Artistic Staff Bios
Artistic Staff for The Tempest:
CHARLES MOREY (Director) has been Artistic Director of Pioneer Theatre Company since 1984. He has directed over eighty productions for PTC including, in recent years, the world premiere of Bess Wohl’s In and Touch(ed); the first regional theatre productions of Les Misérables, The Producers and The Vertical Hour and many others ranging from the classic to the contemporary repertoire. He is the author of nine plays including adaptations of The Count of Monte Cristo, A Tale of Two Cities, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Dracula and The Three Musketeers; an adaptation from Georges Feydeau, The Ladies Man; as well as his original playsLaughing Stock, Dumas’ Camille and The Yellow Leaf. All received their premieres at PTC and most have moved on to successful productions at professional theatres across the country including Denver Center Theatre Company, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Geva Theatre Center, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Asolo Theatre Company, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Meadow Brook Theatre, Shakespeare and Company, PCPA Theaterfest, Peterborough Players, Connecticut Repertory Theatre, Creede Repertory Theatre, Sierra Repertory Theatre, Arvada Center, Elm Shakespeare Company and many others. LA Theatreworks will broadcast nationally and release on CD a radio version of his adaptation ofDracula for Halloween 2011. From 1977 to 1988 he served as Artistic Director of New Hampshire’s Peterborough Players. New York directing credits include productions for the Ark Theatre Company and the Ensemble Studio Theatre. Regionally he has directed for the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Geva Theatre Center, Asolo Theatre Company, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, the Meadow Brook Theatre, the American Stage Festival, PCPA Theaterfest and the Utah Shakespeare Festival. He has served as both a panelist and on-site evaluator for the National Endowment for the Arts and on the Board of Trustees of the National Theatre Conference. He received a BA from Dartmouth College and a Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University. He is a Fellow of the MacDowell Colony. He will retire as Artistic Director of PTC at the end of the current season to focus on writing and freelance directing projects.
GARY M. ENGLISH (Set Designer) is the Founding Artistic Director of Connecticut Repertory Theatre and served as Artistic Director and Dept. Head in Dramatic Arts for fifteen years. Recent major directing credits include The Miracle Worker and American Primitive, produced at The Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge, MA. Other projects at CRT include last season’s production of Galileo, A Man For All Seasons, Pentecost, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, A Little Night Music, Carousel, Man Of La Mancha, which received the 1997 Best Musical Award for the Connecticut Critics’ Circle, Wings, The Musical which was nominated for Best Direction by the Connecticut Critics Circle, Candide, A Cry Of Players, Jesus Christ Superstar, Our Country’s Good, and the world premiere of William Gibson’s play Jonah’s Dream. As a designer, his work includes scenery and costumes for Off-Broadway, television and over 70 productions at many of America’s leading repertory theatres, including Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse In the Park, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Buffalo Studio Arena, StageWest, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, George Street Playhouse, Barter Theatre, Brunswick Music Theatre, American Stage Festival, Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera and North Shore Music Theatre. His most recent design credits include The Fantasticks, at The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, The Light in the Piazza, and the world premiere of The Ladies Man, by Charles Morey, at Pioneer Theatre Company. He is currently on the Board of Directors serving as Immediate Past President for U/RTA. He served as Commissioner of Scene Design for the United States Institute for Theatre Technology, USITT, as a panelist on the Connecticut Commission On The Arts, and is a member of the National Theatre Conference.
SUSAN BRANCH TOWNE (Costume Designer) returns to PTC after designing In, Hamlet, Our Town, A Chorus Line, Romeo & Juliet, My Fair Lady, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Chicago, Julius Caesar, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Smokey Joe’s Cafe, Macbeth, Tartuffe, Sophisticated Ladies, King Lear and Richard III. Among her New York credits are Griffelkin for New York City Opera and the off-Broadway productions of Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh!, She Loves Me, Fortinbras and Two Gentlemen of Verona. Local audiences may know her work from the Utah Shakespeare Festival, where she designed during the 1996-1999 seasons. Other regional engagements include Denver Center Theatre Company, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Virginia Stage Company, Skylight Opera Theatre, Lake George Opera Festival, and numerous theatres in her home city, Austin, Texas. Susan is a graduate of Carnegie-Mellon University and the Yale School of Drama and a member of United Scenic Artists, Local 829.
MARY LOUISE GEIGER (Lighting Designer) has lit PTC’s productions of The Dead, Smokey Joe’s Café, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, The Last Night of Ballyhoo, A Streetcar Named Desire,The Piano Lesson, Conversations With My Father and Lend Me a Tenor in previous seasons. On Broadway she has designed the lighting for The Constant Wife. Recent off-Broadway projects include the lighting for Olive and the Bitter Herbs, (Primary Stages); The New York Idea(Atlantic Theatre Company); Kindness, Blue Door, and The Busy World is Hushed (Playwrights Horizons); Finn (Skirball Center), Mabou Mines’ Dollhouse (St. Ann’s and International Tour),Red Beads (Mabou Mines); Violet Fire (BAM Next Wave Festival, National Theatre, Belgrade Serbia); Three Men on a Horse, Incident at Vichy, The Runner Stumbles, The Sea, Home andThe Triangle Factory Fire Project (TACT – Becket Theatre). She has worked at many regional theatres all over the country including ACT Theatre in Seattle, The Guthrie Theater, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, The Mark Taper Forum, The Seattle Repertory Theatre, and Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, among others. In addition, she has designed ballets for the Royal Danish Ballet, The San Francisco Ballet, and The Bolshoi Ballet. Ms. Geiger trained at the Yale School of Drama, and is on the faculty of the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.
ANDREW HOPSON (Composer and Sound Designer) is assistant professor of sound design in the Department of Theatre and Drama at Indiana University. He has designed for shows at such theatres as the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Utah Shakespeare Festival, Actors Theatre of Louisville, American Repertory Theatre, American Players Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse, Pioneer Playhouse, Cleveland Play House, Victory Gardens, and Harvard University. At the Indiana Repertory Theatre, where he was resident sound designer for five years, his favorite designs included A Christmas Carol, Pride and Prejudice and Julius Caesar. In 2004 his New York debut, Trying, was rated one of the best off-Broadway shows of the year. In film, he has scored the documentaries Birth of Legends, The Battle of Comm Avenue, Hockey’s Greatest Era 1942-1967, The Frozen Four and Utah’s Olympic Legacy. He has produced, engineered or performed on more than 40 CDs ranging from stories for children to collections of modern American piano works. He is a member of United Scenic Artists, local 829, and the United States Institute of Theatre Technology.
AMANDA FRENCH (Hair and Makeup Designer) has been a Makeup and Hair Designer for over 20 years. She has worked for The Utah Shakespeare Festival, The 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 inThe 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.
ELIZABETH WILLIAMSON (Dramaturg) is Pioneer Theatre Company’s Literary Manager and Associate Artistic Director. Dramaturgy here at PTC includes the world premieres of Bess Wohl’sTouch(ed) and In, Rent, Hamlet, Our Town, and the upcoming world premiere of Wendy MacLeod’s Find and Sign. She has developed new work with Brooke Berman, Sheila Callaghan, Kyle Jarrow, Wendy MacLeod, Brighde Mullins, Dan O’Brien, Dominique Serrand & Steve Epp, Bess Wohl, Lauren Yee, and Mary Zimmerman. New York directing: the US premiere of Michel Azama’s The Life and Death of Pier Paolo Pasolini for the Act French Festival (also co-translated; a Village Voice Choice); Peter Morris’ The Second Amendment Club (AMS, then West End Theatre); Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis (Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab); The Floating World (also adapted from Chikamatsu; LCT’s Directors Cabaret at HERE); and Genet’sThe Maids (FringeNYC). Regionally, she’s also worked at the American Conservatory Theater, Alter Theater, Aurora Theatre, the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Berkeley Rep’s School of Theatre, Cal Shakes, Court Theatre, the La Jolla Playhouse, Lorin Maazel’s Castleton Festival, Magic Theatre, PlayGround, Theatre de la Jeune Lune, and the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Education: BA, Bennington College; Master’s, Oxford University; trained at the École Jacques Lecoq & with Complicite. Williamson received a 2007 NEA Fellowship in Literary Translation and is a member of LMDA and the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab.