of feeling (“laughter through tears is my favorite emotion”), and the seasons. After the monochrome of winter, Chapel Hill is in bloom again. And hard on the heels of Macbeth’s assertion that life is a shadow signifying nothing, comes a wider vista of harmony with nature, community, hope, and the joys of fellowship. As author Ronda Rich proposes:

“In a world often conflicted with disagreements, anger, and greed, it is time to practice captivating charm and impeccable manners again. In a universe of people with too many obligations and too little time, there is room for increased thoughtfulness and kindness. It is, quite simply, time to apply a soothing salve of Southern comfort to the world.”

So listen to these women, their stories, their lives. Their cadences trace our highs and lows, along with the rhythms of nature itself. They’re our own discussions. They’re the voice of the South. Hark the Sound.

Steel Magnolias

by Robert Harling

Directed by Lisa Rothe

Scenic Designer
Narelle Sissons

Costume Designer
Grier Coleman

Lighting Designer
Cat Tate Starmer

Sound Designer
Melanie Chen Cole

Projection Designer
Tao Wang

Wig Designer
Bobbie Zlotnik

Vocal Coach
Tia James

Dramaturg
Gregory Kable

Stage Manager
Aspen Blake Jackson

Assistant Stage Manager
Sarah Smiley

New York casting, Pat McCorkle, CSA, Rebecca Weiss, CSA

April 6 – 28, 2026

Originally produced by the W.P.A. Theatre, New York City,1987.

Kyle Renick, Artistic DirectorThe videotaping or making of electronic or other audio and/or visual recordings of this production and distributing recordings or streams in any medium is strictly prohibited.

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

Actor Bios

in Alphabetical Order

Shelby: Elizabeth Dye^
Clairee: Thursday Farrar*
Ouiser: Julia Gibson*
Truvy: Kathryn Hunter-Williams*
M’Lynn Sharon Lawrence*
Annelle: Caroline Marques^

Stage Managers: Sarah Smiley*, Aspen Blake Jackson*

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

^Appears by permission of Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.

UNDERSTUDIES

Understudies never substitute for listed players unless a specific announcement is made for the appearance at the time of performance.

TRUVY/OUISER: Elizabeth Flax*

ANNELLE: Delaney Jackson

SHELBY: Celeste Pelletier

M’LYNN/CLAIREE: Christine Rogers

Steel Magnolias will be performed with a 15 minute intermission.

Setting: Chinquapin Parish, Louisiana, 1980s

Sharon Lawrence and Thursday Farrar are receipiants of the Jeffrey Hayden Distinguished Guest Artist Award

Elizabeth Dye

Shelby

PlayMakers: Company member in their third year of UNC’s Professional Actor Training Program with the Department of Dramatic Art. You Can’t Take It With You, The Wolves, Little Shop of Horrors, Confederates, Death of a Salesman, The Christmas Case of Hezekiah Jones, Crumbs from the Table of Joy, The Game, Much Ado About Nothing. The Taming, Stupid F**king Bird (PlayMakers/DDA Ground Floor).

University: Cabaret, Animal Farm, Three Sisters, Violet, Henry IV Part One (University of Evansville).

Education: BFA Theatre Performance at the University of Evansville.

Julia Gibson

Ouiser

PlayMakers: Company member in her 13th season. You Can’t Take It With You, Death of a Salesman, What the Constitution Means to Me, Murder on the Orient Express, Misery, Native Gardens, Yoga Play, Native Son, How I Learned to Drive, Bewilderness, The Cake, Ragtime, My Fair Lady, She Loves Me, Twelfth Night, The Crucible, An Enemy of the People, Into the Woods, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Love Alone, Metamorphoses, The Tempest.

Broadway: Stanley, Uncle Vanya, Night Mother.

National Tour: The Exonerated.

Off-Broadway: The Public, Shakespeare in the Park, Manhattan Theatre Club, The Roundabout, Classic Stage Company, New York Theatre Workshop, SoHo Rep, Origin Theatre Company, Irish Rep, The Rattlestick, among others.

Regional: The Alley, American Conservatory Theatre, The Goodman, The Long Wharf, Yale Rep., George Street, The Arden, Milwaukee Rep., Philadelphia Festival Theatre, Dallas Theatre Center, Chautauqua Theatre Company, and elsewhere.

Film/TV: Michael Clayton, Changing Lanes. “Blue Bloods”, “Law & Order”, “Law & Order: Criminal Intent”, “Spin City”, “So Close”, and “One Life to Live”.

Education/Other: Head of the Professional Actor Training Program in the Department of Dramatic Art at UNC-Chapel Hill. Fox Fellowship recipient, founding member of The Actors Center in NYC and of the National Association of Acting Teachers. Institute for the Arts and Humanities Faculty Fellow. URTA Board of Directors. 2020 Carolina Women’s Center Faculty Scholar.

Thursday Farrar

Clairee

PlayMakers: Debut.

Broadway: Aida, Once Upon a Mattress.

Off-Broadway/New York: Parade (Lincoln Center); The Bandaged Place (Roundabout); Bloodwork (National Black Theatre); Love & Science (City Center); Regrets (Manhattan Theatre Club).

Regional: The DaVinci Code (Ogunquit Playhouse); The Mouse Trap (Bershire Theatre Festival); Clue (John Engeman Theater); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Portland Stage Co.).

National Tour: Les Misérables.

Television: “PokerFace” (Peacock); “That Damn Michael Che” (HBO); “FBI,” “Blue Bloods,” “Blacklist” (CBS); “Manifest” (NBC/Netflix); “For Life,” “Ugly Betty” (ABC); “Modern Love” (Amazon); “Search Party” (TBS); “Gotham” (Fox); “Bull” (NBC); “The Americans” (FX).

Film: Verity (Dir. Michael Showalter), Brian Banks (Dir. Tom Shadyac); Holiday in Harlem (Hallmark).

Kathryn Hunter-Williams

Truvy

PlayMakers: Company member in her 26th season. Recent highlights include directingA Good Boy, The Christmas Case of Hezekiah Jones, They Do Not Know Harlem, Stick Fly, No Fear & Blues Long Gone, Count, plus acting in You Can’t Take It With You, Confederates, The Game, Fat Ham, Hamlet, A Wrinkle in Time, The Skin of Our Teeth, Edges of Time, Julius Caesar, Everybody, Life of Galileo, Skeleton Crew, Leaving Eden, Tartuffe, Dot, Intimate Apparel, The Crucible, Trouble in Mind, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Raisin in the Sun, Imaginary Invalid, The Parchman Hour, Angels in America, Fences, Doubt, among others.

New York/Regional: Living Stage, The Negro Ensemble Company, Manhattan Class Company, New Dramatists, Archipelago Theater.

Education/Other: BFA, UNC School of the Arts; MFA, UNC-Chapel Hill. Kathryn is chair of the Department of Dramatic Art at UNC-Chapel Hill and Associate Director of HiddenVoices, a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing life-changing stories into a public forum.

Sharon Lawrence

M’Lynn

PlayMakers: The Shot (2025), 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), Chicago (Velma).

Off-Broadway/New York: Pen Pals; Love, Loss, and What I Wore; The Shot (United Solo Festival), Toungue of a Bird.

Regional: The Shot (New Jersey Rep), multiple productions at these LORT houses: The Mark Taper Forum, The Geffen Playhouse, The Wallis, and Pasadena Playhouse.

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

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,”“The Ranch,” “Drop Dead Diva.”

Education/Awards: UNC-CH, BA Journalism (Distinguished Young Alumni Award in 1998 and Distinguished Alumni Award in 2024); UNC Hollywood Internship Program; 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); Board of Directors and Company member for 12 years (IAMA Theatre Company). Ten Chimneys Fellow 2013.

Caroline Marques

Annelle

PlayMakers: Company member in their first year of UNC’s Professional Actor Training Program with the Department of Dramatic Art. You Can’t Take It With You, The Wolves; The Flick (PlayMakers/DDA Ground Floor).

University: Exit, Pursued by a Bear; Something Rotten! the Musical; Nia; Anna K. (Kenan Theatre Company).

Film: Dream Killers (Student Film).

Education: BA in Dramatic Arts and BA in Global Studies at UNC Chapel Hill.

Lisa Rothe

Director

PlayMakers: Hold These Truths, Detroit ’67, Penelope.

Director: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (South Coast Repertory); Richard III, Pericles (Next Chapter Podcasts & PlayOn!); Steel Magnolias (Guthrie Theatre); Fun Home, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Kansas City Repertory Theater), Indecent (Chautauqua Theatre); Another Revolution (GulfShore Playhouse); Shared Sentences (Houses on the Moon); Drama League nominated Belly of the Beast (TodayTix, NYTW & 3AD/Daniel Dae Kim); The Names We Gave Him; over 20 productions of the award winning Hold These Truths; other productions at the Guthrie Theatre, Kansas City Repertory Theater, Cincinnati Playhouse, Theatreworks/Silicon Valley, Two River Theater, People’s Light, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Irish Repertory Theatre, and more. Formerly the Director of New Works at Kansas City Repertory Theatre; Director of Global Exchange at The Lark; co-Artistic Director of The Actor’s Center & co-President of the League of Professional Theatre Women.

Education/Other: Lisa has directed and taught at multiple theatre programs around the country including NYU’s Graduate Acting Program, Yale School of Drama, The Juilliard School, Chautauqua Conservatory, the Einhorn School of Performing Arts (ESPA) at Primary Stages, and many more. Lisa is currently on faculty at Columbia University’s MFA Theatre Program & Binghamton University. MFA: NYU Graduate Acting.

www.lisarothe.com

Narelle Sissons

Scenic Designer

PlayMakers: Over 14 productions including Dairyland, The Crucible, Angels in America: Parts 1 & 2, A Perfect Ganesh.

Broadway: All My Sons (Roundabout Theatre Company).

Off Broadway: Original productions of How I Learned To Drive, Stop Kiss, In The Blood; original co-productions of Julius Caesar, Little Flower of East Orange (LAByrinth/ The Public Theater). Also many productions with Playwrights Horizons, New York Theatre Workshop, Women’s Project Theater and Classic Stage Company (Entertaining Mr Sloane, Drama desk nomination).

Regional: Steel Magnolias (The Guthrie), Bernhardt/Hamlet (The Goodman), Carmen (Olney Theatre), The Clean House (Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Helen Hayes nomination), The Taming of The Shrew (The Shakespeare Theatre Company, Helen Hayes nomination), Mabou Mines Dollhouse (Arts Emerson, outstanding design), Sideman (A Contemporary Theatre, Backstage West Award) and Bad Dates (The Repertory Theatre of St Louis, Kevin Kline Award nomination).

International: Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train, director Philip Seymour Hoffman; Mabou Mines Dollhouse director Lee Breuer.

Other/Awards: Fulbright Specialist, exhibitor at Prague Quadrennial 2007, 2011, 2023. MFA in painting and will have her first solo show at Silvermine Galleries CT in 2026, winner of the Board Chair Grand Prize.

Grier Coleman

Costume Designer

PlayMakers: Little Shop of Horrors, Misery, Julius Caesar, Life of Galileo, Dot, The Crucible, Disgraced.

Regional: Miami New Drama, Weston Playhouse, Virginia Theatre Festival, Shakespeare on the Sound, Virginia Stage Company, and Yale Repertory Theater.

Education: Seventeen seasons at The Juilliard School designing Drama, Dance, and Opera; NYU, Colombia, The New School, Washington College, Auburn University, University of Virginia. BFA: UNC-Chapel Hill; MFA: Yale School of Drama. USA local 829.

Cat Tate Starmer

Lighting Designer

PlayMakers: Hold These Truths.

Broadway: The Apple Tree (asst. designer).

Off-Broadway/New York: Thornton Wilder’s The Emporium (Classic Stage Company), Unexpected 3rd (New York Theater Workshop), Dirty Laundry (WP Theater), Georgia Mertching is Dead (Ensemble Studio Theater), Hold These Truths, MacBeth (Epic Theater Ensemble).

Regionally: Mirror Crack’d, A Winter’s Tale, 1984, Murder on the Orient Express (Alley Theater), Once (Kansas City Rep), A Thousand Maids (Two River Theater), Hurricane Diane, They Promised Her the Moon (Old Globe), Frankenstein, Steel Magnolias (Guthrie Theater).

Architecture: Plaza 33 at Pennsylvania Station, NYC. Currently Interim Head of Lighting Design at Rutgers University. MFA Yale School of Drama.

Melanie Chen Cole

Sound Designer

PlayMakers: Ken Ludwig’s Sherwood: The Adventures of Robin Hood.

Regional: Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Alley Theatre, Alliance Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Cleveland Playhouse, Dallas Theater Center, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Geffen Playhouse, Goodman Theatre, Huntington Theatre Company, Indiana Rep, La Jolla Playhouse, the McCarter, Milwaukee Rep, Northern Stage, The Old Globe, Seattle Rep, South Coast Rep, Studio Theatre, and the Utah Shakespeare Festival.

Education: MFA Theatre & Dance from University of California-San Diego.

Tao Wang

Projection Designer

PlayMakers: Company member since 2023. The Royale, Death of a Salesman, What the Constitution Means to Me, The Game, Misery.

Regional: UrbanArias Keegan Theatre, Hattiloo Theatre – Black Repertory Theatre), Taft Theatre, Corbett Theatre, MainStage Musical Theatre and Dance Company, Stauss Theatre.

Film/Events/ TV/ Shows: “Nanjing, Nanjing,” The Universal Beijing Resort, Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony 2008 and Special Olympics World Games in Shanghai Opening Ceremony, Turandot in Paris, Beijing TV Virtual Reality Interactive Showroom, USITT 2019 National Conference.

Teaching: Assistant Professor and David and Rebecca Pardue Fellow, serving as a Media and Lighting Designer in the Department of Dramatic Arts at UNC, Chapel Hill. Proud member of United Scenic Artists Local 829; NYC and USITT.

https://www.wangtman.com/

Bobbie Zlotnik

Wig Designer

PlayMakers: Debut.

NYC: Emojiland (Drama Desk Nom.), Richard II (starring Michael Urie), Charles Busch’s Ibsen’s Ghost, Gene & Gilda.

Regional: Gulfshore Playhouse, Bucks County, Cape Playhouse, Drury Lane, George Street Playhouse, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Sharon Playhouse, Penguin Repertory Theatre, Pittsburgh CLO, Tuacahn.

Film/TV: “The Gilded Age”, “Stranger Things”, “The Devil Wears Prada 2”, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”, “Halston”, “RuPaul’s Drag Race”, “Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness” (on-camera).

Education/Other: Manhattan School of Music, Point Park University, UMass Amherst, Muhlenberg College, BMCC, SCAD. I.A.T.S.E Local 798.

www.bobbiezlotnik.com

Tia James

Vocal Coach

PlayMakers: Company member since 2018. Actor: The Royale, Confederates, Much Ado About Nothing, Clyde’s, Hamlet, Blues for an Alabama Sky, A Wrinkle in Time, Julius Caesar, Native Son. Director: Crumbs from the Table of Joy, How I Learned What I Learned, As You Like It, Macbeth (PlayMakers Mobile). For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf, Constellations (PlayMakers Ground Floor).PlayMakers Resident Vocal Coach.

Broadway: The Merchant of Venice.

Off-Broadway / New York: The Winter’s Tale, The Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare in the Park).

Regional: Much Ado About Nothing (Commonwealth Shakespeare Company); Richard III (Allentown Shakespeare); Loving and Loving (Stella Adler Studios); Much Ado About Nothing (Two River Theatre); Civilization [All You Can Eat] (Woolly Mammoth Theater).

Television: “Nurse Jackie,” “Treme.”

Education / Awards: MFA NYU Tisch Graduate Acting Program, BFA Virginia Commonwealth University; Miller Voice Method Teacher Certification. Recipient of the 2014 NYU Graduate Acting Diversity Mentorship Scholarship, 2003 Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship winner for Best Actor; 2019 Michael Chekhov/Zelda Fichandler Scholarship.

Gregory Kable

Dramaturg

PlayMakers: Associate Dramaturg, 1997 to present. Productions include You Can’t Take It With You, Little Shop of Horrors, Murder on the Orient Express, Native Gardens, A Wrinkle in Time, She Loves Me, Sherwood: The Adventures of Robin Hood, My Fair Lady, Sweeney Todd, Peter and the Starcatcher, An Enemy of the People, Into the Woods, Private Lives, Clybourne Park, Red, Angels in America, Topdog/Underdog, The Subject Was Roses, Uncle Vanya, Violet: A Musical and Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde.

Regional: American premiere of Pentecost, Le Bourgeois Avant-Garde (Yale Repertory Theatre).

Directing: Love’s Labour’s Lost, A New Musical, Playing for Time, Lulu, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Sunday in the Park with George, Danton’s Death, Closer, The Lady From the Sea, Balm in Gilead, Jesus Christ Superstar, Therese Raquin, Hair, American Buffalo, Miss Julie, Curse of the Starving Class, Camino Real.

Faculty: Department of Dramatic Art, UNC-Chapel Hill.

Education: MFA, Yale School of Drama.

Aspen Blake Jackson

Stage Manager

PlayMakers: Primary Trust, The Wolves, Confederates, The Shot, The Christmas Case of Hezekiah Jones, Crumbs from the Table of Joy, Murder on the Orient Express, Much Ado About Nothing, Clyde’s, They Do Not Know Harlem, Native Gardens. Pippin, The Prom, The Drowsy Chaperone, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Summer Youth Conservatory).

Aspen is delighted to be returning for her fourth season with PlayMakers Repertory Company. A graduate of UNC Chapel Hill with a B.A. in Vocal Performance and Dramatic Arts.

Sarah Smiley

Assistant Stage Manager

This is Sarah’s 14th season with PlayMakers, since first joining the company in 2005. She has worked professionally for over 30 years in the entertainment and theatrical industries, in theme parks and road houses in eight states and the U.K. She is a member of Actors’ Equity Association and has been active in USITT and the Stage Managers’ Association. She received her M.F.A. from the University of Iowa.

Pat McCorckle

New York Casting

Broadway: Over 50 productions including On The Town, Amazing Grace, End of the Rainbow, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Amadeus, She Loves Me, A Few Good Men.

Off-Broadway: Highlights; Clever Little Lies, Shear Madness, Tribes, Our Town (Barrow Street), Freud’s Last Session, Toxic Avenger, Almost Maine, Driving Miss Daisy.

Feature Films: Year by the Sea, Premium Rush, Ghost Town, The Thomas Crown Affair, Die Hard with a Vengeance, School Ties, etc.

Television: Twisted, Humans for Sesame Street, Hack (CBS), Californication (Emmy Nomination), Max Bickford (CBS), Chapelle’s Show, Strangers with Candy, Barbershop and many more.

www.mccorklecasting.com

PlayMakers Leadership

Vivienne Benesch

Producing Artistic Director

Vivienne is in her tenth full season as a company member and Producing Artistic Director with PlayMakers, where she has helmed productions of The Royale, The Game, Hamlet, The Skin of Our Teeth, The Storyteller, Dairyland, Life of Galileo, Leaving Eden, The May Queen, Three Sisters, Love Alone, RED, and In The Next Room. She has also acted in a production of Macbeth. In her time with the company, she is particularly proud to have produced 14 world premieres and launched PlayMakers Mobile, a touring initiative aimed at reaching underserved audiences around the Triangle. For 12 seasons, she served as Artistic Director of the renowned Chautauqua Theater Company and Conservatory, presiding over the company’s transformation into one of the country’s best summer theatres and most competitive summer training programs. Vivienne directed both the world premiere of Noah Haidle’s Birthday Candles for Detroit Public Theatre and, in 2022, its Broadway production starring Debra Messing. She has also directed for Studio Theatre and the Folger Shakespeare Theatre in D.C. (Helen Hayes nomination for best direction), The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, Trinity Repertory Company, NY Stage & Film, and Red Bull Theatre, among others. She will direct Measure for Measure at The Old Globe in San Diego in June of 2026. As an actress, Vivienne has worked on and off-Broadway, in film and television, at many of the country’s most celebrated theatres, and received an Obie Award for her performance in Lee Blessing’s Going to St. Ives.

Vivienne is a graduate of Brown University and NYU’s Graduate Acting Program. As an educator, she has directed for and served on the faculty of some of the nation’s foremost actor training programs, including The Juilliard School, UNC-Chapel Hill’s Professional Actor Training Program, Brown/Trinity Rep MFA Program, and at her alma mater, NYU. She is a recipient of the prestigious Zelda Fichandler Award given by the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation.

Tina CoyneSmith

Director of External Relations

Tina is in her first season with PlayMakers Repertory Company! She will oversee all aspects of external affairs including revenue, marketing, communications, and audience development strategies. Tina brings with her close to three decades of external relations experience at UNC-Chapel Hill, a majority of that organizing the work of the Board of Directors for the Arts & Sciences Foundation. She has served on the development teams for the Ackland Art Museum, the Kenan Flagler Business School, the Adams School of Dentistry, and the Duke University Nasher Museum of Art. Tina looks forward to connecting with patrons, alumni, and our broader community to share a passion for theatre and to build support that will sustain PlayMakers as a vibrant hub for creativity and world-class performance. Tina earned degrees in English from Loyola University in Maryland and the College of William & Mary (with an honors thesis in 18th C. drama). She is passionate about Shakespeare, eclipses, colonial American history, musicals, musicals about colonial American history, grammar, photography, escape rooms, games, roller coasters, and air fryers! Expect an invitation to coffee to rhapsodize about all of the above as well as the treasure that is PlayMakers!

Maura J. Murphy

Director of Operations

Maura is here for her tenth full season, returning after a 23-year hiatus. In that time, she honed her administrative skills at Duke, NCSU and of course, Carolina. She was production stage manager for PlayMakers from 1993-1996 and general manager from 1996-1999. Education: EdD and MS in Higher Education Administration, NCSU; BA in Drama, Muhlenberg College.

Michael Rolleri

Production Manager

Michael is in his 39^th season with PlayMakers Repertory Company. He has been Technical Director, Project Manager, Exhibition Technician, and Lighting Designer for industrial shows in the Southeast region, as well as lead carpenter for films, the U.S. Olympic Festival, and scenic studios. He has also been a rigger in the Southeast region and has served on the executive board and as President of IATSE Local 417. Michael is a 30-year Gold Pin member of IATSE. An active United States Institute For Theatre Technology (USITT) member, he is a three-time winner at USITT’s Tech Expo. He is a full Professor/Head of the Technical Production Program at UNC-Chapel Hill and was an instructor at High Point University and Tufts University. Education: MFA in Design and Technical Production, UNC-Greensboro.

Our Mission

PlayMakers Repertory Company is North Carolina’s premier professional theatre company, proudly in residence on the dynamic campus of the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. Our mission is to produce relevant, courageous work that tells stories from and for a multiplicity of perspectives. We believe that theatre can have a transformational impact on individuals and entire communities, and we are committed to making our work accessible to all. PlayMakers also serves as the professional laboratory for UNC-Chapel Hill’s Department of Dramatic Art, nurturing future generations of artists and audiences.

PlayMakers is…

(American Theatre Magazine), PlayMakers Repertory Company is North Carolina’s premier professional theatre company, proudly in residence on the dynamic campus of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. The professional company was founded in 1976, growing out of a storied 100-year tradition of playmaking at Carolina.

“One of America’s Best Regional Theatres”

At the very heart of the PlayMakers experience is one of the nation’s last remaining resident theatre companies, made up of accomplished performers, directors, designers, artisans, and technicians, and supported by exceptional graduate students in UNC’s Department of Dramatic Art. Our company works side by side with guest artists from all over the world and our alumni include Pulitzer Prize, Tony®, Emmy®, and Grammy Award® winners.

Creating Tomorrow’s Classics, Today

Producing Artistic Director Vivienne Benesch is continuing PlayMakers’ tradition of producing vibrantly reimagined classics, large-scale musical theatre, and significant contemporary work, but is also broadening the company’s reach to become a home for new play development and a true hub of social and civic discourse in the region. Her first seven seasons have already given life to twelve important new American plays.

A Hub of Engagement

PlayMakers seeks to provoke thought, stimulate discussion, and push the boundaries of the theatrical form in everything we do. Whether through our intimate @PLAY series, our mainstage offerings or our virtual line-up, we look for opportunities for direct, dynamic engagement between audiences, artists, and thinkers. We also offer a host of unique engagement opportunities designed to enrich our audience’s experience of the live arts.

Theatre for the People

PlayMakers Mobile is an initiative that seeks to contribute positively to the civic and social life of our region by taking world-class theatre out of our building and into the community. We create a streamlined production of a play and take it to schools, transitional housing facilities, and long-term treatment facilities around the Greater Triangle area. And best of all, it’s all free of charge.

Passing the Torch

PlayMakers’ award-winning Summer Youth Conservatory is the only professionally supported training program of its kind in the region. The Theatre Quest program provides camps to area middle school and high school students, while the Theatre Intensive and TheatreTech programs allow Triangle high schoolers to apprentice directly with professional directors, choreographers, musical directors, and technicians, culminating in a professional quality production on the PlayMakers mainstage for the whole community to enjoy.

Eliminating Barriers

With a commitment to eliminating barriers for attendance, PlayMakers offers All Access performances for our patrons living with disabilities. We also offer accessible $20 tickets for all performances and ticket prices are reduced to just $10 for UNC students. For more information, please contact prcboxoffice@unc.edu.

PlayMakers’ 2024/25 Season is Made Possible in Part by Grants from

Foundation Support

Joan H. Gillings Foundation, Frey Foundation, Robertson Foundation, The Educational Foundation of America, Highland Vineyard Foundation, The Shelby Family Foundation, Rao Family Foundation, T. Rowe Price Program for Charitable Giving

Additional Funding for Guest Artists is Provided by

Jeffrey Hayden Guest Lectureship Fund, Robert Boyer and Margaret Boyer Fund, Louise Lamont Fund, Emeriti Professors Charles and Shirley Weiss Fund

Corporate Council

Craven Allen Gallery & House of Frames, Larry’s Coffee, Mediterranean Deli, Bakery, and Catering, Metal Supermarkets Raleigh, Pineapple Sol Catering, Pinsieline Properties LLC, University Florists, Vimala’s Curryblossom Cafe, Lanza’s, Top Of The Hill.

Associates

Glasshalfull

PlayMakers Repertory Company is a program of the Department of Dramatic Art, The College of Arts and Sciences, and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Cultural Resources, recognizes PlayMakers as a professional theatre organization and provides grant assistance to this organization from funds appropriated by the North Carolina General Assembly and the National Endowment for the Arts. PlayMakers is a beneficiary of the Elizabeth Price Kenan Endowment and the Lillian Hughes Prince Endowment.

PlayMakers Repertory Company is a Member of Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for the American theatre.

This Theatre operates under an agreement between the League Of Resident Theatres (LORT) and Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.

The scenic, costume, lighting and sound designers in LORT Theatres are represented by United Scenic Artists, Local USA-829 of the IATSE.

The Director and Choreographer are members of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, a national theatrical labor union.

For this Production

Talitha Morena Moniz McMillion, Assistant Director
Sarai Melancon-Powers, Assistant to Lighting Designer
Rachel Van Namen, Production Technical Director
Joshua Zietak,Gibson Cameron, Asst. Technical Director
Bruce Hearrell, Shop Lead
Grant Alexander Sizemore, Luna Maggie Hayes, Projection Design Assistant
Kris Kingsolver, Assistant Costume Shop Manager
Bailey Mae Doran, Mackenzie Privett, Drapers
Jillian Gregory First Hand/Stitcher
Francis Werth, Crafts Supervisor
Maize Aubin, Audio Engineer
Dr. John B. Buse, Diabetes Consultant
Erica Florio, Alison Schulte, Hair Consultants

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, Dawson Bourdreaux, Matthew Donahue, Elizabeth Dye, Delany Jackson, Jadah Johnson, Nate John Mark, Caroline Marques, Trevele Morgan, Adam Moskowitz, Celeste Pelletier, Mengwe Wapimewah

Administration

Vivienne Benesch, Producing Artistic Director

Artistic

Jeff Aguiar, Director of Engagement
Bridgette Bagley, Assistant to Producing Artistic Director
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
Adam Versényi, Dramaturg
Anna Brooke Keisler, Artistic Asistant Work Study

Management

Lisa Geeslin, Accountant
Charisse Holloway, Admin Support Specialist.
Amy Evans, General Manager
Zoë Lord, Company Manager
Maura J. Murphy, Director of Operations
Selima Ahmed, Rachna Singh, Work Studies

External Relations

Tina CoyneSmith, Director of External Relations
Lenore Field, Special Events Coordinator
Anna Fletcher, Assistant Director of Annual Giving

Marketing & Audience Services

TJ Carr, Graphic Designer and Marketing Associate
Alex James, Audience Services Associate
Salem Jones, Audience Services Associate
Hannah LaMarlowe, Marketing Specialist
Ava Lytle, Audience Services Associate
Thomas Porter, Box Office Manager
Rosalie Preston, Director of Marketing & Sales
Alicia Norman, Sophie Taylor: Student House Managers
Micah Kennel: Student Box Office Manager.
Spenser Brenton, Albert Carlson, Maggie Thornton, Student Assistants
Charlie Bagwell, Christopher Bailey, Lynlee Collins, Ella Flaim, Lindsey Kanipe, Talise Koonce, Alex Lankford, An Thanh Nguyen, Leah Page, Kas Perez, Divae Scott, Mira Teague, Box Office and Front of House Work Studies

Department of Dramatic Art

Kathryn Hunter-Williams, Chair and Associate Professor

FACULTY

Judy Adamson, 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, Professor Emeritus
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, Professor
Matthew Mallard, Lecturer
Triffin Morris, Professor of the Practice
David Navalinsky, Professor
Bobbi Owen, Distinguished Professor Emerita
Laura Pates, 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
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
Kevin Pendergast, Assistant to the Head of the Technical Production MFA Program
Karen Rolleri, Business Coordinator
Sarah Tackett, Director of Business Administration

Production

Michael Rolleri, Production Manager

Costumes

Jocelyn Chatman, Costume Shop Manager
Matthew Mallard, Assistant Costume Director
Triffin Morris, Costume Director
Janis Nordeen, Wardrobe Supervisor
Rachel Pollock, Costume Craftsperson
Jillian Gregory, Kris Kingsolver Jessica Land, Bailey Mae Doran, Mackenzie Privett, Francis Werth, Costume Production Graduate Students
Ellie Steever, First Hand/Stitcher
Katherine Craig, Theo Kendrick, Ellis Vanderburg, Costume Shop Work Studies
Saturn Brundick, Ellison Brown, Costume Shop Undergraduate Assistants
Natasha Harm, Wardrobe Assistant Work Study
Ava Kennel, Costume Stock Work Study
Maya Tilson, COSTAR Historic Costume Collection Assistant Work Study

Lighting

Benjamin Bosch, Electrics Supervisor
Maize Aubin, Production Swing for Lighting & Sound
Pezhi Li (Kimi), Undergrad Assistant

Props

Eden Clementine, Swing Scenic Artist/Props Artisan
Sam Gainer, Props Artisan
Lauren Reinhartsen, Properties Supervisor
Evan Wilker, Props Undergraduate Assistant
Ava Casey, Work Studies

Stage Management

Aspen Blake Jackson, Stage Manager
Sarah Smiley, Stage Manager
Kayla Jordan, Production Assistant

Sound

Nick Rodgers, Sound Supervisor
Jayden Alexander Peszko, Work Studies

Scenic

Brandon “Bruce” Hearrell, Shop Supervisor
Laura Pates, Technical Director
Rachel Van Namen, Associate Technical Director
Diane Zimmerman, Scenic Charge Artist
Benjamin Fink, Roark, Gibson Cameron, Josh Zietak, Technical Production Graduate Students

BE OUR MVP

We’re running a playbook filled with reimagined classics, bold new voices, and blockbuster favorites. At PlayMakers you’ll see champions: our acclaimed resident company brings their A Game to every performance alongside guest artists who boast Pulitzer, Tony, Emmy, and Grammy Awards.

But unlike athletes with sponsorship deals, our players don’t have big contracts. With ticket sales covering just under 40% of expenses, we rely on you to keep the magic of theatre alive in the Triangle.

When you give to the PlayMakers Fund, you support:

Our championship team—the PlayMakers resident company
Award-winning guest artists from across the globe
Sets, lighting, sound, and costumes—Broadway-quality made here
New work commissions that amplify multiple voices
K–12 student matinees and the Summer Youth Conservatory

When you support PlayMakers, you’re not just cheering from the sidelines—you’re making the winning play. Be part of the team that makes it all possible.

Be Our MVP Today!

Donate

Friends of PlayMakers

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David G. Frey*

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Partner ($1,000–1,499)

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Rao Family Foundation

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Backer ($500–999)

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T. Rowe Price Charitable Giving

Carol B. Uphoff

Tim Vaughn

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* indicates deceased

The above list represents patrons who have made gifts to PlayMakers between July 1, 2024 and March 1, 2026.

A heartfelt thanks to the Friends of PlayMakers whose generosity makes it possible to produce world-class theatre here in Chapel Hill. For more information about supporting PlayMakers, or to request request a correction to the listing above, please contact Tina CoyneSmith, director of external relations, at 919.962.4846 or tc@unc.edu.

Patron Spotlight

(Photo By Jeyhoun Allebaugh/UNC-Chapel Hill).

Betsy Blackwell and John Watson

We each grew up in communities with strong theatre cultures, and we learned early the magic and power of live theatre. As we moved around the US and Europe, theatre was always something our family “did” on both sides of the curtain. When we retired, Chapel Hill beckoned, not just because we were college sweethearts here, but because this community values theatre and the arts so highly. This region is so fortunate to be home to one of the legendary professional repertory companies where generations of actors, stage technicians, and artisans work with professionals to hone their crafts.

PlayMakers is about to celebrate 50 years as a professional theatre! Supporting the theatre’s 50th anniversary with a gift of $50,000 felt both symbolic and necessary. PlayMakers has never thought small. With daring productions featuring artists from around the world who perform alongside our resident company, PlayMakers consistently delivers work of a caliber you’d expect in New York or London. And it is right here in our backyard. That has always mattered to us. We believe everyone, everywhere, deserves access to world‑class, life-changing theatre.

Giving at this level is our way of saying thank you—and of saying “yes” to the future. The past 50 years were built by people who believed in the power of art and invested in it. We feel a responsibility to do the same, ensuring that PlayMakers can continue to take creative risks, nurture talent, and welcome new audiences through its doors.

For us, theatre is not passive; it invites conversation, empathy, and connection. Especially now, those experiences feel essential. Our gift is an investment in a shared cultural space that brings people together and reminds us of our common humanity. We hope others will join us in giving 50 for 50! When you give to PlayMakers, you’re not just supporting a season—you’re sustaining an important local treasure, ensuring its legacy, and helping shape the next 50 years of storytelling in our community.

Table of Contents

PlayMakers Advisory Council

About the Author

Steel Magnolias: Theatre at the Speed of Life

Steel Magnolias

by Robert Harling

Directed by Lisa Rothe

April 6 – 28, 2026

Actor Bios

Elizabeth Dye

Shelby

Julia Gibson

Ouiser

Thursday Farrar

Clairee

Kathryn Hunter-Williams

Truvy

Sharon Lawrence

M’Lynn

Caroline Marques

Annelle

Lisa Rothe

Director

Narelle Sissons

Scenic Designer

Grier Coleman

Costume Designer

Cat Tate Starmer

Lighting Designer

Melanie Chen Cole

Sound Designer

Tao Wang

Projection Designer

Bobbie Zlotnik

Wig Designer

Tia James

Vocal Coach

Gregory Kable

Dramaturg

Aspen Blake Jackson

Stage Manager

Sarah Smiley

Assistant Stage Manager

Pat McCorckle

New York Casting

PlayMakers Leadership

Vivienne Benesch

Producing Artistic Director

Tina CoyneSmith

Director of External Relations

Maura J. Murphy

Director of Operations

Michael Rolleri

Production Manager

Our Mission

PlayMakers is…

Creating Tomorrow’s Classics, Today

A Hub of Engagement

Theatre for the People

Passing the Torch

Eliminating Barriers

PlayMakers’ 2024/25 Season is Made Possible in Part by Grants from

Foundation Support

Additional Funding for Guest Artists is Provided by

Corporate Council

Associates

For this Production

PlayMakers’ Resident Acting Company

Professional Actor Training Program:

Administration

Artistic

Management

External Relations

Marketing & Audience Services

Department of Dramatic Art

FACULTY

Administration

Production

Costumes

Lighting