Hymn

(Playwright) Lolita Chakrabarti OBE, an award-winning playwright and actress, trained at RADA and has been working on stage and screen for thirty-five years. As a writer, her first play Red Velvet earned her the Evening Standard Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright 2012; The Critics’ Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright 2013; AWA for Arts and Culture 2013 and an Olivier Award nomination 2012. Chakrabarti’s adaptation of Life of Pi, her second play, based on Yann Martel’s Booker-prize winning novel, premiered at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield in 2019. Following critical acclaim, the production transferred to London’s West End in November 2021. Chakrabarti won the Olivier Award for Best New Play, a WhatsOnStage Award, UK Theatre Award, and CAMEO Award amongst others. Life of Pi opened at ART in Boston 2022 and Broadway 2023. To date, it has travelled across the US, the UK , Canada, Middle East and Asia. The production has garnered countless awards including 5 Olivier Awards, 4 UK Theatre Awards and 3 Tony Awards. Other writing credits include: Calmer (BBC Radio 3); Hymn (Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Almeida Theatre, Sky Arts); an adaptation of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities (MIF and Brisbane Festival); Stones of Venice (New Vision Arts Festival in Hong Kong); curator of The Greatest Wealth (The Old Vic) and dramaturg on Message in a Bottle (ZooNation, Sadler’s Wells) and Sylvia (ZooNation, Old Vic). Acting credits include: Summer 1954 (Theatre Royal Bath and UK tour); The Hunt (St Ann’s Warehouse, NY); Fanny and Alexander (The Old Vic); Hamlet, playing Gertrude opposite Tom Hiddleston, directed by Sir Kenneth Branagh (RADA), Silo (Apple TV+); Vigil; Showtrial; The Casual Vacancy; Wheel of Time (Amazon Prime); My Mad Fat Diary (E4); Beowulf; Return to the Shieldlands (ITV); Riviera (Sky) and Criminal (Netflix);

(Director) Ron OJ Parson is a director and actor based in Chicago, Illinois. He hails from Buffalo, New York, and is a graduate of the University of Michigan’s professional theatre program. He is a Joyce Foundation Grantee Resident at Chicago’s Court Theatre, a company member at Timeline Theatre Company, and a former associate artist at Writers Theatre and Teatro Vista. He is co-founder and former Artistic Director of The Onyx Theatre Ensemble. Selected Chicago credits include at Chicago Theatre Company, Victory Gardens Theater, American Blues Theater, American Theatre Company, Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Chicago Dramatists, Court, Black Ensemble Theatre, Congo Square Theatre Company, Northlight Theatre, Urban Theatre Company, City Lit Theatre Theater, ETA Creative Arts, and Writers Theatre. Selected Regional credits include at Studio Arena Theatre, Alliance Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Milwaukee Repertory, Ensemble theatre of Cincinati, American Players Theatre, South Coast Repertory, Pasadena Playhouse, Geva Theatre, Virginia Stage Company, Roundabout Theatre, Wilshire Theatre, Studio Theatre, Center Stage Baltimore, St. Louis Black Repertory, Pittsburgh Public Theater, Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre, Signature Theatre (New York), Kansas City Rep, Portland Stage Company, Paul Robeson Theatre (Buffalo) Ujima Theatre Company, and Indiana Repertory Theatre. In Canada, he directed the world premiere of Palmer Park by Joanna McClelland Glass, a World Premiere at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. He is a member of AEA, SAG-AFTRA, and SDC. www.ronojparson.net

CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE: Measure for Measure, It Came From Outer Space. CHICAGO: The Book of Grace, The Brothers Size, The Great Leap, Ms. Blakk for President, La Ruta, The Burn, You Got Older, BLKS (Steppenwolf Theatre Company); Betrayal, Lucha Teotl, Fannie (Goodman Theatre); Frankenstein, Lula Del Ray, Fjords (Manual Cinema); Her Honor Jane Byrne (Lookingglass Theatre). OFF BROADWAY: The Public Theatre, The Sheen Center. REGIONAL: Yale Repertory Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Geva Theatre Center, McCarter Theatre Center, Berkeley Rep, Alliance Theatre, Seattle Rep. INTERNATIONAL: Farewell My Concubine (Ningbo Song and Dance Theatre); Damage Joy (BFloor Theatre). OPERA: The Central Park Five (Portland Opera); Freedom Ride (Chicago Opera Theatre); Die Kathrin (Chicago Folks Operetta); Blue (Toledo Opera); La Cenerentola (Yale Opera); Cunning Little Vixen (Opera Theatre at Yale College). CONCERT: The March to Liberation (NY Phil). EDUCATION: MFA in stage design, Yale University School of Drama. AWARDS: Joseph Jefferson Award, Michael Maggio Emerging Designer Award, Robert L. Tobin Director-Designer Showcase. Johnson is the director of design for TAPS at the University of Chicago.

CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE: Debut. CHICAGO: Sweat, Hand to God, Next to Normal, Little Shop of Horrors (Paramount Theatre); Somewhere Over the Border (Teatro Vista); The Hot Wing King (Writer’s Theatre); Flood (Shattered Globe Theatre); Primary Trust (Goodman Theatre); Leroy and Lucy (Steppenwolf Theatre Company). OFF BROADWAY: The Knight of the Burning Pestle (Red Bull Theatre, Fiasco Theatre). REGIONAL: Once on this Island (Oregon Shakespeare Festival); Fat Ham (Cleveland Playhouse); The Stranger (Peninsula Players Theatre); Nina Simone: Four Women (Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre); The Royale (American Players Theatre); Into the Woods, The Odyssey-Public Works Dallas, Our Town (Dallas Theatre Center); Seven Guitars (Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park). A United States Marine Corps war veteran and a nominee of the 2022 Helen Hayes Award for Best Costume Design for her work on Woolly Mammoth Theatre and Baltimore Center Stage’s co-production of Ain’t No Mo and has been named American Theatre’s
Role Call People to Watch.
www.yvonnemirandadesigns.com

CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE: Beauty and the Beast, I, Cinna, I, Banquo. CHICAGO: Ashland Avenue (upcoming), Fat Ham, Inherit the Wind, Lucha Teotl, The Nacirema Society Requests the Honor of Your Presence at a Celebration of Their First One Hundred Years, English, Layalina, the ripple, the wave that carried me home, Fannie: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer, School Girls; Or,The African Mean Girls Play, I Hate It Here, Ohio State Murders, The Sound Inside, Lottery Day (Goodman Theatre); The Book of Grace, 1919, Choir Boy (Steppenwolf Theatre Company). OFF BROADWAY: You Are Here: An Evening with Solea Pfeiffer (Audible Theatre, Minetta Lane Theatre). REGIONAL: Alley Theatre, Alliance Theatre, Baltimore Center Stage, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, City Theatre Company, Dallas Theater Center, Denver Center Theatre Company, George Street Playhouse, Geva Theatre Center, Goodspeed Musicals, Great Lakes Theater, Huntington Theatre Company, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Kansas City Repertory Theatre Long Wharf Theatre, McCarter Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, The Old Globe, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Trinity Repertory Company. OPERA: Chicago Opera Theater, The Dallas Opera, Portland Opera, The Santa Fe Opera. FILM: The Half-Life of Marie Curie, School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play (Theatre Squared). AWARDS: 1 Joseph Jefferson, 2 Black Theater Alliance/Ira Aldridge, Michael Maggio Emerging Designer, Outstanding Achievement in Lighting Design (International Black Theatre Festival). www.jasondlynch.com
@jasonlynch.design

CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE: Twelfth Night, Chicago Shakespeare in the Parks The Hero Within. CHICAGO: Fat Ham (Goodman Theatre, Definition Theatre); A Raisin in the Sun (Court Theatre); The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk (Northlight Theatre); The Hot Wing King (Writers Theatre); Chlorine Sky (Steppenwolf Theatre Company). REGIONAL: American Players Theatre, Phoenix Theatre Indianapolis, Alleyway Theatre. EDUCATION: BA in theatre, Connecticut College. AWARDS: Joseph Jefferson nomination for Sound Design, 2022 and 2023; Black Theater Alliance Award for Best Sound Design.

CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE: 150 plus productions over 24 years, including 35 plays in Shakespeare’s canon under current Artistic Director Edward Hall and Founding Artistic Director Barbara Gaines. Also at CST: nine productions of Stephen Sondheim musicals under the direction of Gary Griffin. CHICAGO: Bounce, Light in the Piazza (Goodman Theatre); REGIONAL: SIX (CST, American Repertory Theater–Artios Award, Ordway Center, The Citadel); Ride the Cyclone (CST, Fifth Avenue Theatre/A Contemporary Theater, Alliance Theatre); OFF-BROADWAY: Ride the Cyclone (MCC); Rose Rage: Henry VI, Parts 1, 2 and 3, directed by Artistic Director Edward Hall (The Duke on 42nd Street); Marionette Macbeth (New Victory); BROADWAY: SIX, The Notebook; INTERNATIONAL: The Lord of the Rings: A Musical Tale (Auckland, NZ); Pacific Overtures (Donmar Warehouse–Olivier Award, Outstanding Musical); Henry IV, Parts One and Two (RSC). Prior to casting, Mason enjoyed a career as a Joseph Jefferson Award-winning actor and singer and has been a visiting educator at Northwestern University and multiple college programs across the country.

CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE: Much Ado About Nothing, King John, Cymbeline. CHICAGO: WipeOut, Spay (Rivendell Theatre); Pump Boys and Dinettes (Porchlight Music Theatre); Day of Absence (Congo Square Theatre); Miracle the Musical, Bomb-itty of Errors, Forever Plaid (Royal George); Murder for Two (Marriott Theatre); Unspeakable (Broadway in Chicago); Cloud Tectonics, Wings, Spic-O-Rama (Goodman Theatre); The Glass Menagerie, Fences, Man of La Mancha (Court Theatre); The Immigrant, The Good War, Cookin’ at the Cookery, At Wit’s End, 2 Pianos, 4 Hands (Northlight Theatre); Broken Eggs (Teatro Vista). REGIONAL: The Tin Woman, Saloon, Opus, Making God Laugh, Heroes, Unnecessary Farce, Cabaret (Peninsula Players); The Whipping Man, Moonlight and Magnolias, Black Pearl Sings!, Copenhagen (Clarence Brown Theatre).

CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE: The Comedy of Errors, All’s Well That Ends Well, As You Like It. CHICAGO: The Steadfast Tin Soldier (Lookingglass Theatre Company); Seussical, Rock of Ages (Drury Lane Theatre); Mary Page Marlowe (Steppenwolf Theatre Company); The Hundred Dresses, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (Chicago Children’s Theatre); Kill Floor, The Royale, Sons of the Prophet (American Theater Company); Juno (TimeLine Theatre Company). REGIONAL: The King’s Speech (National Tour); Diana the Musical, Queens, The Cake, At the Old Place (La Jolla Playhouse); The Garden, Twisted Melodies (Baltimore Center Stage). OFF BROADWAY: The Flick, Kin, The Whale, The Big Meal, The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World, The Burnt Part Boys, Circle Mirror Transformation (Playwrights Horizons); Close Up Space (Manhattan Theatre Club); In the Wake (Public Theater). EDUCATION: BFA in stage management, DePaul University; MBA, Adams State University.