Turn Me Loose

GRETCHEN LAW

Playwright

GRETCHEN LAW (Playwright) is the author of five full-length plays: The Adventures of A Black Girl In Search Of Her God was adapted from a Bernard Shaw story of the same title and has been approved for production by The Society of Authors; Al Sharpton for President was a semi-finalist in the Eugene O’Neill National Playwright’s Conference 2006; Turn Me Loose was workshopped by Atlantic Theater Company, New York Stage and Film and at New York Theatre Workshop; additionally, History Lessons and Loving Charley Pride, have been read at the National Black Theater Festival, The Players, The National Arts Club, the Harlem Theater Company, the LAByrinth Theater Company and The Dramatist Guild, of which she is a member. She is a longtime member of the Frank Silvera Writers Workshop. Gretchen is a practicing psychotherapist with degrees from Yale Divinity School and the Columbia University School of Social Work. In 1991, she founded the Parents’ Foundation, 100 Broadway, in New Haven, CT, a residential community for adults with psychiatric illnesses. She resides in Guilford, CT.

JOHN GOULD RUBIN

Director

JOHN GOULD RUBIN (Director) is the Artistic Director of The Private Theater and former co-Artistic/Executive Director of LAByrinth Theater for which he directed seven plays including premieres by John Patrick Shanley and Erin Cressida Wilson. He originally created Turn Me Loose at LAByrinth as part of collection of writings entitled ’68, and then directed the show off-Broadway at The Westside Theatre (nominated for the Joe Calloway Award for Best Director) and at The Wallis Annenberg Center. He directed American Buffalo with Treat Williams and Stephen Adly Guirgis at The Dorset Theatre Festival, where he also directed Outside Mullingar. He’s directed at Rattlestick, Ma-Yi, The Public and the Soho Theatre in London among others. Notable credits include Peer Gynt (The International Ibsen Festival in Oslo); Playing with Fire (a deconstruction of Strindberg’s one-act play about voyeurism, exhibitionism and wife-swapping at The Box); a site-specific Hedda Gabler in a townhouse for 25 people; Queen for A Day with David Proval and Vincent Pastore (off-Broadway); and The Cherry Orchard with Ellen Burstyn (The Actors Studio). Current projects include a radical new version of A Doll House (recently developed through a Collaborative Residency at The Marble House Project); Rocco, Chelsea, Adriana Sean, Claudia, Gianna, Alex (a devised project about the consciousness of conflict and the American Political Divide); and an all Afro-German production of Hedda Gabler (Berlin).

CHRISTOPHER BARRECA

Scenic Designer

CHRISTOPHER BARRECA (Scenic Designer) has designed over 200 productions. Broadway credits include Rocky (2014 Tony Award, Drama Desk Award and Outer Critics Circle Award winner), Search and Destroy, Our Country’s Good and Chronicle of a Death Foretold (American Theatre Wing Award) Off-Broadway credits include Adrienne Kennedy’s He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box (Obie Award), Turn Me Loose, Master Harold (directed by Fugard), Painted Rocks, The Train Driver, Blood Knot, David Byrne’s St Joan Into the Fire, Three Days of Rain (Drama Desk Award nomination) and Neon Psalms (American Theater Wing Award nomination). Regional credits include Culture Clash's The Birds, Charles Ludam’s Hedda Gabler, Anna Deavere Smith’s Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992; international credits include Soyinka’s Scourge of Hyacinths, King Lear Dijon Festival) and Dallane’s Solo Macbeth (London). His directing credits include Dachniki (Russia). Christopher teaches at CalArts. www.chrisbarreca.com

SUSAN HILFERTY

Costume Designer

SUSAN HILFERTY (Costume Designer) has designed costumes and/or scenery for over 350 productions across the globe. Her work on Broadway includes Wicked (Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards. Currently in its 15^th year); Present Laughter; Spring Awakening; Lestat (all Tony nominated); and Into the Woods (Tony nomination and Hewes Award). Her recent Off-Broadway credits include: An Ordinary Muslim (NYTW), Illyria (Public Theatre); "MASTER HAROLD”…and the Boys (Signature Theatre) written and directed by Athol Fugard (with whom she has designed and/or co-directed 41 productions around the world). Her work on Salomé for the Shakespeare Theatre Company earned her the 2016 Helen Hayes award for Outstanding Set Design. She is Chair of the Department of Design for Stage and Film at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. susanhilferty.com

STEPHEN STRAWBRIDGE

Lighting Designer

STEPHEN STRAWBRIDGE (Lighting Designer) has designed over 200 productions on and Off-Broadway and at most major regional theater and opera companies across the U.S. Internationally his work has been seen in Bergen, Copenhagen, The Hague, Hong Kong, Linz, Lisbon, Munich, Naples, Sao Paulo, Stratford-upon-Avon (Royal Shakespeare Company), Stockholm, Vienna and Wroclaw. Recent credits include Much Ado About Nothing (Old Globe); Flyin’ West (Westport Playhouse); The White Card (American Repertory Theatre); and Native Son (Yale Repertory Theatre). Dance credits include Pilobolus Dance Theatre, Alison Chase performance and others. Nominations and awards include American Theatre Wing, Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle, Connecticut Critics Circle, Dallas-Fort Worth Theater Critics Forum, Drama Desk, Helen Hayes, Henry Hewes Design and Lucille Lortel. He is Co-chair of the Design Department at Yale School of Drama and resident lighting designer at Yale Repertory Theatre.

LEON ROTHENBERG

Sound Designer

LEON ROTHENBERG (Sound Designer)’s Arena Stage credits include Pullman Porter Blues. Select Broadway credits include The Boys in the Band, A Doll’s House Part 2, Violet, The Realistic Joneses, The Nance (Tony Award), The Heiress and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (Tony Award nomination). Select New York and Off-Broadway credits include Encores! 2013-2018, Playwrights Horizons, Second Stage, Manhattan Theatre Club, Culture Project, Primary Stages, Tectonic Theater Project, Women’s Project, Cherry Lane and The Public. Select regional credits include A.C.T., City Theater Pittsburgh, Geffen, Huntington, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Merrimack Repertory, Delaware Theatre Company, Portland Center Stage, Seattle Repertory, La Jolla, Old Globe, New York Stage and Film, Two River Theater, North Shore Music Theater, Long Wharf, McCarter and Theatre By The Sea. International credits include Cirque du Soleil, National Theatre of Cyprus and Dijon Festival. www.klaxson.net

KIM JAMES BEY

Vocal Coach

KIM JAMES BEY (Vocal Coach) has been the vocal and dialect coach for numerous productions, including Arena Stage productions of Ruined, Cuttin’ Up, The Goat, or, Who is Sylvia?, The Piano Lesson and Anna in the Tropics. Recent dialect credits are with Mosaic Theater for Queens Girl in Africa, Blood Knot, A Human Being Died That Night and Unexplored Interiors. Other select credits include The Octoroon and The Convert at Woolly Mammoth. With Studio Theatre, Kim was the dialect coach for In the Red and Brown Water, Invisible Man and, Passing Strange. For Ford’s Theatre, Necessary Sacrifices and Black Pearl Sings! And In Darfur at Theatre J. Kim James Bey is Professor of Theatre/Acting at Howard University, and is certified in Fitzmaurice Voicework. M.F.A.: Rutgers University.