Homebody by Tony Kushner at Black Box Lab at Stage284

Debra Wise (The Homebody) co-founded URT in Oberlin with Wes Sanders. During URT’s decades as a touring company (1979-2008), she helped create over 30 new works, and toured them nationally and internationally to venues ranging from Lincoln Center to public schools; titles included Sanctuary – The Spirit of Harriet Tubman, Home is Where, InTOXICating and The Christopher Columbus Follies. She led URT collaborations with Boston Symphony Orchestra (Firebird, Creation of the World, Tempest), Boston’s Museum of Science (Aging Puzzle), New Center for Arts and Culture (Jewish Women and Their Salons), the Mary Baker Eddy Library, the MFA and the ICA (Art InterACTions), and the Cambridge Arts Council (theater in dialogue with public art). Since creating Central Square Theater with TheNora Theatre Company, Wise has focused on re-envisioning URT’s mission to grow from within its first theater home. She co-founded Catalyst Collaborative@MIT (CST’s unique science theater partnership with MIT), and led partnerships with Mount Auburn Cemetery (Our Town) and the National Park Service (Roots of Liberty – The Haitian Revolution and the American Civil War, performed with over 50 performers and guest artists Danny Glover and Edwidge Danticat). URT has won two Elliott Norton awards under Wise’s leadership: The Convert (Outstanding Production) and Bedlam’s St. Joan (Best Visiting Production). She will be acting in two upcoming productions during CST’s 2016-17 season: Homebody (a monologue by Tony Kushner) and The Midvale High School Fiftieth Reunion (by Alan Brody). Other appearances on the CST stage include Copenhagen, Mr g, Brundibar, The Other Place, Distracted, The How and the Why, Einstein’s Dreams, From Orchids to Octopi: An Evolutionary Love Story, Yesterday Happened: Remembering H.M., Breaking the Code, Arabian Nights and A Christmas Memory. Acting on other Boston stages has included Mistero Buffo (Poet’s Theatre); A Boston Marriage and Orson’s Shadow (New Repertory Theatre), Brooklyn Boy (Speakeasy Stage Co.), and Chosen Child (Boston Playwrights); in NYC, The Haggadah (The Public, with Julie Taymor). Wise has been nominated for Outstanding Performance by both the Elliot Norton Awards (twice) and the IRNE (three times). Her work as a playwright includes States of Grace, inspired by the stories, poems and essays of Grace Paley; and Alice’s Adventures Underground, based on the works of Lewis Carroll. She collaborates each summer with Harvard’s Project Zero, training educators on using theater to help students think more deeply across the curriculum.

Lee Mikeska Gardner (Director) is in her third year as the Artistic Director of The Nora Theatre Company. In that time she has directed Her Aching Heart, Grounded, Saving Kitty (with Jennifer Coolidge) and Arcadia and performed in Emilie: The Marquise de Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight, earning an Eliot Norton award for Lead Actress, Small Theatre. She also played Claudia in the IRNE nominated Chosen Child at Boston Playwrights Theatre. Hailing from the Washington, D.C. region, her work ranges from plays in development to the classics. An Artistic Associate for ten years at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Lee directed After Ashley (Helen Hayes nomination for Outstanding Direction); Fat Men In Skirts; Life During Wartime (Helen Hayes nomination for Outstanding Direction); Goodnight, Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet (Helen Hayes nomination for Outstanding Direction); Doug Wright’s Watbanaland; The Chinese Art of Placement; the world premiere of The Gene Pool; Stop Kiss and Fuddy Meers. As an Associate Artist with 1st Stage Lee directed Blithe Spirit; The How and The Why; Humble Boy and Fuddy Meers.  Lee served as the Managing Director for Washington Shakespeare Company for five years and for them directed the world premieres of Caesar and Dada and Learning Curves (both by Allyson Currin); Equus; A Midsummer’s Nights Dream (with 7 actors,) and Deathwatch, a co-production with Actors’ Theatre of Washington, with whom she directed the all-male Dangerous Liaisons.  Other favorite directing projects include Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie at The Kennedy Center, Angels in America and Peristroika at Signature Theatre, T.S. Eliot’s The Cocktail Party for the Washington Stage Guild (Theatre Lobby Award,) Bad Dates at the Olney Theatre Center, Golden Boy and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with the Keegan Theatre (Artistic Associate), The Butterfingers Angel…, Thom Pain (Based on Nothing,) Stones In His Pockets and Three Tall Women at Rep Stage, where Lee also served as Managing Director for two years. As a performer, Lee earned a Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Lead Actress for the role of Mary in A House in the Country with Charter Theatre, where she also performed the roles of Carla in A Taste of Fire (Helen Hayes nomination), Fran in Short Order Stories, and Susanna in Of A Sunday Morning, all of which were world premieres.  Lee originated the role of Hettie in Julie Jensen’s Two Headed, which she performed at Washington Shakespeare Company and Mill Mountain Theatre. Other favorite roles include Terry in Sideman (Helen Hayes nomination) and Florence Foster Jenkins in Souvenir at 1st Stage;  Patricia Preece in Stanley at Potomac Theatre Project (Helen Hayes nomination,) Kimberly Bergalis in Patient A at Freedom Stage (Helen Hayes nomination,) Clare in Tennessee Williams’s The Two-Character Play at Spooky Action Theatre, Gertrude in Hamlet, Josie in The Show Off at The American Century Theater and Luisa in A Shayna Maidel (Best Actress, Baltimore City Paper) at Rep Stage. Lee spent seven years as Associate Artistic Director with the Shenandoah Playwrights’ Retreat working on plays in development with such varied playwrights as Julie Jensen, Sean Clark, Peter Coy, Kia Corthron, Karim Alrawi, Hoang To Mai, Dana Yeaton, Tat Ming Cheung, Motti Lerner, Heather McDonald, John Walch and Jerome Hairston.  She also works closely with emerging playwrights at The Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival as an actor, director and mentor. As an educator, Lee has taught or served as a Guest Artist at Emerson College, the Catholic University of America, George Mason University, American University, Montgomery College, George Washington University, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, UVA, Charlottesville, University of Maryland, College Park, Middlebury College; National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts, and Summer Rep Company (Columbia, MO) and founded the Acting Classes at Woolly Mammoth and Washington Shakespeare Company. Lee has a B.F.A. in the Performing Arts from George Mason University and an M.F.A. in Acting from The Catholic University of America.