Learn more about the production, cast & creative team with a peek into the program. Read full artist bios, in-depth articles and more.
Cast
Tim Bagley (Vanya)
is making his SCR debut. He reunites with Bart DeLorenzo after working together on Stage Kiss at Geffen Playhouse and The Receptionist at Odyssey Theatre Ensemble. His other theatre highlights include Under My Skin (Pasadena Playhouse), Underneath the Lintel (Ensemble Theatre Company), Four Places (Ovation, LA Drama Critics Circle and Garland awards, Rogue Machine Theatre), Beverly Winwood Presents… (Groundlings Theatre) and The Groundlings Main Company (two LA Weekly awards). Bagley wrote and performed three one-person shows: No Actors Allowed (Groundlings Theatre), Clean Boy, Dirty Stories (The Comedy Festival) and Happy Hour (Jury Award, The Comedy Festival). He currently recurs on “Teachers,” “Grace and Frankie” and “Will & Grace.” His other television highlights include “One Day at a Time,” “Transparent,” “Mr. Robinson,” “The Comeback,” “Web Therapy,” “Shameless,” “Southland,” “Grimm” and “Monk.” His film highlights include Imperfect Sky, Blind Malice, This Is 40, Knocked Up, Finding Bliss, Employee of the Month, The Day After Tomorrow, Happy, Texas and The Mask. Twitter: iamtimbagley, website: timbagley.com.
Jose Moreno Brooks (Spike)
is excited to be making his SCR debut. He is an actor, filmmaker and film editor who, most recently, spent two months in Sweden shooting a documentary about immigration and integration. Prior to Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, he was in the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s production of West Side Story at the Hollywood Bowl. His select television credits include a series regular role on the NBC comedy “Telenovela,” as well as recurring roles on “Baby Daddy” and “Young & Hungry.” He holds a degree in economics from UCLA, which he admits hasn’t been of much use in his current pursuit. He is currently studying at The Actors’ Gang.
Jenna Cole (Sonia)
appeared in SCR’s The Wind in the Willows and has taught in the SCR Theatre Conservatory since 2006. She has performed at the Pasadena Playhouse, Mark Taper Forum, Ahmanson Theatre, Shakespeare Orange County, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Geva Theatre Center, Arizona Theatre Company, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Pittsburgh Playhouse and PlayMakers Repertory, among others. Her film and television credits include A Home Out West, “Picket Fences,” “The George Carlin Show” and numerous commercials and DVD narration. As a longtime resident artist at A Noise Within, Cole appeared in The Way of the World, Hamlet, The Three Sisters, The Seagull, Tartuffe, The Winter’s Tale, Hay Fever and A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. Cole has taught at Pomona College, Chapman University, Point Park University and West Virginia University; she holds an MFA in acting from the American Conservatory Theater and an Associate Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework certification.
Svetlana Efremova (Cassandra)
is very happy to return to her beloved SCR. She is a professor and head of acting at California State University, Fullerton. Efremova appeared on Broadway and in a touring production of Uncle Vanya and in numerous shows at the Yale Repertory Theatre and at South Coast Repertory. For 11 years, she was a member of the St. Petersburg State Theatre (Russia), where she performed more than 20 leading roles and traveled internationally. Her film and television credits include White Oleander, Phone Booth, “House of Cards,” “The Americans,” “The OA,” “Blacklist,” “NCIS: Los Angeles,” The Island, K-19, Stick It, The Elder Son, Killer by Nature, Spinning Boris, “The Closer,” “Monk,” “The West Wing,” “ER,” “The Practice,” “Cold Case,” Without a Trace,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Strong Medicine” and “Joan of Arcadia.” Her acting awards include Yale University’s Herschel Williams Award and the Best Actress Award at the Prague International Festival. She holds an MFA from the Yale School of Drama and a BFA from the St. Petersburg Academy of Theatre (Russia).
Pamela J. Gray (Masha)
returns to SCR where she previously appeared in The Real Thing. She appeared on Broadway in Present Laughter at Roundabout Theatre Company (as Joanna Lippiat) and Butley at the Booth Theatre (Anne Butley). Her off-Broadway credits include the American premieres of Marina Carr’s Woman and Scarecrow (Scarecrow) at Irish Repertory Theatre; Howard Barker’s Gertrude—The Cry (Gertrude) and Judith: A Parting from the Body (Judith), as well as Scenes from an Execution with Potomac Theatre Project at Atlantic Theater Company. Her other New York credits include work at Second Stage Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, Women’s Project Theater (now WP Theater), Theatre for a New Audience and Vineyard Theatre. Regionally, she appeared at Huntington Theatre Company, Pasadena Playhouse, Ahmanson Theatre, The Old Globe, Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, Arena Stage, Baltimore Center Stage, Portland Stage (Maine) and Dallas Theater Center. Her film credits include Carbon Canyon, House of Sticks, Michael Clayton, Safe Harbor, Saint Maybe, The Devil’s Advocate, The Stranger, I’ll Take You There, Corn, Commandments and A Fish in the Bathtub. She has appeared on television in “The Sinner,” “Sons of Anarchy” (Agent Amy Tyler), “Borderline Talent,” “Law & Order,” “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” “Bones,” “The Closer,” “Medium,” “Trust Me” and “Sex in the City.”
Lorena Martinez (Nina)
appeared at SCR previously in Yoga Play. Her regional theatre credits include Up Here and Mr. Burns at La Jolla Playhouse; Olive Ostrovsky in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at Teatro Fatima (Mexico); Into the Woods at Metro Art (Mexico); and Anchor Babies for her New York University thesis. Her television and film credits include Hotel Pennsylvania, How to Get Out of a Speeding Ticket (“Funny or Die”) and Landing in Mumbai. She holds a BFA from New York University and an MFA from UC-San Diego. IG: loremtz.
Creative Team
Bart DeLorenzo (Director)
returns to SCR where he directed the premieres of Sugar Plum Fairy, tokyo fish story, Fast Company, Doctor Cerberus, Shipwrecked! An Entertainment and Dead Man’s Cell Phone, along with NewSCRipts and Pacific Playwrights Festival readings. As artistic director of LA’s Evidence Room, he directed The False Servant, Passion Play, Annapurna, Ivanov, Margo Veil and The Cherry Orchard, among others. His recent directing credits include Stage Kiss, Death of the Author and Coney Island Christmas at the Geffen Playhouse; Annapurna with The New Group (off-Broadway); Nomad Motel at Pittsburgh’s City Theatre; Time Alone with Belle Rêve Theatre Company; Kiss, Go Back to Where You Are, Day Drinkers and A Number with Odyssey Theatre Ensemble; Need to Know at Rogue Machine Theatre; The Night Watcher at Washington’s Studio Theater; Cymbeline at A Noise Within; and I See You Made an Effort. He has received awards from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, LA Weekly Theatre Awards, Backstage Garland Awards and the Alan Schneider Director Award from Theatre Communications Group. He is a faculty member of the School of Theater at the California Institute of the Arts.
Keith Mitchell (Scenic Design)
is delighted to be working at SCR, where he recently designed the Theatre for Young Audiences production of Ella Enchanted. He has designed a dozen shows for SCR including Shipwrecked!, Doctor Cerberus, Venus in Fur and Mr. Popper’s Penguins. He has designed award-winning productions for a variety of Southland theatres including 24th Street Theatre, A Noise Within, Kirk Douglas Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Geffen Playhouse, Getty Villa, ETC, Lewis Family Playhouse and Odyssey Theatre Ensemble. He has designed more than 20 shows for The Falcon Theatre, now the Garry Marshall Theatre, including The Value of Names, with the late Jack Klugman (Ovation Award, Scenic Design) and 18 seasons for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Summersounds, World Music and Art for Kids series at the Hollywood Bowl. Mitchell is an Emmy Award-winning art director and works on a variety of commercials, television promotions and film projects. You might recognize Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, KFC, Taco Bell, Toyota, NBC’s “The Voice,” 2018 Winter Olympics social media campaign and American Assassin. He recently illustrated a children’s book, I Love To Go Camping by JoAnn Dickinson. He is a USC alumnus.
Raquel Barreto (Costume Design)
is a Los Angeles-based costume designer working in theater, dance and opera. She is thrilled to be making her SCR debut. Her recent credits include Frankenstein and Watch on The Rhine (Guthrie Theater), Native Gardens (Pasadena Playhouse and Denver Center for the Performing Arts), Water by the Spoonful and Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue (Center Theater Group), Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill (Actors Theater of Louisville/Portland Center Stage) and The Glass Menagerie (California Shakespeare Theater.) In four seasons at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, she designed Julius Caesar, Roe, The River Bride, The Happiest Song Plays Last, Pericles and Water by the Spoonful. Her designs have also been seen at Arena Stage, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Folger Theatre, Syracuse Stage, Cornerstone Theater Company, Magic Theatre, Latino Theater Company, Getty Villa, Cutting Ball Theater, the LA Philharmonic, Jacob’s Pillow, Opera UCLA, and many others. Barreto is a native of Brazil and teaches costume design at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. raquelbarreto.com
Karyn D. Lawrence (Lighting Design)
is proud to return to SCR after having designed the Theatre for Young Audiences productions of Junie B. Jones is Not a Crook, Ella Enchanted, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, The Light Princess, A Year with Frog and Toad and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Lawrence has earned two Los Angeles Ovation Award nominations: Best Lighting for Colony Collapse at The Theatre @ Boston Court and for The Gospel at Colonus with Ebony Repertory Theatre. Her design for Fences with International City Theatre won an NAACP Theatre Award for Best Lighting. She has also designed for various regional theatres including Arizona Broadway Theatre, Pasadena Playhouse, The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, East West Players, New Swan Shakespeare Festival and Great River Shakespeare Festival. In addition to theatre, she is Radiance Lightworks’ lead lighting designer for Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights and teaches lighting design at California State University Los Angeles. KDLightingDesign.com
John Ballinger (Original Music and Sound Design)
returns to SCR, where his previous shows include A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Borrowers, Fast Company, OZ 2.5 and Sugar Plum Fairy. He is an award-winning composer/sound designer/musical director and CalArts alumnus who has recorded, toured or performed with Moira Smiley and VOCO, Tracy Bonham, Rufus Wainwright, Van Dyke Parks and “Dancing With the Stars.” His work as a composer includes scores and songs for television, short films, theatre and live events. His off-Broadway credits include Annapurna at the New Group and F**ing Hipsters at the Signature Theatre. His regional credits include numerous plays at the Geffen Playhouse, A Noise Within, Ensemble Studio Theatre-LA, Circle X Theatre, Evidence Room, Hollywood Fringe, The Two Roads Theater, The Theatre @ Boston Court, Highways Theater, UCLA, CalArts, Occidental College, UC-Irvine, John Anson Ford Theater, La Mirada Theater for the Performing Arts, Getty Villa, Falcon Theater and The Broad Stage. Most recently, Ballinger composed the score for the feature film Life Support starring J.K. Simmons, Brian Dennehy and Tom Arnold.
Moira Gleason (Stage Manager) joins the SCR team with this as her first production. She previously stage-managed Julius Caesar, The River Bride, Long Day’s Journey into Night, The Count of Monte Cristo, Water by the Spoonful, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet and assistant stage-managed UniSon, Twelfth Night, Cymbeline and As You Like It at Oregon Shakespeare Festival; stage-managed Alive and Well, Since Africa, Back, Back, Back and assistant stage-managed King Lear, The Madness of King George III, The Taming of the Shrew, Whisper House, Cyrano De Bergerac, Coriolanus, Twelfth Night, All’s Well That Ends Well, Romeo and Juliet, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Sea of Tranquility, Hamlet, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Measure for Measure, The Sisters Rosensweig, The Constant Wife, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life, The Comedy of Errors, The Winter’s Tale, Macbeth at The Old Globe Theatre; and stage-managed Adoption Project: Triad at Mo’olelo Performing Arts Company and Miss Witherspoon at San Diego Repertory Theatre.
The Actors and Stage Managers employed in this production are members of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.