Dear Friends,

At our first rehearsal, director Nathaniel P. Claridad reminded the company that this beloved Kaufman and Hart Post-Depression era play isn’t just a welcome escape from the chaos of the world, but in fact, a call to run toward your true self—headfirst, imperfectly, and full of love and openness. You Can’t Take It With You, Nathaniel said, is an invitation: there’s a place for whoever you are at the Sycamore-Vanderhof table. Welcome!

It’s been a joy to welcome back Nathaniel, a 2014 Professional Actor Training Program alum, to lead this great PlayMakers family affair with such joy and virtuosity. The production brings together in full force many of our favorite guest designers and actors, our MFA students, and our singularly talented resident company members: from technicians and builders to artisans and actors. The spirited Vanderhof’s and their expressive home are well matched by the artful creativity of the PlayMakers team that has brought them lovingly to life. Both are full of music and invention and are always in motion with projects and joyful chaos filling every open space. 

As Grandpa Vanderhof reminds us, “Life is kind of beautiful if you let it come to you.” This play and our company ask you to do just that: slow down, laugh, love, and find the beauty in the people at your tables. In this season of Theatre that MOVES, and as we enter the buzz of the holiday season, I hope it reminds you that the best kind of movement begins with family: found or otherwise. 

Thank you for being part of the PlayMakers family today. 

With love and relish,

Vivienne

Table of Contents

Letter from Vivienne

Support PlayMakers

About the Author

Program Notes

Who We Are

Title Page

Actor Bios

Creative Team Bios

PlayMakers Staff

Friends of PlayMakers

Corporate and Foundation Partners

Desktop Computer Version of playbill available here

We are so glad you have chosen to be here with us as we explore our new season of Theatre That Moves and what exactly that means to us, our bodies, and minds. We will be delving into the idea of how we act as a team, and while it is often said that there is no ‘I’ in the word, it seems beneficial to understand the individual elements that allow us to be stronger together. Our cross-campus collaborations have been something I am proud of, previously on the topic of mental health and now around the links between art and sport. At PlayMakers we seek to facilitate and enhance the understanding of other perspectives and belief systems and how they align with our own, if at all. More than ever, connecting with the experience of others, both on stage and with fellow audience members, can be illuminating. 

I am personally very grateful to our Producing Artistic Director for being a fearless leader and to the incredible team she has built, both staff and volunteers. I have come to know Viv as a human who loves to initiate productive dialogue with incredibly insightful and instinctive talent. She has brought us pieces of art that have been uncannily on point for our time, and I cannot wait to see her perform in Macbeth. It is my hope that you believe that what we do here at PlayMakers matters. I hope that we can count on your support as we continue to bring you meaningful stories that you find inspiring, entertaining and transforming — in short, stories that move you. Join us on our journey through another spectacular season, as patrons, as donors, as ambassadors. We are grateful for every single one of you, and hope you continue to cheer us on.

Peace,

Jackie Tanner, Chair

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, Duncan Lascelles, Stuart Lascelles, Robert Long, emeritus, Graig Meyer, Julie Morris, Paula Noell, Jodi Patalano, Diane Robertson, Wyndham Robertson, Haley Swindal, Jennifer Werner, Ford Worthy, Mike Wiley

Jump to: Letter from Viv | Support PlayMakers | Program Notes | Who We Are | Title Page | About the Author | Actor Bios | Creative Team Bios | PlayMakers Staff | Friends of PlayMakers | Corporate and Foundation Partners

About the Authors

Moss Hart was born in New York City in 1904. The son of a cigar-maker, he was raised in the Bronx, and after escaping his impoverished childhood, christened himself “Huckleberry Hart.” He was known for his warmth, zest for life, and enjoyment of success. Drawn to the theatre at an early age, he began as an entertainer on the Borscht Belt circuit of Catskills resorts, where he introduced himself to Kaufman and pitched the idea that would become their first collaboration, Once in a Lifetime (1930). They continued their partnership over the next decade, after which Hart burnished his reputation as dramatist, librettist, and director. Notable productions include a musical with Kurt Weill, Lady in the Dark (1941), Winged Victory (1943), and Light Up the Sky (1948). Hart wrote the screenplays for Gentleman’s Agreement (1947), and the Judy Garland remake of A Star is Born (1954). Sharing the Pulitzer Prize for You Can’t Take It With You, Hart won a Tony Award for directing My Fair Lady (1956), and directed as well as helped revise the musical Camelot (1960). Though fifteen years his junior, Hart died of coronary disease just six months after Kaufman’s passing. Hart’s autobiography Act One (1959) remains one of the great theatrical memoirs. 

George Simon Kaufman was born to German-Jewish immigrants in Pittsburgh in 1889. His father, a prosperous pants manufacturer, urged him to “try everything except incest and folk-dancing,” and Kaufman took that advice to heart, enjoying a rich and varied career covering forty years of American theatre. Kaufman entered the profession in 1917 at the drama desk of The New York Times, a post he maintained until 1930, despite his enormous success as a playwright. Kaufman distinguished himself as author, director, and “play doctor” with over fifty Broadway productions to his credit. 

His only solo effort was The Butter and Egg Man (1925), while his legendary collaborative skills extended to a wealth of partners in comedy, drama, musicals, and revues. In addition to Hart, his co-writers form a veritable Who’s Who of the Theatre in that period. These stage works include Merton of the Movies (1922), Beggar on Horseback (1924), Strike Up the Band and The Royal Family (both 1927), June Moon (1929), The Band Wagon (1931), Dinner at Eight (1932), Let ‘Em Eat Cake (1933), Stage Door (1936), and Silk Stockings (1955). Kaufman co-wrote Of Thee I Sing (1931), the first musical to win the Pulitzer Prize, the Marx Brothers vehicles The Cocoanuts (1925) and Animal Crackers (1928), and the screenplay for A Night at the Opera (1935). Additional shows with Hart include Merrily We Roll Along (1934), I’d Rather Be Right (1937), The Fabulous Invalid (1938), and George Washington Slept Here (1940). The two shared a Pulitzer Prize for You Can’t Take It With You in 1936. Further, Kaufman launched a parallel directing career in 1928, yielding the landmark productions The Front Page (1928), Of Mice and Men (1937), and Guys and Dolls (1950), for which he won a Tony Award. Kaufman directed nearly all of his works from 1929 on. Active in theatre to the end of his life, he died following a protracted illness in 1961. 

Pictured above: George S. Kaufmann and Moss Hart

Jump to: Letter from Viv | Support PlayMakers | Program Notes | Who We Are | Title Page | About the Author | Actor Bios | Creative Team Bios | General Information | PlayMakers Staff | Friends of PlayMakers | Corporate and Foundation Partners

Program Notes

The Pursuit of Happiness: On the Move with Kaufman and Hart

By Gregory Kable, Dramaturg

“Life shouldn’t be printed on dollar bills.”

– Clifford Odets, Awake and Sing!

There’s consensus among theatre lovers that George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart are two of America’s greatest showmen. Multi-talented as individuals and multifaceted as a formidable team, their careers characterize what’s fondly recalled as the Golden Age of Broadway. The partnership is best remembered for their three stellar comedies literally spanning the 1930s. Once in a Lifetime premiered in 1930, while The Man Who Came to Dinner closed the decade in 1939. Just beyond the midpoint and in the midst of a grinding Depression, 1936 saw their masterpiece You Can’t Take It With You, the show squarely centered in the canon of comedy, our nation’s dramatic history, and the scrapbook of Americana itself. Of the three successes, this is the work that best reflects and critiques the Thirties, while capturing the duo’s creative synergy, which Kaufman described as “forked lightning.” 

Our revival underscores the paradox of a classic: any artifact affording a window on its time and place while holding a mirror to our own. Although born of the pressures of a particular moment, You Can’t Take It With You uncannily speaks to our culture today. In other words, Kaufman and Hart are always on the move, and as this production reinforces, their play is anything but a period piece.

Stage comedy has consistently taken a back seat to serious drama, a fate befalling its virtuosos from Aristophanes and Molière, to Feydeau and Shaw. In this, Kaufman and Hart are no exception, and along with these predecessors have been alternately praised, pilloried, popular, and patronized. But also like those forerunners, these partners have a voice and style all their own, a delightfully dizzying mix of gentle humor, pointed commentary, and outrageous farce. That technique is a potent fusion of Mark Twain and the Marx Brothers, where sense and nonsense, sublimity and slapstick combine, and neither sentiment nor satire has the final say.

The manners, matter, and very rhythms of national life serve as their touchstones, and Kaufman and Hart’s finest plays are notable for their clear-eyed views on our fundamental values of freedom, individuality, and the promise of reinvention, couched in their preference for the quick, syncopated language of wisecracks over the languid European form of wit. And while comedy has grown blunter and more aggressive in the intervening century, that hardly negates the validity of Kaufman and Hart’s conclusions, which are decidedly not bland or, even more damning, whimsical.

National Portraits, 1936: Charlie Chaplin imperiled in Modern Times vs. the power of unity in You Can’t Take It With You.

American theatre in the Thirties championed direct engagement with national issues or some degree of escape from reality. Dominant playwrights like Clifford Odets and Lillian Hellman, in such representative works as Waiting for Lefty and The Children’s Hour, wrestled with daunting social problems, while Clare Boothe Luce in The Women, or Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse in Life With Father, occupy the opposite pole. Depending on a given production, Thornton Wilder’s Our Town or William Saroyan’s The Time of Your Life roam this spectrum, but equally prove the rule. For every Tobacco Road or Of Mice and Men, there was a Philadelphia Story and Three Men on a Horse. The same was true of the musical stage, where Anything Goes faced The Cradle Will Rock. A choice was in order, as dramatist Robert E. Sherwood asserted in a self-diagnosis: “the trouble with me is that I start off with a big message and end with nothing but good entertainment.” Confident of their integrity and goals, and proudly commercial, Kaufman and Hart found the sweet spot that reconciled these extremes, their provocations leavened by high spirits, their criticisms buoyed by enduring optimism.

Historian Stanley Green identifies some of the central themes of Thirties drama as “the folly of war, municipal corruption, political campaigns, the workings of the federal government, rising labor movements, the dangers of both the far right and the far left, and the struggle between democracy and totalitarianism,” a roster as pertinent nowadays as it’s ever been. In the face of such obstacles, Kaufman and Hart offer direction, not delusion. While deflating our shortcomings, they stubbornly uphold the dignity of humankind. But they are mediators, not moralists, using the stage as a site for imaginative possibilities instead of as a soapbox. Still, anchoring their wildest moments of mayhem is a call for a world graced with plenty, love, and most crucially, hope.  

The root of this comedy is radical empathy. In response to demands for conformity and compliance, they advocate living your truth, defying restrictions, and resisting intimidation. For Kaufman and Hart, surrendering to the status quo is a remediable evil. In a material, often mercenary society, their injunction to be simple, as in open, trusting, and spontaneous, is nothing resembling a simplistic philosophy. Stay present. Be authentic. Respect yourself and others. Exercise tolerance. Act justly. Savor the moment. Celebrate family, friends, and community. Relish life. All of which sound like the baldest platitudes until we ask why we settle for less. The journey of You Can’t Take It With You is heroic, presenting attitudes that should be as prevalent as they are relevant. But the play’s crowning achievement is how its authors opt for performing instead of preaching this creed. And they’re explosively funny doing it.

But just what accounts for that trust in human nature? The secret is that for Kaufman and Hart, the American clock runs backwards as well as ahead. Their faith in recoverable innocence isn’t nostalgia for childhood but a progress toward higher wisdom. Given this vision of time, it’s fitting that guest artist Nathaniel P. Claridad, a graduate of our Professional Actor Training Program now enjoying wider success, makes his own return to the PlayMakers family to guide the current production.

In the end, the plays of Kaufman and Hart stand as testimony that great comedy retains both its luster and significance. Even more, it can be joyfully subversive. With its action set during the most patriotic time of year, in You Can’t Take It With You, laughter isn’t a release of productive energy but a gift you can carry forward: a reinforcement of our common beliefs. And in challenging times, whether then or now, that’s not merely advisable but necessary. 

Jump to: Letter from Viv | Support PlayMakers | Program Notes | Who We Are | Title Page | About the Author | Actor Bios | Creative Team Bios | PlayMakers Staff | Friends of PlayMakers | Corporate and Foundation Partners

You Can’t Take It With You

by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman

Directed by Nathaniel P. Claridad

Scenic Designer
Daniel Zimmerman

Costume Designer
Anne Kennedy

Lighting Designer
Kathy A. Perkins

Sound Designer
Derek A. Graham

Vocal Coach
Gwendolyn Schwinke

Dramaturg
Gregory Kable

Choreographer & Intimacy Director
Tracy Bersley

Stage Manager
Sarah Smiley

Assistant Stage Manager
Aspen Blake Jackson

November 19 – December 7, 2025

You Can’t Take It With You is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, INC.  www.concordtheatricals.com

The videotaping or making of electronic or other audio and/or visual recordings of this production and distributing recordings or streams in any medium, including the internet, is strictly prohibited, a violation of the author(s)’s rights and actionable under United States copywright law. For more information, please visit:

https://concordtheatricals.com/resources/protecting-artists

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

Jump to: Letter from Viv | Support PlayMakers | Program Notes | Who We Are | Title Page | About the Author | Actor Bios | Creative Team Bios | General Information | PlayMakers Staff | Friends of PlayMakers | Corporate and Foundation Partners

Actor Bios

in Alphabetical Order

Tony Kirby: Reez Bailey
Mr. De Pinna: Jim Bray*
Boris Kolenkhov: Jeffrey Blair Cornell*
Ed: Matthew Donahue
Essie: Elizabeth Dye
Penelope Sycamore: Julia Gibson*
Mr. Kirby: Douglas S. Hall*
Mrs. Kirby: Kathryn Hunter-Williams*
Alice: Delaney Jackson
Rheba: Jadah Johnson
Paul Sycamore: Trevor Johnson*
Donald: Nate John Mark
Henderson: Adam Moskowitz
Olga: Gwendolyn Schwinke*
Martin Vanderhof: Ray Thomas Anthony*
Gay Wellington: Mengwe Wapimewah
Government Agents: Dawson Boudreaux, Caroline Marques, Trevele Morgan, Celeste Pelletier

Stage Managers: Sarah Smiley*, Aspen Blake Jackson*

*Member 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.

TONY KIRBY/HENDERSON: Dawson Boudreaux 

MARTIN VANDERHOF: Trevor Johnson 

ESSIE/GAY: Caroline Marques

DONALD/PAUL: Trevele Morgan 

ED: Adam Moskowitz

ALICE: Celeste Pelletier

PENELOPE SYCAMORE: Sandi Sullivan

Setting: New York

Time Period: 1930’s

You Can’t Take It With You will be performed with a 15 minute intermission.

Reez Bailey

Tony Kirby

PlayMakers: Company member in their third year of UNC’s Professional Actor Training Program with the Department of Dramatic Art. King James (PlayMakers Mobile), Death of a Salesman, The Christmas Case of Hezekiah Jones, Murder on the Orient Express, Much Ado About Nothing. Stupid F**king Bird, The Lifespan Of A Fact, The Lonesome West, (PlayMakers/DDA Ground Floor). Little House On The Prairie (Frosted Glass Collective).

University: Ordinary Days (InterMission Theatre); Peter and the Starcatcher, God of Carnage (University Theatre).

Film: The Thing, Dream Killers (Student Film), Rapid Eye Movement (2022).

Education: BS from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

---

Dawson Boudreaux

Government Agent (The Man)

PlayMakers: Debut.Company member in their first year of UNC’s Professional Actor Training Program with the Department of Dramatic Art. Back Back Back (PlayMakers/DDA Ground Floor)

University: Friends, Three Sisters, Long Day’s Journey Into Night with Emily Scott Banks, The Comedy of Errors, The Laramie Project, Airness (Baylor University).

Education: BFATheatre Performance and BA Mathematics at Baylor University. 

• Instagram

---

Jim Bray

Mr. De Pinna

PlayMakers: Company member in their 2nd season. Little Shop of Horrors, Death of a Salesman.

New York/International: Workshop Theatre Company, New Light Theatre Project, Dixon Place. Sympathy Jones (NY Studio Cast Album), Grease (European Tour), among others.

Regional: Curse of the Starving Class (Theatre Raleigh); Elf (NC Theatre); A New Brain (Jennie T. Anderson Theatre); 33 1/3 (Dobama Theatre); The Music Man (Cain Park); Barrington Stage; Bay Street Theatre; The Musical Theatre Project; Forestburgh Playhouse; Porthouse Theatre.

Film/TV: “A Good Fight”, Born This Way”, “Mona Lisa Smile”, “CAMP”, “Strangers with Candy”.

Directing: Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike, Cinderella, You Can’t Take it With You, The Stonewater Rapture, Dream With Me (film), Kinky Boots (assoc. dir.).

Education: MFA in Acting from Kent State University, Maggie Flanigan Studio, Anne Bogart/SITI Company, Atlantic Acting Company in NYC. Jim has served as a faculty member at University of Northern Iowa, Stephens College, and East Carolina University. He is a Teaching Assistant Professor of Theatre in the Department of Dramatic Art at UNC-Chapel Hill.

---

Jeffrey Blair Cornell

Boris Kolenkhov

PlayMakers: Jeff is celebrating his 31st consecutive season acting with PlayMakers. Recently: A Good Boy (with Hidden Voices), Little Shop of Horrors, Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, Murder on the Orient Express, Much Ado About Nothing, The Legend of Georgia McBride, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Ragtime, How I Learned to Drive, She Loves Me, Bewilderness. Some favorites: My Fair Lady, The Tempest, Private Lives, Doubt, Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, The Illusion, Angels in America, Vanya, Sonya, Masha and Spike, Cabaret.

New York: Two by Two, Down to Earth, Serious Business.

Regional: Guthrie Theater, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Pittsburgh Public Theater, Paper Mill Playhouse, Geva Theatre Center, among others.

Education/Other: Carbonell Award nominations for Best Actor – Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me and Falsettoland (Caldwell Theatre – FL). Studied at HB Studios in New York with Uta Hagen, Austin Pendleton, and Elizabeth Wilson and received his MFA from the PATP/UNC-Chapel Hill. Recently retired from UNC’s Department of Dramatic Art, he currently serves as Visiting Lecturer. 

---

Matthew Donahue

Ed

PlayMakers: Company member in their third year of UNC’s Professional Actor Training Program with the Department of Dramatic Art. The Royale, Little Shop of Horrors, Death of a Salesman, The Christmas Case of Hezekiah Jones, Murder on the Orient Express, Every Brilliant Thing, Much Ado About Nothing. The Lonesome West, Stupid F**king Bird (PlayMakers/DDA Ground Floor).

Regional: Little Shop of Horrors (Virginia Theatre Festival); The Fox; Peter and the Starcatcher (The Commonweal Theatre Co.); Gypsy, Oklahoma! (The Prizery).

Education: BFA Acting, East Carolina University.

• Instagram

---

Elizabeth Dye

#7

PlayMakers: Company member in their third year of UNC’s Professional Actor Training Program with the Department of Dramatic Art. 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.

• Instagram

---

Julia Gibson

Penelope Sycamore

PlayMakers: Company member in her 12th season. 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: Currently co-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. 

---

Deouglas S. Hall

Mr. Kirby

PlayMakers: Little Shop of Horrors. Douglas S. Hall is a director, actor and teacher who has worked at theatres across the US including The Williamstown Theater Festival, the Finger Lakes Musical Theatre Festival, Merry Go Round Playhouse, Mountain Playhouse, and Seven Angels Theater.

Regional: Sea Wall (SaraSolo Theater Festival), Red Velvet (freeFall Theatre).

Webseries: Precious Cargo.

Director: The Religion Thing (Project Y Theater Company), Tenderly, The Rosemary Clooney Musical (Finger Lakes Musical Theatre Festival), Daddy Long Legs (freeFall Theater), Keats, Forever Plaid, Merrily We Roll, Chicago, Guys And Dolls, and Always… Patsy Cline.

Education/Other: Guest Director at Elon University and faculty at CAP 21/NYU and the University of South Florida where he created the USF Theatre in Paris program. Head of Musical Theatre for Musik Theater Bavaria, a summer intensive training program in Bavaria, Germany. BA in English from the University of California at Berkeley and an MFA in Directing fromRutgers University.

---

Kathryn Hunter-Williams

Mrs. Kirby

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 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.

---

Delaney Jackson

#Alice

PlayMakers: Company member in their first year of UNC’s Professional Actor Training Program with the Department of Dramatic Art. The Wolves.

Regional: Scissoring, Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties (Voices In Alliance); As You Like It, Julius Caesar, Much Ado About Nothing (Old School Shakespeare Omaha); Twelfth Night: Or What You Will (Benson Theatre); King Lear, R3³ (BLUEBARN Theatre); It’s A Wonderful Life (The Rose Theater). 

Film: Wed the Dark (Shoot Montana).

Education: BA in Theatre from the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

---

Jadah Johnson

Rheba

PlayMakers: Company member in their third year of UNC’s Professional Actor Training Program with the Department of Dramatic Art. The Wolves, Death of a Salesman, The Christmas Case of Hezekiah Jones, Crumbs from the Table of Joy, The Game (u/s perf.), Much Ado About Nothing.  Stupid F**king Bird (PlayMakers/DDA Ground Floor).

Regional: Too Heavy For Your Pocket (New Horizon Theatre)

Education:B.A Theatre Arts Performance and Practices at Point Park University.

• Instagram

---

Trevor Johnson

Paul Sycamore

PlayMakers: The Christmas Case of Hezekiah Jones, Everybody, Leaving Eden, Jump.

Regional: Fences, Miraculous and the Mundane, Best of Enemies, Art Tatum: Piano Starts Here, Our Town, Amadeus.

University: You are Dead You are Here (UNC Process Series), Black Pioneers: A Creative Celebration, Voices from the Archives, Noms de Guerre, Aluminum Town, Working, Virtual Performance Factory, Dearly Departed, Tribute to Paul Green, Jesus Christ Superstar. Film: I Want to Be With You in the Darkness.

Education/Awards/Other: BA Comm Studies, UNC-Chapel Hill – Wallace Ray Peppers Award; B.A. Theatre Education, NCCU, Summa Cum Laude.

---

Nate John Mark

Donald

PlayMakers: Company member in their third year of UNC’s Professional Actor Training Program with the Department of Dramatic Art. King James (PlayMakers Mobile), Death of a Salesman, The Christmas Case of Hezekiah Jones, Crumbs from the Table of Joy, Fat Ham, Much Ado About Nothing. Stupid F**king Bird, The Lifespan Of A Fact (PlayMakers/DDA Ground Floor).

Regional: Party People (Actors Theatre of Louisville); Nollywood Dreams ( Open Book Theatre); Head Over Heels (Ringwald Theatre); Taming of the Shrew (Idaho Shakespeare Festival); Othello (The Acting Company/NY); 12th Night (Shakespeare in Detroit). 

• Instagram

---

Caroline Marques

Government Agent (Mac)

PlayMakers: Company member in their first year of UNC’s Professional Actor Training Program with the Department of Dramatic Art. The Wolves.

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

Film: Dream Killers (Student Film).

Education: B.A in Dramatic Arts at UNC Chapel Hill. 

• Instagram

---

Trevele Morgan

Government Agent (Jim)

PlayMakers: Debut. Company member in their first year of UNC’s Professional Actor Training Program with the Department of Dramatic Art. Back Back Back (PlayMakers/DDA Ground Floor)

Regional: Kill Move Paradise (Playhouse on the Park); Pericles, Prince of Tyre (Connecticut Repertory Theatre); The Flick (Jobsite Theatre); Voodoo Macbeth (Studio 620); As You Like It (Jobsite Theatre); William Shakespeare’s Land of the Dead (Hat Trick Theatre).

Education: B.F.A. in Theatre Performance from the University of South Florida.

---

Adam Moskowitz

Henderson

PlayMakers: Debut. Company member in their first year of UNC’s Professional Actor Training Program with the Department of Dramatic Art. Back Back Back (PlayMakers/DDA Ground Floor)

Regional: Fat Ham (FireHouse Theatre & Virginia Stage Company); The Three Musketeers, Henry V, Dreamgirls (Virginia Stage Company). 

University: The Brother Size (Elegba); The Color Purple (Norfolk State University Theatre Company); A Soldier’s Play (co-pro with Virginia Arts Festival); LP Migration (World Premiere) written & directed by Broadway playwright Keenan Scott II (NSU Theatre Company).

Education/ Awards: B.A. Norfolk State University; KC/ACTF Distinguished Performance by an Actor (Thoughts of a Colored Man) 2024.

• Instagram

---

Celeste Pelletier

Government Agent

PlayMakers: Company member in their first year of UNC’s Professional Actor Training Program with the Department of Dramatic Art. The Wolves.

Regional: It’s A Wonderful Life, The Burn Vote, The Wolves, The Little Prince (River & Rail Theatre); King Lear, Althea and Angela (The Word Players); A Kid Like Jake, The Thanksgiving Play (Flying Anvil Theatre).

University: Airness, Three Sisters, Top Girls (Clarence Brown Theatre).

Film: The Fool (Yenno Studio).

---

Gwendolyn Schwinke

Olga

See Creative Bio

---

Ray Anthony Thomas

Martin Vanderhof

PlayMakers: The Royale, Fences.

New York: Ray Anthony Thomas is a member of The Atlantic Theater Company. Between Riverside and Crazy (premiere, Pulitzer Prize), Distant Fires, Edmond, and The Exonerated.

Broadway: I Need That (starring Danny DeVito), American Buffalo (starring Sam Rockwell and Darren Criss), Trouble In Mind (starring La Chanze), The Crucible, Race (Mamet), and Jitney (also National Tour).

Film: American Fiction, The Harbinger, Isn’t It, Romantic, Shutter Island, Trouble With The Curve.

TV: “Flatbush Misdemeanors” and “High Maintenance” (HBO), “Law & Order” and “New Amsterdam” (NBC), and “The Last O.G.”

Other: Ray has also appeared in Water By The Spoonful (Pulitzer Prize), creating the role of ‘Chutes&Ladders.’ Ray is a Wilsonian Warrior, recognized for all his work in the canon of August Wilson.

---

Mengwe Wapimewah

#00

PlayMakers: Company member in their third year of UNC’s Professional Actor Training Program with the Department of Dramatic Art. The Wolves, Little Shop of Horrors (u/s), Confederates, Death of a Salesman, The Christmas Case of Hezekiah Jones, Crumbs from the Table of Joy, Fat Ham, Much Ado About Nothing. The Lifespan of a Fact, Stupid F**king Bird (PlayMakers/DDA Ground Floor).

University: Recycling Theater (Stella Adler Studio of Acting); The Quiet Zone (Stella Adler Studio of Acting).

Film: MAGICKY (Pace University); Sisyphus (Pace University); Vices (JG Filmworks); Out of Luck (RK Productions).

Education: BFA Acting for Film, Television, Voiceovers, and Commercials at Pace School of Performing Arts.

Jump to: Letter from Viv | Support PlayMakers | Program Notes | Who We Are | Title Page | About the Author | Actor Bios | Creative Team Bios | PlayMakers Staff | Friends of PlayMakers | Corporate and Foundation Partners

Nathaniel P. Claridad

Director

PlayMakers: Fourth Man in Metamorphoses, Cabaret, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Parchman Hour, Henry IV & V.

Directing Credits: Ragtime (Broadway, Assistant Director); Mr. Popper’s Penguins, Petite Rouge: A Cajun Red Riding Hood (Imagination Stage, Helen Hayes Award for Best TYA Production & Best Director Nomination); Buyer & Cellar, A Class Act, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (9 New Hampshire Theatre Alliance Nominations including Outstanding Play), Romeo & Juliet (Weathervane Theatre); ‘Til Sunday (Southern Rep.); staged reading of “8” by Dustin Lance Black (Raleigh Little Theatre, PlayMakers Repertory Company and the Department of Dramatic Art, UNC-Chapel Hill)

Off-Broadway/New York: Here Lies Love (NYSF/The Public Theatre); Taylor Mac’s 24 Decade History of Popular Music (St. Ann’s Warehouse); The Awesome 80’s Prom.

National/International Tour: Alice (The Kennedy Center); Taylor Mac’s 24 Decade History of Popular Music (Melbourne, Australia); Laser Beak Man (Dead Puppet Society, Australian Tour including the Sydney Opera House).

Regional: The Kennedy Center, Folger Theatre, The Shakespeare Theatre, Imagination Stage, Hangar Theatre, Barrington Stage Company, Florida Studio Theatre, Hippodrome Theatre, Portland Stage, Weathervane Theatre.

Film: Jack and Diane, New Amsterdam (NBC), Harlem (Amazon Prime).

---

Daniel Zimmerman

Scenic Designer

PlayMakers: She Loves Me.

Off-Broadway: Fashions for Men (Drama Desk nomination; The Mint); After the Blast and Kill Floor (Lincoln Center); Friend Art (Second Stage); Suicide, Incorporated (Roundabout); You Got Older (Page 73 Productions); Be a Good Little Widow (Ars Nova).

New York: The Play Company, Clubbed Thumb, Cherry Lane, Colt Coeur, Lesser America, The Pearl.

Regional: Arena Stage, Dallas Theatre Center, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Humana Festival of New American Plays, NYS&F, Cincinnati Playhouse, Baltimore Center Stage, Trinity Repertory Company, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Theatreworks Palo Alto, Portland Stage Company, People’s Light, Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference.

Education: He received his MFA from NYU, Tisch and currently teaches scenic design at Ithaca College.

---

Anne Kennedy

Costume Designer

PlayMakers: A Wrinkle in Time, Assassins, As You Like It, God’s Man in Texas, How I Learned to Drive, In the Next Room (or the vibrator play), Moliere’s Tartuffe, The Bluest Eye, The Importance of Being Earnest, Twelfth Night.

Off-Broadway: Playwrights Horizons, Primary Stages, Rattlestick Theatre.

Regional: Alliance Theatre, Arena Stage, Barrington Stage, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Center Stage, Chautauqua Theatre Company, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, Dallas Theatre Center, Denver Center Theatre Company, Guthrie Theatre, Kennedy Center, The Old Globe, Olney Theatre Center, Papermill Playhouse, People’s Light and Theatre, Philadelphia Theatre Center, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Round House Theatre, Signature Theatre, Studio Theatre, Theatre J, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Woolly Mammoth.

Educational: The Juilliard School, Williams College.  www.annekennedycostumes.com

• Instagram

---

Kathy A. Perkins

Lighting Designer

PlayMakers: Crumbs from the Table of Joy, Murder on the Orient Express, They Do Not Know Harlem, Edges of Time, Count, Mr. Joy, Trouble in Mind, Surviving Twin, A Raisin in the Sun, Clybourne Park, The Parchman Hour.

Broadway: Trouble in Mind.

Regional: American Conservatory Theatre, Arena Stage, Berkeley Repertory, Seattle Repertory, St. Louis Black Repertory, Alliance, Goodman, Steppenwolf, Baltimore Center Stage, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, New Federal Theatre, Mark Taper, Yale Repertory, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and People’s Light.

Education: In 2007 she was inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Theatre. She received her B.F.A. from Howard University and her MFA from the University of Michigan.

Other Credits: Kathy is the editor of seven anthologies focusing on women both nationally and internationally, including Selected Plays: Alice Childress. She is a senior editor of the Routledge Companion to African American Theatre and Performance. Kathy is faculty Emerita at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 2022 she received the New York City Henry Hewes Design Award. In 2016 she served as a theatre consultant for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture’s inaugural exhibition “Taking the Stage”.

---

Derek A. Graham

Sound Designer

PlayMakers: Fat Ham, They Do Not Know Harlem, Bewilderness, Your Healing is Killing Me.

Off Broadway: A Freeky Introduction (Associate Sound Design – Atlantic Theater Company)

Regional: Of a Darker Hue (The Ensemble Theatre); Booty Candy (Tantrum Theater); Sankofa: An Epic Adventure (Playhouse Square); Fat Ham, What the Constitution Means to Me (Cleveland Play House); Fat Ham (Cincinatti Shakespeare Company); I Shall Not Be Moved/Your Negro Tour Guide (Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati, 2022 Edinburgh Festival Fringe); Kill Move Paradise, Skeleton Crew, Wakey, Wakey, An Octoroon (Dobama Theatre) Composer Credits: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Cleveland Play House); The Folks at Home (Indiana Repertory Theater); Incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Help (Asolo Repertory Theater); In Every Generation (TheatreWorks Silicon Valley).

Television/Live Stream: Front-of-House Mix Engineer for White House Event with VP Kamala Harris at AJ Fletcher Opera Theater, Jan. 30, 2023.

University: Detroit ’67 (Baldwin Wallace University Theatre).

Education: BA in Music at Elizabeth City State University. MFA in Sound Design at Ohio University.

Other: Co-Founder of Life by Design Media & Production, LLC. Sound department head at AJ Fletcher Opera Theater (Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts).

• Instagram

---

Gwendolyn Schwinke

Vocal Coach

PlayMakers: Company member since 2019. Voice/Dialect Coach:Confederates, Fat Ham, Much Ado About Nothing, Clyde’s, Blues for an Alabama Sky, As You Like It, and many more.Actor: Murder on the Orient Express, Much Ado About Nothing, The Skin of Our Teeth, As You Like It.

International: Voice/Text/Dialect/Somatic Coach with Prague Shakespeare Company and Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble.

New York & Regional: Voice and Text Coaching for over 50 professional shows, including over 25 Shakespeare productions, and 50-plus different international or regional accents. Coaching at Utah Shakespeare Festival, Shakespeare & Company (seven seasons), Clarence Brown Theatre, Frank Theatre, and more Actor with multiple regional theatres. Director: PlayMakers/PATP Ground Floor, Tennessee Shakespeare Company, Walker Art Center, Atlantic Stage, The Playwrights’ Center, Switch Theatre, and others.

Teaching: David G. Frey Scholar/Associate Professor of Voice & Speech. Designated Linklater Voice Teacher and Mentor/Trainer, Guild-certified Feldenkrais Teacher, Certified Teacher of Louis Colaianni Approach to Speech & Accents.

• Instagram

---

Gregory Kable

Dramaturg

PlayMakers: Associate Dramaturg, 1997 to present. Little Shop of Horrors, 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.

---

Tracy Bersley

Choreographer & Intimacy Director

PlayMakers: Company member since 2016. Recent highlights include directing Murder on the Orient Express and choreographingThe Christmas Case of Hezekiah Jones, Fat Ham, Much Ado About Nothing, The Legend of Georgia McBride, and Hamlet.

Off-Broadway/New York: As director/choreographer— Lincoln Center, The Public Theater, BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music), The Lortel Theatre, Primary Stages, and many award-winning Off-Broadway companies, such as The Civilians and Red Bull Theatre.

Regional: As director/choreographer— Delaware Repertory Theater, Carolina Performing Arts, McCarter Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival.

Eduction/Other: Served as professor or guest artist at Yale School of Drama, Princeton University, New York University, Purchase College, Columbia University/Barnard College, and The Juilliard School. Tracy received her MFA in Directing from Syracuse University and is currently head of movement of the Professional Actor Training Program in the Department of Dramatic Art at UNC-Chapel Hill, a member of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, and a Drama League Fellow.

---

Sarah Smiley

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.

---

Aspen Blake Jackson

Assistant Stage Manager

PlayMakers: 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.

---

Benjamin Fink

Production Technical Director

PlayMakers: Benjamin is a graduate student in his third year of UNC’s Technical Production MFA Program with the Department of Dramatic Art, serving as Production Technical Director for You Can’t Take It With You and Macbeth (upcoming) as his thesis project.  Credits include: Confederates (TD), The Christmas Case of Hezekiah Jones (ATD).

Regional: Bandstand (TD), Newsies, Jersey Boys (ATD) (The REV Theatre)

Education: BA in Theatre Arts from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota.

Jump to: Letter from Viv | Support PlayMakers | Program Notes | Who We Are | Title Page | About the Author | Actor Bios | Creative Team Bios | PlayMakers Staff | Friends of PlayMakers | Corporate and Foundation Partners

UP NEXT

By Eboni Booth

Directed By NJ Agwuna

January 28-February 15, 2026

2024 Pulitzer Prize Winner!

When a bookstore job vanishes, Kenneth must step beyond his comfort zone for the first time. You’ll be moved by this tender, funny, and deeply human story about rediscovering life, one connection at a time. Learn more.

---

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.

---

Land Acknowledgment

We acknowledge that the land on which the University of North Carolina stands is the ancestral homeland of Eastern Siouan-speaking Indigenous peoples (Yesàh, “The People”). We honor and acknowledge the citizens of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the Coharie Indian Tribe, the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, the Haliwa-Saponi Indian Tribe, the Sappony, the Meherrin Nation, the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation, and the Waccamaw-Siouan Tribe, who, along with citizens of other tribal nations, comprise one of the largest populations of Indigenous people east of the Mississippi River.

As we look to the future, may we build upon the memories and goodwill of all who walked and labored here before us with truth, integrity and honor. Learn more: UNC American Indian Center  www.americanindiancenter.unc.edu.

---

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.

Jump to: Letter from Viv | Support PlayMakers | Program Notes | Who We Are | Title Page | About the Author | Actor Bios | Creative Team Bios | General Information | PlayMakers Staff | Friends of PlayMakers | Corporate and Foundation Partners

---

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.

---

Jump to: Letter from Viv | Support PlayMakers | Program Notes | Who We Are | Title Page | About the Author | Actor Bios | Creative Team Bios | General Information | PlayMakers Staff | Friends of PlayMakers | Corporate and Foundation Partners

---

For this Production

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
Savannah Foutch, Ella Hawn, 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
Nick Rodgers, Production Swing for Lighting & Sound

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

David Bost, 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

Jump to: Letter from Viv | Support PlayMakers | Program Notes | Who We Are | Title Page | About the Author | Actor Bios | Creative Team Bios | General Information | PlayMakers Staff | Friends of PlayMakers | Corporate and Foundation

---

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

Director’s Circle ($10,000+)

Andrea H. and E. William Bates II 

Lelia E. Blackwell and John D. Watson Jr. 

Cindy K. and Thomas J. Cook 

The Farley Fisher Gift Fund 

Druscilla French 

Frey Foundation 

David G. Frey* 

Judith Campbell Frey 

Joanne and Peter Garrett 

Deborah and Michael Gerhardt 

Joan H. Gillings*

Joan H. Gillings Foundation 

Cynthia Strickland Graham 

Susan G. and Dustin J. Gross 

Garrett G. Hall and Zachary W. Howell 

Monie T. and T. Chandler Hardwick III 

Elizabeth P. Kenan* 

Thomas S. Kenan III 

Sharon E. Lawrence and Thomas C. Apostle 

Wyndham G. Robertson 

Robertson Foundation 

Coleman D. Ross 

Shubert Foundation 

Alan H. Weinhouse 

Allison L. and Ford S. Worthy 

Angel ($5,000–9,999)

Munroe and Rebecca T. Cobey 

Dorothy L. Heninger 

Duncan and Stuart Lascelles

The Educational Foundation of America 

National Philanthropic Trust 

Paula D. Noell and Palmer T. Page 

The Persian Carpet 

Ken G. Smith 

Bonnie C. and James R. Yankaskas 

Investor ($2,500–4,999)

Alicia Allred

Deirdre M. and W. R. Arnold II 

Eleanor O. and Edmund S. Burke Jr. 

Jennifer D. Cannizzaro 

Cheray Z. Duchin 

Susan E. Hartley 

Susan J. Kelly 

Brian and Moyra Kileff 

Kimberley B. Kwok 

Winston C. Liao 

Linda A. and Paul D. Naylor 

Jodi D. and Louis Patalano IV 

Amy A. and Nicholas W. Penwarden 

Pinsieline Properties LLC

Phillip A. Rhodes 

Robert A. and Tobi Schwartzman 

Carol B. Smithwick 

Jacqueline and James E. Tanner

Page to Stage ($1,500–2,499)

David A. and Judith L. Adamson 

Mary Altpeter 

Iris and Keith Archuleta 

Andrew V. and Katherine B. Asaro 

Vivienne Benesch 

Steven A. Benezra

Patricia C. Beyle

Linda L. and Cliff R. Butler Jr. 

Emerald HPC International 

Diane G. and John M. Formy-Duval Jr. 

David J. Howell 

Joanna T. and Hugon J. Karwowski 

Catherine M. Kuhn and Glenn J. Tortorici 

Karen Levine and Andrew B. Sisson 

Catherine O’Connell 

Ten Feet Carolina Metals, Inc. 

Amanda G. and Malchus L. Watlington 

Riley and Wendy Waugh 

George Weinhouse 

Marlene and Roger D. Werner 

Sara M. and Sidney P. Wright

Partner ($1,000–1,499)

Howard and Penny Aldrich

Marie and Michael Andreasen 

Jeremy D. Arkin and Marian G. Fragola 

Bruce M. and Dianne H. Birch 

Fiona Brady and Carl Mehling 

Carolyn S. and Jackson D. Breaks II 

Margaret L. Brown and Jack C. Knight Jr. 

Joan Clendenin 

Virginia F. and Willis E. Cockrell III 

Janet B. and James W. Dean Jr. 

Alexander M. and Georgia C. Donaldson 

H. Shelton Earp III 

John P. and Phyllis J. Evans 

Carolyn and John M. Falletta 

Alison M. Friedman 

Kausik Gangopadhyay 

Kathleen G. and Burton B. Goldstein Jr. 

Dana R. and Robert S. Greenwood 

Julia S. and William H. Grumbles Jr. 

Elizabeth O. and Eric K. Gutt 

Rosemary E. Hoban and Stephen G. Tell

Johnson & Johnson HQ 

Shirley M. and Thomas A. Kunkel 

Anand S. Lagoo and Sandhya Lagoo-Deenadayalan 

Margaret Link-Weil and Michael L. Weil 

Carolyn C. Maness 

Holly B. and Ross E. McKinney 

Abigail T. Panter and George Huba 

Bettina Patterson 

Charles T. and Suzanne S. Plambeck 

Marilyn J. and Lunsford R. Preyer Jr. 

David E. Price 

Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund 

Carole L. Shelby 

Jenn K. and Kyle H. Smith 

William and Ellen Stewart 

The Shelby Family Foundation 

Dannie Thiessen

Roger A. Van Der Horst 

Denise and J. S. Vanderwoude 

Derek M. and Louise M. Winstanly 

David A. and Heather G. Yeowell 

Alan J. Young 

Miriam H. and Thomas C. Zietlow

Backer ($500–999)

Susan M. and Richard E. Allison Jr. 

Evelyn Barrow 

Adam C. Beck 

John W. Becton and Nancy B. Tannenbaum 

Shulamit L. and Stephen A. Bernard 

Stephen S. Birdsall 

Jerri L. Bland 

Gregory W. and Lisa F. Brown

Eleanor O. and Edmund S. Burke 

Keith W. Burridge and Patricia Saling 

Alisha G. Byrd 

Linda S. and Philip L. Carl 

Anne and Bayard Collins 

Kristin B. and Roy A. Cooper III 

Britta Couris 

David A. Crews and Elizabeth A. Eagle 

David A. Doll 

Linda W. and Jaroslav T. Folda III

W. Patrick Gale and Carrie Donley

Michael R. Freedberg and Elaine W. Mangrum 

Arthur and Ruth Gerber 

Eve B. Goldschmidt 

Dede W. Hall 

Cheryl L. and Toby H. Harrell 

C. Hawkins 

Ann E. Holloman 

Laura L. Kline and David T. Robinson 

William W. Kohr 

Cheryl L. and Morton D. Malkin

Mike Maness and Lois Knauff 

Bruce and Marlee Margulies 

Ann P. McCracken 

Connie and Edward McCraw 

James C. and Susan D. Moeser

Herbert and Jeanne Miller 

Anne C. and Frederick M. Morris III 

Stephen Nelson and Peter R. Vitale

David and Elizabeth Nuechterlein 

Vivian Olkin and Sim B. Sitkin 

Ariana Pancaldo and Michael K. Salemi 

Eugenea and Mark Pollock 

Glenn M. and Jodi L. Preminger 

M. Vikram and Susan J. Rao 

Lucy O. and Sidney C. Smith Jr. 

Edward M. and Laurel D. Strong

Timothy and Judy Taft 

T. Rowe Price Charitable Giving 

Carol B. Uphoff

* indicates deceased 

The above list represents patrons who have made gifts to PlayMakers between July 1, 2024 and October 21, 2025.

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.

Jump to: Letter from Viv | Support PlayMakers | Program Notes | Who We Are | Title Page | About the Author | Actor Bios | Creative Team Bios | General Information | PlayMakers Staff | Friends of PlayMakers | Corporate and Foundation Partners

---

Patron Spotlight

Allison and Ford Worthy

One of us recently asked the other: “What do you think our return on investment is from supporting PlayMakers?” Well, that’s impossible to calculate, but we know it’s high – very high. We’ve been PlayMakers subscribers together for nearly 30 years. (And before that, Ford first subscribed as a UNC sophomore in 1975.) The stories we’ve seen told on the PlayMakers stage have entertained us, moved us, provoked and unsettled us, inspired us, thrilled us, and sometimes frustrated us. Some performances have stayed with us long after we’ve left the Paul Green Theatre for the night. There was a powerful drama from 10 years ago – Disgraced, about faith and prejudice and identify – that we’ll never forget. There was last season’s joyful musical about the blood-sucking Venus flytrap that we laugh out loud about every time we glimpse the especially scary, monster-like tree right outside our house. Best of all, when we take our seats in the PlayMakers audience, we get to share the experience with other members of our community. Watching a PlayMakers production just wouldn’t be the same without watching it with the rest of you. That’s another reason we value PlayMakers – and why we’re so committed to supporting it.

---

Jump to: Letter from Viv | Support PlayMakers | Program Notes | Who We Are | Title Page | About the Author | Actor Bios | Creative Team Bios | PlayMakers Staff | Friends of PlayMakers | Corporate and Foundation Partners