Home / PRESS ROOM / SEASON ARCHIVES / THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK / ARTISTIC BIOS

Indiana Repertory Theatre  Since the Indiana Repertory Theatre was founded in 1972, it has grown into one of the leading regional theatres in the country, as well as one of the top-flight cultural institutions in the city and state. In 1991 Indiana’s General Assembly designated the IRT as “Theatre Laureate” of the state of Indiana. The IRT’s national reputation has been confirmed by prestigious grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Fund, the Theatre Communications Group–Pew Charitable Trusts, the Shubert Foundation, and the Kresge Foundation, and by a Joyce Award from the Joyce Foundation.  The IRT is Indiana's leading professional resident not-for-profit theatre, providing 124,700 live professional theatre experiences for its audience last season. These experiences included 49,300 students and teachers from 60 of Indiana’s 92 counties, making the IRT one of the most youth-oriented professional theatres in the country. A staff of more than 100 seasonal and year-round employees creates ten productions exclusively for Indiana audiences. Actors, directors and designers are members of professional stage unions.  To keep ticket prices and services affordable for the entire community, the IRT operates as a not-for-profit organization, deriving more than one third of its operating income from contributions. The theatre is generously supported by foundations, corporations, and individuals, an investment which recognizes the IRT’s mission-based commitment to serving Central Indiana with top-quality theatrical fare.

JANET ALLEN (Director) As the Indiana Repertory Theatre’s artistic director for 15 seasons, Janet oversees the production process and education outreach programs, but she works closely with managing director Steven Stolen in supervising all aspects of the theatre. With former artistic director Tom Haas, she founded the IRT’s Discovery Series, which has now become one of the foremost theatre programs in the country for young audiences. Among the IRT productions she has directed are Love Letters, Macbeth, Looking Over the President’s Shoulder, Painting Churches, The Drawer Boy, As You Like It (with Dance Kaleidoscope’s David Hochoy), Ah, Wilderness!, An Almost Holy Picture and The Glass Menagerie. She is a member of the Indianapolis Woman’s Club and Beth-El Zedeck Congregation and lives in the Indianapolis downtown neighborhood of Chatham Arch.

BILL CLARKE (Set Designer) is pleased to return to PTC after designing the sets for Twelve Angry Men, Romeo & Juliet, Pride and Prejudice and Steel Magnolias. He designed A Walk in the Woods and Abby’s Song on Broadway, and his off-Broadway work includes the recent Misalliance (Pearl) and So Help Me God! (Mint) as well as Eccentricities of a Nightingale (TACT) and The Daughter-in-Law (Mint Theater – both on the NY Times 10 Best List), Secret Order (59E59), June Moon (Drama Dep’t), Queens Blvd., Ann Magnuson’s You Could Be Home Now (NYSF), Keith Reddin’s The Innocents’ Crusade (MTC), Alan Havis’ Morocco (WPA) and The Cherry Orchard (Juilliard). Regional credits include Seattle Repertory, The Old Globe Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory, Denver Center Theatre, A.R.T., Huntington Theatre Company, McCarter Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse, Indiana Repertory and Cleveland Playhouse. He is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and a recipient of the Hollywood Drama-Logue Award and San Diego Theater Critics Circle Award.

LINDA PISANO (Costume Designer) has designed Romeo and Juliet, The Giver, To Kill a Mockingbird, Tuesdays with Morrie, …Young Lady from Rwanda, Old Wicked Songs and Painting Churches for Indiana Repertory Theatre. She is on faculty at IU-Bloomington where she heads the costume design program and directs the overseas theatre program in London. She is a four-time winner of the Peggy Ezekiel Award for Excellence in Design and a three-time jury winner of the National Design Exposition. Her work was also featured at the Quadrennial World Design Exposition in Prague. She has designed more than 80 productions around the US for such theatres as the Utah Shakespeare Festival, BalletMet, Illinois Shakespeare Festival, Lyric Repertory Company, CATCO, IU Opera Theatre and many others. Many of her ballet designs continue to tour throughout England, Canada and the United States.

ANN G. WRIGHTSON (Lighting Designer) Ann’s work for Pioneer Theatre Company includes In, Ten Little Indians and The Mousetrap among others. She designed the Broadway production of Souvenir, and she was a Tony nominee for her work on the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning August: Osage County, which she designed for Broadway, London, Sydney and the National Tour. Ann’s recent work includes Fences the Huntington Theatre, The Unmentionables at Yale Rep, Up at Steppenwolf Theatre, and Gem of the Ocean and Radio Golf at the Alliance Theatre. Past projects include A Prayer for Owen Meany and Inana for Denver Theatre Center and ten seasons at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Next she designs Crimes of the Heart at the McCarter Theatre Center. Her awards include a 2009 IRNE Award for Best Lighting for Fences at the Huntington, a Backstage Garland Award for Magic Fire at OSF, and an AUDELCO nomination.

ANDREW HOPSON (Composer and Sound Designer) is assistant professor of sound design in the Department of Theatre and Drama at Indiana University. He has designed for shows at such theatres as the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Utah Shakespeare Festival, Actors Theatre of Louisville, American Repertory Theatre, American Players Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse, Pioneer Playhouse, Cleveland Play House, Victory Gardens, and Harvard University. At the Indiana Repertory Theatre, where he was resident sound designer for five years, his favorite designs included A Christmas Carol, Pride and Prejudice, and Julius Caesar. In 2004 his New York debut, Trying, was rated one of the best off-Broadway shows of the year. In film, he has scored the documentaries Birth of Legends, The Battle of Comm Avenue, Hockey’s Greatest Era 1942-1967, The Frozen Four, and Utah’s Olympic Legacy. He has produced, engineered or performed on more than 40 CDs ranging from stories for children to collections of modern American piano works. He is a member of United Scenic Artists, local 829, and the United States Institute of Theatre Technology.

RICHARD J. ROBERTS (Dramaturg) As resident dramaturg for 13 of his 21 seasons with Indiana Repertory Theatre, Richard provides research for the IRT’s productions and works with playwrights in the development of new plays. He has also been a dramaturg for the New Harmony Project and the Bonderman Symposium. He has directed IRT’s productions of Pretty Fire, The Giver, The Power of One, Twelfth Night, A Christmas Carol and Neat.  Other directing credits include the Phoenix Theatre, Edyvean Repertory Theatre, Indianapolis Civic Theatre and Anderson University; this fall he directed Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice at Butler University. He was editor-in-chief of Arts Indiana magazine and has taught theatre courses at Butler and IUPUI. He studied music at DePauw University and theatre at Indiana University. In 2003 he was awarded a Creative Renewal Arts Fellowship from the Arts Council of Indiana.