Stacy Ross

We are pleased to welcome the inimitable Stacy Ross to the ranks of our Associate Artist company. Ross, who made her Cal Shakes debut performing in all four shows of our 1992 season (as Nerissa in The Merchant of Venice, First Witch in Macbeth, Juno in The Tempest, and Julia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona), has been seen most recently on our stage as a series of brassy (and often bloodthirsty) babes in Titus Andronicus (2011), Mrs. Warren’s Profession (2010), Macbeth (2010), and An Ideal Husband (2008).

Hearty congrats also go to playwright Octavio Solis (John Steinbeck’s The Pastures of Heaven), who this month was awarded a prestigious United States Artists Fellowship. The USA Fellows—50 in all—each receive $50,000 toward project development and related expenses. Up next for Solis is his final South Coast Repertory workshop for Cloudlands, a musical collaboration with Adam Gwon, directed by Amanda Dehnert (The Verona Project); performances begin May 1. Solis is also working on commissions for the Magic Theatre and for Yale Rep.

L. Peter Callender and Joan Mankin are currently wowing audiences in The Soldier’s Tale at Aurora Theatre; if you’d like to catch it, you need to hurry, as it closes December 18. Callender goes straight into rehearsals for Frankie and Johnnie in the Clair de Lune (Jan 20–Feb 5) at Diablo Actors Ensemble, followed in the Spring by Xtigone (April 20–May 13) at African-American Shakespeare Company in San Francisco, where he is also Artistic Director. In February, Mankin will perform at the Ashby Stage in an original piece by Joan Holden called Counter-Attack, based on the interviews with diner waitresses found in the book Counter Culture.

Nancy Carlin’s production of Trevor Allen’s Working for the Mouse ends at EXIT Theatre Dec 17. Next she’ll direct Arms and the Man at Center Rep (Jan 27–Feb 25). James Carpenter is playing Scrooge in American Conservatory Theater’s  A Christmas Carol—for the sixth year in a row—through December 24, once again under the direction of fellow Associate Artist Domenique Lozano.

Susannah Schulman and Danny Scheie in the Berkeley Rep production of YOU, NERO; photo by Kevin Berne.

Speaking of A.C.T., Janet Foster has joined their Artistic Associate Company, as well, and is their new Casting Director, to boot. She’s currently casting Scorched, the West Coast premiere of Maple & Vine, and the award-winning Higher.

Dan Hiatt will be playing Jacob Marley and many others in a very musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol adapted and directed by Rick Lombardo and running through Christmas Eve at San Jose Rep.  Jan 17–Feb 12 he’ll play Harry Wilson in The Pitmen Painters by Lee Hall (Billy Elliot) at TheatreWorks, directed by Leslie Martinson and also featuring James Carpenter and Cal Shakes regular Nicholas Pelczar.

Danny Scheie and Susannah Schulman are performing together in Amy Freed’s You, Nero at Arena Stage through January 1, reprising the roles they originated at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 2009.  And upcoming projects for lighting designer Scott Zielinski in 2012 are Cat On A Hot Tin Roof for the Guthrie Theater, Good Goods at Yale Repertory Theater, An Iliad at New York Theater Workshop, Miss Fortune at Royal Opera House (London) and Abigail’s Party for the National Theater of Norway (Oslo).

This week in Washington, DC, the East Coast will get to experience a little bit of California heaven when excerpts from John Steinbeck’s The Pastures of Heaven are performed alongside fellow inaugural selections of the National Endowment for the Arts New Play Development Program. January 19–30, the American Voices New Play Institute at Arena Stage presents the New Play Festival, full-length presentations and readings including selected scenes from Pastures, which was adapted by Octavio Solis and developed in collaboration with Cal Shakes and Word for Word Performing Arts Company.

For this presentation, Word for Word company member Sheila Balter will restage excerpts from Jonathan Moscone’s production, with members of the world-premiere cast—Catherine Castellanos, Julie Eccles, Amy Kossow, Andy Murray, Charles Shaw Robinson, and JoAnne Winter—reprising their original roles alongside such familiar Cal Shakes faces as Clifton Guterman (Smike in 2005’s Nicholas Nickleby) as Tularecito and Mannie Munroe; and Nicholas Pelczar (Banquo and Lennox in Macbeth, Don Pedro in Much Ado) as Richard Whiteside, Jimmie Munroe, and Bill Whiteside. Recent A.C.T. MFA grad Lakisha May will play Molly Morgan and Mae Munroe; and popular Bay Area actor Jarion Monroe will play John Whiteside, Allen Huenecker, Pancho, and Jakob Stutz.

Click here for more information on the New Play Festival.

Our development of John Steinbeck’s The Pastures of Heaven was underwritten
by numerous individual donors and generous support from: