A Christmas Carol: The Musical

Artistic Staff Bios

KAREN AZENBERG (Director/Choreographer) has just relocated to Salt Lake City with her family to become Artistic Director here at PTC, and A Christmas Carol: The Musical marks her directorial debut since assuming that position. In previous seasons as a guest artist, she directedNext to Normal (regional premiere), Rent and Miss Saigon, and she created the musical staging for the record-breaking 2007 production of Les Misérables. 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). Other credits include national tours of Carousel and Brigadoon, Neil Simon’sLaughter on the 23rd Floor (Regional Theatre Premiere at Geva), West Side Story (over 15 productions; Dramalogue Award for Outstanding Choreography), A Christmas Memory(Alabama Shakespeare Festival), and Same Time Next Year (Indiana Repertory Theatre). Later this season Karen will be directing The Odd Couple and recreating her musical staging for Les Misérables. Karen is on the board of the New York Musical Theatre Festival and is the President of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.

TOM GRIFFIN (Musical Director/Conductor) Tom Griffin is a nationally recognized musical director and conductor for professional musical theater. Recent productions: 13, The Musical;the West Coast and Los Angeles premieres of The Last Five Years, Sweet Charity, Sweeney Todd and The Music Man; the West Coast premiere of Spitfire Grill; Annie, West Side Story, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Bye Bye Birdie; the national tour of My Fair Lady for Theatre Of The Stars; and the Alabama Shakespeare Festival’s productions of A Christmas Carol: The Musical, Peter Pan and A Christmas Memory. Awards: Broadway revival of You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown(Los Angeles premiere), Garland Award Best Musical Direction; and Side Show (Los Angeles premiere), Los Angeles Drama Critics Award Best Musical Direction. Tom was the musical conductor of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast on two national tours.

GEORGE MAXWELL (Set Designer) is the resident scenic designer for PTC. He recently designed Annie, Next to Normal, Rent, Sunset Boulevard and White Christmas. Favorite PTC designs include A Chorus Line, A Christmas Story, Chicago, Les Misérables, Metamorphoses,Enchanted April, The Importance of Being Earnest, West Side Story, Proof, Peter Pan, Noises Off, Man of La Mancha, Ain’t Misbehavin’, The Foreigner and Miss Saigon. His Utah Opera Company designs include The Coronation of Poppea and The Ballad of Baby Doe, and he has designed for the Alabama Shakespeare Festival as well as 21 productions for the Utah Shakespeare Festival. George is a member of United Scenic Artists. To see more of his work visit www.xmission.com/~gmaxwell.

CAROL WELLS-DAY (Costume Designer) is one of PTC’s resident costume designers and the costume shop supervisor. Her recent designs for PTC include Man of La Mancha, Next to Normal, Sunset Boulevard, Black Comedy, Dracula, Twelve Angry Men, Is He Dead?, Dial ‘M’ for Murder, The Light in the Piazza, The Heiress, Doubt, Lost in Yonkers, Pride and Prejudice,James Joyce’s The Dead, The Importance of Being Earnest, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Cyrano de Bergerac, Peter Pan, The Three Musketeers, Joyful Noise, Big River, As You Like It, The Count of Monte Cristo, A Streetcar Named Desire, An Ideal Husband, Misalliance, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Hay Fever. She was assistant designer for Inherit the Wind at the Ford Theatre in Washington D.C. She worked for the Utah Shakespeare Festival for 13 years as a costume shop supervisor and designer. This is Carol’s second tenure at PTC. During her earlier stint she designed over 15 productions, including My Fair Lady, Oliver and Romeo and Juliet. Carol has film and TV credits.

PHIL MONAT (Lighting Designer) designed previous PTC productions of Man Of La Mancha,Annie, White Christmas, Hamlet, Touch(ed), My Fair Lady, Paint Your Wagon, Five Guys Named Moe, Chicago, Copenhagen, Ragtime, Anything Goes, Steel Magnolias and Alexandre Dumas and the Lady of the Camelias. He has designed over 475 productions in regional theatres throughout the country, including productions at The Old Globe in San Diego, The Seattle Repertory Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Milwaukee Rep, The Alliance Theatre, The Arizona Theatre Co., The Mark Taper Forum, La Jolla Playhouse, The Huntington Theatre, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Cleveland Playhouse, Studio Arena Theatre, Syracuse Stage, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Geva Theatre, Great Lakes Theatre Festival, McCarter Theatre, The Alley Theatre of Houston, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Paper Mill Playhouse and The Goodspeed Opera, among others. Broadway designs include Legends starring Joan Collins and Linda Evans, Sly Fox starring Richard Dreyfuss, Finian’s Rainbow, Sally Marr…and Her Escorts and Three From Brooklyn. Recent off-Broadway designs include Woman Before A Glass (Obie Award), Adult Entertainment, American Rhapsody and Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill.

MATTHEW TIBBS (Sound Designer) Matthew is Pioneer Theatre Company’s Resident Sound Designer and Adjunct Faculty teaching sound design for the University of Utah. Favorite sound designs for PTC include Emma, Next to Normal and the world premiere of Find and Sign. Favorite designs for University of Utah include Rare Bird and The Adding Machine. Matthew has previously worked for Portland Center Stage, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Artists Repertory Theatre and Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati. MFA: University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) BA: George Fox University.

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 instructor of wigs and makeup.

WADE HOLLINGSHAUS (Dramaturg) is the head of Dramaturgy Studies in the Department of Theatre and Media Arts at Brigham Young University, where he teaches courses in dramaturgy, literary and cultural theory, theatre historiography, performance studies, and Finnish literature. Primarily, his research uses contemporary continental philosophy to explore and re-think various performative sites: rock and roll, media technologies, human rights, and dramaturgy, to name a few. He is currently working on a book project entitled Philosophizing Rock Performance: Dylan, Hendrix, Bowie (forthcoming from Scarecrow Press) and is also conducting research into the relationship between dramaturgy and education theory. Among his dramaturgy credits are: Black Comedy (2011, Pioneer Theatre Company), The Elephant Man (2011, Brigham Young University), Peer Gynt (2003, University of Minnesota), and new plays developed by the Association for Theatre in Higher Education and the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival.