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Hedda Gabler

Nov. 7 - 16 | Theodore and Adele Shank Theatre

Written by Henrik Ibsen | Adapted by Jon Robin Baitz | Directed by Lisa Portes

  

About the Show 

"People don't do such things!"

--Judge Brack

 

Hedda is a bad girl. She's mean. She's manipulative. She likes to burn things. She's also a visionary trapped outside of her time. If Freud is right and all that mentally ails us stems from an individual’s mandate to conform to societal expectations, Hedda Gabler is a master class in what happens when we try to contain a force of nature. 

Content Warning

Flash and Strobing Lights, Gunshot, Mentions of suicide (not depicted), Content of a Sexual Nature.

 

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 The Cast

Hedda Gabler: Ruva Chigwedere

George Tesman: Germainne Lebrón

Julia Tesman: Charity Reid

Thea Elvsted: Sage Evans

Judge Brack: Kenneth J. Ray

Eilert Lovborg: Ricardo Lozano

Berta: Georgia Horton

 

Hedda Gabler U/S: Charity Reid

George Tesman U/S: Colby Koo

Julia Tesman U/S: Rachael Baum

Thea Elvsted U/S: Georgia Horton

Eilert Lovborg U/S: Ivan Quezada

Berta U/S: Quinn Lewis

 

 

Stage Management Team

Stage Manager: Katie Davis
Assistant Stage Manager: Piper Lord
Assistant Stage Manager: Juhi Sabharwal
Production Assistant: Ziyi Fang
Production Assistant: Maya Melancon
Stage Management Swing: Avery Simonian

Creative Team

Director: Lisa Portes 
Assistant Director: Kieran Beccia
Assistant Director: Shyama Nithiananda
Scenic Designer: Tzu Yu Su
Assistant Scenic Designer: Muting Fan
Costume Designer: Anabel Olguin
Assistant Costume Designer: Maricela Alaniz
Assistant Costume Designer: Kieran Padgett
Lighting Designer: Stephaney Knapp
Assistant Lighting Designer: Jake Olson
Assistant Lighting Designer: Leah Mitchell
Sound Designer: Padra Crisafulli
Assistant Sound Designer: Jia Shi  

 

About the Director

Lisa Portes is an educator, director, advocate and leader whose aim is to define and promote a new American narrative that is driven aesthetically and politically by the world we are becoming rather than the world we've been. She seeks to forge an American theatre that expands our understanding of who we are, blows open our assumptions of what our world looks like and extends us into the great, big, messy experience of being human in the 21st century. 

Portes has created work regionally for California Shakespeare Theatre, the Cincinnati Playhouse, Children’s Theatre Company, the Denver Center, Guthrie Theatre, Olney Theatre, Portland Center Stage, Round House Theatre, Seattle Rep, South Coast Rep and the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival.  In Chicago she has directed projects for Goodman Theatre, Northlight Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, Teatro Vista, Timeline Theatre  and Victory Gardens.  New York credits include productions at Playwrights Horizons and Soho Rep, and developmental work at New York Theatre Workshop, the Flea Theatre and the Public Theatre. Recent projects include Quixote Nuevo by Octavio Solís (Round House, Denver Center, South Coast Rep, Seattle Rep, Portland Center Stage), Twelfth Night (St. Louis Shakespeare Festival), and the world premieres of Laughs in Spanish by Alexis Scheer (Denver Center) Clean/Espejos by Christine Quintana (South Coast Rep), Rightlynd by Ike Holter (Victory Gardens), I Come from Arizona by Carlos Murillo (Children’s Theatre Company) and This Is Modern Art by Idris Goodwin & Kevin Coval (Steppenwolf Theatre). 

In 2016, Portes received the SDC Zelda Fichandler Award which is dedicated to "an outstanding director or choreographer who has transformed the regional arts landscape".  She is the first freelance director to have been so honored. Other awards include the TCG SPARK Leadership fellowship, the NEA/TCG Career Development grant for Directors, and the Drama League Directing Fellowship.

Portes cut her teeth at UCSD - where she received her MFA in Directing - and at the La Jolla Playhouse where she served as Assistant and then Associate Director for The Who's Tommy staging its Toronto, London, Frankfurt, US, UK and Canadian National Tours

Portes serves on the executive board of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers and is an alumni of the board of The Theatre Communications Group.  In 2012 she co-founded the Latinx Theatre Commons (LTC), a national advocacy network and thinktank that promotes Latinx stories as central to the American story.  She serves as champion for the LTC Carnaval—a tri-annual festival of new Latinx plays produced in Chicago. In June 2017, the LTC was honored by TCG with the 2017 Peter Zeisler Award for innovation in the American Theatre. Other awards include a Fulbright Award, the NEA/TCG Career Development Fellowship for Directors and the Drama League Directors Fellowship.