Creative Team

Aaron Posner (Co-Director/Adapter) is a Helen Hayes and Barrymore Award-winning playwright and director. His adaptations include Macbeth (with Teller), Stupid Fucking Bird (a finalist for the Steinberg Award and the winner of the 2014 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding New Play, adapted from Chekhov’s The Seagull), Who Am I This Time? (& Other Conundrums of Love) (adapted from Kurt Vonnegut short stories), The Chosen and My Name Is Asher Lev (adapted from the Chaim Potok novels), Sometimes a Great Notion (adapted from Ken Kesey), a nine-actor Cyrano, and a musical adaptation of Mark Twain’s A Murder, A Mystery and A Marriage. He is a founder and former artistic director of Philadelphia’s Arden Theatre and has directed at major regional theaters from coast to coast. He is an artistic associate at Milwaukee Repertory and the Folger Theatre in Washington, D.C.

Teller (Co-Director/Adapter/Magic) has been the smaller, quieter half of Penn & Teller since 1975. With Penn Jillette, he has played off- and on-Broadway, toured in North America and Britain and currently is the longest-running headline act in Las Vegas. Penn & Teller have written and starred in television series and specials, including eight seasons of the Emmy-nominated Showtime series “Penn & Teller: Bullshit!”; “Penn & Teller Tell a Lie” on Discovery; “Penn & Teller’s Sincity Spectacular” on FX; “Behind the Scenes,” a PBS children’s series on the arts; “The Unpleasant World of Penn & Teller,” a magic and comedy series on England’s Channel 4; and two current series, “Penn & Teller: Fool Us,” for The CW and “Wizard Wars” for SyFy. Teller has written for The Atlantic Monthly, Smithsonian, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Esquire, GQ, The New Yorker; as well as three books with Jillette and two on his own. He is a frequent contributor to “All Things Considered” on NPR. Teller and Aaron Posner co-directed a version of Shakespeare’s Macbeth and he co-wrote and directed the acclaimed stage production Play Dead, (off-Broadway and Los Angeles). Earlier this year, Teller made his feature-length film directorial debut with the Oscar-shortlisted and BAFTA-nominated Tim’s Vermeer, a Sony Pictures Classics release.

Pilobolus (Movement and Choreography) was founded in 1971. Pilobolus has built its fervent and expanding international following by showing the human body to be the most expressive, universal and magical of media. Featured on the likes of “Oprah,” “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” and the “Academy Awards.” Pilobolus has been awarded the Berlin Critic’s Prize, the Scotsman Award, the Brandeis Award, a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cultural Programming, the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement in Choreography, a TED Fellowship for presenting at the TED conference in 2005, and a 2012 Grammy Award nomination for its interactive music video collaboration with OK Go and Google Chrome Japan, “All Is Not Lost” (allisnotlo.st).

Matt Kent (Choreographer, Pilobolus) is the associate artistic director of Pilobolus and has worked with the company since 1996 as a dancer, collaborator, creative director, choreographer and associate artistic director. His past Pilobolus projects include head choreographer for Magnifico; choreographer for a sports Emmy-nominated teaser created with the NFL network; and choreographer for an appearance on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien.” Kent is one of the creators of Pilobolus’s Shadowland. He has performed in more than 24 countries and in Pilobolus’s appearance on the “79th Academy Awards.” He also has been a zombie choreographer for AMC’s “The Walking Dead” and movement consultant on the Duncan Sheik musical, Whisper House.

Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan (Songs). Tom Waits is an Oscar-nominated songwriter, Golden Globe recipient, Grammy Award winner and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee. Waits and Kathleen Brennan, his long-time collaborator and wife, were recently named number four in a list of the “100 Best Living Songwriters” published by America’s Paste magazine. Waits’s music is recognized for its distinctive orchestrations and arrangements. He has recorded more than 20 albums including Bad As Me and appeared in well over 20 films, working with such maverick directors as Jim Jarmusch, Terry Giliam, Francis Ford Coppola and Robert Altman.

Daniel Conway (Scenic Design) is making his SCR design debut. His recent projects include the premiere of Love in Afghanistan for Arena Stage; The Diary of Anne Frank for Milwaukee Repertory; End of The Rainbow for Milwaukee Repertory; the premiere of Ken Ludwig’s new play, The Game’s Afoot, for the Cleveland Play House; the American premiere of Sucker Punch for Studio Theatre; Company, Hairspray, Chess and Sunset Boulevard for Signature Theatre Company; Sabrina Fair for Ford’s Theatre; The Merry Wives of Windsor for The Shakespeare Theater Company; The Aliens for Studio Theatre; and August Osage County for Arden Theatre Company. His current and upcoming productions include Sunday in the Park with George for Signature Theatre Company and By the Way Meet Vera Stark for The Juilliard School. He has been nominated 12 times for Washington, D.C.’s Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Set Designs and he received the award twice: in 2000 and most recently in 2009 for Stunning, at Woolly Mammoth Theatre, directed by Anne Kaufmann.

Paloma Young (Costume Design) returns to SCR where she designed costumes for Pride and Prejudice, You, Nero, A Wrinkle in Time, The Brand New Kid and Charlotte’s Web. Her other credits include Peter and the Starcatcher (Broadway, Tony Award), Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 (Kazino, Lucille Lortel Award), Titus Andronicus (California Shakespeare Theatre, Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award), Troublemaker, or The Freakin Kick-A Adventures of Bradley Boatright (Berkeley Repertory Theatre), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (The Old Globe), Fly By Night (Dallas Theatre Center and Playwrights Horizons), The Patron Saint of Sea Monsters (Playwrights Horizons), Wildflower (Second Stage Theatre), Current Nobody and Hoover Comes Alive (La Jolla Playhouse) and Dos Pueblos (Miracle Theatre Group). Young holds an MFA from UC San Diego. palomayoung.com

Christopher Akerlind (Lighting Design) returns to SCR where he previously designed Measure for Measure, Anna in the Tropics, A Little Night Music and The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Recent work includes the American premiere of Huang Ro’s Dr. Sun Yat Sen for the Santa Fe Opera, the world premiere of Sting’s new musical The Last Ship, the world premiere of Tobias Picker’s Dolores Claiborne for the San Francisco Opera, Martha Clarke’s new work Cheri for Signature Theatre and the Broadway production of Rocky, for which he received his sixth Tony Award nomination. He is the recipient of Chicago’s Michal Merritt Award in Design and Collaboration, as well as an Obie, two Drama Desk Awards and the 2005 Tony Award for his work on The Light in the Piazza.

Charles Coes (Co-Sound Design) is a sound designer for theatre and live entertainment. His past projects include Queen of the Night at the Paramount Hotel in New York City; Third, On Borrowed Time and Electric Baby at Two River Theater; Accidental Death of An Anarchist at Yale Repertory Theatre and Berkeley Repertory Theatre; Servant of Two Masters at The Shakespeare Theatre Company; Passion Play at Yale Repertory Theatre; My Wonderful Day at The Wilma Theater; Parade at Ford’s Theatre; Kiss Me Kate and My Fair Lady with Yale Music Theatre of the Air; Guthrie Theater; Wanda’s Monster, Louis Armstrong: Jazz Ambassador and The Butterfly with Making Books Sing; aerial and aquatic spectaculars on Royal Caribbean Cruise ships; art installations with Anne Hamilton, Luis Roldan and Abelardo Morel; and work as a Broadway associate for Darron L West, Mark Bennet and Bray Poor.

Darron L West (Co-Sound Design) returns to SCR, having previously designed How The World Began and Chinglish. He is a Tony and Obie Award-winning sound designer whose work for theatre and dance has been heard in more than 500 productions nationally and internationally, on Broadway and off. His accolades for sound design include the Bay Area Theater Critics Circle Award, the Lucille Lortel and AUDELCO Awards and the Henry Hewes Design Award. He is a proud recipient of the 2012 Princess Grace Statue.

Johnny Thompson (Magic Design) is making his SCR debut. Thompson (The Great Tomsoni) has written, developed and provided material for magicians including Siegfried and Roy, Penn and Teller, Doug Henning, Lance Burton, David Blaine and The Amazing Jonathan. He was the magic consultant off-Broadway for Play Dead, for which he won a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle award in the category of Illusion/Magic Design. In conjunction with Teller, he designed the magic effects for The Exorcist at the Geffen Theatre. His television and film credits as a magic advisor/consulting include: “Fool Us,” “Hart to Hart,” “Fantasy Island,” “One Day at a Time,” “Beyond Westworld,” The Fantasticks, Bogus, Houdini–Believe and The Magic Box.

Thom Rubino (Magic Engineering and Construction) is making his SCR design debut. Rubino started designing illusions, theatrical effects and displays more than 20 years ago. In 1999, he moved to Las Vegas to continue his journey. His company, Thom Rubino Illusions, has a client list that includes Armani Exchange, Goldman Sachs, Gucci, Sephora, Myth Busters, Siegfried and Roy Productions, Cirque Du Soleil and Teller. He says, “It’s a privilege to be part of Teller’s and Johnny Thompson’s Tempest magic team.”

Kenny Wollesen (Instrument Design and Wollesonics) is making his SCR design debut. He is the founder of the Wollesonic Laboratories and mastermind behind Sonic Massages and the Himalayas Marching Band. Among his sound designs are Great Small Works, Puppeteers Cooperative and Imagination Explosion. As a musician, he has performed in numerous theatre productions including Alice, directed by Robert Wilson and Tom Waits, and at venues such as Thalia Theatre and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. As a composer, he has written previously for Aaron Posner and Teller for their production of Macbeth. He also has composed music for productions at Two River Theater and Folger Theatre. Wollesen has worked with Bill Frisell, Norah Jones, Tom Waits, Sean Lennon, Ben Goldberg, Laurie Anderson, Steve Bernstein, Jonas Mekas, Butch Morris, Ilhan Ersahin, Hal Wilner, John Medeski, Jim Hall and John Zorn.

Katie Ailinger* (Stage Manager) is making her SCR debut. Her off-Broadway credits include Nixon’s Nixon, FreshPlay Festival (MCC Theatre), Trial by Water, I-Land (Ma-Yi Theatre), and Fan Tan King (PanAsian Repertory). A Boston-based stage manager, she works at the American Repertory Theater, having stage-managed The Tempest, The Lily’s Revenge, Woody Sez, Futurity: The Musical and Ajax. Her additional Boston credits include Cry of the Reed, Streamers, HTC Summer Play Festival and the upcoming world premiere of Second Girl by Ronan Noone (Huntington Theatre Company); A Delicate Balance, The Secret Rapture (Trinity Repertory Company); RED, The Divine Sister, The Great American Trailer Park Musical (SpeakEasy Stage Company); Henry VIII, Pericles (Actors Shakespeare Project); and three seasons of A Christmas Celtic Sojourn (Cutler Majestic Theatre and northeast tour). Her regional theatre credits include Center Theatre Group, Ojai Playwrights Conference, The Actors’ Gang, Theatre @ Boston Court and Coronet Theatre. She holds a BFA in stage management from the University of Southern California and is a proud member of Actors’ Equity.

Kristen Cruz* (Assistant Stage Manager) has been a part of the stage management team at SCR for five seasons and 15 productions. She holds an MFA in stage management from UC Irvine and a BA in theatre arts and minor in music from Vanguard University. Her other theatre credits include work at Laguna Playhouse, Irvine Barclay Theatre, The Wooden Floor, Little Fish Theatre, The Actor’s Fund, American Coast Theatre Company, Chance Theater and numerous dance companies in Southern California. Cruz is a proud member of Actor’s Equity.

Magdalene Spanuello (Associate Director) is a Chicago-based theatre director and adjunct music theatre faculty member at Carthage College. She has been on the directing staff of The Tempest since its inception at The Smith Center in Las Vegas. Her international credits include Next to Normal and Seussical, the Musical! (Shanghai Conservatory of Music). Among her regional credits are A Christmas Carol, Gutenberg! The Musical!, Forever Plaid (Milwaukee Repertory Theatre); Mary Dyer (Prologue Theatre Company, Chicago); and Arms and The Man (Ten Chimneys). Coming up, she will be working on Evita (Carthage College). She received her MFA from Western Illinois University. She is overjoyed to be back assisting Aaron on such a phenomenal project. Love and thanks to Aaron and Teller.

American Repertory Theater The A.R.T at Harvard University is a leading force in American theatre, producing groundbreaking work in Cambridge and beyond. The A.R.T. seeks to expand the boundaries of theatre by programming events that immerse audiences in transformative theatrical experiences. Throughout its history, the A.R.T. has been honored with many distinguished awards, including consecutive Tony Awards for Best Revival of a Musical for Pippin (2013) and The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess (2012), both of which Artistic Director Diane Paulus directed; a Pulitzer Prize; a Jujamcyn Prize for outstanding contribution to the development of creative talent; the Tony Award for Best Regional Theater; and numerous Elliot Norton and I.R.N.E. (Independent Reviewers of New England) Awards.