The SDCFoundation Committee oversees annual and long-range planning for the Foundation, as well as helping to facilitate and design SDCF programming and mentoring opportunities.
Sheldon Epps (Chair) has been Artistic Director of the renowned Pasadena Playhouse since 1997. He also served as Associate Artistic Director of the Old Globe Theatre for four years. Mr. Epps has directed both plays and musicals at many of the country’s major theatres including Roundabout, Manhattan Theatre Club, The Guthrie, Playwrights Horizons, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Arena Stage, and Goodman Theatre. He conceived and directed the highly acclaimed musicals Play On! and Blues in the Night, which both received Tony Award nominations. Mr. Epps also has had a busy career as a television Director, helming episodes of shows such as Frasier, Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond, Girlfriends, and many others. Earlier this year, he co-directed the Broadway production of Baby It’s You!
John Dillon is a stage director who makes his home in Seattle, though he’s also the Associate Director of Tokyo’s Institute of Dramatic Arts (and where his productions have twice won Japan’s highest theater award). He’s the Founding President of Theatre Puget Sound, a service organization for theaters and theater workers in the Seattle area. From 1977 to 1993 he was the Artistic Director of the Milwaukee Repertory Theater and during his time there launched a number of innovative exchanges with theater companies in Mexico, Russia, Ireland, Chile, Japan and England. From 2004 to 2010 he served as the director of the theatre program at Sarah Lawrence College and he currently an Artist-in-Residence at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. He’s staged productions at over two dozen of the country’s leading regional theaters and he’s served as a member the board of the Theatre Communications Group and as chairman and panelist for the NEA Theater Companies Panel. He served for 12 years as a board member of SDC and is the recipient of the Society’s “Extraordinary Contribution Service Award.”
Liza Gennaro choreographed the critically acclaimed Broadway revival of The Most Happy Fella directed by Gerald Gutierrez and the Broadway revival of Once Upon a Mattress starring Sarah Jessica Parker. She has choreographed Off-Broadway and in regional theaters across the country including: Roundabout Theatre, Actor’s Theatre Of Louisville, The Old Globe, Hartford Stage, Guthrie Theater, The Goodspeed Opera House, Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, Paper Mill Playhouse and The St. Louis “Muny” Opera. She collaborated with Stephen Flaherty and Frank Galati on their chamber musical Loving, Repeating: A Musical of Gertrude Stein for the About Face Theater in Chicago and choreographed the 30th Anniversary tour ofAnnie. In addition to her choreographic career Liza has taught at Barnard College, Princeton University, Yale University and is currently on faculty at Indiana University. Her essay, “Evolution of Dance in the Golden Era of the American ‘Book Musical’” appears in The Oxford Handbook of the American Musical.
Linda Hartzell has been the Artistic Director of Seattle Children’s Theatre and its Education Programs since 1984. She received her BA in Education from the University of Washington, and was a recipient of the Distinguished Achievement Award from UW College of Arts and Sciences in 1994. Hartzell has directed more than 45 plays for SCT, over 35 of which were world premieres, including Busytown, Addy: An American Girl Story, Goodnight Moon, When I Grow Up I’m Going to Get Me Some Big Words, Peter and the Wolf, and Holes. Other theatre credits include: The Grapes of Wrath (Intiman Theatre), the Australian premiere of Afternoon of the Elves (Adelaide’s Windmill Performing Arts and the Sydney Theatre Company). Other recent honors include: the Gregory Falls Sustained Achievement Award from Theatre Puget Sound, Seattle’s Mayor’s Arts Award, and ArtsFund’s Outstanding Achievement in the Arts award. Hartzell has been instrumental in developing Connecting Stories, a cross-cultural exchange program with theatre artists in the U.S., The Netherlands, Syria and Iran.
Sue Lawless served on the Executive Board of SDC, the SDC Foundation , a panelist for the NEA, the NYC advisory committee for the Education of the Arts in the Lower Grades, and an Arts Advocate, lobbying in Washington, D.C. She has worked under every SDC contract including Broadway (Five O’Clock Girl), Off-Broadway (Drama Desk nomination for In Gay Company),off off-Broadway as in The Fringe and La Mama and has been an active member of all performing unions, including AGVA. Artistic Director of Queens Theatre in the Park in the early 80’s, she has directed at prestigious regional theatres such as BAM, Goodspeed Opera McGill, Walnut Street, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Cleveland Playhouse , Papermill, George Street Playhouse. Juneteenth Theatre Company and internationally, for the Theatre Guild with many of the theatre’s legendary stars. University guest credits include NYU, McGill, U of Virginia, U of Illinois, Rutgers, Penn State and Mt. Holyoke.
Robert Moss ran the Edward Albee Playwrights Unit from l970 to 1971. Then from 1971 to 1981 he simultaneously founded and ran Playwrights Horizons, The Queens Theater in the Park, and helped develop Theater Row on West 42nd Street. In 1982, he became the Artistic Director of the Hangar Theatre in Ithaca and ran it until he took over Syracuse Stage from 1996 to 2008. He served on the board of OOBA (now ART/NY) for five years and during the same time period sat on the Equity Showcase Code Committee. He has been a Board Member of the SDC Foundation, TCG, the Drama League Directors Project, and a panelist for both the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. His extensive directing contracts include LORT, SPT and University. His teaching credits include initiating the undergraduate directing program at Playwrights Horizons Theatre School (affiliated with NYU) and The Lab Company at the Hangar. Prior to all this, he culminated an active stage manager career as PSM with the touring APA Repertory Company in residence for four years in L.A., Toronto, Ann Arbor, and at the Lyceum on Broadway.
Mary Robinson has directed over fifty productions of classics and new plays in New York and around the country. LORT credits include Seattle Repertory Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, South Coast Rep, Milwaukee Rep, Cincinnati Playhouse, ACT in Seattle and Philadelphia Theatre Company. She has been Associate Artistic Director of Hartford Stage from 1980-85 and Artistic Director of Philadelphia Drama Guild from 1990-95. New York credits include Manhattan Theatre Club, Second Stage, Cherry Lane Theatre, Theatre for a New Audience, Young Playwrights Festival, WPA Theatre, West Side Arts, the Juilliard School and NYU Graduate Acting Program. She is the first recipient of the Alan Schneider Director Award in 1987 and received a Drama Desk nomination in 1986. Currently Mary is Head of Directing at Playwrights Horizons Theater School, NYU and teaches at the MFA Directing Program at Brooklyn College.
Ted Sod has been dramaturge for the education dept. at The Roundabout Theatre Company in NYC since 2001. He is a member of SAG-AFTRA, Actors Equity, The Dramatists Guild and SDC. He has written many musicals and plays, including plays for young audiences. NYC directing credits include: How to Be a Good Italian Daughter in Spite of Myself (Cherry Lane); Blood Type: Ragu (Actors’ Playhouse); By Jupiter for the Musicals in Mufti series and several developmental readings at The York Theatre Company; Who Popped Papi Chulo? and Scarlet Sees The Light for the NYC Fringe Festivals and The House of Blue Leaves at The Terry Schrieber Studio. He assisted Daniel Sullivan on the world premiere of 10 Unknowns at Lincoln Center Theater. He was Artistic Associate & Director of Education at George Street Playhouse (GSP) for three seasons. He has also directed at Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center’s Cabaret Conference; Capital Rep; The Bickford Theatre; Charlotte Repertory Theatre; The Arbor Music Society, Adelphi University and Sarah Lawrence College.
Evan Yionoulis is an Obie Award-winning director whose credits include the premieres of Daisy Foote’s Him and Bhutan, Richard Greenberg’s The Author’s Voice, The American Plan, Three Days of Rain, Everett Beekin, and The Violet Hour, Nicky Silver’s The Maiden’s Prayer, and Kirsten Greenidge’s Bossa Nova. She directed Adrienne Kennedy’s Ohio State Murders (Lortel Award, Best Revival) and Howard Brenton’s Sore Throats (Theatre for a New Audience) and has worked at such theatres as Lincoln Center Theatre, South Coast Rep, Manhattan Theatre Club, 2econd Stage, Mark Taper Forum, the Vineyard, Dallas Theatre Center, the Huntington, and Yale Repertory Theatre where she is a resident director.