Ray Chambers (Director of Professional Actor Training Program) has worked with ASF as an actor, director, writer, and instructor. Ray was last seen at ASF in Man of La Mancha, and has played in numerous productions at ASF including , Coriolanus, King John, Henry V, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, The Winter's Tale, The Rivals, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, and Cat On a Hot Tin Roof. Other regional credits include: Bent, Antony and Cleopatra, The School for Scandal, Coriolanus, Love's Labours Lost, Hamlet, Macbeth, and others at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego; and numerous productions for Arizona Theatre Company, Syracuse Stage, and Studio Arena Theatre.
Greta Lambert (Associate Program Director of Professional Actor Training Program) An ASF company member since 1985, playing Shirley Valentine, Lady Croom in Arcadia, Dottie Ottley in Noises Off, Truvy in Steel Magnolias, Blanche DuBois, Ivy Rowe, Hedda Gabler, Sarah Bernhardt, Eliza Doolittle, Candida, Miss Havisham, Hana in Night of the Iguana, Natalya in A Month in the Country, Marquise de Merteuil in Les Liasons Dangereuses, Maggie in Dancing at Lughnasa, and others. Her regional credits include Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Private Lives, Three Sisters, To Kill a Mockingbird, Death and the Maiden, A Shayna Maidel, and Woman in Mind. In Shakespeare she has played Cleopatra, Lady Macbeth, Gertrude, Hermione, Viola, Mistress Page, Beatrice, Constance, Rosalind, Emilia, Cressida, Kate, Titania, Emilia, Miranda, Duchess of York, Princess Katherine, and Lady Ann. Her television credits include Picket Fences, Young Riders, Nose Dive on A&E, and Requiem on PBS. Her ASF directing credits include Proof, Beauty and the Beast, Relative Values, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, and A Midsummer Night's Scream.
Dr. Susan Willis (Theatre History/ Dramatic Literature) has been the ASF dramaturg since 1985. She directed last season's Richard III and Fair and Tender Ladies (as well as that play's 1998 premiere and its nine-state tour in 2000) and ASF's recent productions of The Taming of the Shrew, Steel Magnolias, and the premiere of The Moving of Lilla Barton as well as Graduate Acting Company productions of Twelfth Night, The Winter's Tale, Love's Labours Lost and SWP readings and MFA workshop productions. Her other duties at ASF include implementing Theatre in the Mind, ASF's adult educational outreach program, writing study materials for the SchoolFest program, and teaching in the MFA program. With a BA from Emory University and M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia, she is also a Professor of English at Auburn University Montgomery and author of The BBC Shakespeare Plays: Making the Televised Canon.
Sarah Felder's (Voice and Speech) work at ASF includes Steel Magnolias, A Christmas Carol, Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet and The Comedy of Errors. Her Broadway work includes Cabaret, The Sound of Music, A View From the Bridge, and The Crucible. Her Off-Broadway credits include New York Shakespeare Festival productions of André Serban's Cymbeline, Tartuffe, Julius Caesar, and The Taming of the Shrew; the premiere of Stephen Sondheim's Saturday Night; Tony Kushner's The Dybuk, Ken Lonergan's Lobby Hero; and Bill Irwin's version of Georges Feydeaux' A Flea in Her Ear. Her regional experience includes 5 years with Arena Stage, 8 years at the Shakespeare Theatre in D.C., and the Guthrie Theater on the premiere of Arthur Miller's Mr. Peters' Connections. She has worked frequently at Center Stage, Baltimore; Long Wharf Theatre; Hartford Stage; The Alley Theatre; and the Mark Taper Forum. A graduate of The Julliard School, she is also a Laban Movement Analyst, and has served on the faculty of Catholic University, Fordham, SUNY Purchase and the graduate acting program at New York University, Tisch School of the Arts.
Denise Gabriel's (Movement) work at ASF includes Macbeth, Proof, The Comedy of Errors, Steel Magnolias, Titus Andronicus, The Secret Garden, Disguises, A Christmas Carol and Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse. Ms. Gabriel has taught in graduate acting programs and coached actors since 1976. She came to ASF from being guest artist/Fellow of the Seminar at Schloss Leoploldron, Salzberg, Austria, coaching a production of Chekov's Three Sisters. She is a founding Board Member for the Association of Theatre Movement Educators and recipient of the 2000 ATME-ATHE Service Achievement Award. She has worked in New York; Shanghai, China; and a host of University productions across the country including A Raisin in the Sun with Dipunkar Mukherjee, Pangea World Theatre, Minneapolis. Ms. Gabriel's regional credits include The Comedy of Errors and A Midsummer Night's Dream at The Old Globe Theatre, San Diego; Romeo and Juliet at Clarence Brown Theatre with director Paul Barnes; and Alchemy of Desire, Dead Man's Blues, and King Lear at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park with director Ed Stern. As well as being a member of the ASF resident artistic staff Ms. Gabriel is on the ASF/ MFA Faculty.
Jason Armit (Fight Director) an Atlanta based Fight Choreographer, received his B.F.A. in performance from the University of Southern Mississippi, is a Certified Teacher with the Society of American Fight Directors and is the Director of the Atlanta Stage Combat Studio. He has staged theatrical violence for theatres such as; The Alliance Theatre Company, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, True Colors Theatre Company, Georgia Shakespeare Festival, Theatrical Outfit, Theatre in the Square, Dad's Garage Theatre Company and Actor's Express. In addition to teaching the MFA/PAT stage combat classes at ASF, Jason has also instructed stage combat classes for Auburn University, University of Georgia, University of South Carolina, Meredith College, Troy University, Georgia College and State University and Valdosta State University. ASF credits include; Romeo and Juliet, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Wars of the Roses, Peter Pan, Disney's Beauty and The Beast, Treasure Island, The Taming of the Shrew, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, All My Sons, and As You Like It.
Geoffrey Sherman (ASF Producing Artistic Director) Mr. Sherman has been responsible for the world and national premieres of scores of plays-from David Hare's Knuckle to Alice Childress's Moms, as Artistic Director of Off-Broadway's Hudson Guild Theatre, Oregon's Portland Repertory Theatre and Michigan's Meadow Brook Theatre. In New York City, his work as producer and director garnered two Obies, as well as Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Audelco nominations. He has received Best Production and Best Director Awards from every major newspaper in Michigan, for plays ranging from Angels In America and Arcadia to The Old Settler and The Rocky Horror Show. His work as a guest director has been seen at over forty theatres on both sides of the Atlantic including: New York's Roundabout Theatre Company and American Jewish Theatre; England's Redgrave and Crucible Theatres; and U.S. regionals including: Seattle Repertory Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Repertory Theatre of St.Louis, Center Stage Baltimore, Utah's Pioneer Theatre and Studio Arena, Buffalo. His work for television includes Another World for NBC and Woman's Day USA for the USA cable network.
Edmond Williams (Founding Chair and Director of the MFA Directing and MFA Stage Management programs) is Professor of Theatre and Chairman of the UA Department of Theatre and dance since its formation in 1979. His production of Edward Bond's Lear was honored with its selection to the national level of the American College Theatre Festival and was performed at The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Dr. Williams has been recognized with Druid Arts Awards for "Best Production of a Play" and "Theatre Educator". In 1996 he was honored by the National Alumni Association of the University of Alabama with their Outstanding Commitment to Teaching award. Dr. Williams is a past president of the Alabama Theatre League and the Southeastern Theatre Conference. Presently he serves as Chairman of the Commission on Accreditation for the National Association of Schools of Theatre, and he was recently elected the the National Theatre Conference, an honorary organization of movers and shakers of the American Theatre.