Olivia Sebesky designed the projections for Radium Girls, produced this past February by Northeastern University Theater. Credits also include Assistant Video/Projection Designer for the American Idiot National Tour (Work Light Productions) and Stop The Virgens (St. Ann’s Warehouse), as well as Assistant Set Designer for ‘ART’ (New Repertory Theatre) and One Night With Janis Joplin (Portland Center Stage).
Justin Townsend is an Assistant Professor at Northeastern University and founding member of TENT. He provided the lighting design for URT’s 2011 production of Fever Chart. In NYC, lighting designs include Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and Dance Dance Revolution (with Alex Timbers); Monstrosity (13P); Opus (Primary Stages); Speech and Debate (Roundabout); Eve Ensler’s The Treatment (The Culture Project); Food Project (Lightbox); Drums of the Waves of the Horikawa (Theatre of a Two Headed Calf); and Beauty on the Vine, Palace of the End and Mahida’s Extra Key to Heaven (Epic Theatre). Regionally, Mr. Townsend has designed lighting for the A.R.T. (Elliot Norton Award for The Onion Cellar), Arden Theatre, Baltimore Center Stage, Cincinnati Playhouse, Alliance Theatre, Hartford Stage, Kirk Douglas Theatre (Ovation Nominee for Apollo), The Intiman, Playmakers Rep, Portland Center Stage, The Boston Court and Georgia Shakespeare Festival. Scenic work includes collaborations with Two-Headed Calf, Alec Duffy, Lear Debessonet and Jen Harvey.
Anna Kohler , Music and Theater Arts faculty at MIT, studied acting and directing at the Conservatory for Art and Drama and Mozarteum University of Salzburg. She received her degree in Acting and Aesthetic Studies at the Université IIIV Vincennes in Paris after studying mime with Etienne Decroux. Since joining the NYC experimental theater scene in 1982, she has worked with Stuart Sherman, John Jesurun, Richard Foreman, Fiona Templeton and Werner Herzog. She is an associate member of the Wooster Group. She has worked with Steve Buscemi and Mark Boone Jr. Her solo performance, D’ Arc-ness, premiered at Amsterdam’s Triple X Festival. More recently, she has toured Europe with Ode to the Man Who Kneels, written and directed by Richard Maxwell. She appeared in movies by Jonathan Demme, Peter Sellars and Hal Hartley. Her directing work has been shown in Salzburg; Kiel, Germany; Saõ Paulo; and NYC.
Marilyn Plotkins has directed, produced, and facilitated professional and student productions at Suffolk University for almost 30 years. As Chair of the Suffolk University Theatre Department and Artistic Director of Suffolk University’s new Modern Theatre, Marilyn has nurtured collaborations with the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, the Actors’ Shakespeare Project, and URT to develop new work, build a collaborative environment for theater in Boston, and provide educational opportunity for Suffolk students. Marilyn is the Founding Director of Boston Music Theatre Project at Suffolk University, which develops new musicals for the professional stage. She also supports development of new work by serving on the National Alliance for Music Theatre’s New Works and Festival panels. Marilyn is the author of The American Repertory Theatre: The Brustein Years.
Jim Kaufman has had the great fortune of working with and learning from brilliant, dedicated colleagues (Marilyn Plotkins, Wes Savick, and others) and gifted students at Suffolk; and serving as URT board member, working with Catherine Carr Kelly, Debra Wise, and others at the Central Square Theater. “It’s such a joy that these two wonderful organizations are bringing this production of Car Talk: The Musical!!! to you. Anna and I have driven used Toyota Camrys to cover our car miles over the last few decades – currently a 2002 with 131,000 miles.”