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.
Karen Azenberg (Chair) recently directed/choreographed West Side Story and choreographed A Christmas Carol for the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and Something’s Afoot for NYUs Musicals A La Carte. This spring she will direct Miss Saigon for the Pioneer Theatre Company in Salt Lake City. Karen created the musical staging for the regional theatre premiere of Les Miserables ( Pioneer Theatre), the world premiere of Jonah’s Dream by William Gibson (Connecticut Repertory Theatre). In New York she directed/choreographed Prom Queens Unchained (Village Gate), Blocks, an early work by the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of Rent, Jonathan Larson, and choreographed Richard Greenberg’s acclaimed The Dazzle (Roundabout Theatre). Other credits include national tours of Carousel and Brigadoon, 15 productions of West Side Story (Drama-Logue Award), Laughter on the 23rd Floor (Regional Premiere-Geva Theatre), The Dead (Pioneer Theatre), Oklahoma (Ordway Theatre, California Musical Theatre), I Do I Do! (Birmingham Theatre), Biloxi Blues (Indiana Repertory Theatre), The Barber of Seville (Augusta Opera) and My Fair Lady. Karen can be reached at KAzenberg@SDCweb.org
Julie Arenal choreographed the original production of Hair on Broadway, which she later restaged in Europe, as well as Indians and Boccaccio. She has choreographed and directed such shows as Funny Girl in Japan and Jesus Christ Superstar in Sweden. Additionally Julie has choreographed for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Mark Taper Forum, Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Arena Theater in Washington DC, Shakespeare Festival LA and also for the NYC Opera, LA Opera, Michigan Opera and the San Francisco Opera. As director/choreographer of New York Express Hip Hop Dance Company, she toured China, Japan and Spoleto Festival Italy. Choreography for film credits include The Good Shepherd, Mistress and Great Expectations, and for PBS, American Family. Julie is one of the founders of East L.A. Classic Theatre. She was nominated for the Connecticut Critics Awards as Best choreographer, Best Director, and Best Ensemble for Hair and won Best Director and Best Ensemble. Her work is archived at NYPL at Lincoln Center.
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.”
Richard Hamburger recently completed fifteen years as Artistic Director at Dallas Theater Center, where he has just been appointed DTC’s first Artistic Director Emeritus. Previously, Richard served for five years as Artistic Director of Portland Stage Company. He has directed at Pittsburgh Public Theater, Arizona Theatre Company, Portland Center Stage, The Acting Company, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Yale Repertory Theatre, Baltimore Center Stage, California Shakespeare Festival, American Place Theatre, Eugene O’Neill Theater Center and Great Lakes Theater Festival, where he served as Associate Director. Richard has written two plays: Memory of Whiteness, produced at the American Place Theatre and Family Face, mounted at the O’Neill Center’s National Playwrights Conference. He was awarded a Rockefeller Grant in playwriting and has held fellowships at the Albee Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Arts. He served on the faculties of the Juilliard Theater Center and Circle in the Square Theatre School, and on numerous panels for the National Endowment for the Arts.
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.