Meghan Brown (Playwright)
Meghan Brown is an award-winning playwright, librettist, and screenwriter based in Los Angeles. Her work has been developed at Victory Gardens Theater, Portland Center Stage, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Getty Villa. Full-length plays include The Pliant Girls (winner of the 2014 Ovation Award for Playwriting for an Original Play), The Kill-or-Dies (Max K. Lerner fellowship winner), What Happened While Hero Was Dead, and Shine Darkly, Illyria. Meghan wrote the lyrics for the song cycle Untuned Ears Hear Nothing but Discord which premiered at Lincoln Center as part of In Need of Music: The Songs of Ben Toth. Current projects include raging rock musical These Girls Have Demons with Pittsburgh CLO (music by Sarah Taylor Ellis) and wild west hypertheater play (with music!) (and PUPPETS) Cowboy Elektra with Rogue Artists Ensemble (music by Z. Lupetin). She’s thrilled to be making her Chicago debut with The Tasters at Rivendell. www.MeghanBrown.net.
Devon de Mayo (Director)
Devon de Mayo directed the world premiere of The Scientific Method by Jenny Connell Davis for Rivendell Theatre and returned as director and movement director for Laura and the Sea. 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 has recently joined the ensemble and is delighted to now call Rivendell her home.
Yeaji Kim (Projections and Scenic Design)
Yeaji Kim is a scenic and projections designer based in Chicago, originally from South Korea. She is excited to work with Rivendell for the first time. Her recent credits in Chicago are Howards End (set & projections), Bloomsday (projections), Skin Of Our Teeth (set & projections) with Remy Bumppo Theatre, The Effect (set & projections) with Strawdog, Art on the Merchandise Mart – 7 Soliloquie (projection illustrations). Yeaji also worked on the operas outside Chicago area El Retablo de Maese Pedro (Bard College, NY) as a set designer and assisted Opera Gloria – A Pig Tale (Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY). Her love of combining drawing and video projections has brought her frequent collaborations with a variety of artists. She received her MFA from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. More information at yeajikim.wix.com/yeajikim
Heather Sparling (Lighting Design) is grateful to be working with Rivendell again after Scientific Method and Laura and the Sea. 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)
Hannah Foerschler (Sound Designer) is excited to return to Rivendell for the top of the 2020 season! Hannah holds a BA in Music from Kenyon College, and she apprenticed with The Purple Rose Theatre Company for their 2015-2016 season. This past August, Hannah graduated from the MA in Sound Arts & Industries program at Northwestern University. Recent sound credits include: Laura and the Sea (Rivendell Theatre Ensemble); Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins (Strawdog Theatre Company); Women of 4G (Babes With Blades); Seagulls (Steppenwolf LookOut & The Sound); Unwell: a Midwestern Gothic Mystery (Hartlife NFP); 3:35PM and Candide! (Mudlark Theatre); The Death of Gaia Divine (Momentary Theatre); Spirits to Enforce (The Passage Theatre).
Becca Duff (Costume Design)
Becca Duff has been making theatre in and around Chicago since graduating from Dominican University in 2014. Her costume designs have been featured at ETA Creative Arts Foundation, AZUSA Productions, and Dominican University. She devised and directed “Tele-“ with Erasing the Distance as part of DocFest 2019 and has recently performed with Pride Films and Plays, Williams Street Repertory, and Citadel Theatre as well as many others. Love to Alli.
Sara Slight (Dramaturg)
Sarah Slight is the Artistic Programs Manager at Northlight Theatre and a freelance dramaturg. Most recent dramaturgy credits include the world premieres of
The Wickhams: Christmas at Pemberley by Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon, dir. Jessica Thebus (Northlight Theatre), First Love is the Revolution by Rita Kalnejais, dir. Devon de Mayo (Steep Theatre), The Burn by Philip Dawkins, dir. Devon de Mayo (Steppenwolf Theatre, SYA), and Welcome to Jesus by Janine Nabers, dir. Will Davis (American Theater Company). Alongside Jess McLeod, she is the co-adapator of a condensed version of The Project(s) by PJ Paparelli and Joshua Jaeger, which toured
through Chicago Public Schools and three conferences in 2017. For five years, Sarah served as a producer, literary manager and dramaturg at American Theater Company. She has also worked as a literary associate at Williamstown Theatre Festival and literary manager at Red Eye Theatre in Minneapolis. MFA Columbia University, BS University of Evansville.
Deanna Meyers (Assistant Director)
Deanna Myers {she/her} is thrilled to be working with Rivendell this season. Myers is a Chicago and New York based theatre artist, educator, story-teller, and writer. She has had the privilege of working with Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Playmakers Laboratory (formerly Barrel of Monkeys), Catharsis Productions, Writers Theatre, The Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, 2nd Story Chicago, and Actors Gymnasium. Many thanks to Devon and this amazing team!
Sara Beaman (Production Manager)
Sara is excited to be working with Rivendell for the first time. She works as a freelance stage and production manager and as Production Stage Manager for Theater Unspeakable. Sara has stage managed regional and national tours of TU’s original productions Moon Shot, The American Revolution, and Superman 2050. Based in Chicago, Sara is also the Production Manager for Theater on the Lake: The Chicago Summer Theater Festival. She is originally from North Dakota and has a B. A. in Theatre Direction and Management from the Johnny Carson School of Theatre & Film at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln.
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
Tara Mallen (Rivendell Artistic Director / Producer) is an actor, director, and the Producing Artistic Director at Rivendell Theatre Ensemble. She is the 2017 3Arts William Franklin Grisham Awardee and the 2014 Volunteers of America Silver Star Awardee. Most recently Mallen was seen onstage in The Cake for which she won the 2018 Jeff Award for Performer in a Principal Role. In 2016 she performed in the world premiere production of Lynn Nottage’s Sweat at Arena Stage. Prior to that she was in Rivendell’s Jeff nominated world premiere productions of Look, we are breathing and Rasheeda Speaking. Tara appeared in Steppenwolf’s How Long Will I Cry: Stories of Youth Violence written by Chicago Journalist Miles Harvey. She was part of the ensemble in Rivendell’s world premiere, Jeff nominated production of The Walls and played Jolene Palmer (inspired by the true-life story of Aileen Wuornos) in Rivendell’s award winning production of Self Defense, or the Death of Some Salesmen—both productions part of Steppenwolf’s Visiting Theater Initiative. For Rivendell, Tara has produced and acted in over twenty-five productions. She received a Joseph Jefferson Award for Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Gwenyth in WRENS as part of that production’s Jeff-winning ensemble. She was nominated the following year for Actress in a Principal Role for her work in My Simple City. Her screen credits include Steven Soderbergh’s film Contagion opposite Kate Winslet, the Starz series Boss starring Kelsey Grammer, the NBC pilot of Chicago Fire, the CBS/Sony Pictures pilot Doubt, the NBC series Chicago P.D. and the Netflix series Sense8 directed by Lana and Andy Wachowski. With Rivendell, Tara conceived and directed the world premiere of WOMEN AT WAR, directed the Jeff nominated Midwest premieres of The Electric Baby, 26 Miles (co-production with Teatro Vista); Fighting Words; Psalms of a Questionable Nature; the co-production of Elliot, a Soldier’s Fugue with Stageworks/Hudson in Hudson, NY; and the brief and brilliant Shady Meadows by Lisa Dillman as part of the 2007 Chicago Humanities Festival.
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.
Collin Quinn Rice (Lt. Sawyer)