An Iliad

CHARLES NEWELL has been Artistic Director of Court Theatre since 1994, where he has directed over 30 productions. He made his Chicago directorial debut in 1993 with The Triumph of Love, which won the Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Production. Directorial highlights at Court include An Iliad, Porgy and Bess, Three Tall Women, The Year of Magical Thinking, The Wild Duck, Caroline, Or Change, Titus Andronicus, Arcadia, Man of La Mancha, Uncle Vanya, Raisin, The Glass Menagerie, Travesties, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Hamlet, and The Invention of Love.  Charlie has also directed at the Goodman Theatre (Rock ‘n’ Roll), the Guthrie Theater (Resident Director: The History Cycle, Cymbeline), Arena Stage, John Houseman’s The Acting Company (Staff Repertory Director), the California and Alabama Shakespeare Festivals, Juilliard, and New York University. He is the recipient of the 1992 TCG Alan Schneider Director Award. He has served on the Board of Theatre Communications Group, as well as on several panels for the National Endowment for the Arts. Opera directing credits include Marc Blitzstein’s Regina at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Rigoletto at Opera Theatre of St. Louis. Charlie is a multiple Joseph Jefferson Award (Chicago’s highest theatrical honor) nominee and recipient. Recently, his production of Caroline, Or Change at Court was the recipient of four Joseph Jefferson Awards, including Best Production–Musical and Best Director–Musical.

DENIS O'HARE is an actor and writer who lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. This is his first collaboration and his debut as a writer for the theater. He has written two screenplays as well as short stories and poetry. While at Northwestern pursuing an acting degree, Denis followed the poetry writing program for two years and studied poetry under Alan Shapiro, Mary Kinzie and Reginald Gibbons. Before moving to New York in the early 90s, Denis performed with numerous theatres in Chicago including Wisdom Bridge, Body Politic, Victory Gardens, Remains, and The Goodman. He won a Jeff Award for his role in A Voice of the Prairie and another Jeff Award for his role in John Logan’s Hauptmann.  In one season, Denis appeared in 3 productions at the Court Theatre Fuente Ovejuna, What the Butler Saw, and The Caucasian Chalk Circle. He has appeared on Broadway and Off-Broadway numerous times as well as in many regional theaters. His many film appearances include Milk, Michael Clayton, Charlie Wilson’s War, A Mighty Heart, Duplicity, An Englishman in New York, 21 Grams, Garden State, The Eagle, and the upcoming J. Edgar.  His TV work includes roles on Brothers and Sisters, CSI Miami, The Good Wife, all of the Law and Order franchises, and his regular roles on HBO’s True Blood as the Vampire King Russell Edgington, as well as American Horror Story which is currently airing on FX.

LISA PETERSON is a nationally renowned director. Lisa’s New York credits include: Motherhood Outloud and Donald Margulies’ Shipwrecked! at Primary Stages; Henry IV, Part 2 (Oregon Shakespeare Festival); The Escort (Geffen); An Iliad (Seattle Rep, McCarter); Palestine, NM (Taper); Deborah Laufer’s End Days (Ensemble Studio); and The Poor Itch (Public). Other New York credits include The Fourth Sister and The Batting Cage (Vineyard); Collected Stories (Manhattan Theater Club); Sueno (MCC); The Model Apartment (Primary Stages); Tongue of a Bird and The Square (Public); The Scarlet Letter (CSC); Birdy (Women’s Project); The Chemistry of Change (Playwrights Horizons/WPP); and Tight Embrace (Intar). She won an Obie Award for her direction of Caryl Churchill’s Light Shining in Buckinghamshire at New York Theatre Workshop, where her other productions include Bexley Oh!, The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, Slavs!, Traps, and The Waves, which she adapted from the Virginia Woolf novel with composer David Bucknam. For ten years Lisa was Resident Director at the Mark Taper Forum, and prior to that, she was Associate Director at La Jolla Playhouse. Lisa is one of the most sought after directors in the regional theatres. She regularly works at Actors Theater of Louisville, Berkeley Rep, California Shakespeare Theater, Baltimore Center Stage, Guthrie Theater, Long Wharf, Yale Rep, Hartford Stage, Intiman, Seattle Repertory, South Coast Rep, O’Neill Playwrights Conference, Midwest Playlabs, Ojai Playwrights Conference , and Sundance Theater Lab. She has directed world premieres by many major American writers including Tony Kushner, Beth Henley, Donald Margulies, Jose Rivera, Ellen McLaughlin, Mac Wellman, Polly Pen, Stephen Belber, Naomi Wallace, David Henry Huang, Luis Alfaro, Chay Yew, Bridget Carpenter, Annie Weisman, Alice Tuan, Culture Clash, and many others. She is a graduate of Yale College, a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre and the Drama Department, and a Usual Suspect at New York Theatre Workshop.

ROBERT FAGLES (Translator) was an American professor, poet, and academic, best known for his many translations of ancient Greek classics, especially his acclaimed translations of the epic poems of Homer. His translations generally emphasize contemporary English phrasing and  idiom but are faithful to the original as much as possible. Fagles was nominated for the National Book Award in Translation and won the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award of the Academy of American Poets in 1991 for his translation of the Iliad. He taught English and comparative literature for many years at Princeton University, and died at his home in Princeton, New Jersey in 2008.

TODD ROSENTHAL received the 2008 Tony Award for August: Osage County and a 2011 Tony Award nomination for The Motherfu**er with the Hat. Current/ upcoming designs: Ghost Light, Oregon Shakespeare Festival/Berkeley Repertory Theatre; A Streetcar Named Desire, Guthrie Theater; The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Theatre Royal Waterford, Ireland; Close Up Space, Manhattan Theater Club; August: Osage County, Sydney Theatre Company; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Broadway; A Parallelogram and Clybourne Park, Steppenwolf Theatre; The Seagull, Goodman Theater; As You Like It, Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Exhibitor, 2007 Prague Quadrennial. Lead designer for Mythbusters™, the Explosive Exhibition. 2009 Lawrence Olivier Award for Best Set Design, 2010 Los Angeles Back Stage Garland Award, 2009 Michael Merritt Award for Excellence in Design and Collaboration. Associate professor, Northwestern University. Graduate, Yale School of Drama. Please visit www.toddar.com.

RACHEL ANNE HEALY Chicago credits include: productions at Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Chicago Children’s Theatre, Northlight Theatre, Apple Tree Theatre, American Theater Company, Next Theatre Company, TimeLine Theatre Company, Remy Bumppo Theatre Company, Writers’ Theatre, and currently in Goodman Theatre’s new play festival called “New Stages Amplified.” Regionally, Ms. Healy has designed with Alliance Theatre, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, First Stage Children’s Theatre of Milwaukee, American Players Theatre, and Long Wharf Theatre. Ms. Healy is also an adjunct professor of costume design, drawing and painting at The Theatre School at DePaul University.

KEITH PARHAM is a company member of TUTA Theatre where recent credits include Baal, The Wedding, and Uncle Vanya. Other credits include Homebody/Kabul (National Theatre in Belgrade, Serbia); Karen O’s Stop the Virgens (St. Ann’s Warehouse); A Minister’s Wife (Lincoln Center Theatre); Three Sisters (Classic Stage Company); Adding Machine (Minetta Lane Theatre, Obie and Lortel Awards for Design); Mistakes Were Made and Red Light Winter (Barrow Street Theatre); The Edge of Our Bodies (Humana Festival); Carters Way, Sunset Limited, and Red Light Winter (Steppenwolf Theatre); Red, The Seagull, Mary, Ghostwritten, and Gas For Less (Goodman Theatre); and Million Dollar Quartet (Goodman Theatre and Apollo Theater). He has also designed for The Alley Theatre, Shakespeare on the Sound, The Milwaukee Repertory, Trinity Repertory, Northlight Theatre, Lookingglass Theatre Company, Chicago Opera Theatre, and The Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

ANDRE PLUESS Broadway credits: Metamorphoses, I Am My Own Wife, 33 Variations, and The Clean House (Lincoln Center).  Regional: Cymbeline (Shakespeare Theatre D.C.), Legacy of Light (Arena Stage), Ghostwritten (Goodman Theatre), Palomino (Center Theatre Group), Equivocation (Seattle Repertory Theatre), Merchant of Venice and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Marcus (American Conservatory Theatre), Macbeth and Much Ado About Nothing (California Shakespeare Festival).  Mr. Pluess is an Artistic Associate at Lookingglass Theatre Company and the California Shakespeare Festival, resident designer at Victory Gardens Theater, and teaches Sound Design at Northwestern University.

WILLIAM COLLINS is in his seventh season at Court Theatre.  Past shows include: An Iliad, Three Tall Women, The Comedy of Errors, The Year of Magical Thinking, The Illusion, Thyestes, Arcadia, Uncle Vanya, Carousel, and most recently, Porgy and Bess.  William has also worked with Redmoon Theater (Sink. Sank. Sunk …, The Cabinet), Peninsula Players Theatre, About Face Theatre, The Neofuturists, Goodman Theatre, and Drury Lane Oakbrook Theatre.

SARA GAMMAGE is delighted to return to Court Theatre. Previous Court Theatre credits include Flyin’ West, What the Butler Saw, The First Breeze of Summer, Wait Until Dark, The Mystery of Irma Vep, The Illusion, Sizwe Banzi is Dead, Home, Orlando, Porgy and Bess, Spunk, and An Iliad. Other Chicago credits include productions with Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Greenhouse Theater, Theatre at the Center, Marriot Theatre, Apple Tree Theatre, and Redmoon Theater. She spent several seasons at Peninsula Players Theatre in Door Country, WI; credits there include A Little Night Music, Comic Potential, Wait Until Dark, Is He Dead?, Rumors, and The Lady’s Not for Burning. Sara is a proud graduate of Northwestern University.