2006-2007 Season: Moonlight and Magnolias
Tom Beckett (David O. Selznick) has appeared on Broadway in Bobby Boland, Epic Proportions and The Father (Roundabout), and Off-Broadway in Communicating Doors, Travels With My Aunt (Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards) and Einstein’s Dreams. Other theatre work includes productions at Arena Stage (On the Verge), Westport Country Playhouse (On the Verge, David Copperfield and The Taming of the Shrew), Cleveland Playhouse (Room Service), Yale Rep (Ladies of the Camellias), Long Wharf (Twelfth Night and Travels With My Aunt), Helen Hayes Theatre (Thumbs) and South Coast Rep (Robby Award for Triumph of Love). On television Mr. Beckett played Mr. Foley on Remember WENN for four years (American Movie Classics, SAG Award nomination). He also appeared as Gershwin in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and as a guest star on Townies and Central Park West.
John Procaccino (Victor Fleming) was last seen at Intiman in Singing Forest, Nora and Arms and the Man. Credits at ACT include The Night of the Iguana, Bach at Leipzig, Fiction, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Grand Magic, Dinner With Friends, The Odd Couple, Side Man, The Crucible and Wallace Shawn’s The Fever. Favorite productions at Seattle Rep include Two Gentlemen of Verona, Tartuffe, Caucasian Chalk Circle, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, The Beauty Queen of Leenane and 'ART'. In recent seasons, he has also been in seen in …Forum at 5th Avenue Theatre and We Won’t Pay! We Won’t Pay! at Long Wharf. Mr. Procaccino appeared with Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson in the premiere of Anne Meara’s Down the Garden Paths, and on Broadway in An American Daughter, A Thousand Clowns, Conversations With My Father and Art (understudy for Alan Alda). Other: Off-Broadway, New York Shakespeare Festival, Center Stage, the Old Globe and The Empty Space. Film/TV: The Runner Stumbles, Three Fugitives, Magic in the Water, Born to Be Wild, Law & Order, NYPD Blue, Northern Exposure and Stephen King’s Rose Red.
Sarah Nealis (Miss Poppenghul) was last seen as Iphigenia in San Jose Rep’s production of Iphigenia at Aulis. A graduate of UC Berkeley, her work with Bay Area regional theatres includes The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickelby with Cal Shakes, A Christmas Carol with Napa Valley Rep, 4 Adverbs with Word for Word in San Francisco, and most recently as Desdemona in Othello with Foothill Theatre Company and the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival. To mamasita and papason - it's time to laugh!
Peter Van Norden (Ben Hecht) has appeared at theatres across the country including San Jose Rep (San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Award for Outstanding Male Performance as Andrew Undershaft in Shaw’s Major Barbara), The Guthrie, Berkeley Rep, the Old Globe, Center Stage, Seattle Rep (Henry Kissinger in Nixon’s Nixon), Arizona Theatre Company and Laguna Playhouse. Most recently, he played the Judge in David Mamet’s courtroom farce Romance at San Diego Rep, where he also played Scrooge for two seasons in A Christmas Carol. Just before that, he appeared in Los Angeles in The Wasps (inaugural production at the Getty Villa) and The Wild Party (Blank Theatre Company). In LA, he received an Ovation Award nomination as Best Featured Actor in a Musical for his work in Dinah Was at International City Theatre and won the very first Backstage West Garland Award for his performance in Loot. In his native New York, he has appeared in Hamlet with Kevin Kline, Jungle of Cities with Al Pacino and on Broadway in Saint Joan with Lynn Redgrave and Little Johnny Jones with Donny Osmond. Film/TV includes leads opposite Oscar winner Jodie Foster in The Accused, as Steve Guttenberg’s partner in Police Academy 2, the Stephen King mini-series The Stand and dozens of TV shows, including recurring roles on Murder, She Wrote and L.A. Law.
Ron Hutchinson (Playwright) is the author of Rat in the Skull, premiere at Royal Court Theatre 1984, Chicago's Wisdom Bridge Theatre, The Public Theatre, Mark Taper Forum and revival, Duke of York's Theatre 1995; an adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov's Flight at the National Theatre 1997; Burning Issues, Hampstead Theatre Club 1999; Beau!, Theatre Royal, Bath, national tour and Haymarket, Leicester Square 2001; Lags, national tours 2002-03; Believers, for Playbox Young People's Theatre, 2003; Head/Case, Royal Shakespeare Company 2004; Moonlight and Magnolias, Goodman Theatre, Chicago 2004 and Manhattan Theatre Club 2005. Mr. Hutchinson lives in Los Angeles where he is a writer/producer for features and television. Winner of an Emmy for Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story, starring Ben Kingsley, his other projects include The Josephine Baker Story, The Burning Season, Fatherland, The Tuskegee Airmen, Traffic (nominated for three Emmys in 2004) and The Ten Commandments.
Timothy Near (Director) is in her nineteenth season as Artistic Director of San Jose Repertory Theatre. Her more than 30 directing credits at SJ Rep include Iphigenia At Aulis, Major Barbara, Bad Dates, Wintertime, ART, By the Bog of Cats, Amy’s View, Legacy, Three Days of Rain, Thunder Knocking on the Door, Wallflowering, Miss Julie, Mirandolina, The Caretaker, The Baby Dance, The Little Foxes, The 1940’s Radio Hour and The Sea Gull. Ms. Near has directed at numerous theatres throughout the United States, including Seattle’s ACT, The Guthrie Theater, Berkeley Rep, Alliance Theatre, Mark Taper Forum, Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., the New York Shakespeare Festival, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Cincinnati Playhouse and Opera San Jose. Ms. Near is also an actress and the recipient of New York’s Obie Award for her performance in Still Life. She grew up on a ranch in Northern California and is a graduate of San Francisco State University and the UK’s London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
Matthew Smucker (Scenic Designer) previously designed Blue/Orange and Nora at Intiman. Other recent designs include The Pillowman, Wine in the Wilderness, Flight, The Ugly American and Bach at Leipzig at ACT; Living Out for Seattle Repertory Theatre and Kansas City Repertory Theatre; The Devil and Daniel Webster, The Secret Garden, and The Gingerbread Man for Seattle Children’s Theatre; Jun100ie B. Jones and A Little Monkey Business for ChildsPlay, No Exit and Saving Grace for Tacoma Actors Guild; Strange Attractors and G-D Doesn’t Pay Rent Here for The Empty Space; House of Mirth and Giant for Book-It Repertory Theatre; Cosi fan Tutte and Il Matrimonio Segreto for the University of Washington School of Music; and The Changeling for Annex Theatre at the Rendezvous Jewel Box. As a resident designer and company member at Annex, he has created more than a dozen designs with the company including Sex, Beatrice, Bartleby, and The Glory Booty Club. Mr. Smucker is currently an adjunct faculty member at Seattle University and received his M.F.A. in scenic design from the University of Washington.
Elizabeth Hope Clancy (Costume Designer) designed the costumes for Richard III at Intiman earlier this season. Other recent credits include Private Lives and Purgatorio at Seattle Rep and A Few Good Men starring Rob Lowe in London. Broadway credits include Edward Albee’s The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? and Arthur Miller’s The Ride Down Mt. Morgan. Off-Broadway, she has worked on new plays by writers as diverse as Eduardo Machado, Kathleen Tolan, Tony Kushner, Suzan-Lori Parks , Horton Foote, Craig Wright, Paula Vogel, Lynn Nottage, Israel Horowitz, Tonya Barfield, Chiori Miyagawa, Caridad Svich and Laura Cahill. Regional: Shakespeare Theatre, Mark Taper Forum, Hartford Stage, Guthrie, Long Wharf, Cincinnati Playhouse, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Indiana Rep, Cleveland Play House and Yale Rep. Opera credits include Don Giovanni (Wolf Trap), The Rape of Lucretia and A Month in the Country (Manhattan School of Music) and La Bohème (Opera Delaware). She has worked with choreographers Naomi Goldberg, Kate Gyllenhaal, and Sally Silvers and Dancers (resident designer for the past eight years.) Ms. Clancy trained at the Yale School of Drama.
David Lee Cuthbert (Lighting Designer) returns to San Jose Rep where he lit The Piano Lesson, ‘ART’ (Dean Goodman Choice Award), Hannah and Martin. ACT: Talley’s Folly and The Summer Moon. Broadway: Billy Crystal’s 700 Sundays. La Jolla Playhouse: An Evening with Billy Crystal, The Burning Deck, I Think I Like Girls, A Feast of Fools, Diva. Old Globe: Christmas on Mars, Rounding Third, Faith Healer, The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow, Lobby Hero. San Diego Rep: Zoot Suit, Bandido, Jaywalker, Women Who Steal (sets, lights and projections), A Christmas Carol 2002-2004, A Christmas Carol 1941 (concept and production design). Shakespeare Santa Cruz: King Lear, As You Like It, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Cinderella, Engaged. Sledgehammer Theatre, artist in residence 1999-2004: lighting, scenic and projection design for 16 productions, 7 awards for design excellence, including San Diego Critic’s Circle Award for A Knife in the Heart. Other: South Coast Rep, The Group at Strasberg, PCPA Theaterfest, Magic Theatre, Syracuse Stage, Indiana Rep and PS122. National Tours : 700 Sundays, The History (and Mystery) of the Universe, and two tours with the New Pickle Circus. International: Terminal, directed by Joseph Chaikin, which premiered in Belgrade. He is a Professor of Design at UC Santa Cruz.
Stephen LeGrand (Sound Designer) has designed sound for Intiman’s productions of Heartbreak House, Three Sisters, The Mystery of Irma Vep, Singing Forest, The Play’s the Thing, Crowns, Black Nativity, Loot, Arms and the Man, The Dying Gaul and The Real Thing, and the musical score for Crumbs from the Table of Joy. His credits at Seattle Rep include Restoration Comedy, Purgatorio, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Noises Off, Bad Dates, Anna and the Tropics, Beauty of the Father and many others. He has also designed sound for Dinner with Friends and A Skull in Connemara at ACT and Animal Farm at Seattle Children’s Theatre. Other notable work includes Ballad of Yachiyo at The Public, A Skull in Connemara at Roundabout, Alligator Tales at Manhattan Theatre Club, Macbeth at La Jolla Playhouse and The Woman Warrior at Mark Taper Forum. He served for more than 10 years as resident designer at San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater.
Geoffrey Alm (Fight Director) has previously worked at Intiman on The Grapes of Wrath, Titus Andronicus, The Servant of Two Masters, Cymbeline and The Royal Family, in which he also appeared as Jo. He has worked with Seattle Children’s Theatre as an actor and a fight director since 1981. Recent credits include the Ring Cycle for Seattle Opera; The Time of Your Life, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Don Juan for Seattle Rep; Born Yesterday and Good Boys for ACT; as well as productions for Arizona Theatre Company, Kansas City Rep, McCarter, Huntington, Cincinnati Playhouse, Kennedy Center and Shakespeare Santa Cruz. A fight master for the Society of American Fight Directors, he teaches stage fighting at the University of Washington Professional Actor Training Program and Freehold Studio/Theatre Lab.
Bruce Elsperger (Casting Director) is in his 13th season as Casting Director at San Jose Rep. He has stage managed the Rep’s productions of Making Tracks, Mary’s Wedding, The Wind Cries Mary, Aliens in America, Love in the Title, Communicating Doors, Old Wicked Songs and The Lady’s Not For Burning, among others. Mr. Elsperger stage managed for eight seasons with A.C.T. where his credits include Home, Oleanna, The Duchess of Malfi, Nothing Sacred, Golden Boy, Right Mind, A Christmas Carol, Cyrano de Bergerac, Learned Ladies and Hecuba. He was Production Stage Manager with Seattle’s Intiman Theatre, the Bathhouse Theatre and a western U.S. tour of The Big Broadcast, as well as at PCPA TheaterFest. He has appeared onstage at the Rep in roles in Anna Christie and Desire Under the Elms. Mr. Elsperger’s directing credits include A Breeze from the Gulf, Bag Lady, A Streetcar Named Desire and A Tribute to American Musical Theatre. He is also Resident Casting Director at New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco, and has cast several independent productions in the Bay Area.
Melanie R. Mather (Stage Manager) is delighted to be joining Intiman and San Jose Rep with Moonlight and Magnolias. She has recently returned to Seattle from Massachusetts where she was the production manager for the Berkshire Fringe festival. Previous Seattle credits include being the company manager and assistant stage manager for Menopause the Musical at ACT. She has also stage managed for Boston Theatre Works and Speak Easy Stage Company in Boston. Other Boston productions include Antony and Cleopatra, Kimberly Akimbo, Another American: Asking and Telling, Homebody/Kabul and Take Me Out. She spent several years with Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA working on productions of Henry V, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Jack and Jill. Ms. Mather graduated from Simon's Rock College of Bard. She thanks her husband Christopher who supports her from all corners of the world.
INTIMAN Theatre, recipient of the 2006 Tony Award® for Outstanding Regional Theatre, is one of the premiere theatres in the country. Founded in 1972 and now under the leadership of Artistic Director Bartlett Sher and Managing Director Laura Penn, INTIMAN produces vigorous, bold and emotionally rich approaches to the classics, and new work created by some of our country’s best writers and artists. World premieres at INTIMAN include Robert Schenkkan’s epic The Kentucky Cycle, winner of the Pulitzer Prize; Nickel and Dimed, Joan Holden’s vivid adaptation of Barbara Ehrenreich’s non-fiction bestseller about America’s working poor; The Light in the Piazza by Craig Lucas and Adam Guettel, winner of six 2005 Tony Awards at Lincoln Center Theater; and Singing Forest by Craig Lucas, winner of the American Theatre Critics Association’s Steinberg New Play Award. INTIMAN is dedicated to community building, civic engagement and multi-generational education initiatives. It is nationally recognized for such programs as The American Cycle, a five-year series that combines great art, collaborative partnerships and a series of free public programs that foster conversation about issues inspired by classic American stories. Living History, launched in 1986, is an award-winning arts-in-education program that to date has reached more than 150,000 students through its innovative approach to exploring history, politics and ethics through theatre. INTIMAN is honored to have been named the 2006 Organization of the Year by the Municipal League of King County, and to have been recognized as one of the country’s Leading National Theatres by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation in 2004. By producing work that creates connections between its Theatre and its fellow citizens, INTIMAN is dedicated to making a home for complex and generous discourse, and a home for some of the most extraordinary theatre made anywhere in the world.