MOTHER PLAY:
a play in five evictions

Paula Vogel is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright whose plays include Mother Play, Indecent, How I Learned to Drive, The Long Christmas Ride Home, The Mineola Twins, The Baltimore Waltz, Hot ’n’ Throbbing, Desdemona, And Baby Makes Seven, The Oldest Profession and A Civil War Christmas. She served as Director of Playwriting at Brown University and as the O’Neill Chair of Playwriting at Yale School of Drama. Awards include three Tony nominations, the American Theatre Hall of Fame Award, two Obies, the Lily Award, the NY Drama Critics Circle Award, a Guggenheim and a Pew Charitable Trust Award. Her memoir, Travels Without Carl, will be published by Penguin Press.

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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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S&Co: The Contention (Henry VI, Part II), Much Ado About Nothing, Time Stands Still, Heisenberg, Cymbeline, The Tempest, Merchant of Venice, Two Gentlemen of Verona; Regional: Appropriate, God’s Ear (Elliot Norton Award Best Actress & Best Production), Henry VIII, Pericles, Living In Exile, Cabaret; Film/TV: Sheepdog, Mother/Android, John And The Hole, The Equalizer 2, The Judge; Defending Jacob; Bull; The Secret Life Of Marilyn Monroe; Olive Kitteridge; Chasing Life” Canadian TV: Blue Murder (Series Lead), The Associates (Series Lead); MFA American Repertory Theatre. Tamara is part of MetaGirl Productions with Kate Kohler Amory. Their solo play This Is It has been performed in Boston and New York. They are currently adapting the novel The Weight of Ink to the stage. Alumni: January Month-long Intensive 2003.

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Zoya Martin is so grateful to be returning to Shakespeare & Company this summer. During her first season in 2023, she played Louise Rabiner in Dear Jack, Dear Louise directed by Ariel Bock and later in the season the role of Ophelia in Kevin Coleman’s “Enhanced Reading” of Hamlet. She received her MFA degree from the FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training in Sarasota, Florida. Her Asolo Repertory Theatre credits include Margaret Leavitt in Silent Sky and Penelope in Looking for Ithaca. Other credits include Malvolia in Twelfth Night, The Ghost of Christmas Past in A Christmas Carol, Henrietta in The Learned Ladies, Abby in Belleville, and Harriet Smith in Emma: The Musical. She received her BFA from Azusa Pacific University.

Eddie Shields is thrilled to be at Shakespeare & Company this summer. Recent Credits: Bedlam’s Angels in America, The Inheritance, A Man of No Importance, Shakespeare in Love, Casa Valentina, and Significant Other (Speakeasy Stage), Edward II, The Comedy of Errors (Actors’ Shakespeare Project); Breaking the Code (2026), Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Central Square Theater); Hair (New Rep); Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them (Company One); The Seagull (A.R.T/BTC). Off Broadway/NY: A Class Act (Playwrights Horizons); Billy Redden (Theater Row); Europia Escapes Europe (Austria Stage); Miss Julie (Workshop Theater); Twelfth Night, Henry VI.3, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (The Drilling Company). Film/TV: Kill that Man, Moonrise Kingdom, Unsure/Positive, Road to Joy, The Entertainment. Plays: Julie (Midtown Theater Fest. Best in Show); The Good Girls High (Manhattan Rep. Official Selection). Eddie has been nominated for the Elliot Norton award three times and holds an IRNE award and 4 IRNE nominations. MFA – Brandeis University, BFA – Adelphi University. AEA/SAG-AFTRA.

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Omid Akbari was recently named The 2024 Burry Fredrik Design Fellow. He is a freelance scenic designer and costume concept artist based in NYC. He holds an M.F.A in Theater Design at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale. His recent credits include: Lookingglass Theatre: Iraq, But Funny; Long Wharf Theatre: Unbecoming Tragedy; Boise Contemporary Theater: The Life You Gave Me; Playhouse on Park: The Irish And How They Got That Way; Juilliard: The Seven; Shakespeare & Company: Three Tall Persian Women; Yale Repertory Theatre: Wish You Were Here; Iseman Theatre: Furlough’s Paradise; Iseman Theatre: Macbeth.

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This is Jayden’s first season with Shakespeare & Company and is excited to explore Massachusetts this summer! Jayden is a graduate of the University of Utah with a BFA in Stage Management. She has loved working on shows like We Aint Ever Gonna Break Up: A Hymon and Parfunkel Musical, and Jersey Boys (ASM, Phoenix Theatre Company), Into the Woods (SM, UofU) La Boheme and (R)evolution of Steve Jobs (ASM Utah Opera, Capital Theatre). Jayden has also worked as a dresser for Pioneer Theatre Company on their 2021-24 seasons most notably on Hello Dolly, Something Rotten, and Shucked on their pre-Broadway run. She would like to thank everyone for supporting her throughout this journey in theatre.

Recent work includes Ohio University: We are Proud of Present, ShiningGirls, Twelfth Night (ALD). OU Opera: The Gondoliers, Cendrillion & Trouble in Tahiti, Hansel & Gretel. San Francisco Opera 2024 Fall season (ALD). Santa Fe Opera 2025 season (ALD). Chester Theater Company: Pass Over (LD). And working with children in Connecticut through Cirillo Summer Theater multiple years and various high schools.

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Alex is thrilled to be returning to Shakespeare & Company for the 2025 season. Favorite credits include the world premiere of Millions (The Alliance Theatre), Les Misérables, Dreamgirls, The Little Mermaid, Fiddler on the Roof and Waitress (The Muny), Dear Evan Hansen (Second National Tour), and Salome (Heartbeat Opera). UNCSA Stage Management, Class of 2024. Lots of love to my family, friends, and my cat.

Bryn Scharenberg is a New York-based sound designer and engineer. She grew up in Seattle, where the murmur of rain is near-constant. The vividness of the natural world is a core theme in their designs, as well as an earnest love for the moody and melodramatic. Her professional credits include a mix of designing, associate designing, and engineering for New York Theater Workshop, Juilliard, the International Festival of Arts and Ideas, Yale Repertory Theater, and the New School, among others.

Pronouns he / him Costume design: Notes on Killing Seven Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Board Members (Yale Rep), Cactus Queen and Uncle Vanya (Geffen School). Associate costume design: Eden (Yale Rep); assistant costume design: Falcon Girls (Yale Rep), Candide (Glimmerglass Opera), Marys Seacole (Geffen School), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Yale Rep), Emma: The Musical (Ensemble Theater Company). Associate Set Design: Twelfth Night (The Public Theater ’25). Assistant Set Design: Clueless: The Musical (West End), Harvey (Laguna Playhouse), and Skylight (Chance Theater). MFA in Costume & Scenic Design (Yale School of Drama), Double BA Music & Theater (California State University, Fullerton).