Jordan Harrison, Playwright Les Waters, Director David Korins, Scenic Designer Annie Smart, Costume Designer Matt Frey, Lighting Designer Darron L West, Sound Designer Kevin Johnson, Stage Manager Scott Horstein, Dramaturg Madeleine Oldham, Dramaturg Amy Potozkin, Casting Janet Foster, Casting Michael Goldfried, Assistant Director Karen Szpaller, Production Assistant Ron Lemmond, Scene Assistant Liza Wakeman, Stage Carpenter Sandrine Bourrié, Stage Crew D. Renee Draginoff, Wardrobe CAST (in order of appearance) Randy Danson, Rhoda Lorri Holt, Gwen Clifton Guterman, Finn Reed Birney, Carver JORDAN HARRISON (Playwright) Jordan’s play Kid-Simple premiered in the 2004 Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville and has been produced in Chicago, Los Angeles, Providence, San Diego, Seattle and Off Broadway at the first Summer Play Festival. His other plays, which include The Museum Play and Act a Lady, have been developed at the McCarter Theater, Playwrights Horizons, Portland Center Stage, Seattle Rep, Signature Theatre Company, Soho Rep, Theatre de la Jeune Lune and the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Jordan is the recipient of the Heideman Award, two Jerome Fellowships and a McKnight Grant from The Playwrights’ Center and a 2005 NEA/TCG Playwright-in-Residence Grant with the Empty Space Theatre. He has written commissions for the Guthrie Theater/Children’s Theatre Company and the National New Play Network. A graduate of the Brown M.F.A. Playwriting program, Jordan is a resident playwright at New Dramatists. He would like to thank his supernaturally supportive parents. LES WATERS (Director) is the Associate Artistic Director at Berkeley Rep, where his directing credits include Fêtes de la Nuit, Eurydice, The Mystery of Irma Vep, Yellowman, Suddenly Last Summer and Big Love. Regionally, Waters directed Buried Child, Glengarry Glen Ross (A.C.T.); Wintertime, Nebraska, Life During Wartime, The Importance of Being Earnest and Nora (La Jolla Playhouse); Big Love (Humana Festival, Long Wharf, Goodman Theatre); Ghost On Fire, Spinning Into Butter (Goodman); The Designated Mourner, The Memory of Water (Steppenwolf); The House of Bernarda Alba (Guthrie). His New York credits include Fen, Ice Cream with Hot Fudge, Rum and Coke, Romeo and Juliet (New York Shakespeare Festival), Life During Wartime (Manhattan Theatre Club); Big Love (Next Wave Festival at BAM); Savannah Bay (Classic Stage Company) and Hot’n’Throbbing (Signature Theatre Company). U.K. credits include productions at the National Theatre, Royal Court Theatre, Hampstead Theatre Club, Bristol Old Vic, Traverse Theatre Club and Joint Stock Theatre Group. From 1995 to 2003 he was head of the M.F.A. directing program at UCSD Department of Theatre and Dance. He has won numerous awards including the Edinburgh Fringe First, Tokyo Theatre Critics, Drama-Logue, KPBS Patte, Connecticut Critics Circle, Dean Goodman, Bay Area Critics Circle and an OBIE for directing Big Love. He is an associate artist of The Civilians, the New York based theatre group. DAVID KORINS (Scenic Designer) has designed numerous productions including Orange Flower Water (Drama Desk nomination), Blackbird (Drama Desk nomination & Hewes Award), Stone Cold Dead Serious, Now That’s What I Call a Storm (Edge), the world premiere of Christopher Durang’s Miss Witherspoon (Playwrights Horizons and McCarter), Oedipus at Palm Springs (New York Theatre Workshop), Dog Sees God (Century Center), Swimming in the Shallows (Second Stage), The Wooden Breeks (MCC), Terrorism (New Group/ Play Co.), Thom Pain (based on nothing) (Daryl Roth), Sam Shepard’s The God of Hell (New School), EVE-olution (Cherry Lane), Huntington, Papermill, Old Globe, City Theatre, Williamstown and Bay Street. Film and television credits include working as the production designer on series for HBO and Bravo and on the film Winter Passing with Will Ferrell and Ed Harris (Focus). ANNIE SMART (Costume Designer) In the UK: set and costume designs for Fen and A Mouthful of Birds for Joint Stock Theatre Group, several productions for The Royal Court, numerous regional theatre productions, and at the National Theatre: The Father, Say It with Flowers, Black Snow, The Mountain Giants and The Skriker. In the US: designs for The Public Theater, Arena Stage, The Guthrie, San Diego Rep, ACT Seattle, Intiman, Long Wharf, The Goodman, Steppenwolf, La Jolla Playhouse, Theater for a New Audience, BAM, A.C.T. SF, Magic Theatre and Berkeley Rep (Suddenly Last Summer, Big Love, Yellowman, Irma Vep, Fêtes de la Nuit, Honour). Productions include numerous new plays and of the classics: Othello and The Tempest (both for Cal Shakes this season), A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The School for Scandal, Miss Julie, Medea, The Threepenny Opera, Woyzeck, Waiting for Godot, A Doll’s House, The Importance of Being Earnest and La Traviata. Television design: The Josh Kornbluth Show, currently showing on KQED. Teaching includes: chair of M.A. Theatre Design at Wimbledon School of Art, Adjunct Professor at UC San Diego and costume design at UC Berkeley. MATT FREY (Lighting Designer) recently designed Harry Partch’s opera Oedipus with Ridge Theater (New York). Also with Ridge, Decasia at St. Ann’s Warehouse (Brooklyn) and The Death of Klinghoffer and the upcoming Shelter Project at the BAM/Next Wave Festival. He designed Melissa James Gibson’s Brooklyn Bridge at the Children’s Theatre Company (Minneapolis). He also designed Melissa James Gibson’s plays [sic] and Suitcase at Soho Rep (New York) and the latter at La Jolla Playhouse, Neil Labute’s play Fat Pig directed by Jo Bonney for MCC. Other collaborations include The Orphan of Zhao (English version) conceived and directed by Chen Shi Zheng at Lincoln Center Festival, Steve Reich and Beryl Korot’s Three Tales and The Cave performed worldwide. Matt has also worked at Playwright’s Horizons, New York Theatre Workshop, Signature Theater, Theatre for a New Audience and various regional theaters. DARRON L WEST (Sound Designer) is the sound designer and a company member of Anne Bogart’s SITI Company. His Broadway and Off-Broadway work has been heard in over 370 productions all over Manhattan as well as nationally and internationally. Former resident sound designer for Actors Theater of Louisville, his directing credits include Kid-Simple for the 2004 Humana New Play Festival, Big Love for Austin’s Rude Mechs (Austin Critics Table Award Best Director) Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse and Eurydice for Children’s Theater Company Minneapolis and SITI’s national tour of War of the Worlds Radio Play. His accolades include the 2004 Henry Hewes Design Award, a Princess Grace, a 1998 OBIE Award and the Entertainment Design Magazine EDDY. SCOTT HORSTEIN (Dramaturg) is manager of play development at Cornerstone Theater Company in Los Angeles, where he has dramaturged A Long Bridge Over Deep Waters, As Vishnu Dreams and Center of the Star. He has also served as literary director at L.A.’s acclaimed Black Dahlia Theatre, where he has dramaturged An Infinite Ache, Theater District, Angry and Ragged Time. Freelance production dramaturg credits include The Philanderer (Oregon Shakespeare Festival); Resurrection Blues (with Arthur Miller); Pentecost, Compleat Female Stage Beauty, Orson’s Shadow (Old Globe). Scott was lecturer in dramaturgy at UC San Diego from 2003–2005, and is the 2004 winner of the LMDA Elliott Hayes Award in Dramaturgy. MICHAEL GOLDFRIED (Assistant Director) is a member of the first graduating class of the Brown University/Trinity Rep Consortium (MFA ‘05), and comes to Berkeley Rep as a 2005 Drama League Fellow. This fall, Michael will assist Blanka Zizka at the Manhattan Theatre Club on the premiere of Ariel Dorfman’s play The Other Side, and direct Off-Broadway in the Drama League DirectorsFest. CAST REED BIRNEY (Carver) won an Obie for his performance as the mysterious Dr. Sweet in the Off-Broadway smash Bug. He played the role of Gaev in Michael Grief’s acclaimed Williamstown production of The Cherry Orchard. He appeared as Milton Ceiling in the premiere of Tony Kushner’s revised Homebody/Kabul, directed by Frank Galati at Steppenwolf, Mark Taper Forum and Brooklyn Academy of Music. He made his Broadway debut as Randy Hastings in the original cast of Albert Innaurato’s long-running hit Gemini. Most notable among his film roles is his debut as the doomed Louie Carnahan in Arthur Penn and Steve Tesich’s Four Friends. RANDY DANSON (Rhoda) is happy to be returning to Berkeley Rep, where she previously appeared as Violet in Suddenly Last Summer. In the last few years, she appeared on Broadway in Wonderful Town, played Amanda in The Glass Menagerie at Actors Theatre of Louisville and Mrs. Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor at The New Jersey Shakespeare Theatre. She also started a small business designing and making jewelry. Randy is a Fox Fellow. She received a Helen Hayes Award for her portrayal of Shen Teh/Shui Ta in The Good Person of Szechwan, a Barrymore Award for Vivian in Wit and an Obie for Sustained Excellence. CLIFTON GUTERMAN (Finn) proudly makes his debut at Berkeley Rep after spending the summer as Smike in Nicholas Nickleby at Cal Shakes. His Atlanta credits include The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?, Beautiful Thing (Actor’s Express), A Christmas Carol (Alliance Theatre), Bat Boy: The Musical (Dad’s Garage) and the upcoming Southeastern premiere of The Last Sunday in June (Actor’s Express). The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently named Clifton the city’s “Best Up and Coming Actor.” Currently on the artistic staff of Atlanta’s Actor’s Express, he was formerly the Alliance’s artistic assistant. Clifton holds theatre degrees from UGA and the Savannah College of Art and Design. Thanks to Les, Amy, Janet and especially Jordan for this incredible opportunity. LORRI HOLT (Gwen) appeared at Berkeley Rep last season in Fêtes de La Nuit, which was also directed by Les Waters. Other Berkeley Rep credits include Continental Divide (including the tour to Birmingham Rep, London’s Barbican Theatre and La Jolla Playhouse), Dinner With Friends, Dancing at Lughnasa, Dream of a Common Language, Our Country’s Good, Serious Money, Reckless and Blue Window. Lorri has been a leading actress in the Bay Area for more than 20 years, beginning her career as a company actress with the Eureka Theatre Company for ten years, and moving on to play leading roles with A.C.T., San Jose Rep, TheatreWorks, Cal Shakes, the Magic, Marin Theatre Co. and the Aurora, as well as numerous commercial productions. Film and television credits include Bee Season, Patch Adams, Mary Came Back, Back to the Streets of San Francisco, Eye on the Sparrow and America’s Most Wanted. Lorri is a published fiction and nonfiction writer, and received a grant this year from the Spencer Cherashore Fund to pursue research in Paris on a theatre piece she is writing about the life and fictional characters of the novelist Jean Rhys. The Actors and Stage Managers employed in this production are members of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. BACK TO TOP