In This Program

• Show Program
• Meet A.C.T.’s New Artistic Director Elizabeth Williamson
• Seeing Beyond the Moment
• Theater Classrooms: A Space of Acceptable Risk
• Who's Who
• Print Edition
• More about A.C.T.

The Cast

Mason Adams
Ameer Ali*

Ivy Watkins
Stevie Allen*†

Shelby Holcomb
Lilla Crawford*

Nell Shaw
Varinique “V” Davis*

Beth Powell
Olivia Finkelstein*

Carter Smith
Kyle Harris*

Lee Turner
Mario Houle*

Raelynn Nix
Kaylee Kaneshiro*

Bailey Gallagher
Erika Vetter*

Understudies

Nell Shaw, Beth Powell
Emma Gardner

Carter Smith
Adam Magill*

Shelby Holcomb, Ivy Watkins
Allie Pratt*

Lee Turner, Mason Adams
Nicholas René Rodriguez

Bailey Gallagher, Raelynn Nix
Sharon Shao*

Stage Management

Stage Manager
Melissa Y. Hamasaki*

Assistant Stage Manager
Megan McClintock*

Creative Team

Scenic Designer
Kate Noll

Costume Designer
Eunice Jera Lee

Lighting Designer
Robert J. Aguilar

Sound Designer
Jeff Gardner

Associate Director
Leigh Rondon-Davis

Dramaturg
Joy Meads

Casting
Henry Russell Bergstein, CSA
and Lori Erickson, CSA
Austin Riffelmacher
Shawna Grajek

A.C.T. Producing Team

Artistic Producing Director
Andy Chan Donald

Director of General Management & Operations
Louisa Liska

General Manager
Amy Dalba

Director of Production
Martin Barron

Setting

Spring semester, junior year, 2018
Helen County High, the only high school in a one-stoplight town, northeast Georgia

This production is made possible by

Season Presenters

Priscilla and Keith Geeslin

Company Sponsors

Donald J. and Toni Ratner Miller

Executive Producers

Clay Foundation – West
Barbara Messing and Edgar Waingortin

Producers

Lilli I. Alberga and Laurence J. Bardoff
Roger and Helen Bohl

Associate Producers

Allison Butler and Richard Peers
Steven and Karin Chase
Richard N. Hill and Nancy Lundeen
Lawrence A. Kern
Linda and Frank Kurtz
Rich Rava and Elisa Neipp

Benefactors

Gayle Brugler
Paul J. Byrne
Brooks and Stephanie Blair Kirkwood
Peggy Kivel

Official Hotel Partner

Foundation Supporter

Meet A.C.T.’s New Artistic Director Elizabeth Williamson

After an extensive nationwide search, we’re so happy to introduce you to Elizabeth Williamson, A.C.T.’s new Artistic Director! Elizabeth will begin her tenure at A.C.T. on January 4, 2027.

A director, producer, dramaturg, and adapter, Elizabeth comes to A.C.T. from Geva Theatre in Rochester, New York, where she has served as Artistic Director since 2022. During her tenure, she has been celebrated for her inclusive leadership, increasing access to the theatre through key partnerships with the city of Rochester and community partners, and for raising the company’s national profile through acclaimed world premieres and partnerships with leading companies in New York City and around the country. Accomplishments from her tenure at Geva include launching the ROC Geva Pass program with the City of Rochester to provide thousands of free tickets to Rochester residents each year, partnerships with Ganondagan, the Seneca Art and Culture Center, the IBERO American Action League and more local organizations, and premiering shows such as Sarah Gancher’s OBIE Award-winning Russian Troll Farm, Baron Vaughn: Cycle Breaker, Harrison David Rivers’ A Christmas Carol and we are continuous, and Dan O’Brien’s Laurie Foundation Award-winning Newtown.

“A.C.T. is both one of our country’s great flagship companies, and my hometown theater. I have always admired its extraordinary mission and programming, connecting international, national and regional artists, communities, and students through a body of work spanning the classics, great new work, and major revivals,” said Elizabeth.

I started my career here (both my wife and I grew up in the Bay Area) and I couldn’t be more honored to be coming home to A.C.T. as your new Artistic Director.”

Elizabeth’s appointment marks a return to the San Francisco Bay Area, where earlier in her career she worked with A.C.T., Aurora Theatre Company, Magic Theatre, the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Cal Shakes, PlayGround, AlterTheater, and Berkeley Rep’s School of Theatre.

We look forward to welcoming Elizabeth to A.C.T. and embarking on this new chapter!

Read the full press release about Elizabeth on our website at act-sf.org/press.

Seeing Beyond the Moment

Jess McLeod: Hi, friend.

Kimberly Belflower: Oh, hey, how’s it going?

Jess: So well! I’ve been talking to our John Proctor actors over the last week or so—I do these little phone check-ins before rehearsal starts, just to hear what’s on their minds about the play, answer questions about the process—and every conversation has started with a fervent: “Well, I LOVE this play and I LOVE my character!!!” Which is exactly how I felt when I first laid eyes on your visceral, muscular, addictive language. You really give us the play from the girls’ point of view, and that makes it so special. You’ve really captured how gloriously messy it is to be 16, when your body is exploding and also on fire. And you’re kind of an adult, but not really an adult...

Kimberly: Yeah, God. Ugh, so true. I think this is true in many places, it’s not unique to the rural South, but growing up in the Baptist church and feeling like, “I know that there are other worlds out there, but they feel like a million years away,” and being told who you’re supposed to be.

Jess: Totally. And I grew up here in San Francisco in very different circumstances, so, a giant city, ostensibly very liberal, but I also went to eight years of Catholic grammar school (St. Brendan School) and four years of Jesuit high school (St. Ignatius High School Preparatory in the Sunset District). And I think encountering the church so early—and the structures and dynamics in my own family—taught me just how much patriarchy exists everywhere.

Kimberly: Yeah, totally. Early on I wondered, “How is this play going to resonate with anyone who didn’t grow up in the South?” But then realizing all of the different things that get seeded in our culture no matter where we’re situated…it’s kind of mind-blowing.

Jess: I wish a play about the care for and credibility of women weren’t relevant. Again. And again. And again and again and again.

Kimberly: It’s really wild to start working on this play in 2018, in the middle of the height of the Me Too movement with so much hope and momentum for change, then for it to premiere in 2022 the same month Roe v Wade was overturned, then to reach Broadway in 2025 during the second Trump administration. It just really speaks to the ways in which these power structures are built by and for a select few, and how they’re made to perpetuate themselves.

Jess: Absolutely. Are we backsliding? Or is there as much progress as there is pushback? I’ve been talking with some of the cast about how it feels to work on this play with the heartbreaking story of Jane Doe and the Cornell 57 in the newspapers every day. When, where and how are we trained not to believe women? Misogyny is insidious because it’s so pedestrian.

Kimberly: It’s everywhere, it’s in everything.

Jess: This play developed in a very unique way. Will you say a little bit about that?

Kimberly: This play was a commission by the College Collaboration Project, which was started by Padraic Lillis. Different colleges and universities across the country co-commission playwrights to develop plays with their students.

Around the time I got the commission, the tidal wave of Me Too hit. And I became totally consumed by every new development. I realized later that the movement was giving me new language for things that had either happened to me or around me, and it was making me reframe my life, especially my teenage and young adult years. I happened to be on my family’s farm in Southern Appalachia while this was happening, so I was thinking a lot about those years.

Then in an interview, Woody Allen called Me Too a witch hunt, and I was just like, “Oh, I should go back and reread The Crucible.” I first read it my junior year of high school, so I was thinking about that moment in time, and the moment in time I was currently living through, and was just like, “How would this feel if I were 16 in my hometown and I was still figuring out who I was while the world was changing around me?”

So then I got this commission, and I got to have this amazing brain trust of college students, for whom high school was so close that I was able to gut check a lot of things with them, still bringing my personal lived experience but braiding it with more contemporary teenage experiences.

Tell me more about your teenage years in San Francisco. Who were you?

Jess: You and I talked about the characters as astrological signs, right? I think I’m Shelby sun, Nell rising, Beth moon.

Kimberly: Yes. And I, of course, am Beth sun, Beth rising, Raelynn moon.

Jess: Yes. And so that’s a long way of saying, as an elder millennial, one of the things I love about working with Gen Z artists is that they say no to all the stuff that I used to say no to. It’s just that back then, I was the only one saying it.

Kimberly: Ah.

Jess: Our theater department had a fall play and a spring musical, and that plus the drama of high school drama never felt like enough opportunity to me, so I ended up expanding into speech and debate because you could choose your own material and constantly change it up. It didn’t hurt that tournaments could also get me out of my house every weekend. I went all over California and a few other places with speech and debate—just imagine me at 17 pretending to be Maria Callas in a 10-minute cut of Terrence McNally’s Master Class. 

Kimberly: Oh my God.

Jess: But it was so fun, and it felt so free and open—choosing my own writing and roles meant so much to me. Shout out to my debate coach, Simon Chiu, and my speech coach, Kathy Lorentz! My best friends from high school were three fellow speech and debaters from Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, some of whom are going to be at opening night here and at CTG in LA.

Tell me about you in high school.

Kimberly: I was a good little church girl, I wanted everyone’s approval. Any adult who told me anything, I was like, “Absolutely, that has to be true.” I was a really good student. I tried so hard at everything, and I wanted to be loved, but then also, I’m the only person in my family who doesn’t farm. I very much grew up being the odd one out in my family. And found myself really through books.

Jess: You have a Matilda tattoo, I remember.

Kimberly: I have a Matilda tattoo, a Harriet the Spy tattoo, a Ramona Quimby tattoo, a Sylvia Plath tattoo. Books saved me. I think those were the first things that showed me other possibilities for life. In high school, I played basketball because my brother played basketball and was really good at it. But I wasn’t that good, and I didn’t love it that much.

And then my senior year of high school, my drama teacher, Gail Jones, came up to me one day and said, “You’re going to take my advanced drama class.” Of course, me being a good little girl, was like “but I haven’t taken the prerequisite!” But she just saw something in me, I guess…but within a month of taking advanced drama, I was just like, “This is the thing I’ve been waiting for” and quit basketball.

I have my two best friends to this day, one I’ve been best friends with since I was seven, and the slushies that Shelby and Raelynn get is very much a love letter to her and our slushies. And then my other best friend I met through doing high school theater, and we were roommates in New York, and he was my date to the Tonys. Yeah, so theater and books really broke me out of church and helped me find myself and my people.

Jess: Theater and books were, for me, proof that someone else saw not just the beautiful but also the difficult, brutal, impossible, hypocritical things all around us. In us. I got my hands on Chris Durang and Eugene O’Neill and it was like a valve had been released on the pressure cooker of my brain: “Someone sees. Someone knows.”

Kimberly: Isn’t that cool that for both of us, it was like seeing beyond the moment we were in.

Jess: Absolutely. And that’s how your play feels to me—it would have changed my life if I’d seen it at 16.  It’s changing my life now, decades later. Directing a play and leading a rehearsal room in which young women can be safe and seen.

Kimberly: That’s so generous of you to say. I think in many ways this play is a love letter passed from now-me to teenage/young adult-me, so imagining young women encountering it—whether reading it, seeing it, or having agency in bringing it to life—is the #1 dream come true.

Jess: I can’t wait for you to meet our cast and designers. It’s been a joy to assemble this team of West Coast Avengers from all three cities. Our actors are so skilled and passionate, and they can all turn on a dime from comedy to drama—a requirement for this play! And our designers have created such an artful, detailed, dynamic world for them to inhabit. 

Kimberly: I can’t wait to see. How cool for you and for them, you’re bringing it to your hometowns.

Jess: What does it mean to you to have the play running in these cities?

Kimberly: I can’t quite wrap my head around it. I think some high schools have done my plays on the West Coast, but professionally, I’ve not been produced on the West Coast before. I have not spent a ton of time on the West Coast, and so it is this very mythic place to me. Again, I think connecting it back to just being so pleasantly surprised and moved by the resonances that the play has and places that I would’ve never imagined it reaching.

Obviously, the reputation of these theaters precedes them. And to see also those theaters joining forces and creating this corridor for all of these people that are rooted there, it’s such a cool way of making theater and creating community and making bridges between cities. Two summers ago I went on a Pacific Northwest road trip, and I fell in love with every place that I went.

Jess: Isn’t your play the most produced play of the 26/27 season? How does that feel?

Kimberly: Crazy. It really, really blows my mind. So Alison, one of my two best friends, was in a production of Les Miz when we were 15, before I was into theater, and it was this whole thing. I saw it six times. I say all of that to say that Les Miz is also on the list of most produced plays, and Alison texted me to say, “But you beat Les Miz.”

Jess: Fun fact: when I was nine, I performed a solo version of Les Miz for my grandfather at our kitchen table.

Kimberly: Oh my god, incredible.

Jess: My “One Day More” was, indeed, incredible.

Where are you right now?

Kimberly: I’m at Yaddo Artist Residency in Saratoga Springs, New York, and I am in the room that Sylvia Plath worked in, which is the life’s dream of…every version of me. Finding Sylvia Plath when I was a teenager changed my life. So I just by chance got assigned this room, and then I looked up where Sylvia stayed when she was here in 1959, and it’s my room. So yeah, I am thriving.

Jess: Amazing. What are you working on while you’re there?

Kimberly: I’m working on a couple different things—one is a new play that will go up in the spring at Lincoln Center, and it’s called Born in the Dirt, and it is from very much in the same fictionalized version of my hometown that John Proctor is set in, in Appalachian Georgia. And it is about a doll hospital and the women who work there.

And then I’m working on a TV pilot that is also in the same kind of fictionalized version of my hometown. Kind of everything I write is, and that one is based on my first summer job, which I had from when I was 15 well into college.

So those are the two main things I’m working on here. And then I have this third play, which no one is waiting on. So when I am procrastinating the other two that do have deadlines, I’m just dipping into this other play that I’m like, “No one knows what this is, it’s so sexy and exciting.”

Jess: I think that’s so important, to be making art that no one asked for at all, work that’s just coming from a very deep place inside you.

Kimberly: Exactly. That impulse started for me as a teenager with fanfiction, which is how I learned to write. I think fanfiction is amazing and being able to take a world or take a style and find your way into it and then use that as a bridge into finding your own style or your own world. This play is further evidence of that: it’s still that fanfic impulse of taking elements of existing stories into new stories, new interpretations, new contexts.

Jess: It’s one of the things I love so much about the end of the play…which I won’t spoil for anyone reading this right before the show starts!

A classroom usually asks you to learn about something from a safe distance. A theater classroom asks you to learn through experience; to try on a feeling, a conflict, a question that might be too raw to face head-on. That’s the quiet artistry of theater. Sometimes it works by hiding the real subject inside an older story, handing us a metaphor as a way in. And sometimes it plants its feet and names the hard thing directly: no costume, no distance. Both can knock the wind out of you. Both have their own kind of courage.

In John Proctor Is the Villain, as real questions of misconduct and belief begin to stir in their own world, for these characters studying The Crucible, the play on the page and the lives in the room stop being separate things. It’s a reminder that the texts we teach are never just homework. Given the right room and the right guidance, they become instruments, tools for noticing, for feeling, for asking the questions we don’t yet have other language for.

Why does this work? When you step into a role, into someone else’s words and circumstances, your own defenses quiet down. You can approach that too-raw feeling, because for the moment it belongs to the character, not to you. My colleague Natalie Greene, our Director of Education and Community Programs, introduced me to a beautiful way of naming this at the orientation workshop for our San Francisco Semester: theater, at its best, offers a space of acceptable risk determined by the individual. You set the terms. You decide how far to reach.

As an instructor and director, I have watched this happen on multiple occasions. While directing an actor who had learned over her lifetime to make herself small, I saw her tackle a character written with power, someone who takes up space. Reaching for that was genuinely hard, because it ran against everything she’d internalized. And somewhere in that process, something broke open. Through tears, she told me, “I’ve made myself small my whole life, and I never realized it until now.” After that breakthrough, I watched her shift again, this time into the artist. She recognized that the rehearsal needed to move forward. I’d given her space, and she had taken exactly the time she needed to meet that emotion, and then she found a way to carry it with her and keep working. She held both at once: her own becoming, and her responsibility to the room.

In some rooms, the self-discovery is the whole point. In a part-time class, where someone comes to breathe, to feel, to learn something about who they are, that processing is the priority, and it’s sacred. In rooms of pre-professional training, part of the craft is learning something subtler: when personal discovery serves the work, and when it has to wait. A professional actor learns to either have done that inner excavation already, or to carry tools for processing it in a way that doesn’t bring the rehearsal to a halt. Knowing the difference is itself a kind of artistry. Both rooms change you. One simply foregrounds your growth as a human and lets the artistry follow. The other foregrounds the artistry, and your growth as a human comes along for the ride.

In the play, Mr. Smith’s classroom is unguided, even unsafe. The growth happens despite the room, not because of it. What if that same hunger for self-discovery were met with real care, real structure, real intention? That’s the space we try to build at American Conservatory Theater. Our Studio A.C.T. classes lean into that humanity for adults, offering a home for anyone who wants to explore themselves and their artistry, wherever they are in life. Our intensive programs, San Francisco Semester and Summer Training Congress, lean into the pre-professional, giving actors the room to discover what it means to work in a professional space. And our Young Conservatory offers both at once: a classroom for self-discovery, and performance opportunities that model the professional settings they’re growing toward.

Because, whether you pick up an old play to understand your own life, or step into a role to discover who you might become, theater gives us what few other things can: a space of acceptable risk, where we get to try, to stretch, to fail, and to grow, together.

AMEER ALI* (Mason Adams) recently received his BFA in Drama from NYU Tisch, and is thrilled and honored to be a part of this production. Recent credits include Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice (Atlantic Acting School), Konstantin in The Seagull (Crooked Theatre Co.), and Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet (No Theatre). Most recently, he appeared in the Newport NewWorks Musical Theatre Festival in Newport, Rhode Island. He is forever grateful for the support of his family and friends, most especially his late grandmother, Seema Ali. IG @_ameerali_ | ameerali.actor

STEVIE ALLEN* (Ivy Watkins) is an NYC-based actor and writer, born and raised in California. They are thrilled to return to A.C.T. and their home state to tell this incredible story. Select credits include Transcendency Rising (Off-Broadway), Nobody Loves You (A.C.T.), and GUMMIES (Shubert Organization’s Artistic Circle). Stevie extends their heartfelt gratitude to Kimberly Belflower, Jess, Riff, Henry, Raife, the cast, the crew, and everyone at A.C.T., Seattle Rep, and Center Theatre Group. They dedicate this performance to Jasp, Madi, Luke, Willow, and especially to Momma. Stevie is a proud member of Ring of Keys, and a CAP21 alum. (they/them) IG @stevieeallen

LILLA CRAWFORD* (Shelby Holcomb) made her feature film debut as “Little Red” in Disney’s Into the Woods opposite Meryl Streep and Johnny Depp, and starred as the title role in James Lapine’s Broadway revival of Annie. Other notable appearances include “Debbie” in Billy Elliot (Broadway), The Who Was Show (Netflix), Pretty Little Liars (HBO Max), The Hawk (Netflix), Raven’s Home (Disney Channel), Evil (Paramount Plus), Bull (CBS), Blue Bloods (CBS) and Sunny Day (Nickelodeon). Lilla graduated from NYU Tisch School of the Arts with a bachelor’s degree in Film and Television. IG @lillacrawford.

VARINIQUE “V” DAVIS* (Nell Shaw) studied at the National Theatre Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, Eastern Washington University and is a recipient of the Lin-Manuel Miranda and Miranda Family Fund Scholarship.  V’s credits include As You Like It, Twelfth Night, The Winter’s Tale, and Metamorphosis (Seattle Repertory Theatre); The Niceties (Intiman Theatre); Mamma Mia (Village Theatre); Stew, The Aves, and Macbeth (Union Arts Center); The Lamplighter (5th Avenue Theatre). I would not be the artist I am today without black influence and the great mentors I’ve met along the way. For this, I’m eternally grateful. Thank you to my mom, grandma + family, the dolls, and Shawna!

OLIVIA FINKELSTEIN* (Beth Powell) is overjoyed to be making her A.C.T. debut! She is a Chicago-based actor originally from Issaquah, Washington state. Credits include Much Ado About Nothing (Hero) with Edge of the Wood Theatre, Georgiana & Kitty: Christmas at Pemberley (Georgiana) with Buffalo Theatre Ensemble, and Is This a Room (Reality Winner) with Harlequin Productions. She received her BFA from Illinois Wesleyan University. Olivia sends mountains of gratitude to her family, Baxter, and teachers throughout her life.
oliviafinkelstein.com (she/her)

KYLE HARRIS* (Carter Smith) is very grateful to be making his A.C.T. debut. His Broadway and national tour credits include the Tony Award–winning production of The Inheritance (Best Play) directed by Stephen Daldry, Sondheim on Sondheim directed by James Lapine, and West Side Story (Tony) directed by Arthur Laurents. Regional credits include Little Dancer (Kennedy Center), Marie: Dancing Still (5th Avenue), both directed by Susan Stroman, and A Room With a View at The Old Globe. Television: Stitchers, Grey’s Anatomy, Elsbeth, High Potential, Law & Order, CSI: Vegas, Blue Bloods, God Friended Me, High Maintenance, The Carrie Diaries, The Blacklist: Redemption. BFA, University of Arizona. For Stef & Mylo. @KyleHarris

MARIO HOULE* (Lee Turner) is thrilled to make his A.C.T. debut. Originally from Vermont, Mario holds a BFA in Musical Theatre from The Hartt School. Recent stage credits include Jagged Little Pill (Phoenix) at Center Repertory Company and Tick, Tick… Boom! (Michael) at Chance Theater. On screen, he recently wrapped two upcoming feature films: the comedic mockumentary Mock Trial (Marcus) and the movie musical Saturday (Bruce). Mario is also a singer-songwriter whose original music includes “I Trusted You,” “Güerito,” and his new single/music video “El Tango De Mario.” Thank you to Cris, his family, and friends for their support! @marioisaguy (he/him)

KAYLEE KANESHIRO* (Raelynn Nix) is thrilled to be making her American Conservatory Theater debut. Most notably, she spent four seasons starring as fan-favorite Josie Saltzman on The CW’s Legacies. Her television credits include Santa Clarita Diet (Netflix), The Real O’Neals (ABC), Chasing Life (Freeform), Criminal Minds (CBS), and American Horror Story (FX). Her film credits include Paramount’s Spin the Bottle and the independent feature The Locksmith. On stage, she recently appeared in the North American premiere of Lauren Gunderson’s anthropology at Rogue Machine Theatre and Huron Station Playhouse’s public reading of You Got Older, directed by Anne Kauffman.

ERIKA VETTER* (Bailey Gallagher) Select theatre credits: Teenage Dick (Seattle Repertory), Lungs (Really-Really Theatre Group), Émilie: La Marquise du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight (The Flea), The Flick (Mendocino Theatre Company), As You Like It, and Swing State (Merely Players). Film & TV credits include Only Murders In The Building (Hulu), Found Footage: The Making of the Patterson Project, and Somebody I Used To Know (Prime Video). She got her MFA from the University of Washington’s Professional Actor Training Program. She currently lives in Brooklyn with her truly supportive husband and very good dog. (she/her)

EMMA GARDNER (u/s Nell Shaw, Beth Powell) is a Bay Area-based performer and is thrilled to be working with A.C.T. Her recent credits include Flex (San Francisco Playhouse), Jagged Little Pill (CenterRep), Cinderella (African-American Shakespeare Company), The Hello Girls (Ross Valley Players), and staged readings for Word for Word: Off the Page and Bay Area Playwrights Festival. She earned a BA from UC Berkeley in Molecular & Cell Biology and Psychology while also being involved in the Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies (TDPS) department. She would like to thank her incredible friends and family for always being her number one fans! (she/her) @emmagardner3

ADAM MAGILL* (u/s Carter Smith) was last seen at A.C.T. in Vanity Fair. Recent credits include As You Like It (Marin Shakespeare Company), Lost in Yonkers (Center Repertory Company), and My Fair Lady (San Francisco Playhouse). Adam is a former student of Seydways Studios, studied abroad with the Prague Shakespeare Company, and is a graduate of the Foothill Theater Conservatory.

ALLIE PRATT* (u/s Shelby Holcomb, Ivy Watkins) has done twelve shows in six seasons with Santa Cruz Shakespeare most recently including Much Ado About Nothing and Macbeth. She will return this season for Hay Fever, Mary’s Wedding, and more. Other regional theaters include Oregon Cabaret Theatre, Jewel Theatre Company, Sierra Repertory Theatre, Thin Air Shakespeare, Shakespeare by the Sea, Seattle Shakespeare, Book-It Repertory Theatre, Taproot Theatre, and others. Allie is a voice and motion capture actor with 2k Games, featured in the NBA 2k series. Training includes PCPA Theaterfest and Cornish College of the Arts. She holds a master’s degree from the University of California Santa Cruz.

NICHOLAS RENÉ RODRIGUEZ (u/s Lee Turner, Mason Adams) is an actor, singer, and dancer drawn to intimate stories like this one. A graduate of UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television, his recent stage works include How to Make an American Son (NCTC), Continuity (Shotgun Players), The Magnolia Ballet (Shotgun Players), and Sqream (OASIS). When not on stage you can find Nick teaching, playing pickup basketball, taking photos, or shopping for something flee. All love to FRA and Moo for their constant love and support. (he/him) @Atomicnick

SHARON SHAO* (u/s Bailey Gallagher, Raelynn Nix) is a Bay Area-native actor and teaching artist. Regional credits include Far Country (Berkeley Repertory Theater), ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :|| (A.C.T.), Little Women (TheatreWorks), Winter’s Tale, Good Person of Szechwan (CalShakes). She has performed in dozens of local productions, at San Francisco Playhouse (R.O.I., Waitress, Chinglish), Shotgun Players (Man of God, Vinegar Tom), Oakland Theater Project (Cabaret, Tempest, Hamlet) and with The Panto in the Presidio. Sharon received a BA in Theatre Arts and Psychology from UC Santa Cruz, and loves working with artists of all ages to find their true voice. (she/they) sharonshao.biz

KIMBERLY BELFLOWER (Playwright) is a Tony-nominated playwright originally from a small town in Appalachian Georgia. Her plays include: John Proctor Is the Villain (Broadway, West End, Royal Court Theatre); Born In the Dirt (Lincoln Center Theatre, upcoming); and Lost Girl (Milwaukee Repertory Theatre). Kimberly has worked with Manhattan Theatre Club, Huntington Theatre, South Coast Repertory Theatre, Alliance Theatre, and Ojai Playwrights Conference, among others. Film/TV work: a feature adaptation of John Proctor Is the Villain (Universal Pictures, produced by Tina Fey and Marc Platt); Untitled Ya Project (20th Century Fox). Kimberly also worked as a narrative lead at Meow Wolf, where she wrote Marin’s Dreams, a short film with original music by Beach House. She proudly holds an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin. IG @kbelflower

JESS MCLEOD (Director) lives in New York but was born and raised in San Francisco! Recent credits include The Family Album (La Jolla Playhouse), On the Evolutionary Function of Shame (Second Stage), The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (Little Island), SAFE (BAM); The Thanksgiving Play, Venus (Steppenwolf); There’s Always The Hudson (Woolly Mammoth); and The Chinese Lady (Alliance), among others. SDC Executive Board Member; former Resident Director, Hamilton Chicago; 2025 Drama League TV/Film Fellow (Fire Country); Roundabout Refocus Project Curator; Artist-In-Residence at the NYCLU; and Co-Chair of Dramatists Guild Foundation’s Musical Theatre Fellows. 2nd Gen Korean/Filipina/Scottish American. jess-mcleod.com | @mcjessmc

KATE NOLL (Scenic Designer) has designed for Second Stage, Heartbeat Opera, Juilliard Conservatory, Red Bull Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theater, Aurora Theater, Marin Theater Company, American Players Theater, Williamstown Theater Festival, Yale Repertory Theater, Yale Opera, Barrington Stage Company, Boston Early Music Festival, Theater Squared, and Shanghai Dramatic Arts, among others. She recently received Obie and Lucille Lortel Awards for Wet Brain at Playwrights Horizons. A RISD graduate, she has also studied in Rome, Amsterdam, and Paris, and holds an MFA in Scenic Design from Yale School of Drama. Upcoming: You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World at Center Repertory Theater.

EUNICE JERA LEE (Costume Designer) is a Korean American Costume Designer. Upon finishing her BBA at Parsons the New School for Design, she moved to London to complete her MA in Fashion Journalism at Central Saint Martins. Known for her work on films such as Bottoms, Blue Bayou, and Twisters, she has designed acclaimed films that have featured at Cannes, Sundance, TIFF, SXSW and Tribeca. She currently resides between Los Angeles and Spain.

ROBERT J. AGUILAR (Lighting Designer) is thrilled to make his A.C.T. debut! A specialist in new plays and musicals, his work treats light as an essential narrative tool connecting a character’s internal world to the physical stage. Recent credits include Carmela Full of Wishes and the world premiere of Fires, OH (Alliance Theatre), Come From Away (Seattle Rep), and the world premiere of Young Dragon (Seattle Children’s Theatre). Regional: The Old Globe, Denver Center, Portland Center Stage, The 5th Avenue Theatre, Seattle Opera, and Milwaukee Rep. Film: The Jinkx and DeLa Holiday Special. Robert is Seattle Rep’s Lighting Director and a USA 829 member. robertjaguilar.com IG: @fake_robert

JEFF GARDNER (Sound Designer) is an award-winning sound designer, foley artist and actor. Credits include Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in The Universe (Mark Taper Forum); In the Upper Room (Denver Center for the Performing Arts); The Cake (Geffen Playhouse). ELSEWHERE: Williamstown Theatre Festival, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Cleveland Playhouse, Baltimore Center Stage, Shakespeare Theatre Company (DC), Arena Stage, The Kennedy Center, Pasadena Playhouse, The Wallis, Kirk Douglas Theatre, and Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Los Angeles Stage Alliance Ovation Award, Stage Raw and LA Drama Critics Circle Award Winner. Five-time NAACP Nominee for Sound Design. jeffthomasgardner.net

LEIGH RONDON-DAVIS (Associate Director) is a performer, dramaturg, and director; in addition to their creative work, Leigh is the Literary & Producing Director at Playwrights Foundation. They are also a Resident Artist with Crowded Fire and an Artistic Company Member at Shotgun Players and Oakland Theater Project, as well as Producing Director with The Forum Collective. While Leigh wears many hats as a theatre-maker, much of their work and personal passion has been to shift the industry and its culture to be more equitable, inclusive, accessible, and sustainable in order to cultivate safe and supportive creative spaces. (they/them) LeighRondon-Davis.com

JOY MEADS (Dramaturg), a native of Oakland, is director of dramaturgy and new works at American Conservatory Theater. A.C.T. credits include ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :||, Co-Founders, Big Data, Hippest Trip – The Soul Train Musical, Poor Yella Rednecks: Vietgone 2, The Headlands, Fefu and Her Friends, Communion, Testmatch, Wakey, Wakey, Sweat, Men on Boats, and Edward Albee’s Seascape. Prior to A.C.T., she was literary manager/artistic engagement strategist at Center Theatre Group. CTG credits include Archduke, Good Grief, Appropriate, Forever, Marjorie Prime (2015 Pulitzer Prize finalist), A Parallelogram, The Royale, and Sleep (also: Brooklyn Academy of Music and Yale Repertory Theatre). Previously, Meads was literary manager at Steppenwolf Theatre Company and associate artistic director at California Shakespeare Theater. Meads is a co-founder of The Kilroys. (she/her)

HENRY RUSSELL BERGSTEIN, CSA (Casting) is a bi-coastal casting director and producer. In theater he specializes in new American plays and musicals most recently with Oh, Mary! (Broadway and Off-Broadway), Animal Wisdom, White Girl In Danger, and Titaníque (below Gristedes). In television he was Emmy-nominated for HBO’s Succession and Netflix’s Inventing Anna. His other credits include Adults, The Other Two, Mozart in the Jungle, and Black Mirror. In film his credits include Mass (Independent Spirit Robert Altman Award), The Neighbor’s Window (Academy Award - Best Live Action Short), Black Bear, Saturday Church, It Felt Like Love, and Vampires Vs. The Bronx. Upcoming films include: She Keeps Me Young, Bookends, and Before I Do.

LORI ERICKSON, CSA (Casting) is a former Vice President of Casting at CBS Studios, where she oversaw casting for forty-five series and pilots, including CBS’ Ghosts and Netflix’s Unbelievable. She created and led the award-winning CBS Leadership Pipeline Challenge, developing storytellers through filmmaking in service of nonprofit organizations. Her career began as a casting apprentice at Steppenwolf Theatre Company on the original August: Osage County. A National Arts Strategies Creative Community Fellow (2016–17), she holds a BFA in Theatre from Stephens College and an MA in Business Design & Arts Leadership from Savannah College of Art and Design. (she/her)

SHAWNA GRAJEK (Casting) has worked as a casting director, producer, and stage manager at the 5th Avenue Theatre, The Seagull Project, Book-It Repertory Theatre, Seattle Public Theatre, Sound Theatre Company, New Century Theatre Company, Union Arts Center, and ArtsWest. They currently serve as the Casting Director & Artistic Associate at Seattle Rep where they have helped cast over 50 productions and workshops. Gratitude to Ada Karamanyan for her casting support on this project. (she/they)

MELISSA Y. HAMASAKI* (Stage Manager) is pleased to join the cast and creative team for this production. Favorite credits include: Robin Hood (Seattle Children’s Theatre); Hamlet; An Enemy of the People (Union Arts Center, Seattle); The Women, The Ramayana, Intimate Exchanges, Assisted Living (ACT, Seattle); Waitress, Memphis (5th Avenue Theatre); Primary Trust, The Heart Sellers (Seattle Rep); Carmen, Tales of Hoffman (Seattle Opera); Enchanted April (Pioneer Theatre Company, UT); Of Mice and Men (Arena Stage, DC). Many thanks to the Phinn Support Team. Training: Allen Lee Hughes Stage Management Fellow at Arena Stage, Washington, DC; Technical Apprentice, Santa Fe Opera, NM. (she/her)

MEGAN MCCLINTOCK* (Assistant Stage Manager) Resident Stage Manager Megan McClintock’s favorite A.C.T. credits include Co-Founders, Big Data, A Whynot Christmas Carol, The Wizard of Oz, Wakey Wakey, A Walk on the Moon, Between Riverside and Crazy, A Little Night Music, and Indian Ink. Other Bay Area credits include productions at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, California Shakespeare Theater, The Curran, Aurora Theatre Company, and Marin Theatre Company. Regionally she has worked at St. Ann’s Warehouse, La Jolla Playhouse, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, McCarter Theatre Center, and Arena Stage. She has a BA in theater and history from Willamette University.

SEATTLE REP puts theater at the heart of public life. Founded in 1963 and winner of the 1990 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre, Seattle Rep is currently led by Artistic Director Dámaso Rodríguez and Managing Director Jeffrey Herrmann. Over a season and throughout the year, Seattle Rep collaborates with extraordinary artists to create productions and programs that reflect and elevate the diverse cultures, perspectives, and life experiences of the Pacific Northwest. seattlerep.org

CENTER THEATRE GROUP, one of the nation’s preeminent arts and cultural organizations, is Los Angeles’ leading not-for-profit theatre company, which, under the leadership of the Brindell & Milton Gottlieb Artistic Director Snehal Desai, Managing Director / CEO Meghan Pressman, and Producing Director Douglas C. Baker, programs the Mark Taper Forum and the Ahmanson Theatre in Downtown Los Angeles, and the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City. Center Theatre Group is one of the country’s leading producers of ambitious new works through commissions and world premiere productions and a leader in interactive community engagement and education programs that reach across generations, demographics, and circumstances to serve Los Angeles. CenterTheatreGroup.org

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