Skylight

Selected theater: Five Mike Lake and Miss Witherspoon with Emily Mann, Arturo Ui (CSC), Henry VI (NAATCO), The Winter’s Tale (TFANA), Monsoon Wedding with Mira Nair, Vanya, Sonia.. with Christopher Durang, Clive with Ethan Hawke. Film/TV: Hank and Asha (Slamdance favorite, Best actress Napa Film Festival, Best actress Wild Rose Film Festival); Hechki; New Amsterdam; Orange is the New Black; Bite Me; Friends From College; Law and Order; Louie; Odd Mom Out; Blacklist; Blue Bloods; The Big C. Training: Juilliard. Member of EST and The Actors Center. Website: mahirakakkar.com

Zane was born and raised in the East Village in New York City. His NYC theater credits include Mercury Fur at The New Group and Dead Poets Society at Classic Stage Company. He was recently on an episode of HBO’s Room 104, directed by Lila Neugebauer. Film: Minyan (upcoming), Margot at the Wedding. ig: @paisonearth

Greg is absolutely thrilled to be working with Emily Mann on this production of Skylight. Recent credits include, Mr. Shears in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime at the Walnut Street Theatre, Charlie in The Bridges of Madison County for the Philadelphia Theatre Co., Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol here at McCarter, Da in Once with the Arden Theatre Co., and Malvolio in Twelfth Night at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival. Film and television credits include, The Sixth Sense, Signs, The Happening, The Lovely Bones, Soul Harvest, The Killing of Emmett Young, A Gentlemen’s Game, How To Get Away With Murder, Law & Order, Ed, Hack, and Homicide.

David has been called “one of the great post-war British playwrights”. Along with co-founding Portable Theatre Company and Joint Stock Theatre Group, he served as Resident Dramatist at the Royal Court Theatre in London and Resident Dramatist at the Nottingham Playhouse. His first play, Slag, was performed at the Hampstead Theatre Club in 1970. Subsequent works include Knuckle, Fanshen, Plenty, Pravda: A Fleet Street Comedy, The Secret Rapture, Skylight, Amy’s View and The Judas Kiss. He has been Associate Director of the National Theatre since 1984, and was knighted in 1998.

Emily is in her 29th 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 Turning Off the Morning News; 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. 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). Her new play Gloria: A Life about the legacy of Gloria Steinem has just finished its run in New York at The Daryl Roth Theater. Adaptations: Baby Doll, Scenes from a Marriage, Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, A Seagull in the Hamptons, The House of Bernarda Alba, Antigone. Currently in development: The Pianist. Awards include: Peabody, Hull Warriner, NAACP, Obies, 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-theater who has demonstrated a lifetime commitment to the encouragement of the living theater everywhere.”

McCarter: Murder on the Orient Express, Turning off the Morning News, Stones in His Pockets. Broadway: Act One (Tony Award®), The Scottsboro Boys (Tony® Nomination), Therese Raquin (Tony® Nomination), Come From Away, Be More Chill, The New One, Bernhardt/ Hamlet, Meteor Shower, A Bronx Tale, Prince of Broadway, Hand to God, Grace, Sondheim on Sondheim, …Spelling Bee, LoveMusik, Rock of Ages, Chaplin, Bronx Bombers, The Two and Only. Broadway Revivals: On the Town, Sunday in the Park… Off-Broadway: 100 shows including The Last Five Years, 20th Century Blues, and Miss Julie. He has designed for The NYC Ballet and the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus and around the world in England, Russia, China, Australia, and Japan. 2007 OBIE Award for sustained excellence.

McCarter Premiere. Off-Broadway: Daddy (New Group); He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box (TFANA, Obie); The Death of the Last Black Man, Fabulation, & In the Blood (Signature Theatre); Fairview & Is God Is (SOHO REP); The House That Will Not Stand, Red Speedo & Nat Turner in Jerusalem (NYTW); Pipeline (Lincoln Center); Ghost Light & War (LCT3); Eddie & Dave (Atlantic); The Last Match (Roundabout); O, Earth (Foundry). Training: Oberlin College & Conservatory of Music, Brown University & Yale School of Drama. montanaleviblanco.com

Broadway: Hand to God, On the Town, Bronx Bombers, Let It Be, Bring It On: The Musical, Rock of Ages, The Threepenny Opera, Barefoot in the Park, and Good Vibrations. Recent: Clueless, The Musical (The New Group); Mamma Mia! (TUTS); Sugar in Our Wounds (MTC); The Honeymooners (Papermill); Romy & Michele’s High School Reunion (5th Ave); Born For This (Arena Stage); Kings, Dry Powder, Barbecue (The Public Theatre); Familiar, Robin Hood, Red Velvet, Macbeth, and Love Labor’s Lost (The Old Globe). Awards: Jeff, Helen Hayes, and Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in Lighting Design jasonlyonsdesign.com

Pornchanok is a Thai artist, sound designer, musician and composer. Recent productions include Cymbeline (Yale Rep), The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Steppenwolf), As you Like it (OSF), Be Here Now (Cincinnati Playhouse) Frontières sans Frontières (The Bushwick Starr). Nok has worked with theatre companies across the United States including Lincoln Center, Rattlestick, Montana Shakespeare in the Park, Geva Theatre and Milwaukee Repertory Theater, among many others. She has also collaborated with performing groups and theatre companies in Thailand including B-Floor Theatre, Babymime, Crescent Moon and Democrazy Theatre Studio since 2008. Nok graduated from Yale School of Drama and is a member of the Theatrical Sound Designers and Composers Association (TSDCA). www.wishnok-music.com

Select Broadway: King Lear, Hillary and Clinton, Ink, The Waverly Gallery, The Boys in the Band, Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women, Meteor Shower, A Doll’s House, Part 2, Jitney, The Little Foxes, The Glass Menagerie, The Front Page, Blackbird, Fish in the Dark, It’s Only a Play, Disgraced, The Trip to Bountiful, Fences. Also Signature Theatre, Atlantic Theater Company, Ars Nova, The Old Globe, Goodman Theatre, Arena Stage. Television: New Amsterdam (NBC), American Odyssey (NBC), How to Get Away with Murder pilot (ABC), Ironside pilot (NBC), Steel Magnolias (Lifetime).

Cheryl is in her 28th season, 24th as Resident Production Stage Manager, with over 80 productions for McCarter Theatre, including the world premiere of Christopher Durang’s Tony Award® winning Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, and 33 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, and current Chair of the Del Hughes Awards, 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, Mason Gross School of the Arts and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and named a SUNY Notable Alumni in the Arts. MFA: Yale School of Drama.

Dixie comes to McCarter from Chicago, IL, where she worked for over 15 years. Most recently she was the Production Manager of the Wirtz Center for Performing Arts at Northwestern University. While at Northwestern, she managed dozens of productions, including the world premieres of David Catlin's Moby Dick and Laura Schellhardt's Ever in the Glades, a production which then travelled to the Kennedy Center. Before Northwestern, Uffelman was the Associate Production Manager of Steppenwolf Theatre Company, the Production Manager of the House Theatre of Chicago, and the Program Director of Barrel of Monkeys.

Debbie joined McCarter in 2016. Her experience spans Broadway, Off-Broadway, West End, regional and nonprofit theater. Broadway highlights include the current production of Terrence McNally's Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune starring Audra McDonald & Michael Shannon; Grace, War Horse, HAIR, Merchant of Venice. Off-Broadway & London: Ingmar Bergman’s Through a Glass Darkly with Carey Mulligan, Passion Play, Merrily We Roll Along. Debbie was Founder and Producing Artistic Director of Chicago’s Roadworks Productions with residencies at Steppenwolf & Victory Gardens, producing over 20 Midwest & World Premieres by playwrights including Mike Leigh, Kenneth Lonergan, Chuck Mee, Eric Bogosian, Phyllis Nagy & more. She is an Advisory Member of The Playwrights Realm and on the Board of FASPE (Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics.) Debbie lives with her husband David and their Portuguese Water Dog, Bernice.

Michael is in his first season at McCarter. For the last nine years, he was the Managing Director of La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego where he helped develop and produce new work by Ayad Akhtar, Trey Anastasio, Amanda Green, Kirsten Greenidge, Quiara Alegría Hudes, John Leguizamo, Basil Twist, Doug Wright, and The Flaming Lips. During his tenure, the Playhouse was awarded multi-million dollar grants from the NEA and the Wallace and Irvine Foundations to accelerate experiments meant to develop multi-ethnic projects, expand opportunities for family engagement and build the capacity to sustain community arts programs at off-site locations. Previously, Mike was Co-Founder and Executive Director of Drama Dept., a New York nonprofit theater collective, where for fourteen years he produced new works by the likes of Douglas Carter Beane, Warren Leight, Isaac Mizrahi, Paul Rudnick, and David & Amy Sedaris. He is also the Assistant Coach of the U14 Ironmen FC. Follow him on Twitter @MrMikeRosenberg.