Georgiana and Kitty: Christmas at Pemberley

Lauren Gunderson has been one of the most produced playwrights in America since 2015, topping the list twice including 2019/20. She is a two-time winner of the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award for I and You and The Book of Will, the winner of the Lanford Wilson Award and the Otis Guernsey New Voices Award, a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and John Gassner Award for Playwriting, and a recipient of the Mellon Foundation’s Residency with Marin Theatre Company. She studied Southern Literature and Drama at Emory University, and Dramatic Writing at NYU’s Tisch School where she was a Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship. Her newest play The Catastrophist, about her husband virologist Nathan Wolfe, premiered digitally in January 2021. She co-authored the Miss Bennet plays with Margot Melcon, and her audioplay The Half-Life of Marie Curie is available on Audible.com. Her work is published at Playscripts (I and You, Exit Pursued by a Bear, The Taming, and Toil and Trouble), Dramatists Play Service (The Revolutionists, The Book of Will, Silent Sky, Bauer, Natural Shocks, The Wickhams, and Miss Bennet) and Samuel French (Emilie). Her picture book "Dr. Wonderful: Blast Off to the Moon" is available from Two Lions/Amazon. She is currently developing musicals with Ari Afsar, Dave Stewart and Joss Stone, and Kait Kerrigan and Bree Lowdermilk.

Margot Melcon is a theater artist, administrator and writer. She was the Director of New Play Development at Marin Theatre Company for seven years, where she dramaturged over 30 productions—including six world premieres—and administered the company’s two annual new play prizes and commissioning program. She has developed plays with TheatreWorks, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Crowded Fire Theater, Shotgun Players, Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor, the Kennedy Center, the New Harmony Project, and the Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis. She is currently the Program Executive for Promoting Culture at the Zellerbach Family Foundation. Margot is a graduate of California State University, Chico.

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S&Co: Acting: Duke (Measure for Measure), Rose (The Children), Mom (Ugly Lies the Bone); Mistress Quickly (Henry IV Pts. 1 & 2); Goneril (King Lear); Beatrice (Much Ado About Nothing); Elizabeth (Richard III); Audrey (As You Like It); Hippolyta (Midsummer Night’s Dream); The Nurse (Romeo and Juliet); Mistress Quickly (Merry Wives of Windsor); Paulina (The Winter’s Tale), Ruth (Private Eyes), The Woman (Laughing Wild); Arlene (Off the Map) Directing: Ken Ludwig’s Dear Jack, Dear Louise, Miss Bennet, Christmas at Pemberley; The Wickhams, Christmas at Pemberley; Emma, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility. At Mixed Company: Ramona (Zara Spook and Other Lures) and Eileen (The Cripple of Inishmaan). With the Ensemble for the Romantic Century in NYC: Nadezhda VonMeck (None But the Lonely Heart), as well as Fanny Mendelsohn, Emily Dickinson, Sonia Tolstoy, and Anna Akhmatova (in multiple shows). Ariel is a Designated Linklater Teacher.

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Lydia Duff is a theater artist based in Western Massachusetts. She recently completed a BA in Drama and Mandarin Chinese at Bennington College in Vermont. Lydia has received acting training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Connecticut, and has begun training with Intimacy Directors and Coordinators. She is delighted to be having her first season working at Shakespeare & Company after many years of participating in the education programs as a student.

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S&Co: Hippolyta/Snout, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Don John, Much Ado About Nothing; Cassie, The Wickhams: Christmas at Pemberley, Ensemble: Shakespeare and the Language that Shaped a World, Marianne Dashwood: Sense & Sensibility; Robert Shallow/Bardolph: Merry Wives; Elizabeth Bennet: Pride & Prejudice; Longaville/Jaquenetta, Love’s Labor’s Lost; Elizabeth Darcy, Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley; Helena/Cobweb, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; S&Co Regional Tour: Lady Capulet/ Benvolio, Romeo & Juliet; The Humanist Project: Lavinia, Titus Andronicus. Madeleine is proud of her work as an education artist in the Fall Festival of Shakespeare, and Shakespeare & Young Company. She attended the two-year professional course at L’École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris, is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and studied at The Second City in Chicago.

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S&Co: Marsha (Golden Leaf Ragtime Blues), Jean Hatch (White Savior), Mrs. Reynolds (The Wickhams: Christmas at Pemberley), Provost / Mariana (Measure for Measure), Miss Bates (Emma), Olive (The Norwegians), Center for Actor Training Teaching Faculty, Senior Manager of Individual Giving; Chicago: Vitalist Theatre (contributing artist), Lifeline Theatre, Greasy Joan & Co., Emerald City Theatre, Attic Playhouse; Regionally: Elsewhere Shakespeare, Montana Repertory Theatre, Montana Actors Theatre, Classic Theatre Co., Tacoma Little Theatre, Toy Boat Theatre, Philipsburg Theatre. MFA in Acting and instructor of record, University of Montana; BFA Acting/Dance, Adelphi University. In addition to earning her BFA and MFA in acting, Kristen is a proud alumna of Shakespeare & Company’s Month-long Intensive, which changed her teaching trajectory and her life. She began Teacher Training with the Center for Actor Training in 2017 and was invited to join the teaching faculty in 2022; Kristen is currently training to become a Designated Linklater Teacher. Additionally, she has worked full-time in Development since 2019. Kristen lives with her husband Graham and their two daughters in Lenox where she plays out the best roles ever of wife and mom. This is for them, and for you—the audience; thank you for being here and keeping live theater alive.

Nick Nudler has appeared at Shakespeare & Company as Petruchio, The Taming of the Shrew, and Ensemble, I HAVE HAD A MOST RARE VISION. As part of the Northeast Regional Tour of Shakespeare, he’s played Macbeth, Macbeth; Antipholus of Ephesus, The Comedy of Errors, and Claudius, Hamlet. He is a theatre creator with his partner, Kirsten Peacock. They build highly physical interpretations of classic and folk stories together. His training includes earning a BFA from the University of Connecticut.

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Recent credits include Touchstone, As You Like It (Catskill Mountain Shakespeare); Ade, The Easiest Thing (The Tank, NYC debut); S&Co: Conrad / Friar, Much Ado About Nothing, Burgundy, King Lear (starring Christopher Lloyd), Lucentio, The Taming of the Shrew, Dumaine, Love's Labor's Lost, Theseus, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Ensemble, I HAVE HAD A MOST RARE VISION, Ensemble, Shakespeare and the Language that Shaped the World; Brian, The Wickhams: Christmas at Pemberley (reading), Mr. Woodhouse, Emma (reading), Ronald Drayton, Autumn (reading), Roger Peterson, Kernel of Sanity (reading); S&Co Regional Tour: Angelo, The Comedy of Errors, Duncan, Macbeth. With a deep interest in classical work and the voice, they are also a teacher and Education Artist with S&Co and have been a devoted student of the Linklater Voice Method for the past five years in the hopes of one day becoming a Designated Linklater Voice Teacher.

Kirsten Peacock has appeared in several Shakespeare & Company productions, including as Kate, The Taming of the Shrew; Titania, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Ensemble, I HAVE HAD A MOST RARE VISION. As part of Shakespeare & Company’s Northeast Regional Tour, she played Lady Macbeth, Macbeth; Antipholus of Syracuse, The Comedy of Errors; Ophelia, Hamlet, and Desdemona, Othello. Kirsten is an actor/theater-maker of British/American parentage, but grew up in Norway. She studied at the University of Kent and UC Berkeley. Outside of Shakespeare, some of her favorite acting credits include Halina in Indecent (Playhouse on Park), Brooke in Noises Off (Cape Rep Theatre) and Adelle Ratignolle in The Awakening (Breadbox Theatre). She and her partner Nick Nudler create and perform new works of ancient stories. Their plays From the Heart of the Wreck and Jason & Medea premiered at Cape Rep Theatre on Cape Cod.

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Kristin is so excited to make her Shakespeare & Company acting debut! While this is her first time performing at Shakespeare & Company she has worked with the Education department before, directing in The Fall Festival of Shakespeare and working on the spring residencies team. Kristin has her B.F.A from Ohio University in Theatre Performance. Some of her favorite roles include: Urinetown and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (The Studio Theatre TDS), Little Shop of Horrors and Caroline Or Change (Tantrum Theater). She would like to thank God for his continued blessings, her family for their support and her mom especially for being her number one fan! IG: @kristinyatesactor

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S&Co Set Design: Ken Ludwig's Dear Jack, Dear Louise, Golda's Balcony, Much Ado About Nothing, Morning After Grace, Mothers and Sons, Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley, Roman Fever / Fullness of Life, It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, The How and the Why, Henry V, Mother of the Maid, Shakespeare’s Will, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Private Eyes, Master Class, Heroes, Beauty Queen of Leenane, Accomplice, Cassandra Speaks, The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife, Parasite Drag, 39 Steps, Santaland Diaries, Private Lives, The Learned Ladies, Women of Will, The Memory of Water, The Hollow Crown, Red Hot Patriot: The Kick–Ass Wit of Molly Ivins, War of the Worlds (Bernstein Theatre); Mother Courage, Richard III, The Winter’s Tale, The Liar (Tina Packer Playhouse). Designer & Performer: Dibble Dance (Tina Packer Playhouse & Colonial Theatre). Patrick holds a Bachelor of Arts in Interior Design from Academy of Art College, San Francisco. Other work includes Laura Ashley, Pierre-Deux, Anthropologie.

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Selected credits at S&Co: Ken Ludwig’s Dear Jack, Dear Louise, The Approach, An Iliad, Measure for Measure, King Lear, Martha Mitchell Calling play and film, Twelfth Night, As You Like It; The Tempest, Ugly Lies the Bone, Or..., It’s a Wonderful Life, Henry V, Mother of the Maid, Shakespeare’s Will, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), Private Lives, Loves Labor’s Lost, Kaufman’s Barbershop, The Learned Ladies, Women of Will, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Taster, Mengelberg and Mahler, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Shirley Valentine, Golda’s Balcony, The Ladies Man, Rough Crossing, Enchanted April, Ice Glen, Lettice and Lovage, House of Mirth, Glimpses of the Moon and many years of the Education Department’s Fall Festival and Tour productions including Shakespeare & the Language That Shaped a World film for Shakespeare’s 2021 Birthday. Selected Regional: Grant & Twain, Emilie..., The Long Run, In Darfur, Arabian Nights, Red Noses, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Metamorphosis, The Marriage of Bette and Boo, Alice in Wonderland, Our Country’s Good.

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Gabriella Walko is a multidisciplinary theatre artist based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She recently completed a BA in Theatre Arts at the University of Pittsburgh. Recent theatre credits include: Stage Management Production Assistant (Pittsburgh CLO); John Proctor is the Villain: Student, u/s Beth, Bailey (Pitt Stages); Falsettos: Apprentice Stage Manager (Front Porch Theatricals); Abduction: A Musical Comedy: Gleep Glorp, Ensemble (Pitt Stages); Seven Guitars: Asst. Lighting Designer (Pitt Stages); Harriet Tubman...Railroad: Asst. Stage Manager (Primestage Theatre Co.).