AARON TODD DOUGLAS (Leo) is an actor, director and faculty member at Loyola University Chicago. Aaron is a founding ensemble member of Congo Square Theatre Company. Acting credits include: Wait Until Dark (Court Theatre); Journal of Ordinary Thought (Chicago Theater Company); Fortunes of the Moor (ETA); The State of Mississippi v. Emmet Till (Pegasus Players); Julius Caesar (Chicago Shakespeare); Perfect Mendacity (Steppenwolf). Congo Square credits include The Piano Lesson, Before it Hits Home, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Spunk, Ali and the world premiere of Stick Fly. Recent directing projects include: Radio Golf (Raven Theatre); The Nativity (Congo Square/Goodman Theatre); 12 Angry Men (Raven Theatre, Jeff Award Best Ensemble, nomination Best Director); The Brother/Sister Plays (assistant director Steppenwolf Theatre); The Hip Hop Project: Insight Into A Generation (guest director-University of lllinois); Smash/Hit by Steve Broadnax (Cultural Conversations Festival); Wheatley, And They Said I Wouldn’t Make It (Victory Gardens Theater). Todd is excited to return to VGT.

ELAINE RIVKIN (Didi Marcantel) was last seen at Victory Gardens as Lou in Pyretown. She has acted in Chicago for the past 26 years. Credits include: Picasso at the Lapin Agile and The Crucible (Steppenwolf); Execution of Justice (About Face); The Homecoming, Hushabye Mountain, Pride’s Crossing, Beautiful Thing, Conquest of the South Pole, Mann Ist Mann, Salt of the Earth, and Hellcab (Famous Door Theater); 365 Plays (Gift Theatre); La Bete (Pegasus); ‘Night Mother (Hancock Productions); (Chicago Dramatists) St. Colm’s Inch; Caucasian Chalk Circle (Commons Theater). Outside Chicago: Hellcab (Singapore Arts Festival); The Early Girl (Edinburgh Fringe Festival). Elaine frequently appears on television hawking some product or another (currently Southwest Airlines). She thanks Andi, Dennis and Jan, and her wonderful family.

LESLIE ANN SHEPPARD (JJ) is honored to return to Victory Gardens! She was last seen in The Lost Boys of Sudan and The Snow Queen. Other Chicago credits: Eclipsed (Northlight); The Hundred Dresses (Chicago Children’s Theatre); Baby (Metropolis); A House With No Walls (TimeLine); Harriet Jacobs (Steppenwolf). Regional theatre credits include the Illinois Shakespeare Festival and the Bristol Renaissance Faire. She supports the Society of American Fight Directors and some of her choreography can be seen at jermaineproductions.com in the video “I Will Be Waiting.” She holds a BA in Acting from Illinois State University, and is a founding company actor, adapter and secretary for the Suitcase Shakespeare Company. Thanks to God, Family, Friends and the folks at VG, Actors Equity, and Gray Talent Group for sharing their love and encouragement.

CELESTE WILLIAMS (Jessalyn) is pleased to return to Victory Gardens. Her other Chicago credits include productions at Court Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Next Theatre, Onyx Theatre Ensemble (co-founder), Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Northlight Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and Writers’ Theatre. At Victory Gardens, Celeste appeared in the world premieres of Charles Smith’s Knock Me A Kiss (BTAA nominee, featured actress) and Cane; the world premiere of Steve Carter’s Pecong (Jeff Award nominee, principal actress); and the Midwest premiere of Kristine Thatcher’s Emma’s Child. Celeste has also performed regionally, including with the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, where she was a member of the acting company. Celeste is a member of the Columbia College theater faculty and is a proud 24-year member of Actors’ Equity Association.

ANDREA J. DYMOND (Director) is the Resident Director at Victory Gardens, where she most recently directed the Chicago premiere of Blue Door by Tanya Barfield. Previous VGT productions include world premieres of Michael Golamco’s Year Zero; Gloria Bond Clunie’s Living Green and Shoes; Charles Smith’s Free Man of Color; Nicholas Patriccia’s The Defiant Muse; and Jeffrey Sweet’s Court Martial at Fort Devens. Regional directing credits include the new musical Saint Heaven by Martin Casella and Keith Gordon (Village Theatre in Issaquah, Washington), Intimate Apparel (Clarence Brown Theatre in Knoxville, TN), and Having Our Say (Madison Repertory Theater). Other recent Chicago credits include: Ghosts of Atwood and Panther Burn (for MPAACT), Helen at Next Theatre Company, as well as I Have Before Me A Remarkable Document Given To Me By A Young Lady From Rwanda for Victory Gardens Theater. Andrea has worked in new play development for most of her 20-plus years in Chicago and has recently worked with MFA playwrights at The Kennedy Center and Carnegie Mellon University. She was a TCG New Generations Grant recipient and spoke at the 2009 TCG national conference on the subject of successfully taking the leadership reigns of a regional theater. She was Co- Artistic Director of American Blues Theater and Artistic Associate at City Lit Theatre Company, where her directing work included the long-running production Coffee Will Make You Black. Andrea teaches Directing and Collaboration at Columbia College Chicago.

JULIE HÉBERT (Playwright) Plays: Touch the Water, The Knee Desires the Dirt, Almost Asleep, St. Joan and the Dancing Sickness, True Beauties, Abe Lincoln’s Dog, Ruby’s Bucket of Blood. In addition to writing and directing with many theater companies including Cornerstone, The Magic, Steppenwolf, Seven Stages, LATC, The Women’s Project, San Diego Rep, LaMaMa, and others, Hébert served as Artistic Director for the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans. She won the Bay Area Critics Circle Best Play Award for her first work, True Beauties, and later was awarded two PEN Awards for The Knee Desires the Dirt, and most recently, Tree. Hébert adapted her play Ruby’s Bucket of Blood into a film for Showtime, and has written other movies for television as well as the feature film Female Perversions. She also adapted Mark Salzman’s novel Lying Awake into a screenplay for HBO. Hébert has written and directed for ER, The West Wing, Numb3rs and The GoodWife. She was awarded a George Foster Peabody Award for co-directing the 9/11 documentary In Their Own Words for ThirdWatch. Currently, Ms. Hébert is writing a new play commissioned by the Gerbode Foundation, to premiere at ODC in San Francisco, October 2011. She will join the USC faculty this summer. Tree was developed at New Dramatists in New York, workshopped at the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and premiered with Ensemble Studio Theatre-L.A. at the John Anson Ford Theater.