Guests (2007)
Patrick Benton, Producing Artistic Director
Patrick Benton is the Artistic Director of Mill Mountain Theatre. Benton previously served as Artistic Director for New Stage Theatre in Jackson, MS. He has directed plays by William Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett, Richard Greenberg, Harvey Fierstein and many others. He has taught acting, directing, and introductory theatre classes at Millsaps College and Indiana University, the latter of which also awarded him his MFA degree. Benton has served as a guest director at the University of Southern Mississippi and as a panelist for the Mississippi Arts Commission. He also is a member of Actor’s Equity Association.
David Gothard, Producing Artistic Director
David began with Broadway director Mike Ockrent at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh. He was invited to Poland to work with Tadeusz Kantor during early rehearsals for The Dead Class. After the play’s legendary success, it transferred to open an empty Riverside Studios. Riverside would become London’s pioneering, international theatre where the likes of Dario Fo, Samuel Beckett, and the American avant-garde worked side by side with British talent. David became Artistic Director of Riverside Studios following the departure of Peter Gill to the National Theatre of Great Britain, and was Artistic Director at the Leicester Haymarket Theatre from 1987 to 1990. American writers premiered during that time include David Hwang, Jean Claude van Itallie, Emily Mann, Sam Shepard and Todd Ristau. David has created writing workshops in Derry, Northern Ireland and repeatedly been invited to adjudicate and teach at the Iowa Playwright’s Workshop, where began his pioneer work with Naomi Wallace, W. David Hancock, and other important writers. After resurrecting the National Theatre of Kosovo immediately after the war, his opening Hamlet toured devastated cities and opened the arts program of the World Aids Conference in South Africa. His portable, suitcase Hamlet with Joseph Fiennes toured Muslim China and Tibet, where they held the first ever workshops in Llasa University. Most recently he has been working as Artistic Associate for the world famous Abbey Theatre in Dublin, directing projects with the likes of Harold Pinter and Vaclav Havel.
Morgan Jenness, Literary Agent
Morgan Jenness spent more than a decade
at the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater.
She was also associate artistic director at the New York
Theater Workshop and an associate director at the Los
Angeles Theater Center in charge of new projects. She
has worked as a dramaturg, workshop director, and artistic
consultant at theatres and new play programs across the
country, and is currently an adjunct faculty member at
Fordham University. She has served on peer panels for
various funding institutions, including NYSCA and the
NEA, where she served as a site evaluator for almost
a decade. Morgan worked as creative director at Helen
Merrill Ltd., an agency representing writers, directors,
composers, and designers. She is now part of the literary
department at Abrams Artists Agency.
Melanie Joseph, Artistic Director
Melanie Joseph is the founder and producing artistic
director of the Foundry Theatre in New York City. She
has produced or directed nine new works for the Foundry,
which have been awarded seven Obie awards and three
Drama Desk nominations. Melanie has commissioned and
developed new works with such artists as Carl Hancock
Rux, Rinde Eckert, the Rude Mechs, Grisha Coleman,
and W. David Hancock. In 2001 she was awarded the League
of Professional Theatre Women’s first annual
Lucille Lortel grant in recognition of her “cutting
edge producing style.”
Naomi Wallace, Playwright
Naomi Wallace’s work is widely produced in the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States. Her plays include One Flea Spare, In the Heart of America, Slaughter City, The Inland Sea, and The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek. In 2007, her new trilogy The Fever Chart, received its first public performance as part of the Norfolk Southern Festival of New Works at Mill Mountain Theatre. Her work has received the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the Fellowship of Southern Writers Drama Award, and an Obie. She is also a recipient of the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship. Her award-winning film Lawn Dogs is available on DVD. She continues to create new works of great power and generosity. Naomi is also an excellent teacher, and has inspired many playwriting students around the world.
Mac Wellman, Playwright
Mac Wellman is one of the most important names in American
theatre. He has published two novels, two books of
poems, and edited anthologies of plays, including New
Downtown Now. He has received fellowships from
the NEA and NYFA, and from the Rockefeller, McNight,
and Guggenheim foundations. In 1990 he receive an Obie
for Best American Play. In 1991 he received another
Obie for Sincerity Forever. He has received
a Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writers Award
and the 2003 Obie for Lifetime Achievement. He is the
Donald I. Fine Professor of Play Writing at Brooklyn
College.
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