Vincent Kartheiser (SEBASTIAN) is making his San Jose Rep debut. Best known to audiences worldwide as spitfire advertising executive Pete Campbell of the Golden Globe, Emmy, and SAG Award-winning drama series Mad Men, he has been acting since he was a teenager. A native of Minneapolis, Minnesota, he accumulated an impressive number of credits early on starting with Untamed Heart alongside Marisa Tomei, Little Big League, Ironwill, Indian in the Cupboard, and Alaska. He has since appeared in Another Day in Paradise with James Woods and Melanie Griffith, Crime and Punishment in Suburbia, and the sci-fi thriller In Time. Mr. Kartheiser also recently filmed the indie Beach Pillows and lent his voice to Rango. On television, he starred on Joss Whedon’s Angel, and has guest-starred in numerous other series including ER, BBC America’s Money, and The Cleveland Show. This production of The Death of the Novel marks a return to his stage roots that originated at the renowned Guthrie Theater.
	Amy Pietz (PERRY) is making her San Jose Rep debut. Ms. Pietz has previously appeared in Top Secret and The Search for the Pentagon Papers (Chinese tour); The Boswell Sisters (The Old Globe Theatre); Love, Loss, and What I Wore and In Mother Words (Geffen Theatre); Christmas in Naples (Williamstown Theatre Festival); Fiorello and Company (Reprise LA); Lobby Hero (Odyssey Theatre); A View From The Bridge and You Can’t Take It With You (Steppenwolf Theatre); In The Flesh (Organic Theatre); The Love of the Nightingale (Next Theatre); A Dead Man’s Apartment (Met Theatre); Waiting For Lefty (Artistic Home); and Xanadu (Gascon Center Theatre). Other credits include several radio plays for NPR, numerous guest starring roles on television, and several films. Her television credits include regular roles on The Nine Lives of Chloe King, Aliens in America, Rodney, Caroline in the City, (for which she garnered a Screen Actors Guild Award ® nomination), Muscle, and The Weber Show.
	Vaishnavi Sharma (SHEBA) is making her San Jose Rep debut. She was last seen in Brainpeople (Paper Rain Productions), written and directed by Obie Award-winning playwright Jose Rivera. She has worked extensively with the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, playing Aouda in the critically-acclaimed production of Around the World in 80 Days and Juliet in Romeo and Juliet with their touring company. She played Luciana in Aquila Theatre’s national tour of A Comedy of Errors and traveled to Greece to perform As You Like It at the Festival of the Aegean. Off-Broadway, she was seen in The Iliad (Aquila Theatre) at The Lucile Lortel Theater. Ms. Sharma is an associate artist with Blessed Unrest in New York City where she has worked and trained since 2008. Originally from New Delhi, India, Ms. Sharma has an MFA from The New School for Drama in New York City.
	Patrick Kelly Jones (PHILIP) is making his San Jose Rep debut. Recent Bay Area credits include the title role in Hamlet (Livermore Shakespeare Festival), The Pitmen Painters (TheatreWorks), The Coast of Utopia: Voyage (Shotgun Players), Bellwether (Marin Theater Company), Metamorphosis (Aurora Theater), and Exit, Pursued by a Bear (Crowded Fire). Other national credits include Cymbeline and Misalliance (New York Classical Theater), Step One: Plays with Instructions (The 52nd Street Project, NYC), You Can’t Take it With You (Denver Center), The Lieutenant of Inishmore and In the Belly of the Beast (Florida Studio Theater), A Number (The Northern Stage, Vermont), Vincent in Brixton (The Cleveland Play House), and Arms and the Man (Great Lakes Theater Festival). Patrick earned his MFA in Acting from Case Western Reserve University.
	Zarah Mahler (CLAIRE) previously appeared in San Jose Rep’s productions of Spring Awakening and Love in American Times. Prior to that, she opened as Sally Bowles in Cabaret at the Drury Lane Theatre in Chicago. Other theatre credits include Neil Patrick Harris’ Rent (Hollywood Bowl) and Jules Aaron’s The Threepenny Opera (International City Theatre) among many others. Ms. Mahler recently completed a starring role in the highly anticipated new feature The Prop is the Girl. She is also set to play the notorious Mary Brunner in Susanna Lo’s Manson Girls. Film and TV credits include Ghost Whisperer: The Other Side, Motel Blues, Kemper, Leaving Barstow, Clemency, and Yellow Wood, to name a few. An accomplished singer/songwriter, Ms. Mahler is working on her first album of original compositions. Love and thanks to friends, family, D, and my Stephen.

ARTISTIC COLLABORATORS

Jonathan Marc Feldman (PLAYWRIGHT) has come back to playwriting after succumbing for some years to Hollywood. His play The Buddy System was produced at Cincinnati Playhouse In The Park and New York’s Circle In The Square. He was a playwright in residence at Circle Repertory Company where his play The Paper Boy was presented in their Plays in Process series. His play HisStory was recently presented in The Rubicon Theatre’s Plays in Process series. As a young playwright, with Gerald Chapman and Stephen Sondheim, Jonathan helped create the Young Playwrights Festival. He wrote the screenplay and produced the album for the movie Swing Kids and wrote for the HBO series From the Earth to the Moon. He is vice-chair of the Southern California Committee of Human Rights Watch, and for 4 years has written a theatrical evening for the organization called Cries from the Heart.

Rick Lombardo (DIRECTOR/ARTISTIC DIRECTOR) is starting his fifth season as Artistic Director at San Jose Rep, where he has directed God of Carnage, A Christmas Carol, Spring Awakening, Love in American Times (world premiere), The Dresser, Black Pearl Sings!, The Weir, and As You Like It. He was previously the artistic director for 13 years at the award-winning New Repertory Theatre in Boston and was awarded the Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence from the Boston Theater Critics Association in 2009 for his work there. His more than thirty productions there included award-winning productions of The Clean House, Sweeney Todd, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, A Streetcar Named Desire, Ragtime, Waiting for Godot, and The Weir. His New Rep production of Bill W. and Dr. Bob enjoyed an extended run off-Broadway in 2007. Mr. Lombardo’s work has also been seen at the Kennedy Center, Arena Stage, Arizona Theater Company, New York City’s Town Hall, Opera Boston, Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, The Actors Shakespeare Project, and The Berkshire Theatre Festival, among others. He was previously artistic director of the Players Guild in Ohio, co-director of the theatre program at Fordham University’s College at Lincoln Center, as well as founding artistic director of the off-Broadway Stillwater Theatre Company in New York City. Mr. Lombardo is an Executive Board member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and lives in San Jose with his wife, actress Rachel Harker, and daughter.

John Iacovelli (SCENIC DESIGNER) returns to San Jose Rep, having previously designed Spring Awakening, Black Pearl Sings! (for which he won a Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award), Noises Off!, and Groundswell. He recently designed Twelfth Night for Shakespeare Santa Cruz. He won an Emmy Award for Peter Pan staring Cathy Rigby. Other Broadway credits include The Twilight of The Golds and the National Tour of Camelot, plus over 300 productions at theaters across the U.S. His film credits include Ruby in Paradise and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids!. Television credits include Beckett Directs Beckett: Endgame with the San Quentin Drama Workshop, The Old Settler starring Phylicia Rashad and Debbie Allen, The Gin Game staring Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke, Ed, Babylon 5, Resurrection Blvd., and Lincoln Heights. www.iacovelli.com.

Denitsa Bliznakova (COSTUME DESIGNER) makes her San Jose Rep debut with this production of The Death of the Novel. Her work will soon be seen at the San Diego Opera, Cleveland Play House, and The Old Globe Theatre. Ms. Bliznakova’s previous design work includes productions at A Noise Within, New Repertory Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre, and others. Highlights include The Merry Wives of Windsor at The Old Globe, working with Garry Marshall on Happy Days: A New Musical at the Falcon Theatre, and Diva at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Born in Bulgaria, her academic background includes a BFA in Fashion Design at the Parson’s School of Design in Paris and New York, and an MFA in Theatre from Brandeis University. She is currently an Associate Professor at San Diego State University where she leads the MFA Costume Design program. www.Denitsa.com.

David Lee Cuthbert (LIGHTING DESIGNER) returns to San Jose Rep, having most recently designed lighting for God of Carnage. He designed lighting and media for Love in American Times, Legacy of Light, and Spring Awakening. Mr. Cuthbert also designed scenery and media for Secret Order and As You Like It, and lighting for The Dresser, Rabbit Hole, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Groundswell, and The Kite Runner (for which he received a Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award). He lit Billy Crystal’s Tony Award®- winning 700 Sundays on Broadway and its international tours. Mr. Cuthbert’s work has also been seen at Opera San Jose, Arena Stage, South Coast Repertory, Intiman Theatre, San Diego Repertory Theatre, The Old Globe, American Repertory Theater, and Arizona Theatre Company. He is the theater arts department chair and a professor of design at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Haddon Givens Kime (COMPOSER /SOUND DESIGNER) is thrilled to be back at San Jose Rep after writing original music and designing sound for As You Like It in 2009. Haddon has also composed original music and sound designs for Managing Maxine at The Alliance Theater, Richard III at Georgia Shakespeare, as well as The Pillowman and A Streetcar Named Desire at New Rep, the latter earning him the Independent Reviewers of New England Award for best theatrical sound design/original composition. Mr. Kime is also the recipient of the 2009 Tanne Foundation award for artistic excellence. He’d like to thank his wife Katie and 3-year-old daughter Abby for their love and support.

Stephanie Schliemann (STAGE MANAGER) has worked on Bill W. and Dr. Bob, The Understudy, Double Indemnity, Spring Awakening, Love in American Times, The Dresser, and Ain’t Misbehavin’, among others, at San Jose Rep. Other local stage management credits include Flower Drum Song, Guys and Dolls, The King and I, Gypsy, and The Wizard of Oz at American Musical Theatre of San Jose; Anansi The Spider, Orson’s Shadow, and The Last Schwartz at Marin Theatre Company; Le Nozze di Figaro and The Magic Flute at Opera San Jose; and Race, Marcus, The Tosca Project, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, and At Home at the Zoo, among others, at American Conservatory Theater. She has also worked with Teatro ZinZanni and the Circus Center of San Francisco.

Deirdre Rose Holland (ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER) is excited to be back for her fifth show with San Jose Rep, having previously worked on Bill W. and Dr. Bob, A Christmas Carol, Spring Awakening, and Legacy of Light. Her regional credits include the 2011 Summer Shakespeare Festival, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, and The Mystery of Irma Vep (The Old Globe), and The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later and the world premiere of Bonnie and Clyde (La Jolla Playhouse). Additional credits include Anna Karenina and The Barber of Seville (Opera San Jose), and the 2010 Summer Hot Dog Series (Palo Alto Children’s Theatre). Ms. Holland holds an MFA in stage management from the University of California, San Diego.

Bruce Elsperger (CASTING DIRECTOR) has cast 20 seasons at San Jose Rep. He was Associate Producer with San Jose Rep, directed Of Mice and Men for San Jose Rep on Tour, and stage managed over 20 productions. Previously, he stage managed at American Conservatory Theatre, was production stage manager at Intiman Theatre, Bathhouse Theatre, and PCPA Theatrefest. Onstage, Mr. Elsperger has appeared in San Jose Rep’s productions of Anna Christie and Desire Under the Elms. His directing credits include The Dying Gaul, A Breeze from the Gulf, Bag Lady, and A Streetcar Named Desire. Mr. Elsperger was resident casting director at New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco and has been engaged to cast several independent productions in the Bay Area.

Adam Friedson (CONSULTING PRODUCER) has been honored with an Academy Award® nomination (Children of Fate), an Emmy® Award nomination (Fire From the Mountain), and a Tony Award® nomination (Bill Maher: Victory Begins at Home), in addition to winning awards such as Best Documentary Film and Best Cinematography at the Sundance Film Festival. Mr. Friedson is producing three new shows: Maltby and Shire’s Closer Than Ever Off-Broadway at the York Theatre, Neil Berg’s The Phantoms of the Opera at Texas A&M University and three time Tony Award® nominee Marc Kudisch’s and Jeffry Denman’s The Holiday Guys. Over the next two seasons, Friedson and Berg will expand their new offerings from their National Virtual Theater Company with a powerful new Rock’n’ Roll concert, THE 12, and an all-star world theatrical concert based upon Rudyard Kipling’s novella, The Man Who Would be King.