Nilaja Sun, Playwright / Performer
Hal Brooks, Director
Sibyl Wickersheimer, Local Scenic Design
Narelle Sissons, Original Off-Broadway Scenic Design
Mark Barton, Lighting Design
Jessica Gaffney, Costume Design
Ron Russell, Sound Design
Michael Suenkel, Production Stage Manager
nilaja sun
(Playwright / Performer) is the solo writer and performer of the off-Broadway smash No Child…, which concluded its run at the Barrow Street Theatre last June. For her creation and performance of No Child…, Nilaja garnered a Lucille Lortel Award, Outer Critics Circle Awards for Outstanding Solo Performance and Outstanding New American Play, a Theatre World Award and an Obie Award. The piece was also named Best One-Person Show at the US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen. She was Epic Theatre Ensemble’s first-ever artistic associate, and has appeared in Einstein’s Gift, No Child…, Pieces of the Throne and Time and the Conways with the company. Her other New York credits include The Adventures of the Barrio Grrrl! at Summer Play Festival, The Cook at INTAR, Huck and Holden at Cherry Lane Theatre and Law and Order: SVU. Nilaja most recently completed work on Columbia Pictures’ upcoming film The International, starring Naomi Watts and Clive Owen. As a solo performer, her projects include Black and Blue, the critically acclaimed Blues for a Gray Sun at INTAR, Due to the Tragic Events of…, Insufficient Fare, La Nubia Latina and Mixtures. A native of the Lower East Side, she is a Princess Grace Award winner and has worked as a teaching artist in New York for nine years.
hal brooks
(Director) directed Nilaja Sun’s Obie Award-winning No Child…, which ran at the Barrow Street Theatre for over 300 performances. He also directed Will Eno’s acclaimed off-Broadway hit and Pulitzer finalist Thom Pain (based on nothing) at DR2 Theatre in New York, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Soho Theatre in London. He also directed Life in a Marital Institution by James Braly at 59E59, the world premiere of Lee Blessing’s Lonesome Hollow at the Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF), Athol Fugard’s Master Harold…and the boys at Weston Playhouse and the New York premiere of Ariel Dorfman’s Widows at 59E59. As artistic director of Rude Mechanicals Theater Company, Hal directed the off-Broadway premieres of Don DeLillo’s Valparaiso and Will Eno’s The Flu Season, for which he won an Oppenheimer Award. Hal’s recent credits include Benefactors at Pennsylvania Centre Stage, Big Wyoming for New York Stage & Film, I Am My Own Wife at Weston Playhouse, Intimate Apparel at Southern Repertory Theater, Six Years at Humana Festival and Rinne Groff’s What Then at Clubbed Thumb. His other New York credits include Keith Reddin’s Almost Blue, Caught at the Don Quixote Project and Beckett’s Rough for Theatre #1. His upcoming projects are Lady by Craig Wright at Asolo Repertory Theatre, A View from the Harbor by Richard Dresser at CATF. Hal was a Drama League Fall Directing Fellow in 2003, is a proud member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab and SSDC, and is a 2007–2009 recipient of the NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Directors.
sibyl wickersheimer
(Local Scenic Design) is a set designer and fine artist based in Los Angeles. This year, her designs have included No Child… at Center Theatre Group’s Kirk Douglas Theatre, as well as Carnage for The Actors’ Gang, Charlotte’s Web for South Coast Repertory, Some Girl(s) for the Geffen Playhouse and Toy Story: the Musical for Disney Cruise Lines. Her next project will be a bilingual production of Dos Pueblos, which will be a collaborative effort between theatre companies in Portland, Oregon and Mexico City, Mexico. Dos Pueblos will premiere in Portland this September. To learn more about Sibyl, visit sawgirl.com.
narelle sissons
(Original off-Broadway Scenic Design) designed scenery for the Broadway production of All My Sons at The Roundabout. Her off-Broadway credits include Dutch Heart of Man, In the Blood, Julius Caesar at the Delacorte, Kit Marlowe and Stop Kiss for The Public Theatre; the original production of How I Learned To Drive; as well as many productions for Classic Stage Company, Epic Theatre Ensemble, New York Theatre Workshop, Playwrights Horizons and Primary Stages among others. For LAByrinth, Narelle designed sets for the Philip Seymour Hoffman-directed Jesus Hopped the A Train at Donmar Warehouse, the 2001 Edinburgh Fringe, London’s West End and in New York; as well as Mabou Mines’ Dollhouse at St Anne’s Warehouse, Spoleto and the 2006–07 world tour. She also created designs for The Syringa Tree in Vienna, Austria and Frankfurt, Germany. She has been nominated for a Drama Desk Award, an American Theatre Wing award and a Helen Hayes Award, and has received Judy Garland and Leon Rabin awards. Her work was exhibited at the Prague Quadrennial 2007. Narelle is a graduate of Central St. Martins and The Royal College of Art in London.
mark barton
(Lighting Design) is delighted to work at Berkeley Rep for the first time. His off-Broadway credits include All the Wrong Reasons, Five Course Love, No Child…, Paradise Park, The Sound and the Fury (April Seventh, 1928), Thom Pain (based on nothing) and Valparaiso. His recent credits include Lisa D’Amour’s BirdEye BluePrint, Young Jean Lee’s Church, The Tristan Project at Lincoln Center and productions of Elevator Repair Service’s Gatz in Amsterdam, Brussels, Lisbon, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Portland, Oslo, Seattle, Vienna and Zurich. Mark’s other New York credits include work at Clubbed Thumb, Elevator Repair Service, Edge Theater, Epic Theatre, HERE, NYTW, New Georges, PS122, Talking Band, Target Margin Theater, Salt Theater and Signature Theatre. Regionally, he has worked at Asolo Rep, American Repertory Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Hangar Theatre, Lookingglass Theatre Company, Southern Rep, Syracuse Stage and Woolly Mammoth. Mark has also designed lighting for Ainadamar, Albert Herring, L’Ormindo, La Voix Humaine, The Magic Flute and Postcard from Morocco for Curtis Opera Theatre in Philadelphia. He is an associate artist at Target Margin and Salt Theaters.
jessica gaffney
(Costume Design) created costumes for the off-Broadway run of No Child…. Her other off-Broadway credits include Twelve Ophelias, Aloha Say the Pretty Girls, Charm of Preparedness, Comrades and Worms, The Laramie Project and Marisol directed by Debbie Saivetz at Baruch Performing Arts Center (BPAC); Actors are F*@#ing Stupid and The Kraken by Len Jenkins, Marat/Sade and Shannon in Ambient Light all directed by Michael Kimmel for Push Productions; Crumble directed by Katie Pearl at Clubbed Thumb; Eureka, Fits and Starts, Local Story, Patty Red Pants and the Sacred Heart for Overlap Productions; The Internationalist directed by Ken Russ Schmoll at 13 P/Fairfield Theatre Company; Thomas Bradshaw’s Purity at PS122; and Our Dad is in Atlantis directed by Debbie Saivetz at Queens Theatre Project and Working Theatre. Jessica received her M.F.A. from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
ron russell
(Sound Design) is a founder, producing artist and director of company development for Epic Theatre Ensemble. At Epic, he has directed Einstein’s Gift, Kate Fodor’s Hannah and Martin, Priestley’s Time and the Conways and adapted and directed Shaw’s Widowers’ Houses. Ron also served as developmental dramaturg and producer for workshops of No Child… and Beauty on the Vine, and as sound designer for the above productions and others. Ron is a lead teaching artist and co-program designer for Epic’s nationally-renowned public school arts education projects, which serve thousands of children each year. He is also the primary executive in charge of budget growth and management. Epic’s three-fold mission of production, education and developing new plays, artists and audiences by placing theatre at the center of civic dialogue, has been recognized by two Obies in three years, citations from Mayor Bloomberg and the New York State Senate and major government support from federal, state and city entities.
Photographer: Melissa Friedman
press photos
