Directors
Nicholas Ballas
Nicholas Ballas (Nico) has been active in the New Mexico theater scene for four decades, having performed with NM Actors Lab (founding member), Santa Fe Rep, New Mexico Rep, Shakespeare in Santa Fe, The Vortex, Mother Road, Taos Repertory Co, Teatro Paraguas and the Santa Fe Playhouse. In the 80’s he founded and ran the Santa Fe Actors Theatre in the Santa Fe Railyard where he directed over a dozen productions ranging from Sam Shepard, to Beckett to Dylan Thomas to Marsha Norman. He mounted a critically acclaimed, post-apocalyptic staging of HAMLET in conjunction with the CCA and most recently he has directed over half a dozen plays for NMAL, including NO MAN’S LAND, LUNGS, SIMPATICO, OTHER DESERT CITIES and SEASCAPE. He holds an MFA in Acting from CalArts.
Nico can be reached at nico.ictus@gmail.com
Robert Benedetti
Robert Benedetti is a distinguished director, actor, and teacher of theatre, and three-time Emmy and Peabody Award-winning film writer/producer as President of Ted Danson’s production company at Paramount Studios.
Benedetti received his Ph.D. from Northwestern University. After helping to found the Court Theatre in Chicago, he was an early member of Chicago’s Second City Theatre. During his fifty-year teaching career he was Head of the Acting Program at the Yale Drama School and long-time Dean of Theater at the California Institute of the Arts. Benedetti has written six books on acting and film production, three of which will appear in new editions next year. In 2012 he was inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Theatre at the Kennedy Center.
After moving to Santa Fe twelve years ago, Benedetti formed the New Mexico Actors Lab with which he has directed fourteen productions and is now the Managing Director.
Zoe Burke
Zoe is an actress, director, intimacy choreographer, and theatre educator who moved to Santa Fe from Wichita, Kansas in 2018. She directed more than twenty productions in Wichita, including everything from classical pieces such as Antony and Cleopatra and Cyrano de Bergerac to productions of contemporary musicals like Hairspray and Godspell. Favorite Wichita acting credits include Julia in Two Gentlemen of Verona, Rosaline in Love’s Labor’s Lost, Kristine Linde in A Doll’s House, and Evelyn in The Shape of Things.
Santa Fe credits include Hero in Much Ado About Nothing, Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (both with the Santa Fe Shakespeare Society), the International Shakespeare Center 2019 Rep Season, and Phoebe in As You Like It (Santa Fe Classic Theater).
Her intimacy direction work was most recently seen in the &Sons production of Macbeth; she has trained with Theatrical Intimacy Education, Intimacy Directors and Coordinators, Intimacy for Stage and Screen, and Heartland Intimacy Design, to name a few.
Contact: patriciazoeburke@gmail.com
Wendy Chapin
Wendy has worked in theatre for 35 years. She graduated from University of Colorado in 1975 with a B.A. in Theatre and History. She spent more than a decade working professionally as a stage manager in New York City and beyond. In 1984 she received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Directing. At that point she started to teach acting and directing. Wendy has taught acting at the College of Santa Fe (now Santa Fe University of Art and Design), in the Santa Fe Public Schools, in the School for the Performing Arts at the National Dance Institute, and for several area private schools. Wendy received her Master’s Degree in Art Therapy in 1997 from Southwestern College. She currently teaches Psychology of Altruism in their graduate program.
Wendy has taught acting to people ages 7 to 70 for more than thirty years. She directed such plays as Good People by David Lindsay Abaire, Gideon’s Knot by Johnna Adams, Bonjour, la Bonjour by Michel Tremblay, and Luna Gale by Rebecca Gilman.
Contact Wendy: WendyChapin@cybermesa.com
Chris R. Chávez
Chris R. Chávez is a Chicano artist and activist that currently resides in Phoenix, AZ. Chris has a Master of Music in Vocal Performance with a Musical Theatre emphasis from Arizona State University. He also has a Bachelo of Arts in Music Performance from New Mexico HIghlands University. Since graduating from ASU, Chris has performed as both a singer and actor in a number of local productions. In the last few years he has also began directing. Some shows he has directred include: Angels In American: Millenium Approaches, Next To Normal, Carrie: The Musical, La Ruta, Chess: The Musical, Real Women Have Curves. In addition to directing Chris is board member and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion consultant for United Colours of Arizona Theatre (UCAT). He also serves on the board of directors for the Arizoni Theatre Awards of Excellence.
Chris resides now in Phoenix, but is originally from NM, and has many connections there still and is able to travel.
Contact: crc0377@gmail.com
Janet Davidson • DGA Director
Following a successful career as both an Actors’ Equity and SAG actor, Ms. Davidson segued into producing and directing commercials before moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career as an Assistant Director and then Director in prime-time television. Some of Ms Davidson’s directing credits include; Earth 2, Cagney & Lacey, Soul Food, Judging Amy, and multiple episodes of Any Day Now, which has earned an Image Award nomination.
Ms. Davidson's producing company, For Giving Productions, recently produced Good People in both Santa Fe and Albuquerque, and Lose, Loss, and What I Wore in Santa Fe, Los Alamos and Durango, as well as Imagining Brad and The Valerie of Now, Motherhood Out Loud, Hearts of the West, Rapture Blister Burn, Kimberly Akimbo, The Country House, and upcoming Almost, Maine.
Contact Janet: 505.438.6078 • 505.699.8501 • betbuddy@msn.com
John Flax
John Flax is the Founding Artistic Director of Theater Grottesco, and he is also a creator, performer, writer, director, and designer. In addition to Grottesco, Flax has performed with London’s Theatre Complicite and the Los Angeles Philharmonic at LA’s new Disney Hall in Strange Poetry: Berlioz and the Chemistry of Dreams in 2004, and with choreographer Della Davidson’s 10 PM Dream at the Mondavi Center in Davis, California, in 2005. He has been a resource artist and ensemble member with the Sundance Playwrighting Laboratory, performed for two years with the Paris Circus, and two years with the Theatre de la Jeune Lune in Minneapolis and Paris. Mr. Flax has been a member of J. A. Deane’s “Out of Context” structured improvisational orchestra since 2002. He has appeared in films in France and the U.S. He has translated several works from French into English including Jacques Lecoq’s celebrated lecture-demonstration Tout Bouge. John has been a guest director and movement coach at theaters and colleges across the country. He is a graduate of the Ecole Jacques Lecoq, and also studied with Phillipe Gaulier in Paris and with Arthur Lessac, holds degrees in Environmental Studies, and all but dissertation for an Ed.D. in Philosophy and Anthropology. Mr. Flax served on the board of directors of the Network of Ensemble Theaters (NET), a national organization, from 2003-2006.
Justin Golding
Justin is a writer, actor and director. He is a produced screenplay writer and is commissioned by producers and production companies to develop and write film and television scripts. He teaches screenplay writing and film production at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design’s Film School and presently has a three-book project with Ariel Books LLC.
Lynn Goodwin
Lynn is a director, actor, writer and teacher. She serves as co-Artistic Director for Just Say It Theater. Directing: JSIT - The Big Heartless (2019), Constellations (2018); Ironweed Productions - Aliens (2020); and ten collaborative, original theater pieces, each having from 14 to 28 actors from Santa Fe schools. Among her acting credits (Santa Fe): Sworn to Water, Good People, Bonjour Là, Bonjour, Luna Gale, King Lear, Julius Caesar, Coriolanus. She also has had principal and supporting roles in film, TV, and off-Broadway and regional productions. Before moving from New York City, she was a member of The Ensemble Studio Theater from 1985-1996. She earned her BA from Yale University, an MFA from Columbia University, and an advanced certificate in Screenwriting from UCLA.
Contact: goodwincom820@gmail.com
Scott Harrison
Scott Harrison is a graduate of the American Repertory Theatre Institute in Cambridge, MA, where he studied acting. He studied directing at the Studio Theatre Acting Conservatory in Washington, D.C., under Artistic Director Joy Zinoman. In 2002 he produced and directed The Roads to Home by Horton Foote at the 78th Street Theater Lab in New York.
After moving to Santa Fe, Scott directed The Carpetbagger’s Children at Theaterwork and Sure Thing at Warehouse 21. In 2003, he directed The Vagina Monologues in Española with an ensemble of 26 women, which raised money for PeaceKeepers, a violence prevention organization serving the Eight Northern Indian Pueblos.
In 2004, Scott founded Ironweed Productions, and as Artistic Director he has directed productions of ’night, Mother, Doubt: a Parable, The Trip to Bountiful, American Buffalo, Our Town, Death of a Salesman, and The Crucible. In 2014, he showcased local playwrights’ work in Creating a Scene, an original site-specific production at Second Street Brewery at the Railyard, which he co-directed with Wendy Chapin.
Contact Scott: ironweedproductions@yahoo.com
Barbara Hatch
Barbara is an actress, director, teacher, and is currently teaching theatre at the New Mexico School for the Arts. She was the Managing Director for Theater Grottesco for five years. Her recent directing credits include The 39 Steps and The Madwoman of Chaillot, and she was most recently seen in several productions at the Santa Fe Playhouse, including Sylvia, by A. R. Gurney (directed by Robert Benedetti) and Rosemary Zibart’s production of The Jewel in the Manuscript as Ana Snitkina; at The Playhouse as Jenny Malone in Chapter Two, by Neil Simon; and with Shakespeare in Santa Fe’s All For Your Delight, and more.
Barbara is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and lived and worked in France for nine years, earning a Master’s Degree in Art History.
Colin Hovde
Colin is a freelance producer and director currently living in Santa Fe and Seattle. He currently serves as Executive Director of the Santa Fe Playhouse. Previously he served as producing artistic director of Theater Alliance of Washington DC from 2011 to 2019. He is a founding artistic director of ARTISTS’ BLOC, a founding member of Capital Fringe Festival, and was the associate artistic director at Theater Alliance from 2005-06. In 2004 he was a producer of the Worldwide Arts Collective Festival in Macau, China. He has directed at Theater Alliance, Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Imagination Stage, Adventure Theatre, Rustaveli Theatre in Tiblisi Georgia, Washington Shakespeare Company, Riot Actors of Washington, Rorschach Theatre, Washington Savoyards, Solas Nua, Perseverance Theatre, and The InSeries. He was a Kenan fellow at the Kennedy Center, a directing fellow at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, received a Cultural Envoy grant from the Department of State, and was selected for the Fulbright-Hays Program. He holds a BFA from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and is a member of SDC the Union for Stage Directors.
Vaughn Irving
Originally from right here in Santa Fe, Vaughn holds a BFA in Music Theatre from Illinois Wesleyan University and has worked in professional theatre across the country for the last ten years. He returned to Santa Fe in September 2015 and is now the Artistic Director of the Santa Fe Playhouse.
Vaughn has directed plays at the Santa Fe Playhouse, Flying V Theatre (MD), Wayside Theatre (VA), and the National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts (DC). Vaughn is also an actor, teacher, and award-winning playwright for his original musicals Disco Jesus and the Apostles of Funk and You, or Whatever I Can Get, which both premiered at the Capital Fringe Festival in Washington, DC.
Contact Vaughn: ArtisticDirector@santafeplayhouse.org
THEO KUTSKO
THEO KUTSKO (they/them/theirs) graduated from New Mexico School for the Arts in 2022. Theo is a vocalist, pianist, actor, theater technician and visual artist. They began their acting career playing Toby in Sweeney Todd (SF Performing Arts), At NMSA they have performed in several productions, favorite roles being Edward Ferrars in Sense and Sensibility, Fester in The Addams Family Musical and the title role in The Liar. They have been in the last 3 musicals for Santa Fe Youth Collaborative Theatre (Little Women, In Pieces, It Shoulda Been You) and are currently directing and acting in Falsettos for the company. Theo made their New York cabaret debut at Feinstein’s 54 Below in 2020. They are the 2020 Melissa Engestrom Youth Artist Award Winner for the Mayor’s Awards for Excellence in the Arts and a finalist for the 2022 Enchantment Awards. They will be going to college in fall 2022 and have been accepted to several conservatory programs. Catch Theo at one of their weekly gigs at Vanessie in Santa Fe! Email at: jackiecamborde@yahoo.com
Holly Lovejoy
Holly R. Lovejoy is an artivist, intimacy coach, orgastronomist™, and queer, unapologetic badass wordsmith. With a BA in Theater and her MFA in playwriting and screenwriting, Holly is committed to writing work that amplifies the female experience and explores how female identifying people navigate trauma, love, sex, heartache, inequity, and grief. She can be found dishing about love and relationships on the podcast Shadow of Love or blogging about life and the intersection of food and sex.
Holly is an exceptional writer, editor, and collaborator with a background in project management and program management that nicely compliments her work in theater and film production.
Email: hollywoodnm1@gmail.com
Website: http://www.hollylovejoy.com
Argos MacCallum
Argos MacCallum has worked with many theatre companies in Santa Fe as an actor, director, designer, and administrator for the past 50 years. For the SF Playhouse, he directed Fuenteovejuna, Camino Real, All My Sons, and Heartbreak House, among other plays. For Teatro Paraguas, which he co-founded in 2004, he directed Fortunato, Las Instrucciones a don Pedro de Peralta, September Shoes, El Delantal Blanco and La Vida es Sueño. He has worked as Technical Director for New Mexico Actors Lab, SF Playhouse, and the Arden Players, and served as Scene Shop Manager at the Greer Garson Theatre for 10 years. He served on the SF Playhouse Board of Directors for 9 years, and is a charter board member of Theatre Santa Fe. He is also a stage and film actor, and a member of SAG-AFTRA.
Antonio Miniño
Antonio Miniño (They, Them) is a Caribbean genderqueer actor, director, intimacy consultant, writer, dramaturg, host, and life coach. Their work has been seen in New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Canada, Ireland, Serbia, and Dominican Republic. They are the founder of Different Translation, Grace in Progress Consulting, and co-founder of Manhattan Theatre Works. They are the writer of the #PersonOfChange column (soon to be a podcast). Two-time Jonathan Alper Directing Fellow (Manhattan Theatre Club), two-time SDCF Observer, and assistant director at Signature Theatre (Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train, directed by Tony winner Mark Brokaw). Alumni of Directors Lab North and Directors Lab West. They are a member of Rising Sun Performance Company in NY, Intimacy Coordinators of Color, Intimacy Choreographers of Los Angeles, SAG-AFTRA, and SDC.
Talia Pura
Since arriving in Santa Fe in 2016, Talia has directed Rosemary Zibart’s large-cast historical drama, All Too Human, and the Benchwarmer play, Pigeons, by Marguerite Scott. Previously, she taught theatre at the University of Winnipeg and has directed many student and professional productions. She also has extensive experience as a choreographer, working with new multimedia plays and traditional musicals.
Talia has also written/directed/produced ten short films, which have played at festivals or received television licenses. Aerial Artistry, which featured her work on silks, was a commission from the Vancouver Olympics. Talia has written three theatre/drama teaching/directing resource books (Stages and Cues) and has led theatre workshops in Canada, the US, Brazil, Thailand, the Philippines, and South Africa.
Contact Talia: talia@taliapura.com or 505.428.8508
Emily Rankin
Emily Rankin is an actor, director, and artist transplant from Texas, where she worked in theatre and film for over 15 years. Since moving to New Mexico in 2018, she’s worked as an actor, director, and stage manager with numerous companies, such as the Santa Fe Playhouse, International Shakespeare Center, Santa Fe Classic Theatre, and Meow Wolf.
http://www.eerankinart.com
Contact: emily.rankin1989@gmail.com
Alexis Scott
Alexis Scott is a member of AEA and a dramaturgical actor and director. She has spent the last decade acting in new play premieres across the country and moved to Albuquerque to teach Theatre at the Albuquerque Academy. NY credits include: Dishwater Blonde, a solo show about Eva Braun by David Turkel; Claire Keichel’s Paul Swan is Dead and Gone with The Civilians; and Gabriel Jason Dean’s Triggered at Cherry Lane Theatre with The Amoralists. She has performed in two premieres at the international Fusebox Festival in Austin, two premieres at the Seattle Children's Theater, and was a team member of Philadelphia Improv. Some favorite roles include Veronica in Hot Belly, Catalina in Catalina de Erauso, Bev/Kathy in Clybourne Park, Twisted Finger Jake in Threepenny Opera, and Girl in Edge of Peace. She is most inspired by rigorous collaborative processes, multi-hyphenates, and queer narratives. She received her MFA in Acting from The University of Texas at Austin.
More information about Alexis: http://alexisleahscott.com
Email: alexisleahscott@gmail.com
Rob Tode
Rob Tode is a professional actor and director, and a proud member of Actor’s Equity Association and Screen Actors Guild. He is also the Head of the Theatre & Film Department at Capital High School, and an adjunct faculty member in the SFCC Film Department. He has performed in over 75 theatre productions and directed over 35 plays, musicals and films. Recent acting credits include Guest and Co-Starring roles on the television shows, Night Shift (NBC), Longmire (Netflix) & Manhattan (WGN), as well as in the feature film, “Dirty Weekend”.
More information: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2506210/reference
Contact: robtode2004@yahoo.com
Tara Tovarek
Tara is a graduate of Second City. Her favorite stage role was portraying Melibea/ Isabelle/ Hippolyta in Kushner's "The Illusion" at Actors Express. Previously, Tara owned and operated Ship Oil Productions where she Produced and Directed shows that included: "Accidental Death of an Anarchist," "Sure Thing," and "Space Aliens and Tupperware." While living in Brooklyn, Tara attempted standup comedy because it was cheaper than therapy.
More information: https://www.instagram.com/sugarplum_sugarsocks/
Contact: shipoil@gmail.com