Joseph Haj, producing artistic director of PlayMakers Repertory Company, is leading a team of artists from PlayMakers to mount a production of William Shakespeare’s “Pericles” at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF).
Haj, who helmed PlayMakers’ production of the epic adventure in 2008, will direct the OSF staging set for Feb. 28-Nov. 1, 2015. He takes a creative team with him from Chapel Hill this week to begin the design process. Haj also directed “Henry V” for OSF, following PlayMakers’ rotating repertory production of “The Making of the King: Henry IV & V” (2012).
His work on “Hamlet” (2010) with another nationally renowned company, Folger Theatre in Washington, DC, garnered the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Resident Play, and Haj received a nomination as Outstanding Director.
PlayMakers company members who worked on the 2008 production of “Pericles” will join him in creating the new OSF show. These include scenic designer and assistant professor in the Department of Dramatic Art Jan Chambers and video designer Francesca Talenti, who is professor of media production in the Department of Communications Studies.
Joining them as music director will be Jack Herrick of famed Chapel Hill-based band The Red Clay Ramblers. Herrick wrote original music and songs for PlayMakers’ “Pericles” and performed live during the show, along with an ensemble cast of 14 actor/singer/musicians. Herrick also worked with PlayMakers on the hit musical “Big River.”
PlayMakers is the professional theater in residence in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Haj has led the theater since July 2006 and is Professor of the Practice in UNC’s Department of Dramatic Art. He is a 1988 MFA graduate of UNC’s Professional Actor Training Program.
PlayMakers website: www.playmakersrep.org
PlayMakers contact: Connie Mahan, (919) 962-5359, cmahan@email.unc.edu