Motherhood eluded Charlayne Woodard, but as a godmother, aunt, confidant, and mentor, countless children have enhanced—and sometimes rattled—her life. With exuberance and grace, two-time Obie Award winner and Tony Award nominee Woodard fuses ten vignettes of non-parental guidance into a radiant tour de force.
Studio Special Events bring unique performances and one-of-a-kind events from around the world to DC.
The 2013-14 Special Events Season is generously underwritten by Susan L. and Dixon M. Butler.
The Night Watcher is Charlayne Woodard’s fourth solo play. Developed at the Ojai Playwrights Festival and La Jolla Playhouse’s Page To Stage, The Night Watcher was produced at Seattle Rep, Primary Stages, and the Kirk Douglas Theatre (LA Drama Critics and NAACP Awards for Best Solo Performance and nominations for Best Play).Her previous solo plays are Pretty Fire, which was produced at the Odyssey Theatre (LA Drama Critics and NAACP Awards for Best Play and Best Playwright), Manhattan Theatre Club, Seattle Rep, and La Jolla Playhouse; Neat, which was produced at Seattle Rep, Mark Taper Forum (Backstage West Garland Award), and Manhattan Theatre Club (Irving and Blanche Laurie Theatre Vision Award, Outer Critics Circle nomination); and In Real Life, a co-commission by Center Theatre Group and Seattle Rep, which was produced at Seattle Rep, the Mark Taper Forum (Backstage West Garland Award, NAACP Awards for Best Playwright and Actor), and Manhattan Theatre Club (Audelco Award, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations for Best Solo Performance). Flight, a multi-character adaptation of African and African-American folktales, was commissioned by Center Theatre Group and produced at the Kirk Douglas Theatre and ACT in Seattle.
As an actress, Ms. Woodard was nominated for Tony and Drama Desk Awards for her role in the original Broadway company of Ain’t Misbehavin’. Her recent theatre credits include The Witch of Edmonton at Red Bull Theater (Obie Award) and the world premieres of Suzan-Lori Parks’ In The Blood (Obie Award), David Adjmi’s Stunning at LCT3, and Lynn Nottage’s Fabulation at Playwrights Horizons. Other credits include Athol Fugard’s Sorrows and Rejoicings at Second Stage (Audelco Award); The Good Person Of Setzuan, adapted by Tony Kushner, and The Caucasian Chalk Circle at the Public Theater. Regional credits include A Midsummer Night’s Dream at La Jolla Playhouse, The Taming of the Shrew at Shakespeare Theatre Company, and Ariel Dorfman’s Purgatorio at Seattle Rep.
Ms. Woodard’s recent film credits include Things Never Said, Unbreakable, Sunshine State, Million Dollar Hotel, The Crucible, Eye for an Eye, and Around The Fire. Her television credits include the starring role in the Showtime’s Run for the Dream: The Gail Devers Story; Oprah Winfrey’s The Wedding; and recurring roles on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, ER, and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Ms. Woodard serves on the Council of the Dramatists Guild of America. She has served on the boards of directors for The Sundance Institute (as an artistic trustee) and Manhattan Theatre Club. She completed a TCG/PEW Charitable Trust National Theatre Artist Residency Program Fellowship at Center Theatre Group and has taught at California Institute of the Arts. Ms. Woodard trained at the Goodman School of Drama and received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from DePaul University. She is a lifetime member of The Actors Studio.
(As of October 2013)
Bart DeLorenzo is the Founding Artistic Director of the Evidence Room in Los Angeles, where he has directed many premieres over the last 18 years including plays by David Greenspan, Naomi Wallace, Martin Crimp, Philip K. Dick, Gordon Dahlquist, Kelly Stuart, David Edgar, and Edward Bond. Recent Evidence Room credits include Sharr White’s Annapurna, Chekhov’s Ivanov, Len Jenkins’ Margo Veil, and Adam Bock’s The Receptionist (co-production with the Odyssey Theatre). Other recent directing includes Carla Ching’s Fast Company, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s Doctor Cerberus, Donald Margulies’ Shipwrecked! An Entertainment, and Sarah Ruhl’s Dead Man’s Cell Phone, South Coast Repertory; Donald Margulies’ Coney Island Christmas, Geffen Playhouse; Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, A Noise Within; Justin Tanner’s Day Drinkers and Caryl Churchill’s A Number, Odyssey Theatre; Justin Tanner’s Voice Lessons, Zephyr Theatre; Karen Zacarias’ Legacy of Light and Mark Brown’s Around the World in 80 Days at the Cleveland Play House; King Lear, Antaeus Company; Michael Sargent’s The Projectionist, Kirk Douglas Theatre; Charles Mee’s bobrauschenbergamerica, Inside the Ford. He is on the faculty at CalArts. For his work, he has received six LA Weekly Awards, three Backstage Garlands, three LA Drama Critics Circle Awards. Mr. DeLorenzo is the 2012 recipient of TCG’s Alan Schneider Director Award.
(As of October 2013)
Luciana Stecconi’s previous designs for Studio Theatre include The Effect, Cloud 9, Hedda Gabler, Bad Jews, An Iliad, Lungs, The History of Kisses, In the Red and Brown Water, The Year of Magical Thinking, Amnesia Curiosa, Souvenir, Contractions, and Crestfall, among others. She has designed for Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Round House Theatre, Signature Theatre, The Kennedy Center Theatre for Young Audiences, Mosaic Theater, Theater J, Everyman Theatre, Olney Theatre Center, Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Georgetown University, Catholic University, American University, Imagination Stage, and many more. She’s the Assistant Professor in Scenic Design at Emerson College. Stecconi holds an MFA in design from Brandeis University and is a member of USA Local 829.
(As of December 2018)
Michael Lincoln has designed Constellations, The Night Watcher, The Adding Machine: A Musical, Bachelorette, Venus in Fur, The History Boys, Grey Gardens, Privates on Parade, Take Me Out, and Topdog/Underdog, among many productions for Studio since 2000. He was also the lighting consultant for Studio Theatre’s building expansion and renovation in 2002. His work in New York City includes Copenhagen, Skylight, and More to Love on Broadway and Off Broadway productions of Mr. Goldwyn, The Bubbly Black Girl…, If Love Were All, Defying Gravity, and Bunny Bunny. Mr. Lincoln was the Associate Designer for Broadway’s Guys and Dolls, Six Degrees of Separation, and City of Angels. He has designed over 300 productions with other long associations at Indiana Repertory Theatre, Alley Theatre, and Cleveland Play House. He is currently serving as the Artistic Director of the Theater Division at Ohio University.
(As of February 2016)
Brandee Mathies has been Studio’s Costume Shop Manager since 1994. He has designed MotherStruck, This Is Our Youth, The Year of Magical Thinking, Stoop Stories, Rimers of Eldritch, A Number, The Syringa Tree, and Comic Briefs for Studio Theatre, as well as Moth, Contractions, A Beautiful View, Crestfall, and Polaroid Stories for Studio 2ndStage. DC area credits include Satchmo at the Waldorf at Mosaic Theater Co (Costume Designer); Anything Goes and Spunk (Assistant Designer) at Howard University; The Wiz at Duke Ellington School of the Arts (Costume Designer); Blues for an Alabama Sky and Sunday in the Park with George (First Hand) at Arena Stage; and Black Nativity (Assistant Designer) at The Kennedy Center.
(As of September 2016)
Karl Fredrik Lundeberg is a CBS/Sony recording artist who has recorded four albums with his jazz/world music group Full Circle. Mr. Lundeberg’s works have been performed at music festivals throughout the world. Theatre and ballet credits includes scores for San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater, Geffen Playhouse, American Repertory Theatre, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Center Stage, South Coast Repertory, Odyssey Theatre, Arizona Theatre Company, Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, Kirk Douglas Theatre and Mark Taper Forum (Death and the Maiden, Bandido!, Hysteria, Skylight, Enigma Variations, The Poison Tree, Closer, Molière Comedies, The School for Scandal, The Talking Cure, Ten Unknowns, Stuff Happens). He was composer in residence at the Mark Taper Forum and served as musical director for the Shakespeare repertory Measure for Measure and Midsummer Night’s Dream, and composer/musical director for Romeo and Juliet, all directed by Sir Peter Hall at the Ahmanson Theatre.
(As of October 2013)
Erik Trester previously designed projections for the Studio Theatre productions of The Night Watcher, Rock ‘n’ Roll, Grey Gardens, A Number, This Is How It Goes, and The Long Christmas Ride Home. His Studio 2ndStage credits include The Rocky Horror Show, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Passing Strange, Fucking A, Jerry Springer: The Opera, Reefer Madness: The Musical, Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead, and autobahn. Mr. Trester is a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin.
(As of November 2013)
Mary K. Klinger has stage managed on Broadway, in London, and across the country. She was the original stage manager for QED at Lincoln Center and for Angels in America at the Walter Kerr Theatre. Her national tours include Death of a Salesman and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Ms. Klinger worked for Center Theatre Group for 22 years where she stage managed over 60 productions including The Night Watcher, Radio Golf, Gem of the Ocean, School for Scandal, Intimate Apparel, Topdog/Underdog, The Molière Comedies, Slavs!, Spunk, and Jelly’s Last Jam. She spent four years in San Diego stage managing the summer repertory season for The Old Globe. Recently Ms. Klinger stage managed two productions for Shakespeare Theatre Company and four productions for Hartford Stage. She teaches stage management at the University of Southern California. Ms. Klinger is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association.
(As of October 2013)
