KAREN AZENBERG (Director/Choreographer) This marks Karen Azenberg’s sixth season as artistic director at PTC, after directing and choreographing last year’s Regional Premiere of Sting’s The Last Ship and Oliver! Originally from New York, her work there includes Lyrics and Lyricists (92nd St. Y), Blocks (a collaboration with Jonathan Larson), Prom Queens Unchained and choreography for Richard Greenberg’s The Dazzle (Roundabout Theatre Co.). Among her other credits are National Tours of Carousel and Brigadoon, West Side Story (over 15 productions) and productions at Indiana Rep., Geva Theatre Center, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Goodspeed, and most recently Mary Poppins at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. Karen is on the Board of the New York Musical Theatre Festival and a past president of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC). Her favorite productions are her son Alexander and her daughter Emelia.

DANIEL MEEKER (Scenic Designer) Previously at PTC, Meeker designed the sets for Women in Jeopardy, Outside Mullingar and The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. In his home city, Portland, OR, credits include: set design for Cosi Fan Tutte, The Difficulty Crossing a Field, The Match-girl Passion, Eugene Onegin and L’Italiana in Alegeria for Portland Opera; set and lighting design for The Language Archive, How I Learned What I Learned and Peter and the Starcatcher for Portland Playhouse; set design for Pinkalicious and lighting design for James and the Giant Peach for Oregon Children’s Theater; set design for The Talented Ones and Mothers and Sons at Artists Rep; lighting design for Wild & Reckless and Lauren Weedman Doesn’t Live Here Anymore at Portland Center Stage; lighting director for the Pickathon Festival. Daniel is a graduate of Ithaca College and The Yale School of Drama, and a member of United Scenic Artists.

K.L. ALBERTS (Costume Designer) This season marks Alberts’ 30^th season with Pioneer Theatre Company. In those years he has designed a wide range of shows. Small intimate dramas like Of Mice And Men and Proof, the comedies Private Lives and Scapino! and many large scale musicals including Les Misèrables (both PTC productions), The Producers, Elf-The Musical  and The Music Man. Alberts was also honored to design the world premieres of three PTC productions: It Happened One Christmas, Dumas’ Camille and Laughing Stock. For the University of Utah’s Babcock Theatre he has designed On The Verge, Edward II and The School For Scandal among others. He recently designed Beowulf, as well as Infantry Monologues and Shadows Of The Bakemono for Meat and Potato Theatre Company, and has spent many summers with the Utah Shakespeare Festival where his designs include Guys and Dolls, South Pacific, Anything Goes and Les Misèrables (yet again!).

PAUL MILLER (Lighting Designer) Previously at Pioneer: Count of Monte Cristo, In The Heights, Much Ado About Nothing, A Few Good Men, I Hate Hamlet. Broadway: Amazing Grace, The Illusionists, Legally Blonde, Freshly Squeezed, Laughing Room Only; Off-Broadway: Clinton – The Musical, Pageant, Vanities – the Musical, Waiting for Godot, Addicted, Nunsense, Balancing Act as well as productions for New York City Center Encores and Avery Fisher Hall. Regional: The Old Globe, Chicago Shakespeare, Idaho Shakespeare, Asolo Repertory, American Conservatory Theatre, Cleveland Playhouse, Pasadena Playhouse, The Goodspeed Opera House, Westport Playhouse. U.S. Tours: The Illusionists, Elf, Shrek, Story Time Live, Wizard of Oz, Legally Blonde, Sweeney Todd, Hairspray, The Producers, The Sound of Music. Television: “Camelot” (Live from Lincoln Center), numerous specials for Netflix, Showtime and Comedy Central, the internationally renowned fundraiser for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS Broadway Bares, as well as every live performance from the internationally televised New Year’s Eve Celebration from New York’s Time’s Square for the last 16 years. Internationally: Brazil, The Stratford Festival, London’s West End, Vienna, Milan (Teatro alla Scala), The Philippines, South Africa, and China.

JOE PAYNE (Sound Designer) is thrilled to be back at Pioneer Theatre Company, his creative home for ten years. In 2010 he joined the faculty at Illinois State University, and is currently assistant professor of sound and digital media at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He has been the sound designer for the Utah Shakespeare Festival for 17 years, and has designed throughout the United States, including Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Syracuse Stage, Round House Theatre (Bethesda, MD), Indiana Repertory Theatre, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, The Virginia Stage Company, and Milwaukee Repertory Theatre. Payne is a member of United Scenic Artists local 829, Theatrical Sound Designers and Composers Association, USITT Digital Media Commission, and OISTAT Sound Working Group. www.paynesound.com

AMANDA FRENCH (Hair and Makeup) has been a makeup and hair designer for over 25 years. She has worked for Montana Shakespeare in the Parks, the Utah Shakespeare Festival, Utah Opera, Egyptian Theatre Company and the University of Texas at Austin. She is a contributing writer in the tenth edition of Stage Makeup by Corson, Glavan and Norcross, and her work can also be seen in The Costume Technician’s Handbook by Ingham and Covey, and Wig Making and Styling: A Complete Guide for Theatre and Film by Ruskai and Lowery. She attended the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati where she studied with Hair and Makeup Designer Lenna Kaleva. She is a member of the United States Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT) and a current University of Utah adjunct professor of wigs and makeup.

ALEXANDRA HARBOLD (Dramaturg) served as dramaturg on PTC’s The Last Ship, An Inspector Calls, I Hate Hamlet, and Of Mice and Men. Recent projects include: Margery in Hand to God (Salt Lake Acting Company), directing Ion (Greek Classical Theatre Festival), How Long Can You Stand on the Train Tracks: a game for two sisters (Flying Bobcat/Sackerson), Climbing with Tigers (SLAC/Flying Bobcat), Tribes (SLAC), Picnic (The Grand Theatre) and Self Defense, or death of some salesmen (Studio 115). Upcoming: directing You Never Can Tell (Babcock Theatre) and co-directing Jump (Plan-B/Flying Bobcat/Red Fred Project). Education: Masters, University of London Goldsmiths; B.A., Middlebury College; SITI Summer Intensive. She is an adjunct assistant professor of theatre at the University of Utah and co-founder and co-artistic director of Flying Bobcat Theatrical Laboratory.

CHRISTOPHER DUVAL (Resident Fight Choreographer) returns to Pioneer Theatre Company as resident fight choreographer. He has also worked throughout the country acting, directing or fight directing at such theatres as Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Syracuse Stage, Dallas Theatre Center, Utah Shakespeare Festival, Shakespeare Orange County, Idaho Repertory Theatre, South Coast Repertory, Salt Lake Acting Company, Sacramento Theatre Company, Montana Shakespeare in the Parks and many others. He worked at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for 18 years as a guest teacher, fight director and actor. He holds an M.F.A. in acting from the University of California Irvine, is a certified teacher of stage combat with the Society of American Fight Directors and a master teacher with Dueling Arts International, holds a 2nd degree black belt in Aikido, and is recognized as an associate teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework. Duval is the head of the Actor Training Program at the University of Utah.

NATALIE NOVACEK (SDCF Observer) is a freelance director based in Minneapolis, MN. Her intimate productions have garnered critical acclaim for their precise balance of humor and heart. She is passionate about working collaboratively with designers, writers and performers as a generative director. She is currently developing a design-driven adaptation of Moby-Dick; or, The Whale as well as a creative editing of Shakespeare’s War of the Roses tetralogy that focuses on the journey of Queen Margaret. Novacek was a Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival National Selection Team Directing Fellow and was a 2016-2017 Directing Fellow at Asolo Rep in Sarasota, FL. She is an alum of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab. She received her MFA in directing from the University of Texas at Austin and her BA in Theatre Arts from Minnesota State University Moorhead. She is a proud associate member of the Stage Director and Choreographers Society.