Creative & Production Team

Lisa Peterson (Adapter/Director) is a two-time OBIE Award–winning writer/director. Her works include An Iliad, written with Denis O’Hare (NYTW, OBIE and Lortel Awards); The Good Book (co-written with O’Hare, Court Theatre and Berkeley Rep); The Waves (adapted from Virginia Woolf with composer David Bucknam, NYTW). Peterson is renowned for directing new plays and classics across the country; recently she directed the world premiere of Doug Wright’s Good Night, Oscar on Broadway. She was associate director at Berkeley Rep, Center Theatre Group, and La Jolla Playhouse. She is a recent recipient of the Gordon Davidson Award for Lifetime Achievement. Upcoming writing projects include The Song of Rome with O’Hare and The Idea of Order with composer Todd Almond.

Tanya Orellana (Scenic Designer) (she/her) designs performance spaces for theater and opera. Originally from San Francisco’s Mission District, she is a core member of the award-winning ensemble Campo Santo. Previous collaborations with Lisa Peterson include The Kind Ones by Miranda Rose Hall at The Magic, Timon of Athens and Coriolanus at Utah Shakespeare Festival. Recent collaborations include Poor Yella Rednecks: Vietgone 2 directed by Jaime Castañeda, Fefu and Her Friends directed by Pam MacKinnon, Oedipus directed by Jenny Koons at the Getty Villa, The Industry’s Sweet Land, an immersive opera directed by Yuval Sharon and Cannupa Hanska Luger, and LEAR by Marcus Gardley, co-directed by Eric Ting and Dawn Monique Williams. Orellana received her MFA in Scenic Design from CalArts and is the 2016 recipient of the Princess Grace Fabergé Theater Award. She is a member of Wingspace Theatrical Design and an organizing member of La Gente: The Latine Production Network. tanyaorellana.com

Sarita Fellows (Costume Designer) was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Her more recent works include projects such as Death of a Salesman, Broadway; Drinking in America, Audible Minetta Lane Theater; Theater of the Mind, Denver Center of Performing Arts; Elyria, Atlantic Theater Company; A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Portland Center Stage; Blues for an Alabama Sky and Sweat, Guthrie Theater; Joy and Pandemic and Our Daughters Like Pillars, Huntington Theatre; Seize the King, Alliance Theatre; A Bright Room Called Day, Public Theater; and Fefu and Her Friends, American Conservatory Theater. In the dance world, Fellows has worked with choreographers such as Liz Lerman and Edisa Weeks. MFA in Design from Tisch School of Design. Fellows also instructs at the University of Connecticut and Princeton. Recent awards include Outstanding Achievement in Costume Design (the National Black Theatre Festival 2022) and the Lily Award (2020).

Russell H. Champa (Lighting Designer) previously designed Desire for The Acting Company at 59E59 Theater. Current and recent projects include The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (the Dallas Opera), Josephine’s Feast (Magic Theater), Fefu and Her Friends (American Conservatory Theater), Becky Nurse of Salem (Berkeley Repertory Theatre), Everest (Lyric Opera of Kansas City), and Thresh|Hold (Pilobolus). Broadway credits include China Doll (Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre), In the Next Room (or the vibrator play) (Lyceum Theatre/Lincoln Center Theater), and Julia Sweeney’s God Said “Ha!” (Lyceum Theatre). New York work includes Playwrights Horizons, Theatre for a New Audience, the Public Theater, Second Stage Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, and New York Stage and Film. Regional work includes Steppenwolf Theatre Company, the Wilma Theater, Trinity Repertory Company, California Shakespeare Theater, the Mark Taper Forum, and the Kennedy Center. Thanks J&J! PEACE. russellchampa.com

Sinan Refik Zafar (Sound Design) Broadway: What the Constitution Means to Me (also NYTW, National Tour). National Tour: What to Send Up When It Goes Down (also Playwrights Horizons, BAM, A.R.T.). Off-Broadway includes Letters from Max (Signature); Which Way to the Stage, All the Natalie Portmans (MCC); To My Girls (Second Stage); The Vagrant Trilogy, Cullud Wattah (The Public); Wish You Were Here, What to Send Up When It Goes Down (Playwrights Horizons); English (Obie Award), Shhhh (Atlantic); and Montag (Soho Rep). Regional includes Kennedy Center, Guthrie, Mark Taper Forum, Berkeley Rep, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and more. SinanZafar.com

Masi Asare (Original Songs) Broadway: Paradise Square (lyrics, Tony/Outer Critics Circle nominee). Off-Broadway/International: Monsoon Wedding (lyrics), Notes from Now (contributed music/lyrics). Commissions: Theatre Royal Stratford East, Barbara Whitman/Grove, Lilly Awards, Concord Theatricals. In development: Delta Blue (music/lyrics), The Family Resemblance (book/music/lyrics, O’Neill), Rishvor (book/music/lyrics), Marian, or the True Tale of Robin Hood (music/lyrics). Her spy musical Sympathy Jones (music/lyrics) and Marvel super hero play Mirror of Most Value have collectively had 100+ productions. Honors: Dramatists Guild Fellow, Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award, Theater Hall of Fame Grant, Women to Watch on Broadway. Degrees: Harvard, NYU Tisch. Asare is on the theater faculty at Northwestern.

Xavier Clark (Voice and Speech) is a bilingual Voice and Speech practitioner who studied voice under Alithea Phillips and Ursula Meyer and apprenticed with Dawn-Elin Fraser. He recently served as the dialect coach for TFANA’s Orpheus Descending and as the voice and speech coach for The Acting Company’s National Tour of Romeo and Juliet and The Three Musketeers. He is on faculty with the Stella Adler Studio of Acting and Powerhouse Theater at Vassar College. Training: RADA, NYU Tisch (BFA), and UC San Diego (MFA).

Jesse Cameron Alick (Dramaturg) is a dramaturg, producer, poet, playwright, essayist, artistic researcher, and science fiction expert. Alick is the associate artistic director at the Vineyard Theatre in NYC, where he is a dramaturg and producer. Alick is an active freelance dramaturg at various off-Broadway theaters in the city, nationwide, and in the UK. Alick studied writing with Adrienne Kennedy and has taught theater courses, lectured at classes, and mentored students at a myriad of programs, currently teaching at NYU.

Margaret Lee (Associate Director, Staff Director and Movement Coordinator) is a Hawaii-born, NYC–based director/movement director. Current: Install director of Scarlet Night (Virgin Voyages’ signature immersive show). Past: Director for Moxie Arts NY (3 commissioned world premieres), From A to Double D by Mandy Murphy (IRT Theater), The Golden Spike by Don Nguyen and The Lobbyists (BRIC House Artist Studio), resident director of immersive nightclub-theater Eschaton. While serving as artistic director of Chicago troupe 33rd Street Productions, she focused on fostering cross-disciplinary creativity with artists primarily in STEM, in addition to helming productions of Ordinary Days by Adam Gwon, Venus in Fur by David Ives, and Company by Stephen Sondheim. She has been fortunate to assist Kathleen Marshall, Marcia Milgrom Dodge, and David Mendizabal at theaters such as the Old Globe, MCC Theater, New York Stage and Film, and Long Wharf Theatre.  Lee is a Drama League Directors Project alumna, a member of Roundabout Directors Group, a Fled Collective member, and an SDC associate member. LeeMargaret.com

Janice Paran (Text and Script Consultant) (she/her) is an independent dramaturg and consultant supporting new work in theater, opera, and dance. She has worked closely with numerous writers and artists, including Annie Baker, Nilo Cruz, Christopher Durang, Beth Henley, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Emily Mann, Ife Olujobi, Dael Orlandersmith, Denis O’Hare and Lisa Peterson, Phantom Limb Company, Polly Pen, Sarah Ruhl, Mfoniso Udofia, Stephen Wadsworth, and Tracey Scott Wilson. Formerly the director of play development at McCarter Theatre in Princeton, NJ, she also worked for several years as a dramaturg and program associate for the Sundance Institute Theatre Program, both in the US and internationally.

Laura Schutzel, CSA (Casting) is thrilled to cast for The Acting Company. From 2003 to 2020, she worked with Tara Rubin Casting on Broadway, off-, and regional productions. Selected credits, in addition to TAC: NY casting director for The History Boys and The Farnsworth Invention, and associate director on many others (Broadway), Yale Repertory Theatre (15 seasons), Westport Country Playhouse, Second Stage, 2ST Uptown, La Jolla Playhouse, Berkeley Rep, the Old Globe. BA (Smith College), MFA Directing (OU). Member, CSA; Artios Award for Excellence in Regional Theatre Casting with Tara Rubin and Amy Potozkin, 2019. In her free time, she sees plays and shares audition tips. @Laura_Schutzel

Stephanie Weinzapfel (Production Stage Manager) is thrilled to join the company of Odyssey after seven years with the Production Department at Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville. Selected credits include the National Tours of Rent, Hairspray, and Cirque Dreams Illumination; tours with multiple television and film personalities, and numerous local productions across the Midwest.

Cello Blanks (Assistant Stage Manager) (they/them) is a stage manager based in Brooklyn, NY, with a BFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Blanks pursues stage management with an emphasis in theater for social justice, racial trauma, and LGBTQ+ history. Recent projects include Sleep No More (Punchdrunk, NYC), Jagged Little Pill (RCI Theatricals), The Shining (Opera Parallèle), and The Wanderers (Roundabout Theatre Company). Big thanks to my friends and community for keeping me grounded!

Matthew Lott (Associate Costume Designer) is an NYC–based  costume and set designer for theater, opera, and dance. He received his MFA at NYU Tisch – Design for Stage and Film, and an MA in Theatre – Critical Theory and Dramaturgy from University of Nebraska Omaha. New York credits include the world premiere of the Lucy Thurber play A Daughter and Some Sons, director Lisa Rothe; An Ideal Husband, director Janet Zarish; Twelve Ophelias, director Nemuna Ceesay; Rhinoceros, director Alex Moggridge. He was associate costume designer on Drinking in America, director Mark Armstong, and Wicked Bodies, choreographer Liz Lerman.

Danielle DeLaFuente (Assistant Scenic Designer) (she/her) is a Chinese and Latina scenic designer based in New York and is thrilled to be the assistant scenic designer on this show! Her recent design credits include The Boy Who Kissed the Sky (Company One), While We Wait (the New School), The Sitayana (The Tank), and Incognito (Bay Street Theater). Her recent associate design credits include Twelfth Night (the Old Globe), Once Upon a Bridge (American Players Theatre), Blues for an Alabama Sky (McCarter Theatre Center), and Mr Parent (Lyric Stage Company). She would like to that Tanya and the entire team! danielledelafuente.com.

Row Walters (Production Manager and Audio Supervisor) is thrilled to join The Acting Company family again on tour. She is a freelance production manager, sound and lighting designer and technician in Philadelphia, Atlanta, and New York City. Most recently she has been production managing independent films across the country. Favorite shows include Legally Blonde (Kidz Theater), A Hard Time (FringeArts), Sunday in the Park with George (Temple University). Walters has her BFA in Lighting Design from Syracuse University. Much love to Daria and Otto.

Anna Dorodnykh (Rehearsal Props Lead) Off-Broadway: Love & Science (Props Designer), A Sherlock Carol (Deck/Props), Romeo & Bernadette (Deck/Props). Regional: CSTC–Atlanta, West Side Story (Associate Director), International Tour: the original Broadway production of Evita (Resident Director, China Tour).

Elisaveta Alekumova (Production Assistant) is a recent graduate from Messiah University with a triple emphasis in theater acting, directing, and tech. This summer she worked as an assistant stage manager for Pride and Prejudice and Lear as well as a stage manager for Todrick the Not-So-Terrible with the Texas Shakespeare Festival. She is excited and grateful for the opportunity to work with The Acting Company.

Esther Bermann (Company Manager) is excited to join The Acting Company again after working with them in 2020 on a tour in conjunction with the Juilliard School. As a freelance stage manager, her credits include New York Theatre Workshop, Soho Rep, the Public Theater, New York City Center, NYMF, NYU, and Bushwick Starr. Additionally, she has over 20 years of dance and theater performance experience and has worked in the administrative offices of Dance/NYC and Pentacle. She holds a BA in Dance and Drama from University of California, Irvine.

Rob White (Technical Director) is very excited to be working on The Acting Company’s production of Odyssey. He has two decades of experience building scenery in professional and academic settings. Some notable national tour builds include SpongeBob the Musical, Frozen, and the 25th anniversary national tour of Riverdance.

Alissa Shea (Lighting Supervisor) is very excited to be working her first contract with The Acting Company. They attended the University of Florida and have previously worked with Pacific Conservatory Theatre, Maine State Music Theatre, Chamber Theatre Productions, and most recently on tour with FELD Entertainment’s Disney on Ice. She is very excited for each audience member to experience their own Odyssey through our production.

Margarita R. Herrera (Wardrobe Supervisor) is thrilled to join The Acting Company on her first national tour! An alumna of NYU Steinhardt’s Educational Theatre program, her off-Broadway credits include The Chinese Lady (wardrobe supervisor, Ma-Yi Theater at The Public), Richard III and As You Like It (wardrobe dresser, Shakespeare in the Park), The Whitney Album (wardrobe supervisor, Soho Repertory), and various works at the Juilliard School and Manhattan School of Music. She would like to thank her family, friends, and her beloved cats, Gwen and Liza, for their support.