Photos: COLLECTED STORIES Hits Cinnabar Theater 5/22

Carol Mayo Jenkins, a veteran actress who has starred on Broadway and is remembered as English teacher Elizabeth Sherwood in the award-winning television series Fame, returns to Petaluma to star the upcoming Cinnabar Theater production of Collected Stories.

Elizabeth Craven directs the play which also features professional San Francisco Bay Area actress Anna Bullard. Collected Stories opens May 22 and continues with performances through June 13.

Collected Stories, by Donald Margulies, follows the six year relationship between a brilliant, but aging short story writer and her young ambitious protégée in this play reminiscent of the 1950 film classic All About Eve. Funny, smart, intense and thought provoking this play explores privacy rights and loyalty against the backdrop of the current tell-all media environment.

Ms. Jenkins appeared at the Cinnabar Theater in 2007 in Enchanted April and directed the company’s critically acclaimed production of Privates Lives in 2008.

Ms. Jenkins has worked often at San Jose Rep, Seattle Rep, The Globe Theatre in San Diego and Porchlight Theatre Company in Marin County.

She began her career with the opening of The American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco. During her four seasons with A.C.T. her roles included Abigail in The Crucible, Judith in The Devil’s Disciple, Olivia in Twelfth Night, and Jocasta in Oedipus Rex.

Ms. Jenkins made her Broadway debut in William Ball’s production of The Three Sisters as Natasha, with Michael Learned, Kitty Winn, Angela Paton, Ken Ruta and Paul Shenar.

Other Broadway performances include There’s One in Every Marriage, with Peter Donat; with the Stratford, Ontario Shakespeare Festival: First Monday in October with Jane Alexander and Henry Fonda and The Suicide with Derek Jacobi. Off-Broadway she played Rita in Little Eyolf, Jennet in The Lady’s Not for Burning, and the title role in Zinnia, for which she won a Drama Desk nomination.

In 1992, she was selected by Edward Albee to play Martha in his production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? which toured the United States, Lithuania, and Russia.

On the West Coast, she continued her theater appearances with Pygmalion at Seattle Repertory Theatre, Albee’s Women at The Globe Theatre in San Diego and three productions at San Jose Repertory Theatre: Amy’s View, Las Meninas, and By the Bog of Cats, with Holly Hunter, for which she received a Dean Goodman Choice Award and Bay Area Theatre Critics’ Circle nomination.

Probably best known for her portrayal of English teacher, Elizabeth Sherwood on the award-winning series Fame, she also appeared on television in Models Inc, Matlock and Max Headroom. 

To order tickets for Collected Stories or for more information visit the Cinnabar Theater website at www.cinnabartheater.org.

Photos by Eric Chazankin

Carol Mayo Jenkins and Anna Bullard

Carol Mayo Jenkins and Anna Bullard

Carol Mayo Jenkins and Anna Bullard