Invisible Man

OREN JACOBY (Adaptor) is an Oscar-nominated director, writer, and producer of documentary films, including Constantine’s Sword, Sister Rose’s Passion, The Shakespeare Sessions, Stage on Screen: The Topdog Diaries, The Beatles Revolution, and Sam Shepard: Stalking Himself. He was a co-producer of the PBS series The Irish in America: Long Journey Home. Jacoby was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject for Sister Rose’s Passion, which also won Best Documentary Short Film at the 2004 Tribeca Film Festival. His filmmaking has been recognized by the American Film Institute, the MacArthur Foundation, ITVS, Britain’s Royal Television Society, and by AMPAS. His films have appeared on the BBC, HBO Cinemax, PBS, National Geographic, VH-1, NHK (Japan), as well as the Nokia, Verizon, and Human Rights Watch websites. He has won CINE Golden Eagles, the Royal Television Society (UK) journalism award, the MacArthur Golden Owl award, as well as grants from the American Film Institute, ITVS (The Independent Television Service), and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Jacoby has directed plays at Theater for the New City, the Williamstown Theater Festival, Ensemble Studio Theater, West Bank Cafe, and regional theaters. He is a graduate of Brown University and the Directing Program of the Yale School of Drama and is a native New Yorker.

RALPH ELLISON (Author, 1914–1994) was an American novelist, literary critic, scholar, and writer. Ellison is best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953. He also wrote two collections of essays, Shadow and Act (1964) and Going to the Territory (1986). In contrast to his contemporaries such as Richard Wright and James Baldwin, Ellison created characters that are dispassionate, educated, articulate, and self-aware. His awards and distinctions include the Presidential Medal of Freedom, being made a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France, election to The American Academy of Arts and Letters, the dedication of the Ralph Waldo Ellison Library in his hometown of Oklahoma City, New York City College’s Langston Hughes Medal, the National Medal of Arts, and a special achievement award from the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards. After his death, more manuscripts were discovered in his home, resulting in the publication of Flying Home and Other Stories in 1996. In 1999, five years after his death, Ellison’s second novel, Juneteenth, was published. It was a 368-page condensation of more than 2000 pages written over a period of forty years. All the manuscripts of this incomplete novel were published collectively in 2010 under the title Three Days Before the Shooting.

CHRISTOPHER McELROEN (Director) is a New York-based producer and director. He co-founded the Classical Theatre of Harlem and served as the organization’s Executive Director from 1999–2009, where he produced forty-one productions yielding 18 Audelco Awards, 6 Obie Awards, 2 Lucille Lortel Awards, a Drama Desk Award, and CTH being named “1 of 8 theatres in America to Watch” by the Drama League. Christopher has directed over thirty professional productions, including four world premieres and The Blacks: A Clown Show, which received four 2003 Obie Awards and was named one of the ten best Off-Broadway productions of 2003 by The New York Times. Alongside visual artist Paul Chan and Creative Time, Christopher co-produced and directed Waiting for Godot in New Orleans, a community development through the arts initiative that staged Waiting for Godot outdoors in the Lower Ninth Ward and Gentilly communities of post-Katrina New Orleans. The New York Times listed the project as one of the top ten national art events of 2007, and the archives from the production have been acquired into the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art. Christopher has directed or guest lectured at Stanford University, Duke University, Purdue University, New York University, Dartmouth College, The Contemporary Arts Center Boston, The Walker Arts Center, and The Museum of Modern Art, among others. His work has been recognized with the American Theatre Wing Award (Outstanding Artistic Achievement), Drama Desk Award (Artistic Achievement), Edwin Booth Award (Outstanding Contribution to NYC Theater), Lucille Lortel Award (Outstanding Body of Work), and two Obie Awards (Sustained Achievement and Excellence in Theatre).

TROY HOURIE (Scenic Design) has designed over 275 productions for various off-Broadway, regional and opera companies across the USA; including New Victory Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, Cherry Lane Theatre, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Classical Theatre of Harlem (resident designer for 22 productions), Epic Theatre Ensemble, Juilliard, Guthrie Theater, Bay Street Theatre, Westport Country Playhouse, New York Stage and Film, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Syracuse Stage, Studio Arena Theatre, Geva Theatre, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Pioneer Theatre, and Sarasota Opera. Awards include: 2007 Henry Hewes Nomination, 2005 Audelco Award and six nominations, 2003 Drama Desk Nomination, and 2005 Ford Foundation Artist Grant. Troy’s design for Waiting for Godot was selected to represent the United States in an exhibition “From the Edge” in the Prague Quadrennial 2011. He is currently an MA Scenography candidate at Central School of Speech and Drama.

JACQUELINE FIRKINS is pleased to return for her seventh season at Court Theatre. She also designed costumes for last season’s production of Porgy and Bess. Design work includes: sets and/or costumes for Victory Gardens Theater, TimeLine Theatre Company, House Theatre of Chicago, Marin Theatre Company, Hartford Stage, Dallas Theater Center, Portland Center Stage, Goodman Theatre, Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Westport Playhouse, Shakespeare & Company, Shakespeare Festival of Tulane, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Yale Repertory Theater, New Jersey Shakespeare Festival, Brave New Repertory, About Face Theatre, Northlight Theatre, Yale School of Drama, and Dorset Theatre Festival. Jacqueline is a recipient of a 2001 Princess Grace Award and heads the design program at Loyola University Chicago.

JOHN CULBERT recently designed Court Theatre’s productions of Invisible Man, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, The Illusion (for which he received a Joseph Jefferson award), The Year of Magical Thinking, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Caroline, or Change, Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s Romeo and Juliet, Timeline Theatre Company’s The Farnsworth Invention (he is a Timeline Associate Artist), Northlight Theatre’s Civil War Christmas, and Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Regina. He also designed Lookingglass Theatre’s Argonautika, Goodman Theatre’s Rock ‘n’ Roll and Mirror of the Invisible World, and Long Wharf Theatre’s Hughie. He has designed productions for the Singapore Repertory Theatre, Opera National du Rhin, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, McCarter Theatre, and the Shakespeare Theatre. He serves as the dean of The Theatre School at DePaul University.

JOSHUA HORVATH Court: The Invisible Man, Spunk, Porgy and Bess, The Illusion, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Wait Until Dark, Caroline, or Change, The First Breeze of Summer, Carousel, Titus Andronicus, Arcadia, Flyin' West, Raisin, Lettice and Lovage, Fences, Man of La Mancha, Endgame, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Fraulein Else, Guys and Dolls, and The Romance Cycle. Chicago credits: Goodman, Steppenwolf, Chicago Shakespeare, Northlight, Next, Lookingglass, About Face, The House Theatre of Chicago, Congo Square, Steep, Lifeline, Eclipse, Shattered Globe, Drury Lane Oakbrook, and TimeLine. Regional: Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Long Wharf, Centerstage, Hartford Stage, The Alliance, Milwaukee Rep, Milwaukee Shakespeare, Madison Rep, Illinois Shakespeare, Great River Shakespeare, Kansas City Rep, Center Theatre Group, and California Shakespeare. Mr. Horvath has garnered four Joseph Jefferson Awards along with eleven nominations, an LA Ovation Award, is an artistic associate of Lookingglass, a co-owner of Aria Music Designs, LLC, and teaches sound for theatre and film at Northwestern University. Current and upcoming shows: Little Shop of Horrors (Kansas City Rep), Eastland (Lookingglass), The Verona Project (The American Musical Theatre Project).

ALEX KOCH (Projection Design) creates narrative film, video installations, and theatrical projections. Upcoming projects include Goodbar, a rock opera performing in Under the Radar at the Public Theater, and Chaos Manor, a site-specific work next seen in Marciac, France in 2012. Broadway: Irena’s Vow. Off-Broadway with: the Woodshed Collective, the Director’s Company, Urban Stages, Repertorio Espanol, Little Opera Theater, Ensemble Studio Theatre, TerraNOVA Collective, Theater Mitu, Ma-Yi, the Assembly, Electric Pear, and SummerStage. Please visit www.alexkochdesign.com.

JOCELYN PRINCE recently served as the Artistic Associate at The Public Theater in New York City where she produced the Public LAB Speaker Series and numerous new play readings and workshops. She also coordinated the selection process and helped facilitate the 2010 Emerging Writers Group. Dramaturgy credits include A Raisin In The Sun (Juilliard School of Drama); Black Diamond: The Years the Locusts Have Eaten (Lookingglass Theatre Company); Raisin and The First Breeze of Summer (Court Theatre); The MLK Project (Writers’ Theatre); My Julliard, Kingdom and Eyes (eta Creative Arts Foundation); Teibele and Her Demon (European Repertory Company); Daughters of the Mock, Spunk, King of Coons, and The House that Jack Built (Congo Square Theatre Company); and Intimate Apparel and Harriet Jacobs (Steppenwolf Theatre Company). Jocelyn has directed at the Bailiwick Repertory Directors Festival, Around the Coyote Art Festival, and 20 Percent Theatre, and has assisted Mary Zimmerman on Mirror of the Invisible World (The Goodman Theatre), Eric Rosen on Wedding Play (About Face Theatre), and Hallie Gordon on The Bluest Eye (Steppenwolf). Jocelyn is an Artistic Associate at Victory Gardens Theater and is the Artistic Director of Sankofa Theatre Companny. Her social justice and political work includes positions with the YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago and Obama for America. She holds a MA in Performance Studies from Northwestern University and has written for TimeOut Chicago, TimeOut New York, The Chicago Reporter, and African American Review.

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.

JONATHAN NOOK is excited about returning to Court for a fifth season, where he has worked on productions of: Orlando, Sizwe Banzi is Dead, The Year of Magical Thinking, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and The Piano Lesson. Other stage management credits include: Want, No Sugar Tonight, Animals Out of Paper, The North Plan, Sex with Strangers, and The 3rd and 4th Annual First Look Repertory of New Work (Steppenwolf Theatre Company), Waiting For Lefty (American Blues Theater), and Radio Macbeth (Court/SITI). He has also worked with American Players Theatre and Milwaukee Chamber Theatre.