A Christmas Carol

McCarter: The Mousetrap (Molly). Recent credits: White Guy on the Bus (Molly) at Delaware Theatre Co and 59E59; White (Jane) at Theatre Horizon; City of Conversation (Anna) at Delaware Theatre Co; And Then There Were None (Vera), The Prescott Method (Peg) at Walnut Street; Of Mice and Men (Curley’s Wife), Noises Off (Vicki/Brooke) People’s Light and Theatre Company; Sylvia (Sylvia) at Act II Playhouse and Pride and Prejudice (Jane) at the PA Shakespeare Festival, People’s Light, and Bristol Riverside Theatre. DeSales University, BA; Villanova University, MA. Up next: Marie Antoinette in The Revolutionists at Theatre Horizon.

Zeke Edmonds is a recent graduate from Syracuse University’s BFA Musical Theatre program. He hails from Charlotte, NC. Recent credits: Bennett in Punk Rock at Syracuse University (dir. Bob Moss), Angelo in Measure for Measure at Syracuse University, John Northbrook/Valentine/Ensemble in Mary Poppins at Syracuse Stage, and Dream Curly in Oklahoma! at the Glimmerglass Festival. This is Zeke Edmonds’ first time at McCarter Theatre and he is very honored and excited to be a part of this special production. www.ezekieledmonds.com

Recently starred as Doctor Dillamond in the Broadway production of Wicked, and in Hamlet at The Old Globe. Broadway: A Few Good Men, Hamlet, Lestat, and Northeast Local. Off-Broadway: A Soldier’s Play, Fences, All My Sons, Dance of the Holy Ghosts, The Whipping Man and Resurrection. TV/Film: One Fine Day, She Hate Me, 25th Hour, The Affair, The Mysteries of Laura, Ugly Betty, Taxi Brooklyn, The Following, Law & Order, and Tyler Perry’s House of Payne. Mr. Genet is the author of the critically acclaimed They Must Not Know Who I Think I Am: Lessons in Defiant Resilience, and winner of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Writing in a Motion Picture for the FOCUS Features release Talk To Me. 

New York theater credits: Julius Caesar (The Delacorte); On The Grounds of Belonging, Party People, The Urban Retreat (The Public); Normativity (NYMF); peerless (Cherry Lane); The Architecture of Becoming (Women's Project). Regional: Where Storms Are Born (Williamstown Theatre Festival); The Unfortunates (American Conservatory Theater); peerless (Yale Rep); Party People, The White Snake (Oregon Shakespeare Festival /Berkeley Rep); The Whipping Man (Portland Center Stage); The Imaginary Invalid, The Pirates of Penzance, Hamlet, Henry IV pt. 1 (Oregon Shakespeare Festival); Romeo & Juliet (Virginia Stage Company). Film: Service To Man. TV: Instinct, Unforgettable. Education: BFA in Acting from Rutgers University.

Broadway: It Shoulda Been You, Once, Sunday in the Park with George, Chicago, Assassins, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Ragtime. Off-Broadway: Sundown Yellow Moon (Ars Nova/Women’s Project), Taming of the Shrew (Delacorte), Wings (Second Stage), Music In The Air (Encores!) Road Show (The Public). National tours: Chicago (Carbonell Award), Les Misérables, Aspects of Love. Regional: A Christmas Carol (McCarter). A Flea in her Ear (KC Rep), Falsettos (Huntington and George Street), as well as LaJolla Playhouse, Barrington Stage, Citadel Theater. Film/TV: You Must Be Joking, Sugar, Baby Mama, King of California, The Good Wife, Dirt, Law & Order, Veronica Mars, What I Like About You, Bull. Web series: Submissions Only. BFA from Boston Conservatory. Recipient of the 2013 Distinguished Alumni Award. www.AnneLNathan.com

An Octoroon (Woolly Mammoth); Angels in America parts 1 & 2 (Round House, Olney Theatre Center - Helen Hayes nomination); Colossal, The Magic Play, Piano Lesson, Our Town, Hay Fever (Olney Theatre Center); Passion Play (Forum Theatre - Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor); Father Comes Home From the Wars parts 1,2, & 3 (Round House); Twelfth Night (CenterStage); A Christmas Carol (The Goodman); Under the Skin (The Public Theatre of Maine); Yellowman (Rep Stage); You Can’t Take It With You (Everyman Theatre); A Christmas Carol, Our Town (Ford’s Theatre); 2-2-Tango (Studio Theatre). Jon is a company member at Woolly Mammoth, an Artistic Associate at Olney Theatre Center, and a member of The Ensemble at Forum Theatre. Education: University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

Jamila Sabares-Klemm is thrilled to be back at McCarter Theatre! She was last seen as Nefertari in the world premiere of Stephen Schwartz's new musical The Prince of Egypt at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley. Tour/regional credits: Hair (first national), Rent (Bristol Riverside), Miss Saigon (Flat Rock Playhouse), The Artist and the Scientist (NY CAP21), King and I (Chicago Lyric Opera), Spamalot (Farmers Alley), In The Heights (TUTS), A Christmas Carol (McCarter), East O' West O' (Ars Nova), and Macbeth (New York Classical Theatre). Musical Theatre BFA from Penn State University. www.jamilasabaresklemm.com

Jon Norman Schneider was last seen in The Legend of Georgia McBride at Dorset Theatre Festival. New York credits: Awake and Sing! (NAATCO/The Public), The Oldest Boy (LCT), City Of (Playwrights Realm), Queens Boulevard (the musical) (Signature), Durango (The Public), A Map of Virtue (13P), among others. International: Paper Dolls at London's Tricycle Theatre. Regional: Actors Theatre of Louisville, Alliance, Barrington Stage, Goodman, Huntington, Kennedy Center, Long Wharf, Magic, McCarter, Old Globe. Film: Bitter Melon (upcoming), The Girl in the Book, The Normals, The Rebound, and HBO's Angel Rodriguez. TV: Succession, Jessica Jones, Veep, The Electric Company, 30 Rock, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

Recently seen as Tolstoy in Discord: The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens & Leo Tolstoy (Primary Stages). McCarter: Antony & Cleopatra, The Mousetrap. Broadway/National Tours: The Times They Are A-Changin’, The Lion King, Titanic, Miss Saigon, Search & Destroy. Others: Pacific Overtures (Classic Stage); Awake and Sing! (NAATCO/Public Theatre); Deathtrap (Pioneer); Craving for Travel (Peter Jay Sharp); Henry V (Two River); Othello (Public Theatre); Cymbeline (NYSF); Romeo and Juliet (Ordway); Sweeney Todd, Durango (Cincinnati Playhouse); A Little Night Music (Rep. St. Louis); The Winter’s Tale (Old Globe); A Hard Heart (Epic Theatre); Twelfth Night (CenterStage). TV: Madam Secretary, Jessica Jones, Gotham, The Good Wife, Person of Interest, Single Ladies, Over/Under. Instagram: @thsesma; Twitter @ThomSesmaNYC

Sue Jin Song is happy to return as Mrs. Dilber. Off-Broadway: The World of Extreme Happiness (NYC premiere, Manhattan Theatre Club); Iphigenia at Aulis, Exit the King (Pearl Theater). Regional: The Arsonists, Marie Antoinette (Woolly Mammoth); Smart People, Hot 'n Throbbing (world premiere, Arena Stage); Yellow Face, iHo (Theater J); 36 Views (Constellation Theatre); Waiting for Tadashi (world premiere, George Street Playhouse); Shedding the Tiger (world premiere, Sacramento Theatre Company); Burn This (Syracuse Stage). Film: Steel Town, Pipe Dream, Someone Like You. TV: 24, ER, Law & Order. Education: MFA in Acting from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Award: “The Best of Fringe” for her one woman show, Children of Medea, at the DC Fringe Festival.

Greg Wood is thrilled to be back in McCarter’s wonderful production of A Christmas Carol. Recent credits: Van Helsing in Dracula with Actors Theatre Louisville, Ulysses in Troilus & Cressida for the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, the Barrymore-nominated role of Sorn in Stupid F#%king Bird at the Arden Theatre (directed by Aaron Posner) in Philadelphia, Higgins in Pygmalion with The Peterborough Players in New Hampshire, Elyot in Private Lives for Walnut Street Theatre. Film/TV: The Sixth Sense, Signs, The Happening, Killing Emmett Young, A Gentlemen's Game, How to Get Away With Murder, Law & Order, Ed, Hack, and Homicide. Coming up: The Humans at Walnut Street Theatre.

5th Row: Riley Altobelli, Mikal Odom, William Hart Strecker, Scott Karlin, Shan Williams II, David Danner
4th Row: Al LaGratta, Henry Miles, Amy Blair, Melda Grant, Valencio Lazarczyk
3rd Row: Jenny Weiner, Mimi B. Francis, Tess Ammerman, Jane Ericksen, Lew Gandwerk
2nd Row: Rosie Karlin, Mariah Crawford, Aimée Miller, Tara Parkman, Jose Dominguez
1st Row: Sarah Rajkumar, Susan Schwirck, Gloria Schnure, Bryanna Martinez-Jimenez, Thom V. Kummerle

Top row: Alya Delvalle, Michael Karnaukh, Adeline Edwards, Jamai Brown, Romy Johnson, Ethan Chang.
Bottom row: Julianna Pallacan, Xander Kurian, Camille Grove, Roman Engel, Amelia Cutter, Stefan Naumoski

Broadway/West End: The Scottsboro Boys (London’s Critics’ Circle Award, Evening Standard Award, 12 Tony nominations, including Best Book, Hull-Warriner Award, Outer Critics Circle, and Lucille Lortel Awards for Best Musical). Script adaptation for Chicago, the longest running American musical in history; Steel Pier (Tony nom., Best Book); Thou Shalt Not; Prince of Broadway directed by Hal Prince and Susan Stroman. Off-Broadway: And the World Goes ‘Round (Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards); Flora, the Red Menace (Drama Desk nom.). Regional projects: new libretto for Rags (Goodspeed) and the upcoming The Beast in the Jungle (Vineyard Theatre). Concert: James Taylor’s Perspective Series at Carnegie Hall. TV: Sondheim: A Celebration at Carnegie Hall (Emmy nom.), Razzle Dazzle and Great Performances’ My Favorite Broadway. Thompson is a McCarter/Sallie B. Goodman fellow and graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

Adam Immerwahr is the former Associate Artistic Director at McCarter (credits include The Understudy and The Mousetrap) and Resident Director at Passage Theater. He is currently Artistic Director of Theater J, the nation's premier Jewish theater (located in D.C.). Adam’s NYC directing credits: The Public, Theater Row (both for Summer Play Festival), Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Wild Project, and NYU's Studio Tisch. Internationally, he directed the African premiere of The Convert (nominated for Zimbabwe’s National Arts Medal). Adam has directed and developed work for Walnut Street Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Theater J, Passage, Luna Stage, Hangar Theatre, Bristol Riverside, Premiere Stages, PlayPenn, and others. Recipient of 2010 NJ Theatre Alliance "Applause Award" and 2014 Emerging Nonprofit Leader Award presented by Fairleigh Dickinson University. Drama League Directing Fellow (2008). www.AdamImmerwahr.com

Michael Friedman’s credits include Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (Broadway and the Public Theater), Unknown Soldier, The Fortress of Solitude, and Love’s Labour’s Lost. With The Civilians: Canard Canard Goose, Gone Missing, Nobody's Lunch, This Beautiful City, In the Footprint, The Great Immensity, Paris Commune, Mr. Burns, Pretty Filthy, and most recently The Abominables at Children’s Theater Company in Minneapolis. He was the Artist-in-Residence and Director of the Public Forum at the Public Theater and Artistic Director of City Center Encores! Off-Center. He received the 2007 OBIE Award for sustained excellence.

Broadway: Waitress, Les Liaisons Dangereuses with Janet McTeer and Liev Schreiber, Waiting for Godot with Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,and American Idiot (Associate); Off-Broadway: The Public’s Twelfth Night and Odyssey; Lin-Manuel Miranda’s 21 Chump Street at BAM; Assassins, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, and Fanny (Encores!); A Taste of Things to Come (York/BCP). Other: As You Like with music by Tom Kitt (TOHO Japan); Between the Lines (KC Rep); Monsoon Wedding (Berkeley Rep); Beaches, the Musical (Drury Lane); Kiss Me, Kate (Barrington); Jasper in Deadland (5th Avenue/Prospect Theatre Co.); Rigoletto (Met Opera). Performer: 14 Broadway shows, Tharp, Momix. Bucks County Playhouse Artistic Associate. BFA, Juilliard. Upcoming: La Traviata (Met Opera).

McCarter: All the Days, Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville, Antony & Cleopatra, The White Snake, A Delicate Balance, The Convert, The How & The Why, Having Our Say, Lookingglass Alice, Argonautica, The Secret in the Wings, Odyssey. NYC: RUSALKA (Metropolitan Opera: opens Feb 2017), Clybourne Park (Broadway/Tony nom.), La Sonnambula and Lucia Di Lammermoor (Metropolitan Opera), Glorious Ones (Lincoln Center), Durango (Public), Metamorphoses (Broadway/Tony nom., Second Stage), Playwright’s Horizon, New Victory, NY Shakespeare Festival, BAM. Regional: Goodman, Steppenwolf, Chicago Shakespeare, Huntington, Shakespeare Theatre D.C., ACT, Berkeley Repertory, Mark Taper, La Jolla Playhouse, OSF, Seattle Rep, The Alley, Arena Stage, Guthrie, The Old Globe, among others. International: La Scala (Milan), Donmar Warehouse and Barbican (London), Melbourne Theatre, Bunka Kai Kan and Orchard Hall (Tokyo), Calgary Theatre, Wuzhen Theater Festival. Directing (and set design): Jacques Brel… and Blood Wedding. Other: Ensemble Member at Lookingglass Theatre.

Broadway: Anastasia (Tony nom.), A Gentlemen’s Guide to Love and Murder (Tony Award), Velocity of Autumn. Off-Broadway: NY Public Theater, Atlantic Theater, Theater for a New Audience, Manhattan Theater Club. Regional: Berkeley Rep, Long Wharf, Hartford Stage, Arena Stage, Old Globe, Guthrie, Goodspeed, Goodman, among others. Opera: Samson et Dalila (next season) Metropolitan Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Virginia Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis. International: The Stratford Shakespeare Festival, The Royal Shakespeare Company, Canadian Stage Company. Education: An alumnus of McGill University and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Yale School of Drama. Linda is the proud recipient of the Irene Sharaff Young Master Award and has been honored with the Ruth Morely Design Award from the League of Professional Theatre Women. www.lindacho.com

New York: Public Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, Signature Theatre, Second Stage, Dance Theater Workshop. Regional: Mark Taper Forum, Geffen Playhouse, Pasadena Playhouse, South Coast Rep, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, La Jolla Playhouse, The Old Globe, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Goodman, American Repertory Theater, Arena Stage, Dallas Theater Center, The Shakespeare Theatre (Washington D.C.). Awards: Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Angstrom Award for Career Achievement in Lighting Design, Ovation Award, and multiple Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards, “Drammy” for best lighting. Teaching: lighting design faculty at California Institute of the Arts.

Darron L West is a Tony and Obie Award-winning sound designer whose work for dance and theater has been heard in over 600 productions all over the United States and internationally in 14 countries. At McCarter: Crowns; Hamlet; The Bells; Miss Witherspoon; Stick Fly; Me, Myself & I; Fetch Clay, Make Man; The Convert; Baby Doll; Hoodwinked; Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, and A Christmas Carol. His accolades include the Drama Desk, Lortel, Audelco, and Princess Grace Foundation Statue Awards among many others.

Broadway: Frozen the Musical, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, American Psycho, Aladdin the Musical, You Can’t Take It With You. London’s West End: Harry Potter and The Cursed Child, Let the Right One In. Off-Broadway and other: Joan of Arc (The Public); Freaky Friday, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney Theatrical Group), Guards at the Taj (The Atlantic), Parsifal (Metropolitan Opera). Film/TV: The Wiz Live, Peter Pan Live. Chernick serves as head designer for J&M Special Effects in Brooklyn. In 2014 his work was featured at the Museum of Art & Design in New York. www.jmfx.net

Carissa Thorlakson is a New Jersey-based wig and makeup designer. She is currently in her fifth season with McCarter, where her design work includes A Christmas Carol (2013-2016), Simpatico, The Mousetrap, and All the Days. She has designed for Olney Theatre Center, the University of Delaware Resident Ensemble Players, American Repertory Ballet, and the NewArts group in Newtown, CT. She has served as a wig and makeup artist at Santa Fe Opera, Sarasota Opera, The Kennedy Center, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Signature Theatre, and Round House Theatre. Carissa also designs and builds custom wigs and facial hair for Cosplay and film and teaches classes in wigs and makeup.

Charles Sundquist is a native of Duluth, Minnesota and the choral director at Mountain Lakes High School in Mountain Lakes, NJ. He received his Masters and Doctorate in Organ Performance and Literature from the Eastman School of Music. He won the Prix d’Excellence from the Conservatoire de Région de Ruiel-Malmaison in France. While in Paris, he was Associate Choirmaster at the American Episcopal Cathedral, accompanist for a Paris ballet school, and coach/accompanist for members of the Paris Opera Chorus. His choirs have sung for ACDA Conventions, the White House, and toured to England, France, Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Sweden, Russia, Spain, and Hungary. He was Associate Musical Director and pianist for McCarter’s production of My Fair Lady and this year marks his 25th season as Music Director for McCarter’s A Christmas Carol.

Gillian Lane-Plescia returns to McCarter where she has previously coached several productions of A Christmas Carol, as well as The Mousetrap, A Winter’s Tale, Loot, and Ridiculous Fraud. Broadway: A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, War Horse, Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Recent regional: Amazing Grace, The Most Happy Fella. She has coached at Arena Stage, Centerstage, Classic Stage, Clurman Theatre, Goodman, Guthrie, Huntington, Long Wharf, Milwaukee Rep, NJ Shakespeare, The Old Globe, Playmakers Rep, Seattle Rep, Shakespeare Theatre D.C., Steppenwolf, Yale Rep, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Banff Center for Fine Arts, and was also English Diction coach for Lyric Opera of Chicago.  Her popular series of self-teaching dialect programs for actors is used worldwide.

Broadway: Fool for Love, Hughie, The Elephant Man (also West End), Hedwig and the Angry Inch, The Visit, Of Mice and Men, Venus in Fur, Living on Love, 33 Variations, A Raisin in the Sun, Chicago, James Joyce’s The Dead. Off-Broadway: Buyer & Cellar, Murder for Two, All in the Timing, Passion, My Name is Asher Lev, Fuerza Bruta, Silence! The Musical. Casting for Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Flea, CSC, Rattlestick, Keen, Playwrights Realm, Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Flea, Long Wharf, Berkeley Rep, City Theater, OSF, Playwrights Horizons (10 seasons). TV: The Path (Hulu), Army Wives, Lipstick Jungle, Monk, Hope & Faith, Ed.  Lots of film including Mike Cahill’s Sundance winners Another Earth and I Origins. Awarded 13 Artios Awards for Outstanding Casting Achievement. Member CSA. www.callericasting.com

Cheryl Mintz* is in her 27th season, 23rd as Resident Production Stage Manager, with over 80 productions for McCarter Theatre and 32 productions with Artistic Director Emily Mann. Cheryl has enjoyed 13 collaborations with Maestro Gian Carlo Menotti and the Spoleto Festival USA and Italy, and has stage managed 40 operas and musicals, three tours, and three PBS telecasts for New York City Opera at Lincoln Center. Cheryl has six Broadway shows to her credit, 15 years as an Executive Board Member of the Stage Managers' Association, is a contributor to the recently published Sound and Music for the Theatre; The Art & Technique of Design, currently conducts master classes for the AADA and Rutgers University, and named a SUNY Notable Alumni in the Arts. MFA: Yale School of Drama.

Alison Cote* is in her 22nd season at McCarter Theatre. Highlights include Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville; The Understudy, directed by Adam Immerwahr; The White Snake, directed by Mary Zimmerman; Danai Gurira’s The Convert, directed by Emily Mann; A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Tina Landau; Christopher Durang’s Miss Witherspoon; Sorrows and Rejoicings, directed by Athol Fugard; and Stephen Wadsworth's adaptations of The Figaro Plays. Other credits include Edward Albee's Me, Myself & I at Playwrights Horizons; Tarell Alvin McCraney's The Brother/Sister Plays at The Public Theater, Second Stage, Old Globe, Goodman Theatre, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Santa Cruz Shakespeare, Paper Mill, Kennedy Center, Long Wharf, Center Theatre Group, Berkeley Rep, Bard Summerscape, Pittsburgh Public, Williamstown, and 19 productions with The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey.

David York has worked at McCarter since 1982. As head of the Production Department he directs the Scenic, Prop, Costume, and Stage Operations personnel in their creation of physical elements and provision of backstage support for the Theater Series and McCarter’s annual production of A Christmas Carol. In addition, the 30 person production staff sees to the needs of all guest artists and companies presented at the theater each season. During David’s tenure, the department has more than 150 theater productions and thousands of presented performances to its credit. Prior to beginning his McCarter career as Technical Director, David held posts at Center Stage in Baltimore and Opera Theatre of St. Louis. He received his BA from Washington University and MFA from the Yale School of Drama.

Debbie Bisno joined McCarter in 2016. Her experience spans Broadway, off-Broadway, West End, regional, and non-profit theater. Broadway: Mothers & Sons, Grace, Annie, War Horse, Hair, Merchant of Venice, Speed the Plow. Off-Broadway and London highlights: Ingmar Bergman’s Through a Glass Darkly starring Carey Mulligan, Passion Play, Merrily We Roll Along. Chicago: Founder of Roadworks Productions, with residencies at Steppenwolf & Victory Gardens. Highlights: John Barth’s The End of the Road, Lanford Wilson’s Serenading Louie, Kenneth Lonergan's This is Our Youth, Chuck Mee’s Orestes, and Eric Bogosian's subUrbia. Ms. Bisno is an Advisory Member of Playwrights Realm in NYC and on the board of FASPE (Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics). She lives with her husband David Goldman and Portuguese Water Dog, Stella.

Emily Mann is in her 28th season as Artistic Director and Resident Playwright. Her nearly 50 McCarter directing credits include productions by Shakespeare, Chekhov, Ibsen, and Williams and the recent world premieres of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express; Baby Doll; Five Mile Lake; The Convert; The How and the Why; Miss Witherspoon; and Me, Myself & I. This spring Mann will direct the McCarter-commissioned world premiere of Chris Durang’s Turning Off the Morning News. Broadway: A Streetcar Named Desire, Anna in the Tropics, Execution of Justice, Having Our Say. Her plays: Having Our Say, adapted from the book by Sarah L. Delany and A. Elizabeth Delany with Amy Hill Hearth; Execution of Justice; Still Life; Annulla, An Autobiography; Greensboro (A Requiem); Meshugah; Mrs. Packard, and Hoodwinked (a Primer on Radical Islamism). She is currently writing a play with Gloria Steinem and the stage adaptation of The Pianist. Adaptations: Baby Doll, Scenes from a Marriage, Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, A Seagull in the Hamptons, The House of Bernarda Alba, Antigone. Awards: Peabody, Hull Warriner, NAACP, Obie's, Guggenheim; Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle nominations, a Princeton University Honorary Doctorate of Arts, a Helen Merrill Distinguished Playwrights' Award, and the Margo Jones Award given to a "citizen-of-the-theatre who has demonstrated a lifetime commitment to the encouragement of the living theatre everywhere.

A three-time Tony Award winner, Harold Wolpert is a leader and strategist with over 25 years of experience in all aspects of arts administration at major not-for-profit theater companies. Wolpert has made significant contributions to Roundabout Theatre Company as Managing Director, and as General Manager for Manhattan Theatre Club and the Alley Theatre. As a strategic consultant, he worked with Signature Theatre Company and Goodspeed Musicals, among other prominent companies. Wolpert is acknowledged as a national leader through years of service to the League of Resident Theatres (LORT), most recently as LORT Vice President, a key member of LORT’s Diversity Initiative Steering Committee, as well as a member of Theatre Communications Group’s Board of Directors.  He was recently honored with the Edith Oliver Service to Off-Broadway Award by the Lucille Lortel Awards. Wolpert was an adjunct lecturer for the Brooklyn College MFA Program in Performing Arts Management and was a guest lecturer for Shanghai Theatre Academy. As Board Chairman of AIDS Foundation Houston, he led the organization’s fundraising efforts. He volunteers for The Trevor Project, the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) young people ages 13-24. A Philadelphia native, Wolpert earned a Bachelor’s degree in History from the University of Pennsylvania.

1812–1870
Born in Portsea, England, Charles Dickens was the second of eight children. In 1824, his father was thrown into debtor’s prison, and young Charles was sent to work in a boot-blacking factory. After his schooling, Charles worked as a solicitor’s clerk but soon turned his efforts towards journalism. He then began experimenting with creative writing, and by the time he turned 25, with the publication of The Pickwick Papers, he became the first great novelist of the industrial city. His most popular works include Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities, and Great Expectations. Incensed by a trip to observe the working conditions of children in a tin mine in Cornwall, he planned to write a political pamphlet condemning child labor but soon reconsidered. “Rest assured, when you see what I do, and where, and how, you will certainly feel that a sledgehammer has come down with twenty times the force—twenty thousand times the force—I could exert by following out my first idea.” The result of this change of heart was A Christmas Carol, published in 1843.