The 2010 Lunt-Fontanne Fellows
Stephen Berenson
Nominated by Trinity Repertory Company | Providence
“Stephen Berenson is that rare actor whose gift for finding and nurturing young talent is as great as the artistry of his own performances. While a member of Trinity Rep’s resident acting company for more than twenty seasons, he directed our graduate training program since joining the faculty of the Trinity Rep Conservatory in 1985. When the Conservatory transitioned from a two-year certificate program with Rhode Island College to a three-year program granting a MFA in acting and directing from Brown University, Stephen’s vision and stewardship made it a national flagship for professional training. For Stephen, our national theater community is an extension of Trinity Rep’s resident acting company and the Bread Loaf Acting Ensemble, with whom he has shared fifteen summers. He has quite literally fed the community’s new generation, launching every Brown/Trinity MFA graduate on a career path and proudly chronicling their success. Stephen empowers each student to become the best actor s/he can be. As an actor, he is a generous collaborator in the rehearsal hall. A generation of New England audiences has grown up enjoying Stephen’s versatility in roles such as Shakespeare’s Puck and Feste and musical delights such as Herr Schultz in Cabaret. Virtuosic artist to his audiences, mentor and mother hen to his students, consummate gentleman and witty raconteur to his colleagues, we are all proud to call him our friend.”
- Curt Columbus, Artistic Director
James Carpenter
Nominated by California Shakespeare Theater
“It is rare that I think of certain actors as artists. Jim Carpenter certainly is one. He doesn’t just perform roles. He creates them. Jim begins his process of creating a character from deep within him. He and I always joke about the acting ‘bogameter,’ an imagined device that goes off when a moment is phony (or bogus) in rehearsal or performance. But he’s dead serious about authenticity in his work, and the work of others. He challenges me at every turn, and it took us a while to trust each other, with my pushing him to places he may be uncomfortable with, and his getting me to trust the simplicity of a gesture or a look, of a moment between two people. He is a master of acting American Shakespeare; his work is confident, unforced, nuanced, skillful, and real. And when he’s afforded the chance to work on modern material, he uses all of those qualities to lift any script off the page in ways that are nothing short of thrilling. Jim’s also become a touchstone for me as a person, professionally and personally. He’s such a rich, deep human that not only is his work significantly informed by that, but also all of his relationships. When you talk to Jim, it’s a real conversation. There’s no ‘bogameter’ going off when you’re in a room with him. Jimmy Carpenter is the real deal, on stage, in rehearsal, in life.” – Jonathan Moscone, Artistic Director
Celeste Ciulla
Nominated by The Old Globe | San Diego
“Celeste Ciulla has been a treasured member of The Old Globe’s Shakespeare Festival repertory season for several years. An absolute chameleon on stage, her artistry is as unparalleled as is her versatility. Last season alone she played both the chilling, controlling Volumnia in Coriolanus and the sweet, devoted Duenna to Roxane in Cyrano de Bergerac – two women who could not have come from more opposite ends of the spectrum. In Celeste’s expert hands, audiences were terrified one night and delighted the next by one singular artist performing two disparate roles. An actress who clearly thrives in the repertory process, audiences and the critics marvel at her work on the Globe’s stage. Among her many attributes as a performer, Celeste’s signature velvet voice, coupled with her superior ability to speak in verse, envelops and captivates the audience. In recent years at the Globe, she has brilliantly performed Gertrude in Hamlet, (a fiddle-playing) Mistress Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Lucetta in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Mistress Overdone in Measure for Measure, Emilia in Othello, Tamora in Titus Andronicus and Helen of Troy in The Trojan Women. Whether the part is large or small, Celeste creates finely etched performances, bringing the same attention to detail to each role she plays. Her hard work, combined with her wonderful sense of humor, is an inspiration to her fellow actors. Whether maid or queen, duenna or wife, Celeste truly embodies the spirit of regional theater.”
– Louis Spisto, CEO/Executive Producer
Bob Davis
Nominated by Guthrie Theater | Minneapolis
“Bob Davis has been a vital member of the Guthrie Theater company since 1987, playing a wide variety of roles on our stage. Bob has also played in most Twin Cities theaters and is widely regarded as a leading player in our community. He has a passion for classical theater and a real capacity to absorb great character roles and make them his own. The first time I worked with Bob was in The Cherry Orchard in 1996, where he played Pischick, the hapless local landowner. Resplendent in Desmond Heeley’s florid costume, Bob was both hilarious and touching. He has that rare ability to make you laugh one minute and cry the next. What distinguishes Bob Davis, also, is his strong attachment to Shakespeare and his passionate belief that people should be introduced to him at an early age. Together with his wife, Mary Alette, he has conducted a summer program – named Brazil! School of the Arts – in Minneapolis that produces Shakespeare plays with young school age actors. He has also played a number of Shakespearean roles on the Guthrie stage to great effect. The combination of an highly intelligent understanding of a text with a finely honed technique makes Bob a very compelling actor to watch on stage. Most recently, we have worked together in William Nicolson’s Shadowlands, where he played an Oxford Don, whose acerbic attitude hid a genuinely emotional nature. Bob found the center of the character brilliantly and played the contradictions with integrity and skill, and in Macbeth, where he played Rosse and, again, brought creative ideas and innate skill to the table and gave a most original reading of a political survivor in a time of chaos. Whatever the task Bob takes on, he does it with integrity, skill and a strong sense of collaboration with director and fellow actors. We are proud of his work here in the Twin Cities and look forward to many more fine performances on our stages.” – Joe Dowling, Director
Laura Gordon
Nominated by Milwaukee Repertory Theater
“Laura Gordon has been a treasured member of the Milwaukee Rep’s Resident Acting company for seventeen years. In that time she has played an astonishing range of roles, from an incandescent performance as the Princess of France in Love’s Labours Lost in her debut year to her recent triumph as Ann Landers in The Lady with All the Answers. She created a series of memorable classical roles including Portia in The Merchant of Venice, Olivia in Twelfth Night, and Queen Elizabeth I in Mary Stuart, and has given equally unforgettable turns in contemporary plays such as Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, George Walker’s Escape From Happiness, and Sarah Ruhl’s The Clean House. Laura possesses all of the premium attributes of the actor’s art; passionate intelligence, probing curiosity, pitch perfect facility with language, physical grace, intuitive perception, a spontaneous piquant sense of humor, and above all – a generous open heart that keeps the creative energy in the rehearsal hall joyful and spontaneous while staying intensely focused on the task at hand. Laura is a woman of tremendous depth and substance, and her instinctive acuity into the life of a play and the logic and dynamics of action, character, and composition have led her to be an equally fine director as well as actress. She has directed many stellar productions for the Milwaukee Rep as well as for our colleague theaters in the city. Laura is a singular artist and a vital asset to the cultural life of our community. I am extremely thankful for my years of creative partnership with her and look forward to the exciting theatrical work that she is sure to create in the years to come.” – Joseph Hanreddy, Artistic Director
Andrew Long
Shakespeare Theatre Company | Washington, D.C.
“Andrew Long is one of the most committed members of Washington’s theatre community and a veteran of the Shakespeare Theatre Company stage. He has been extremely loyal to STC for nearly two decades, committing to demanding rehearsal schedules and all-consuming roles while maintaining an active role in our education programs. His bravery in attacking a daunting role is truly commendable. Two years ago we were faced with the challenge of losing the male lead in our Roman Repertory – Mark Antony in both Antony and Cleopatra and Julius Caesar. Andrew stepped in, fully prepared to tackle both roles on the first day of rehearsal with very short notice, on top of a demanding rehearsal schedule for the upcoming production of Major Barbara. He’s an actor with a really strong technique in verse-speaking, a great voice, a real personality on stage, and masculinity – all the characteristics a director could want in a classically trained artist. But his talents don’t begin and end with lead roles. He’s a dutiful ensemble member who enjoys collaborating with other actors in creating not just individual performances, but a true company effort whose output is greater than the sum of its parts. Above all, he brings to each role a fierce intelligence informed by endless research in the text, diction and history of the play. In addition to acting, Andrew is also a gifted teacher whose master classes have been a cornerstone of our Academy for Classical Acting program. In short, Andrew is the complete package and we are honored to count him as a member of the Shakespeare Theatre Company family.” – Michael Kahn, Artistic Director
Pete Pryor
Nominated by The Wilma Theater | Philadelphia
“I first worked with Pete Pryor on our production of Jim Cartwright’s Road, and even though Pete was still a very young actor he brought tremendous talent and remarkable dedication to the role. I knew I had the pleasure of working with a young man who was going to accomplish great things in the craft. His work on Road also won him the admiration of his peers in the theatre community, who saw fit to give Pete his first Barrymore Award for Excellence for that same role. Since that time I have seen Pete in countless roles in Philadelphia’s best theatres – as a devious Richard III at Lantern Theatre company, as an irrepressible Teach in American Buffalo at Theatre Exile, and as the pitiable simpleton, Michal, in our own production of The Pillowman. Pete’s range as an actor is remarkable not merely for his ability to embody such differing roles, but because of the nuance of characterization that he brings which is both subtle and deeply engaging. He is a joy to watch perform. Beyond all of this, however, Pete brings to his work and life a deep generosity of spirit and a very admirable humility. He has been a tremendous asset to Philadelphia’s local theatre community through mentoring and teaching and has worked to create new opportunities for other actors in the community by co-founding a theatre company here, 1812 Productions, and by working tirelessly with all his efforts. For nearly two decades I have personally watched Pete grow from merely a very talented young actor into a passionate advocate for the arts and mentor for other artists, a performer who is deeply committed to his craft, and gifted jack-of-all-trades of the theatre world who is never content to be merely good enough at what he pursues.” – Blanka Zizka, Artistic Director
Jacqueline Williams
Nominated by Goodman Theatre | Chicago
“Jacqueline Williams is truly a force of nature. Her passion, her wit, her intelligence, and her unyielding presence transform every production she’s in into an event of fire, eloquence, and beauty. There is literally no genre in which she doesn’t excel, no type of role that she can’t play; since she burst onto the Chicago theatre scene a little more than two decades ago, she has brought her special brand of artistry to the classics of Shakespeare and Molière, to the contemporary works of August Wilson and Regina Taylor, and even to the occasional musical. On the Goodman stage, she’s played roles as varied as a schoolgirl (in JoAnne Akalaitis’s ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore), a dinosaur (in Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth), a sympathetic maid (in Horton Foote’s The Young Man From Atlanta), and a World War II-era musician (in Regina’s Oo-Bla-Dee) — and all of them were performances of beauty, of grace and dignity, of unadorned honesty and astonishing depth. She’s worked her magic on nearly every stage in Chicago, and every director who’s worked will testify gladly to the spark that she brings to every project. And she’s generous—an ensemble player in the great Chicago tradition, a strong and principled mentor to the younger members of a company, and always a dedicated, proud professional. When I first met Jacqueline twenty-odd years ago, I knew that she was someone to watch—and legions of Chicago audiences (and her fellow performers) now agree with me. At the end of the day, there’s only one word to adequately describe her artistry: extraordinary.” – Steve Scott, Associate Producer
Larry Yando
Nominated by Chicago Shakespeare Theater
“Every now and then an actor holds a mirror up to nature that touches the core of who we are and who we may be. Larry Yando, one of Chicago’s finest actors has thrilled audiences with his breathtaking honesty and versatility. His work is ferocious, layered and singular. He first worked at Chicago Shakespeare twenty years ago and since that first appearance as Jupiter in Cymbeline his work has spanned an amazing range of Shakespearean characters, from Timon, to Lear’s Fool, to Enobarbus, King Henry IV, Malvolio and many more. He’s best known across the country for his soaring Scar in the National Tour of The Lion King. His performance in La Cage Aux Folles earned him a Jeff Best Actor award, Chicago Magazine named him Actor of the Year and DePaul University gave him their Excellence in Arts Award. Larry is a superb teacher of the Folio technique and acting – his love of teaching is one of his greatest joys. And he is one of ours.” – Barbara Gaines, Artistic Director
