past Drammy committees

(Bios accurate as of this Committee year)

JULIE ACCUARDI

Julie Accuardi is delighted to be a member of the Drammy committee. She was a theatre teacher for thirty three years, most of it at Wilson High  School. She holds a BA in Theatre and a Masters in Directing, both from Portland State University where she had the good luck to study with Jack Featheringill. Julie is proud member of the Portland Civic Theatre Guild and chair of the Guild’s New Plays committee for Fertile Ground.  Many thanks to all the Portland area theatre artists. It is an honor to see your work.

CHARMIAN CREAGLE

Charmian Creagle is a maker, and has been creating, directing and producing theatre for over 20 years in Portland and NYC. In Portland she was a member of the Otherside Theatre in the late 90’s and a founding member of defunkt. In NYC, she created work with her company Pretention Co., often in collaboration with the women’s theatre company The Looking Glass Theatre. Currently she is a co-artistic director with her husband for the Reformers, a theatrical and often immersive company that loves to push the limits on what theatre can be. https://thereformerspdx.com/

DARR DURHAM

Darr Durham is a proud graduate of the Portland Civic Theatre Junior School.  After earning a double major in Theatre and Communications at Lewis and Clark College, she became Box Office Manager of PCT.   Jack Featheringill cast her in the PSU production of Equus, which closed its run at the American College Theatre Festival in Washington, DC.  Darr was one of the first Willie nominees, and although she was robbed, When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder won the first Willies for Best Direction and Best Production. Darr joined the Portland Civic Theatre Guild around 1992, serving as President for five years.  While wrapping up service on the Artists Repertory Theatre board, she was lured to the Drammy Committee in 1999, appointed Chair in 2012.

PATRICIA A. HUNTER

Patricia A. Hunter (AEA-SAG-AFTRA) has been an actor, producer and casting associate for many years. In 1979 she helped produce and appeared in When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder? (with Darr Durham!) which resulted in the very first Drammy (nee Willie) for Best Production.  While living in New York, she worked at Princeton Rep, The McCarter, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Lincoln Center, Playwrights Horizon, and her summer home for 20 seasons, The Dorset Theatre Festival (where she was honored with 15 Best Actress awards!). She became a casting associate in 1992 working with ABC Television, The Guthrie, Syracuse Stage, Cincinnati Playhouse, Buffalo Studio Arena,  Since returning to Portland in 1998 she has acted on Grimm, Leverage, Portlandia, The Librarians and with Shaking-The-Tree and Profile, among others.  Much more at www.q6talent.com/patricia-hunter

BOBBY JACKSON

Bobby is jubilant and elated to be serving on the Drammy committee! As a shy high schooler Bobby jumped at a chance to perform in a one-act comedy his sophomore year. Since then he’s been hooked on the charm of the stage, and shy no more! Prior to choosing Portland as his home 22 years ago Bobby toured with the Missoula Children’s Theatre across the U.S.A. and Canada teaching and directing theatre to children ages 5-18. He made one stop in Portland along that route and decided to live here three years later. Since then Bobby completed his B.S. in Music Performance from PSU, and has been very active with the Portland theater and entertainment scene. He performed as a union chorister with Portland Opera for 11 years, and with numerous musical theater groups including Broadway Rose Theatre Company, Lakewood Theatre Company, Pixie Dust Productions, and Mock’s Crest Productions. He also spent two years as Cruise Director and entertainer aboard the Queen of the West paddlewheeler along the Columbia and Snake Rivers. As well, Bobby has recorded and performed with Pink Martini and can be heard on their CD, Splendor in the Grass.

VERÓNIKA NÚÑEZ

Verónika is a theater artist and educator. She grew up in Caracas, Venezuela, and moved to Portland OR in 2001. Since then, she has work for different theaters in the Portland Metro area, including Northwest Children’s Theater, Post 5, Lakewood, and her home, Teatro Milagro, were she has performed in over twelve productions, directed stage readings, and has collaborated in numerous community projects. She’s also a founding member of Badass Theater. She graduated in Caracas, Venezuela, from Unversidad Católica Andrés Bello (Education Management), and belongs to the 2009 Class of Portland Actors Conservatory. In 2012, she completed the Association of Science and Technology Centers Diversity and Leadership Development Fellows Program. For the past 16 years, she has worked for the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, bringing science programs to underrepresented communities and creating partnerships with different organizations and museums across the country.

(Bios accurate as of this Committee year)

JULIE ACCUARDI

Julie Accuardi is delighted to be a member of the Drammy committee. She was a theatre teacher for thirty three years, most of it at Wilson High  School. She holds a BA in Theatre and a Masters in Directing, both from Portland State University where she had the good luck to study with Jack Featheringill. Julie is proud member of the Portland Civic Theatre Guild and chair of the Guild’s New Plays committee for Fertile Ground.  Many thanks to all the Portland area theatre artists. It is an honor to see your work.

BOBBY BERMEA

Bobby Bermea is the artistic director of BaseRoots Theatre, co-artistic director of the Beirut Wedding World Theatre Project, a founding member of Badass Theatre Company and an artistic associate of Sojourn Theatre. He received a Drammy for Outstanding Actor in a Lead role for Ogun in The Brother/Sister Plays (Portland Playhouse) and another Drammy, for Supporting Actor, for his work as Asagai in A Raisin in the Sun(Artists Repertory Theatre). Bermea has appeared at LaMama in New York, Centerstage in Baltimore, Vortex Repertory in Austin and Intiman, ACT, The Group, The Langston Hughes Cultural Center, A-Ha, The Empty Space and The New Mercury Theatre in Seattle with such theatrical luminaries as Ping Chong, Julie Harris, Marion McClinton, James Marsters and Michael Rohd. On the Portland stage Bermea has performed with Artists Repertory Theatre, El Teatro Milagro, Jewish Theatre Collaborative, Portland Center Stage, Cygnet Productions, Tygre’s Heart, Profile Theatre Project, Portland Playhouse and Sojourn Theatre. He has directed with BaseRoots, Theatre Vertigo and Northwest Classical.

ADAIR CHAPPELL

Adair Chappell doesn’t know life outside of Portland theatre. Performing in numerous productions, she started her training very young, learning and working with the best in town. She majored in theatre at Southern Oregon University. Performing straight roles until 20, she found her voice and starred in her first musical Peter Pan, lasting eight seasons. She feels very privileged in this last year to watch, learn, and grow with all the incredible talent in Portland.

CHARMIAN CREAGLE

Charmian Creagle is a director/producer of theatre with a focus on the avant garde and experimental disciplines. She received her theatre degree at SOU and interned at OSF before moving to Portland in the late 90s to become a member of The Other Side Theatre. With the Other Side she directed Ubu Roi and Machinal and performed and assisted in other productions.  She is a founding member of defunkt theatre where she directed Lisa D’Amour’s 3 Mutants, and before leaving Portland, directed The Trial for Cygnet Productions.  In 2000 she moved to NYC with her husband Sean where she worked with members of Elevator Repair Service and Clubbed Thumb among others.  She became an associate director and acting/movement teacher for The Looking Glass Theatre (a women focused company) where she directed multiple productions including Spring Awakening, a female led production of Brecht’s Baal and her own devised piece Communicable Dis-ease.  In 2012 The Reformers came into existence with a personal and devised production, The Possessions of la boîte ending the season with a site specific horror play The Revenants. She is excited that the Reformers’ most recent production The Turn has received 3 finalist Drammy nods this season. Charmian has also recently served as board chair for the health based theatre non-profit, Well Arts.

DARR DURHAM

Sixth Grader Darr Durham brought down the house (literally) as a messenger girl on a runaway bike in a production of Final Dress Rehearsal, directed by the renowned Florine Weiss.  Darr is a proud graduate of the Portland Civic Theatre Junior School.  After a year of “I’m done with theatre” at Lewis and Clark College, she spent a term in NYC seeing shows every waking moment (excellent training for the Drammy Committee).  The 2.0 theatre credits from the NYC trip led to a double major in Theatre and Communications, and a job as the Box Office Manager of PCT.  She was lucky enough to be cast in Jack Featheringill’s PSU production of Equus, and ultimately performed in the American College Theatre Festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.  Darr was one of the first Willie nominees, and although she was robbed, When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder won the first Willies for Best Direction and Best Production. and really, that rewards everyone for doing a great job!  Politics intervened, until Darr joined the Guild around 1992, eventually serving as Chair for five years.  While wrapping up service on the Artists Repertory Theatre board, she was lured to the Drammy Committee (1999-2000), where she rose to Chair in 2012-2013

MICHAEL FOSTER

Michael Foster has been a theatre advocate throughout his life. Starting as an actor in grade school, he then worked locally as a stagehand and a performer in high school shows and the Portland Civic Theatre. He continued in college to study acting, directing, writing, set design/construction, and theatre history at Miami of Ohio and Portland State. He feels the production and support of local theatre is of vital importance to the health and well-being of any community, and is grateful that Portland has such a vibrant and involved culture. He, like most of  the Drammy committee, sees 70-80 plays a year and views it as a civic pleasure, a labor of love, and a privilege.
Coming from a large arts-inclined family, and as a 6th generation native Oregonian, he can’t imagine living any other place than the Pacific Northwest.

CATE GARRISON

Cate Garrison gave her first public performance at the age of three and took part in her first play at nine.   For the next quarter-century,  she acted in various theatres in England in a wide variety of roles, including for  OUDS and ETC, as well as at The Maddermarket Theatre in Norwich, under the professional leadership, direction, and mentorship of the late Ian Emerson, and at The People’s Theatre in Jesmond, Newcastle upon Tyne (so named by George Bernard Shaw). She has also performed on the Fringe in Edinburgh in straight plays, musicals, and cabaret; she likewise helped organize and run Days of Dance throughout East Anglia, and has led theatre workshops in various venues.

In Portland, where she has acted occasionally, she mostly lays claim to fame as theater reviewer for Willamette Week in the late ‘eighties and early ‘nineties, during which time she was also on the Drammy Committee.  Since then, she has served on the boards of several theatres, and of Portland Actors Conservatory, where she has been excited to keep up with actor training and to watch the growth and development of the many students and alumni who grace Portland’s stages today.  She was  a guest artist in Portland Actors Conservatory’s production of Holy Ghosts, in 2012, where she appeared as Mrs Wall (and yes, she played the piano), and played the role of Hanna Kennedy in Northwest Classical Theatre’s production of Mary Stuart, directed by Elizabeth Huffman, in 2015. She is, of course, an avid theatre-goer, in Portland and elsewhere.

More about Cate’s writing can be found at http://categarrison.blogspot.com/

GLENN GAUER

Glenn Gauer is a Professor Emeritus at Portland State University where he served as a Director as well as a Scenery and Lighting Designer.  Recent PSU directing credits include: Urinetown:The Musical, The House of Blue Leaves, Crimes of the Heart, The Imaginary Invalid, Hedda Gabler, Death of a Salesman, A Flea in Her Ear and The Hostage. Design work includes; for Pixie Dust Productions; La Cage aux Folles, The Wizard of Oz and The Full Monty;  for Artists Repertory Theatre, The Ghosts of Celilo,  for Profile Theater, The Sisters Rosenweig and Talley and Son;  for Triangle Productions, The Rocky Horror Show. With The Musical Company directing credits include Camelot, Fiddler on the Roof and The Pirates of Penzance; design credits include; Paint Your Wagon, La Cage Aux Folles, Camelot, The King and I and West Side Story.for Lakewood Theatre, scenic design for La Cage aux Folles, The Man of La Mancha and lighting design for Amadeus, The Lion in Winter, and A Tuna Christmas.

NICOLE GLADWIN

Nicole Gladwin studied Theater Arts at Portland State University, and began stage managing all over town in 2001. She has worked with Profile Theatre, Miracle Theatre Group, CoHo Productions (with co-producers Val Landrum, Chris Harder, call in sick productions, Chris Murray, and Megan Kate Ward), Portland Revels, Theatre Vertigo, 2Boards Productions, Many Hats Collaboration, defunkt theatre, Sand & Glass Productions, Oregon Repertory Theatre, Action/Adventure Theatre, Playwrights West, Shaking the Tree, and spent four seasons as Stage Manager in Residence at Stark Raving Theatre, at a time when the company was exclusively developing new works. Nicole also holds a certificate in paralegal studies, and currently works at an intellectual property law firm where she is not a paralegal and does not wish to be one. When not at a theater, she greatly enjoys breakfast, coffee, and pie, and is always open to recommendations for any of those things. Nicole served as the Master of Ceremonies for the 34th Annual Drammy Awards (just before joining the committee), and is the proud three-time recipient of Portland’s Spotlight Award for Stage Management. To learn more about Nicole’s work, please visit www.nicolegladwin.com.

MARTY HUGHLEY

Marty Hughley is a freelance arts journalist who writes about theater, dance and popular music.

A Portland native, he spent nearly 25 years on the staff of The Oregonian, joining the newspaper in 1989 as a general assignment reporter. He served as pop music critic from 1990 to 2006, and in 2013 was inducted into the Oregon Music Hall of Fame for his contributions to the industry. From 2006 until leaving the paper in 2013, he covered theater and dance.

His honors have included a National Arts Journalism Program fellowship at the University of Georgia in 1996-97, a fellowship at the NEA Arts Journalism Institute in Theater and Musical Theater at the University of Southern California in 2007, and first-place awards for arts reporting in the 2009 and 2010 Society of Professional Journalists Pacific Northwest Excellence in Journalism Competitions.

Prior to joining The Oregonian, Hughley studied history at Portland State University and worked at the alternative newsweekly Willamette Week as pop music critic and arts editor. He loves watching basketball, and is an avowed cat supremacist.

ANNA JOHNSON

Since moving to Portland in 2001, Paige Jones has worked as an actor for numerous local theatre companies, directed at Stark Raving Theatre, taught theatre arts to children aged 4-17 at A.R.T., OCT, and NWCTS; she also has performed on-camera (most recently opposite Geena Davis and Rico Colantoni), and as a VO artist on regional and national radio and television advertising campaigns.   Pre-2001, she worked in Colorado as a theatre Business Manager, Artistic Director, Director, Theatre Education Director, Teaching Artist, Costumer, Set Dresser, and Actor; she also created a live historical show for Keystone Resorts, a travel/visitor’s television show for Resort Sports Network, worked as a radio copywriter and frequent voice-over artist for radio station KSMT The Mountain.  Before that, Paige did the off-off Broadway thing in New York while studying at HB Studio, after graduating with a B.A. in Music from HunterCollege (part of City University of New York).   And before all that, Paige worked as an actor in the American military theatre community in Heidelberg, Germany.  Yowza.   There is almost 30 years in a nutshell!

JENNIFER KELTNER

Jennifer Keltner has been involved in theater since first grade, when she began taking classes at Portland Civic Theatre and played her very first role, Butter, in The Knave of Hearts. A couple of her favorite roles since then were Mother in Ragtime and Sara Jane Moore in Assassins. With degrees in Music-Vocal Performance (Linfield College) and Theater (Florida State University), she has participated in every aspect of theater while living in Texas, Florida and Oregon: performing, stage and house management, run and build crews, ushering, member of the Board, and much more. In recent years she has focused her efforts on the front-of-house needs of different companies around Portland, where she has ushered, worked special events, coordinated volunteers, worked the box office and served as House Manager. During the week you’ll find Jennifer working in the administration office of the Linfield-Good Samaritan School of Nursing in NW Portland. On evenings and weekends, you’ll find her wine tasting and attending live theater with her wife, Sandra.

AMANDA SODEN

Amanda Soden was born in Nairobi, Kenya and spent most of her childhood living in eastern and southern Africa and the Indian subcontinent.  She was bitten by the acting bug at age 10 when she was cast in a television movie for Belgium TV which was filmed in refugee camps along the Afghan/Pakistani border.  Amanda earned her BA in Theatre & Philosophy from PrincipiaCollege in southern Illinois.  In July of 2004, she moved to Portland to work with Sojourn Theatre.  With Sojourn, Amanda toured the state with Witness Our Schools, and was also cast in The Visit.  Favorite acting credits include: The Road to Mecca, Uncommon Women & Others and The Sisters Rosensweig (Profile), Blind-Ness: The Irresistible Light of Encounter (Ping Chong & Company), Snow Falling on Cedars and Misalliance (Portland Center Stage), The Uneasy Chair (CoHo), Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act (Shaking-the-Tree), Ragtime (Lakewood), and The Love of the Nightingale (Theatre Vertigo).  Amanda pays the bills by working as a paralegal for the law firm of Shenker & Bonaparte and enjoys volunteering at the Oregon Humane Society.  She is a fierce advocate for women’s rights and is an avid soccer player/ rabid fan.

ANNALISE ALBRIGHT WOODS

Annalise Albright Woods received an MFA in sound design from the California Institute of the Arts and has designed and production managed with a variety of theatres in the Portland area since moving here in 2004.  Favorite sound design credits include Locomotion and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for Oregon Children’s Theatre; Mimesophobia for Sand and Glass Productions; Beside You, Mutt, and Restroom, for Many Hats Collaboration; Pterodactyls, Long Christmas Ride Home, Tango and Love of the Nightingale for Theatre Vertigo.  When not working on or seeing a show she does education-based work for a local social service agency and can be found hanging out with her husband Jeff and their menagerie of animals.

RICHARD WATTENBERG

Richard Wattenberg teaches theater history, literature, and criticism at Portland State University, and has served on the Drammy Committee for 20 years. He has published the book, Early-Twentieth-Century Frontier Drama on Broadway: Situating the Western Experience in Performing Art, and numerous articles in academic journals, as well as directed a number of full productions and staged readings. A freelance theatre reviewer, Richard has contributed some 400 reviews to The Oregonian.

MATTHEW B. ZREBSKI

A founding member of Playwrights West, Matthew B. Zrebski is a multi-award winning writer/director/composer whose career has been defined by new play development.  Produced plays and musicals include Darkstep and Dawning, The Vespiary, To Cape, and Ablaze: an a cappella musical thriller.  Texting the Sun and 1 ½ toured with Oregon Children’s Theatre.  His work has been featured at One Theatre World Conference, JAW: A Playwrights Festival, Fringe (at Edinburgh), and Oregon Art Beat.  He serves as the Resident Teaching Artist at Portland Center Stage and holds a BFA from the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University.