By Arthur Miller
February 27 – March 29, 2026 2025/2026 Season
Directed By
Melia Bensussen
From the Managing Director
Productions like Death of a Salesman remind us why theater matters—and why community matters just as much. This play endures because it asks timeless questions about ambition, dignity, family, and belonging. Bringing it to life at this scale, at this theater, is only possible because of the extraordinary commitment of our subscribers.
From the very beginning, regional theaters were built on the commitment of subscribers. Hartford Stage was founded as part of the American regional theater movement—a bold idea that emerged in the mid-20th century with a simple but radical belief: great theater should live in all communities, and it could be sustained by audiences who believe in its value. At the heart of that vision was the subscription model.
Long before the lights go up, long before a cast is assembled, subscribers make the first and most essential investment. That early vote of confidence is what allows us to plan seasons, rehearse with care, and take creative risks. Simply put, the more subscribers we have—the more we can do on this stage.
As we announce our next season, you’ll be hearing from us about subscribing—renewing, or joining for the first time. Subscribing is not just the best way to secure your favorite seats at the best price; it is a meaningful act of stewardship for the future of this art form. And if this play is your first visit, know that you can join our subscriber family at any time—we would be thrilled to welcome you.
With gratitude,
Cynthia Rider Managing Director
MELIA BENSUSSEN
Artistic
Director
RIDER Managing Director
PRESENTS
By Arthur Miller
Directed
by Melia
Scenic Design
Costume Design
Lighting Design
Sound Design
Wig, Hair & Make-up Design
Fight Director
Dialect & Voice Coach
Casting
Production Stage Manager
Assistant Stage Manager
Associate Artistic Director
Director of Production
General Manager
Bensussen
Sara Brown
Harry Nadal
Matthew Richards
Darron L West
J. Jared Janas
Ted Hewlett
Julie Foh
Alldaffer & Donadio Casting
Nicole Wiegert
Julius Cruz
Zoë Golub-Sass
Bryan T. Holcombe
Emily Van Scoy
Death of a Salesman is presented by special arrangement with Broadway Licensing, LLC, servicing the Dramatists Play Service imprint. (www.dramatists.com)
The videotaping or making of electronic or other audio and/or visual recordings of this production and distributing recordings or streams in any medium, including the internet, is strictly prohibited, a violation of the author(s)’s rights and actionable under United States copyright law. This production is supported in part by a Grant
SEASON SPONSORS
EXECUTIVE PRODUCTION SPONSORS
The John & Kelly Hartman Foundation
PRODUCTION SPONSORS
Wesley & Chloe Horton | Sally Speer
STUDENT MATINEE SPONSOR
POST-SHOW DISCUSSION SPONSOR
The Company
Bernard ....................................................................................................
Stephen Cefalu, Jr.
Uncle Ben Michael Cullen
The Woman / Letta Nora Eschenheimer
Charley ................................................................................................................ Mike Houston
Willy Loman ..................................................................................................
Peter Jacobson
Happy ............................................................................................................................Max Katz
Linda Adrianne Krstansky
Biff Samuel H. Levine
Jenny / Miss Forsythe .......................................................................
Rebecca Strimaitis
Howard Wagner / Stanley ........................................................................... Patrick Zeller
SETTING: Late 1940s Brooklyn and various places and times in Willy Loman’s mind.
THIS PERFORMANCE WILL HAVE ONE INTERMISSION.
Stephen Cefalu, Jr.
Peter Jacobson
Michael Cullen
Max Katz
Rebecca Strimaitis
Nora Eschenheimer
Adrianne Krstansky
Patrick Zeller
Mike Houston
Samuel H. Levine
Additional Production Support
Assistant Director Alison Fischer Greene
Associate Scenic Designer Daniel Prosky
Assistant Costume Designer ................................................................Matthew Eggers
Assistant Lighting Designer...................................................... Amara Payton McNeil
Associate Sound Designer ........................................................................Lucas Clopton
Associate Wig Designer Tony Lauro
Intimacy Coordinator Ted Hewlett
Production Assistant................................................................................. Alyssa Edwards
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.
The Scenic, Costume, Lighting, and Sound Designers in LORT theatres are represented by United Scenic Artists Local USA 829 of the IATSE.
The Director is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, an independent national labor union.
This Theatre operates under an agreement between the League of Resident Theatres and Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
From Director Melia Bensussen
Arthur Miller knew the two opening lines of his next play before he knew how the work would evolve: “Willy?”, and “It’s all right, I came back.”
From this beginning would emerge the now iconic work that is Death of a Salesman. When I began preparing to direct this play, I was struck by Miller’s initial thoughts when writing, as well as one of his original stage directions, which Elia Kazan, the play’s original director, mentions in his memoirs:
“The stage direction in the original manuscript that Art [Arthur Miller] gave me to read directly after he’d finished it does not mention a home as a scenic element. It reads, ‘A pinpoint travelling spot lights a small area on stage left. The Salesman is revealed. He takes out his keys and opens an invisible door.’”
Miller’s original title was The Inside of His Head, and he imagined the entire set looking like a man’s skull, illuminating Willy’s mind, his memories, his losses. We witness how he feels his life unraveling, his own self discarded, and his great fear that he is leaving nothing of meaning or substance behind.
This journey of loss Willy experiences is made all the more painful because of his deep sense of rootlessness. We know from Miller that the Loman’s Jewishness was a part of this equation:
“As Jews light-years away from religion, or a community that might have fostered Jewish identity, the Lomans exist in a spot that probably most Americans feel they inhabit—on the sidewalk side of the glass looking in at a well-lighted place...”
As you get to know Willy, listen for this sense of alienation that he feels. His missing of his own family history and not knowing his father leads him to a kind of personal mythmaking, weaving together his fantasies along with his realities until he doesn’t know where one ends and the other begins.
For me, this aspect of the play and of Willy’s character became a core tenant of the production; how we mistake our imagination for our
memory, how our past merges with our present, and how the narratives we tell ourselves become truer than the facts they are loosely based on. The novelist Lorrie Moore put this more succinctly: “Time is linear only out of convenience, not as a result of perception.”
Willy’s perception is also heavily influenced by his reading of the American Success story, which warps his thinking, his parenting, his life. He never feels he is enough; he needs to become a Big Shot, “A man has to add up to something,” he says over and over. In the end, this need to be bigger than average, to be a Leader of Men, leads in part to his ruin.
When Salesman first opened on Broadway, this fall to ruin was discussed, in the context of how tragedies required a greatness in the hero for the audience to appreciate his collapse. Here is where Miller brilliantly captures this falsehood; Linda Loman says, “A small man can be just as exhausted as a great man.”
Today, as a Jewish woman with immigrant ancestors on every side, as a daughter who has watched parents struggle with the “American Dream,” and as a mother who hears the next generation sound not unlike Biff in their disillusionment, the play feels as alive to me now as if it had been written yesterday, and not over 70 years ago.
This production focuses on this relevance, the core emotional story of father and son, husband and wife, at the heart of the play. Years after Salesman premiered, Miller wrote:
“Being human—a father, mother, son—is something most of us fail at most of the time, and a little mercy is eminently in order given the societies we live in, which purport to be stable and sound as mountains when in fact they are all trembling in a fast wind blowing mindlessly around the earth.”
And so indeed, attention should be paid to how we love, and care, and what stories we tell ourselves about our own lives.
Melia Bensussen in rehearsal for Death of a Salesman
Photo by Lucas Clopton.
Coming up with a Fiction: A Conversation with Sound Designer and Composer Darron L West
By Zoë Golub-Sass
Darron L West
Zoë Golub-Sass: How did you get into sound design? What’s your sound origin story?
Darron L West: I originally went to college to study sound for animation. I was in the broadcasting department at Western Kentucky University, and I got asked to do the sound design for a play called Foxfire It needed to have a studio recording of a song and I was basically the only guy who knew how all the gear worked at college, so I became a theater minor and by the time I graduated, I’d already designed 20-something productions. So the career definitely found me rather than I went searching for it.
ZGS: How is sound design for animation different than sound design for theater?
DLW: It’s all very, very similar. It’s coming up with a fiction that supports whatever the action is, whether it’s an actor or whether it’s a cartoon animal or whether it’s a documentary film. The principles of what I do don’t really change from discipline to discipline.
ZGS: I love that. The “coming up with a fiction that supports the action.”
DLW: That’s how I come at it. I’m a designer who does a ton of research going into a project, I mean a ton of research. And I’ll come up with maybe four or five different ways to design the production. And then the show is a little bit like a block of marble. You just start chipping away at it and if you’re attentive it will reveal what it wants to be, which is why I spend a lot of time in rehearsal. To put myself in the hot seat at the same time as the actors and develop the ideas of the design while we’re rehearsing the play.
ZGS: In Death of a Salesman, you’re balancing the past and the present. How are you approaching the separation and the merging of these worlds?
DLW: I divide it all up into “Oh, this is possibly diegetic sound in the scene. Somebody runs through, we hear a dog bark and a police whistle,” that’s actually real in the moment. And then there’s this layer of—I don’t call them flashbacks, I just call them Willy’s memory moments, and the scoring of all of those moments in the piece.
Usually, I would want to put a musical frame around the entire play, but I’m not doing that with this one. The soundscape is really all coming out of Willy’s state because I took, quite literally, that Miller’s original idea for the title of the play was The Inside of His Head. So I’m coming at it from that perspective most of the time, thinking about what Willy’s hearing in his head and what are the textures of that? And then you have to ask: Is this scene in present time? Is this in flashback? And then plot through how you can lead the audience from one moment to the other. It could be the trigger of an elevator bell, it could be the sound of a woman’s laugh. There are some triggers Miller has written into the play already that you have to mine out of it as you work through it.
“Repetition creates history for the audience; they hear something in Act One and when it returns later to be recognized by the audience again you’ve made history for them.”
Repetition is also big in the design. Using really colloquial sounds and letting the play redefine the meaning of them from moment to moment. Repetition creates history for the audience; they hear something in Act One and when it returns later to be recognized by the audience again you’ve made history for them. They recognize for instance in Act Two that this is a return of the same woman or the same situation as we saw in Act One. I like to think a good design creates a ribbon for the audience to hold onto, that pulls them through the event.
ZGS: I know the creative team is thinking a lot about the original title— The Inside of His Head. Can you talk more about the concept for this production and how that’s playing out in your design?
DLW: The first thing I thought was: I didn’t want Willy’s musical world to be emotive. It’s been done a thousand times for this play, and I wanted to get away from that. I didn’t want to spoonfeed the audience what he was feeling. I wanted the audience to have the same question as some of the characters in the play as to what is going on. Charley has that line, “What’s going on in your head, Willy?” I remember bracketing that line in my script during the first read thru, thinking this is a really, really important line. Also in the first read through, I noticed how many times Willy talks about people laughing at him and how he’s haunted and embarrassed by that. So, I knew laughter was something that was going to be part of the design and that it could be used as a bridge from one time period to another.
ZGS: That’s a great way to get the audience in on the questions of the play, that we’re not supposed to be completely inside Willy’s emotions. But rather that we’re with him—and we’re part of this group of people trying to understand what’s going on with him.
DLW: Right. And you have to create a cool distance for the audience to be able to see him unravel as the show progresses. The thing that’s interesting to me about Willy is how he can’t see the forest for the trees, with regard to himself.
There’s an innocence that you have to make sure you allow for the audience when they’re watching it. No one is lying in this play at any moment. Everyone is telling the truth. They all have different perspectives on the same event, in most cases. So you can’t score it cinematically in a way that says, “Oh, this is what you should feel in this sequence.” It’s just too dangerous to do.
Darron L West in rehearsal.
ZGS: Right. You’ll pick a side. You’re using a lot of deconstructed piano music in the design. How did you land on piano as your instrument?
DLW: I felt like it wanted to be something that was percussive that gave you a flexibility of melody or not. You can do a lot of different things with a piano that you can’t do with, say, a guitar. It just means something different. I like the weight of the piano. It feels like it’s a parlor instrument that would’ve existed in the Loman household, or households around that neighborhood at the time.
The soundscape is constantly moving in and out of time, so storytellingwise, with Linda’s music or Willy’s music—any of that internal scoring —has to be diametrically opposite to what music you need going to the football game for instance. The design is doing some heavy lifting to make sure the audience understands the rules of the event.
ZGS: How would you describe the genre of the play? Arthur Miller talks about the play as a tragedy of the common man—but it was somewhat subversive to posit the common man as a tragic hero of a drama.
DLW: Well, there’s something “everyman” about Willy. It’s really a pretty straight play, but it has these flights of fancy. I don’t think there’s much of a difference between this play and Jose Rivera’s Marisol or Sarah Ruhl’s plays—they’re magical realism. It feels familiar to me. That was the era that I came up in, that late postmodern work. Salesman feels like a postmodern play to me.
ZGS: How do you approach building such an expansive world for an audience?
DLW: Every time I work in a rehearsal hall, I have this artistic and creative mindset, but I’m really watching it as an audience member. I’m looking to figure out where meaning needs to be for an audience, to take them to this place or that place, or underscore this emotional moment. I’m thinking about the audience a lot when I’m working and how things are going to be received. I’m not beholden to an audience by any stretch of the imagination, but I do think about them and their journey a lot.
I think you have to make what you feel is good work, and work you enjoy. And hopefully other people will enjoy it as well. It sounds simplistic, but it’s a lot harder to do than we think it is.
ZGS: That’s why we rehearse. To be clear on the story we’re telling and to invite the audience into the fiction. To enter in and be inside it.
DLW: Absolutely. It’s a special art form the theater, it gives us a chance to sit together in the dark and breathe with one another. It’s a little like going to church.
TAPROOM & KITCHEN
manchester | hartford
About the Artists
Stephen Cefalu, Jr. | Bernard
Hartford Stage: Debut. National Tour: To Kill a Mockingbird (w/ Richard Thomas). Selected Regional: World Premiere of Data (Arena Stage); The Cherry Orchard (Goodman Theatre; Jeff Award Best Play); World Premiere of Tracy Letts’ Mary Page Marlowe (w/ Carrie Coon) (Steppenwolf Theatre Company); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Redtwist Theatre, Jeff Nomination: Best Supporting Actor); End Days (Windy City Playhouse); Assassins, Twelfth Night (Yale Repertory Theatre); In A Word, Damsels, Brotherhood (Williamstown Theatre Festival); The Gradient (Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Theatre Circle Award Nomination: Outstanding Performer); Slave Play (Original Cast at Yale Drama). Television: Shameless, Law & Order: SVU, Evil. Education: MFA Acting, Yale School of Drama.
Michael Cullen | Uncle Ben
Hartford Stage: Debut. Broadway: Bus Stop. Off-Broadway: Orpheus Descending, King Liz, Finks, Bug, Cobb, One Shot, One Kill, The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Exit Strategy. Regional: Reservoir (Berkeley Rep); Agnes Under the Bigtop (Long Wharf Theatre); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Frankfurt, Germany); Hard Weather Boating Party (Humana Festival). Film: The Bride, The Place Beyond the Pines, Margot at the Wedding, Dead Man Walking, Clockers, Malcolm X, and the Coen Bros. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Television: Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order: SVU, Flesh and Bone, The Black List, Claws, New Amsterdam, FBI, Bluebloods.
Nora Eschenheimer | The Woman / Letta
Hartford Stage: Debut. Regional: Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Bad Jews, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Lie Agreed Upon, As You Like It, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Winter’s Tale (Gamm Theatre); A Christmas Carol (Trinity Repertory Company); As You Like It, The Tempest, Cymbeline (Commonwealth Shakespeare Company); The Play That Goes Wrong (Lyric Stage Company of Boston); Inherit the Wind (Ocean State Theatre Company); Love’s Labour’s Lost (Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles). Education: BFA, University of Rhode Island. Personal: Nora is from Newport, R.I., and is a licensed boat captain and lighthouse keeper. noraeschenheimer.com | @noraeschenheimer
About the Artists
Mike Houston | Charley
Hartford Stage: Debut. Regional: The Outsider (Paper Mill Playhouse); Last Gas (Portland Stage Company; World Premiere); Miss Saigon (Worcester Foothills Theater). Film: These Little Ones Perish (2026), She Said, Bury Me When I’m Dead, Horizon: An American Saga, Deliver Us from Evil. Television: Orange is the New Black, Boardwalk Empire, Sneaky Pete, The Blacklist, Law & Order, Chicago Med, Jessica Jones, Blue Bloods. Education: William Esper Studio; BA Political Science, University of Colorado-Boulder. Personal: Much love & thanks to my reps at Artists & Representatives, my incredible manager Liz Rosier & finally my wife Jenny & my pop-in-law Bob, without whom this would not have been possible.
Peter Jacobson | Willy Loman
Hartford Stage: Debut. Off-Broadway: Picasso at Lapin Agile, Compleat Wrks of Wllm Shkspr (abridged), Four Dogs and a Bone, Waiting For Lefty, The Taming of the Shrew (NYSF), The Comedy of Errors (NYSF), Love’s Labour’s Lost (TFANA), Water Engine (Atlantic), Once in a Lifetime (Atlantic), Rhinoceros, June Moon (Drama Dept.). Regional: A Play is a Poem (Mark Taper Forum); Threepenny Opera (Williamstown Theatre Festival); Othello, The Winter’s Tale, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Love’s Labour’s Lost (Shakespeare Santa Cruz). Television: House, Colony, High Potential, Ahsoka, The Americans, Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Ray Donovan, Fear the Walking Dead, Law & Order/SVU, NCIS: LA. Film: Smile 2, Fly Me to the Moon, Cars 2, Good Night and Good Luck. Education: Brown University, Juilliard.
Max Katz | Happy
Hartford Stage: Debut. Theater: Try/Step/Trip (Under The Radar; A.R.T./ NY Theatres); Beyond Ken Dryden (Urban Stages; Soulpepper Toronto; Montréal Fringe); The Rope Play (HERE Arts); Hamlet (Radiohole; Art House Productions); Hell Dialogues (Sheen Center); An Infinite Ache (The NuBox); War Stories (The Tank). Film: The Thursday Night Club, Mama Duke. Television: The Food That Built America, New York Homicide. Education: MA, Drama Centre London/Boris Shchukin Institute Moscow; BA, McGill University. Personal: In memory of my grandfather Herbert Katz, Brooklyn born and bred, Ebbets Field regular. maxkatz.xyz
About the Artists
Adrianne Krstansky | Linda
Hartford Stage: The Art of Burning. Off-Broadway: 365 Plays/365 Days, Luck, Pluck and Virtue. Regional: Leopoldstadt (Shakespeare Theater, DC); Leopoldstadt, The Art of Burning, Doll’s House, Come Back Little Sheba (The Huntington, Elliot Norton Award - Outstanding Actress, Ensemble, and Production); Paradise Lost, Britannicus, Ubu Rock (American Repertory Theater); A Clockwork Orange, Twelfth Night (Steppenwolf Theater); Glass Menagerie; Vanya, Sonia, Masha and Spike; New Electric Ballroom (Gloucester Stage); People, Places and Things; Every Brilliant Thing; Tribes (Speakeasy Stage); Tribes (The Kitchen); Danny and the Deep Blue Sea (Vineyard Playhouse). Film: American Woman, Little Women, Company Men. Television: Olive Kitteridge, Invitation to a Bonfire. Education: MFA University of California, San Diego. Professional Positions: Professor of Theater Arts at Brandeis University.
Samuel H. Levine | Biff
Hartford Stage: Debut. Broadway: The Inheritance (Tony Award for Best Play). Off-Broadway: Jonah (Roundabout); Kill Floor (LCT3). West End: The Inheritance. Regional: A Guide for the Homesick (The Huntington). Television: Elementary, Bull, Evil. Film: A House of Dynamite (Dir. Kathryn Bigelow), Minyan (Dir. Eric Steel), She Came to Me (Dir. Rebecca Miller), This Time for Real (Dir. Zachary Zamsky).
Rebecca Strimaitis | Jenny / Miss Forsythe
Hartford Stage: Debut. Broadway: The Visit in concert. Off-Off Broadway: Co-created/performed as Olga in TaRaRaBoom: A Three Sisters Mishmash (CRASH Theater Co., Robert Moss, Access and NYTW Fourth St. Theaters). Regional: A.R.T., Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, Westport Country Playhouse, and Goodspeed Musicals. Education: MFA American Repertory Theater/MXAT at Harvard University. Professional Positions: Cofounder and co-artistic director of CRASH Theater Co. (crashtheater. com). Personal: Favorite role: Mom to Lilac and Milo. Special thanks to Zoë and Melia for this opportunity. Neverending love and thanks to my parents and husband. rebeccastrimaitis.com
Patrick Zeller | Howard Wagner / Stanley
Hartford Stage: Debut. Regional: Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Schoolhouse Theatre); Lost in Yonkers (Palm Beach Dramaworks); The American Plan, Othello, The Winter’s Tale, The Comedy of Errors, Twelfth Night, Two Gentlemen of Verona (Old Globe Theatre); Anna Karenina (Denver Center Theatre Co.); Venus in Fur (Coachella Valley Rep); The Mysteries (Shakespeare & Company); You Can’t Take it with You, Inherit the Wind, A Streetcar Named Desire (Northern Stage); As Bees in Honey Drown, The Violet Hour (Stoneham Theatre); The Last Schwartz (Florida Studio Theatre). Film: Say Yes, Baby Steps, Founder’s Day, Just One More Kiss, Virgin Alexander. Television: General Hospital, FBI, Law & Order, Kidnapped, Medium, Six Degrees. Education: MFA Old Globe/USD.
About the Artists
Arthur Miller | Playwright
Arthur Miller was born in New York City and studied at the University of Michigan. 2015 marked the centenary of his birth. His plays include The Man Who Had All the Luck (1944), All My Sons (1947), Death of A Salesman (1949), The Crucible (1953), A View From the Bridge and A Memory of Two Mondays (1955), After the Fall (1964), Incident at Vichy (1964), The Price (1968), The Creation of the World and Other Business (1972), The Archbishop’s Ceiling (1977), The American Clock (1980), and Playing For Time (1980). Later plays include The Ride Down Mt. Morgan (1991), The Last Yankee (1993), Broken Glass (1994), Mr. Peters’ Connections (1998), Resurrection Blues (2002) and Finishing the Picture (2004). Among other honors, he received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1949 for Death of a Salesman
Melia Bensussen | Director / Artistic Director of Hartford Stage
Melia Bensussen is an award-winning director and artistic leader who has directed extensively at leading theaters throughout the country. The first woman to lead Hartford Stage, she has been its Artistic Director since the summer of 2019. Devoted to new work as well as to classic texts, she was appointed Artistic Director of the National Playwrights Conference at the O’Neill Theater Center in 2024. Raised in Mexico City, Bensussen is fluent in Spanish and has translated and adapted a variety of texts, including her edition of the Langston Hughes translation of Federico Garcia Lorca’s Blood Wedding, published by Theater Communications Group. Among her credits developing and premiering new works, she co-conceived and directed, alongside playwright Kirsten Greenidge, the theatrical adaptation of Anthony J. Lukas’ Pulitzer Prize-winning Common Ground, which premiered at The Huntington in Boston. A graduate of Brown University, Bensussen serves on the Arts Advisory Board for the Princess Grace Foundation, and on the executive board of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC). Prior to her position at Hartford Stage, she was Chair of the Performing Arts Department of Emerson College in Boston. She is the recipient of an OBIE Award for Outstanding Direction, as well as the Statue Award from the Princess Grace Foundation for Excellence in Directing.
About the Artists
Sara Brown | Scenic Design
Hartford Stage: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Pride and Prejudice. Off-Broadway: Hagoromo, A House in Bali (Brooklyn Academy of Music). Off-Off Broadway: World of Wires (The Kitchen); Der Freischütz (Heartbeat Opera); The Mother of Us All (MetLiveArts). Regional: Bluebeard’s Castle | Four Songs (Boston Lyric Opera); The Lehman Trilogy, Common Ground: Revisited (The Huntington); The Lily’s Revenge (American Repertory Theater); Fellow Travelers, La Rondine (Minnesota Opera); Prince of Providence, Appropriate, The Inferior Sex (Trinity Repertory Company). Dance: The Day (Jacob’s Pillow); Always Now: The Other Shore (On The Boards). Education: MFA, University of Virginia. Professional Positions: Associate Professor, MIT Music and Theater. sarabdesign.com
Harry Nadal | Costume Design
Hartford Stage: Laughs in Spanish. New York: Lincoln Center Institute, Atlantic Theater Company, Brooklyn Academy of Music, WP Theater, LAByrinth Theater Company, Pregones/PRTT, The Juilliard School and INTAR, among others. Regional: Arena Stage, TheaterWorks Hartford, Seattle Opera, Baltimore Center Stage, Chicago Opera Theater, George Street Playhouse. Des Moines Metro Opera, ZACH Theatre, Geva Theatre, Fulton Theatre, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Florida Studio Theatre, Boise Contemporary Theater and People’s Light, among many. Professional Positions: Faculty member at Pratt Institute. Education: MFA, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU. harrynadal.com
Matthew Richards | Lighting Design
Hartford Stage: Cry It Out; The Engagement Party; A Lesson from Aloes; Heartbreak House; The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey; The Comedy of Errors; Romeo & Juliet (2016), Reverberation; Hamlet; Macbeth; La Dispute; Twelfth Night; Bell, Book & Candle. Broadway: Ann. Off-Broadway: Lincoln Center, MCC, Play Company, Playwrights Horizons, Rattlestick, Second Stage, Soho Rep, Theatre For A New Audience. Opera: Macbeth for LA Opera. Regional: Actors Theatre of Louisville, Arena Stage, Baltimore Center Stage, Cincinnati Playhouse, Cleveland Playhouse, Dallas Theater Center, Ford’s Theatre, The Geffen, Goodman Theatre, The Guthrie, The Huntington, La Jolla Playhouse, Long Wharf Theatre, The Old Globe, Shakespeare Theatre, TheaterWorks Hartford, Westport Country Playhouse, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Yale Repertory Theatre. Education: University of Massachusetts and Yale School of Drama.
About the Artists
Darron L West | Sound Design
Hartford Stage: Romeo & Juliet, Murder on the Orient Express, The Body of An American. Theater: He is a Tony and Obie Award-winning sound designer whose nearly 40-year career spans theater and dance, on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in regional theaters too numerous to list here. His work has been heard in over 700 productions all over the United States and internationally in 15 countries. Additional honors include the Drama Desk, Lortel, Audelco and Princess Grace Foundation Statue Award, among many others. Thirty year company member designing the productions of Anne Bogart’s SITI company.
J. Jared Janas | Wig, Hair & Make-Up Design
Hartford Stage: Two Trains Running; All My Sons; It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play; Ah, Wilderness!. Broadway: Bug; Punch; Dead Outlaw; John Proctor Is the Villain; Glengarry Glen Ross; Buena Vista Social Club; Our Town; Once Upon a Mattress; Mary Jane; Prayer for the French Republic; Purlie Victorious; Good Night, Oscar; Sweeney Todd…; Ohio State Murders; Jagged Little Pill; Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune; Gettin’ the Band Back Together; Bandstand; Indecent; Sunset Boulevard; The Visit; The Real Thing; Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill; Motown; Peter and the Starcatcher; The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess. Select OffBroadway: Masquerade, Sally & Tom (Drama Desk Nomination), Yours Unfaithfully (Drama Desk Nomination).
Ted Hewlett | Fight Director / Intimacy Coordinator
Hartford Stage: Rope; Romeo & Juliet; All My Sons; The Winter’s Tale; The Art of Burning; The Mousetrap; Ah, Wilderness!; Quixote Nuevo. Broadway: Shōgun Off-Broadway: Bill W. and Dr. Bob New York: Pan Asian Rep, Mettawee River Theatre, Lincoln Center Institute. Boston: The Huntington, A.R.T., SITI Company/ArtsEmerson, Merrimack Rep, Lyric Stage Company of Boston, SpeakEasy Stage, Actors’ Shakespeare Project, New Rep, Gloucester Stage, Boston Ballet, Boston Lyric Opera. Regional: Shakespeare & Company, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Elm Shakespeare, Kennedy Center, Syracuse Stage, Birmingham Theatre, Berkshire Theatre Festival. Film/Television: Hook, Army of Darkness, Brush Up Your Shakespeare Education: MFA in Acting, Brandeis University. Professional Positions: Faculty at Emerson College, Shakespeare & Company.
SPRING 2026 AUCTION
DREAM BIG. BID BIGGER.
Support Hartford Stage and treat yourself or a loved one to a unique experience, handcrafted item, local favorite, and more in our online auction!
Get a sneak peek in the Garmany Room located in the lobby.
Bidding opens March 6 with items closing on March 20 & 29.
About the Artists
Julie Foh | Dialect & Voice Coach
Hartford Stage: The Cottage, Hurricane Diane, Romeo & Juliet, All My Sons, The Winter’s Tale. Off-Broadway: Belfast Girls (Irish Rep). Regional: Dial M for Murder (Drury Lane Theatre); A View from the Bridge (Long Wharf Theatre); Spunk; falcon girls; Escaped Alone; the ripple, the wave that carried me home (Yale Repertory Theatre); Frankenstein, A Christmas Carol, Sense and Sensibility, As You Like It, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, The Caretaker (Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey); Mlima’s Tale (The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis & Westport Country Playhouse). Television: Cobra Kai. Education: MFA, American Repertory Theatre; BA, Duke University. Professional Positions: Associate Professor at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale.
Alldaffer & Donadio Casting | Casting
Hartford Stage: The Cottage; Rope; Hurricane Diane; Romeo & Juliet; August Wilson’s Two Trains Running; A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story of Christmas; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; All My Sons; Simona’s Search; Pride and Prejudice; Trouble in Mind; The Art of Burning; The Mousetrap; It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play; Ah, Wilderness!; Quixote Nuevo; Ether Dome. Broadway/Off-Broadway: Stereophonic (Broadway, OffBroadway, National Tour, UK), Downstate, Dance Nation, Circle Mirror Transformation, A Strange Loop, Clybourne Park, Grey Gardens, The Flick (Playwrights Horizons, Barrow Street Theatre), Classic Stage Company, Tent Theater. Regional: O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, The Huntington, TheaterWorks Hartford, Studio Theatre, Berkeley Rep, The Old Globe Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival. Television: The Knights of Prosperity, Ed, Monk. Podcasts: Marvel, Audible, Fresh Produce. Awards: Artios Award (Stereophonic, Downstate, Circle Mirror Transformation, Present Laughter); Drama Desk and Obie awards, Best Ensemble (Circle Mirror Transformation).
Nicole Wiegert | Production Stage Manager
Hartford Stage: Rope; Romeo & Juliet; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; All My Sons; Simona’s Search; The Winter’s Tale; Ah, Wilderness!; Pike St.; Detroit ’67; Henry V; A Lesson from Aloes; A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Regional: Goodspeed Musicals, TheaterWorks Hartford, Long Wharf Theatre, Connecticut Repertory Theatre, Chester Theater, Kansas City Rep, Mountain Playhouse, Ivoryton Playhouse, Theater by the Sea, First Stage Milwaukee, Renaissance Theatreworks, Milwaukee Ballet, Milwaukee Public Theater, Milwaukee Chamber Theater. Television: House Hunters, Extreme Cheapskates, Biggest Loser. Personal: Love to LC, WW, CW & DC.
About the Artists
Julius Cruz | Assistant Stage Manager
Hartford Stage: Rope, Romeo & Juliet, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Simona’s Search Broadway: Dear Evan Hansen National Tours: Dear Evan Hansen Regional: El Coquí Espectacular and The Bottle of Doom (Long Wharf Theatre); A Chorus Line, The Sound of Music (Theater by the Sea); Zoey’s Perfect Wedding, Secondo, Fun Home, Christmas on the Rocks, Queen of Basel, Rembrandt, Clyde’s (TheaterWorks Hartford); The Sound of Music; You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown (Parallel 45). Personal: All my love to the Slays, Theys, & Gays.
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About Hartford Stage
For more than 60 years, Hartford Stage has played a leading role in its industry—producing world-class theater and serving as a civic space where community, creativity, and conversation thrive. Located in the heart of downtown Hartford, the theater is a place for all, where audiences are connected in shared experiences and invited to engage with high-quality, transformative theater.
The Tony Award-winning company is dedicated to telling entertaining and thought-provoking stories that reflect the diversity of the Greater Hartford Region, whether reinventing the classics or premiering new work. The theater’s rich legacy includes plays and musicals that have made their way to Broadway, Off-Broadway, and stages around the globe, earning Tony Awards and Pulitzer Prizes along the way.
Hartford Stage’s impact extends beyond the stage, through robust education programs—including in-school programs, student matinees, youth productions, and adult classes—nurturing creativity, building confidence, and ensuring that the performing arts remain accessible and essential for generations to come.
To learn more, visit HartfordStage.org.
Follow us @HartfordStage
Jordan Sobel and Mary Cavett in The Cottage (2026). Photo by T. Charles Erickson.
Our award-winning education programs provide students of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds with innovative opportunities that challenge and inspire. Using theater techniques, we build community, promote a passion for literacy and creative expression, and encourage life-long learning.
Adult & Youth Classes
All year, we have classes for youth and adults looking to develop, improve, and show off their performance skills.
Student Matinees
Students are invited to join us for daytime performances throughout the year. They get to see the show and participate in a post-show conversation with the cast and crew.
Connections
Connections is an in-school program that brings teaching artists into classrooms to explore a book through drama, strengthening comprehension skills and building excitement about reading.
After School Programs
Bring a Hartford Stage teaching artist to your after school program! Programs range from drama classes to full productions and are designed based on the needs of each individual school.
Board of Directors
Officers
Michael D. Nicastro
President
Elease Wright
Vice President
Devon Francis
Treasurer
Richard G. Costello
Secretary
Governing Directors
Douglas Adkins
Don Allan
Patti Broad
Jamie Hait Cohen
Brennden D. Colbert
Kate Collins
Mark G. Contreras
Alona Croteau
Alana Curren
John Doran
Marilda Lara Gándara
Rev. Darrell L. Goodwin
Emily Harrington
Rydell Harrison
Barnaby W. Horton
Very Rev. Miguelina Howell
Jackie B. Iacovazzi
Mersini G. Keller
Aaron Lyles
Kelly M. Lyman
Amy Leppo Mandell
Barri Marks
Marjorie E. Morrissey
Andy Pace
Sarah M. Patterson
Esther A. Pryor
Judith E. Thompson
William J. Thompson
Nicole Vitrano
Patty Willis
Yvette Yelardy
Stage One
Emerging Leaders
Kyle Abraham
Cordelia Brady
Kamille Cockings
Angel Cotto
Ryan Glista
Kentavis Goodwin-Brice
Brittnee Johnson-Colbert
Greidy Miralles
TJ Noel-Sullivan
Malia Peres, Co-Chair
Claire Stermer, Co-Chair
Maxwell R. Toth
Alia Walwyn-James
Life Directors
George L. Estes III
Arnold C. Greenberg+
Walter Harrison
Jeffrey S. Hoffman
George A. Ingram+
David M. Klein
Katherine Lambert
Roger S. Loeb+
Belle K. Ribicoff
Christina B. Ripple
Linda Fisher Silpe
Sherwood S. Willard
Honorary Directors
Marla J. Byrnes
Carrie Hammond
Barbara Hennessy
Nancy P. Hoffman
Robert A. Penney
Rosalie Roth
Allan B. Taylor
Rhonda J. Tobin
Emeritus Directors
Margaret B. Amstutz+
R. Kelley Bonn
Sara Marcy Cole
Susan J. Copeland
Susan G. Fisher
Judith C. Meyers
Past
Presidents
Jill Adams
Joel B. Alvord
Paul L. Bourdeau
David W. Clark Jr.+
Sue Ann Collins
Ellsworth Davis+
Elliot F. Gerson
Thomas J. Groark Jr.+
John W. Huntington+
Walter Harrison
David R. Jimenez
David M. Klein
Edward Lane-Reticker+
Janet Larsen+
Thomas D. Lips
Scott McAlister+
Tuck Miller+
Christina B. Ripple
Jack Sennott
Deanna Sue Sucsy
Jennifer Smith Turner
Peter R. Wilde+
Ex Officio Directors
John B. Larson
US Representative, First Congressional District of Connecticut
Julio Concepcion
State Representative, Fourth District of the State of Connecticut
Arunan Arulampalam
Mayor, City of Hartford
Shari Cantor
Mayor, West Hartford
Melia Bensussen
Artistic Director, Hartford Stage
Cynthia Rider
Managing Director, Hartford Stage
+ Deceased
Administrative Staff
Leadership
Melia Bensussen, Artistic Director
Position endowed by Janet S. Suisman
Cynthia Rider, Managing Director
Administration
Emily Van Scoy, General Manager
Trisha Hein, Company Manager & Assistant General Manager
Sara Walnum, Business Manager
Artistic
Zoë Golub-Sass, Associate Artistic Director
Position supported by the Richard P. Garmany Fund
Education
Jennifer Roberts, Director of Education
Nina Pinchin, Associate Director of Education
Emely Larson, Studio Manager
2025/2026 Teaching Artists
Marie Altenor, Thomas Beebe, Grace Clark, Brandon Couloute, Shelby Demke, Nic Fortenbach, Ryan Kessler, Jada Lawyer, Erica LuBonta, Greg Ludovici, Jan Mason, Jessica MacLean, Cari Muniz, Nicholas Palazzo, Michael Patterson, Justin Pesce, Kevin Scott, Donovan Shaw, Kaydin Younger
External Relations
Jennifer Levine, Director of External Relations
Rachel Phillips, Associate Director for Marketing
Travis Kendrick-Castanho, External Relations Manager
Evan Kudish, Manager of Board & Donor Relations
Sonya Thiel, Events & Engagement Manager
Sierra Vazquez, Annual Fund Manager
Todd Brandt, Audience & Revenue Data Analyst
Sarah Shiner, Digital Marketing Associate
House Management
W. Scott McEver, Audience Experience & Front of House Manager
A ssistant House Managers:
Art Arpin, Mailina Betsey-Chambers, Emily Loscialpo, Aarron Schuelke Bartenders:
Tanya Bermudez, Drew Breault, Sam Chiasson, Karen Kudish, Nefris Quiterio, Erica Santa Lucia, Kerry Yerkes
Gift Shop Attendants/Event Bartenders: Marsha Arpin, Paulette Caldwell, John Harbison Patron Services
Lindsey Hoffman, Box Office Manager
Rick Sahlin, Box Office Associate & Group Sales Coordinator
Lindsey Taft, Box Office Associate & Subscriber Concierge
Corey Welden, Box Office Associate & Student Matinee Coordinator
Amaris Diaz, Box Office Representative
Production
Bryan T. Holcombe, Director of Production
Wesley McCabe-Schroeder, Assistant Production Manager
Alyssa Edwards, Production Assistant
Set Construction & Scenic Art
Aaron D. Bleck, Technical Director
Jared Wolf, Assistant Technical Director
Ian Sweeney, Lead Carpenter
Audra Giuliano, Scenic Carpenter
Isabella Pedraza, Scenic Carpenter
Nathalie Schlosser, Charge Scenic Artist
Costumes & Wardrobe
Alex Meadows, Costume Director
Grace Petersen, Assistant Costume Director
James Weeden, Staff Draper
Rio Cañas, First Hand
K. Duffner, Wardrobe Supervisor
Jodi Stone, Wig & Make-up Supervisor
Props
Joe Dotts, Props Manager
Claire Linden-Dionne, Assistant Props Manager
Lighting
Jackie Costabile, Lighting Manager
Ethan Sepa, ALDM, Programmer
Sara Dorinbaum, Light Board Operator
Sound
Lucas Clopton, Audio/Video Manager & Content Creator
Jim Busker, Assistant Audio/Video Manager
Facilities
Michael Langer, Facilities Manager
For This Production
Kaiden Allen, Wardrobe
Ariana Harris, A2
Erin Sagnelli, Scenic Artist
Barry Sellers, Tailor
Deck Crew:
Matt Hennessey, Logan Wareham, Stichers:
Margaret Ellen McFarland, Allison Nishimura, Joe O’Brien
Stage Management Observers: Veronica Hanlon, Mage Kamm
Special Thanks
Alex Zeek, Tailor
Andrew J. Oster Design & Photography
Dierdre Tully
Howard’s Children courtesy of: Ellen Mezzera Lavia, Abigail A Lavaia, Gian Murray Gianino, Jasper G. Thom
Miceli Productions
Rising Tide Studio
T. Charles Erickson
Yale Costume Collection
Diversity, Equity, and Belonging
At Hartford Stage, equity is not a destination—it’s an ongoing journey. From the stories we bring to life on our stage, to the voices behind the scenes, we are committed to amplifying diverse perspectives and fostering accessibility and inclusion in every aspect of our work.
Artistry & Craft
We believe artistic excellence is achieved through a collaborative process that is rooted in creativity and a willingness to take risks.
Lifelong Learning
We believe theater creates opportunities for personal growth and learning for people of all ages.
Relationships
We believe in developing connections within and beyond the theater, extending our reach into the community and fostering a sense of mutual belonging.
Integrity & Responsibility
We believe that fiscal, operational, and programmatic decisions must embrace physical safety, financial sustainability, and equity with kindness and respect.
Accessibility is central to ensuring that our spaces, stories, and experiences are truly welcoming for all.
We heard you! Our new assistive listening system is now available for you to enjoy. Simply stop by Guest Services in the lobby to learn more. You can also join us for performances featuring Open Captions or Audio Descriptions, designed to enhance the theater experience for audience members with vision or hearing differences.
And this is just the beginning—more exciting accessibility upgrades are on the way at Hartford Stage!
To learn more about accessibility at Hartford Stage, please visit HartfordStage.org/Accessibility.
Visit Our Restaurant Partners
Show your Hartford Stage ticket at one of these local restaurants to access special discounts!
The Brownstone
Black Eyed Sally’s
Bloom Bake Shop
Hartford Flavor Cocktail Parlour
Peppercorn’s Grill
Scan for more information.
Banh Meee
Annual Contributors
Thank you to all our donors. We are grateful for the generosity throughout our entire community and recognize all of our supporters on our website at HartfordStage.org/Recognition. We are happy to acknowledge here those with leadership contributions in the past 12 months, February 4, 2025 – February 17, 2026.
Annual Fund
Director’s Circle $50,000+
Anonymous (1)
Rick & Beth Costello
Karl Krapek
Sally Speer
Christopher & Mary Swift
Producer Circle $25,000+
Don & Marilyn Allan
The Cheryl Chase & Stuart Bear Family Foundation
Jill Adams & Bill Knight
Robert & Francine Goldfarb Family Fund
Wes & Chloe Horton
David & Janice Klein
Marjorie E. Morrissey
Jack & Donna Sennott
Judith & William Thompson
Ovation Society $10,000+
Douglas & Sheryl Adkins
Sue Ann Collins
Dianne & Walter Harrison
The Pryor Family Foundation
Chrissie & Ezra Ripple
Elizabeth Schiro & Stephen Bayer
Elizabeth Vandeventer
Veronica & Howard Wiseman
Encore Society $5,000+
Andra Asars
Jenefer Carey Berall
Patti Broad
Jamie & Isaac Cohen
Devon & Thomas Francis
Nancy Goodwin
Jeffrey & Nancy Hoffman
Barnaby W. Horton & Hannah Granfield-Horton
Jackie & Drew Iacovazzi
Helen Ingram
David & Kathleen Jimenez
Konover Coppa Family Fund
Katherine J. Lambert
Christopher Larsen
Marcia A. Lattimore
Tom & Margah Lips
Jane & Roger+ Loeb
Amy & Neal Mandell
Barri Marks
Harry E. Meyer
Judith Meyers & Richard Hersh
Michael & Colleen Nicastro
Duff Ashmead & Eric Ort
Kristen Phillips and Matthew Schreck
Dina Plapler & Earl McMahon
Douglas H. Robins
Rosalie Roth
Donald & Linda Silpe
Sally & Allan Taylor
Maggie & Sherwood Willard
Mark & Patty Willis
Elease & Dana Wright
The Zachs Family Foundation
Patron Society $3,500+
Paul & Joanne Bourdeau
John & Suzanne Bourdeaux
Marla & John Byrnes
Robert L. & Susan G. Fisher
Ruth Fitzgerald & Dave Sageman
Marilda Gandara & Scott O’Keefe
Doris Guenter
David and Gail Hall
Carrie & Jonathan Hammond
Adlyn & Theodore Loewenthal
Ed & Kelly Lyman
Annual Contributors
Cynthia K. Mackay
Ernest & Mickey Mattei
E. John McGarvey
Robert A. & Joan C. Penney
Rhonda Tobin & Jeffrey Smith
Jacqueline Werner
Yvette Yelardy & Daniel Morganstern
Honorary Gifts
IN HONOR OF CINDY CURRY
Ann Chuk
IN HONOR OF ANNIE HILDRETH
Diane Hildreth
IN HONOR OF DAVID KLEIN’S BIRTHDAY
Anonymous (2)
The Carr Klein Family
The Kitchel Family
Stephen & Kathryn Goldman
Katherine J. Lambert
Amy & Neil Mandell
Michael Stotts & David Mayhew
Christopher McCarron & Jill Donan
Thomas & Olivia Murphy
Chrissie & Ezra Ripple
Sally J. Weisman
IN HONOR OF JANE LOEB’S BIRTHDAY
Sandy & Bruce Goldberg
IN HONOR OF CYNTHIA RIDER
Sandy Grampsas
Anne Rider & Rob Hinrichs
Ellen Rider & Stanley King
Mallory Pierce
IN HONOR OF CHRISSIE RIPPLE
Deborah Brown
IN HONOR OF ROSALIE ROTH
Anonymous IN HONOR OF PATTY WILLIS
The Burkehaven Family Foundation
Memorial Gifts
IN MEMORY OF GALINA FAYNGERSH
Diana Lee
IN MEMORY OF ARNOLD & BEVERLY GREENBERG
David & Merle Trager
IN MEMORY OF BEVERLY G. HIMELSTEIN
Michael Moran
IN MEMORY OF MARY WAXENBERG
Ed & Jean Dwyer
Edie & Phil Jones
Jay B. Levin
Bruce & Lori Stewart
Eugenia & Joseph Ursone
Institutional Giving
$200,000+
The Greater Hartford Gives Foundation
The Shubert Foundation
Stanley Black & Decker
$100,000+
Burry Fredrik Foundation
The Hartford RTX
$75,000+
The Katherine K. McLane & Henry R. McLane Charitable Trust
$50,000+
The BFA Fund at The Greater Hartford Gives Foundation
Connecticut Department of Economic & Community Development
Connecticut Humanities
Greater Hartford Arts Council
The John and Kelly Hartman Foundation
SBM Charitable Foundation, Inc.
Travelers
$25,000+
Cigna
Connecticut Judicial Branch
The Elizabeth M. Landon & Harriette M. Landon Charitable Foundation
Roberts Foundation for the Arts
Robinson & Cole LLP
$15,000+
Cummings & Lockwood
Ensworth Charitable Foundation
Lucille Lortel Foundation
The Morningstar Fund at The Greater Hartford Gives Foundation
Talcott Financial
Institutional Giving
$10,000+
The John E. Blair Fund at The Greater Hartford Gives Foundation
The Ellen Jeanne Goldfarb Memorial Charitable Trust Liberty Bank
The Scripps Family Fund for Education and the Arts
The William & Alice Mortensen Foundation
$5,000+
Eugene G. & Margaret M. Blackford Memorial Fund
The Burton & Phyllis Hoffman Foundation
The J. Walton Bissell Foundation, Inc.
JANA Foundation
McDonald Family Trust
Stanley D. & Hinda N. Fisher Fund
William H. & Rosanna T. Andrulat Charitable Foundation
$2,500+
The Edgemer Foundation, Inc.
Allan S. Goodman, Inc.
In-Kind
The University of Saint Joseph
Shakespeare Society
The Shakespeare Society comprises individuals who have provided for the future of Hartford Stage in their estate plans. Hartford Stage is deeply grateful for their generosity and foresight. The members of this group help to ensure the legacy of Hartford Stage. Have you included Hartford Stage in your estate plans? Tell us about it! Call Evan Kudish, Manager of Board & Donor Relations, at 860-520-7241 to share your plans and allow us to thank you.
Anonymous (15)
Brian & Betty Ashfield
Richard & Alice Baxter
Mr. & Mrs. Paul Bourdeau
Mrs. Joan Brown
Kimberley & Christopher Byrd
Marla & John Byrnes
Mario R. Cavallo
Sue Ann Collins
Richard G. Costello
Ms. Linda Diana DeConti
Mr. Reginald Gregory DeConti
Robert L. & Susan G. Fisher
Kathy Frederick & Eugene Leach
Victoria E. Gallo
Evelyn A. Genovese
Carrie & Jonathan Hammond
Walter & Diane Harrison
Elie Helou
Helen Ingram
David & Janice Klein
Joel M. & Naomi Baline Kleinman
Katherine J. Lambert
Christopher Larsen
William C. Leary
Tom & Margah Lips
Mark & Liisa Livingston
Elaine T. Lowengard
Donna Matulis
Judith Meyers & Richard Hersh
Ki Miller
Arthur & Merle Nacht
Judge Jon O. Newman
Lyn Oliva & John Brighenti
Belle K. Ribicoff
Ezra & Chrissie Ripple
Prudence P. Robertson
Barbara Rubin
Carol W. Scoville
Donald & Linda Silpe
Marjorie K. & Jack S. Solomon, Doreen A. Cohn, Faith L. Solomon Fund
Jennifer Smith Turner & Eric Turner
Mary L. Stephenson
Elsa Suisman
Robert & Gretchen Wetzel
Michael Wilson & Jeff Cowie
Henry M. Zachs
Michael & Ellen Zenke
In Memoriam
Hartford Stage fondly remembers these late members of the Shakespeare Society.
Anonymous (6)
Margaret Atwood
Cynthia Kellogg Barrington
Maxwell & Sally Belding
Susan R. Block
Clifford S. Burdge
Edward C. Cape
Ruth Cape
Anna & David Clark
James H. Eacott, Jr.
David Geetter
Yummy Graulty
Herman Zeus Goldberg
George A. Ingram
Dieter & Siegelind Johannes
Hugh M. Joseloff & Helen J. Joseloff
Nafe E. Katter
Janet M. Larsen
Joe Marfuggi
Mr. & Mrs. Henry R. McLane
Mary & Freeman Meyer
Tuck Miller
Ann & George Richards
Dr. Russell Robertson
Robert K. Schrepf
Talcott Stanley
Janet S. & Michael Suisman
Helen S. Willis
Louise W. Willson
Set the Stage Campaign Contributors
Thank you to the generous donors who have made a commitment to support Hartford Stage not just for today, but for decades to come.
$5 Million+
Hayes Family Foundation
$2 Million+
Stanley Black & Decker
$1 Million+
Don & Marilyn Allan
Rick & Beth Costello
The Hartford
Karl Krapek
Christopher & Mary Swift
Travelers
$500,000+
Jill Adams & Bill Knight
Judith Meyers & Richard Hersh
The Richard P. Garmany Fund at
The Greater Hartford Gives Foundation
Jack & Donna Sennott
$250,000+
David & Janice Klein
$100,000+
Douglas & Sheryl Adkins
Sue Ann Collins
Robert & Francine Goldfarb Family Fund
Barnaby W. Horton & Hannah Granfield-Horton
Wes & Chloe Horton
Christopher Larsen
Thomas & Margah Lips
Chrissie & Ezra Ripple
Sally Speer
Sally & Allan Taylor
The Zachs Family Foundation
$50,000+
Suzanne & John Bourdeaux
Ellen Brown & Jim Bean
The Estate of Zeus Goldberg
Carrie & Jonathan Hammond
Walter & Dianne Harrison
Barbara & Matthew Hennessy
The Estate of Mary Jean Kilfoil
Barri Marks
Marjorie E. Morrissey
$20,000+
Anonymous
David & Kathleen Jimenez
William & Nancy Narwold
Michael & Colleen Nicastro
Eric Ort & Duffield Ashmead
Linda & Donald Silpe
$10,000+
Anonymous
Sara Bareilles
Marla & John Byrnes
The Edgemer Foundation
Marilda Gandara & Scott O’Keefe
The Estate of Christine Hunihan
Katherine J. Lambert
Andy & Jennifer Pace
Brewster & Judith Perkins
Rosalie Roth
Judith & William Thompson
Elease & Dana Wright
$5,000+
Jamie & Isaac Cohen
Devon & Thomas Francis
David Hawkanson
Annie Hildreth & Ted Potters
George A.+ & Helen Ingram
Theodore & Nancy Johnson
The Nafe E. Katter Trust
Daniel & Arlene Neiditz
William A. Petit, Jr. in honor of Karl Krapek
Ted Whittemore
Sherwood & Maggie Willard
Under $5,000
Kyle Abraham & Claire Sylvestre-Abraham
Anonymous
The Harry F. & Carol H. Barnes
Family Foundation
Rahul Barua
David & Kathleen Bavelas
Elizabeth Berman
John Bolduc
Robert & Catherine Boone
Patti Broad
Set the Stage Campaign Contributors
Under $5,000 (continued)
Midred Button & Lewis Button III
Mary Cahalane & David Weill
Brennden D. Colbert & Brittnee Johnson-Colbert
Donna Collins
Kate & John Collins
Mark & Marybeth Contreras
Alona Croteau
Alana & Matthew Curren
Anne D’Alleva
Valerie F. DeQuattro
John & Jacqueline Doran
Mary Ellison
George & Laura Estes
Janet Bailey Faude
Thomas E. Fogarty
Gary & Susan Giordano
Matthew & Katherine Grosso
Cornelia Hamilton
Emily & Patrick Harrington
Jane Harris
Rydell Harrison
William & Judy Hyde
Jackie & Drew Iacovazzi
Carolyn A. Johnson
Waldemar & Judith Kostrzewa
Michelle Kunzman & Steve Szafman
Marcia Lattimore
James Lindberg
Dan Lloyd & Cheryl Greenberg
Adlyn & Theodore Loewenthal
Aaron Lyles & Samantha Weragoda
Kathleen Lynch
Amy & Neal Mandell
Marianne Melchionde
Andrew Palmer
Chris & Louis Pandolfe
Robert Parrott & Sally Wister
Sarah M. Patterson & Dominic Fair
Robert & Joan Penney
Tyler Philpott
Eileen & Elliot Pollack
Elizabeth & Michael Reilly
Michael Ross
Gil & Katherine Salk
George Sanders
Jeanne Horn Schmidt
Steven & Karen Schutzer
Patricia Scully
Marisela Sener
Pamela & Peter Sobering
Claire Stermer
Katherine Steven
Marilyn J. Stoudt
Rhonda Tobin & Jeffrey Smith
Paul & Karen Torop
Jeffrey Vida & Thomas Connolly
Beth Webster
Richard Wenner
Kathleen & Rick White
Yvette Yelardy & Daniel Morganstern
Set the Stage Seat Naming Campaign
Make a one-time $1,500 gift to have a personalized Hartford Stage seat of your own, or honor a loved one for a long-lasting legacy! Scan to learn more.
Thank you to those who have already created a long-lasting legacy by having a seat named in the theater as part of this campaign. There is a seat saved for you, too!
Michael Barker & Heidi Hanson
Melia Bensussen & Chuck Epstein
Phil Brencher in memory of Christine J. Ward
PJ & Rob Brewer
Patti Broad
Joyce Carraway & Jerry Cooper
Sue Ann Collins, Chrissie Ripple, & Rosalie Roth in honor of Belle Ribicoff
Barbie & Victor Cristofaro
Doris & Ray+ Guenter
Ben & Jess Dwyer
Mary & Charley Ferrucci
Anne Fitzgerald
Darrell Goodwin & Kentavis Brice-Goodwin
Floyd W. Green III
Barnaby W. Horton & Hannah Granfield-Horton
Rosemarie & Jack Papa
Karl Koenig in memory of Roger Loeb
Robert Linden in memory of Caren Linden
Bruce Loeb & Wendy Heller in honor of Roger & Jane Loeb
The MacCluggage Family
Malcolm & Victoria McCulloch
Jon O. Newman and Ann Z. Leventhal
Nancy O’Konis in honor of Patrick O’Konis
Elaine Orzech in memory of Josephine Poltorak Orzech
Christine Jennifer Schloat in memory of Gabriel Warren Schloat III
Faith Solomon & Doreen Cohn
Southern New England Conference UCC
Carolyn R. Spencer
Larry Starr
Phyllis Story in memory of Christine Story Ribeiro
Jeffrey Vida & Thomas Connolly
A Lasting Legacy Deserves a Powerful Finale
You’re Invited to Play a Part
As we look ahead, we envision a thriving theater that continues to tell compelling and relevant stories—from the classics to the contemporary— that tell of our common humanity and welcomes intergenerational audiences that reflect the communities around us.
The $20 million raised will secure our vision and enhance our community.
The Set the Stage campaign is focused on two areas where donors like you can impact the future.
Together we’ve raised $18.5 million. Join us in completing the Set the Stage Campaign by June 30.
ENDOWMENT Building a robust endowment will ensure Hartford Stage is here fulfilling its mission for decades to come.
PROGRAMMING Donations are a crucial component to creating the world-class art you see on our stage, and for sharing the power of what theater can do with our community.
After 60 years of bringing world-class theatrical programming to audiences in our theater and students in our schools, Hartford Stage is making an important investment in our future. With your help, we can remain a vital part of where we live, work, and play. EVERY GIFT DOUBLED NOW THROUGH JUNE 30 $500,000 MATCH!
Please join us in setting the stage for Hartford Stage’s next 60 years.
Be a part of the legacy. Play a role in our $20 million goal.
Contact Director of External Relations
Jennifer Levine at 860-520-7249 or jlevine@hartfordstage.org
The cast of The Mousetrap (2022).*
Photo Credits *by T. Charles Erickson. ^by The Defining Studios.
Emilio Delgado, Krystal Hernandez, and Ivan Jasso in Quixote Nuevo (2019). Photo by T. Charles Erickson.
