An Inspector Calls

Artistic Staff Bios

MARY B. ROBINSON (Director) directed Of Mice and Men at Pioneer Theatre Company in 2012. She has directed over sixty productions of both classics and new plays off-Broadway and in regional theatre. In New York, she has directed Women on Fire by Irene O’Garden at the Cherry Lane; String Fever by Jacqueline Reingold at Ensemble Studio Theatre; Three Viewings by Jeffrey Hatcher at Manhattan Theatre Club; Lemon Sky by Lanford Wilson (for which she received a Drama Desk Nomination) and Moonchildren by Michael Weller, both at Second Stage; A Shayna Maidel by Barbara Lebow at Westside Arts; Copperhead by Erik Brogger at the WPA and Twelfth Night at Theatre for a New Audience. Regionally she has worked at Seattle Rep, Milwaukee Rep, South Coast Rep, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Hartford Stage (where she was Associate Artistic Director) and Philadelphia Drama Guild (where she was Artistic Director). She was the first recipient of the TCG Alan Schneider Directing Award in 1987. For many years she headed the directing program at Playwrights Horizons’ Theatre School at NYU, and currently she teaches in the MFA Directing Program at Brooklyn College. She is the author of the book Directing Plays, Directing People, recently published by Smith and Kraus.

ALEXANDRA HARBOLD (Dramaturg) previously at PTC, she served as Dramaturg on I Hate Hamlet and Of Mice and Men, Assistant Director on Emma; acted in Hamlet and the Play-By-Play readings of Slow Food and A Public Education. Recent projects include directing Tribes (Salt Lake Acting Company) and Twelfth Night (Salt Lake Shakespeare). Education: Masters, University of London Goldsmiths; BA, Middlebury College; SITI Summer Intensive; and Midsummer at Oxford. Harbold is Co-founder and Co-Artistic Director of Flying Bobcat Theatrical Laboratory. Upcoming: directing Climbing with Tigers (Salt Lake Acting Company) and Picnic (The Grand Theatre), and acting in Remington & Weasel (Pygmalion).

SARAH SHIPPOBOTHAM (Dialect Coach) is a Full Professor and Head of the Actor Training Program at the University of Utah. Her work as dialect coach for Pioneer Theatre Company includes productions of Outside Mullingar, One Man, Two Guvnors, Something’s Afoot, A Christmas Carol: The Musical, In the Heights, Sunset Boulevard, Our Town, Dial ‘M’ for Murder, The Light in the Piazza, Noises Off, Sherlock Holmes and the West End Horror, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Mousetrap, Communicating Doors, Joyful Noise, A View From the Bridge and The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Shippobotham has also worked for Salt Lake Acting Company, coaching The Overwhelming, Going to St. Ives, The Beard of Avon, Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde and White People. She also works as the Resident Voice and Dialect Coach for The Shaw Festival in Canada. She was the Additional Dialect Coach on The Hobbit films.

JASON SIMMS (Scenic Designer) Regional productions include Outside Mullingar, 5000 Miles, and Venus in Fur (Philadelphia Theatre Co.), Ragtime, Lost in Yonkers, Laughter on the 23rd Floor (Bristol Riverside Theatre), and Dear Elizabeth (People^,s Light Theatre), The Whale (Denver Center), The Whipping Man(George St. Playhouse), The Loudest Man On Earth (TheatreWorks, Silicon Valley), Clybourne Park (Chautauqua Theatre Co.), Dutch Masters and The Puppetmaster of Lodz (Berkshire Theatre Festival), Be a Good Little Widow (The Old Globe, San Diego), A Thousand Clowns (Two River Theatre Co.) and many others. New York venues include: The Public, The Cherry Lane, 2nd Stage Uptown, The Pearl Theatre Co., Ensemble Studio Theatre, Soho Playhouse, The New Ohio, The Wild Project and more. Simms received an MFA from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and a BFA from Cornish College of the Arts. He received the 2012 USITT/Live Design Rising Star Award and has received two Barrymore nominations.

CAROL WELLS–DAY (Costume Designer) After working for Pioneer Theatre Company and the University of Utah for thirty-seven years, the last twenty five of which I have been the resident costume designer and costume shop supervisor, I will be retiring at the end of the season. I would like to thank Karen Azenberg and Chris Lino for the opportunity to succeed in this business for so long. I would also like to thank Chuck Morey for originally hiring me. Most importantly I could not have completed the job successfully without the very talented and skilled costume shop crew that I have worked with for the past twenty-five years. Don’t ask me what’s my favorite production, my answer is always, “whatever I’m working on now.” Thank you, Carol.

PHIL MONAT (Lighting Designer) designed previous PTC productions of Outside Mullingar, Alabama Story, The Crucible, Man Of La Mancha, Something’s Afoot, My Fair Lady, Paint Your Wagon, Annie, White Christmas, Hamlet, A Christmas Carol, Five Guys Named Moe, Chicago, Copenhagen, Ragtime, Anything Goes, Steel Magnolias, and Alexandre Dumas And The Lady Of The Camelias. He has designed over 500 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 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 & Her Escorts and Three From Brooklyn. Recent Off-Broadway designs include Woman Before a Glass (Obie Award), Adult Entertainment, American Rhapsody, Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill and Visiting Mr. Green.

JOSHUA C. HIGHT (Sound Designer) A Graduate
With Distinction of London’s Alchemea College of Audio Engineering, Hight comes to PTC with many years of experience in professional audio systems repair and design, and has established himself as an exceptional live sound engineer in both London and Salt Lake City. Hight is looking forward to a successful third season working in theater design with Pioneer Theatre Company. His other projects of note include working with Sommerset House for the 2012 Olympic Games, and PTC’s Elf—The Musical, A Few Good Men, Much Ado About Nothing , Deathtrap, Sweet Charity, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The Rocky Horror Show, One Man, Two Guvnors, Alabama Story, The Crucible, I Hate Hamlet and Music Man.

AMANDA FRENCH (Hair & 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, 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 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.