Lee Mikeska Gardner*
Lee Mikeska Gardner*, she/her (Artistic Director, Central Square Theater) is in her 10th season CST. In the eight years she served as Artistic Director of The Nora, Lee crystalized The Nora’s mission to focus on the feminine perspective and created “That’s What She Said,” a program that developed and showcased the work of over 40 female artists, from plays to opera to magic shows. When The Nora and Underground Railway blended in 2022, Lee brought her broad experience in theatrical genre and rigorous storytelling to CST’s mission and message. Both an actor and director, Lee was last on stage in Summer, 1976 and Silent Sky. Prior performances include Marie Curie in The Half Life of Marie Curie, The Revolutionists, her Elliot Norton winning turn as Emilie in Emilie du Chatelet Defends Her Life Tonight (all by Lauren Gunderson), Marjorie Prime and Precious Little. Directing credits at CST include The Hound of the Baskerville, The Rocky Horror Show (with Jo Michael Rezes), Cloud Nine (Elliot Norton for Direction and Production, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, The Midvale High School 50th Reunion (with Gordon Clapp), Journey to the West, Homebody, Arcadia, Saving Kitty (with Jennifer Coolidge), The Edge of Peace (co-directed with with Maggie Moore Abdow), Grounded and Her Aching Heart.
Hailing from greater Washington, D.C., Lee was an Artistic Associate for ten years at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, directing every season; an Associate Artist with 1st Stage; the Managing Director for Washington Shakespeare Company and Rep Stage; Associate Artistic Director with the Shenandoah Playwrights’ Retreat; an Artistic Associate with Charter Theatre and Keegan Theatre and enjoyed a robust freelance career. Performances include Mary in A House in the Country with Charter Theatre (Helen Hayes Award), where she also performed the roles of Carla in A Taste of Fire (Helen Hayes nomination), and Fran in Short Order Stories, all of which were world premieres. Lee originated the role of Hettie in Julie Jensen’s Two Headed, which she performed at Washington Shakespeare Company and Mill Mountain Theatre. Other favorite roles include Terry in Sideman (Helen Hayes nomination) and Florence Foster Jenkins in Souvenir at 1st Stage, Patricia Preece in Stanley at Potomac Theatre Project (Helen Hayes nomination), Sandy Apple in Birth and After Birth at Woolly Mammoth, Kimberly Bergalis in Patient A at Freedom Stage (Helen Hayes Award), Clare in Tennessee Williams’s The Two-Character Play at Spooky Action Theatre, Gertrude in Hamlet, Luisa in A Shayna Maidel (Best Actress, Baltimore City Paper) at Rep Stage, Grete in Sight Unseen, Nina in Brooklyn Boy directed by Jim Petosa at The Olney Theatre Center, Tovah in Dreams in a Golden Country at The Kennedy Center, where she also directed Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie by Julie Jensen. She has directed over twenty world premieres, three of which earned nominations for the Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play. At Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Lee directed After Ashley (Helen Hayes nomination for Outstanding Direction); Fat Men In Skirts; Life During Wartime (Helen Hayes nomination for
Outstanding Direction); Goodnight, Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) (Helen Hayes nomination for Outstanding Direction); Doug Wright’s Watbanaland; The Chinese Art of Placement; The Gene Pool (world premiere); Stop Kiss with Rhea Seehorn, and Fuddy Meers. Favorite credits include Blithe Spirit, The How and The Why, Humble Boy, the world premieres of Caesar and Dada and Learning Curves (both by long-time collaborator Allyson Currin), Equus, A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream (with seven actors), Angels in America at Washington, D.C.’s Signature Theatre; T.S. Eliot’s The Cocktail Party, (Theatre Lobby Award), Bad Dates, Golden Boy, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Butterfingers Angel…, Thom Pain (Based on Nothing), Stones In His Pockets, and Three Tall Women.
During the Covid years, Lee became adept at Zoom theater and directed The Masque of the Red Death by M.J. Halberstadt with Flat Earth Theater, Shoe Leather Epidemiology by Amy Merrill as part of CST’s Women & Science Festival and the web series Inherit the Windbag, by Alexandra Petri with Mosaic Theatre. Lee is co-chair of the Professional Theater Network at AATA and as an educator, Lee has taught or served as a guest artist at schools and universities across the nation and founded the Acting Classes at Woolly Mammoth and Washington Shakespeare Company. Lee has a B.F.A. in the Performing Arts from George Mason University and an M.F.A. in Acting from The Catholic University of America.