THE CREATIVE TEAM

Stephen Bergman (co-author) was a doctor on the Harvard Medical faculty for thirty years, and, under the pen-name “Samuel Shem,” is a playwright and novelist.  His plays Room for One Woman and Napoleon’s Dinner were produced Off-Off Broadway (IRT Theatre, as The Shem Plays) and selected for The Best Short Plays of the Year anthology.  Other plays are The Life at Ground Zero (Blackburn Theatre, Gloucester) and Courtenay’s Gym (The Boston Shakespeare Company, where he was playwright-in-residence for two seasons).  Novels include: The House of God (cited by The Lancet as one of the two most significant medical novels of the 20th century), Fine, and Mount Misery (described by the Boston Globe as “outrageously funny, a sage and important novel by a healer and a Shakespearean”).  The novels have sold over two million copies in fifty countries.  Having almost failed his creative writing course at Harvard, he received a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, where he fell in love with theatre and dared to write plays, while doing a Ph.D. in grasshopper neurophysiology.  Shem has been honored as one of the Boston Public Library’s “Literary Lights,” as one of “Boston’s Best Authors,” as a speaker at the Hemingway Centennial Celebration at the JFK library, and with the Vanderbilt University Medal of Merit.  He has given the commencement address at over fifty medical schools on “How to Stay Human in Medicine.”

Janet Surrey (co-author) is a Founding Scholar at the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute at the Stone Center at Wellesley College and is on the faculty and board of the Institute of Meditation and Psychotherapy in Newton.  She is a clinical psychologist in private practice and has taught at the Harvard Medical School, Andover Newton Theological School and the Episcopal Divinity School.  She is the author of many books and papers in the area of relational psychology, women’s psychological development, spirituality, and addiction.  She is co-author of the books: Women’s Growth in Connection: Writings from the Stone Center, Mothering Against the Odds: Diverse Voices of Contemporary Mothers, and contributing author of Women’s Growth in Diversity, The Complexity of Connection, and Mindfulness and Psychotherapy.  With her husband, Stephen Bergman, she has founded the Gender Relations Research Project at the Stone Center and has published We Have to Talk: Healing Dialogues Between Women and Men (Basic Books), and the curriculum Making Connections: Building Gender Dialogues and Community in Secondary Schools (Educators for Social Responsibility).

Rick Lombardo (Director/Producing Artistic Director of New Rep) is celebrating his tenth season as New Rep’s Producing Artistic Director.  Most recently at New Rep, he adapted and directed Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.  Other directing credits include Romeo and Juliet, the 2005-06 season opener; Into the Woods, the most successful production in the company's history; the Boston premiere of Quills; and the world premiere of Approaching Moomtaj, by Michael Weller.  Last season, he also directed the critically-acclaimed productions of La Vie Parisienne for Opera Boston and The Lovers for Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre.  He is honored to be a two-time recipient of the Elliot Norton Award from the Boston Theatre Critics Association for Outstanding Director.  In recent seasons at New Rep, he also directed The Threepenny Opera, the world premiere of A Girl’s War, his new musical adaptation of Moliere’s Scapin, Waiting for Godot (IRNE Award, Best Drama), and the acclaimed production of Sweeney Todd (2004 Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Director, IRNE Award for Best Director, and Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Musical Production).  His production of The Weir received three 2001 IRNE Awards, including Best Drama.  He received the 2000 Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Director for his production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.  In previous years, he directed the award-winning New Rep productions of The Scarlet Letter, American Buffalo, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Twelfth Night, Beast on the Moon, Das Barbecü, Tartuffe, and The Real Thing, among others.  Additional credits include the world premiere of Moby Dick: An American Opera, for which he received the Award for Outstanding Achievement in Theatre by Northern Ohio Live.  Rick was previously the Artistic Director of the Players Guild in Canton, Ohio, as well as the Founding Artistic Director of the Stillwaters Theatre Company in New York City.  He has taught at several universities, including Fordham University’s College at Lincoln Center in New York, where he was also Co-Director of the theatre program.  Rick is currently President of NEAT, the association of New England Area Theatres, and serves as a member of the Board of Directors of StageSource.  He is a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.  He lives with his wife, actress Rachel Harker, and daughter Claudia.

Ray Kennedy (Composer)
Pianist/Composer Ray Kennedy has worked with many of the legends of Jazz including Sonny Stitt, Dizzy Gillespie, and James Moody. His work as pianist/composer/arranger with The John Pizzarelli Trio for over a decade led to Ray being internationally recognized as a leading exponent of the "swing jazz" piano style. Ray has made numerous appearances on The Tonight Show, The Late Show with David Letterman, Late Night with Conan O'brien, and appeared in the Broadway musical "Dream" with Leslie Ann Warren and Margaret Whiting in 1997. He has recorded more than fifty albums in various genres with artists as diverse as David Sanborn, Nat Adderley, and Buddy DeFranco. He has also recorded nine albums of his own including the CD "Mozart In Jazz" which received the prestigious Gold Disc award in Japan in April of 2006. His compositions have been featured on numerous recordings including the soundtracks of two major motion pictures. Ray has appeared in concerts and jazz festivals in twenty-three countries throughout the world.
Visit Ray's Website
 
Anita Fuchs (Scenic Design) Anita's designs include La Vie Parisienne, directed by Rick Lombardo at Opera Boston, Cutler Majestic Theatre; Permanent Collection, New Rep; A Christmas Carol, Virginia Stage Company; The Transfiguration of Benno Blimpie, ART Institute; Traps, Underdog Stage Co., Piano Factory; To Kill A Mockingbird, Foothills Theatre; Voices in the Dark, Devanaughn Theatre Company; and the summer tour of Amadeus and annual tour of A Midsummer Night's Dream, National Players, Olney Theatre Center for the Arts, Maryland; and Commonwealth Shakespeare Company's Tour of the Parks, Romeo and Juliet.  Anita is originally from Germany, where she designed Kormoran (Premier), Freie Kammerspiele, Cologne and Pictures at an Exhibition, III. International Christmas Circus Festival, Freiburg, and the photographic exhibition: Four Elements – Elements of Nature, Wallstreet Institute, Freiburg.  She holds an MFA in Scenic Design from Boston University.  Her designs at BU include The Grapes of Wrath, Amadeus, Die Fledermaus (BU Opera Institute), and The Cripple of Inishmaan.

Jane Alois Stein (Costume Design) Costume Designs include the Off-Broadway production of Israel Horovitz's Lebensraum for the Miranda Theatre.  Regional Theatre credits include Adam Rapp's Animals and Plants for American Repertory Theatre, A Midsummer Night's Dream for American Repertory Theatre Institute, Painting It Red for Berkeley Repertory, A Lesson From Aloes for Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Sweeney Todd for Connecticut Repertory Theatre, Uncle Broadway at the Royal George Theatre of Chicago, and King Lear for New Repertory Theatre.  Work at other theatres includes designs for American Stage Festival, Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble, Commonwealth Shakespeare, Gloucester Stage Company, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, North Shore Music Theatre, and Theatre By The Sea.  Jane is the head of the costume department at Virginia Tech. She is a member of United Scenic Artists local 829, United States Institute For Theatre Technology, and The Costume Society Of America.

Daniel Meeker (Lighting Design) previously designed lighting for New Rep’s production of Approaching Moomtaj. Other lighting designs include: The Magic of Christmas 2005, Portland Symphony Orchestra; The Blowin of Baile Gall, Irish Arts Center; The Lepers of Baile Baiste, Phil Bosakowski Theatre; The Korean Contemporary Dance Showcase 2006, Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College; Cool Wave Dance Festival 2006, The Dumbo Dance Festival 2005 & The Dumbo International Dance Festival 2005, White Wave Performance Space, Brooklyn; Landscape Over Zero, Nai Ni Chen Dance Company, John Jay College.  Scenery and lighting: Noodle Doodle Box, Geva Theatre; Tony & The Soprano and The Drawer Boy, The Kitchen Theatre; The Soup Comes Last, 59E59 Theatre.  Scenery: The Blue Room and I Am My Own Wife, The Hangar Theatre; The Consul and Owl Creek, Ithaca College.  Upcoming productions include: Lighting design for Auntie & Me, Merrimack Repertory Theatre.  Projects outside of theatre include designs for Barbara Israel Garden Antiques and designing custom residential light fixtures.  Dan is a graduate of The Yale School of Drama and Ithaca College and is a member of United Scenic Artists.

Cheryl D. Olszowka (Production Stage Manager): Copenhagen, Topdog/Underdog (Weston Playhouse); Rapist James (Next Stages); Lenny Hackman's Liver (Boston Playwrights' Theatre); The First Annual African American Theatre Festival (Our Place Theatre Company); Uncle Tom's Cabin (Coyote Theatre). She also interned on the world premiere of Rebecca Gilman's Blue Surge (The Goodman Theatre). Cheryl received her BFA in Stage Management from Boston University's School of Theatre Arts.