Laura Jane Bailey is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association and Theatre Bay Area. Bay Area productions include: Equus (Boxcar Theatre); Enchanted April & Mrs. Bob Cratchit’s Wild Christmas Binge (Bus Barn Theatre); Fat Pig (City Lights); Juan Gillion Dances For The Sun (Crowded Fire); Bad Dates, The Memory Of Water, Smell Of The Kill, Cloud 9, For The Love Of A Pig (Dragon); Nicky Goes Goth (Impact); Snakepit (Theatre Q). Other companies she has worked with include TheatreFirst, The Playwrights Center, A Travelling Jewish Theatre and Theatreworks. Chicago productions include: The Cider House Rules directed by David Cromer, The American Dream, Raised in Captivity, I Am Yours, and Tattoo Girl.  She was the Artistic Director of cobalt ensemble theatre, where they offered a Shakespeare Camp and Greek Theatre Camp for Middle School children. She was also a Meisner technique teacher at The Actors’ Center of Chicago. LJ was nominated for Best Actress at the Midwest Film Festival for the feature film Repetition.

Sonya Cooke is studying for an MFA in Acting from UC-Irvine. An actress, director and private acting coach, she is thrilled to have the opportunity to be a Teaching Artist for SF Shakes. Sonya attended NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, after which point she worked professionally in a variety of venues: regional and NYC theatre, film, TV, and web projects. Recent credits include directing The Woolgatherer at UCI, leading an acting workshop in Texas entitled: Actors are Reactors,  and teaching for UCI's Summer Academy of the Arts. Please visit her website, www.sonyacooke.com, to read her blogs on acting technique. 

Sarah Shoshana David's work ranges from Shakespeare through contemporary drama to musicals, film and aerial dance. She just wrapped filming as a principle opposite Joaquin Phoenix in Paul Thomas Anderson’s upcoming major motion picture with Philip Seymour Hoffman. Sarah won critical praise this past spring as Tibby in the West Coast premiere of Regrets Only, with New Conservatory Theatre.  Other recent credits include Halie in Sam Shepard’s Buried Child (Arty nomination for Best Actress), Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Ellen in Jewish Roots by Emmy-winning Ellen Sandler of Everyone Loves Raymond; Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Adriana in Comedy of Errors and Charlotte in Durang's Beyond Therapy. Sarah was originally trained as a dancer and worked in the US and abroad in ballet and modern dance productions. She is a voiceover artist and member of the creative staff of Antenna Theater, where she helped to create Magic Bus. Teaching Shakespeare to children is a highlight of the year for Sarah and a source of perennial joy and inspiration!

Bennett Fisher is a San Francisco based playwright, director, actor, and teacher. He has performed with Adirondack Shakespeare Company (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Theseus in the Labyrinth), San Francisco Theater Pub (Henry IV Parts I and II), Marin Shakespeare Company (Antony and Cleopatra), Crowded Fire (The Lysistrata Project), the Pear Ave Theatre (Pick Up Ax), Stanford Summer Theater (Elektra), AtmosTheatre (The Frogs), and Brava Women’s Theatre (Sincerity Forever), among others. Directing credits include Audience and Ubu Roi for San Francisco Theater Pub and the upcoming world-premiere of Susan Sobeloff’s Merchants for No Nude Men. His first full length play, Hermes, premièred in San Francisco last fall. Two more of his full-length plays – Devil of a Time and Don’t Be Evil – are slated for full production in 2011-2012. His various short plays have been performed in New York, Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, and New London. He is an associate artist with AtmosTheatre and Threshold Theatre, a founding director of the San Francisco Theater Pub, and the artistic director of the Flying Island Theatre Lab, in residence at the Palo Alto Art Center. He teaches playwriting at the Nueva School and Crystal Springs Uplands School.

Sean Garahan is a recent San Francisco transplant from Boston where he received a BA in Theatre from Emerson College. Working in all aspects of theatre from technical work at Cal Performances in Berkeley, to House Management back in Boston, to his true passions of acting and teaching - he has covered much of the theatre spectrum. With professional credits with companies like the Actor's Shakespeare Project and Centastage, he is thrilled to be working with the prestigious San Francisco Shakespeare Festival. A theatre lover all his life, Sean feels a particular affinity for Shakespeare, his words, characters, and the magical tales he weaves.

Silvia Girardi is an Italian performer and director based in San Francisco since 2005. She received her M.F.A in acting at the Academy of Dramatic Arts Paolo Grassi Piccolo Teatro in Milan in '98 and trained in the European tradition of Grotowski, Barba, Lecoq. With more than 15 years of stage experience, directing and teaching in Italy and United States, she is currently collaborating with international artists on the production of original multi-disciplinary performances.
In San Francisco she has appeared at Exit Theatre, Foolsfury Theatre, The Garage, Kunst-Stoff Arts, MoAD, Ragged Winged Ensemble, SFMOMA, Shotwell Studios, TJT, ODC, Women On The Way Festival, Berkeley Playhouse, Marin Shakespeare Theatre. www.silviagirardiacting.info

Carl Holvick-Thomas is proud to be a Resident Teaching Artist with SF Shakes.  He played the title role in Shakespeare On Tour's production of Hamlet and is featured in the 2011 Free Shakespeare in the Park production of Cymbeline. Carl has worked with Pacific Repertory Theater where he acted in Eurydice, Country Wife, and Twelfth Night. Carl also appeared in On the Waterfront and Rock N' Roll at San Jose Stage Co. Other credits include: Glass Menagerie at Pear Ave Theater; Julius Caesar at Marin Shakespeare; and Skylight at Shotgun Players. Carl graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in Theater and Performance Studies and has taught theater for Marin Shakespeare and Dance For All in Cape Town, South Africa.

Emily Jordan, born and raised in the south of England, has been a feature of the San Francisco theatre scene for several years. She is happy to be returning for her seventh summer teaching at Bay Area Shakespeare camps.  During the school year spends her days teaching drama as therapy at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, working as a dialect coach, and, as a voiceover actor, lending her voice to several video game villains.  A member of Actor’s Equity, Emily has appeared with San Francisco Shakespeare Festival in their Free Shakespeare in the Park productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Titania), Pericles (Thaisa/Diana), and Two Gentlemen of Verona (Silvia). This summer (2011) she will be in the park performing the role of Innogen in Cymbeline. Other Northern California Shakespeare credits include As You Like It (Rosalind) Henry VI, Parts 1-3, Richard III (Margaret), Taming of the Shrew (Kate), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Helena), Twelfth Night (Maria), Othello (Bianca), Hamlet, (Guildenstern/Gravedigger,) Troilus & Cressida (Andromache) and the title role in Richard III with Woman’s Will, the Bay Area’s all-female Shakespeare company. 

Becky Kemperis an actor, director, scholar and teacher enjoying her 2nd season with San Francisco Shakespeare Festival as Director of Training and Outreach.  Prior to moving to the Bay Area, she served as the Producing Artistic Director of the Maryland Shakespeare Festival, an equity theater company she founded in 1999.  She holds a BFA from NYU, an MLITT in Shakespeare & Renaissance Literature, and an MFA in Directing from the American Shakespeare Center. She is a classical text teacher at Shakespeare & Co. in Lennox, MA, and has begun training as a Linklater Voice teacher.  She has served as the Artistic Director of the Metawhateverphor Theater in NYC, the Director of Education for Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, and the chair of the Artistic Council for the Shakespeare Theater Association.  She has presented her research into Shakespeare’s dramatic use of rhetoric at numerous national conferences and theatrical workshops across the country, as well as having her scholarship published in the online journal, Shakespeare Criticism.  

Anne Yumi Kobori majors in Theatre/Women's Studies at Sarah Lawrence College. She has performed with Naked Shakespeare Women's Co, Sarah Lawrence Mainstage, and Stagebridge, and is currently in rehearsal for A Midsummer Night's Dream with Women's Will. Favorite roles include Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, Stevie in The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?, and Helga in Cabaret. She has worked as a senior assistant with Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Summer Seminar, and as a director with the Greenwood Players student Shakespeare company. Miss Kobori attended the Bay Area Shakespeare Camps in her youth, and is thrilled to be returning as a teaching artist. 

Stephen Muterspaugh is excited to be making his debut teaching for Bay Area Shakespeare Camp this Summer. He recently relocated to the Bay Area after working regionally with such companies as Utah Shakespearean Festival, Southwest Shakespeare Company, and Geva Theater Centre. Stephen is thrilled to be a part of introducing and furthering the Shakespeare education of the young people of the Bay Area. He is a graduate of PCPA Theaterfest and a proud member of Actor's Equity.

Alariza Nevarez is thrilled about her first summer with SF Shakes! From San Francisco State University, she received her BA in Theatre Arts, emphasis in Performance and her Preliminary California Teaching Credential. Just this last May, Alariza completed her BTSA with New Teacher Project and now has a full teaching credential (no more "preliminary"!) Last summer, Alariza also completed American Conservatory Theater's intensive Summer Training Congress and worked with known Bay Area theatre gurus, such as Domenique Lozano and Gregory Wallace. If you ever get a chance to do STC, then DO IT; it is so worth it! When she isn't acting or directing, Alariza, also known as Miss Nevarez, teaches Drama, Theatre Tech, and Advises 10th graders at University Preparatory Academy in San Jose. 

Amy Prosser has performed with the Denver Center, Caldwell, and Sacramento Theatre Companies, Hamptons Shakespeare Festival, Geva Theatre Center, PCPA Theaterfest, TheatreWorks, Capital Stage, and Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Favorite roles include Becca in Rabbit Hole, Isabel in My Children! My Africa!, Nina in The Seagull, Prossy in Candida, Rosalind in As You Like It, Emilia in Othello, Isabella in Measure For Measure, and Catherine Sloper in The heiress (Best Actress Carbonell Award nomination). Amy was Hamptons Shakespeare Festival's education director for four years and a teaching artist for Symphony Space and BAM. She has an MFA from the National Theatre Conservatory.

Jonathan Shue is excited to be teaching for Bay Area Shakespeare Camps for the fourth summer in a row! A Bay Area native, he is an actor and musician. He has worked with TheatreWorks, San Jose Rep, The Pear Avenue Theatre, New Conservatory Theatre Center and California Theatre Center. Some favorite roles include Cornelius in The Matchmaker and Algernon in The Importance of Being Earnest (CTC), Scripps in The History Boys (NCTC), and Chester in A Civil War Christmas (TheatreWorks). He earned his B.A. in Theatre from UCLA. More about Jonathan at www.jonathanshue.com