Who’s Who At Festival Forty‐Two: NWDC Keynote Guest: Friday 1:30‐2:50 In the Mandalay Ballroom B Kunal Nayyar, plays the role of Rajesh on THE BIG BANG THEORY and it is his first as a regular on a television series. He had a guest starring role on NCIS. Nayyar is currently writing his first feature film, and his critically acclaimed play, "Cotton Candy," continues to run in New Delhi. His theater acting credits include "Huck and Holden" at the Dahlia Theater in Los Angeles, for which Kunal was awarded best male lead in a play on the West Coast by the Garland Awards, and "Loves Labors Lost" at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford upon Avon, England. Always a performer, Nayyar began acting in musicals and plays at a young age. After high school, he left India for the United States where he majored in business and took many acting classes at the University of Portland. In his senior year, he was nominated as the best actor in his play, "The Rose Tattoo," and was given an invitation to the American College Theater Festival (ACTF) to compete in an acting competition where he eventually won the Mark Twain Award for comic brilliance as well as a fellowship to the prestigious Sundance Theater Lab. He went on to receive his Masters in Fine Arts (MFA) from Temple University in Philadelphia. Nayyar played badminton for his school team and competed at state level in the region of North India. He is also a fanatical fan of cricket. He is said to have a killer shoulder shimmy. According to Nayyar, wikipedia says his name means "one who sees beauty in everything" and it comes from a Himalayan bird known as the Painted Snipe. He was born in London, England, and spent most of his younger years growing up in New Delhi, India. He currently resides in Los Angeles. USITT Keynote Guest: Thursday 3‐4:30 in the Mandalay Ballroom A Andrea Bechert has designed scenery for over 250 productions and numerous world premieres at theatres across the country including Colorado Shakespeare Festival, TheatreWorks, American Musical Theatre of San Jose, The Starlight Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Wildwood, Marin Theatre Company, Opera San Jose, Center Repertory Theatre, and many others. Her designs have been included in the 2005 World Design Expo and her scenic, costume, and projection designs for Mad Forest were selected for the Recent Student Works exhibit at the 1996 Prague Quadrennial. Awards include three Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards, a Denver Ovation Award, and more that 20 other regional design awards. She has taught at or been a guest at several universities including Stanford, Ohio University, and University of Wisconsin. Andrea is a member of United Scenic Artists, Local 829. Special Guests: Amy Attaway is in her second season as Associate Director of the Apprentice/Intern Company at Actors Theatre of Louisville. Prior to joining Actors, she was a freelance actor and director. Recent directing credits include 3:59am: a drag race for two actors in the 2009 Humana Festival of New American Plays, The Drunken City with The Necessary Theatre and The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later (staged reading) at Actors. Amy is co‐founder and past director of the Theatre Alliance of Louisville, and is a proud member of Actors Equity. Robert Boles has worked professionally as an actor and a director since 1972. He has worked both on and off Broadway, in regional theatres across the country, as well as in film and television. Currently he is in his fifth year as head of the theatre program at the University of New Haven, and is the NPP Region One Playwriting Chair. Bill Bowers has traveled throughout all 50 of the United States and Europe as an actor, mime and educator. His original mime shows, ‘NIGHT SWEETHEART ‘NIGHT BUTTERCUP and UNDER A MONTANA MOON have been produced Off Broadway to critical raves. His newest play HEYOKAH/HOKEHAY, a devised ensemble piece, premiered this year at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, where Bill was named Artist of Eminence. Bill’s recent play, IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING, had a sold out run at the Rattlestick Theater Off Broadway, and has also been produced at Berkshire Theater Festival and the Adirondack Theater Festival. Bill has been hailed by critics as “a great American mime”, winning the Dallas Ft Worth Critics Award, Best of the Berkshires and the New York Times Pick of the Week. IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING is now touring the United States, with recent performances in Colorado, Wyoming, Washington, and Alaska. His Broadway credits include Zazu in THE LION KING, and Leggett in THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL. He appeared with John Turturro Off Broadway in THE SOULS OF NAPLES, as well as in Naples Italy. He has also appeared in New York at Ensemble Studio Theater, Here, LA MA MA, St. Anne’s Warehouse, and the NY Fringe Festival. Bill holds an MFA from Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts, and an Honorary PhD from his alma mater, Rocky Mountain College. He presently teaches at New York University, and is a teaching artist for the PaperMill Playhouse, Urban Stages, and the Institute for Arts and Humanities Education. He regularly presents workshops and master classes, and has studied with the legendary Marcel Marceau. www.Bill‐Bowers.com Julie Denninghoff was a piano performance major at Florida State University, She has music directed / accompanied for Musicana Dinner theatre and the Burt Reynolds Theatre, as well as for Seattle Musical Theatre, The Fifth Avenue Theatre and Village Theatre. With over 200 shows to her credit, she was the Managing Artistic Director of the Washington Academy of Performing Arts and now teaches at Bellevue College in WA. Julie has worked with Broadway artists John Kander, Rob Fisher, Terrence Mann, Ann Reinking, Ben Vereen and Jay Binder to name a few. She is the musical director/coordinator/accompanist with the Broadway Theatre Project in Tampa Florida. Jay Edelnant is Professor of Theatre at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls. He teaches courses in theatre research, directing, and dramatic theory, directs and writes plays, and has served as Department Head, Director of Theatre, and Director of Graduate Studies. He has served as a consultant for various state, national, and international educational and arts agencies, has been a Sasakawa Fellow at the Japan Studies Institute, a Roy Carver Fellow, and has received the Iowa Regents Award for Faculty Excellence. He also completed a term as the National Chair of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. Amy Feinberg is the Head of Directing Playwriting and Production at The University of the Arts and the Producing Artistic Director of The Hypothetical Theatre Company, Inc. in NYC. In New York, she has directed the premieres of There or Here by Jennifer Maisel, My Sweetheartʼs the Man in the Moon by Don Nigro, Beautiful Hills of Brooklyn starring Joanna Merlin, The Action Against Sol Schumann by Jeffrey Sweet, Ordinary Heroes and Almost Grown Up by Aviva Jane Carlin, Gun Club by Hunt Holman, Quake and Sparrow Project by Melanie Marnich, Sitting Pretty by Amy Rosenthal, Buying Time by Michael Weller and its extended run with the help of SB Productions; The Heart of Art by Michael Weller, Mickey's Home, American Blues, Hot Date, and the critically acclaimed Ghost on Fire by Michael Weller. For the National Park Service, Amy wrote, directed and produced Ellis Island Stories which was in residence at Ellis Island 1992‐2000 and now tours nationally to schools, festivals, etc. Other NY and Regional Credits include: Topdog/Underdog at The Freedom Theatre (Forbidden Culture), There or Here workshop at Play Penn, Orphans by Lyle Kessler at Philadelphia Fringe Festival, Samm Art Williams' Brass Birds Don't Sing (World Premiere) for Jewish Theatre of the South (Atlanta, Ga), Almost Grown Up at Sacramento Theatre Company, The Action Against Sol Schumann at Jewish Theatre of the South, Shedding Light by Rich Orloff at Shadowlands Theatre (NY), Hunt Holman's Gun Club with The Cherry Lane Alternative and Melanie Marnich's Quake for Lincoln Center Directors Lab and LA premiere. She regularly directs for the University of the Arts. Amy holds an MFA in directing from Northern Illinois University and is a proud member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, the Actors Equity Association, and the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers. Dan Gray is the Resident Scenic Designer, Associate Professor and current Head of the Design/Tech Area at The Ohio State University Department of Theatre. Dan’s regional theatre credits include numerous designs for; The George Street Playhouse, Capital Rep, Players Theatre Columbus, the Delaware Theatre Company, CATCO and The Human Race Theatre Company. He also designs for many Central Ohio companies including; BalletMet, Opera Columbus, The Dayton Ballet, Red Herring Theatre Company, The Columbus Symphony, Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra and The Columbus Zoo. Forrest Hartman has more than a decade of daily newspaper experience, including nine years as the arts editor for the Reno Gazette‐Journal, the most widely circulated publication in Northern Nevada. An accomplished film, television and theater writer, he has interviewed many of the biggest names in entertainment, and his byline has appeared in some of the nation’s largest newspapers, including the Detroit Free Press, Arizona Republic and Indianapolis Star. Although he has written on a wide variety of topics, Forrest is best known as a film critic, and his syndicated DVD/Blu‐ray review column runs in three daily newspapers, as well as smaller publications including www.ForrestHartman.com. Forrest’s journalistic endeavors have been honored in the Nevada Press Association's Better Newspaper contest each of the nine years that he has worked for the Gazette‐Journal, most notably with a first place for Entertainment Writing in 2002 and a second place for Critical Writing in both 2007 and 2009.