Artists’ Roundtable

Round House Theatre strives to involve the artistic community in its growth and development. We reach out to veteran and emerging artists of diverse backgrounds to enrich our programming and help guide our plans for future seasons.

The Artists’ Roundtable is an advisory body to Round House Theatre. Participating artists are selected by the Producing Artistic Director to serve a two-year renewable term. The Roundtable meets as a group twice per year and may be called upon to:

  • Advise the Board and Staff on artistic matters
  • Participate in season planning and program development
  • Read scripts and provide feedback
  • Help promote Round House in the community through special events and outreach activities
  • Mentor students in the education program
  • Participate in readings, workshops, and Kitchen events as available

Additionally, two members of the Roundtable serve as ex-officio members of the Round House Board of Trustees in order to bring an artistic perspective to the organization’s governing body.

Jessica Burgess is Artistic Associate at RHT, where she has served as Blake Robison’s assistant director on two Round House productions, A Prayer for Owen Meany and The Picture of Dorian Gray.  Additionally, she will direct the area premiere of Cherry Smoke at the Round House Kitchen in August 2010. She is the founding Artistic Director of The Inkwell, Washington DC’s resource for new plays by emerging artists (www.inkwelltheatre.org).  Her directing credits include productions, workshops and staged readings at Active Cultures, Actors Theatre of Louisville (Humana Festival & Apprentice Company), Adventure Theatre, Catalyst Theater Company, the DC Beckett Centenary Festival, eXtreme eXchange, Forum Theatre, Hatchery Festival, Imagination Stage, Rorschach Theatre, Solas Nua, Theater Alliance, Young Playwrights Theatre, and The Inkwell. She is a proud alumna of Middlebury College and the 2005 Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab, on the Board of Directors of Active Cultures, on Forum Theatre’s Artists’ Council, and a three-time recipient of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Young Emerging Artist grant.

Matthew Detmer has performed at RHT in The Book Club Play, Camille, as Owen in A Prayer for Owen Meany, and McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Previous work includes productions at Vermont Stage Company, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Clarence Brown Theatre, North Carolina Stage Company, Independent Shakespeare Company, and the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.

Timothy Douglas has directed Permanent Collection and A Lesson Before Dying for RHT.  This season, he directs a new production of Horton Foote’s The Trip to Bountiful.  Timothy directed the world premiere of August Wilson’s Radio Golf for Yale Repertory Theatre. He served as the Associate Artistic Director for Actors Theatre of Louisville (2001-2004). Regionally he has directed at The Guthrie Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, South Coast Rep, Portland Center Stage, Milwaukee Rep, City Theatre, Syracuse Stage, Mark Taper Forum (Director in Residence 1994-1997), San Jose Rep, and Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre. Other DC productions include plays at Woolly Mammoth, the Folger, and Theatre Alliance.

Mitchell Hébert appeared most recently at RHT in Around the World in 80 Days, Eurydice, Treasure Island and Crime and Punishment. This season he will appear in Alice McDermott’s Charming Billy. Other RHT credits include Camille, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Drawer Boy (Helen Hayes nomination), Criminal Genius, Escape from Happiness, One Shoe Off and Shakespeare, Moses, and Joe Papp. Regionally he has performed at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Everyman Theatre, Theater J, Olney Theatre Center, and Theater of the First Amendment. Mitchell is on the faculty of The School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at the University of Maryland where he is Professor of Acting and Directing.

Kathryn Kelley was last seen at RHT as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest andVivien Leigh in Orson’s Shadow.  This season, she will appear in Alice McDermott’s Charming Billy.  She loves the classics and has had the good fortune to appear in works by Shakespeare, Chekhov, Williams, Miller, Wilder, Shaw, Ibsen, Beckett, Pinter, Osborne, Sartre, Dumas-fils, and Lorca; in modern comedies by Alan Ayckbourn, Woody Allen, David Ives, Tina Howe and Yasmina Reza; in Irish tales by Conor McPherson and Stewart Parker, in children’s classics by The Brothers Grimm, Lewis Carroll and Mary Norton. She coaches all ages. MFA, NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

James Kronzer has designed sets for numerous RHT productions including The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Book Club Play, Nixon’s Nixon, Midwives, Camille, The Diary of Anne Frank (Helen Hayes Award), Wintertime, Heartbreak House, The Drawer Boy (Helen Hayes Award), and Shakespeare, Moses, and Joe Papp (Helen Hayes Award). His work has also been seen at Olney Theatre Center, Signature Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Theater J, The Kennedy Center, Delaware Theatre Company, Asolo, Milwaukee Rep, San Diego Rep, and Arden Theatre.  Recent NYC designs include Opus at Primary Stages and Glory Days on Broadway. Mr. Kronzer has received the Helen Hayes Award seven times.

Jacqueline Lawton received her MFA in Playwriting at University of Texas at Austin (2003). She participated in the Kennedy Center’s Playwrights’ Intensive (2002) and World Interplay (2003). Her plays include Anna K, Blood-bound and Tongue-tied, Deep Belly Beautiful, A Delicate People, The Devil’s Sweet Water, Lions of Industry Mothers of Invention, and Mad Breed. Ms. Lawton is a two-time recipient of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Young Artist Program Grant. She is the Resident Dramaturg of African Continuum Theatre Company, the Director of New Play Development for Active Cultures Theatre Company, and a member of LMDA.

Connan Morrissey most recently appeared at RHT in A Sleeping Country, The Book Club Play and Orson’s Shadow. Other credits include appearances at Arena Stage, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Asolo Theatre Company, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Virginia Stage, Playmakers Repertory Company, Olney Theatre, North Carolina Stage Company, Clarence Brown Theatre Company, Peterborough Players, Capital Rep, and Vermont Stage Company.

Nick Olcott has directed many productions at RHT including, most recently, Around the World in 80 Days, The Book Club Play and A Year with Frog and Toad. At Theater J, where he is Resident Director, he has mounted numerous productions including David in Shadow and Light, The Disputation, Shylock, and The Mad Dancers. Opera credits include directing at the Opera Cleveland, Boston Lyric Opera, and Ash Lawn Opera Festival. He is a faculty member of the Maryland Opera Studio at the University of Maryland.

Sasha Olinick has appeared at Round House Theatre in Around the World in 80 Days, The Book Club Play and A Prayer for Owen Meany. This season, he will appear as Freddie Miles in The Talented Mr. Ripley and as Mozart in Amadeus. Local credits include: Chasing George Washington with the Kennedy Center Theater For Young Audiences On Tour; God’s Ear at Rep Stage; Jungle Book and Junebug and the Reverend at Imagination Stage; Macbeth with Washington Shakespeare Company; The Memorandum with Forum Theatre; Crime and Punishment and Fathers and Sons with Stanislavsky Theatre Studio; Much Ado About Nothing with the Maryland Shakespeare Festival and Russian National Postal Service at The Studio Theatre. Regional credits include: Trinity Rep, American Shakespeare Center, Merry-Go-Round Playhouse, Vermont Stage Company, Ocean State Lyric Opera and New Century Theatre. Mr. Olinick has an MFA in acting from Trinity Rep Conservatory and teaches acting at Montgomery College, the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art and with the Educational Theatre Company.

Mark Ramont is the Director of Theatre Programming at Ford’s Theatre, where directing credits include The Rivalry and the upcoming production of The Carpetbagger’s Children.  For Round House, he directed Midwives and is slated to direct this season’s production of Amadeus.  Other professional positions have included associate artistic director for New York’s Circle Repertory Company, Artistic Director for Capitol City Playhouse (Austin, Texas) and Artistic Director for the Hangar Theatre in Ithaca, New York.  He directed the world premiere of Mad River Rising for producer Blake Robison (Vermont Stage Company, winner of Moss Hart Award for Outstanding Production, New England).   He has won awards for his productions of Jeffrey, Amadeus, Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning, Juliet), Lips Together, Teeth Apart, Mass Appeal and Agnes of God.  He has directed for the Alley Theatre and Stages Repertory Theatre in Houston, Dorset Theatre Festival (18 seasons), and Cortland Repertory Theatre, among others.  He is the recipient of the Prince Grace Foundation’s Statuette Award for Sustained Excellence and holds a BA in Theatre (Directing) from California State University, Fullerton, an MFA in Directing from the University of Texas at Austin, and completed an internship with the Asolo State Theatre in Sarasota, Florida.

KenYatta Rogers has appeared at RHT in A Lesson Before Dying and Eurydice.  This season, he will join the casts of A Wrinkle in Time and Amadeus .  He has served as artistic associate with the African Continuum Theatre Company. Other regional credits include Ford’s Theatre, Arena Stage, Olney Theatre Center, Folger Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Theater J, Essential Theatre, Source Theatre, and Shakespeare & Company. He is a faculty member in Montgomery College’s Department of Speech, Dance, and Theatre.

Scott Sedar portrayed artist Joseph Cornell in Hotel Cassiopeia, directed by Blake Robison in the blended production involving RHT and the University of Maryland.  In 2009, he appeared at RHT in Happenstance Theatre’s Low Tide Hotel/ Far Far Oasis. He teaches and co-directs the Heyday Players, under the auspices of RHT.  His acting credits include performances at Arena Stage, Center Stage, Olney, Signature, Woolly Mammoth and others.  He has participated in two of the Kennedy Center’s Theatre for Young Audience national tours.  He is the 2010 Artist-in-Residence at Evergreen Museum, part of Johns Hopkins University.

Alexander Strain played the title role in last season’s My Name is Asher Lev and Ralph in Lord of the Flies. Other performances include Angels in America (Louis, Forum Theatre), The Seagull on 16th Street (Treplev, Theater J), and Caligula (Caligula, Washington Shakespeare Company). He has been nominated for three Helen Hayes Awards for acting and was a 2007 recipient of the Boomerang Fund for Artists grant. He is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts where he studied at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting.

Patrick Torres has been a director and educator in the DC area for six years. He is currently on staff at Young Playwrights Theatre and has helped to administrate education programs at Shakespeare Theatre Company (STC), Round House Theatre, The Hangar Theatre, and the University of Southern Mississippi. He was selected as a Drama League Directing Fellow in 2003, where he served as co-artistic director of the Hanger Theatre Lab Company and was awarded an SSDC Foundation Observership to assist in rehearsal of The Glass Menagerie at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Daniel MacLean Wagner has designed lights for numerous RHT productions including The Picture of Dorian Gray, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Orson’s Shadow, A Prayer for Owen Meany, A Year with Frog and Toad, and Camille. His lighting designs have been seen in more than 350 productions at Shakespeare Theatre Company, The Kennedy Center, The Studio Theatre, Signature Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Olney Theatre Center, Theater of the First Amendment, Potomac Theatre Project, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Boston Lyric Opera, Arden Theatre Company, and Portland Stage. He is an eight-time recipient of the Helen Hayes Award. Mr. Wagner is Professor of Lighting Design and Chair of the Department of Theatre at the University of Maryland.

Karen Zacarías is the author numerous plays including The Book Club Play which received its world premiere at RHT in February of 2008.  She was commissioned by RHT to adapt Julia Alvarez’s acclaimed novel How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents which appeared in Round House’s 2008/2009 season. Other recent premieres include Legacy of Light at Arena Stage, Chasing George Washington at the Kennedy Center, Looking For Roberto Clemente at Imagination Stage, and Mariela in the Desert. This season, she enjoys productions of her plays at Chicago’s Goodman Theater, The Denver Center Theatre Company, and The People’s Light and Theatre Company in Philadelphia.   Karen is the founding artistic director of Young Playwrights’ Theater, an award-winning non-profit dedicated to enhancing literacy, arts empowerment, and conflict resolution through playwriting in DC area schools.