Martha Wadsworth Coigney In January of 2003, Ms. Coigney retired as the Director of the U.S. Center of the International Theater Institute, after 37 years in that job. From 1987 to 1995, she was President of the worldwide ITI organization. At the worldwide ITI Congress (1995) in Caracas, Venezuela, she was awarded the Picasso medal (for service and commitment to international culture and understanding) by UNESCO's Director General. On that same occasion, she was made Honorary President of ITI. Before her life at ITI, Ms. Coigney worked at the Actors Studio (1956-59) and then for Roger L. Stevens (1962-65), a major Broadway producer who went on to become founding Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts and founding Head of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She was accorded the honor of Officier des Arts et Lettres in 1980 and Officier de l’Ordre National de Merite in 1999 by the French Government. In 1998, on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the International Theater Institute, she shared a Tony Award (Antoinette Perry Award) with the ITI for service to the American theater and to world understanding. She currently serves on the Boards of the National Theater Conference, CEC/Artslink, Mirror Repertory Theater, and the League of Professional Theater Women.
Leon Katz. Dr. Katz is Professor Emeritus of Drama, Yale University, and a Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He served as the Resident Dramaturg at the Mark Taper Forum, and until 1989, the Co-Chairman of the Department of Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism at the Yale School of Drama. In a long teaching career, he has also taught at UCLA, Cornell, Stanford, Columbia, Vassar, Carnegie Mellon, the University of Pittsburgh, Manhattanville, Barnard, San Francisco State, USC, and the University of Giessen in Germany. He is the author of several dozen original plays and adaptations produced in the U.S. and abroad. Among them are The Three Cuckolds (productions in 11 countries), Dracula/Sabbat, Son of Arlecchino, GBS in Love, Beds, Pinocchio, Finnegans Wake, The Marquis de Sade 's Justine, Amerika, The Odyssey, Swellfoot's Tears, The Dybbuk, Remembrance of Things Past, and The Making of Americans (an opera based on Gertrude Stein's novel, with composer Al Carmines). He has also done for various productions translations and new stage versions of plays by Aeschylus (Agamemnon), Schiller (The Robbers), Ibsen (Love 's Comedy), Claude (The Satin Slipper), Strindberg (The Road to Damascus), Gide-Barrault (The Trial), and others. A collection of his plays is published under the title, Midnight Plays. Individual play publications, separately and in anthologies, include The Three Cuckolds, Son of Arlecchino, Swellfoot's Tears, The Making of Americans, Dracula/Sabbat, and Pinocchio. Professor Katz recently edited and introduced a four-volume collection of Classical Monologues from sources other than Shakespeare, for Applause Theater Book Publishers.
J Ranelli has directed on, off, and off-off-Broadway (Manhattan Theater Club, Roundabout Theater Company, American Place, The Actors Studio, New Dramatists), and in many of America's leading regional theaters (New Haven, Hartford, Baltimore, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Cleveland). His work has also been seen on festival stages around the world. Especially concerned with the development of new plays and playwrights, he was a founding member of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, has served as a director in the Playwrights Conference, and as a director and master teacher with the National Theater of the Deaf (NTD) when it was in residence at the center. His production of the Dylan Thomas masterpiece, Under Milk Wood, marked NTD's Broadway debut. He is also the founder and original director of the O'Neill National Theater Institute. Mr. Ranelli's television credits includeLaw & Order and the screenplay for One More Spring, based on the Robert Nathan novel and nominated for a Cable Ace Award. Other writing includes November, produced at the Bennington Arts Festival Theater, and Lolly Foster's Daredevil Airshow at the Kennedy Center. His work has been supported by The Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, and the National Theater Translation Fund. He has taught at Wesleyan, Stanford, Juilliard, Carnegie Mellon, and NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. He is a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, The Directors Guild of America, and the Dramatists Guild, and is a veteran of the United States Air Force.
Stanislav Semerdjiev is Rector of the Krustyo Sarafov National Academy for Theater and Film Arts. He has been a Professor of Screenwriting at NATFA since 1988, previously served as The Academy's Vice Rector for International and Public Relations, and is a regular Visiting Professor at film, television, and media schools in the United States, Sweden, Finland, and Germany. He has authored over 120 articles for film, television, and media magazines, the internationally acclaimed Short History of the World Screenwriting, volume 1: USA, and scripts for television sitcoms, children's programs, and Bulgarian, German, and French feature film companies. He is also the author of the first Bulgarian-US film/interactive project Hamletizing, co-directed by Greg Roach (X-Files). Dr. Semerdjiev has served as Jury Member or President for international film and television festivals, in such locals as Munich, Karlovy Vary, Edinburgh, Hyderabad, and Los Angeles. He is President of the Bulgarian Script Fund and Executive Council Member of the World Association of Film/Television Schools (CILECT), where he chairs the PINOCCHIO Project (Educating Audiovisual Students on Children's Production). In addition to holding MA and PhD degrees from NATFA, he was awarded the Longridge Film Producer's Scholarship (Los Angeles), and followed the Screenwriting postgraduate course of the Drehbuchwerkstatt (Munich).
Peter K. Karapetkov has directed professionally in Bulgaria, Russia, the Republic of Georgia, Austria, Ireland, the Czech Republic, Poland, and the United States, where he has been based since 1990. Recent productions/tours include Chip Gambil's When? and The Dream of the Astronaut at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, Alexander Gelman's The Bench for Fleetwood Stage in New York, and Jared Stein's An Undergroundand Last of the Jews for the Rhodopi Dramatichen Theater. He has co-conducted international summer theater programs for Trinity College in Hartford, La MaMa E.T.C. in New York, and New York University "Summer Study Abroad". He has also taught and/or directed at Rice University in Houston, Xavier University in Cincinnati, the Samuel Beckett Centre at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, and Bulgaria's National Academy for Theater and Film Arts. Previously, in Bulgaria, he worked as a film and stage actor before becoming a full-time director in 1985- eventually serving as the Artistic Director of the Dimitrovgrad Public Theater. Mr. Karapetkov holds a BFA and an MFA from NATFA, is fluent in English, Bulgarian, and Russian, and has a working knowledge of German, Polish, Czech, Serbian, and Croatian. As a founding member of The Fourth World, he is a Co-Director of The Collective.
Krustyo Tconchev Krustev has been the Producing Artistic Director of The Rhodopi Dramatichen Theater since 1998. Under his supervision, the R.D.T. has broadened its scope- working with guest directors from Sweden, Macedonia, Greece, Turkey, and Serbia, and taking part in international festivals in Macedonia, Romania, Mongolia, among others. An actor with the company since 1983, Mr. Krustev has played in over 80 productions. He began his work as an actor at the Pazardjick Puppet Theater in 1978, and graduated from NATFA in 1983.
Benjamin Nadler holds a BFA from the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, an MFA from Columbia University, and certificates from Bulgaria's National Academy for Theater and Film Arts and Moscow's Nikitsky Gate Theater. Since 2000, he has served as the Dramaturgical Associate for Theater For A New Audience in New York, working on productions such as Troilus and Cressida (directed by Sir Peter Hall), Pericles (directed by Bartlett Sher at the Brooklyn Academy of Music), and Neopolitan Ghosts by Eduardo De Filippo (with John Turturro, directed by Roman Paska, and translated by Michael Feingold). Other dramaturgical credits include Macbeth and Cymbeline (Gorilla Repertory Theater, New York), David Weiner's For The Dead (Cherry Lane Alternative Festival and Blue Heron Arts Center, New York), Anya Saffir's production of Mad Forest (Atlantic Studio Theater, New York University), The Camino Real by Tennessee Williams (performed in New York and Munich), Brecht and Weill's Happy End, and Jared Stein's An Underground (produced by the Rhodopi Dramatichen Theater). As a founding member of Pittsburgh Theater Laboratories, Mr. Nadler's directing credits included Stanislaw Witkiewicz's The Madman and the Nun and Jared Stein's Youth-in-Asia, and his dramaturgical credits included Hamlet and Howard Brenton's Hitler Dances. A founding member of The Fourth World, he serves as a Resident Dramaturg for The Collective.
Jared Stein is the Founder and Artistic Director of The Fourth World Laboratory for International Theater Research, and is a Co-Director of The Rhodopi International Theater Collective. The author of plays and adaptations produced in the United States, Europe, and Asia, most recently he has originated work in New York at venues including the Blue Heron Arts Center and St. Ann's Warehouse Mr. Stein's association with the Rhodopi Dramatichen Theater began in 2002 when his play, Last of the Jews, was workshopped and translated by director Peter K. Karapetkov- resulting in a production and tour, which made its way back to the U.S. in 2003. Since, he has been a Playwright-in-Residence of the company. Previously, he was a Resident Artist at UCLA's HyperMedia Studio, for whom he wrote An Iliad, the textual component of The Iliad Project- a process supported by the National Science Foundation and the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts. Also a director, he has staged many of his own works, as well as the original productions of work by other authors at theaters throughout Los Angeles. In addition to The Dramatists Guild, he is a member of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. His writings on the theater include Theater of Context: Digital's Absurd Role In Dramatic Literature (with Jeff Burke), which was published in Swets & Zeitlinger's New Visions in Performance: The Impact of Digital Technologies. He holds a BFA from the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama and an MFA from UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television.
Jeff Burke currently lectures at the University of California, Los Angeles on the application of emerging technologies to live performance and media production. He is also the Executive Director of the Center for Research in Engineering, Media and Performance (REMAP), created in 2004 by the School of Theater, Film and Television and the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science at UCLA. Recently, his work as a principal or co-principal researcher has been supported by such organizations as the Intel Corporation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Science Foundation, the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts, and the University of California Digital Media Innovations Program. These projects have included the system design for the UCLA Department of Theater's interactive production of Ionesco's Macbett and the co-development of the HyperMedia Studio's Iliad Project. He has designed numerous systems for installations exhibited at venues such as the Konstmuseum in Göteborg, Sweden, SIGGRAPH 2005, the Fowler Museum of Cultural History, and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. He is the Director of Technical Development for the new Centro Hipermediatico Experimental Latinamericano (cheLA) in Buenos Aires, and has served as a design consultant and owner's representative for construction projects including the Alexandra Nechita Center for the Arts (Orange, California), the Japanese American Museum's National Center for the Preservation of Democracy (Los Angeles), and multiple venues at Scripps College (Claremont, California). Previously, Mr. Burke was on the graduate faculty of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.
Darko Lukic has been on the faculty of the University of Zagreb since 1998, and has lectured and held workshops throughout Europe, Latin America, Asia, and the United States. A playwright, essayist, and fiction writer, his work has been translated into English, Spanish, Italian, French, Polish, Slovene, German, and Romanian. Previously, he served as the Artistic Director and Manager of the National Drama Theater (Sarajevo) and the Artistic Director of International Youth Theater Festival (Pula, Croatia). Mr. Lukic is the recipient of many grants and awards including a Fulbright Scholarship to conduct research at New York University.
Alexander Iliev. A performer, director, designer, composer, writer, choreographer, and performance anthropologist, Dr. Iliev has been a professor at the National Academy for Theater and Film Arts since 1984. He has also directed, performed, taught, served as a movement coach, and conducted workshops throughout Bulgaria, Macedonia, Russia, the Czech Republic, the former Yugoslavia, Italy, Switzerland, Greece, Turkey, Nepal, India, Japan, France, the United States, Albania, Austria, Armenia, Romania, Hungary, the Ukraine, Tanzania, Sri Lanka, Morocco, Kenya, Germany, among others. The author/creator of several pieces utilizing the techniques of clowning, mime, Asian opera and theater, Commedia dell'Arte, and nonverbal performance practices, he has served as the director of such organizations as Theaterdreams (1999-present), the Polyhymnia Theater (1995-1999), TAMA (1992-1994), and Alba (1985-1992), and has been the head of the Association for Theatrical Anthropology since 1997 (Sofia). He is the author of several published articles, and holds a Ph.D. from NAFTA. Also a filmmaker, Dr. Iliev has contributed to several movies and television productions in Bulgaria and abroad, and has made numerous documentaries. The recipient of numerous awards, he holds Guinness records for the longest nonstop mime (26 hours) and highest concert (5350 m). Dr. Iliev is the Associate Director of The Collective.
Alexander Morfov is currently the Head Resident Director at the Komissarzhevska Drama Theater in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Acclaimed as one of the most original and prominent directors currently working in European theater, his productions have earned him numerous awards across the continent, including Russia's Golden Mask. Previously the Artistic Director of the Ivan Vazov National Theater in his native Bulgaria, he has taught and conducted experimental theater workshops at several academies, including the Meyerhold Theater Center in Moscow, Russia. Mr. Morfov has also directed award-winning films and numerous television productions, and is a highly recognizable screen actor in Eastern Europe.
Bahattin Dogan Hodja was born in Ankara, Turkey, in 1941. A Master teacher of Dervish Dance, he has served as the head of workshops throughout Turkey, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, and Jordan.
Damyan Popchristov has been a Professor of Drama at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts for the past fourteen years, ten of which he also directed the Trinity/LaMaMa Performing Arts Program in New York and the Trinity/LaMaMa Summer Abroad Program, bringing students on training trips all over the world. The Founder and former Artistic Director of the International Theater in a Suitcase Festival, he has also served as the Chair of the International Theater Institute's New Theater Committee and the Resident Director of the National Youth Theater of Bulgaria. A winner of several international awards, he has directed over 50 productions in Bulgaria, Russia and the United States- which have traveled across the world. His last production in New York, Ward No. 6, was presented at the LaMaMa ETC. He holds BFA, MFA, and PhD degrees from NATFA.
Lama Lobsang Tardowas born in Tingri, Tibet in 1936, and educated at the "Tingri Gompa" and the "Phelgyeling Gompa". Since, he has served as a Master of Cham Mysteries, inspiring and educating people in Nepal, where he is now based, and around the world.
Jonathan Chadwick is currently the Artistic Director of Az Theater, a Co-Artistic Director of Meeting Ground Theater Company, and a Guest Director at The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He has also recently directed courses for The Actors' Centre and the London International Film School. A founding member of Paddington Arts, Mr. Chadwick previously served as the Artistic Director of the Vanguard Company at the Crucible Theater Sheffield and Theater Foundry, and as the Associate Director of the Theater Royal Stratford East London. In his native United Kingdom, he has written and directed for Foco Novo, and has directed at 7.84, Arts Threshold, the Glasgow Citizens' Theater, the Half Moon Theater, The Roundhouse, the Welsh College of Speech and Drama, Rose Bruford College, Mountview Theater School, RADA, and others. He has also directed plays in Australia, Canada, the United States, and Romania. He started his career as an Assistant Director at the Royal Court London- working with artists such as Bill Gaskill, Ralph Richardson, Nigel Hawthorne, and Penelope Wilton. Mr. Chadwick will begin directing his adaptation of Orpheus at The RDT in the winter of 2005-2006.
Hollynd Feldman recently completed her PhD at the University of Cincinnati, and holds an MFA from Georgia State University and a BA Magna Cum Laude from Rice University. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as The Southeast Review, The Atlanta Review, The Crab Orchard Review, The Edge City Review, Shirley-MirleyArtspike, Calyx, The Formalist, The River King, and the Agnes Scott College Magazine. Two of her works, A Confession and Banitza, were translated by Bulgarian poet Kiril Merjanski, and published by Sofia's Literaturen Vestnik in 2002. Dr. Feldman recently translated selected poems by Mr. Merjanski, which will soon be published by The Marlboro Review. Previously, Seven Hours' Difference, a book of Bulgarian and American poetry, was written in conjunction with Bulgarian poet/actor Ivan Ivanov and published by Unipleasure, also in Sofia. In addition to readings, scholarly publications, and presentations throughout the U.S. and Bulgaria, she has taught at the University of Cincinnati, Georgia State University, and the American International University in Sofia. Dr. Feldman is the recipient of the Academy of American Poets Award.
Valery Gerkalin. A Moscow-based actor, Mr. Garkalin is also a professor of acting at the Russian Academy of Theater Arts- having previously worked at the Moscow Academic Satire Theater and the Russian Academic Puppet Theater. The recipient of numerous awards for his stage performances, his most recent success came as Hamlet in director/designer Dmitry Krymov's production at the Stanislavski Drama Theater (2004). He won Russia's top honor as best actor in Vladimir Menshov's 1995 film, Shirley-Mirley. Other film appearances include Cardsharper (1989), Amulet (1991), King Ivan, the Terrible (1991), Role (1993), Myself (1993), Lube' Zone (1994), Russian Symphony (1994), Poor Sasha (1997), Don't Offend Women (2000), House for Rich (2001), Silvery Flower (2002), and Salamander's Skin (2004). Television appearances include Detective Doubrovsky's Dossier (1999), Stop on Request (2003), District (2003), and L. Belozorovich's White Clothes (1992), for which he first gained national recognition.
Petya Karadjova is a Resident Designer of The Collective. Recent designs include masks and costumes for the Stara Zagora Puppet Theater's production of Animal Farm, sets and costumes for the RDT's productions of Last of the Jews and An Underground, sets for The Opera Director at NATFA, and sets and puppets for The Dream of the Hippopotamus at NAFTA. Ms. Karadjova's work has been exhibited at the P.Q. in Prague, and she was a co-creator of the performance piece, The Sound of Silence. She is currently designing productions of Baba Yaga and Orpheus in Sofia. Ms. Karadjova is a founding member of The Fourth World.
Emilia Hrair Ovanesyan is the Deputy Artistic Director of the Rhodopi Dramatichen Theater. She has been an actor and puppeteer with the company since 1981- performing in over 100 productions, and winning and being nominated for numerous national acting awards. Ms. Ovanesyan also serves as the Director of the RDT's theater academy, and graduated from NATFA in 1980.
Nyoman Sedana- based in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia- is currently the Chairman of the Department of Theater at the Indonesian Institute of Arts (ISI), serves on the faculty of the Indonesian State College of Arts (STSI), and is a cofounder of the Indonesian dance company Sanggar Lestari. A well-known performer, director, and producer of Wayang Kulit shadow theater, Topeng masked dance, and Gamelan music in his native Bali, he has also performed in Thailand, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Brazil, Australia, across Europe, and several American states. Previously, he has taught and conducted workshops at the Indonesian Hindu University (Denpasar, Bali), the Southeastern Theater Conference in Jacksonville Florida, the University of Georgia, Florida State University, the Asian Cultural Experience in Atlanta, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Holy Cross College (Massachusetts), Emerson College, Brown University, and the University of California, Santa Cruz. He holds degrees from the STSI and the National Dance Academy (ASTI) in Denpasar, as well as a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia (US), an MA from Brown University (US), and a Graduate Certificate from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Dr. Sedana is also the author of several articles, published internationally, and is the recipient of numerous awards and grants from organizations such as the Asian Cultural Council in New York and the Ford Foundation.
T. Adam Woods is a freelance photographer, digital imaging specialist, and web developer based in New York City, and serves as a photographer and designer for The Collective. His exploration of the relationship between theater and visual art spans two decades, during which he has documented and contributed to over thirty productions in New York, Honolulu, Bulgaria, and his native Pittsburgh. Mr. Woods studied photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology and earned a BFA in Studio Art from Ohio University. His work in photography and digital art has been exhibited across the United States and internationally. A founding member of Pittsburgh Theater Laboratories, he previously served as the company photographer. Mr. Woods is a founding member of The Fourth World.