The Reading Room Festival

Barry Edelstein (Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director at the Old Globe) is a stage director, producer, author, and educator. His directing credits at the Old Globe include The Winter’s Tale, Othello, The Twenty-Seventh Man, the world premiere of Rain, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Hamlet, the world premiere of The Wanderers, the American premiere of Life After, Romeo and Juliet, the world premiere of What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, the two-part epic Henry 6, and, during the pandemic, Hamlet: On the Radio. He also directed All’s Well That Ends Well as the inaugural production of the Globe for All community tour, and he oversees the Globe’s Classical Directing Fellowship program. In addition to his recent Globe credits, he directed The Tempest with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2018 and The Wanderers Off-Broadway with Roundabout Theatre Company in 2023. As Director of the Shakespeare Initiative at the Public Theater (2008–2012), Edelstein oversaw all of the company’s Shakespearean productions as well as its educational, community outreach, and artist-training programs. At the Public, he staged the world premiere of The Twenty-Seventh Man, Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, Timon of Athens, and Steve Martin’s WASP and Other Plays. He was also Associate Producer of the Public’s Broadway production of The Merchant of Venice starring Al Pacino. From 1998 to 2003 he was Artistic Director of Classic Stage Company. His book Thinking Shakespeare is the standard text on American Shakespearean acting. He is also the author of Bardisms: Shakespeare for All Occasions. His podcast Where There’s a Will: Finding Shakespeare was produced by the Globe and Pushkin Industries. He is a graduate of Tufts University and the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar.

Emily Lyon is a director, dramaturg, and artistic director that carves out the humor and authenticity in new and classic texts. She co-created, leads, and curates Expand the Canon––a call to action to include a wide range of historic women and gender-expansive writers in the canon of classics––as Artistic Director. As a freelance director, Lyon has directed nine world premieres, including Diana Ly’s Sex and the Abbey (The Brick), and has worked with the Folger Theatre, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Geva Theatre, the Old Globe, LaMaMa, Yale Rep, the Royal Shakespeare Company, University of Michigan, and others. As a dramaturg, she’s worked with writers on shaping over 25 new plays, including the world premiere of Kate Hamill’s Sense & Sensibility, and editing classical texts, including the Expand the Canon plays and The Tempest for Shakespeare in the Park. Find out more at EmilyALyon.com, and ExpandTheCanon.com. 

Reynaldo Piniella (he/him) is an actor, writer, activist and educator from East New York, Brooklyn. In 2021, he was in the acting company of two Broadway shows at the same time: Thoughts of a Colored Man and Trouble in Mind. His Off-Broadway acting credits include work at Signature Theatre Company, the Public Theater, the Working Theater, Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA), and Rattlestick Theater, regionally with Baltimore Center Stage, Syracuse Stage, Long Wharf Theatre, the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, Cleveland Play House, NY Stage and Film, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, St. Louis Shakespeare Festival, and Actors Theatre of Louisville, and internationally with the Sundance Theatre Lab in Morocco and NEAP Fest in Rio de Janeiro. TV credits include Reservation Dogs, Sneaky Pete, Law & Order: SVU, The Carrie Diaries, Flesh & Bone, Blue Bloods, Greenleaf, Louie, NYC 22, Us & Them, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Film: Madeline’s Madeline (Sundance Film Fest, Showtime), Shadows (HBO Max) and Broken City (20th Century FOX). His co-created bilingual Spanish-English Hamlet has been developed at Folger Theatre, the Public Theater, the Classical Theatre of Harlem, and the Acting Company. He is an alum of New Victory Theater’s LabWorks, All for One Theater’s Solo Collective, the Civilians’ R&D Group, and a former Artist-in-Residence at Hi-ARTS, the cell theatre, Abingdon Theatre Company, and Culture Lab LIC. He has received fellowships from Theatre Communications Group, the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures, Weeksville Heritage Center, and the All Stars Project. @ReynaldoRey. www.reynaldopiniella.com  www.reynaldopiniella.com

Whitney White is an Obie and Lilly Award–winning director, actor, and musician based in Brooklyn, New York. She is a Tony Award nominee, a recipient of the Susan Stroman Directing award, an Artistic Associate at the Roundabout, an Associate Artistic Director at Shakespeare Theatre Company and part of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. Her original musical Definition was part of the 2019 Sundance Theatre Lab, and her four-part musical exploration of Shakespeare’s Women and ambition is currently under commission with the American Repertory Theater in Boston and the Royal Shakespeare Company. She has developed work with: Manhattan Theatre Club, The Public Theatre, Ars Nova, The Drama League, Roundabout, New York Theatre Workshop, The Lark, The Movement, Jack, Bard College, NYU Tisch, Juilliard, Princeton, SUNY Purchase, South Oxford, Luna Stage and more. Whitney was a staff writer on Boots Riley’s I’M A VIRGO (Amazon, Media Res). Whitney is a believer in collaborative processes and new forms. Her musical discipline is rooted in indie-soul, and rock. She is passionate about black stories, reconstructing classics, stories for and about women, genre-defying multimedia work and film. Past fellowships include: New York Theatre Workshop 2050 Fellowship, Ars Nova’s Makers Lab, Colt Coeur and the Drama League. MFA Acting: Brown University/Trinity Rep, BA Political Science, Certificate in Musical Theatre: Northwestern University.