Actors' Shakespeare Project Names Acting Co-Artistic Directors

Actors' Shakespeare Project (ASP), the Somerville-based itinerant theater company, currently performing its 13th season, names Resident Acting Company members Maurice Emmanuel Parent and Paula Plum as interim co-artistic directors. Joining the leadership team of Kimberly Dawson, Executive Producer and Mara Sidmore, Director of Education Programs, Projects & Partnerships, Paula and Maurice will assume their new roles effective immediately, replacing Allyn Burrows who held the post for seven years. For more information about ASP visit actorsshakespeareproject.org.

"Maurice and Paula are incredible artists and extremely smart thinkers," says Kimberly Dawson, Executive Producer "They compliment each other quite well, which will certainly bode well as they will respectively star in and oversee our upcoming productions of Christopher Marlowe's Edward II and the Bard's A Midsummer Night's Dream. She adds, "We are so fortunate to have two people who understand and are dedicated to this company easing us through this leadership transition. The search is well underway, and we hope to have our next Artistic Director in place by June 2017."

"The Board is incredibly excited to put ASP's artistic direction in the hands of two enormously capable members of our Resident Acting Company," according to Board of Directors President David Sandberg. "Paula and Maurice both have deep experience and knowledge not only as actors but in the areas of directing, production, and education, and they are active and respected members of the Greater Boston theater community."

Maurice Emmanuel Parent is honored to be working with Paula Plum to serve as interim co-Artistic Director of the Actor's Shakespeare Project. He has been a Resident Acting Company member since 2011. Shows with ASP: King John (Lewis the Dauphin), Coriolanus (Junius Brutus), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Puck), Troilus and Cressida (Troilus), Romeo and Juliet (Mercutio). Other local companies: SpeakEasy Stage, New Repertory Theatre, Underground Railway Theatre, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, Wheelock Family Theatre, Lyric Stage, Huntington Theatre Co., Boston Theatre Works, Barrington Stage, Cape Playhouse. He is the winner of a 2008 Elliot Norton Award winner for Some Men (SpeakEasy), Angels in America (Boston Theatre Works) and The Wild Party (New Rep); a 2015 Irne Award for The Color Purple (SpeakEasy) and a 2016 IRNE Award for The Snow Queen (New Rep).

Paula Plum is a founding member of Actors' Shakespeare Project and thrilled to partner with Maurice Parent in this new adventure. She has been Artistic Director of WGBH's A Christmas Celtic Sojourn since its inception in 2003, touring concerts throughout New England during the Christmas holiday season. Other directing credits include Macbeth and

The School for Scandal (Actors' Shakespeare Project), Steel Magnolias (Stoneham Theatre), Jake's Women (Merrimack Repertory Theatre), Baltimore Waltz (Lyric Stage), I'm Not Rappaport (Gloucester Stage), The Lady and the Clarinet (New Ehrlich Theatre), Tell Me On A Sunday (Stuart St. Theatre) and Romeo and Juliet (Happy Medium Theatre). As the 2009 recipient of the Fox Actor Fellowship, Paula conducted a workshop at her host theatre, SpeakEasy Stage, entitled "Handling the Hot Moments," exploring the ways actors negotiate intimacy on stage. Her article of the same title was published in American Theatre Magazine (October 2011). While she is best known to Boston audiences as an actress, Paula is also a playwright, teacher and acting coach. Her most recent play, What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, explores the passions and peccadilloes of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. With Actors' Shakespeare Project, she has played Phedre, Lady Macbeth, Cleopatra, Beatrice, Mistress Overdone. Paula is the recipient of the Elliot Norton Award for Sustained Excellence, five IRNE awards, two Elliot Norton Awards for Best Actress, and was the 2003 Distinguished Alumna of Boston University's College of Fine Arts. She is married to actor Richard Snee.

Actors' Shakespeare Project is an award-winning professional theater company with a Resident Acting Company and extensive education, youth and community programs. ASP performs and works in found spaces, schools, theaters and neighborhoods to present and explore the robust language, resonant stories, and deeply human characters in Shakespeare's plays and in works by other great playwrights. The company's work is ensemble-based and focused on intimacy, storytelling, language, relationships, voice, risk and artistry within and throughout the Boston area.

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