Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2

Alvin Epstein is a former artistic director of the Guthrie Theater and associate director of Robert Brustein's Yale Repertory Theatre. He has directed over twenty productions (five at the American Repertory Theater, including the inaugural A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1980) and performed in over one hundred (over fifty at the A.R.T.). His A.R.T. roles include Old Man in Lysistrata, the Herald in Marat/Sade, Dionisio Genoni in Enrico IV, John of Gaunt/First Gardener in Richard II, Erich Honecker in Full Circle, McLeavy in Loot, Shabelsky in Ivanov, and Lee Strasberg in Nobody Dies on Friday; Mr. Epstein has also appeared in The Doctor's Dilemma, Antigone, Three Farces and a Funeral, The Winter's Tale, Charlie in the House of Rue, The Merchant of Venice, In the Jungle of Cities, The Bacchae, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, When the World Was Green (A Chef's Fable), Slaughter City, Tartuffe, The Tempest, Beckett Trio, The Threepenny Opera, and Waiting for Godot, among many others. His twenty Broadway and off-Broadway productions include his debut with Marcel Marceau, the Fool in Orson Welles's King Lear, Lucky in the American premiere of Waiting for Godot, Clov in the American premiere of Endgame, Peachum in The Threepenny Opera (co-starring with Sting), and the world premiere of Sam Shepard and Joseph Chaikin's When the World Was Green (A Chef's Fable). For twenty years he and Martha Schlamme performed A Kurt Weill Cabaret on tour in the U.S. and South America and a year's run on Broadway. He has performed at many resident theaters throughout the U.S., in films and on television. Awards include Most Promising Actor ('56 Variety Poll), Brandeis Creative Arts Award ('66), Obie for Dynamite Tonight! ('68), Elliot Norton Award for Sustained Excellence ('96), and the IRNE Award for Best Supporting Actor as Shabelsky in Ivanov ('99). Mr. Epstein teaches acting at the American Repertory Theater/Moscow Art Theater Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University.

Mike in Olly's Prison. A.R.T.: Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 (Prince Hal), Henry V (King Henry), Picasso at the Lapin Agile (Picasso), Long Day's Journey Into Night (Jamie—Elliot Norton Award, Best Actor), Richard II (Bollingbrooke), The Provok'd Wife (Sir John Brute). Broadway: St. Joan, The Seagull, Jackie: An American Life. Off-Broadway: Homebody/Kabul (Obie Award), Lydie Breeze, The Demons, New York Theatre Workshop; Macbeth, Theatre for a New Audience; Measure for Measure, One Flea Spare, Joseph Papp Public Theater. Resident: Brooklyn Academy of Music, Mark Taper Forum, the Guthrie Theater, Yale Repertory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Hartford Stage. Television/Film: The Dying Gaul, Rounders, In and Out, Reversal of Fortune, Law and Order, Joan of Arcadia, The Great Gatsby.

Vlad Tepes/the Functionary in The Communist Dracula Pageant. A.R.T.: Fifty-four productions, including Alfed in Cardenio, Conspirator in Julius Caesar, Niels Bohr in Copenhagen, Eddie Darko in Donnie Darko, A Marvelous Party!, Mr. Brownlow in Oliver Twist (also at Theatre for a New Audience and Berkeley Repertory Theatre), Capulet in Romeo and Juliet, Garcin in No Exit, Kulygin in Three Sisters, Uncle Jacob, Innkeeperess, Head Waiter in Amerika, Jupiter in Dido, Queen of Carthage, Valère in The Miser, Goldberg in The Birthday Party, Egeus and Peter Quince in A Midsummer Night's Dream, several roles in Highway Ulysses, the President of the Senate in Lysistrata, Marat in Marat/Sade, Brabantio and Lodovico in Othello, Dantly in Animals and Plants, the Father in Nocturne, Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonington in The Doctor's Dilemma, Gregory Smirnov and Gonov in Three Farces and a Funeral, Heiner Müller in Full Circle, Borkin in Ivanov, the State Trooper, Policeman, Grave Digger, and Grandfather in We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay!, Dr. McSharry in The Cripple of Inishmaan, Karl Hudlocke in The Marriage of Bette and Boo, Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, Argan in The Imaginary Invalid, Gremio in The Taming of the Shrew, Tiresias in The Bacchae, the title role and other parts in Shlemiel the First, the Doctor in Woyzeck, Hjalmar in The Wild Duck, Brighella in The King Stag, Will in Six Characters in Search of an Author, Mother/Father in Alice in Bed, King Wenceslas/McGreedy in Ubu Rock, Cléante in Tartuffe, Sebastian in The Tempest, Murray in Demons, Exeter in Henry V, Aegisthus and Chorus in The Oresteia, Sagot in Picasso at the Lapin Agile, the Earl of Westmoreland in Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, and Lord Chief Justice in Part 2. Other credits include The Rivals and Melinda Lopez's Sonia Flew (Huntington Theatre), Twelfth Night (Feste, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company), Brian Friel's Faith Healer (Gloucester Stage Company), Shear Madness (all male roles), the Boston Pops premiere of How the Grinch Stole Christmas (narrator). Film: Next Stop Wonderland. Television: the Cable Ace Award–winning animated series Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist (voice of Stanley).

Benjamin Evett has appeared at the American Repertory Theater in La Dispute, as Ilya Ilych Telegin in Uncle Vanya, Kinesias in Lysistrata, Jacques Roux in Marat/Sade, Peter in Absolution, Cassio in Othello, Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk/Sir Stephen Scroope in Richard II, Burris in Animals and Plants, the General in Mother Courage, the Messenger in Antigone, Time in The Winter's Tale, Lvov in Ivanov, the Policeman in Charlie in the House of Rue, Babbybobby in The Cripple of Inishmaan, Hyppolytus in Phaedra, Clèante in The Imaginary Invalid, Tranio in The Taming of the Shrew, Pentheus in The Bacchae, Zalman Tippish/Chaim Rascal/Dopey Petzel in Shlemiel the First, the Dreamer in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Leandro in The King Stag, the Son in Six Characters in Search of an Author, Punch 2/Judy Bell/Taxi Judy in Punch and Judy Get Divorced, Bouggerslas in Ubu Rock, Vince in Buried Child, Ariel in The Tempest, Charles Filch/Walt Dreary/Beggar Joe in The Threepenny Opera, Bardolph/Montjoy in Henry V, Lucky in Waiting for Godot, Herald/Chorus/Pylades/Hermes in The Oresteia, Epihodov in The Cherry Orchard, Nicholas Beckett in What the Butler Saw, Pistol in Henry IV, Part 2, and as Sir Richard Vernon in Part 1, in 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, and in Platonov. He has also performed at the Missouri Repertory Theatre, where he played the title roles in Billy Bishop Goes to War and Amadeus, and at the Great Lakes Theatre Festival, where he played Swiss Cheese in Mother Courage. He is a graduate of Harvard University and the American Repertory Theater/Moscow Art Theater Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University. Mr. Evett currently serves as artistic director of the Actors' Shakespeare Company in Boston.

Jack Willis appeared as Hector Malone Sr. in Man and Superman, Carl in The Old Neighborhood, The Drum Major in Woyzeck, Bruto in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and Relling in The Wild Duck in the American Repertory Theater's 1996-97 season. Previously, he appeared as Tilden in Buried Child, Caliban in The Tempest, the husband in The Accident, Man in Hot 'n' Throbbing, Jamie Cregan in A Touch of the Poet, Lopakhin in The Cherry Orchard, Sir Walter Blunt in Henry IV, Part 1 and Lord Hastings in Part 2, Boss Mangan in Heartbreak House, Panin in Black Snow, Uyttersprot in Dream of the Red Spider, Aston in The Caretaker, Sal in Those the River Keeps, and Banquo in Macbeth. As a member of the resident company at the Dallas Theatre Center, his roles included Willie Stark in All the King's Men, Caliban in The Tempest, and Jack Henry Abbott in In the Belly of the Beast. He has also appeared at the Alliance Theatre, Trinity Repertory Company, Yale Repertory Theatre, Arkansas Repertory Theatre, Teatro de Dallas, the San Antonio and Dallas Shakespeare Festivals, and Cincinnati Playhouse.  Mr. Willis is also a founding member of Aruba Repertory. Television and film credits include Dallas, All My Children, Love Hurts, Problem Child, and I Come in Peace.

Jim Farmer, the composer of music for Alice in Bed, lives in New York City. He has scored music for director Tom Dicillo's feature films Johnny Suede, Living in Oblivion, and the forthcoming Box of Moonlight. He has composed music and sound design for various television and radio commercials for Sony and MTV, among others, and for Bob McGrath's Ridge Theater productions of Jungle Movie and Fragments of Ridge. Mr. Farmer has written, directed, and composed music for the plays Frontier Halloween, Pistols and Stamens, The Savage Routine of Living, We Never Learn, and When Existential Things Happen to Good People.

A.R.T. Senior Actor, founding member of the Yale Repertory Theatre and the A.R.T. Yale: more than 40 productions (including The Seagull). A.R.T.: 100 productions including The Seagull (three turns as Sorin), Julius Caesar, Three Sisters, The Onion Cellar, Major Barbara (Undershaft), Heartbreak House (Shotover), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Quince four times, Snug once), Henry IV (Falstaff), Twelfth Night (Toby Belch), The Caretaker (Davies), The Homecoming (Max), Loot (Truscott), Man and Superman (Mendoza/Devil), Waiting for Godot (Vladimir), The Threepenny Opera (Peacham/Petey), Ivanov (Lebedev), Three Sisters (Chebutkin), Buried Child (Dodge), The Cherry Orchard (Gaev) and The King Stag (Pantelone). Teaches at Harvard College, Harvard’s Summer and Extension Schools and at the A.R.T/MXAT Institute. Trained at the Old Vic Theatre School and subsequently taught there. Acted at the Old Vic, Young Vic, The Royal Court, in the West End, in films and television and has been hosting his own show “The Caravan” for the BBC for five years. Came to the U.S. with the satirical revue The Establishment and acted on and off Broadway, at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and at the Lincoln Center Festival. Lectured on Shakespeare in India and the Netherlands Theatre School. Received the Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Boston Actor and the Jason Robards Award for Dedication to the Theatre.

A.R.T.: 119 productions, including R. Buckminster Fuller: THE HISTORY (and Myster) OF THE UNIVERSE (R. Buckminster Fuller), Cabaret (Fraulein Schneider), Endgame (Clov), The Seagull (Dorn), Oliver Twist (also at Theatre for a New Audience and Berkeley Repertory Theatre), The Birthday Party (Stanley), Highway Ulysses (Ulysses), Uncle Vanya (Vanya), Marat/Sade (Marquis de Sade), Richard II (Richard). Broadway: Jackie: An American Life (23 roles). Off-Broadway: Johan Padan (Johan), Big Time (Ted).  Tours with the Company across the U.S., with residencies in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and throughout Europe, Canada, Israel, Taiwan, Japan and Moscow, and has recently been performing Julius Caesar in France. Other: I Am My Own Wife, Boston TheatreWorks; Approaching Moomtaj, New Repertory Theatre; Twelfth Night and The Tempest, Commonwealth Shakespeare Co.; London’s Battersea Arts Center; five productions at Houston’s Alley Theatre, including Our Town (Dr. Gibbs, directed by José Quintero); and many theatres throughout the U.S. Awards: 1994 Elliot Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence, 2000 and 2004 IRNE Awards for Best Actor, 1997 Los Angeles DramaLogue Award (for title role of Shlemiel the First). Television: Julie Taymor’s film Fool’s Fire (PBS American Playhouse), "Unsolved Mysteries," "Del and Alex" (Alex, A&E Network). Film: Mystic River (directed by Clint Eastwood), The Pink Panther II. He is on the faculty of the A.R.T. Institute, teaches acting at Harvard University and Emerson College, and is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama.

A.R.T.: The Lily’s Revenge, Cabaret, Paradise Lost, Endgame, The Seagull, Oliver Twist, Island of Slaves, The Onion Cellar, The Communist Dracula Pageant, Cardenio, Julius Caesar, Amerika, The Miser, Henry IV and V, The Birthday Party, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, La Dispute, Uncle Vanya, Enrico IV, The Winter’s Tale, The Wild Duck, Buried Child, Tartuffe, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Waiting for Godot. Regional: Twelfth Night, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company; Sweeney Todd, My Fair Lady, Lyric Stage Company; Boston Playwrights’ Theatre; The Poets’ Theater; Israeli Stage; Central Square Theater; New Repertory Theater; Hartford Stage.

Vontress Mitchell appeared as Zeinvel Shmeckel in the American Repertory Theater's world premiere of Shlemiel the First and as the Man in the A.R.T. New Stages production of The America Play. He has recently appeared as Rodrigo in Othello with the Juggernaut Theatre in New York, which will be performed at the Royal Shakespeare Company in spring 1997. Other A.R.T. credits include Henry IV, Black Snow, and The Threepenny Opera. He is also a 1995 graduate of the American Repertory Theater/Moscow Art Theater Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University.