STAFF

GEORGIA MC GILL (Artistic Director)

Georgia McGill is a professor of Theatre at Queensborough Community College and a recipient of a John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts gold medallion for her work with the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival in the New Plays Program.   She has directed extensively in New York, regionally and in international theatres. Her work has been featured on stages in New York, Berlin, Greece, Cyprus, Hungary, Scotland and England.  

HEATHER DRASTAL (Education Director)

Heather has served as Education Director of several different classical theatre companies including The National Shakespeare Company (2000-2002) and The American Globe Theatre (2002-2006).  She has studied both theatre and education and has experience working as a teaching artist, actor, stage manager, technician, group life counselor for emotionally disturbed teenage girls, and theatre teacher.  She is currently the General Manager for The Post Theatre Company at the C. W. Post Campus of Long Island University, where she recently managed their original production of Third Child: Orestes Revisited at the NY International Fringe Festival (as well as incarnations at the IUTA Conference in Urbino, Italy and The Prague International Fringe Festival).  Many years ago she served as an actor and stage manager for LITC, Inc.—Classics On Tour, and returned in 2006 to take on the position of Education Director.     She has presented several workshops on new techniques for teaching Shakespeare at conferences such as NYSTEA (New York University) and Balanced Mind (Islip, NY and Brookville, NY),  and has been a guest lecturer on the topics of Educational Theatre and Stage Management at both Brooklyn College and C.W. Post College.  As Coordinator for the Institute for Arts & Culture at Long Island University, Heather worked to establish a satellite of Lincoln Center’s Institute for Aesthetic Education on Long Island.  She has also served as a mentor for High School theatre students through the NYCDOE.  She is certified to teach K-6 and 6-12 (English), and holds a BA in Education and BS in Theatre from Long Island University, and MA in Educational Theatre from New York University.  

GREG DINUNZI (Writer, Composer, Musician)

Greg plays guitar, piano, tabla, mandolin, sitar, hand percussion and is a music programmer. He has performed in twenty countries in performance situations as diverse as tours of Broadway shows and international theatre festivals.  He has accompanied Native American storytellers, salsa bands, big bands, rock bands, leading musical meditations, and Dionysian circles and drum circles. He has performed at the ancient amphitheaters of Epidavros in Greece, and Kourion and the Odeon in Paphos, Cyprus, swam at the birthplace of Aphrodite and performed at the ruins of her temple. Greg records and performs under the name Atman Zi for his more experimental Mind Jazz music, and under the name Dead Joe Hill for his Political song projects.

LEAD TEACHING ARTISTS

EMILY DAVIS

Emily is a founder and Artistic Director of Messenger Theatre Company in New York City. (www.messengertheatreco.org) Emily has written and directed all of the company’s productions to date. These include The Great God Money, Persephone, The Golden Apple: For the Fairest, “The Daughters of Memory,” “The Adventures of Baba Yaga: Little Girl Stew,” “The Enemy,”  "Waiting Room" and the “Puppet Rap” (which was filmed by NY1 and CNN as part of the Lysistrata Project.) She also curates and produces the company's Annual Festival of Myth.

Elsewhere, Emily directed "Low Maintenance" (a semi-finalist in the Strawberry Festival) for Simon Studios, Macbeth and fig. a: The Heart or the UC Davis Premiere season, as well as A Story About Magic and Burden of Poof for Cunningham Productions. Emily wrote The Kitchen Play, which was read by Manhattan Theatre Source (directed by Tina Polzin) as part of their new work series. “Daphne” was commissioned for the Carnegie Melon University Radio Series. Where the Blessed Are (co-author) was commissioned for St. Thomas Reformed Church in the Virgin Islands and was performed in December 2006.

As an assistant director, Emily worked with Helena Kaut-Howson on Yerma (at the Arcola Theatre in London,) Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass and with Mark Ravenhill on Nursery/School.

With Shenandoah Shakespeare, she toured the United States and Canada in Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Love’s Labor’s Lost, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Henry IV, part 1 as an actor. In Roanoke, Virginia, she acted in children’s theatre at Mill Mountain Theatre. She performed for Georgia Shakespeare Festival, doing mainstage shows in repertory (Troilus and Cressida, The Bourgeois Gentleman and Twelfth Night) as well as three Green shows and Camp Shakespeare (a children’s show). She was a resident artist at Lime Kiln Arts in Lexington, Virginia where she toured the Mid-Atlantic with five Appalachian folk tales (acting, playing guitar, bass and mandolin), taught workshops and residencies and co-wrote and composed Tatterhood, a musical play. She has done regular voice-over work for BAMcinematek’s silent film series. As a singer/songwriter, Emily founded and played with Bright Red Boots, who released their debut CD in May 2001. CD sold at http://www.cdbaby.com/brboots.

As a teaching artist, Emily has worked for BAM, City Lights Youth Theatre, American Globe Theatre, Roundabout, Theatre for a New Audience, Bronx Arts Ensemble, Arts Connection, LEAP, Smartworks and Young Audiences/NY. Emily also taught clown at Live Arts Summer Theatre Institute and founded Kids Summer Shakespeare, a free program for children in the South Bronx. Emily served as curriculum consultant for the Shakespeare project at Artsbridge, UCD.

Emily trained at the Wright School (London, UK,) Actor's Center, HB Studios, Puppet Central, Penland School of Crafts, Fiesole School of Music  (Italy,) University of Virginia, James Madison University, Sarah Lawrence College (from which she holds a BA in Liberal Arts.) Emily has an MFA in directing from the University of California, Davis. Specialized training includes clown, physical theatre, mask, puppetry, stage combat, Viewpoints, Suzuki and Shakespeare.

ELIZABETH LONDON

Elizabeth is a theatre professional based in New York who has a history of teaching for several different companies with Heather Drastal, most recently Classics On Tour.  Elizabeth is also a long-time Shakespeare teaching artist for both students and educators through Off-Broadway’s Theatre for a New Audience and Vineyard Theatre, as well as National Shakespeare Company, American Globe Theatre and Jacques d’Amboise’s National Dance Institute.  Elizabeth has taught Shakespeare, acting, voice and movement for the Actors Institute and Professional Performing Arts School (NY), Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School & Camp (CO) where she also created/directed three original large-ensemble shows, ETC School (PA) where she also directed The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,  and,  for the past three years,  New York’s prestigious Summer Arts Institute where she co-led the Drama Studio for students and the NEH Shakespeare Fellows program where she co-led workshops for educators.  

In addition to directing new work for festivals in New York with ongoing playwright collaborators, Elizabeth has performed extensively in theatre in New York appearing both Off-Broadway and downtown, regionally with North Carolina Shakespeare Festival, Vermont Stage Company, Bard Music Festival, Burning Coal Theatre (NC; also director), Deertrees Theatre Festival (ME), New Noises Festival (CO) and the Painted Bride (PA), internationally with the Shakespeare Revue Company and most recently in the live, scripted internet series “35”. 

As a voice artist, her recordings include anime series, singer-songwriter Peter Mulvey’s Deep Blue, Vermont Public Radio and many books and plays for the blind (most recently directing and playing Portia in The Merchant of Venice for JBI International, who honored her in 2001 with their Outstanding Achievement Award).  Elizabeth has trained with Anne Bogart’s SITI Company (Suzuki/Viewpoints), at BADA in England and with Shakespeare master teachers Patrick Tucker and John Barton; she received her BFA in Film from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Member, Actors’ Equity Association.

GAIL WINAR

As an actress, Gail has toured throughout the US and Europe, performing in works ranging from William Shakespeare to Larry Shue for the American Drama Group, Stockholm’s Regina Theater and the National Performing Arts Center.  Recently, she performed in a UK tour of What I Heard About Iraq, which included 30 cities in England and Scotland, ending in a limited run in London’s West End.  Gail originated the her role in What I Heard About Iraq at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, where the play received a Fringe First award.  She’s also been credited with originating the role of Jan at the New Jersey Repertory Company in the newly published play Beyond Gravity by Ruth Wolf. Washington, DC credits include Livia in Women Beware Women and Jaquenette in Love’s Labour’s Lost for the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s ACA and principal understudy for Mary Zimmerman’s production of Pericles, on the main stage of the Shakespeare Theatre Company.  In New York, she originated the role of Elizabeth for Shotgun Production’s Undivulged Crimes, and has performed Eleanor in The Lion in Winter; Clarissa in If Only We Knew; Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Hermione in The Winter’s Tale; Courtesan in A Comedy of Errors; Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet; and Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew.  Television work includes guest spots on Law and Order, Guiding Light and Good Morning America.  She has done literally hundreds of corporate and industrial shows for Sony, IBM, General Electric, Bristol-Myers and Deloitte & Touche -- to name a few.  Recent directing work includes Don’t Hug Me for the New Jersey Repertory Company, as well as projects with the Roundabout Theatre Company’s Education Department, American Globe Theatre, Shotgun Productions, Biggs-Rosati, Elaine Kaufman Cultural Center and Spotlight On Productions. As a teaching artist, she has conducted theater arts residencies, including acting, directing, Shakespeare, character study and period styles for the New Jersey Teen Arts Festival, Columbia Teacher’s College, Vassar College, New York University, Stockholm University, and the Jakarta International School in Indonesia. She has also has served on the teaching staff for the American Globe Theatre, Classics on Tour, School District 25, Theatre for a New Audience, the National Shakespeare Company and the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, DC.  She currently teaches for NYU/Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, Kean University, and the Roundabout Theatre Company on Broadway, where she has also led dramaturgical lectures for over a three dozen Broadway shows, as well as facilitating panel discussions with Broadway performers, playwrights, directors and designers.  As a writer, she has authored a theatre arts teaching manual for the NYC public school system; educational study guides for several regional theater companies; over a dozen original children’s plays, and currently works as an editor at Teacher’s Discovery, which publishes theatre arts text books and manuals for educators.  In 2001, she co-produced TimeSlips Project New York, a month-long series of arts and educational events in NYC, which included the OBIE-nominated play TimeSlips. Gail has her undergraduate degree from NYU, and an MFA from the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Academy for Classical Acting at the George Washington University.