The Wood Demon

Antaeus member since 1991. At ANTAEUS: The Curse of Oedipus, The Seagull, The Malcontent, The Plot to Overthrow Christmas, The Ugly Duckling, Mercadet, Pedrolino & The Hanky of Doom, The Blind One-Armed Deaf Mute, and The Wood Demon.  ClassicFest: Cyrano de Bergerac, Richard III, Lucky Chance, Merry Wives of Windsor, Exit the King, Rhinoceros, Penny For A Song, Collaborators. He is a master teacher of commedia dell’Arte, which he studied under the late Carlo Mazzone-Clementi. LA theater: The Capulets & The Montagues, The Importance of Being Ernest (LAWS); The Arsonists (LA  Weekly  nominee); Fafalo!, Golden  State (Dell’Arte); Master  Class (Mark Taper); La Bête, Bullshot Crummond, Footlight Frenzy and productions at The Powerhouse, Padua Hills Playwrights Festival, The Magic Theatre (S.F.). Film & TV: Almost Broadway, Born Yesterday, Book of Love, Night of the Comet, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Days of Our Lives, McBride, Lazarus Man, Quantum Leap, and the role of Don Kipper on CBS’ Bailey Kipper’s P.O.V. John also teaches workshops in commedia dell’Arte with Studio Zanni & the Antaeus Academy, and various classes at Santa Monica Emeritus College and the University of Redlands.

At ANTAEUS: The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Diana of Dobson's, The Hothouse, The Curse of Oedipus, You Can’t Take It With You, Mother Courage and her Children, Trial By Jury, Patience, The Man Who Had All the Luck, The Wood Demon. A founding member and early co-artistic director. Other Stages: Hillary and Bill (Victory Gardens Theater), The Imaginary Invalid, Glengarry Glen Ross, The First Picture Show (American Conservatory Theater), 36 Views (Laguna Playhouse), Archy and Mehitabel: A Back Alley Opera (The Yard, Chilmark), Temptation, The Wood Demon (Mark Taper Forum), Sex Parasite, Largo Desolato (Taper, Too), The History Boys (Ahmanson Theatre), Durango (East West Players), A Christmas Carol (Dallas Theater Center).

At ANTAEUS: Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Autumn Garden and Mother Courage (LA Weekly Award). Other recent credits include: Good People at La Mirada, Three Views of the Same Object and Four Places (LADCC Award) at Rogue Machine Theater, The Savanna Disputation at the Colony Theatre and Kate in All My Sons (LADCC Award) at the Matrix Theater, Breadcrumbs at Theater 150 in Ojai, I Never Sang For My Father with The New American Theater Company.  She has also appeared in L.A. at the Mark Taper Forum, the Geffen Playhouse, the Pasadena Playhouse, L.A. Theater Works, the Odyssey, and the Andak Stage Co.   Regionally, she has worked at South Coast Repertory, The Old Globe,San Diego Rep, Seattle Rep, La Jolla Rep, ACT, San Francisco Rep, The American Shakespeare Festival , Connecticut Rep, the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival, the McCarter, Princeton Rep to name a few.   She recently appeared on TV in Murder in the First and in the motion picture Wild.

At ANTAEUS (Directing): Cymbeline, The Tempest, The Hothouse; (Acting): The Zip Code Plays, Three Days in the Country, Hedda Gabler, Cousin Bette, Tonight at 8:30, The Liar, Patience, The Wood Demon. Other directing credits: Ensemble Theatre Company, A Noise Within, The Jewel Theatre, North Coast Repertory, Playwright’s Arena, PICT (Pittsburgh). Other acting credits: South Coast Repertory, Pasadena Playhouse, The Ensemble Theatre Company, The Harold Clurman Theatre, PICT, Kinetic Theatre Company, ACT (Seattle), Shakespeare Festival LA, The Old Globe, The Mark Taper Forum, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, The American Conservatory Theatre. TV: Recurring roles on the new Frasier and Desperate Housewives, and guest stars on NCIS and many others. M.F.A., The American Conservatory Theatre. Recipient of the 2011 Lunt Fontanne Fellowship.

(Co-Founder, first Artistic Director): The Wood Demon, Mysteries and Mayhem, Of Mice and Men, The Man Who Had All The Luck, Mercadet, The Liar, The Proof of the Promise, Swansong, King Lear. Broadway: To Kill a Mockingbird, The Iceman Cometh, Waitress: The Musical,The Audience, Rocky, The Best Man, A Man for All Seasons, Henry IV. Off-Broadway: Measure for Measure, All’s Well That Ends Well (Shakespeare in the Park); The Winter’s Tale, The Cherry Orchard (Bridge Project); The School for Scandal, The Hostage (Acting Company). Regional: over 200 productions for (among others) Center Theatre Group, Old Globe, South Coast Rep, California Actors Theatre, Berkeley Rep, Dallas Theatre Center, and various Shakespeare Festivals. Film: over 25 films, including Lincoln, True Grit, Zero Charisma. TV: over 250 episodes, recurring on Desperate Housewives, Gilmore Girls, King of Queens. Also an Emeritus Professor of English, former Juilliard Instructor, Shakespeare scholar, and award-winning playwright, translator, and dramaturge.

Lawrence Pressman has appeared on Broadway in Woody Allen’s Play It Again, Sam; both in London and on Broadway in Man in the Glass Booth directed by Harold Pinter; and in Show People at New York’s Second Stage. His regional credits include No Man’s Land at the Odyssey Theatre; Of Equal Measure at CTG’s Kirk Douglas Theatre; the premiere of The Paris Letter; Wood Demon, Richard III, A Month in the Country, and a leading role in the final workshop of Perestroika at the Mark Taper Forum; Chekhov X 4 and Tonight at 8:30 at Antaeus; and performances at La Jolla Playhouse and the Ahmanson Theatre. Other favorite credits include Betrayal, The Birthday Party (Matrix), Long Day’s Journey into Night, and King Lear. Lawrence’s nominations and awards include Ovation, Drama-Logue, Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, Garland, Maddy, LA Weekly, GLAAD, and Broadway’s Theatre World Award. He has more than 150 television and film credits, including Transparent, Doogie Howser, M.D.; and Hart of Dixie.

Janellen is well-known to Los Angeles theater audiences. She most recently appeared in Native Gardens at Coachella Valley Rep. Other credits: Maria Vasilyevna Voynitskaya in Uncle Vanya at New American Theatre. And she appeared in the original cast of its precursor, The Wood Demon, at The Mark Taper Forum, where she also appeared in A Flaw in the Ointment at Taper Too. Janellen has also performed at The Old Globe. In L.A. at: L.A. Theatreworks, East/West Players, the Getty Villa, The Odyssey, The Fountain Theatre, Sacred Fools,The Evidence Room, 24th Street Theatre, and in several productions with The Antaeus Company of which she is a founding member. She has appeared on TV in shows such as Sleeper Cell, Roseanne, Strong Medicine and in independent films. She has also appeared at regional theaters from Ohio, to New York, to Key West. Janellen is also a jazz vocalist and as a voice over actor, she can be heard in numerous video games, animation, radio and T.V commercials, and dubs English into international television films and series. She helped develop and lead Antaeus’ Education Outreach program and has taught for Antaeus Academy.