Director

Rebecca J. Ennals oversees the Shakespeare Festival’s education programs and serves as the casting director. She has directed at numerous theatre companies throughout the Bay Area, including Shakespeare on Tour (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and The Comedy of Errors), the Napa Valley Shakespeare Festival (Hamlet, The Comedy of Errors, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Richard III, The Real Inspector Hound), the Napa Valley Repertory Theatre (The Woman in Black, On the Verge), and the Pear Ave. Theatre (Show and Tell, Approaching Zanzibar, The Psychic Life of Savages, Tales of the Lost Formicans). She holds a BA in Theatre and English literature from Scripps College and an MFA in Performance from U.C. Davis. She loves working with youth and children and believes that Shakespeare’s stories can enthrall and unite people of all ages and backgrounds.

Music & Design

Julie Kurtz (Music Director) originally from the Seattle area, has been a working actor and teaching artist in the Bay Area since 2006. She was most recently seen in the title role of Crowded Fire Theater’s critically acclaimed production of Anna Bella Eema. She has performed with the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, 42nd Street Moon, Berkeley Playhouse. Her radio (podcast) improv and comedy work can be heard at RadiostarNetwork.com. Julie teaches music, acting, and Shakespeare in San Francisco. She trained at San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theatre and Whitworth University.

Randall Lancaster (Composer) is a Singer-Songwriter, Shakespearean Actor, and English Teacher from Nashville, Tennessee. Randall has worked as a professional actor for the Nashville Shakespeare Festival for the last several years, and he also conducts text workshops for the NSF's Apprentice Company. In addition, he has composed music and acted for the Altanta Shakespeare Tavern in Atlanta, Georgia. He has garnered Best Actor honors from The Tennessean for his portrayal of Brutus in Act I's production of Julius Caesar in 2003; from Circle Players for his role as Benedick in their 2003 production of Much Ado About Nothing; and also from The Northern Virginia One-Act Play Festival for playing both Stephen and Barney in Michael Frayn's, Chinamen in 1989. He also teaches Shakespeare classes at Father Ryan High School in Nashville, Tennessee, where he is English Department Chair. When he is not promoting Shakespeare on stage or in the classroom, Randall performs solo as a singer-songwriter at various Nashville venues. He also plays guitar and sings for the alternative rock band, BULB. Some may remember Randall from the early '90's as a front man for Atlanta's alternative-rock band, Morgan's Steep. If you would like to contact Randall about bookings, music, or just to say hi, you may reach him at merrywar@hotmail.com.

Serina Serjama (Set Designer) has created the visual artistry on stages for many companies in the Bay Area, Santa Barbara, Montana and Washington for about 10 years. She studied the Fine Arts independently in Europe & Asia for eight years and worked successfully as a muralist and freelance artist in Portland. The sets she created have won numerous awards, and her skills in Trompe l'Oeil have had seasoned directors and critics fooled, thinking that drops were 3D, backlit canvases were projections, or that wood-floors or marble were real materials (Sound of Music, Contra Costa Community Theater; Our House, SFO Playhouse; Magic Flute, West Bay Opera;Romeo & Juliet, San Jose Opera). She is currently working on projects throughout the year for San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, San Jose Opera, Festival Opera and Santa Barbara Opera, as well as private commissions and murals all over the west coast.

Katy Rose Simola (Costume Designer) is pleased to be designing and building her first show with SF Shakes. Her work has been seen on stages in San Francisco, the East Bay, Santa Maria, CA and New York City. Recent designs include: Steven Sondheim’s Assassins, I have Loved Strangers, and David Mamet’s The Water Engine. Her draping/construction skills have been displayed in recent Cal Shakes productions of The Triumph of Love and King Lear. Katy Rose holds an MFA from the Academy of Art University.

Pat Smith (Studio Musician-guitar) has performed coast to coast playing in many styles. He started the Penguin Jazz Quartet in 1994 which soon added Pianist Bill Walker. Pat and Bill have been making music together ever since. With a music degree from Iowa's Cornell College. Pat has composed music for several groups including the acclaimed Red Cedar Chamber group.

Bill Walker (Composer/Arranger/ Studio Musician-keyboards) holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Bill's resume includes stints at Apple Computer's Advanced Technology Group, Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), and Reactivity, Inc., a cutting-edge start-up. Bill is also a Research Scientist at San Jose State University's Center for Research in Electro-Acoustic Music (CREAM), where he is engaged in ongoing interactive music system research with Dr. Brian Belet. In 1994, he moved to Northern California, where he met guitarist Pat Smith, with whom he has made music for the past ten years. In 1996, Bill joined Pat in the critically acclaimed Penguin Jazz Quartet, whose recordings received significant airplay.