faculty profiles
Berkeley Rep School of Theatre faculty and staff are highly trained professional theatre artists who work regularly in their respective areas of expertise. Listed below are our current faculty.
erica blue
has a B.A. in Dance/Theatre and Child Development from Sarah Lawrence College. She founded The Raw Material Performance Ensemble in Amsterdam. For the last 10 years, she has taught and performed around the US. Her solo work has been performed at La Mama in New York and The Cleveland Performance Art Festival, and has won Best of the Fringe in San Francisco and Seattle. Now a mother of two boys, she has redoubled her enthusiasm for teaching young people to explore their imaginations.
jon burnett
is a teacher and professional actor and has performed in Seattle, Atlanta, New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area. Jon has taught theatre to students ranging from kindergarten through undergraduate college, and found inspiration, profound laughter and empathy at every level.
ron campbell
played the title role in R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe and had leading roles in Salome and Teatro ZinZanni. A founding member of The Actor’s Gang and associate artist of Cal Shakes. His performances include: The London Fringe One-man Show of the Year Award, LA Drama Critics Circle Award, The Bay Area Critics’ Circle Award (for Lead & Solo Perormance.), four KPBS Patte Awards, four Backstage West Garland Awards, 15 Dramalogue Awards and a 2002 Helen Hayes Award Nomination. He has worked at Mark Taper Forum, Seattle Rep, San Diego Rep, Old Globe, Old Red Lion Theatre (London), the Intiman and Edinburgh.
rebecca castelli
is an experienced vocal teacher, as well as professional actress and singer. She holds a bachelor’s degree in voice and theatre and a Master of Fine Arts in Performance. Throughout her academic and professional career, Rebecca has performed leads in over 30 plays and musicals with her most recent appearance being Lady Chiltern in Porchlight Theatre’s 2006 production of An Ideal Husband. She has recently added dialect instruction to her private voice classes, and has been the dialect coach for La Luna Theatre Collective and Theatre Rhinoceros, and will be dialect coaching Porchlight Theatre’s production of An Enchanted April in the spring of 2007.
marybeth cavanaugh
received her M.F.A. in Composition from Mills College. Prior to receiving her degree, she worked at Oregon Shakespeare Festival for five seasons as choreographer. Since then, she has choreographed for Shakespeare Santa Cruz, the Lab at Lincoln Center in New York City, Berkeley Rep, Saratoga Shakes, Shakespeare at Stinson, Mills College Rep, Summerfest Dance and for ten seasons at Cal Shakes as Choreographer/Movement Teacher. She is also an Artistic Associate at California Shakespeare Theatre. She has taught at U.C. Berkeley, U.C. Davis, CalShakes and the Berkeley Rep School of Theatre. She recently directed Measure for Measure for Shakespeare at Stinson. MaryBeth Cavanaugh is the Associate Director of the Berkeley Rep School of Theatre.
roni dengel
has played leading roles on Broadway, in repertory theatres across the country and in scores of prime time television dramas and series. She is the founding Artistic Director of the award-winning CharActors Theatre Company and The Working Actor professional theatre studio, both in NYC; also, a Master Teacher at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in NY and at The Actors’ Centre in London’s West End, where she has directed plays of Tennessee Williams and Anton Chekhov.
james donlon
returns to Berkeley Rep with four decades of experience as a master teacher and international performer. He has been on the faculties of acting schools such as A.C.T., North Carolina School of the Arts, The National Theatre Conservatory-Denver Center and The Yale School of Drama, and has presented residencies with special institutions like El Teatro Campesino, Mexico City’s Bellas Artes, Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus Clown College where he taught Tony Award-winner Bill Irwin. He has been a film movement coach for Oscar-winners Javier Bardem, Kathy Bates and Frances McDormand, as well as Benjamin Bratt and David Strathairn. James is the only physical theater artist ever invited to perform with legendary San Francisco street mime Robert Shields of CBS Shields & Yarnell. James has performed his original work throughout North American, Europe and Latin America to critical acclaim. The New York Times describes his theater as “an extraordinary blend of skill and lunacy.”
deborah eubanks
majored in Theater Arts at Harold Pinter Studios (England). She has designed and implemented workshops with Stephen Hawking’s Company at Covent Garden Arts Center (Cambridge). She has written and directed for London’s Age Exchange, created and produced two teen operettas and has been teaching and directing in Bay Area for sixteen years. She has taught at A.C.T., SF Shakes and USF, worked as dialect and vocal coach for the Aurora Theatre and the Spreckles Performing Arts Center and recorded narration for Dean Lesher’s Christmas. Deborah is also the lead playwright for 2007 SF Fringe Diva Fest.
rachel fink
is the Director of the Berkeley Rep School of Theatre where she has overseen the recent major expansion of Berkeley Rep’s educational programming. Prior to moving to the Bay Area, Rachel was the Managing Director of the Yale Cabaret, where she produced over 20 productions and created theatre outreach programs. Rachel has worked at theaters across the country including the Yale Repertory Theatre (Associate Managing Director, Company Manager), International Festival of Arts and Ideas (Company Manager), Long Wharf Theatre and the Cleveland Play House. In addition, Rachel has taught acting at Case Western Reserve University and the Cain Park School of the Arts. Rachel received her B.A. in Theatre Arts from Case Western Reserve University and her M.F.A. in Theater Management from the Yale School of Drama.
nancy gold
is the author of Finding Your Funny Bone! The Actors Guide to Physical Comedy and Characters, published by Smith and Kraus. She has taught at Berkeley Rep School of Theatre, A.C.T. Young Conservatory, Vector Theatre, UCLA, Univ. of Illinois, Foothill College and throughout the Bay area public and private schools. Nancy studied with Jacques LeCoq, Ctibor Turba and has a Masters Equivalency from Foothill College and a B.F.A. from the Univ. of Illinois.
gary graves
is a company co-director of Central Works Theater Ensemble in Berkeley. Now in its twelfth season, Central Works is dedicated to the development of new works for the theater. He has written and directed numerous productions with Central Works, at U.C. Berkeley, Hardback Theater and American Theater Arts in Los Angeles. He holds an M.F.A. in Playwriting from Southern Illinois University and a Ph.D. in directing from U.C. Berkeley.
marvin greene
is a professional actor and has performed with major regional theatres such as A.C.T., Aurora Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre and San Jose Rep. Marvin has been an instructor at A.C.T. since 1994 and also teaches at U. C. Berkeley and at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco.
gendell hernández
has taught for Berkeley Rep School of Theatre for the past five years. Past credits include Beatbox: A Raparetta, which he directed for the NY Hip Hop Festival, Around the World in 80 Days at Center Rep, Sons of Don Juan with San Jose Rep, Oil! with Word for Word, Show Up at New Pickle Circus, The Gate of Heaven at the Old Globe and Romeo and Juliet at Shotgun Players, for which he won a Critics Circle Award for fight choreography.
geoff hoyle
was the original Zazu in the Broadway cast of The Lion King and performed off-Broadway in his solo Feast of Fools and in Mr. Fox by Bill Irwin. He trained with Marcel Marceau’s teacher Etienne Decroux, and clowned with Circus Flora, Pickle Family Circus and Cirque du Soleil. His award-winning shows have been seen in New York, San Francisco, Paris, London, Berlin, Taiwan, England and the former Soviet Union. He has received several National Endowment for the Arts mime fellowships, as well as an ArtsLink grant to visit circuses in Latvia and Russia and a TCG/Pew National Theatre Artist’s Residency Program Fellowship.
greg hubbard
has twenty years of professional theatre experience as an actor, director, casting director and teacher. In the Bay Area, Greg has taught at the California Shakespeare Festival, San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, Marin Theatre Company, Marin Shakespeare Festival, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, TheatreWorks, Kids on Camera and the New Conservatory Theatre Center. Greg has a B.F.A. in Acting from the University of California at Santa Barbara and an M.F.A. in Directing from Ohio University. Local directing credits include productions of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, The House of Blue Leaves, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Country Wife. As the casting director for Calaveras Repertory Theatre in Milpitas, Greg has cast such shows as King Lear, Waiting for Godot, The Tempest, Our Country’s Good and The Merchant of Venice. Greg is the Casting Associate at the American Conservatory Theatre.
andrew hurteau
has been acting and teaching since he graduated from the American Conservatory Theater. He has performed with Berkeley Rep, Magic Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, Aurora Theatre Company and throughout the Bay Area. Andrew teaches at A.C.T., the Academy of Art University and the Nueva School. He is currently appearing in Nicholas Nickelby, Parts I and II at the Cal Shakes.
dave maier
Dave is an actor, director and fight choreographer who has been working with young artists for over 14 years. Most recently he was a Teaching Artist for the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts in both their Lincoln Center Institute and Kaleidoscope programs. He has also been on the faculty of A.C.T.’s Young Conservatory, The Seattle Children’s Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre and The Intiman Theatre, among others. He has designed and taught residencies for the public school systems of Seattle, Contra Costa County, Berkeley and Oakland, as well as several private schools. He is the resident drama teacher at Berkwood Hedge School. He is a core member of Berkeley’s award winning Shotgun Players and the Actors’ Equity Association. Dave has certified as an actor combatant with Society of American Fight Directors and has trained with Dueling Arts International.
joan mankin
has been an actress/teacher/director in the Bay Area for many years. She has performed with A.C.T., Cal Shakes, San Diego Rep, TheaterWorks, Marin Theater Company, A Travelling Jewish Theater, the Magic Theater, San Jose Stage, Center Rep and most recently with the international production of Black Rider in Los Angeles at the Ahmanson Theatre. She was a company member of The SF Mime Troupe, the Dell’Arte Players and Pickle Circus. She has directed for the Magic Theater, SF Shakespeare Festival and Make-A-Circus, as well as several solo shows. She has taught at SF State, A.C.T. Conservatory, UC Santa Cruz, Antioch College and is currently on the staff of the Clown Conservatory of the S.F. Circus Center.
jonathan moscone
is the artistic director at Cal Shakes. Moscone earned his M.F.A. in directing from the Yale School of Drama before serving for seven years as the associate director of the Dallas Theatre Center. Moscone’s directing credits include Berkeley Rep, Goodspeed Musicals, Intiman Theater, Portland Stage Company and the Magic Theatre. He is a recipient of a Princess Grace Award for Directing and his productions in the Bay Area have earned him Bay Area Theater Critics Circle and Dean Goodman Awards.
andy murray
is a working actor who has taught at Berkeley Rep School of Theatre for four years. He has performed at A.C.T., Berkeley Rep, San Jose Rep, Seattle Rep, as well as Cal Shakes, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Kansas City Rep and many others. In addition to Berkeley Rep, he has taught at Vista College and Cal Shakes.
michael navarra
has played leading roles as an Equity actor with San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, Word for Word, Pacific Alliance Stage Company, Sierra Repertory Theatre, Pacific Repertory Theatre, Central Works, Z Space Studio, Alter Theater, Shakespeare A Firenze in Florence, Italy and recently as Biff in Death of a Salesman with Traveling Jewish Theatre. He has previously taught at the University of Washington, San Francisco Shakespeare Festival and Berkeley Rep School of Theatre. Michael is a graduate of UC Irvine and earned an M.F.A. in Acting from the University of Washington.
lisa anne porter
is a designated Linklater voice instructor, an acting, voice, dialect and text professor in the B.F.A. program at Syracuse University and a professional actress and director. She has also taught master classes in voice and text at A.C.T., Cal Shakes, Shakespeare & Company, The Tepper Center in NYC, Naropa University and the Academy of Art University. She has performed with numerous repertory companies and Shakespeare festivals throughout the country including A.C.T., San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, Cal Shakes, Shakespeare/Santa Cruz among others.
amy potozkin
is the Casting Director at Berkeley Rep. She has been a private acting and audition coach to hundreds of professional actors and taught acting to children and teenagers at Chapel Hill Chauncy Hall Summer Theatre School for six seasons. She is a member of Actors’ Equity Association and has performed at numerous theatres around the country. She received her M.F.A. in Acting and Directing at Brandeis University.
diane rachel
has been performing and teaching at BATS School of Improv since 1989. She created a specialty long form program with a focus on intimate acting and stage combat, and her work has attracted an international following. Locally, Diane has taught improvisation at A.C.T., Stanford, Hayward State and College of Marin; internationally she’s led improvisation workshops in Melbourne, Paris, Amsterdam, Tampere and Helsinki. Diane is a founding member of San Francisco’s preeminent improv group, True Fiction Magazine.
stephen simmonds
has been a member of both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre in London. He won first place at the Edinburgh Fringe Theatre Festival for his performance and direction of Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. He has played major roles directed by Sir Peter Hall, Trevor Nunn and Adrian Noble. He taught Acting Shakespeare at the Moscow Art Theater and Carnegie Mellon University graduate program. He has a degree in literature from Leeds University and studied at the Laban Art and Movement Centre, London. He received training from Cicely Berry and Patsy Rosenburg while working with the RSC and RNT.
daniel stein
studied in the Professional Actors Training Program at Carnegie Mellon University, where he worked with Jewel Walker. He then studied with Etienne Decroux in Paris, becoming M. Decroux’s translator, and began his professional career as an actor with the French National Theatre—a relationship which lasted 20 years. His solo performances have toured in more than 30 countries, and have been seen in the US in venues such as the Kennedy Center and Lincoln Center. He has taught master classes throughout the world at institutions such as Juilliard School and The Institute of Dramatic Arts, Tokyo. Daniel has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and is a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow. Daniel served for five years as Dean of Students and another five years as School Director, of The Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre. The fall of ‘08 has him slated to direct in Philadelphia and act in Clown Show for Bruno Shultz in Israel and Germany.
michael storm
has been working as an actor in the Bay Area for the past 15 years. He has appeared with the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, Napa Valley Repertory, San Jose Stage Company, Shakespeare at Stinson, Cal Shakes and the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. He was born in Berkeley and attended the University of California at Irvine where he received degrees in drama and economics. He has taught for the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, A.C.T. and Berkeley Rep School of Theatre. Michael is a certified Actor Combatant with the Society of American Fight Directors.
rebecca stockley
is co-founder of BATS Improv in San Francisco with whom she continues to coach and play. She has been teaching and performing improvisational theatre since the mid ‘80s and has created and implemented improvisation training for numerous theatre training programs. Rebecca attended the University of Washington Professional Actor Training Program in Seattle. Rebecca’s company, Improvlady.com brings improvisation to business training, working with companies as diverse as British Petroleum and Pixar Animation Studios.
tony taccone
is the artistic director of Berkeley Rep, where he has worked since 1988 and served in his current position since 1997. His most recent directorial credits include the world premiere of David Edgar’s Continental Divide for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Berkeley Rep, Birmingham Rep (UK), the Barbicon Theatre (UK) and the La Jolla Playhouse, and Sarah Jones’ Bridge and Tunnel in New York City. He has directed more than twenty-five plays for Berkeley Rep including Surface Transit, Homebody/Kabul, Culture Clash in AmeriCCa and The Oresteia. Before coming to Berkeley Rep, Mr. Taccone served as the Artistic Director of Eureka Theatre in San Francisco. He has also worked at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Arizona Theatre Company, San Jose Rep and Yale Rep. He had the great honor of co-directing the world premiere of Angels in America at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.
stephen barker turner
appeared in Cymbeline (Posthumus), The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (Nicholas Nickleby) and As You Like It (Orlando) at Cal Shakes where he is an associate artist. He performed in Hedda Gabler (Lovborg) at A.C.T., where he will appear in three productions next season. He has also performed with Williamstown Theatre Festival, Arena Stage, Long Wharf, Intiman, Denver Center, Eugene O’ Neil Theatre Center, Center Stage and New York Stage and Film. Turner is a graduate of Julliard School and a Fox Fellow.
abigail van alyn
has appeared in principal roles in more than twenty made-for-TV and major motion pictures. Her credits include True Believer, Final Analysis, Tucker, The Pursuit of Happyness and SF Filmmaker Lynn Hershman’s Technolust, with Tilda Swinton. For two years, she played the devious spy Fiona Lowry in Electronic Arts’ live-action digital game, Majestic. On stage, she was a member of the Eureka Theatre Company for 10 years, with multiple roles in Road, Fen and Top Girls, among many others. She has received several BATCC awards, including best actress in Berkeley Rep’s The Stickwife. Out of town, she had the honor of appearing with ACT veteran Sydney Walker, as Goneril in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s King Lear. Outside the theater, Abigail has designed and facilitated corporate on-camera workshops in communication and presentation skills since 1984. She holds a certificate in Integral Coaching from New Ventures West, San Francisco, and has an active practice in Executive Coaching.
les waters
is the Associate Artistic Director of Berkeley Repertory Theatre and served as the head of the M.F.A. Directing program at UCSD from 1995–2005. Waters worked at the Royal Court Theatre in London for many years before pursuing a freelance career both in the UK and USA. He has directed the premieres of plays by Caryl Churchill, Rebecca Gilman, Charles Mee, Keith Reddin, Wallace Shawn and Michael Weller. Recent productions include Hot ‘N Throbbing by Paula Vogel (Signature Theater), Caryl Churchill’s The Striker (National Theatre of Great Britain), The Designated Mourner by Wallace Shawn (Steppenwolf), Wintertime (La Jolla Playhouse, Long Wharf Theatre) and the world premiere of Charles Mee’s Big Love (Humana Festival, Berkeley Rep, Goodman Theatre, Long Wharf Theater, Brooklyn Academy of Music). Since becoming the company’s associate artistic director in 2003, Waters has staged Eurydice, The Mystery of Irma Vep, Yellowman and Fêtes de la Nuit for Berkeley Rep. Waters’ work has been seen at theatres across the United Kingdom and the United States, including American Conservatory Theater, the Goodman Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Manhattan Theatre Club, the Public Theater and Steppenwolf Theatre Company. He is an associate artist of The Civilians, a New York-based theatre group.