Coriolanus

Bios

• Mary Coleman (Director)
  • Mary recently directed Neena Beber's A Common Vision for the Magic Theatre, where she is Associate Artistic Director. She has directed for Brava, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, The Climate, Festival Fantocchio, Word for Word, and Intersection for the Arts. She also teaches theater at Sonoma State University.
• Erin Merritt (Coriolanus)
  • Erin directed Woman's Will's inaugural production, Two Gentlemen of Verona, and made a brief appearance as an outlaw in that play. An actor for almost two decades, she played her first male role, Peter Pan, in 1983, and her second later that same year. Erin has been seen in the Bay Area with such companies as Shotgun Players, Center Rep, Pacific Repertory Theatre, and Unconditional Theatre. Regional theatre credits include The Woman in Scotland Road, Li'l Bit in How I Learned to Drive, and the title role in Sylvia.
• Lynne Soffer* (Volumnia)
  • has appeared with Sacramento Theatre Company, San Francisco Opera, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, American Conservatory Theatre, and Magic Theatre. She has also been seen in performances with California Shakespeare Festival, Encore Theatre Company, Word for Word, PCPA Theatrefest, Alaska Repertory Theatre, Sherwood Shakespeare Festival, Acadia Repertory Theatre of Maine, and in New York City with the Direct Theatre and the 29th Street Project. An acting, speech and text work instructor, she has frequently served as dialect coach for many Bay Area theaters, Seattle Repertory, PCPA, and for the films Duets and Metro.
• Carla Pantoja (Aufidius)
  • Carla is pleased to be in her first production with Woman's Will. Some shows she has been in include House on Mango Street with Teatro Vision, Healin' Dirt Diner with City Lights, and A Winter's Tale with Luminarias. This past summer, Carla studied Shakespeare with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.
• Linda Jones Nicholson (Brutus)
  • appeared most recently as Imogen in Cymbeline for Shakespeare at Stinson. She has also performed Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream at Shakespeare at the Beach and Marc Antony in Julius Caesar with the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival School Tour. Other Bay Area performance credits include work at TheatreWorks, the California Shakespeare Festival, and the Magic Theatre. She received her BFA in Acting from Ithaca College.
• Tara Blau (Sicinius)
  • was recently seen as Lucienne in Aurora Theater Company's production of A Flea in her Ear. Favorite roles include Miss Julie at Toda Con Nada, NYC, Diane in Inside/Out at The Looking Glass Theater, NYC, and the Wife in The Lovers, Bailiwick Theater, Chicago. Tara holds an MFA in theater from The National Theatre Conservatory in Denver. She wishes to thank Marit, Julie, and her parents for their support.
• Lizzie Calogero (Virgilia)
  • This is Lizzie's 2nd time around with Woman's Will. Last year she was seen in the role of Speed in Two Gentlemen of Verona. Most recently she was seen as the tetchy 7-year-old in Dennis Potter's Blue Remembered Hills with Theatre FIRST. She has also worked with the Magic Theatre, Unconditional Theatre, Marin Theatre Company and The San Francisco Shakespeare Festival. Thanks to Pietro and Jimmy.
• Wendy White (Menenius) 
  • Wendy is a San Francisco transplant from multiple vacation destinations from sunny Florida to Amsterdam. She has performed with the Shotgun Players in Red Roses and Petrol, at Venue 9 in a self-written play called Sylvia Beach, with Playground Emerging Playwrights Program and in Exit Theatre's Absurdist Series as The Dove in Djuna Barnes' The Dove. Wendy is quite grateful to Erin, Mary and Woman's Will for this wonderful opportunity to work towards a wholesome matriarchal vision. This one's for the rubber duck.
• Claudia Weeks (Cominius)
  • This is Claudia's first production with Woman's Will. Other Bay Area credits include Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing for East Bay Shakespeare, Rita in Prelude to a Kiss for Broadway West, Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream for Solano Repertory, and Helena in All's Well That Ends Well for Vision Productions. Neverending thanks to Jack Lynn (in absentia) and Jess for the call.
• Wendy Wilcox (Lartius)
  • A founding member of Woman's Will, she was seen last year as Sylvia in Two Gentlemen of Verona. She has also performed in The Baltimore Waltz, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, and Groping for Justice: the Bob Packwood Story with Unconditional Theatre, where she is an Artistic Associate. Some of the other theaters she has worked with are Pacific Alliance Theatre Co., Crowded Fire, Playground Emerging Playwrights Program, and Sonoma Valley Shakespeare. As usual a big fond meow to Felix.
• Staci Duschl (Aedile, Messenger)
  • Staci is returning to theatre after a five-year hiatus. Spending most of her time as a slave to academia, she hopes to reintegrate the fun and excitement of theater into her life. Her credits include St. Joan, A Midsummer Nights Dream, A Man for All Seasons, The Carmel Shakespeare Festival's Julius Caesar, and far too much Tech work.
• Fiona Kaul-Connolly (Assistant Stage Manager, Messenger)
  • Fiona is thrilled to have serendipitously fallen into Woman's Will's production of Coriolanus. This is her first foray onto the stage since moving to San Francisco a year ago from Massachusetts. She is thankful for finally tuning into the joy of Shakespeare this very year in a class with Domenique Lozano. And can't wait to do more.
• Bethany C. Maxwell (Stage Manager)
  • has worked with the New WORLD Theater, Luna Sea Women's Performance Project, Chrysalis Theater, Teada Productions, the Hampshire Shakespeare Company, and Galatea Theater Collective. Her work also includes acting, singing, directing, and writing. She received her B.A. in Theatre in Woman's Studies from Smith College. She is excited to be doing theatre in the Bay Area and has been selected to spend the upcoming season as an intern with the American Conservatory Theatre.
• Carrie Smith (fight choreographer)
  • has been intrigued by armed combat since her early days as the top fork combatant of the Spring Valley Elementary K-5 All School Girls Fighting Team. Carrie studied fight choreography and performance on the East Coast with Fight Masters J. Allen Suddeth and David Leong. In the Bay Area she studied historical swordplay with Michael Cawelti and frequently collaborates with Todd Gunter. She also practices Modern Arnis, the Filipino Martial Art of fighting with sticks, machetes, and knives. Carrie has choreographed such diverse works as a sword fight for a rock video featuring the band Primus, a Wild West shoot-out enacted for a private party consisting of 100 Japanese computer executives and a recent production of King Lear. Her love of stage combat and sword fighting is a natural culmination of her powerful belief in woman's ability to overcome adversity and her fierce identification with strong women throughout time.

*Member, Actors' Equity Association

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