RENATA FRIEDMAN (Performer/Producer) has been collaborating with playwright Laura Schellhardt on The K of D since 2006, when she was featured in a workshop and staged reading of the script at ACT Theatre after it won their New Play Award. Her New York credits include A Midsummer Night's Dream at the New Victory Theater and The Importance of Being Earnest Off-Broadway at the Baruch Performing Arts Center, in addition to national tours of both productions with the Aquila Theatre Company. This year she took part in New York's Orchard Project under the direction of Meredith McDonough. She has also appeared with the Lincoln Center Institute's educational touring program. In Seattle, she has performed at ACT in Eurydice and Vincent in Brixton, and her credits at the Seattle Children's Theatre include Hamlet, Jason and the Golden Fleece and 2009's Pharoah Serket and the Lost Stone of Fire, directed by Kurt Beattie. Originally from Port Townsend, she is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, a former student of the Seattle Children's Theatre Drama School and a proud member of Actor's Equity. She divides her time between New York and Seattle.
LAURA SCHELLHARDT's (Playwright) plays have been produced in New York, Seattle, Chicago, Washington DC, Providence, Minneapolis, Orlando, North Carolina, and Provincetown. Original works include The Apothocary's Daughter, The K of D, Courting Vampires, Shapeshifter, Inheritance, and Je Ne Sais Quoi. Adaptations include The Phantom Tollbooth, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, The Outfit (Jeff Award Nominee), and Creole Folktales. She is a recipient of the TCG Playwriting Residency, the Jerome Fellowship, the New Play Award from ACT in Seattle, and a Dramatist Guild Playwriting Fellowship. She has participated in the SoHo Rep. Writer/Director Lab, the Women Playwrights Festival at SRC, the Orchard Project and the O'Neill National Playwright's Festival. The K of D received its world premiere at Woolly Mammoth Theatre and will launch the 2008-2009 season at The Magic Theatre in San Francisco. In Spring 2009, two of her plays will receive world premieres: Shapeshifter at Trinity Repertory Company, and Courting Vampires at the Boston Court. Laura is also the author of Screenwriting for Dummies. Laura holds an MFA in playwriting from Brown University, and currently teaches playwriting at Northwestern University in Chicago.
BRADEN ABRAHAM (Director/Associate Producer) is based in Seattle, WA. His directing credits include: My Name is Rachel Corrie (Seattle Repertory Theatre, regional premiere), True West (Spokane Interplayers), The Underpants (Spokane Interplayers), Prometheus Bound (The Lincoln Center Directors Lab), Escurial (Hoi Polloi). Braden recently directed the world premiere of Paul Mullin's The Ten Thousand Things (Washington Ensemble Theatre), as well as Vince Delaney's Kuwait (Theatre Schmeater), Ki Gottberg's Vacation as part of Postcard Plays (The Empty Space), Kiera McDonald's The Bridesmaid (Theatre Off Jackson), and Jennifer Lindsay's The Grandmother Project (Stanford University, NSDF Britain). He is the co-artistic director of Assemblage, a unique collective dedicated to new experiments with media and performance. Assemblage's ongoing project Way Stations, a series of interactive walking tours in urban landscapes debuted at the 2008 Northwest New Works Festival at On the Boards. Braden has also helmed readings or workshops with, Capitol Hill Arts Center, Seattle Dramatists, Freehold, Gonzaga University, and the University of Idaho. He was recently a guest artist at Seattle University where he directed Carlos Murillo's dark play or stories for boys. Braden is a member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, and has been a member of Seattle Repertory Theatre's artistic staff for five seasons, where he is currently associate artistic director and literary manager. He will be directing Betrayal at the Rep as part of their 2009 season.
ROBERT HAYDN (Stage Manager) has over twenty years of theatre experience and has been stage managing for the past six years. He obtained his BA in Theatre Arts from Plymouth State University and his MFA in Theatre Management from the California Institute for the Arts. Past Stage Management credits include Satyricon, Edward Bond's Lear, 9 Parts of Desire, Disney's Beauty & the Beast, Seussical the Musical and Ghost Sonata.
MATT STARRIT (Sound Design) is a freelance sound designer and writer from Seattle. He designs sound for both theater and dance and is a founder of the Washington Ensemble Theatre. He wrote and designed the sound for WET's production of BlahBlahBlah:BANG!, which was commissioned by and performed at On The Boards. Recently, he worked on the sound for two productions in the 2008 OTB Northwest New Works Festival: Waxie Moon's Extreme Boylesque, and pro re nata for LAUNCH dance theatre. Other recent designs: The Imaginary Invalid at the Seattle Rep., Swansong for Seattle Shakespeare Company, Persuasion for Book-It Rep., Iphigenia in Aulis, the world premier of Crumbs are also Bread, Museum Play, CRAVE, and Finer Noble Gases at The Washington Ensemble Theatre, In Disdress at On The Boards, and Ring Round the Moon for the UW School of Drama.
ROBERT AGUILAR (Lighting Designer) is a lighting and makeup designer for stage and film. Current and upcoming designs include: Zanna Don't! for Contemporary Classics, Boom at the Seattle Repertory Theatre, and The Conversos Project with Working Classroom (Albuquerque, NM). Recent designs include: Once on This Island with Village Theatre KIDSTAGE, Mr. Marmalade and Swimming in the Shallows with the Washington Ensemble Theatre, 4 Short Play, 4 Big Ideas with KJ Sanchez, Rhoda: A Life in Stories, The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Burning Bridget Cleary with Sheila Daniels, Into the Woods with Brandon Ivie, Crumbs are Also Bread with John Langs, A New Brain and The Last Five Years with Brandon Ivie, The Museum Play with Marya Sea Kaminski, Yemaya's Belly with Brendan McCall, Stones in His Pockets with Jerry Manning, and Cloud Tectonics with Aimee Bruneau. Robert Lives and works in Seattle, he is the Managing Director and Resident Lighting Designer of Contemporary Classics and is a former Co-Artistic Director of the Washington Ensemble Theatre. Robert is on staff as a Lighting Assistant for the Seattle Repertory Theatre.
SARAH MCCARRY (Logo Design) is a letterpress printer, artist and printmaker based in Portland, Oregon. She has shown at the Center for Book Arts in New York and her work is in the collections of numerous libraries and institutions, including Columbia College, Booklyn, and the San Francisco Public Library. www.sarahmccarry.com