Virginia Woolf’s Orlando

JESSICA THEBUS is an Associate Artist with Steppenwolf Theatre, where she has directed Sex With Strangers, Intimate Apparel, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, No Place Like Home, When the Messenger is Hot (also at 59 E 59th in NYC), Sonia Flew, and Sex with Strangers (First Look Repertory of New Work). Additional credits:  Harriet Jacobs (Kansas City Repertory Theatre), A Civil War Christmas (Huntington Theatre Company), Our Town and They All Fall Down (Lookingglass Theatre Company); The Clean House (Goodman Theatre); Jekyll and Hyde, Inherit the Wind, Red Herring (Northlight Theatre); Eurydice (Victory Gardens Theater); The Turn of the Screw (Writers’ Theater); and the world premiere of Welcome Home Jenny Sutter (The Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts). Upcoming productions: world premiere of Stage Kiss by Sarah Ruhl (Goodman Theatre). Favorite projects: Pulp (Jefferson Award nomination—Best Director, After Dark Award—Best Production), Winesburg, Ohio (Jeff nomination—Best Director, After Dark Award—Best Director), and Seven Moves (About Face Theatre); Chicago (outdoor spectacle at the Field Museum); Salao: The Worst Kind of Unlucky (Redmoon Theater, where she is a longtime collaborator); Late, Melancholy Play, Abingdon Square (Piven Theatre Workshop where she is a longtime member of the teaching staff). Steppenwolf for Young Adults projects:  Haymarket Eight, Whispering City, David Mamet’s The Water Engine (also at Theater on the Lake), and A Tale of Two Cities. Ms. Thebus has also directed at Remy Bumppo Theatre Company, Center Theater, Lifeline Theater, Collaboraction Theater, and Caravan Productions, as well as touring internationally with the Bread and Puppet Theater. Education: Doctorate in Performance Studies from Northwestern University.  She has designed courses, taught at the University of Chicago, DePaul University, Columbia College, and Roosevelt University, and is currently a faculty member in the Directing Program at Northwestern and an artistic associate at The Corn Exchange in Dublin, Ireland.

COLLETTE POLLARD returns to Court Theatre where she last worked on The Illusion. Recent design credits include Odradek at The House Theatre, Harriet Jacobs at Kansas City Repertory Theatre, To Kill A Mockingbird at Steppenwolf Theatre, and A Streetcar Named Desire at Writers’ Theatre. Collette earned her MFA from Northwestern University. She is adjunct faculty and teaches at Columbia College. Collette is honored to be this years’ recipient of the Michael Maggio Emerging Designer Award.

LINDA ROETHKE Court Theatre productions: Arcadia, The Romance Cycle, The Dead, The Little Foxes, Hay Fever, An Ideal Husband (Jeff Award), Old Times, On the Verge. Other theatres: Julius Caesar, All’s Well That Ends Well (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Managing Maxine, The Underpants (The Alliance Theatre), Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Intimate Apparel, I Never Sang for My Father (Steppenwolf Theatre), Stage Kiss, The Clean House (Goodman Theatre), Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Northlight Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Utah Shakespeare Festival, Connecticut Repertory Theatre, Arden Theatre Company, Maltz Jupiter Theatre, Drury Lane, and American Players Theatre.  Other credits: Professor of Theatre, Northwestern University. 

JAYMI LEE SMITH currently resides in LA but was a Chicago native for over a  decade, where she worked at theaters such as Steppenwolf Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Victory Gardens Theater, Lookingglass Theatre Company, and Northlight Theatre.  Other theaters throughout the country include South Coast Repertory, Alliance Theatre, Hartford Stage, Pasadena Playhouse, Utah Shakespeare Festival, San Jose Repertory Theatre, and Milwaukee Repertory Theater.  Her work has also been seen in Ireland, Scotland, Spain, Italy, and China.  She is currently a professor of lighting design at UC Irvine.

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.

DREW DIR is in his third season as the resident dramaturg of Court Theatre and a lecturer of Theater and Performance Studies at the University of Chicago. In the past, Drew has worked as a playwright, dramaturg, director, and puppeteer in Chicago and London. His writing has been called “daring” by the Chicago Tribune and “ballsy” by Time Out Chicago. His short play The Lurker Radio Hour was recently remounted at Chicago’s Sketchbook Reverb. He also creates and performs shadow puppetry for his company, Manual Cinema. Drew holds a master’s degree in Text and Performance Studies from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.

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.