Hold These Truths

JEANNE SAKATA

Playwright

is honored to bring Hold These Truths to Arena Stage. After premiering at East West Players in 2007, the play had its Off-Broadway debut with Epic Theatre Ensemble in 2012 (Drama Desk Nomination, Outstanding Solo Performance) and has since earned rave reviews with Hang A Tale at the Sheen Center, Lyric Stage Company, Pasadena Playhouse, The Guthrie, Portland Center Stage, Seattle’s ACT Theatre, Perseverance Theatre, PlayMakers Repertory and Honolulu Theatre for Youth, co-produced with Daniel Dae Kim. As an actor, Jeanne has performed with The Public, the Kennedy Center, Mark Taper Forum, La Jolla Playhouse, South Coast Repertory, American Conservatory Theater, Berkeley Repertory, People’s Light, Northlight Theatre and the Intiman Theatre, among others. Recent film /TV credits include Advantageous, Big Hero 6, Dr. Ken and True Fiction. She received a Los Angeles Ovation Award for Outstanding Lead Actress for Chay Yew’s RED at East West Players, and the Playwrights’ Arena Lee Melville Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Los Angeles Theatre Community. www.jeannesakata.com

JESSICA KUBZANSKY

Director

is the Co-Artistic Director of The Theatre @ Boston Court in Pasadena and an award-winning director working nationally. She had the privilege of developing and directing the world-premiere of Hold These Truths at East West Players and has directed many subsequent productions, most recently at The Pasadena Playhouse. Recent credits include Orange (South Coast Repertory); Stupid Fucking Bird (A Contemporary Theatre); Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles (The Getty Villa), Colony Collapse, The Children and RII, her own three-person Richard II (Boston Court); Pygmalion (Pasadena Playhouse); the world-premiere Sheila Callaghan’s Everything You Touch (Rattlestick at The Cherry Lane and Boston Court); Hamlet with Leo Marks and The Winter’s Tale (Theater 150); Two Gentlemen of Verona (Illinois Shakespeare Festival); Macbeth (Antaeus Company); and Glass Menagerie, Toys in the Attic and Heartbreak House (The Colony Theatre). Jessica received the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Sustained Excellence in Theatre.

BEN ZAMORA

Set and Lighting Designer

is an American artist and designer. He has created large-scale installations and sculptures for galleries, museums and public art projects including Park Avenue Armory (New York), Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, Amsterdam Light Festival, Art Basel/Design Miami, Frye Art Museum, Kunsthalle Krems (Austria) and the Vienna Festival. Moving seamlessly between performance and visual art, Ben has created light-based sculptures and art installations for performance-based work, including projects with Kronos Quartet, Saint Genet, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Barbican, Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Internationally, His design work has been seen at Festival d'Aix-en-Provence (France), Royal Festival Hall (London), The Mariinsky Theatre (Russia), Brisbane Festival (Australia), Helsinki Festival, Berliner Festspiele and Lucerne Festival (Switzerland). He has also worked with Lincoln Center, Portland Center Stage, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Pasadena Playhouse and the Getty Villa (Los Angeles).

CIERRA COAN

Costume Designer, based on the original costume design by Soojin Lee

is currently the assistant to the costume director here at Arena Stage. In 2015, she was the Allen Lee Hughes costume fellow at Arena Stage. Recent credits include, costume designer for Heathers: the Musical at Red Branch Theatre. She’s also assisted award-winning designer Toni Leslie-James on the world premiere of Familiar at Yale Repertory Theatre. She worked on Broadway’s Amazing Grace: A New Musical and TV shows such as Turn: Washington’s Spies and Mercy Street. She graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in costume design and technology in 2015.

JOHN ZALEWSKI

Sound Designer

is happy to be back at Arena Stage with the Hold These Truths company and resonant perspective, after working on the world premiere of Destiny of Desire in 2015. John has worked at the Goodman Theatre, the Guthrie, Portland Center Stage, South Coast Repertory, Humana Festival, Perseverance Theatre, Lewis Family, Disney Hall, the Geffen Theatre, Center Theater Group, Broad Stage, Wallis Annenberg, and with companies in Los Angeles including Boston Court, Evidence Room, Antaeus, Padua Playwrights and Actors’ Gang, among others. Awards include seven LA Stage Alliance Ovation Awards, seven LA Weekly Awards, three Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards and ten Backstage Garlands. Recent work includes A Mexican Trilogy (Latino Theater Company) and Destiny of Desire (2018 Oregon Shakespeare Festival).

CHRISTI B. SPANN

Stage Manager

returns to Arena Stage after serving as stage manager for Nina Simone: Four Women, A Raisin in the Sun, The Little Foxes and Love in Afghanistan. Christi spent 12 seasons on the stage management staff at the Denver Center Theatre Company and has also worked with The Great River Shakespeare Festival in Winona, MN, and Virginia Repertory Theatre in Richmond, VA.