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CAST LIST & CREATIVE TEAM-

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Cast

Jess Andrews* (Alexandra Giddnes) is thrilled to be making her SCR debut. Her regional credits include Romeo and Juliet (Juliet, Heart of America Shakespeare Festival), Twelfth Night (Viola/Olivia u/s, KCRep), Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson—Apt. 2B (Watson/Irene u/s, KCRep), Ghost Light (Storyteller, KCRep), Tiny Beautiful Things (Letter Writer, Unicorn Theatre) Dance Nation (Amina, Unicorn Theatre), Cymbeline (Jupiter, Great River Shakespeare Festival), Marina (Angelina, Bellingham TheatreWorks). She earned her MFA in Acting and Directing from the University of Missouri–Kansas City. @jessanndrews

Tessa Auberjonois* (Birdie Hubbard) previously appeared at SCR in The Roommate (Best Actress, OC Weekly 2017), Mr. Wolf, Absurd Person Singular, Becky Shaw, Crimes of the Heart, A Wrinkle in Time, Lobby Hero, Hold Please, Everett Beekin and numerous PPF and NewSCRipts readings. Other favorite roles include Eight Nights (Ovation Award for Best Lead Actress), Lady Macbeth (The Antaeus Company); Lydia Languish in The Rivals, title roles in Lady Windermere’s Fan and The Country Wife (Shakespeare Theatre, Washington, D.C.); Myra in Hay Fever (Westport Country Playhouse); Helen in Cripple of Inishmaan (The Wilma Theater); Leah in Bones (Kirk Douglas Theatre); Allison in Trainspotting (off-Broadway); and How to Fight Loneliness for Utah Shakespeare directed by David Ivers. She is currently recurring on “How I Met Your Father” seasons 1 and 2, and is seen and heard on television, in film, radio, audio books, music videos, web series and video games, including “Lucifer,” “Modern Family,” “The Affair,” “Shameless,” “On the Verge,” “The Summer People,” “I’m Dying Up Here,” “Law & Order,” “Law & Order: SVU,” “ER,” Birth, “OK K.O.! Let’s Be Heroes,” (2017 BTVA Award Nom), Final Fantasy, Guild Wars and Marvel Ultimate Universe. Auberjonois teaches voice and speech in Los Angeles, is a graduate of London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts and Yale School of Drama, a member of Antaeus Theatre Company and a 2017 recipient of the Lunt-Fontanne Fellowship.

Marco Barricelli* (Benjamin Hubbard) appeared previously at SCR as Petruchio in Taming of the Shrew and Salieri in Amadeus. He has appeared on Broadway in Tamara and off-Broadway in Agamemnon. He was the Artistic Director at Shakespeare Santa Cruz 2008-14, an Associate Artist at the American Conservatory Theatre, and spent many seasons at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. His theater credits also include Subaru Theatre (Tokyo), Guthrie Theatre, Mark Taper Forum (CTG), The Old Globe, La Jolla Playhouse, Long Wharf Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Huntington Theatre Company, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Arizona Theatre Company, Portland Center Stage, Intiman Theatre, Missouri Repertory Theatre, Virginia Stage Company, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Kenyon Festival Theatre, the Utah and Illinois Shakespeare Festivals, among many others. Screen credits include Pixar’s Luca and Ciao, Alberto, “The Book of Daniel,” Holy Silence, “L.A. Law,” Romeo and Juliet, Manhunt 2, Clandestiny and 11th Hour. He is a member of the acting faculty at UC San Diego and received his training at the Juilliard School and an Honorary Degree from American Conservatory Theatre.

Shannon Cochran* (Regina Giddens) last appeared at SCR in the world premiere of A Doll’s House, Part 2. Most recently she appeared as Professors McGonagall and Umbridge in the San Francisco company of Broadway’s Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Other notable theatre includes Cabaret (Roundabout Theatre’s national tour), August: Osage County (first national tour), and Bug (Obie and Drama League Awards). She has appeared at Barrow Street Theatre, Barbican and Gate Theatres (London), Steppenwolf, Mark Taper Forum, Long Wharf, The Old Globe, Geffen Playhouse, Writers Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse and others. Her television credits include “Modern Family,” “NCIS: LA,” “Scandal,” “The Office,” “Law & Order: SVU” and several “Star Treks.” Her film works include Captive State, Star Trek: Nemesis, The Ring and The Babe. She recently completed filming on the feature film Hangman.

Lea Coco* (William Marshall) is thrilled to return to SCR. His notable theatre credits include work with The Public Theater (New York), Blue Man Group (as a Blue Man), Actors Theatre of Louisville, Utah Shakespeare Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre and Steppenwolf Theatre (with Shannon Cochran), among many others. His television credits include guest-star and recurring roles on networks such as NBC, CBS, TNT, ABC and FOX. He can be seen in films such as J. Edgar, Sinister 2 and The Hallmark Channel’s The Sweetest Christmas. He recently finished filming on the 18th season of “Grey’s Anatomy” and the final season of Ava Duverney’s “Queen Sugar.” He is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University.

Safiya Fredericks* (Addie) is honored to be making her SCR debut. She was the recipient of the Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle award for Best Featured Actress for her work in black odyssey at California Shakespeare Theatre. She was most recently seen on screen in the film I’m Charlie Walker, opposite Mike Colter, the “Book of Boba Fett,” and onstage in Power of Sail at the Geffen Playhouse. Other recent credits include Shug Avery in The Color Purple Musical at City Springs Theatre in Atlanta, and originating the role of Narrator in the premiere of It’s Christmas, Carol at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where she was a 2019 company member performing in Hairspray and How to Catch Creation. Past favorite credits include A Winter’s Tale at California Shakespeare Theatre, Aubergine and Fairview at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, The Hard Problem at ACT, Father Comes Home from the Wars at Yale Repertory and Once on This Island at Theatreworks. You can also see her in the films Bitter Melon’ and Sorry to Bother You. Learn More at safiyafredericks.com

Bill Geisslinger* (Horace Giddens) appeared previously at SCR in Fool for Love and in the world premiere of Lucas Hnath’s A Doll’s House, Part 2. He was last seen in the American premiere of Andrew Bovell’s Things I Know To Be True at Milwaukee Rep. and Arizona Theater Co. As an acting company member at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for 25 years, he appeared in more than 70 productions, including the world premieres of Ghost Light by Tony Taccone (also at Berkeley Repertory) and Continental Divide by David Edgar (also at Berkeley Repertory, La Jolla Playhouse, and in the UK at Birmingham Repertory and the Barbican Center in London). He was also seen in X’s & O’s by K.J. Sanchez at Berkeley Rep. He has performed at The Old Globe, Long Wharf Theater, Baltimore Center Stage, Huntington Theater Co., Denver Center Theater, Intiman Theater, Virginia Stage Co., Mechanic Theater, Artists Repertory Theater, Portland Center Stage and Merrimack Repertory Theater. His film and television credits include “Cheers,” “Grimm,” “St. Elsewhere,” “News Radio,” “Nowhere Man,” “Dead by Sunset,” 1000 Heroes, Imaginary Crimes and “American Playhouse: The Skin of Our Teeth.”

Jamison Jones* (Oscar Hubbard) returns to SCR, where he previously appeared in Elemeno Pea and Doctor Cerberus. Other theatre credits include The Christians (Chautauqua Theater Company); Angels in America, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Othello and the West Coast premiere of Maple and Vine (American Conservatory Theatre); American Son (Frankfurt, Germany), Macbeth, Therese Raquin (Ensemble Theatre); The Three Musketeers (Denver Center for the Performing Arts), How the Other Half Loves (Pasadena Playhouse); Arsenic and Old Lace, God of Carnage, The Foreigner, The Lion in Winter, All My Sons, Dancing at Lughnasa and The Rainmaker (La Mirada Theatre); Cyrano de Bergerac (A Noise Within); and the European premieres of Tennessee in the Summer and Purple Hearts (Edinburgh Festival, Scotland). His television and film credits include Steven Spielberg’s “The Whispers,” HBO’s “True Detective,” Collusions (with Tom Everett-Scott), The Lodger (with Alfred Molina), Born to Ride (with William Forsyth), He Was a Quiet Man (with Christian Slater and William H. Macy), Dark Blue (with Kurt Russell), Hollywood Homicide (with Harrison Ford), Fourth Grade B (with William Baldwin), “9-1-1,” “The Afterparty,” “Burn Notice,” “Rosewood,” “24,” “Brothers & Sisters,” “Terminator,” “CSI: NY,” “NCIS,” “Crossing Jordan,” “Alias,” “That ’70s Show” and “Will and Grace.” Jones earned his MFA from A.C.T. His latest film, The Wretched, winner of several international film festival awards, is available on Netflix. jamisonjones.com

Zalen D. King (Cal) is excited to be working in his first SCR production. He is currently honing his skills at UC Irvine’s MFA acting program. He would like to thank his friends, his family and his girlfriend for their ongoing support in his creative pursuits. Find out more about him at zalendking.com or follow him @zalendking.

Hunter Spangler* (Leo Hubbard) is making his first SCR appearance. He has appeared regionally in Junk (La Jolla Playhouse); You Are Here and A Few Good Men (Centre Stage); and A Little Night Music and Laughter on the 23rd Floor (The Warehouse Theatre). His film credits include AUDIO (Eclectic Youth Films). He earned his MFA at UC San Diego and a BA at Clemson University. He would like to shout out his family, friends and fiancée for their constant support and love! Find more about him at hunterspangler.com and follow him at @huntertspangler.

Creative Team

Lillian Hellman (Playwright) was born in New Orleans on June 20, 1905. She moved to New York with her family in 1910, but spent half the year living in a boarding house with her aunts. After studying at both New York University and Columbia University, Hellman dropped out of school and worked as a book reviewer for the New York Herald Tribune. In 1930, she moved to Hollywood and became a script reader for MGM, where she became involved in the social and political scene. There, she met writer Dashiell Hammett and began a close relationship with him that lasted almost 30 years. Hammett urged her to write a play based on The Great Drumsheugh Case, in which a student at a boarding school accuses two teachers of being lesbians. The result, The Children’s Hour (1934), was a huge success on Broadway and ran for 691 performances. Her play The Little Foxes (1939) was another success, and she received an Academy Award nomination for her screenplay for the film adaptation. She published several plays throughout the 1940s and 1950s, including Another Part of the Forest (1946), The Autumn Garden (1951), and the anti-fascist plays Watch on the Rhine (1941) and The Searching Wind (1944). In 1952, Hellman was called to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee and was blacklisted for her refusal to provide the names of friends with Communist associations. She returned to New York and continued to write. She wrote the libretto for Leonard Bernstein’s adaptation of Candide (1956), which won a Tony Award for Best Musical, as well as The Lark (1955), Toys in the Attic (1960), and My Mother, My Father and Me (1963). She taught at several colleges throughout the 1960s and 1970s, including Harvard and Yale. She was a member of the National Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 1964, she was awarded the Gold Medal for Drama from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. She published three volumes of memoirs, An Unfinished Woman (1969), which received a National Book Award, Pentimento (1973), and Scoundrel Time (1976). She died in 1984 in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.

Lisa Peterson (Director) returns to SCR after directing Julia Cho’s Aubergine, Culture Clash (Still) in America, The Madwoman in the Volvo by Sandra Tsing Loh and Collected Stories by Donald Margulies. A two-time Obie Award-winner, she co-wrote and directed An Iliad with Denis O’Hare, as well as world premieres by Tony Kushner, Beth Henley, Naomi Wallace, Chay Yew, Luis Alfaro, Jose Rivera, Ellen McLaughlin, Marlane Meyer and Caryl Churchill at theatres including New York Theatre Workshop, The Public Theater, Vineyard Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, Guthrie Theater, Actors Theater of Louisville, La Jolla Playhouse, Arena Stage and McCarter Theatre Center. Peterson was Resident Director at the Mark Taper Forum for 10 years, where her many productions included Chavez Ravine, Water & Power, Electricidad, House of Bernarda Alba, and The Body of Bourne. She was an Associate Director at La Jolla Playhouse and at Berkeley Repertory, where her recent productions included Hellman’s Watch on the Rhine and The Good Book, which she also wrote with Denis O’Hare. Most recently, she directed the premiere of Doug Wright’s Good Night, Oscar at the Goodman Theatre, which is coming to Broadway in the Spring of 2023.

Lawrence E. Moten III (Scenic Design) (he/him/his) is excited to be working with SCR for the first time. Recently, his work has been seen in New York on Broadway with Chicken and Biscuits at Circle in the Square Theatre, Off-Broadway with Patience produced by Second Stage and STEW produced by Page 73. He also made his opera debut with Santa Fe Opera’s production of This Little Light of Mine. Regionally his work has been seen at Goodspeed Musicals with the wold premiere of Christmas in Connecticut; at The Wilma Theater with Fairview, The Old Globe with Trouble In Mind, Roundhouse Theater with the world premiere plays it’s not a trip, it’s a journey and We Declare You A Terrorist… as part of the National Capital New Play Festival. He teaches at Princeton University and Queens College and is a proud member or Local United Scenic Artists 829. Motendesigns.com IG:@motendesigns

Dominique Fawn Hill (she/her) is making her SCR design debut. Her design credits include An Untitled New Play by Justin Timberlake, One Night in Miami…, Pipeline (City Theatre Company); Journeys to Justice (Portland Opera); Mlima’s Tale (Profile Theatre); STEW (Soho Rep); Hedwig and The Angry Inch, Rent (Portland Center Stage); Dark Girl Chronicles: CHRONICLE X (The Shed); 125th & FREEdom (National Black Theatre); Grace (Ford’s Theatre); Tambo & Bones (Playwrights Horizons/Center Theatre Group); Fat Ham (The Public Theater); and Where the Mountain Meets the Sea (Manhattan Theatre Club). Website: dominiquefhill.com.

Tom Ontiveros (Lighting Design) returns to SCR, where his credits include Tiger Style!, Last Stop on Market Street, Culture Clash (Still) in America, A Doll’s House, Part 2, Going to a Place where you Already Are, Fast Company, The Motherf**ker with the Hat and The Long Road Today. New York credits include The Exonerated (The Culture Project); Tune in Festival (Park Avenue Armory); and Happy Days (The Flea Theater). Regional credits include Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Off the Rails (Oregon Shakespeare Festival); The Constant Wife (Denver Center); Native Gardens (Pasadena Playhouse); Underneath the Lintel, Thanksgiving Play (Geffen Playhouse); They Don’t Talk Back, Guards at the Taj (La Jolla Playhouse); Vicuña (Center Theatre Group); and My Old Lady, Visions of Kerouac (Marin Theatre Company). Los Angeles credits include Figaro ¡90210! (LA Opera); Vietgone, Animals Out of Paper (East West Players); and Café Vida, Seed, West Hollywood Musical (Cornerstone Theater Company). Awards include The Exonerated (Lucille Lortel Award), My Barking Dog (Los Angeles Drama Critics), Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill (Ovation! nomination), The House in Scarsdale (nominated, Best Projection Design, LA Drama Critics), Shiv (nominated, Best Projection Design, StageRaw) and Completeness (Ovation! nomination). Ontiveros is an Associate Professor of Design and Theatre Arts Department Chair at the University of La Verne.

Melanie Chen Cole (Sound Design/Original Music) (she/her) is a San Diego-based sound designer. Her previous South Coast Repertory credits include When the Mountain Meets the Moon and Rest (as an Assistant Sound Designer). Her regional work includes designs at Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Alley Theatre, Alliance Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Cleveland Playhouse, Dallas Theater Center, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Geffen Playhouse, Goodman Theatre, Huntington Theatre Company, Indiana Repertory Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Milwaukee Rep, The Old Globe, PlayMakers Repertory Company and the Utah Shakespeare Festival. She holds a MFA in Theatre and Dance from UC San Diego. melaniesound.com

Nathan Crocker (Dialect Coach) is freelance voice and dialect coach, teacher and actor based out of Los Angeles. Some of his coaching credits include (pre-Broadway) Ain’t Too Proud; regionally at The Old Globe (Familiar), McCarter Theatre (A Christmas Carol, The Gods Of Comedy), Utah Shakespeare Festival (Othello, Henry VI Part 1, Twelfth Night, The Price), Oregon Shakespeare Festival (Confederates, Once On This Island), Huntington Theatre Company (Joe Turner’s Come and Gone), American Players Theatre (The Brothers Size), Chautauqua Theatre Company (Detroit ’67), Roundabout Theatre Company (Too Heavy For Your Pocket); and film and television, upcoming festival entry An Intent To The Spirit (written/directed by Saheem Ali, The Public Theatre). Currently, he teaches Speech & Accents for UC San Diego and University of San Diego’s MFA Acting programs. Previously, he has taught voice, speech and dialects for Mason Gross School for the Arts/Rutgers University and NYU’s Meisner Studio, Atlantic Theatre Studio and Graduate Acting Programs. He received his MFA in Acting from the University of California, Irvine and BFA in Theatre from UNC-Greensboro. Crocker is a Certified Associate Teacher of Fitzmaurice® Voicework, and a Certified Teacher of Knight-Thompson Speechwork. AEA. nathanccrocker.com

Michael Polak (Fight Choreographer/Intimacy Consultant) is thrilled to be a part of the SCR team. Along with SCR, he has choreographed stage violence for La Mirada Theatre, North Coast Repertory Theatre, 3D-Theatricals, New Swan Shakespeare Festival, Cal State Fullerton, Concordia University, UNLV, and Cal State Bakersfield, among others. As an actor, he has worked in New York off-Broadway at the Mint Theatre and taught at the Shakespeare Lab at the Public Theatre. His regional credits include Pioneer Theatre Company, Chicago Shakespeare, A.C.T., Philadelphia Theatre Company, The Shakespeare Theatre, Playmaker’s Rep, Ensemble Theatre Company and Hartford Stage to name a few. His film and television credits include “Bel-Air,” 86 Melrose Avenue, “The Chronicles of Jessica Wu,” “The 5th Quarter,” “The Young and the Restless,” “All My Children,”  “Guiding Light,-” and most recently Mid-Century. He received his M.F.A. from Penn State University and B.A. from California State University, Fullerton. michaelpolakactorfd.com

Maria Patrice Amon (Dramaturg) is a director, producer, scholar and dramaturg. Directing credits include A Skeptic and a Bruja (Urbanite Theatre), Group! The Musical (Passage Theatre), Hoopla! (La Jolla Playhouse POP Tour), Azul (Diversionary Theatre), Mojada (UCSD), A Zoom of One’s Own (California State University San Marcos), Ich Bin Ein Berliner (Theatre Lab), DREAM HOU$E (CSUSM/TuYo Theatre), Fade and The Madres (Moxie Theatre) and Lydia (Brown Bag Theatre Company). Dramaturg credits include Manifest Destinitis and Beachtown (San Diego Repertory Theatre). Amon was a 2020 National Directing Fellow, and an Associate Artistic Director at San Diego Repertory Theatre. She is currently a LTC Steering Committee member, and a board member for National New Play Network. She is an assistant professor at CSUSM. JD: California Western School of Law. PhD: UC Irvine. mariapatriceamon.com

Sarah Goshman* (Production Stage Manager) (they/them) is thrilled to be working with South Coast Repertory for the first time. Favorite credits include King Lear and Trouble in Mind (Utah Shakespeare Festival), The Hip Hop Nutcracker (National Tour); Another Rose (Virgin Voyages); BUDDY: The Buddy Holly Story (Florida Repertory Theatre); Disaster!, Kinky Boots, and The Addams Family (Weathervane Theatre); A Chorus Line (Reagle Music Theatre); RENT, Other Desert Cities (John W. Engeman Theater); I See London, I See France (New York Musical Theatre Festival); and three seasons at Stamford Theatre Works. Proud member of AEA. sarahgoshman.com. 

Lydia Runge (Assistant Stage Manager) (she/her) is returning to SCR after recently working on Our Town. Her select credits include Sanctuary City, Head Over Heels, The Great Leap (Pasadena Playhouse); Cinderella, Grease, Ragtime (Musical Theatre West); Assassins, Mamma Mia, Man of God, As We Babble On, Allegiance (East West Players); and Two Mile Hollow (Artists at Play). She is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse with a BS in Stage Management. Proud member of Actors’ Equity Association.

David Ivers (Artistic Director) is responsible for the overall artistic operation of the theatre. The 2019-20 season was the first he programmed for SCR and during that season, he directed She Loves Me. In addition, he directed the 2021 Pacific Playwrights Festival reading of Coleman ’72 by Charlie Oh and the 2022 reading of Spenser Davis’ A Million Tiny Pieces. He opened last season as John in Richard Greenberg’s world premiere of A Shot Rang Out and created the theatre’s Outside SCR program in partnership with Mission San Juan Capistrano. Prior to his appointment as Artistic Director, he directed the SCR-Berkeley Repertory Theatre co-production of One Man, Two Guvnors. Before arriving to SCR in his current capacity, Ivers was artistic director for Arizona Theatre Company and, before that, served more than 20 years as an actor and director at Utah Shakespeare Festival, with the last six as artistic director. He was a resident artist at Denver Center for the Performing Arts for a decade, acting in and/or directing more than 40 plays, and has helmed productions at many of the nation’s leading regional theatres, including the Guthrie Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Berkeley Repertory Theatre and South Coast Repertory. Ivers’ early career included serving as associate artistic director of Portland Repertory Theatre and appearing in productions at some of the nation’s top regional theatres, including Portland Center Stage and the Oregon, Alabama and Idaho Shakespeare festivals. He has taught at the University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, Southern Utah University and Southern Oregon University. He earned his BA from Southern Oregon University and his MFA from the University of Minnesota.

Paula Tomei (Managing Director) is responsible for the overall administration of SCR. She has been managing director since 1994 and a member of SCR’s staff since 1979. She is a past president of the board of Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national service organization for theatre. In addition, she served as treasurer of TCG, vice president of the League of Resident Theatres (LORT) and as a member of the LORT Negotiating Committee for industry-wide union agreements. She represents SCR at national conferences of TCG and LORT and served as a theatre panelist and site visitor for the National Endowment for the Arts and the California Arts Council. Her teaching background includes a graduate class in non-profit management at UC Irvine (UCI) and as a guest lecturer in the graduate school of business at Stanford. She was appointed by the chancellor to UCI’s Community Arts Council and serves on the Dean’s Leadership Society Executive Committee for the School of Social Sciences at UCI. She is also on the board of Arts Orange County, the county-wide arts council, and the board of the Nicholas Endowment. She graduated from UCI with a degree in economics and pursued an additional course of study in theatre and dance. In March 2017, she received the Mayor’s Award from the City of Costa Mesa for her contributions to the arts community. In 2018, she received the Helena Modjeska Cultural Legacy Award from Arts Orange County. In 2019, she was awarded UCI’s Distinguished Alumna in the School of Social Sciences at the Lauds & Laurels Celebration.

Martin Benson (Founding Artistic Director), co-founder of SCR, has directed nearly one-fourth of SCR’s productions including the 2020 production of Outside Mullingar. In 2008, he and David Emmes received the Margo Jones Award for their lifetime commitment to theatre excellence and fostering the art and craft of American playwriting. They also accepted SCR’s 1988 Tony Award for Outstanding Resident Professional Theatre and won the 1995 Theatre LA Ovation Award for Lifetime Achievement. Benson has received the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Distinguished Achievement in Directing an unparalleled seven times for George Bernard Shaw’s Major Barbara, Misalliance and Heartbreak House; John Millington Synge’s Playboy of the Western World; Arthur Miller’s The Crucible; Sally Nemeth’s Holy Days; and the world premiere of Margaret Edson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Wit, which he also directed at Seattle Repertory Theatre and Houston’s Alley Theatre. He has directed American classics such as A Streetcar Named Desire, and has distinguished himself in staging contemporary work including the critically acclaimed California premiere of William Nicholson’s Shadowlands. He directed revivals of Beth Henley’s Abundance and Horton Foote’s The Trip to Bountiful; and Samuel D. Hunter’s The Whale and Rest (world premiere); The Whipping Man by Matthew Lopez; and The Roommate by Jen Silverman (West Coast premiere). Benson received his BA in theatre from San Francisco State University.

David Emmes (Founding Artistic Director) is co-founder of South Coast Repertory. He received the Margo Jones Award for his lifetime commitment to theatre excellence and to fostering the art of American playwriting. In addition, he has received numerous awards for productions he has directed during his SCR career. He directed the world premieres of Amy Freed’s Safe in Hell, The Beard of Avon and Freedomland; Thomas Babe’s Great Day in the Morning; Keith Reddin’s Rum and Coke and But Not for Me; and Neal Bell’s Cold Sweat; the American premieres of Terry Johnson’s Unsuitable for Adults; and Joe Penhall’s Dumb Show; and the Southland premiere of Top Girls (at SCR and the Westwood Playhouse). Other productions he has directed include Red, New England, Arcadia, The Importance of Being Earnest, Woman in Mind and You Never Can Tell, which he restaged for the Singapore Festival of Arts. He has served as a theatre panelist and onsite evaluator for the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as a panelist for the California Arts Council. After attending Orange Coast College, he received his BA and MA from San Francisco State University and his PhD from USC.

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