TheatreWorks
S I L I C O N
V A L L E Y
The
Mountaintop
About the Cast & Creative Team
SIMONE MISSICK (Camae) is in her first production with
TheatreWorks. She most recently appeared in the Los Angeles
Premiere of In the Red and Brown Water (Shun, The Fountain
Theatre). She has written and produced several one-act plays,
including Love in War, which was featured in the show Looking
For Trouble. She has appeared in various television and film
productions, including the short film Look Again, which earned
Best Diaspora Film in the Kenyan Film Awards, and was nominated for a 2012 African Movie Award. Born and raised in
Detroit, MI, she is a classically trained violinist, with a BA in
English and Theatre minor from Howard University. Mrs. Missick
credits God, friends, family, and “her #1 fan, her amazing
husband” for their support.
ADRIAN ROBERTS (Martin Luther King, Jr.) is thrilled to be
working at TheatreWorks. He was last seen in Hamlet at California
Shakespeare Theater where he played Claudius/Ghost. Other
Bay Area credits include Ruined at Berkeley Repertory Theatre
(Commander Osembenga), Buffalo’ed (Linc) at San Jose Stage
Company, and First Person Shooter at SF Playhouse (Daniel Jamison).
Other regional credits include Asagai in Raisin in The Sun at
Huntington Theater Company, Booth in TopDog/UnderDog
at Sacramento Theater Company, Lucius Jenkins in Jesus
Hopped the A Train at Capital Stage Company, three seasons
at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and Ken in Playboy of the West
Indies at Lincoln Center Theater. Television credits include
Scrubs, Brothers & Sisters, Criminal Minds, Trauma, and the
Sci-Fi Television movie Vampires Out for Blood. Mr. Roberts is a
graduate of American Conservatory Theater’s MFA program.
KATORI HALL (Playwright) is a playwright/performer whose
plays include The Mountaintop (2010 Olivier Award for Best New
Play), Hurt Village (2011 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize), Children
of Killers, Hoodoo Love, Remembrance, Saturday Night/Sunday
Morning, WHADDABLOODCLOT!!!, Our Lady of Kibeho, and
Pussy Valley. Her awards include the Susan Smith Blackburn
Prize, ARENA Stage American Voices New Play Residency, Kate
Neal Kinley Fellowship, two Lecomte du Nouy Prizes (Lincoln
Center), Fellowship of Southern Writers Bryan Family Award
in Drama, Lilly Award, NYFA Fellowship, Lorraine Hansberry
Playwriting Award, and Otis Guernsey New Voices Playwriting
Award. Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times, The
Boston Globe, and UK’s The Guardian. Ms. Hall is an alumna of
the Lark Playwrights’ Workshop, and a graduate of Columbia
University, the A.R.T. at Harvard University, and the Juilliard School.
ANTHONY J. HANEY (Director) has been part of
TheatreWorks’ family for over 30 years, directing or starring in
over 40 productions and as Associate Artistic Director (1985–
1992). Favorite TheatreWorks directing assignments include
Intimate Apparel, Crowns (including a transfer to Marines
Memorial Theatre), Dreamgirls, Children of A Lesser God, Ain’t
Misbehavin’, Josephine (starring Della Reese), and the 25th
anniversary revival of RAISIN. He directed the world premiere of
Buffalo’ed (San Jose Stage Company), tributes for Ben Vereen
and Ruby Dee (Nate Holden Center for the Performing Arts),
Snatched (Tribeca Performing Arts Center), The Darker Face of
the Earth and Oyamo’s I Am A Man (The Fountain Theatre). Mr.
Haney last appeared on stage as Roosevelt Hicks in Radio Golf
(TheatreWorks) and as Solly Two Kings in Gem of the Ocean and
Sam in Master Harold…and the boys (Rubicon Theatre).
JILL C. BOWERS (Costume Designer) designed costumes for many TheatreWorks productions in
her first stint as costume director from 1986 to 1997, including Little Shop of Horrors, Sweeney
Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, My Children! My Africa!, Under Milk Wood, Into the
Woods (for which she won a Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award), and the world premiere of
Heartland. As costume director at American Musical Theatre of San Jose from 1997–2004, she
oversaw the creation of many new productions including The Music Man and 3hree Musketeers,
and designed costumes for The Big Bang. Since returning to TheatreWorks in 2004, Ms. Bowers
designed Now Circa Then, Doubt, Red, the new production of Into the Woods, Trying, Golda’s
Balcony, and Opus. She holds an MFA in Design from University of Minnesota.
KIMILY CONKLE (Dialect Coach) began working with TheatreWorks in 1978, where her dialectcoaching highlights include Big River, the world premiere of Memphis, Clementine in the Lower 9,
A Christmas Memory, The Light in the Piazza, To Kill a Mockingbird, Tinyard Hill, The Grapes of
Wrath, Floyd Collins and Violet. She coaches regularly for Foothill Music Theatre and recently
coached See How They Run at Hillbarn Theatre. Ms. Conkle has performed with TheatreWorks,
San Jose Stage Company, Western Stage, PCPA Theaterfest, and at the Plush Room Cabaret.
As an actor/ producer, she has taken three shows to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. She is a former
member of the Foothill College Theatre Arts faculty and received her theatre training from the
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, American Conservatory Theater, and Pacific Conservatory of the
Performing Arts.
GREGG REHRIG (Stage Manager) stage managed TheatreWorks’ Big River and The Trouble with
Doug (New Works Festival 2012). He has also stage managed The Underpants, Arms and the Man,
Smokey Joe’s Café, Dracula, and Back Home Again—A John Denver Holiday Concert with Center
REPertory Company. Mr. Rehrig also worked on productions of Cabaret, On the Twentieth Century,
Dreamgirls (with Frenchie Davis), A Chorus Line, Joseph…Dreamcoat, Miss Saigon, Singin’ in the
Rain, and My Fair Lady for American Musical Theatre of San Jose. His acting credits include Little
Shop of Horrors (Audrey II puppeteer, AMTSJ with Hal Linden and Christiane Noll), and The Full
Monty (Harold), The Who’s Tommy (Uncle Ernie), and Les Misérables (Thenardier) at Barn Theatre,
Augusta, MI. Other credits include 5th Avenue Theatre, Ordway Theatre, Sacramento Music Theatre,
American Conservatory Theater.
LESLIE MARTINSON (Casting Director) is TheatreWorks’ Associate Artist and Casting Director. For
TheatreWorks, her directing credits go back over twenty years, including, most recently, the regional
premieres of Time Stands Still, The Pitmen Painters, and Superior Donuts. A graduate of Occidental
College, she has been a Watson Fellow in political theatre, a member of Lincoln Center Directors’
Lab, a member of the LaMaMa International Directing Symposium, and has served on Theatre Bay
Area’s Theatre Services Committee since 2002. She was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship
in Stage Direction from the Arts Council of Silicon Valley for artistic achievement and community
impact. In addition to directing, she leads master classes and workshops and teaches in the Musical
Arts department at Notre Dame de Namur University.
GREGORY ROBINSON (Sound Designer, Composer, and Musician) has produced sound designs for
several TheatreWorks productions including Time Stands Still, The Pitmen Painters, Snow Falling on
Cedars, Living Out, You Can’t Take It With You, An American Daughter, Be Aggressive, and Present
Laughter. Throughout the past three decades, his sound design, sound effects, music, and recording
have been featured in local, regional, and national radio and television advertisements, documentaries,
corporate video, and theatre. He has created and produced for AC Transit, Amazing People LLC
(London), Bank of America, California Lottery, Carlos & Deborah Santana, HBO/Comic Relief, Ivory
Coast Pictures (Hollywood), Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, Magic Theatre, Safeway, The United Way,
Wells Fargo, and many others.
VICKIE ROZELL (Dramaturg) co-directed TheatreWorks’ Doubt, Arcadia, and Wrong for Each Other.
She is the company’s resident dramaturg and was associate director/dramaturg for 33 Variations;
Yellow Face; Caroline, or Change; M Butterfly; Into the Woods; Dolly West’s Kitchen; Shakespeare
in Hollywood; Jane Eyre; Ragtime; Pacific Overtures; Side Show; and Floyd Collins among many
others. She has directed Picnic, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, The Little Foxes, and Ladies of the
Camellias (Palo Alto Players), W;t (Bus Barn Stage Company), Proof (City Lights Theatre Company);
CTRL+ALT+DELETE (Pear Avenue Theatre); and The Vagina Monologues (California Theatre),
taught at Ohlone and Foothill Colleges, is a member of the West Coast Director’s Lab, has BAs in
English and Psychology from Stanford University, and an MFA in directing from the University of California.
ERIC SINKKONEN (Scenic Designer) designed scenery for Intimate Apparel, Living Out, The
Fourth Wall, Old Money, The Last Night of Ballyhoo, Moon Over Buffalo, The Cripple of Inishmaan,
and Present Laughter at TheatreWorks. With a list of over 200 productions, he has designed for
Houston Playhouse; Detroit's Hilberry Classic Theatre; California, San Francisco, and Berkeley
Shakespeare Festivals; Georgia Shakespeare Festival; Lorraine Hansberry Theatre; San Francisco
and San Diego Repertory Theatres; San Francisco Mime Troupe; Summer Repertory Theatre;
CitiArts Theatre; Center REPertory Company; Sacramento Theatre Company; Marin Theatre
Company; San Jose Repertory Theatre; New Conservatory Theatre, San Francisco; and the Fountain
Theatre in Los Angeles. His many scenic design awards include East Bay Shellie Awards, San Diego
Theatre Critics Circle, and several Dean Goodman Awards.
JASON H. THOMPSON (Lighting and Projection Designer) designed TheatreWorks’ Wheelhouse
and Distracted, and Little Rock in the New Works Festival. On Broadway he designed Baby It’s You!
and off-Broadway Remember Me (Parsons Dance Company, Joyce Theatre/National Tour), and This
Beautiful City (Vineyard Theatre). He recently designed Tales from Hollywood (Guthrie Theatre),
Cage Songbooks (SF Symphony, Carnegie Hall), Crescent City Opera (The Industry, LA), The Great
Immensity (Kansas City Rep, TED Conference), No Good Deed (Furious Theatre Company, LA),
Re:Union (Vancouver, Jessie Award Nomination), Venice (Kirk Douglas Theatre, LA Ovation Award
and Kansas City Repertory Theatre), and Bad Apples (Circle X Theatre Company). He has designed
video for Stars on Ice for the last six years and has worked internationally in Taiwan, Singapore,
England, and Canada. Mr. Thompson is a member of USA 829. www.jasonhthompsondesign.com
ROBERT KELLEY (Artistic Director) is a Bay Area native and Stanford University graduate. He
founded TheatreWorks in 1970 and has been its Artistic Director ever since. He has directed over
150 TheatreWorks productions, including many world or regional premieres. He has received the
Silicon Valley Arts Council’s Legacy Laureate Award, the Bay Area Theater Critics Circle Paine
Knickerbocker Award for lifetime achievement, BATCC Awards for Outstanding Direction for his
productions of Into the Woods; Pacific Overtures; Rags; Sweeney Todd; Another Midsummer Night;
Sunday in the Park with George; Jane Eyre; and Caroline, or Change; Bay Area Drama-Logue
Awards for his direction of Ah, Wilderness! and Once in a Lifetime; Dean Goodman Choice Awards
for Violet, Ragtime, Proof, Dolly West’s Kitchen, and Harold & Maude; and Back Stage West
Garland Awards for his direction of Side Show and Sunday in the Park with George. He recently
directed Big River, 33 Variations, Of Mice and Men, The Secret Garden, and Sense and Sensibility.
PHIL SANTORA (Managing Director) joined TheatreWorks in 2007 after spending four years as
Managing Director of Northlight Theatre outside Chicago. Prior to working at Northlight, he was
Managing Director of Georgia Shakespeare Festival (GSF) in Atlanta, as well as Development Director
for Great Lakes Theatre Festival in Cleveland and George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, New
Jersey. He holds an MFA in Theater Administration from the Yale School of Drama and a BA in
Drama from Duke University. He serves on the Board of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre
and has served on the boards of the League of Chicago Theatres, the Atlanta Coalition of Theatres,
and the executive committee of the League of Resident Theatres (LORT). He was named 2000’s
Best Arts Administrator by Atlanta Magazine and received the Atlanta Arts and Business Council’s
1998 ABBY Award for Arts Administrator.