Featured Guest Biographies:

Paul Baker’s (Special Guest Presenter, Inge Festival Musical Director) music on Celtic harp, concert harp, piano, organ and harpsichord can be heard in concert and on recordings and movie soundtracks.  Voted “Best Musical Director of the Year” for his work with Stephen Sondheim’s musical ASSASSINS, Mr. Baker continues to play for many national tours and concerts in the Los Angeles area.  Recently he was conductor for Bark!  the musical, and played in the national tour of Camelot with Michael York. The group “Pastiche” premiered his GERSHWIN SAMPLER at Carnegie Hall and he will be seen in motion capture in the new animated feature Beowulf.  He has recorded three Celtic harp albums, “The Tranquil Harp," “The Ladder of the Soul” and "The Quiet Path." Mr. Baker returns to the Festival for his fifth year having served as musical and vocal director of the production of ALL THAT JAZZ, a concert of songs by John Kander and Fred Ebb, COMES ONCE IN A LIFETIME, a musical tribute to Betty Comden and Adolph Green and ARTHUR'S TURN, a collection of songs from the shows of Arthur Laurents.

Gigi Bolt (Special Guest Presenter) served over the past year as Interim Executive Director of Theatre Communications Group and is an adjunct professor at Columbia University.  The Director of Theater and Musical Theater at the National Endowment for the Arts from 1995 till 2006, Ms. Bolt advised the agency on policy related to the fields and was responsible for the review of applications. Prior to joining the Endowment, she served as Director of the Theater Program at the New York State Council on the Arts.  Her tenure at the Council was preceded by work as an actor including five seasons as a member of the company of the Cleveland Play House.  She has served on the Board of Directors of Theatre Communications Group and the American Arts Alliance, and is the recipient of a Distinguished Service Award from the NEA, the Lee Reynolds Award from the League of Professional Theatre Women, and an Alumni Honor Citation from the University of Kansas.

Wayne Bryan (Special Guest Performer) has performed extensively on Broadway (Good News!, Rodgers and Hart, Tintypes) and on television (M*A*S*H, Keystone, American History), and has directed productions all across the country. Wayne began his professional career as both actor and director with San Diego's Old Globe Theatre. In 1988 Wayne become the Producing Director for Music Theatre of Wichita, where he has now produced 90 Broadway-scale musical productions, acclaimed internationally for their high quality. Numerous awards include the Kansas Governor’s Arts Award and the NCCJ Brotherhood / Sisterhood Award, recognizing those who fight discrimination and encourage diversity. He is co-author of the rewritten collegiate musical Good News!, which has received more than 250 productions in the U.S., Canada, and Great Britain, plus a well-received cast album. He also produced the American cast album for the Olivier Award-winning musical Honk! Wayne has been an enthusiastic Inge Festival participant since 1990, especially grateful for his involvement the memorable tributes to musical theatre greats Stephen Sondheim, Kander and Ebb, Arthur Laurents, and Comden and Green.

Jackson R. Bryer (Jerome Lawrence Award Recipient and Scholars' Conference Chair) first came to Independence, Kansas, in 1980 as a consultant to the National Endowment for the Humanities to advise the college on a grant proposal to catalogue its William Inge Collection. He returned to Independence on May 3, 1981 to participate in a panel discussion on "William Inge: A Perspective in 1982," with Tom Rea, a drama instructor at KU, Eugene DeGruson, special collections librarian at Pittsburg State, Arthur McClure, an instructor at Central Missouri State University, and Gary Mitchell, English and Theatre instructor at ICC. The panel followed a showing of "William Inge: Penn Avenue to Broadway" and was, in effect, the first William Inge Festival. He has attended every William Inge Theatre Festival since, except for the 1982 event (he does not remember what prevented him from coming). He has directed the Conference segment of the Festival for 20 years. Bryer received his B.A. from Amherst College, his M.A. from Columbia University, and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. He taught in the Department of English of the University of Maryland for 41 years, before retiring in June 2005. His principal areas of specialization as a teacher and a scholar are American fiction of the twentieth century, especially the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald; modern drama; and American drama.

Kathryn Chase Bryer (Special Guest Presenter) is Imagination Stage’s Associate Artistic Director. She has directed over 30 shows in the last 16 years including: Huck Finn’s Story; Seussical; James and the Giant Peach; Charlotte’s Web; Cinderella Eats Rice and Beans; Aladdin’s Luck; Miss Nelson is Missing; Harry the Dirty Dog; and Alexander...Very Bad Day. She is most proud of her work as a dramaturg/director and has enjoyed having a hand in developing new scripts such as Junie B. Jones & A Little Monkey Business (picked as the most produced children’s play of 2005), and Petite Rouge by Joan Cushing, The Magical Piñata by Karen Zacarias and Capture the Moon by Harry Bagdasian and Ernest Joselovitz. She looks forward to helping the development of the next script by Karen Zacarias and Deborah Wicks La Puma, Looking for Clemente, a musical about the magic of heroes and baseball, to be produced in Imagination Stage’s 2007-08 Season.

Sheila Callaghan's (Inge Center Playwright-in-residence) plays have been produced and developed with Soho Rep, Playwright's Horizons, South Coast Repertory, Clubbed Thumb, The LARK, Actor's Theatre of Louisville, New Georges, and Moving Arts, among others. Sheila is the recipient of a 2000 Princess Grace Award for emerging artists, a 2001 LA Weekly Award for Best One-act, a 2001-02 Jerome Fellowship from the Playwright's Center in Minneapolis, a 2002 Chesley Prize for Lesbian Playwriting, a 2003 Mac Dowell Residency, and a 2004 NYFA grant. Her plays have been produced internationally in New Zealand, Norway, and the Czech Republic. She has been commissioned by Playwright's Horizons, South Coast Repertory, and EST/Sloan. Her full-length plays include SCAB, THE HUNGER WALTZ, CRAWL FADE TO WHITE, CRUMBLE (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake), WE ARE NOT THESE HANDS, DEAD CITY, LASCIVIOUS SOMETHING, and KATE CRACKERNUTS. Several of her plays are published by Playscripts, Inc. She has taught playwriting at The University of Rochester, Spalding University, The College of New Jersey, and Florida State University. Sheila is a member of the Obie winning playwright's organization 13P and resident of New Dramatists. She is also the lead vocalist of the electro-pop ensemble If I Told Napoleon.

Marcia Cebulska was thrilled to have had her play TOUCHED premiered at the last William Inge Theatre Festival for which it was commissioned. Her play, NOW LET ME FLY, commissioned for the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board  decision and written while she was an Inge playwright-in-resident, has been performed at  80 venues around the world.  Marcia’s other plays have been produced at The Georgia Repertory Theatre, HERE, the Phoenix Theatre, Frontera at Hyde Park,  Fremont Centre Theatre,  The Theatre Building  and elsewhere.  Marcia has received the Dorothy Silver Award, the Jane Chambers International Award, Kansas Arts Commission and Indiana Arts Commission Master Artist Fellowships. Her plays have been chosen for development by the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Sundance Playwrights Lab and Shenandoah Playwrights Retreat. She has been playwright-in-residence at The University of Georgia, Mary Anderson Center for the Arts and The William Inge Center for the Arts.   Marcia also has two produced screenplays to her credit. She is a member of The Dramatists Guild and Chicago Dramatists.

Jeff Church (Special Guest Presenter) is producing artistic director of the Coterie Theatre, named by TIME magazine as one of the five best theatres for young audiences in the U.S.  For the Coterie's 20th anniversary season, Jeff produced the "Great Books/Banned Books" season, which included the professional U.S. premiere of The Lord of the Flies. Once a year, the Coterie is home to a lab for new family musicals, where Stephen Schwartz was recently in-residence developing his new musical, Geppetto & Son.  The plays commissioned by Jeff and the Coterie have an impact on theatres for young audiences around the country -- most important of these being Laurie Brooks' The Wrestling Season, which Jeff directed at the Kennedy Center, Seattle Children's Theatre and the Coterie. It was subsequently published in full in American Theatre magazine. Jeff has directed and written plays and musicals for the Kennedy Center, where he served as a playwright-in-residence for youth and family programs for five years. He is currently on the board of directors for TCG (Theatre Communications Group), which publishes American Theatre magazine.  For the past 15 years, he has been a site reporter for the National Endowment for the Arts. Jeff is member of The College of Fellows of the American Theatre. 

Robyn Cohen comes directly from filming the delightful romantic comedy Beau Jest with Lainie Kazan and Seymour Cassel.  In theaters now, she currently co-stars in the screen adaptation of The Celestine Prophecy, and prior to that, opposite Bill Murray in Wes Anderson's latest film, The Life Aquatic.  Onstage, she recently worked alongside Jerry Herman in his revival of The Grand Tour at the Colony Theater, and in the west coast premiere of Neil Labute's play, The Shape Of Things at the Laguna Playhouse.  Other favorites include The Exonerated opposite Jeff Goldblum, and with Interact Theater Company, Sex and More Sex by George Furth, Death of a Salesman, Rocket to the Moon and Chekhov's The Three Sisters (for which she was nominated for Best Actress by the L.A. Weekly Theater Awards).  National tour: Cabaret. Opera: Rigoletto at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.  TV:  Invasion, Angel, LAX, Starved. Some regional credits: Carousel (The Paper Mill Playhouse), Brigadoon (The Goodspeed Opera House), The Ford's Theater (D.C.), Pennsylvania State Theater, North Shore Music Theater, Sacramento Light Opera, and more. Training: The Juilliard School.  She sends her love and thanks to the wonderful Inge festival family!

Barbara Dana made her New York stage debut at the age of 17 in the off-Broadway production of Arthur Laurents’ A CLEARING IN THE WOODS. She appeared on Broadway in WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?, ENTER LAUGHING, ROOM SERVICE and William Inge’s WHERE’S DADDY? She was also a member of the improvisational group, Second City, appearing in Chicago and New York. Off-Broadway Barbara played Joan in Maxwell Anderson’s JOAN OF LORRAINE and appeared in EH?, GHOSTS and Ira Levin’s BREAK A LEG. Her films include The In-Laws, Popi, Chu-Chu and the Philly Flash (for which she wrote the screenplay), Samuel Beckett is Coming Soon…(short), and the upcoming Raising Flagg. Television appearances include Law&Order, Law&Order: SVU, Necessary Parties (her screenplay), A Matter of Principle, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, June Moon and As the World Turns. Ms. Dana is an award-winning author of books for children and young adults. Her first play, WAR IN PARAMUS, was staged at HB Playwrights and premiered at Abingdon Theatre Company in New York in 2005, directed by Austin Pendelton. It has recently been published in the anthology, New Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2006 (Smith & Kraus). Barbara is currently writing a novel for HarperCollins, based on the young life of Emily Dickinson.

Laura Dekkers (Special Guest Performer) is thrilled to be at the William Inge Festival for the first time. Laura most recently worked on a workshop of the new musical Paradise Lost with Director Hal Prince. Broadway: The Woman in White. New York: Caligula (Zipper Theater), The Golden Apple (Bard Theater), Dangerous Beauty (New York Stage and Film). Regional: 1776 (Reprise!), Listen to my Heart (Miramar Theater), Rockne (World Premier, Morris Performing Arts Center), Showboat (The Welk Theater). Laura sends her love to her new husband Bruce. www.lauradekkers.com  

David Ellenstein (Special Guest Presenter) is the Producing Artistic Director of the North Coast Rep in Solana Beach CA where he has directed among others A MOON FOR THE MISBEGOTTEN, COLLECTED STORIES, ROMEO AND JULIET, AMY'S VIEW, TUESDAY'S WITH MORRIE, A LIFE IN THE THEATRE, RASHOMON, and STORY THEATRE. Elsewhere directing credits include; SONIA FLEW starring Lucie Arnaz and HALPERN AND JOHNSON starring Hal Linden and Brian Murray at the Coconut Grove Playhouse, THE CHOSEN starring Theo Bikel and John Lloyd Young at the Paper Mill Playhouse and Coconut Grove, HONKY TONK ANGELS at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, CYRANO DE BERGERAC at Southwest Shakespeare Festival, A Christmas Carol at Meadow Brook, CONVERSATIONS WITH MY FATHER at Portland Rep, and upcoming world premieres of ROCKET CITY by Mark Salzman at Alabama Shakes and ALEXANDROS by Melinda Lopez at Laguna Playhouse. David has extensive acting and teaching credits. 

Robert Ellenstein (Special Guest Presenter) began working in professional theatre almost 60 years ago.  His work has been seen at dozens of professional theatres throughout the country.  He was artistic director of The Company of Angels and Los Angeles Repertory Company, which he also co-founded.  His productions of Shakespeare and Shaw have garnered numerous awards. As an actor, Mr. Ellenstein was last seen as King Lear, directed by his son, Peter Ellenstein.  Mr. Ellenstein also appeared in hundreds of professional stage productions, more than 200 TV shows and 16 feature films.  He has taught professional acting and directing at many universities since 1948.

Robert L. Freedman (Special Guest Presenter) In 2006, Robert was awarded the Kleban Award for lyric writing, and the Fred Ebb Award for songwriting, with his collaborator Steven Lutvak.  Robert has written the book and co-written the lyrics with Steven for two new musicals:  Campaign Of The Century, which won the California Musical Theatre Award and has been presented in staged readings at the Chicago Humanities Festival and the New York Musical Theatre Festival; and Kind Hearts and Coronets, which had a workshop at the Sundance Institute Theatre Lab, and a staged reading at the Huntington Theatre in Boston. Robert was nominated for two Emmys and a Writers Guild Award for the ABC miniseries Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows.  He won the Writers Guild Award for the HBO film A Deadly Secret, and was nominated for ABC’s Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella.  Robert was a Humanitas finalist for What Makes A Family, which won the GLAAD Media Award, and an Edgar nominee for Honor Thy Mother.  His Lifetime film, Murder In The Hamptons, was the highest rated basic cable movie of the year. 

Sarah Girard (Special Guest Performer) is a native of Los Angeles and recent graduate from UCLA's Ray Bolger Musical Theater Program. She is a proud member of the Royal Academy of Dancing. Favorite shows include Maggie in A Chorus Line (directed by the original Maggie, Kay Cole), All About Gordon: A Tribute to Gordon Davidson (Ahmanson Theater), Swallow Song (National Theater of Greece), Urinetown (Hope), Into The Woods (Cinderella), The Wild Party (Nadine), West Side Story (Graziella), Oklahoma! (Laurey). She would like to thank M &D for their continual support.  

Don Hill (Special Guest Presenter) In a 33 year career that spans both coasts Don Hill has worked in the professional theatre as an actor, stage manager, production manager, director, producer and union negotiator. He received his MFA from USC under the mentorship of John Houseman. During his five years as production manager for the Los Angeles Theatre center he supervised 66 main stage production 54 of which were new works. As Associate Producer for the Long Beach Civic Light Opera Hill produced over 20 large scale star studded musicals. For seven years he served as chief business representative for Actor's Equity Association, Western Region. Prior to his current appointment at UC Irvine as Head of Stage Management, Hill taught Entertainment Law at Columbia College (Hollywood). 

Kaitlin Hopkins Some Credits include: Broadway: NOISES OFF and ANYTHING GOES (Lincoln Center); Off Broadway: THE GREAT AMERICAN TRAILER PARK MUSICAL, BARE, Nicky Silver’s BEAUTIFUL CHILD, BAT BOY-THE MUSICAL (Drama Desk/Ovation nomination); Regional:Disney’s ON THE RECORD (Ovation nomination), Shaw’s THE PHILANDERER (South Coast Rep/Ovation nomination), SHE LOVES ME (The Reprise Series/Ovation nomination), PRESENT LAUGHTER (The Pasadena Playhouse), world tour of John Adams opera I WAS LOOKING AT THE CEILING… directed by Peter Sellars. Film/Television: How To Kill Your Neighbor's Dog, Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles, “Law and Order SVU”, ”Rescue Me”, "Spin City", "Providence", "The Practice", "Star Trek Voyager", "JAG" and three years as Dr. Kelsey Harrison on “Another World”. Kaitlin has recorded over twenty radio plays including THE HEIDI CHRONICLES, WORKING and PROOF with Anne Heche. Kaitlin trained at Carnegie Mellon University and The Royal Academy of The Arts in London.   

Jeff Johnson is the author of William Inge and the Subversion of Gender: Rewriting Stereotypes in the Plays, Novels and Screenplays, Pervert in the Pulpit: Morality in the Works of David Lynch, and The Main Squeeze. Jeff has received numerous awards including the Florida Governor's Screenwriting Award, a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and a Summer Stipend for research from the northeast chapter of the Modern Language Association. Recipient of two Fulbright teaching assignments, Mr. Johnson has taught in England, Denmark, Lithuania and Hungary, and is a guest director and featured American playwright at Arden School of Theatre in Manchester, England. He is currently finishing a new book on post-Soviet theatre in the Baltic States.   

Jean Kauffman, (Special Guest Performer) a graduate of the Ray Bolger Musical Theater Program at UCLA, just finished a run as Ms. Pennywise in URINETOWN, opposite Tony award-winning John Rubinstein. She has toured with BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, CATS, A CHORUS LINE, and played Letitia Primrose in ON THE 20TH CENTURY opposite Tony winner, Judy Kaye. Jean won a Drama-Logue award for her portrayal of Sarah Jane Moore in the Los Angeles premiere of Sondheim’s ASSASSINS (directed by Peter Ellenstein). Other regional credits include Mrs. Lovett in SWEENEY TODD, Tzeitel in FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, and Lucy Schmeeler in ON THE TOWN. Jean began her professional career singing with the legendary recording artist and television star Perry Como and worked extensively in Manhattan nightclubs with her vocal trio Hilly, Lili, & Lulu. She now resides in Los Angeles with her writer husband, Robert L. Freedman. Their son Max, also a writer, is a freshman at Northwestern University. She recently co-directed and choreographed the Independence Community College (ICC) production of HAPPY END. She is happy to be guest teaching Musical Theatre Performance and Dance this semester at ICC.

Gary Konas is Associate Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse. He is editor of Neil Simon: A Casebook (1997) and has published a number of essays on musical theatre. At past Inge Festivals he has presented papers on honorees Neil Simon, Stephen Sondheim, and John Kander and Fred Ebb. He is also a theatre organist who plays solo pipe organ concerts. He has recorded an album of show tunes on the Mighty Wurlitzer.

 Colby H. Kullman is a professor of English at the University of Mississippi where he has taught since 1984. He is the editor of the two-volume reference work Theatre Companies of the World (1986), is the co-founder and co-editor (with Philip C. Kolin) of the journal Studies in American Drama, 1945 – Present (1986-1994), and co-editor of Speaking on Stage (1996, with Philip C. Kolin). His interview with Arthur Miller appeared in the Fall 1998 Michigan Quarterly Review, a special edition of the journal celebrating Miller’s DEATH OF A SALESMAN at fifty. For the past twelve years, he has given tours of Tennessee William’s Mississippi Delta. In 1995, he was awarded the University of Mississippi’s Liberal Arts Teacher of the Year award; in 1997, he was elected as Ole Miss’s Elsie M. Hood Outstanding Teacher; and in 2001, he was celebrated with a Phi Kappa Phi Award for Contributions to Excellence in Higher Education. 

Jeffrey Loomis is Professor of English at Northwest Missouri State University, where he teaches Literary Criticism and several Dramatic Literature courses.  While he also studies the genre of poetry, being well-known as a scholar of G. M. Hopkins, he also has published articles on dramatists ranging from Shakespeare to Goethe to Strindberg and on to modern playwrights as diverse as Garson Kanin, William Gibson, Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, Paul Zindel, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine.  He regularly teaches, and has frequently written about, the plays of Tina Howe.

Cynthia Levin (Special Guest Presenter) is in her 28th season as Producing Artistic Director of the Unicorn Theatre where she has worked as a director, actor, designer or producer on over 200 productions. Most recently she directed Nickel & Dimed, The Great American Trailer Park Musical, tick, tick…Boom!, Frozen, I Am My Own Wife, Bug, The Exonerated, Convenience, Take Me Out, BatBoy:  The Musical, The Mineola Twins and The Memory of Water at the Unicorn. She also directs for the Coterie Theatre and the UMKC Department of Theatre. Cynthia is a graduate of Park University where she was additionally awarded an Honorary Doctorate in 2002. She is a founding board member of the National New Play Network, an organization dedicated to the development and production of new works. She is the 2006 recipient of the Pinnacle Award for Excellence in the Arts from the Johnson County Library Foundation.

Charles Eliot Mehler is a PhD candidate in the Department of Theatre at Louisiana State University and the author of the musicals Downtown (lyrics only), Hard Road (lyrics only), What a Friend We Have in Gingrich, Poster Children, and Wealth, and How Not to Avoid It, a musical adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s Major Barbara.  In addition, he has written the non-musical plays Flip-flop and Jack from Will and Grace. This spring, Mehler is looking forward to the publication of his first scholarly article.  Entitled “Brokeback Mountain at the Oscars,” this article will be published as part of an anthology dealing with reaction to both the film and the original short story. Charlie is especially looking forward to addressing those attending the Inge Festival, and sees it as sort of a homecoming. Charlie completed his masters in speech/theatre at Kansas State University in May, 2004.

RON ORBACH is currently in rehearsal at the Denver Center, where he will play “Pseudolus” in A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM, beginning in mid-May. Broadway: LAUGHTER ON THE 23rd FLOOR; DANCE OF THE VAMPIRES; NEVER GONNA DANCE.  Off-Broadway: Second Stage, Roundabout, Encores! @City Center, WPA, The Lambs, Westbeth, CSC and the Cherry Lane.  Regional/Touring: “Tevye”, in FIDDLER ON THE ROOF (Sacramento Music Circus); "David O. Selznick", in MOONLIGHT AND MAGNOLIAS (The Goodman); HARRY CHAPIN: LIES AND LEGENDS (Chicago, NY & LA--1988 LADCC Award); ROAD TO NIRVANA (1991 LA Weekly Award); "Amos Hart", in CHICAGO (1997 Jeff Award/1998 Ovations nomination, LA); FIORELLO! @ Reprise!, LA. Also: Berkshire Theater Festival, Barrington Stage Co., San José Rep. Film: Amy Heckerling's, Clueless;.  TV: Law and Order; Law and Order: Criminal Intent; Third Watch; Platypus Man (series regular), etc.  Mr. Orbach is also an acting coach, as well as a director who received the 1996 Ovations Award as Best Director, for THE ELLIS JUMP (Met Theatre, Hollywood). He resides in LA, with his wife of five years, Kathleen Eads.

  Dominic Orlando (Inge Center Playwright-in-Residence) is a former Jerome Fellow to The Playwrights Center and was this year awarded a McKnight Advancement Grant. He has been a writer-in-residence at The MacDowell Colony (multi-year), The William Inge Festival, The Edward Albee Foundation (multi-year), The Djerassi Resident Artists Program, The Ucross Foundation and The Atlantic Center for the Arts (a residency with Paula Vogel). His plays have been published by Playscripts and Dramatics Magazine and developed at The Guthrie Theater, The Bay Area Playwrights Festival, HotInk, The Aurora Theater's Global Age Project, Stage Left, and The Jungle Theater. He's received commissions from The Guthrie, Teatro Del Pueblo, Nautilus Music-Theater, and Bristol Valley Theater (NY). His play, Juan Gelion Dances for the Sun premiered in San Francisco this past March with Crowded Fire Theatre—a production the Chronicle called "electric with dramatic, physical and intellectual energy”. With No-Pants Theatre (NYC) his work was produced at venues ranging from HERE Arts Center, to The International Fringe Festival (multi-year) to The Pasinger/Fabrike (Munich) and The Samuel Beckett on Theatre Row (off-Broadway), and was supported by The New York State Council on the Arts, The Puffin Foundation and The Alliance of Resident Theatres/NY (among others). He has taught at The Playwrights Foundation (SF), Moorehead University (MN), No Pants Theatre (NYC), and The William inge Festival (KS), and works privately with individual playwrights.

Michele Pawk has appeared on Broadway in LOSING LOUIE, MAMMA MIA, HOLLYWOOD ARMS (Tony Award), CHICAGO, SEUSSICAL, CABARET(Drama Desk & Outer Critics' Circle nominations), TRIUMPH OF LOVE, CRAZY FOR YOU(Drama Desk nomination), and MAIL.  Some of her favorite Off- Broadway experiences are most recently William Inge's THE DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS, THE PARIS LETTER (Drama Desk nomination), REEFER MADNESS, AFTER THE FAIR, HELLO AGAIN, MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG, john & jen, A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC (NYC & LA Operas), and Stephen Sondheim's BOUNCE (Kennedy Center/ Helen Hayes nomination). She's been in a few films you might have seen, has played a dominatrix, a Russian Madame, and two white trash mothers on the three various Law & Orders, and was in a bunch of 1980's sitcoms.  She has recorded seven original cast albums, a few compilations, and several audiobooks.  Michele is absolutely thrilled to be a part of the William Inge Festival.

 Mary Beth Peil's (Special Guest Performer) career spans the worlds of Television, motion pictures, musical theatre, drama and opera. Her Broadway debut in the 1985 revival of KING AND I opposite Yul Brynner earned her a Tony Award nomination. Subsequent New York appearances include the '03 Broadway revival of NINE (Outer Critics Cricle nomination). An Obie Award winner, her Off Broadway appearances include: Atlantic Theatre( THE ROOM), NYTW (HEDDA GABLER), Drama Dept. (AS 1000s CHEER), MTC (SYLVIA), Playwrights Horizon (A CHEEVER EVENING),  and Signature Theatre (FINDING THE SUN). Regional credits include: LongWharf (The COCKTAIL HOUR), Georgestreet Playhouse (THINGS YOU LEAST EXPECT), About Face (MPROUST), Adirondack Theatre (MADAGASCAR), Old Globe (LUCKYDUCK), Kennedy Center (SWEENEY TODD), Yale Rep (HAY FEVER), the Huntington (HAMLET), A.R.T. (NAKED EYE), Baltimore Centre Stage (TRIUMPH of LOVE), Arena Stage (A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY), among others. She can be seen on film in Flags of our Fathers, and Stepford Wives, and on television in the recurring role of Grams in the tv series Dawson’s Creek. Mary Beth is a member of the Atlantic Theatre Company and the Drama Dept. 

Dr. Judith Midyett Pender is a member of the faculty in the School of Drama at the University of Oklahoma since 1999. Dr. Pender teaches acting, directing, and theatre history and serves as Graduate Liaison.  She regularly directs a production in each University Theatre season.  Most recently, she directed an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ GREAT EXPECTATIONS which employed 6 actors in 40 roles.  She maintains a professional profile as an actor and director and is a member of Actors’ Equity Association, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.  She recently presented a workshop at the International Humanities Symposium held at Columbia University entitled, “Shakespeare Didn’t Punctuate: How Punctuation Choices Effect Characterization.” Dr. Pender was named the 2006 Irene and Julian J. Rothbaum Presidential Professor of Excellence in the Arts.

Theresa Rebeck New York productions include The Scene, The Water’s Edge, Spike Heels, Loose Knit and The Family of Mann at Second Stage; Bad Dates and The Butterfly Collection at Playwrights Horizons; and View of the Dome at New York Theatre Workshop. Omnium Gatherum (co-written with Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros, and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize) was featured at the Humana Festival 2003, and had a commercial run at the Variety Arts. This past fall, her new play Mauritius premiered at Boston’s Huntington Theatre (winner, Boston’s IRNE award), and The Scene received rave reviews, running at Second Stage Theatre this winter.  Her work has been widely produced both regionally and internationally.  She currently serves on the Dramatist’s Guild Council, and is on the board of the developmental playwright’s theatre, The Lark.  This summer, volumes II and III of Rebeck’s one-acts and full-length plays will be published by Smith & Kraus, as well as her book of essays about playwriting and screenwriting, Free Fire Zone.   She has been a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn prize twice, won the National Theatre Conference Award (for The Family of Mann), and was awarded the William Inge Theatre Festival’s Otis Guernsey New Voices Playwriting Award in 2003.  Her first novel will be published by Shaye Arehardt/Crown Publishing spring 2008. 

Blake Robbins is best known for his three seasons as David Brass on the critically acclaimed HBO series Oz. Other television credits include recurring roles on The O.C. and Firefly from creator Joss Whedon. Blake made his Broadway debut in the Arthur Miller’s play THE MAN WHO HAD ALL THE LUCK opposite Chris O’Donnell. Among his over sixty theatrical productions are TAPE WITH THE NAKED ANGELS, JOE FEARLESS at the Atlantic Theater Company, HARD TIMES AT THE EVIDENCE ROOM and PLACEMENT at the award winning Black Dahlia Theater. He recently completed shooting Bunker Hill for director Kevin Willmott. Blake co-wrote Acting Qs: Conversations with Working Actors with casting director and author Bonnie Gillespie. He is a graduate of Independence Community College, Wichita State University, and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City. Blake currently resides in the Los Angeles area with his beautiful wife and daughters Karen, Molly and Emma. 

J. T. Rogers’ (Otis Guernsey New Voices Award Recipient) latest play, The Overwhelming, had its world premiere last season at the National Theatre of Great Britain; the production then toured the United Kingdom. The Overwhelming opens on Broadway at the Roundabout Theatre Company this fall. His play, Madagascar received the 2005 Pinter Review Prize for Drama and the American Theatre Critics Association’s M. Elizabeth Osborne Award, and was a finalist for the Steinberg Award. Rogers’ other works include White People (nominated for best play of the year by the L.A. Drama Critics Circle, Barrymore Award of Philadelphia, and the Carbonell Award of South Florida) and Seeing the Elephant (Kesselring Prize nominee for best new American play). His works have been given mainstage productions Off Broadway at the SPF Summer Play Festival and regionally at the Philadelphia Theatre Co., New Actors Union Theatre (Moscow), the Road Theatre (L.A.), New Theatre (Miami), the Adirondack Theatre Festival (NY), and many times at the Salt Lake Acting Co., where he was a 2004-2005 NEA/TCG playwright in residence. Rogers has been an artist-in-residence at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center and the Edward Albee Foundation, and was the recipient of a 2004 playwriting fellowship from New York Foundation for the Arts. His plays are published by Faber & Faber, Dramatists Play Service, and the University of Tampa Press. He lives in Brooklyn.

Ken Ruta is new to the Inge Festival.  He last appeared in TheatreWorks' production of Old Money. California audiences have recently seen him in American Conservatory Theater's The Circle, The Voysey Inheritance, and Christmans Carol, Berkeley Repertory Theatre's Our Town, and Magic Theatre's Other People's Money. He is an original company member of Cincinnati's Playhouse-in-the-Park, Minneapolis' Tyrone Guthrie Theatre (also Associate Director) and San Francisco's American Conservatory Theatre. He was Prospero last summer in Houston Shakespeare Festival and Southwest Shakespeare Company's productions of The Tempest. Mr. Ruta has enjoyed long associations with The Old Globe and Arizona Theatre Company as well as appearing in the Broadway productions of Inherit the Wind, Separate Tables, Duel of Angels, Three Sisters, and The Elephant Man. His work has embraced everthing from soap opera to grand opera. His fifty years on legitimate stage have garnered many laurels, most recently the Dean Goodman Life Achievement Award and Honorary Master of Fine Arts Degree from ACT.

Alan Safier just completed starring in and producing Steve Tesich’s dramedy THE SPEED OF DARKNESS in Los Angeles. Other recent stage credits include Buddy in CITY OF ANGELS and Versati in Steve Martin’s THE UNDERPANTS at the Laguna Playhouse. Alan has played Jess Sr. in William Inge’s “lost play” THE DISPOSAL, Guiteau in ASSASSINS and Michael in the L.A. premiere of THE MEN FROM THE BOYS, Mart Crowley’s sequel to his seminal THE BOYS IN THE BAND. He debuted off-Broadway in SAY GOODNIGHT, GRACIE; followed by SCRAMBLED FEET; VERY NORMAL PEOPLE and the hit revival of NEW FACES OF 1952. Festival attendees may remember him from past tributes to Adolph Green, Romulus Linney, Arthur Laurents and last year’s 25^th Anniversary, as well as from hundreds of radio & tv voiceovers (he’s the Kibbles ‘n Bits dog!), and from guest appearances on dozens of primetime series. Safier has authored several published short stories and a play, MY FATHER’S VOICE.

Jeffrey Silverman (Special Guest Presenter) is a composer and music producer. As a composer, he has dozens of films and television projects to his credit. His music can be heard on virtually every cable and network channel including FOX, BRAVO, A&E, MTV, THE HISTORY CHANNEL, BIOGRAPHY, and TLC. His latest movie score for TURNER ENTERTAINMENT’s film SPARROWS was recently performed and recorded by a symphony orchestra in Europe and will air later this year. His talents as a music producer and orchestrator have garnered him three platinum.  As a theatre composer, Jeffrey has had four musical productions presented on the New York stage, including, two co-written with book writer and lyricist, Walter Willison.  Earlier in his career, Jeffrey conducted Broadway shows including Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Song and Dance starring Bernadette Peters and the original Broadway production of Les Miserables. Jeffrey feels a particular affinity for the works of William Inge since he has reunited with his writing partner Walter Willison to create a musical based on Mr. Inge’s play Bus Stop.

Daniel Sullivan directs the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Critics Institute and teaches journalism at the University of Minnesota. He was chief theater critic for the Los Angeles Times for twenty years, and has also reviewed for the New York Times and the Minneapolis Tribune. He was a writer-in-residence at Independence Community College in 1989 while researching the life of William Inge. He is married to Faith Sullivan, author of Gardenias, The Cape Ann and other fine novels. 

Diane Sutherland Broadway: The Light in the Piazza, She Loves Me (Amalia-1994 Revival), 1776,Three Sisters, Song and Dance, Cats( original co.) A Chorus Line. Off-B’way: First Ladies Suite and Requiem for William (Transport Group), The Waves. National Tours: The Light in the Piazza, Guys & Dolls (50th anniv. tour), Cabaret, Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables,( First National Tour) Cats( Helen Hayes Award). Regional: Enter the Guardsman,
Edwin Drood, Into the Woods, A Little Night Music, American Vaudeville. Recordings: She Loves Me ( 1994), Guys & Dolls ( 50th anniv.) Gershwin’s Tell Me More, Man with a Load of Mischief(2004).
 

Daniel Tatar (Special Guest Performer) was recently seen in the Reprise! concerts of Baby (with Faith Prince, Alice Ripley, and Kerry Butler) and Elegies (with Liz Callaway, Randy Graff, and Malcolm Gets).  He originated the role of Man 1 in the Chicago and San Francisco companies of I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change.  Regional credits include Jamie in The Last Five Years (Pasadena Playhouse), Nick in Over the River and through the Woods (McCoy-Rigby), Mohammed in The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife (Laguna Playhouse), Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Drury Lane Theatre), Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s The Ballad of Little Jo, Wally in Campaign of the Century (with Michael Rupert), Miss Saigon (Marriott Theatre), and Gary Griffin’s direction of Pacific Overtures (Chicago Shakespeare Theatre).  Commercial credits include Budweiser, U.S. Cellular, U.S. Military, and America Online. Recent television credits include Grey’s Anatomy.  www.danieltatar.com  

Ralph Voss (Special Guest Presenter) a Professor of English at the University of Alabama, is author of the William Inge biography, A Life of William Inge.  A native of Kansas, Voss holds B.A. and M.A. degrees from Ft. Hays State University and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin.  He has published biographical and critical articles about Inge and Tennessee Williams in The Dictionary of Literary Biography, Dictionary of American Biography, Kansas Quarterly, and Library Chronicle.  He also teaches and publishes in the field of rhetoric and composition. 

Amanda White currently lives in New York City, where she is a graduate student in Columbia University's Program in Arts Administration.  She is a proud member of Actors' Equity Association, and balances stage time with studying acting with Austin Pendleton at HB Studio and working in Play Development for Broadway producing organization The Araca Group.  Amanda lived in Chicago prior to her time in New York, where she served on the artistic boards of Stage Two Theatre and Bohemian Theatre Ensemble. She also played in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern... with Chicago's Great Beast Theatre and the Chicago premiere of Robert Simonson's Café Society with Reasonable Facsimile Theatre Company.  Some of her favorite roles have been in The Heidi Chronicles, Carousel, Medea, The Rainmaker, KITTY and A Little Night Music.  Amanda recently had the pleasure of playing "The Witch" in Into The Woods at Theatre Simpson in Iowa, the state she is proud to call home.

 Walter Willison starred on Broadway TWO BY TWO [Tony Award nomination,Theatre World Award], GRAND HOTEL, A CHRISTMAS CAROL, PIPPIN, NORMAN, IS THAT YOU?, WILD AND WONDERFUL, Bernstein's MASS at The Kennedy Center, KEAN Off-Broadway. He helped inaugurate IngeFest from 1983 to ’87, and received A Special William Inge Award in 1987. TV includes his NBC series McDuff, The Talking Dog, Days of Our Lives, PBS' An American Tragedy; Films include: Ziegfeld: The Man & His Women, Harry & Walter Go To New York; Plays produced include Frank Loesser’s GREENWILLOW [revisal book w/Douglas Holmes]; BROADWAY SCANDALS OF 1928, FRONT STREET GAIETIES [book, lyrics, director], and the cult film FANTASIES [lyrics/vocals] with music by Jeffrey Silverman; 29 CDs [producer, performer or both] including A BAG OF POPCORN AND A DREAM; Books: Associate Editor, Screen World Vols.38-40, Theatre World Vols. 42-45; Vice-President, Theatre World Awards Board [2004-2006]; Directed THE 2006 THEATRE WORLD AWARDS, and wrote special material for Liza Minnelli. In development: A new musical with composer Jeffrey Silverman, to be directed and choreographed by Jamie King, acclaimed stager of shows for Madonna, Ricky Martin and Christina Aguilera.

Will Willoughby (Special Guest Director) is a graduate of USC's prestigious Cinema-Television Production program and holds an Associates Degree from The American Academy of Dramatics Arts.  He worked as a Production Associate with world-renown playwrights Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee on such projects as 1999 Showtime remake of INHERIT THE WIND starring Jack Lemmon and George C. Scott.  He performed script revisions on the Lawrence & Lee screenplay, THE NIGHT THOREAU SPENT IN JAIL.  Over the past two and a half years he served as Co-Artistic Director of the Rose Alley Theater in Venice, CA. where he worked with Producer/Writer Ron Cowen on his 1970's classic anti-war drama SUMMERTREE and developed plays with emerging playwrights. Most recently he directed a staged reading of THE GANG’S ALL HERE.

Elizabeth Wilson (Special Guest Performer) studied with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse. Her Broadway debut was in Picnic in 1952. Since then she has appeared on Broadway in Waiting in the Wings, A Delicate Balance, and Ah, Wilderness among others. She won a Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Actress in Mornings At Seven, and a Tony Award for her performance in the New York Shakespeare Festival’s production of Sticks and Bones. She won Obie Awards for Taken in Marriage and Antiroom and was given the Drama Desk Award for Solonika. She has various film and television credits as well including: The Graduate; The Adams Family; Grace Quigley with Katherine Hepburn; and Child is Waiting with Judy Garland. Elizabeth was recently inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame. 

Deborah Grace Winer's (Special Guest Presenter) play, The Last Girl Singer, was produced Off-Broadway by the Women’s Project and Productions, starring Tony award winner Kelly Bishop.  It is published by Samuel French. Other plays, including Little Shows, Big Important Issues and Rock, Paper, Scissors have been developed at Lincoln Center Theatre, the Westport Country Playhouse, the Actors Studio and the Abingdon Theatre.   She has written extensively on music and musical theatre.  She has been a guest Artistic Director, writer and host for New York’s 92^nd Street Y’s Lyrics and Lyricists series, most recently for an all-star celebration of Rosemary Clooney, and has written many benefit shows for venues like New York City Center and Town Hall, including  Fans!: the Sally Rand Centennial Celebration.  She was featured on the PBS American Masters special, Yours for a Song: The Women of Tin Pan Alley, on the A&E Biography of Rosemary Clooney, on National Public Radio’s Fresh Air and NPR’s Morning Edition.

Luke Yankee (Special Guest Presenter) has directed, acted, produced and taught in theaters throughout the world. Directing highlights include: THE CHERRY ORCHARD; LOVE LETTERS; NIGHT CLUB CONFIDENTIAL; MAN OF LA MANCHA; PRIVATE LIVES; THE KING AND I and DRIVING MISS DAISY.  He served as Artistic Director of the Long Beach Civic Light Opera and the Struthers Library Theatre. He has taught and directed at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, AMDA and Columbia College. He is the author of JUST OUTSIDE THE SPOTLIGHT: GROWING UP WITH EILEEN HECKART. His first play, A PLACE AT FOREST LAWN will be published next month by Dramatists Play Service.  He is currently on tour with his one-man show, DIVA DISH!  www.lukeyankee.com