Kate Tarker (Playwright)
Kate Tarker’s plays include THUNDERBODIES (Soho Rep., NYTimes Unforgettable Theater Moments of 2018), Dionysus Was Such a Nice Man (The Wilma), and Laura and the Sea (2016 Kilroys list; finalist: 2016 L. Arnold Weissberger Award, Princess Grace Award, and Relentless Award). Her works have been developed at The Lark, The Vineyard, Rattlestick, The Wilma, Ars Nova, NYTW, Magic Theatre, Cutting Ball, the Playwrights’ Center, Theatre503, and The O’Neill, among others. She is the recipient of a Jerome Fellowship, The Vineyard’s Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, the National Science Playwriting Award, Theater Masters’ Visionary Playwright Award, a PWCenter/NET Ensemble Collaboration Grant, and she has been featured twice on the Kilroys List. Residencies: Tofte Lake Center, SPACE at Ryder Farm, and two-time MacDowell Colony Fellow. Alum of Ars Nova Play Group, New Georges Jam, and Playwrights’ Center Core Writer. Tarker has also collaborated with Pig Iron and SITI Company Conservatory, and currently holds commissions from Theater Masters, Soho Rep., and Playwrights Horizons. MFA Yale. Teaching: Wesleyan, University of the Arts, PlayPenn, and Playwrights’ Center. M.F.A. Yale. Kate lives in Brooklyn.
Devon de Mayo (Director and Movement Director)
Devon de Mayo directed the world premiere of The Scientific Method by Jenny Connell Davis for Rivendell Theatre. Other Directing credits include: If I Forget (Victory Gardens Theatre); First Love is the Revolution (Steep Theatre); Women Laughing Alone With Salad (Theatre Wit); The Burn (Steppenwolf Theatre), Harvey (Court Theatre), Sycamore (Raven Theatre), You on the Moors Now (The Hypocrites), Animals Out of Paper (Shattered Globe Theatre), You Can’t Take it With You, and Lost in Yonkers (Northlight Theatre), Jet Black Chevrolet (side project); Compulsion and Everything is Illuminated (Next); Roadkill Confidential, The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler, and Clouds (Dog & Pony). Directing and devising credits: Don’t Look Back/Must Look Back (Pivot Arts); Guerra: A Clown Play (La Piara, Mexico); The Whole World is Watching, As Told by the Vivian Girls and The Twins Would Like to Say (Dog & Pony). She received her MFA from Middlesex University in London and did further studies at the Russian Academy of Dramatic Arts in Moscow and the Indonesian Institute for the Arts in Bali, Indonesia.
Production Team
Lucia Lombardi (Production Stage Manager) has over forty years of experience in both the commercial and not for profit theatre communities. Her national touring credits include The Lion King, Billy Elliot, Love Loss and What I Wore and Scrooge The Musical. Here in Chicago she has worked at the Broadway Playhouse, the Drury Lane Theatre, the Royal George Theatre, the Goodman Theatre, the Briar Street Theatre, Northlight, Victory Gardens, Porchlight, the Ivanhoe Theatre, the Body Politic Theatre, the Organic Theatre Company, the Remains Theatre Company and Friends of the Zoo. Lucia is delighted to be making her Rivendell debut.
Courtney O’Neill (Scenic Design) is a Chicago-based Scenic Designer who works nationally as well as locally. She is the recipient of the 2017 Michael Maggio Emerging Designer Award, the 2013 USITT Scene Design Award, and her designs were featured in the 2011 Prague Quadrennial United States Student Exhibition. Courtney won a Jeff Award for Mud (The Hypocrites) and has received multiple nominations. Her work has been featured in Live Design, American Theatre, and Washingtonian magazines. She holds an MFA from Northwestern University, a BFA from The Theatre School at DePaul University, and currently teaches part-time at both institutions.
Anthony Churchill (Projections Design) collaborates on media for theatre, events, and installations. Recent projections and media with Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Strawdog Theatre, Marriott Theatre, Greenhouse Theatre, Rivendell Theatre Ensemble, Raven Theatre, The Cher Show, Q Brothers, Porchlight Music Theatre, Silk Road Rising, Theatre Wit, Stage Left, Museum of Broadcast Communications, Big Noise Theatre, and 16th Street Theatre – Berwyn. Tony has been nominated for five Jeff Awards for Projections, and awarded one. When not working on plays, he enjoys sculpting tiny astronauts in peril, and exploring with his beautiful wife Sara, and rescue pit bull Cheetoh. www.artlabchicago.com
Heather Sparling (Lighting Design) is grateful to be working with Rivendell again after Scientific Method. Recent design credits include The Fly Honey Show (The Inconvenience), Empower Youth! (Lyric Unlimited); The Burn (Steppenwolf); Twelfth Night and The Heart of Robin Hood (Door Shakespeare), Yardbird (Hackney Empire, London), La Havana Madrid (Teatro Vista), Longer! Louder! Wagner! (Lyric Opera of Chicago), The Way She Spoke (Greenhouse Theater). Heather is a proud alum of Boston University. For more information on her work, visit www.sparlingdesigns.com.
Hannah Foersch (Original Music and Sound Design)
kClare McKellaston (Costume Design) is a Chicago-based Costume Designer, construction artist, and educator. Tours: Pemberley Production’s The Woman in Black (Associate Designer). Regional: Steppenwolf’s How to Be a Rock Critic (Wardrobe), The Second City’s 100th Mainstage Revue: Who Do We Think We Are? and We’re All in This Room Together (Designer). Fashion: International Casual Furnishings Association Gala. As an educator, she serves as Adjunct Faculty and Costume Shop Manager at Dominican University, where she has recently designed Waiting for Godot, Mother Courage and her Children, and The Addams Family Musical. www.kClare.com
Jonathan Berg-Einhorn (Properties Designer) is a Chicago-based designer and artisan. Jonathan has previously worked with Goodman Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Paramount Theatre, and Lookingglass Theatre, among others. Scenic Design: Alice in Wonderland, The ARC Trials (Mudlark Theatre); Curious George: The Golden Meatball (Hope Summer Repertory Theater); Brooke Astor’s Last Affair (Chicago Musical Theatre Festival); The Seven Deadly Sins, Endgame (Boston University). Prop Design: Scientific Method, I Wanna Fucking Tear You Apart (Rivendell Theatre Ensemble); HeLa, The Ridiculous Darkness (Sideshow Theatre); Haymarket (Underscore Theatre); Hannah and Martin (Shattered Globe Theatre); Johnny 10 Beers’ Daughter (Something Marvelous); Bomber’s Moon (William Street Rep); I Know My Own Heart (Pride Films and Plays). Jonathan holds a BFA in scenic and costume design from Boston University. jonathanbergeinhorn.com
Catherine Allen (Production Manager) is thrilled to continue her work with Rivendell where she previously production managed I Wanna Fucking Tear You Apart, Scientific Method, The Cake, and Cal in Camo. Other production management credits include work with Steep Theatre, where she is an Artistic Associate, Sideshow Theatre, About Face Theatre, Griffin Theatre, Route 66, Congo Square, Oak Park Festival Theatre, Pegasus Theatre Chicago, Haven Theatre, and many circuses with Actors Gymnasium where she is the staff Production Manager. She is a graduate of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where she received a BFA in Acting.
Gaby Sant’Anna (Assistant Director and Dramaturge) is a Chicago-based director and dramaturg, originally from San Jose, California. She is thrilled to be working on another Kate Tarker play, following her direction of An Almanac for Farmers and Lovers in Mexico (Northwestern University) and an SDCF Observership on Dionysus Was Such a Nice Man (The Wilma). Gaby has interned in the literary departments at San Francisco Playhouse and the Goodman Theatre and holds a BA in Theatre and English Literature from Northwestern University.
Kristen Osborn (Outreach Coordinator) is a Chicago-based director and theatre maker who is passionate about sparking compassion through storytelling. Currently, Kristen serves as Artistic Associate and Outreach Coordinator at Rivendell Theatre Ensemble, and the Literary Manager and Casting Associate at Northlight Theatre. She is the founder and producing artistic director of JoyistLA. Directing credits include Eugene O’Neill’s Fog, JoyistLA’s First Embrace, and an original adaptation of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, Lift. Assistant directing credits include Henry IV, (dir. Daniel Sullivan, Shakespeare Center LA,) The Scene (dir. Kimberly Senior, Writers Theatre,) Sex With Strangers (dir. Kimberly Senior, Geffen Playhouse,) Relativity (dir. BJ Jones, Northlight Theatre,) The Cake (dir. Lauren Shouse, Rivendell Theatre Ensemble,) Choir Boy (dir. Trip Cullman, Geffen Playhouse), Fighting Shadows (dir. Robert Egan, Inner-City Arts.) Kristen’s previous work with the Ojai Playwrights Conference, serving as Artistic Associate and Associate Director, has ignited in her an insatiable appetite for new play development processes. She is a graduate of UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television. www.kristenosborn.com
Jackie Banks-Mahlum (Rivendell Managing Director / Producer) is an arts manager, producer, and educator based in Chicago. Jackie is also the Membership and Development Associate at Arts Alliance Illinois, and the Co-Producer for Theatricum Botanicum. Previously Jackie was in the Los Angeles area where she worked with Center Theatre Group’s P.L.A.Y., the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Theatricum Botanicum. She has also freelanced regionally where she has had the opportunity to work in a variety of performing arts including opera, ballet, modern dance, improv, and theatre. She is a member of Actors’ Equity Association, has a Bachelor of Science in Theatre Production and Business Management from Bradley University, and a Masters of Fine Arts in Producing from the California Institute of the Arts.
An unhappy comedy
Tara Mallen (Laura)
