Evan Yionoulis

Director

Evan Yionoulis is an award-winning director who has helmed new plays and classics in New York and across the country.   She has enjoyed collaborations with major American playwrights, including Adrienne Kennedy (the critically acclaimed productions of He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box and Ohio State Murders, Lortel Award for Best Revival, Theatre for a New Audience) and Richard Greenberg (the premieres and New York productions of The Violet Hour, Biltmore Theatre, Broadway; Everett Beekin, Lincoln Center Theatre; and Three Days of Rain, Manhattan Theatre Club, Obie Award for direction). 

In her twenty years as a resident director at Yale Repertory Theatre, she directed Richard II, Cymbeline, The Master Builder, George F. Walker’s Heaven, Brecht’s Galileo, Gozzi’s The King Stag (which she adapted with composer Mike Yionoulis and Catherine Sheehy), Caryl Churchill’s Owners, Guillermo Calderon’s Kiss, and numerous other productions.

Credits include work at the Mark Taper Forum, Huntington, NY Shakespeare Festival, the Vineyard, Cherry Lane, 2econd Stage, American Music Theatre Festival, Dallas Theatre Center, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Williamstown, Denver Center, Portland Stage, PlayMakers Rep, and many others. She directed SEVEN, a documentary theatre piece about extraordinary women from across the globe who work for human rights, in New York, Boston, Washington, Aspen, London, Deauville, and New Delhi.

She serves on the Executive Board of SDC, the labor union representing stage directors and choreographers as Secretary, and is a Princess Grace Foundation Awards recipient. She is the Richard Rodgers Director of the Drama Division at the Juilliard School.  

Donald Holder

Donald Holder (Lighting Design) Broadway: Tootsie, Kiss Me Kate, Straight White Men, My Fair Lady, Anastasia, Oslo, M Butterfly, She Loves Me, Fiddler On The Roof, The King and I, On The Twentieth Century, The Bridges Of Madison County, Golden Boy, Spiderman- Turn Off The Dark, Ragtime, Movin’ Out, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and many others. He has designed fifty eight Broadway productions, is the recipient of two Tony awards (The Lion King and South Pacific) and thirteen Tony nominations. Opera: Porgy Rigoletto for the Berlin Staatsoper, Porgy and Bess, Otello, ‘wo Boys, The Magic Flute, Samson et Delilah at the New York Metropolitan Opera, Carmen for the Chicago Lyric and Houston Grand Opera, many others. Television/Film: Recent projects include Smash Seasons one and two (NBC Dreamworks),  Oceans Eight (Warner Brothers Pictures).  Mr. Holder is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and the University of Maine, and Head of Lighting Design at Rutgers University.

Teresa Snider-Stein

Teresa Snider-Stein (Costume Design) is a twenty-five year veteran of New York and Regional theatre, who has designed costumes for nearly a hundred productions. Selected credits include: I’m not Rappaport (Broadway & regional tour); Everett Beekin (Lincoln Center); the original productions of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Young Man from Atlanta, (Signature Theatre, Huntington Theatre, and Alley Theatre); Raised in Captivity, (Vineyard Theater and South Coast Rep); and 36 Views (Huntington Theatre, Boston, MA). For nine years as the resident costume designer at Signature Theatre in New York City, Ms. Snider-Stein particularly enjoyed the intensive yearlong collaboration with the various playwrights in residence. She designed the costumes for over thirty-five productions by Romulus Linney, Lee Blessing, Edward Albee, Horton Foote, Adrienne Kennedy, Sam Sheppard, Arthur Miller, John Guare, and Maria Irene Fornes. Working directly with each of the playwrights she was able to focus on specificity of character and tap into each author’s particular point of view. Through participation in this in-depth exploration of individual playwrights’ work, she was part of the team that helped cement the Signature Theatre’s playwright-centric techniques. New York credits include Playwrights Horizons, the Public Theater, Lucille Lortel Theatre, Classic Stage Company, the Vineyard Theatre, Irish Repertory Theatre, The Jewish Repertory Theatre, Mabou Mines, Village Light Opera Company, Ensemble Studio Theater, and Women’s Project & Productions. Regionally she has worked at South Coast Rep, Goodspeed Opera Company, The Alley Theatre, New York Stage and Film, Dallas Theatre Center, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Ford’s Theater, Coconut Grove Playhouse, the Huntington Theatre Company, George Street Playhouse, Portland Stage Company, and Paper Mill Playhouse. Most recent theatrical costume designs include the NYC premieres of HIM (Primary Stages); The Hereafter Musical (Theater 80); and MIKA created in answer to Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s initiative to end violence against women worldwide and presented at the Trusteeship Council Chamber at the United Nations, NYC. Ms. Snider-Stein was awarded the Bronze Medal for Costume Design at the 2005 World Stage Design International Exhibition and is a member of United Scenic Artists local 829 and USITT. She holds an MFA in Design from the Yale School of Drama and is currently Head of Costume Design and Assistant Professor of Theatre at Brooklyn College, CUNY.

Ms. Snider-Stein was awarded the Bronze Medal for Costume Design at the 2005 World Stage Design International Exhibition and is a member of United Scenic Artists local 829 and USITT.  She holds an MFA in Design from the Yale School of Drama and is currently Head of Costume Design and Assistant Professor of Theatre at Brooklyn College, CUNY.

Ao Li

Ao Li (Set Design) is a set designer and visual artist who has worked internationally. His designs include: Scraps (Flea Theatre), Real (The Tank), As You Like It (Columbia University), Waiting for Godot (Alfred University), Lucretia (Cantata Profana), Where is My Maple Town (Theatre Row), Kiss (Yale Repertory Theatre), ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore (Yale School of Drama), Titus Andronicus (Iseman Theatre), Yale Cabaret credits include: The Apple Tree, Xander Xyst, Dragon:1 and The Styx Songs. His work in Shanghai include: Cao Zhi (Academy Theatre), Blind (Shanghai International Arts Festival), Everything in the Garden (Duanjun Theatre) among others. Ao associate designed Soft Power (The Public Theatre), The Orphan of Zhao at Beijing Poly Theater and assisted on productions including Judgement Day (Park Avenue Armory), The Twilight Zone (West End), Tamerlano (Frankfurt Opera), Le Nozze Di Figaro (Theatre Des Champs-Elysses) and Scenes From Court Life (Yale Repertory Theater) etc. His artwork has received three solo exhibitions including Expression, 2009 and Childhood. He holds an MFA in Set Design from Yale School of Drama and a BFA in Stage Design from Shanghai Theatre Academy. He is the co-founder and former president of the Intercultural Performance Studio in Shanghai. He is the winner of Donald and Zorca Oenslager Travel Fellowship Award in Design, Richard Harrison Senie Scholarship and Donald M. Oenslager Scholarship in Stage Design. http://aoliarts.com/about

Melissa Friedling 

Melissa Friedling (Sound & Video Design) is a filmmaker and media artist.  Her work has been exhibited internationally at venues including Tribeca Film Festival (NY), Athens Institute for Contemporary Art (ATHICA), Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center (Buffalo), Art Space (New Haven), Microscope Gallery (NY); Experiments in Cinema (NM); Cornell Cinemas, Everson Museum of Art (Syracuse),  Apexart (NY), New Orleans International Film Festival, Ann Arbor (MI), Atlanta Film Fest, Women in the Director’s Chair International Film & Video Festival, Black Maria Film & Video Festival, International Women Directors’ Film Festival (Créteil, France). She has been a recipient of a Fulbright Award and artist’s grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the New York State Council for the Arts.  She has previously created video for theatrical works written by Paul David Young, mounted at PS1 MoMA and at Judson Memorial Church.  Friedling lives in Brooklyn, NY and teaches at The New School.

Christine J. Colonna 

Christine J. Colonna (Stage Manager) credits include Broadway: Tootsie. Pre-Broadway: Tootsie. Off-Broadway: Blue Ridge; The Great Leap (Atlantic Theater Company), The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Pacific Overtures (Classic Stage Company), Ordinary Days; Lonely Planet (Keen Company), The Metromaniacs (The Red Bull Theater), The Dread Pirate Project (world premiere, Baryshnikov Arts Center), Three Wise Guys (TACT), Stupid F*cking Bird (AADA).  Regional:  Hurricane Diane (world premiere, (Two River Theater Company), Evita; Mamma Mia; Fiddler on the Roof (Maine State Music Theatre). MFA: Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University.

Zachary M. Brienza

Zachary M. Brienza (Assistant Light Design) is a freelance lighting designer based in New York City. He is an alumnus of Rutgers Mason Gross School of The Arts where he received a BFA in Lighting Design. During his time with Rutgers Theater Company he designed eight shows; most notably Julius Caesar, Herakles, and An Octoroon. His professional credits include The Eleventh Hour, No Child, & Sophie Scholl - The Final Days. Other credits include: Assistant Lighting Designer for Shake & Bake: Love’s Labour’s Lost.

Heather Arnson

Heather Arnson (Assistant Director) Associate/Assistant highlights: Michael Wilson (BEAU, Fellow Travelers, Right Before I Go, others), Lila Neugebauer (The Wolves), Leigh Silverman (Seat of Our Pants), and Evan Yionoulis (All My Fathers). As a director, selected credits: Apartment Block, Your Title Goes Here, Wasp, and Elizabeth: Almost By Chance A Woman. Associate member of SDC, 2019 Princess Grace Award Reader, SDCF Observership 2017 -2018, Newington-Crosby Fellow, B.A. in Theatre from UCLA. www.HeatherArnson.com Next: https://www.beauthemusical.com/@ Joe’s Pub.

Richard Gallagher*

Richard Gallagher: Credits include Broadway: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, 1984, The Front Page, The Lyons, The Importance of Being Earnest, Other NY credits include: The Pearl (Major Barbara), WP Theater, Lark Theatre, 59E59 Theaters. Selected regional credits include: Actors Theatre of Louisville (Angels in America parts 1 & 2), McCarter Theatre, Studio Theatre (Tribes), Baltimore Centerstage, Yale Repertory Theatre and The Norman Conquests at Northern Stage, Dorset Theatre Festival (directed by Evan Yionoulis) and Weston Playhouse. Film: Naked Singularity (with John Boyega & Olivia Cooke), El Camino (with Elisabeth Moss). TV: Recurring roles in Orange Is the New Black and Turn: Washington’s Spies. Other television: Blacklist, Quantico, Chicago P.D., Person of Interest, Blue Bloods, Law & Order, As the World Turns, Looking for Kathleen, Wallflowers. MFA, Yale School of Drama.

Brian Hastert*

Brian Hastert: Recent stage credits include the New York premier of Tectonic Theatre Project’s Uncommon Sense, Of Good Stock (Manhattan Theatre Company), Mission Drift (The National Theatre, London), A Future Perfect (SpeakEasy, World Premier), The Ragged Claws (Cherry Lane), as well readings/workshops at New Dramatists, The Lark, Manhattan Theatre Club, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Dixon Place, The Working Theatre, The Living Theatre, Terra Nova, and others. TV: Happy!, The Deuce, The Good Wife, Allegiance, Flesh and Bone, I love You… But I Lied, The Vampire Leland (pilot). Film: Walk With Me (upcoming). Radio: Twelve Years (BBC4). Brian is a founding member of The TEAM, a Brooklyn-based theater ensemble under the artistic directorship of Tony award-winning director Rachel Chavkin. With The TEAM, Brian has helped create seven original works and created roles in Particularly in the Heartland and Mission Drift which was recently voted one of the 50 best plays of the 21st century by The Guardian. As an educator, Brian was the founding head of Pace University’s BFA program in Acting for Film, Television, Voice Overs, and Commercials where he oversaw the creation of a new path for training actors and preparing them for a career in a world of digital media. MFA: Yale School of Drama. Similar information with better pictures can be found at https://brianhastert.com.

Deborah Hedwall*

Deborah Hedwall has been acting and teaching in New York for over 30 years. She has created many new roles in original Off Broadway productions; Sight Unseen by Donald Margulies at MTC for which she received an OBIE and Drama Desk Nomination, Savage in Limbo by John Patrick Shanley, Extremities by William Mastrosimone, Amulets Against The Dragon Forces by Paul Zindel at Circle Rep, Blind Date by Horton Foote at Ensemble studio Theater, Fall To Earth, directed by Joe Brancato at 59 East 59, Why We have a Body at The Women’s Project directed by Evan Yionoulis. Regionally she has worked at The Actor’s Theater of Louisville, The Eugene O’Neill Theater Conference, The Arena Stage, The New Play Festival at Sundance, The Long Wharf Theater, Yale Repertory, and Baltimore Center Stage where she appeared in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf directed by Ethan McSweeny. Since then she has worked at the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor in Men’s Lives (directed by Harris Yulin), at Barrington Stage in Breaking the Code (directed by Joe Calarco), and at Hartford Stage in Christopher Shinn’s new play An Opening in Time (directed by Oliver Butler). Film and Television credits include Netflix’s Jessica Jones, Homeland, HBO’s Barry Levinson’s You Don’t Know Jack with Al Pacino, The West Wing, Law & Order, The Big C, Delocated, and Vera Farmiga’s Higher Ground, and to be released AFTER YANG directed by Kogonada. For two seasons Deborah played the mother in the Emmy Award winning series I’ll Fly Away. Hedwall has maintained an acting studio in New York for over 25 years.

Jonathan Hogan*

Jonathan Hogan: On Broadway he appeared in Comedians, Otherwise Engaged, Fifth of July, The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, As Is (Tony and Drama Desk nominations for Best Actor), Burn This, Taking Steps, and The Homecoming. Among the many plays he appeared in as a member of Circle Rep since 1973 were Lanford Wilson’s The Hot l Baltimore, The Mound Builders, and Balm in Gilead (in collaboration with Steppenwolf – Drama Desk Award for Best Ensemble). Other performances Off Broadway include Wilson’s Book of Days, Brian Friel’s Molly Sweeney, London Wall, Samuel D. Hunter’s Pocatello (Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Featured Actor), Kenneth Lonergan’s Hold Onto Me Darling (Lucille Lortel Award nominee for Outstanding Featured Actor) and Hindle Wakes. Regionally he has performed at the Dorset Theatre Festival, The Berkshire Theatre Festival, Merrimack Repertory, Long Wharf, McCarter, The La Jolla Playhouse, Repertory Co. of St. Louis, George St. Playhouse, and Hartford Stage.  Films and TV include In Country, The House On Carroll Street, A Fish In The Bathtub,  Revolution #9, several Movies of the Week, L.A. Law, Quantum Leap, all the Law & Orders, House of Cards, The Looming Tower, and Woody Allen’s yet to be released A Rainy Day in New York. Mr. Hogan is a graduate of The Goodman Theatre and School of Drama.