Cast
Paul Juhn* (James) is making his SCR debut. Theatre credits include A Delicate Balance (Transport Group/NAATCO), Snow in Midsummer (Classic Stage Company), Caryl Churchill’s What if if Only, Henry VI (NAATCO), Good Person of Szechwan (Public Theater), The Great Wave (Berkeley Repertory), Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land, Hannah and the Dread Gazebo, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Winter’s Tale, Antony and Cleopatra (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), White Chocolate (The Culture Project), Sides: the Fear is Real (Ma-Yi Theater) and The Importance of Being Earnest (La Jolla Playhouse). Film and television credits include “Dr. Death,” “Girls5Eva,” “The Blacklist,” “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” “Law & Order,” Salt, “Quantico,” “30 Rock,” “Person of Interest” and Works of ART. He is a member of Mr. Miyagi’s Theatre Company and earned his MFA at UCSD.
Jessica Ko* (Michelle) (she/her) is thrilled to be making her SCR debut. She spent four seasons at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival—where she first worked with director Chay Yew in the world premiere of Hannah and the Dread Gazebo, originating the role of Shapeshifter. Other notable OSF roles include playing the lead Dou Yi in the U.S. premiere of Snow In Midsummer, Rosalind in As You Like It and Princess Katherine/Boy/Montjoy in Henry V. Other theatre credits include Berkshire Theatre Group, Cleveland Play House, Chautauqua Theatre Company, Trinity Repertory Company, Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, The Flea Theater and Brooklyn Bridge Park. As part of Center Theatre Group’s 2021-22 Writer’s Workshop, her original play was presented at the Kirk Douglas Theatre this past September, and is currently a semi-finalist for the 2023 Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. She received her MFA in Acting from Brown/Trinity Rep.
Jully Lee* (Annie) is thrilled to be returning to SCR after performing in Aubergine and tokyo fish story. She is an Ovation-nominated actor and the artistic director of Cold Tofu Improv, the nation’s first and longest running Asian American comedy troupe. Most recently, Lee debuted on Broadway as Ruby in KPOP the Musical. Other theatre credits include Hannah and the Dread Gazebo (Fountain Theatre/East West Players); The Joy Luck Club (national tour); Ladies, Colony Collapse (Boston Court Pasadena); 36 Views (PCPA); Mexican Day (Rogue Machine); Tales of Clamor (Aratani Theatre); Chinese Massacre [Annotated] (Circle X); Sweet Karma (Grove Theatre Center), and Sun Sisters (Company of Angels). Television credits include recurring roles on “Young Sheldon” (CBS), “The Kicks” (Amazon) and “Gang Related” (Fox), as well as guest appearances on “S.W.A.T.,” “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” “Jane the Virgin” (CW), “Veep” (HBO), “This Is Us” (NBC), “Henry Danger” (Nickelodeon), “Rosewood” (FOX), “I’m Sorry” (TruTV) and “The Kominsky Method.” <3 HH. jullylee.com
Tess Lina* (Jenn) is excited to make her SCR debut with Coleman '72, working with this fantastic company on such a moving story. She most recently performed in the L.A. Theatre Works national tour of Seven in 2019, and is thrilled to return to live theater. Theatre credits include Mark Taper Forum, La Jolla Playhouse, San Jose Repertory, Laguna Playhouse, Guthrie Theater, Indiana Repertory, and notably at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts in Tantalus, a co-production with Royal Shakespeare Company, directed by the late Sir Peter Hall. Film and television credits include “For All Mankind” (upcoming), “How to Get Away with Murder,” “S.W.A.T.,” “Revenge,” “House,” “CSI,” “NCIS,” and Danika with Marisa Tomei. Lina was a member of Shakespeare Orange County, where she performed, produced, and also served as Associate Artistic Director. A graduate of Juilliard, she is an acting coach, voice-over artist, and proud mom of two. Check out more at tesslina.com.
Ryun Yu* (Joey) is very happy to return to SCR where he performed in Tiger Style! and originated the role of Takeshi in tokyo fish story. Yu originated the role of Gordon Hirabayashi in Hold These Truths at East West Players, and has since performed it at Arena Stage in Washington D.C. and at the Pasadena Playhouse. He won the Craig Noel Award for best solo performance when he performed it at San Diego Repertory. Other theatre credits include The Great Jheri Curl Debate (East West Players), How the Light Gets In (Boston Court), and Take Me Out (Geffen Playhouse). In television, he played the recurring character of Pastor Daniel Kwon in the FX show “Baskets” (starring Zach Galifianakis and Louis Anderson), as well as Larry on the Netflix show “Fuller House.” He also played DHH in David Henry Hwang’s Yellowface: the first adaptation of a major play for YouTube (where it can still be viewed). Yu has the first theater major ever awarded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He would like to dedicate this play to his mother, Janet Yu.
Creative Team
Charlie Oh (Playwright) has had plays developed at Manhattan Theatre Club, South Coast Repertory, The Lark, Second Stage, Goodman Theatre, BMI Lehmen Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, and the American Music Theater Project. His play LONG won The Kennedy Center’s Paula Vogel Award in Playwriting, placed second for the Mark Twain Prize for Comedic Playwriting, and was a 2019 Honorable Mention for The American Playwriting Foundation’s Relentless Award. His play Coleman ’72 won The Kennedy Center’s Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award. He is commissioned by Manhattan Theater Club and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and developing projects for television with Amazon Studios and Universal. He is a member of Ars Nova Play Group, Page 73’s Interstate 73, and EST/Youngblood. Oh is a recent graduate of The Juilliard School’s Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program. BA: Northwestern University.
Chay Yew (Director) has directed in New York where his credits include The Public Theater (Mojada, Oedipus el Rey, Durango, Ameriville, Low), Playwrights Horizons (Cool Dip in a Barren Saharan Crick), Signature Theatre (Cambodian Rock Band), New York Theatre Workshop (Sweatshop Overlord, The Architecture of Loss), Audible Theatre (Good Enemy), Rattlestick Theater (Draw The Circle), Playwrights Realm (My Mañana Comes), Ensemble Studio Theatre (Where Did We Sit on the Bus?), National Asian American Theatre Company (The House of Bernarda Alba) and Ma-Yi Theatre (Last of the Suns). His regional credits include the Goodman Theatre, South Coast Repertory, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, American Conservatory Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Alley Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Hartford Stage, Denver Center Theatre, Huntington Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse, Kennedy Center, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, PlayMakers Repertory, Empty Space, Portland Center Stage, East West Players and Singapore Repertory Theatre. His opera credits include the world premieres of Osvaldo Golijov and David Henry Hwang’s Ainadamar (co-production with Tanglewood Music Center, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and LA Philharmonic) and Rob Zuidam’s Rage D’Amors (Tanglewood). He is a recipient of the Obie Award for Direction. chayyew.com
Daniel Ostling (Scenic Design) is a two-time Tony Award-nominated designer based in Taipei/Taiwan and San Francisco. He is an ensemble member at Lookingglass Theater in Chicago where he has designed over 30 productions, including Metamorphoses. Previously at South Coast Repertory he designed Becky Shaw. Recent productions include Eurydice (Metropolitan Opera/NYC, LA Opera), River/Cloud (Taipei), Lookingglass Alice (Lookingglass/Chicago) Music Man (Goodman/Chicago), Madame Butterfly (K-Ballet/Tokyo). He has worked at regional theatres across the country including Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York Shakespeare Festival, Lincoln Center, Public Theater, Steppenwolf, Goodman, American Conservatory Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, McCarter, Mark Taper Forum, Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Arena Stage among many others. Internationally, his work has been seen in Milan, London, Tokyo, Shanghai, Melbourne, Calgary and Taipei. Upcoming projects include Swan Lake (Australian Ballet, Melbourne) and Sleeping Beauty (K-Ballet, Tokyo).
Sara Ryung Clement (Costume Design) returns to SCR where her past projects include costumes for A Shot Rang Out, Cambodian Rock Band, A Doll’s House, Part 2, 4000 Miles, Completeness and Becky Shaw; sets and costumes for How the World Began; and the set design for Absurd Person Singular. Her upcoming projects include set design for the world premiere of Fake It Until You Make It by Larissa FastHorse at the Mark Taper Forum and costumes for a reimagined Madama Butterfly with a new book by Phil Chan at Boston Lyric Opera. Her work has been seen off-Broadway at Second Stage Uptown and Ma-Yi, and regionally at the Guthrie Theater, Pasadena Playhouse, Folger Theatre, Geffen Playhouse, Seattle Repertory, Mixed Blood, St. Louis Rep, Center Stage Baltimore, East West Players, Cornerstone Theater Company, Yale Repertory Theatre, Native Voices at the Autry and others. She is on the set design faculty at UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and is a recipient of the Donald and Zorca Oenslager Fellowship in Design. She earned a MFA at Yale School of Drama and an AB from Princeton University. sararyungclement.com
Pablo Santiago (Lighting Design) is a live performance and digital film lighting designer. Winner of the Richard Sherwood award, Stage Raw Award, and multiple Ovation Award nominations. His designs aim to find evocative images that embody the emotional moment of the show. Images that can spark the imagination of the audience to worlds beyond the stage. Santiago has worked at Santa Fe Opera, LA Opera, Opera Omaha, Boston Lyric Opera, Detroit Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Long Beach Opera, Prototype Festival, the Industry, Opera Columbus, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Music Academy of the West, Opera Santa Barbara, The Kennedy Center, Teatro Municipal São Paulo Brazil, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Goodman Theater, Arena Stage DC, BAM-Harvey Theater, Geffen Playhouse, Mark Taper Forum, Denver Center, Los Angeles Theatre Center, South Coast Repertory, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Broad Museum, Kirk Douglas Theater, Ensemble Theater Company Santa Barbara and Hollywood Bowl.
John Zalewski (Original Music/Sound Design) His work has been heard supporting theatre at Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF), Arena Stage, Guthrie Theater, Portland Center Stage, Alliance Theatre, Perseverance Theatre, Latino Theater Company, Boston Court Pasadena, Cherry Lane Theatre, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, P.S.122/Performance Space New York, Theatre Delicatessen (London), Disney Concert Hall, REDCAT, Evidence Room and The Actors’ Gang. His work at SCR includes Destiny of Desire, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, tokyo fish story and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. His recent work includes Mayakovsky and Stalin (Cherry Lane Theatre), Macbeth (OSF), The Father (Pasadena Playhouse), Silent Sky (Perseverance Theatre), Destiny of Desire (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park), Ghosts (Odyssey Theater) and Love and Information (Antaeus Theatre). His honors include eight LA Stage Alliance Ovation Awards, seven LA Weekly Awards, four Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards, 10 Backstage Garland Awards, LA Weekly Career Achievement and Backstage West Local Hero awards. IG: zalooski and auaural
Stephan Mazurek (Projection Design) is a director of photography, documentary film maker and visual designer. Projection Designer credits include Mojada (Public Theater) Tempest, The Cherry Orchard, Sonia Flew, The Fundamentals, Russian Transport, The Wheel (Steppenwolf Theater) Indecent, Lettie, (Victory Gardens Theater), Lady in Denmark (Goodman Theatre) Reverie: Simply Unspeakable (Second City Theatricals Montreal) Shining Lives (Northlight Theater) Faceless (St. Louis Repertory Theater) and Better Late (Galway Arts Festival). Director of Photography credits for full length documentaries include The Road Up, Louder Than A Bomb, No Small Matter, Rockfield Studio on the Farm, Million Dollar Pigeons and Love is a Verb. stephanmazurek.com
Andy Knight (Dramaturg) is Director of The Lab@SCR, South Coast Repertory’s new play development programs, as well as the co-director of the Pacific Playwrights Festival. At SCR, his dramaturgy credits include the world premieres of Lauren Yee’s Cambodian Rock Band and Qui Nguyen’s Vietgone and the West Coast premieres of Karen Zacarías’ Destiny of Desire and Sarah Burgess’ Kings. Outside of SCR, his dramaturgy credits include workshops and productions at Goodman Theatre, Center Theatre Group and Artists at Play.
Darlene Miyakawa (Stage Manager) last worked at SCR on Sheepdog and Ella Enchanted. A member of Actors’ Equity Association and the American Guild of Musical Artists, she has worked around the U.S., including at Geffen Playhouse, Geva Theatre Company, Barrington Stage Company, Long Beach Opera, Playwright’s Arena, Piedmont Opera, Opera San Jose, California Symphony, Fort Worth Opera, Tri-Cities Opera, New York City Opera, San Antonio Opera, LA Philharmonic, The Getty Villa, and East West Players.
Lauren Buangan (Assistant Stage Manager) is excited to return to South Coast Repertory on Coleman ‘72. Her previous SCR stage management credits include A Christmas Carol, Nina Simone: Four Women, Million Dollar Quartet, Our Town, What I Learned in Paris and Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, among others. Most recently, she served as assistant stage manager for The Lonely Few at the Geffen Playhouse.
Buangan holds a BA in Theater from UCLA, a Certificate of Achievement in Film from Orange Coast College, and studied drama at Queen Mary University of London.
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.
Honorary Producers
The Playwrights Circle consists of avid playgoers who collectively help underwrite a world premiere production each spring. Its individual members include long-time subscribers, major annual fund donors, endowment supporters and trustees. Since its inception in 2002, The Playwrights Circle has underwritten works by writers including Christine Quintana (Clean/Espejos), Kemp Powers (Little Black Shadows), Lucas Hnath (A Doll’s House, Part 2), Rajiv Joseph (Mr. Wolf), Beau Willimon (The Parisian Woman), Lauren Gunderson (Silent Sky), Richard Greenberg (A Naked Girl on the Appian Way and Our Mother’s Brief Affair), and Julia Cho (The Language Archive). SCR is especially grateful to The Playwrights Circle for its leadership and dedication to helping bring new plays to Orange County audiences—and to the American theatre.
Sandy Segerstrom Daniels • Julie & Robert F. Davey • David Emmes & Paula Tomei