Henry 6

Barry Edelstein  (Director & Adaptor), 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.

Freedome Bradley-Ballentine (Panelist) is a dedicated arts leader known for fostering innovation, collaboration, and equity in the cultural sector. As Associate Artistic Director and Director of Artistic Programs at The Public Theater in New York City, he oversaw the impactful Mobile Unit, Public Works, Under the Radar, and Joe’s Pub programs. Previously, as Associate Artistic Director and Director of Arts Engagement for The Old Globe, he transformed the organization’s approach to community engagement, spearheading the creation of the Social Justice Roadmap and establishing initiatives to deepen connections with San Diego’s economically, geographically, and culturally diverse communities.

From 2006 to 2014, Bradley-Ballentine directed the theatrical program for SummerStage and the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theater in Central Park. His leadership elevated the festival’s quality and reach, culminating in the launch of the SummerStage Citywide program, which brought performances to all five boroughs of New York City. Throughout his career, he has built a national reputation for integrity, strategic vision, and cultivating equitable relationships across organizations and communities.

Karen Ann Daniels is the Director of Programming and Performance at the Folger Shakespeare Library and Artistic Director of Folger Theatre. A native San Diegan, she is an accomplished actor, director, playwright, vocalist, musician, and community organizer. Prior to joining the Folger, she was director of the Mobile Unit at The Public Theater in NYC, producing tours around all five boroughs of NYC bringing the tools of theater to incarcerated community through Mobile Unit in Corrections (MUiC).

In her prior role as the associate director of The Old Globe’s Arts Engagement department, she managed community partnerships, and created, piloted, and implemented cornerstone programs such as Globe for All, Behind the Curtain, coLAB, Community Voices, and Reflecting Shakespeare. She is a thought-leader, facilitator, and contributing architect for creating tools to help cultural institutions integrate anti-racism, equity, accessibility, community and audience engagement, and shared leadership as a long-term mission-oriented strategy for organizational growth. She is a 2021 Fellow at the Atlantic Fellows on Racial Equity, a network of leaders from the US and South Africa working to build expansive new futures in which Black people, and all people of color, are seen, valued, and respected. She served as chair of the City of Chula Vista’s Cultural Arts Commission, as well as the New California Arts Fund Leadership and Learning Committees, and is a co-producer and facilitator for the biannual Shakespeare in Prisons Conference and Network. In recent years, her creative work focused on co-creation as a composer/lyricist/playwright for musicals like gather ‘round and The Ruby in Us, centering the lives and stories of community.

Elizabeth Davis (Margaret)

William DeMeritt (Ensemble 1) Broadway: The Skin of Our Teeth (Beaumont). Off-Broadway: Twelfth Night (Classical Theatre of Harlem, Yale Rep), The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World (Signature Theatre). Regional: The Old Globe: Henry 6; Guthrie Theatre/ Cincinnati Play House: Shane; Oregon Shakespeare Festival: Shakespeare In Love, Indecent, Merry Wives of Windsor; Alabama Shakespeare Festival: It’s a Wonderful Life; Repertory Theatre of St. Louis: The Gradient; Humana Festival of New American Plays: We, The Invisibles; Dallas Theater Center: Sense and Sensibility, more. International: Amsterdam Fringe Festival: October in the Chair & Other Fragile Things. Writer, Co-creator: Origin Story (New York Independent Ttheatre Award, Best Solo Performance). Film/Television: The Normal Heart, The Noel Diary, Playing Sam, Our Son, The Floaters, The Flight Attendant, NCIS: NOLA, The Outs, more. Education: BFA, Marymount Manhattan, MFA, Yale School of Drama. williamdemeritt.com @demeritt

Katherine Harroff is a playwright, producer, director, and actor and Artist-in-Residence at the Folger Shakespeare Library where she also serves as the Director of Engagement. She is the former Associate Director of Arts Engagement at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, Ms. Harroff has pioneered documentarian and community-based performance, developing stories, teaching everyday artists, and sharing the tools of storytelling and professional theater with myriad communities. In addition to documentary theater, her work has included installation experiences, site-specific performances, as well as intimate and large-scale community focused events celebrating the stories, lives, traditions, and interests of the community she is engaged in.

Caite Hevner (Panelist) is a theatrical designer based in New York City. Her designs have been seen on Broadway, off-Broadway, across the United States, and internationally.  Select DC-area credits: Arena Stage: Change Agent, Smokey Joe’s Cafe; Studio Theatre: Admissions; Kennedy Center: How to Succeed…; Everyman Theatre: Book of Joseph; Baltimore Center Stage: Lookingglass Alice. Broadway: Derren Brown: SECRET, In Transit,  Harry Connick Jr.—A Celebration of Cole Porter. Select New York: Tony Kiser Theater: Between the Lines (Drama Desk nomination); NYTW: Sweatshop Overlord (Lortel nomination). She has designed hundreds of productions including shows Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway, and regionally in over 20 US states, at theatres including The Old Globe, Goodman Theatre, Pasadena Playhouse, Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theater, the Guthrie Theater, Alley Theatre, Dallas Theater Center, Cleveland Play House, Williamstown Theatre Festival.  She has served as Video Coordinator for BC/EFA’s Broadway Bares since 2018. She serves on the Eastern Regional Board for Local USA 829, IATSE, where she serves also as co-chair of the Respectful Workplace Committee. www.caitedesign.com @caitehevner

Madison Lindy (Production Stage Manager) TheatreSquared: A Raisin in the Sun; American Shakespeare Center: Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, A Christmas Carol, and more.

Julián Mesri is a New York-based Argentinean-American playwright and composer who makes multilingual plays and musicals in the US and around the world. He is the co-adaptor and composer/lyricist for the Mobile Unit bilingual production of the Drama Desk nominated and LATA award winning Comedy of Errors at The Public Theater, which recently completed an encore presentation this summer. His play, The Irrepressible Magic of the Tropics (workshopped at Playwrights’ Center) is slated to premiere as part of INTAR Theatre’s 2025 season. He is currently the Judith Champion Musical Theater Launchpad Resident at Signature Theatre and a Core Writer at the Playwrights’ Center. He received an EST/Sloan Commission for his musical Favaloro: A Heart in Pieces. Recent work includes Telo (Live and In Color Finalist, O’Neill NMTC Finalist), Last Coffee in Rockville (NAMT Finalist), and Bartolomé de las Casas Ruins My Pool (O’Neill NPC Finalist). Other work includes composing the live score of Henry 6 at The Old Globe, directing/arranging Songs About Trains with Radical Evolution, music directing and co-orchestrating Brian Quijada’s Somewhere Over the Border (Syracuse Stage, Geva Theatre). He has been a member of The Public Theater Emerging Writer’s Group, a Dramatist Guild Fellow, an Emerging Artist of Color Fellow and Usual Suspect at NYTW, and a Van Lier fellow at Repertorio Español. His modern staging of Fuenteovejuna received the HOLA Gilberto Saldivar Outstanding Production Award. He has also translated dramatic works for the Lark US/Mexico Exchange and PEN World Voices. He received his MFA in Playwriting from Columbia University.