company

Victoria Evans Erville (Artistic Director)

Ms. Evans Erville has worked as a director, arts educator or education director with many theater companies throughout the Bay Area including: San Francisco Shakespeare, Brava! For Women in the Arts, California Shakespeare Theater, Theatreworks, B Street Theatre, Marin Theater Company, Lorraine Hansberry, and Colorado Shakespeare Festival. Most recently, she was the Artistic Director of the African-American Shakespeare Company and was Woman's Will's Managing Director for the 2008 - 2009 fiscal year.

Beth Chastain

Beth Chastain has been acting in the Bay Area for over 10 years. She holds a BA in Theatre from Mary Baldwin College. She has been seen in Woman’s Will productions of Much Ado About Nothing, Taming of the Shrew and Clean House. In addition to Woman’s Will she has performed with Onstage Theatre, Act Now, Role Players, Actors Ensemble of Berkeley and Butterfield 8.

Anne Hallinan

Anne Hallinan has appeared with Woman’s Will as Mrs. Shin in Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechuan and in Playfest 2009.  A former company member of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, she has performed with Boxcar Theatre, El Teatro Campesino, TheatreFIRST, theater Q, Golden Thread, Stanford Summer Theater, MultiEthnic Theater, and Tabard Theatre Company, as well as in staged readings with Word for Word, Just Theater, Agora Theater and Playwright’s Lab.  Favorite roles include Ma in Torch Song Trilogy, Mehitibel in Archy and Mehitibel, Madame Neilson in Les Blancs, and Rena and Rose in The Arab Israeli Cookbook.  In 2011 she will appear in the feature films White Rabbit and Rubicon’s Broken, and in the web series Greenberg Security.

Sharon Huff

Sharon is a veteran of two Woman’s Will shows-she was Desdemona’s dad in Othello, and Juliet’s dad in Romeo and Juliet, mean and loud fellows both. As an actor, director and teacher she has worked all through the Bay Area for twenty plus years. She came on as a member in 2010, and is adding her expertise as a teaching artist to the company’s educational programs.  

Marilyn Hughes

Marilyn has appeared on-camera and voiced characters for many commercials, industrials, independent films and  a wide range of video game characters. Favorite theatre roles include, Miss Prism in The Importance of Being Earnest, Beatrice in A View from the Bridge, Ouiser in Steel Magnolias, Sara in The Sisters Rosensweig, Queen Tartagliona in The Green Bird, Moxie in Relative Values, and Virginia, in the Women’s Will production of A Clean House.  An award winning actor and playwright, Marilyn”s plays have been produced for theatre and radio.  

Kate Jopson

Kate Jopson is works throughout the Bay Area as an actor, director, playwright, teacher and designer.  She graduated from UC Berkeley with degrees in Anthropology and Theater. She began her acting career as a chorus member of A Merchant of Venice at age 7 and moved to playing Hamlet at 17. She played Katherine in Woman’s Will’s production of Taming of the Shrew. Other acting credits include: Center Rep, Threshold Theatre, SF Playwrights Foundation, Pear Avenue Theater and Diablo Actors Ensemble.  As assistant director, she worked on A.C.T’s  A Christmas Carol, CalShakes’ productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Pastures of Heaven,  and The Magic’s Lily’s Revenge . In addition to directing Jewish Roots in Playfest 2.0 for Woman’s Will, she has directed for the Bay One Acts, Play Café, Flying Island Theater, Subterranean Shakes, and the Marin Fringe Festival.

Marilet Martinez

Ms. Martinez first appeared with Woman’s Will as Romeo in 2007’s Romeo and Juliet, and has also appeared in the company’s Good Person of Szechuan as well as taught a variety of yourth classes for the company. She has performed with various Bay Area theater companies including Custom Made Theatre Co., Teatro Visión, and Busbarn Theatre. She is also a teaching artist for Berkeley Repertory Theatre.

Leontyne Mbele-Mbong

Ms. Mbele-Mbong is a graduate of Macalester College with a BA in Dramatic Arts. She has appeared with Woman's Will as Lady Macbeth/2nd Witch in Macbeth, the Duke of Buckingham in Richard III and Orsino in Twelfth Night. She has appeared in the Bay Area with Lamplighters as various virtuous maidens, as Paquette in Candide, and Queenie in Show Boat; with TheatreFirst in Map of the World and World Music; with Solano College in Intimate Apparel as Mayme (ARTY award, best supporting actress); with ACT's First Look in The Road Weeps, The Well Runs Dry as Mary South; with Central Works as the title role in Andromache, and most recently as one of the 4 lovers in Midsummer/4. This summer, she completed "American Soil," a local independent short film. She serves as Trustee on the Lamplighters Board of Directors, and as company member for Woman's Will. 

Alison Sacha Ross

Alison Sacha Ross earned her BFA in acting from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and has studied with Stella Adler, Grotowski lead actor Ryszard Cieslak, and members of the Moscow Art Theatre.  She has performed in movement-based theatre (including the premiere of Mary Overllie's Skies Over America), Shakespeare, new plays (several off-Broadway), ensemble creations, improvisation, clown theatre, puppetry, burlesque, film, and network television in NYC, SF, and Paris.  With Woman's Will, she has appeared as Gremio in Taming of the Shrew and Mrs. H. in One Is For Letters.

Jodi Schiller

Jodi Schiller, MA, is Artistic Director for the Drama Mamas as well as a playwright. Her focus has been mainly on developing and showcasing new plays. As Artistic Director for the Drama Mamas, Jodi has helmed and directed, most recentlyStretchmarks, America's Next News Anchor, Low Hanging Fruit, and The Queen of Exile. For Woman's Will, she directed A Clean House by Sarah Ruhl. Her shows have been seen and enjoyed at many venues in both the East Bay and in San Francisco. Jodi also enjoys writing, and has written many short plays and had a full length produced by the Drama Mamas in 2009, Under the Skin. She graduated from Washington University in St. Louis and has her M.A. in Drama Therapy. 

Erin Merritt (Founding Artistic Director, retired)

Founding Artistic Director Erin Merritt is an actor, director, producer, and arts educator who ran the company from its inception in 1998 through June 2009.  Raised in Berkeley, Ms. Merritt studied, taught, and performed with The Berkeley/California Shakespeare Festival, The San Francisco Shakespeare Festival (where she first developed arts curriculum), The Carmel Shake-speare (sic) Festival,, and Massachusetts' Shakespeare & Company before forming the all-female Shakespeare company Woman's Will.  For Woman's Will, she has directed ten productions, acted in five and choreographed fights for five.  Other favorite experiences include work with Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Willows Theatre Company, Carmel Ballet Theatre, Center Repertory Theatre, and Shotgun Players.  Favorite roles played include Li'l Bit in How I Learned to Drive and the title role in Sylvia; favorite directing experiences are Lord of the Flies  and Happy End.  Ms. Merritt earned a BA in Theatre from Reed College, Portland, Oregon, where her thesis, Logical Brecht: what he did, why he did it, how we do it, has been used as a text in the Theatre Department since 1990.  Ms. Merritt left the company in 2009 to move with her family to Los Angeles. She remains the company's number one fan.