DEB GOTTESMAN

Co-Director

Deb Gottesman is a founder and Co-Director of The Theatre Lab. She is also a professional actress who has performed frequently at Woolly Mammoth Theatre (where she recently appeared in Current Nobody), Arena Stage, Signature Theatre, Source Theatre, Theatre Alliance, and with the Washington Shakespeare Company, among many others. She has directed more than fifteen productions at The Theatre Lab, including Ragtime, The Crucible, The Grapes of Wrath and Jane Eyre, as well as productions for National Geographic and Catholic University’s Musical Theatre Department. Deb received her M.F.A. from Catholic University and has taught drama at the Round House Theatre, Woolly Mammoth and American University. She is a 2003 recipient of the prestigious Linowes Leadership Award for her contributions to arts education. Along with Buzz Mauro she is the founder of Center Stage Communications, a unique consulting firm specializing in the application of acting techniques to the business world. Together they are the authors of three books on applied acting: The Interview Rehearsal Book, Taking Center Stage, and The Best Answer, all published by Berkley Books, a division of Penguin Putnam.

BUZZ
MAURO

Co-Director

Buzz Mauro is Co-Director of The Theatre Lab and a Helen Hayes Award nominee who has performed extensively with Signature Theatre as well as at Ford's Theatre, Studio Theatre, The Shakespeare Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, the Potomac Theatre Project, and with the Washington Shakespeare Company. He received his B.A. from Yale University and has an M.F.A. in Acting from Catholic University. Along with Deb Gottesman he is the founder of Center Stage Communications, a unique consulting firm specializing in the application of acting techniques to the business world. Together they are the authors of three books on applied acting:The Interview Rehearsal Book, Taking Center Stage, and The Best Answer, all published by Berkley Books, a division of Penguin Putnam.

Paul Awad

Paul Awad is a professional director/cinematographer with over ten years of experience. His commercial clients have included Bayer Corporation, Philip Morris, Bon Secours Hospital, the City of Richmond, Heilig-Myers, Ukrops, and Peebles to name a few. Paul holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre Arts and a Master of Arts in Film Production. In addition to his Theatre Lab teaching, Paul teaches acting and film studies classes at Northern Virginia Community College.

Jessica Burgess

Jessica Burgess is the founding Artistic Director of The Inkwell, Washington DC's resource for new plays by emerging artists (www.inkwelltheatre.org). Her directing credits include productions, workshops and staged readings at Active Cultures, Actors Theatre of Louisville (Humana Festival & Apprentice Company), Adventure Theatre, Texas State University's Black & Latino Playwrights Conference, Catalyst Theater Company, the DC Beckett Centenary Festival, Duke Ellington School of the Arts, eXtreme eXchange, Forum Theatre, Hatchery Festival, The Hub, Imagination Stage, Woolly Mammoth's PlayGround, Rorschach Theatre, Solas Nua, Theater Alliance, Young Playwrights Theatre, and The Inkwell. She is a proud alumna of Middlebury College and the 2005 Lincoln Center Directors' Lab, a member of the Round House Kitchen and Round House Artists' Council, on the Board of Directors of Active Cultures, on Forum Theatre's Artists' Council, a co-producer of the DC Non-Equity/EMC Open Call, and a three-time recipient of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Young Emerging Artist grant.

Renee Calarco

Renee Calarco, a playwright and performer, last appeared onstage as "Jew" in Charter Theatre's Fat Gay Jew. She has performed with Precipice Improv and WIT, and continues to study improv comedy. Her play Short Order Stories received the 2007 Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play. Other plays include Good Counsel, Keepers of the Western Door, and "The Mating of Angela Weiss" (a one-act). Her ten-minute plays include "Warriors," "The Seven Habits of Highly Defective People," and "Heavy Mettle." Renee is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.

Maia DeSanti

Maia DeSanti has lived and acted in the Washington DC region for nearly two decades. Most recently she was seen as Mrs. Webb in Everyman Theatre's production of Our Town,and the Capital Fringe Festival production of Cabaret CooCoo, withHappenstance Theatre. Other regional credits include: Arena Stage, Folger Theatre, Kennedy Center, NY Clown Theatre Festival, NY State Theatre Institute, Olney Theatre Center, Rep Stage, Roundhouse Theatre, Taffety Punk Theatre Co., The Shakespeare Theater Co., Source Theatre, Theatre of the First Amendment, and Woolly Mammoth Theater. Maia is a graduate of the National Shakespeare Conservatory and continues to train with the Michael Chekhov Association and the Center for Movement Theatre. She works as a free-lance acting and movement teacher for several area theatre companies and training programs.

Rick Foucheux

Rick Foucheux's credits include a twenty-six year stint in the fine theatres of Washington, DC, where his many roles include Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman at Arena Stage, Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night at the Shakespeare Theatre, Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof at the Olney Theatre Center, Claudius in Hamlet at the Folger Theatre, and Erie Smith in Hughie at the Washington Stage Guild. He is a company member at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and originated the role of the dead man, Gordon, in their premiere of Sarah Ruhl's Dead Man's Cell Phone. Mr. Foucheux is an artist in residence at Theater J for the 2010-11 season. He received the Helen Hayes Outstanding Lead Actor Award in 2000 for the title role in Edmund at the Source Theatre, and in 2006, for the role of Mason Marzac in Take Me Out at the Studio Theatre.

Michael Gabel

Michael Gabel has appeared in the area's finest theatres (including The Kennedy Center, Ford's Theatre, The Folger, Arena Stage and Roundhouse), over 60 films (including My One and Only, A Dirty Shame, Major Payne, Guarding Tess, and Death Without Consent), and on television (including Homicide, Shot in the Heart, and The Wire). Michael is also known for his numerous voices for "My Wonderful Radio Show," a radio series for children. He has been the recipient of the A.I.R. Award (Achievement in Radio-Talent Division) and is the Founder and Director of The Actors Institute, which provides professional training for those interested in acting in film and television. He was honored to be included in a documentary on "Acting and Teaching: From Stage to Screen," with the likes of Richard Spencer and Spike Lee. Michael received the 2008 Peer Award for Acting in a Drama. Michael teamed with Merge Film's Todd Shoemaker and Joy Hanson to produce a film for Baltimore's 48hr Film Festival which won awards for Best Score and Best Acting.

George Grant

George Grant made his professional theatre debut in 1979 at The Goodman Theatre in An Enemy of the People directed by Gregory Mosher. Locally he has appeared at The Shakespeare Theatre Company (with Patrick Stewart), Washington Shakespeare Company, Catalyst Theatre Company, and many others. His recent forays into directing include the wildly successful Am I Black Enough Yet?, originally mounted in 2008 and remounted in 2009, for Charter Theatre Company, Bulletins from Fatland for Horizons Theatre Company, and his own adaptation of Antigone for Actor's Repertory Theatre at The National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts, where he is a Senior Faculty Member. George has been a Visiting Professor of Theatre at Howard University and Lawrence University, and is a Master Teaching Artist for The Shakespeare Theatre Company. He holds a BA in Theatre/Drama from Lawrence.

Elizabeth Greathouse

Elizabeth Greathouse is the Director of Yoga House Studio in Washington, DC. A practitioner of Kundalini Yoga and meditation for more than twenty years, Elizabeth is also trained in Ashtanga yoga. Formerly a lawyer in Seattle and Europe, Elizabeth is now a full-time yoga teacher and small business owner. Elizabeth has taken class and performed at The Theatre Lab since moving to the area in 2000.

Mitchell Hebert

Mitchell Hebert has performed at many of the DC area's leading theatres including Woolly Mammoth, where he was a longtime company member; Round House Theatre, where he is a member of its Artist's Round Table; Olney Theatre Center, where he recently directed the critically acclaimed production of Rabbit Hole; The Shakespeare Theatre, Studio Theatre, Theatre of the First Amendment, Rep Stage, and Everyman Theatre in Baltimore. He has been nominated for a Helen Hayes Award (Outstanding Lead Actor, The Drawer Boy), and received the Greater Baltimore Theatre Award for Outstanding Actor (Uncle Vanya). Mitchell is on the faculty of the University of Maryland's Department of Theatre where he teaches acting and directing. His students are working all over the country in every aspect of the entertainment world. He played a significant role in the development of the department's new MFA in Performance, scheduled to begin in fall 2010.

Brenna McDonough

Brenna McDonough, actor and author, has 30 years' experience as a successful actor in commercials and corporate videos. She founded her own studio, On-Camera Training, in 1995. Brenna began her career in her home town of Chicago. She then worked in Los Angeles and New York before settling in the Washington, DC area. Brenna continues to work in voice-overs as well as on-camera, including various feature films shot in the DC area. She has taught her on-camera acting class at New York University and her book You Can Work On-Camera is used in several universities including George Washington U. and NCDA. She and husband John Leslie Wolfe are the parents of two children who are actively involved in theatre and on-camera careers of their own.

Paul Douglas Michnewicz

Paul Douglas is the Artistic Director of Theater Alliance where he directed 13 productions including the critically acclaimed Lazarus Syndrome, Gospel at Colonus, The Spitfire Grill and 3/4 of a Mass for St. Vivian (nominated for the Helen Hayes Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Work). He continues his long relationship with VSA arts, directing 18 world premier productions for the Playwright Discovery Program at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts where he also directs the International Young Soloists Concert and has been the Start with the Arts Festival Director. He has directed for the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities, the Source Festival, the Chicago Humanities Festival, Madcap Players, Scena Theater and others, the Virginia Opera and the Maryland Opera Studio, and assistant directed at The Washington Opera, Houston Grand Opera and Wolf Trap Opera. He holds an MFA from the Yale School of Drama.

Donna Migliaccio

Donna Migliaccio is a fixture on the DC theatre scene, where she has been performing for over twenty years. Her most recent area appearance was as Emma Goldman in the Kennedy Center's production of Ragtime, a role which she reprised when the hit production transferred to Broadway in late 2009. This August she will travel to Pennsylvania to appear as Sylvia St. Croix in Totem Pole Playhouse's production of Ruthless! (August 10-22), then return to DC's Ford's Theatre for Sabrina Fair (October 1-24, 2009), followed by the world premiere of Liberty Smith (March 23-May 21, 2011). Donna is a two-time Helen Hayes Award winner and has been nominated an additional ten times for her performances in such roles as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd, Sara Jane Moore in Assassins, Abby in The Musical of Musicals, the Reciter in Pacific Overtures, Rose in Gypsy and Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance.+

Scott Morgan

Scott Morgan is a 1991 Helen Hayes Award recipient and a 1996 nominee for Lead Actor in a Musical. He has done stage work at Arena Stage, Ford's Theatre, The Kennedy Center, Washington Stage Guild and the Washington Jewish Theatre. Scott's television credits include NBC, ABC, HBO and a ten-year run on Home and Garden Television. On film, he has been in several bad Hollywood movies and appears regularly in the avant-garde films of John Waters. Scott has his own media training and public speaking consultancy and most recently, he joined a Spanish/English performance group called Musica Aperta.

Dorothy Neumann

Dorothy Neumann has been directing in the Washington area for over 30 years and has received three Helen Hayes nominations for Outstanding Direction for Top Girls, Johnny Bull (both Horizons productions) and Unidentified Human Remains...at Signature. She has served as Artistic Associate at Source Theatre, Horizons and Signature and has taught at The Theatre Lab for the past fifteen years. She is a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.

Jane Pesci-Townsend

Jane Pesci-Townsend is a well-recognized feature on DC stages. She has appeared at Arena Stage, The Folger, Metro Stage, Source Theatre, Washington Jewish Theatre, and The Marquee Cabaret, among others. A four-time nominee for the Helen Hayes Award for Lead Actress in a Resident Musical, she recently starred in Putting It Together at Signature Theatre directed by Eric Schaeffer. This spring she will be featured in the chorus of Sweeney Todd at The Kennedy Center and will understudy Christine Baranski in the role of Mrs. Lovett. Jane is in her eighth year as a faculty member at The Catholic University of America's School of Music where she teaches voice and musical theatre performance. She has directed at BAPA, Montgomery College, University of Maryland, Catholic University and for the Paradigm Players, a theatre company devoted to supporting actors with special needs. She is also the director of The Theatre Lab's Musical Theatre Institute for Teens. Jane is married to Kevin Townsend and is the proud mother of George, 7, and Rosemary, 5.

Elisa Rosman

Elisa Rosman has music directed extensively at community theaters in the DC-VA area. Credits include Passion, Falsettos, Side Show, and Suburb (all at Elden Street Players), A New Brain (Foundry Players), Urinetown, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Honk!, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Mame, and Merrily We Roll Along (all at Reston Community Players). Elisa has also music directed two "Broadway Lights the Night" benefits. This winter she will be music directing I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change for the Reston Community Players, and this summer, she will be music directing Little Women with the McLean Community Players. By day Elisa is a policy consultant on early childhood issues as well as mom to three.

Tonya Beckman Ross

Tonya Beckman Ross has appeared as an actor at Shakespeare Theatre Company, Folger Theatre, Round House Theatre, Studio Theatre, Theater J, Charter Theatre, Taffety Punk, The Actors' Salon, Olney Theatre, and the Kennedy Center. Regional credits include Center Stage, Cleveland Play House, Cumberland Theatre, Fulton Theatre, and Purple Rose Theatre Company, among others. She has taught at Baldwin-Wallace College, Ohio University, Shepherd University, Duke Ellington School for the Arts, Everyman Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Imagination Stage, and the Cleveland Shakespeare Festival, as well as for The Theatre Lab's Summer Acting Camp for Kids and Summer Acting Institute for Teens. Local dialect coaching credits include productions for Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Longacre Lea, Theatre Lab, and Constellation Theatre. Tonya holds an MFA from Ohio University's Professional Actor Training Program and a BFA from University of Wisconsin. She is a company member of Taffety Punk Theatre Company.

Michael Russotto

Michael Russotto is a longtime Washington actor and director, who has appeared in shows on many local stages, including The Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Arena Stage, Theater Alliance, Theatre J, The Folger Theatre, MetroStage, Olney Theatre, and Studio Theatre. Recent roles include Peter/Marquis du Chatelet in Legacy of Light at Arena Stage, and William Howard Taft in Teddy Roosevelt and the Ghostly Mistletoe at The Kennedy Center. Michael has directed at The Actors' Theatre of Washington (cofounder), MetroStage, Source Theatre, The Washington Shakespeare Company, Studio Theatre, and The National Academy of Dramatic Arts. He is a proud member of the Woolly Mammoth Acting Company, and is also a narrator of recorded books for the Library of Congress.

Oran Sandel

As a 23-year veteran and former Artistic Director of Living Stage Theatre Company, Arena Stage's improvisational outreach theater, Oran Sandel received national recognition working with at-risk youth and disenfranchised adults. Today, he works as a freelance consultant, teacher, writer, director and performer to keep alive the vision of Living Stage's late founder, Robert Alexander: to demystify the creative act and remind us all that we were born to create. The last few years have seen him performing at venues such as Horizons Theater, The Washington Revels, Discovery Theater, the Library of Congress, Adventure Theatre and Creative Cauldron. Teaching credits include: The Smithsonian Associates, The Shakespeare Theatre, Center Stage, Center for Inspired Teaching, Theatre Lab, Strathmore Arts Center, Centronia and the Sitar Arts Center. Recently, he co-directed African Continuum Theatre's outreach company, BobCo (Back on the Block Company) with fellow Living Stage veteran and African Continuum's founder and Artistic Director, Jennifer Nelson.

Eddie Sarfaty

Eddie Sarfaty has appeared on The Today Show, LOGO's Wisecrack and on Comedy Central's Premium Blend. He performs regularly at Caroline's Comedy Club in New York and at clubs, colleges and corporate events across the US. For two years he toured the country as one half of Two Consenting Adults and he is a member of the groundbreaking troupe Funny Gay Males. In addition Eddie performs at resorts and on cruise ships and has been featured at the prestigious Just for Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal, The Toyota Comedy Festival in New York and at festivals in Detroit, Columbus, Phoenix, Miami and Washington, DC. He is one of the subjects in the upcoming documentary The Men of Laughing Matters to be released nationwide this spring and his first book of comedic essays tentatively entitled Cheapskate is scheduled to be released by Kensington Books next year.

Kim Schraf

Kim Schraf has performed at Arena Stage, The Kennedy Center, Studio Theatre, Ford's, Round House, Signature, Woolly Mammoth, Everyman, Theater J, The Theatre of the First Amendment, and the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland. Credits include starring roles in Angels in America at Signature Theatre; Skylight and Frozen at Studio; Measure for Pleasure, Freedomland and The Gene Pool at Woolly Mammoth; and Proof and Light Up the Sky at Everyman. A graduate of St. John's College in Annapolis, she has been teaching for twenty-five years, most recently at the Parkmont School. She is also a successful narrator of audio books and a speech coach. Kim helped launch the Honors Conservatory for The Theatre Lab in 2006 and continues to serve as one of its directors.

Shirley Serotsky

Director of Literary and Public Programs at Theater J, where she directed The Rise and Fall of Annie Hall. Other recent productions include: Crumble (lay me down Justin Timberlake) and We Are Not These Hands at Catalyst Theater, References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot at Rorschach Theater (2007 Helen Hayes nomination for outstanding direction of a resident play), Sovereignty (Humana Festival of New Plays), Two Rooms (Theater Alliance), The Diary of Anna Frank (National Theater for Arts and Education), As American As and After Darwin (Journeymen Theater), Steel Magnolias (The Ice House), Powerhouse (2008 CapFringe), Cautionary Tales for Adults (2007 CapFringe), LUNCH (2007 New York Musical Theater Festival & 2006 CapFringe), Upshot (forum theater), Titus! The Musical. (Source Theatre), The Winter's Tale (Sonnet Repertory ), The Superfriends of Flushing, Queens (Columbia University), Starlet for Sale (Expanded Arts). BFA in Directing, North Carolina School of the Arts.

Judy Simmons

Judy Simmons has been a cabaret performer and actress in Washington for many years. She has taught at American and Catholic Universities. Judy is delighted to be directing cabarets for local artists, and has directed musicals at Montgomery College, Catholic University and for the GMCW. Theatres she has worked at include: Signature, Studio, Source, Shakespeare, Cumberland, Everyman, The Kennedy Center and The Smithsonian. Her cabaret shows include: Not In Kansas Anymore, Here And Now, Get Happy, The Eccentrics, What Were We Thinking?, Much More, Sondheim Tonight! and most recently, A Date With Judy. She attended the Cabaret Conferences at Yale University and at The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. Judy is the Executive Director of the DC Cabaret Network and was the Director of Cabaret at Signature Theatre for seven years.

Deidra Starnes

Deidra LaWan Starnes is a two-time Helen Hayes Award nominee who has performed with Rep Stage, The African Continuum Theatre Company, Scena Theatre, Studio Theatre, Olney Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Cumberland Theatre, Portland Center Stage, New Federal Theatre, and the Connecticut Repertory Theatre. Credits include The Violet Hour, I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document..., Two Trains Running, Anna Lucasta, Personal History, Spunk, Blues for an Alabama Sky, Seven Guitars, and The Old Settler. Deidra has taught theatre and directed productions at Hearst Elementary School, the Bethesda Academy of Performing Arts, and Renbrook Summer Adventure Camp. She also taught theatre at the Unversity of Connecticut where she received her M.F.A. Presently she teaches at Howard University and Duke Ellington School of the Arts. Additionally, she is one of the Directors of The Theatre Lab's Summer Acting Camp for kids.

Delia Taylor

Delia Taylor has many local theatre credits, including leading roles in Medea, Antony and Cleopatra, and Metamorphosis and directing Twelfth Night and The Taming of the Shrew for Washington Shakespeare Company. She is on staff at Theater J and there directed world premieres of There Are No Strangers and Sleeping Arrangements. She directs and teaches at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College, Indiana, where she recently played the title role in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. She is proud of her twelve-year association with The Theatre Lab which has given her the opportunity to work with her mother on Creating a Role (Othello, Electra, The Way of the World and Our Town).

Deborah Taylor

Deborah Taylor is a longtime English teacher with a special interest in British literature and Shakespeare. She holds a BA and MA in Philosophy from Mount Holyoke and UC, Berkeley respectively, and an MA in Education from Cambridge University in England. Married to an English physicist, she has lived and traveled on both sides of the Atlantic with her family, always attending theatre and further inspired once her daughter Delia was "born to the boards." Previously for Theatre Lab, she has co-directed productions of Othello and Electra.

David Emerson Toney

David Emerson Toney has numerous credits in television, film, Broadway, Off-Broadway and over fifty regional theatre productions. Mr. Toney was also the winner of the 2004 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Resident Play for the role of Holloway in the African Continuum Theatre Co.'s production of Two Trains Running. His students include actors from the Lee Strasburg School and Mike Nichols' The New Actor School. Mr. Toney's credits include being a sketch comedy writer for Twenty Century Fox's "In Living Color." He has also been a head writer and story editor for an adult animated comedy series for ESPN and SONY WONDER and a screenwriter for New Line Cinema. His play Kingdom was nominated for a 2005 Helen Hayes Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play or Musical. In 2007 he was selected as The August Wilson Playwright in Residence at the African Continuum Theatre Company.

Delaney Williams

Delaney Williams is a two-time winner of the ITVA Peer Award for Best Actor in Film and Television in DC and Baltimore. His feature film credits include Disney’s Ladder 49 and Contact, Dreamworks’ Head of State, and Warner Bros.' The Replacements and Murder at 1600. His television credits include guest starring turns on NBC’s “The West Wing,” “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” and “Homicide: Life on the Streets,” as well as CBS’s “Cold Case” and “The District.” He is perhaps best known, however, for his role as Sgt. Jay Landsman on the HBO series “The Wire.” A veteran stage actor for over twenty years, he is well known to DC theatre audiences from his appearances at Arena Stage, The Shakespeare Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Signature and Studio Theatres, Washington Stage Guild, and Washington Shakespeare Company, among many others.

MaryBeth Wise

MaryBeth Wise is an actor, teacher and narrator of audio books. Her acting credits include Frozen at The Studio Theatre Secondstage, The Importance of Being Earnest at Arena Stage, The Mineola Twins at Woolly Mammoth Theatre, "Midwives" with Roundhouse Theatre, "Frozen" with Studio Theatre Secondstage, Perfect Pie and Piaf with Potomac Theatre Project, Vita and Virginia at Rep Stage, and numerous productions at Olney Theatre including Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker (Helen Hayes Award Nomination). She has performed with The Shakespeare Theatre, Ford's Theatre, The Kennedy Center, and The Folger Theatre. MaryBeth has toured nationally with the Kennedy Center and the National Players, and internationally with Music Tours, Inc. and USIA. She narrates audio books for the Library of Congress, received her BA from Barry University in Miami and holds an MFA in Acting from The Catholic University of America.