Mother Courage & Her Children

Gideon Lester (Director, 08/09 Season) previously served as the American Repertory Theater's acting artistic director, associate artistic director, and resident dramaturg. His recent translations include Marivaux’s Island of Slaves (directed by Robert Woodruff at the A.R.T. in 2006) and La Dispute, Brecht’s Mother Courage, Büchner’s Woyzeck, and two texts by the French playwright Michel Vinaver, King and Overboard. His play Amerika or the Disappearance, adapted from Franz Kafka’s first novel, was staged at the A.R.T. in 2005, directed by Dominique Serrand. His other adaptations include Wings of Desire (the A.R.T. and Toneelgroep Amsterdam, 2006), Anne Frank, and Enter the Actress, a one-woman show that he devised for Claire Bloom. Born in London in 1972, Gideon studied English literature at Oxford University. In 1995 he came to the States on a Fulbright grant and Frank Knox Memorial Scholarship to study dramaturgy at the American Repertory Theater/Moscow Art Theater Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University. He teaches dramaturgy at the A.R.T./MXAT Institute for Advanced Theater Training and playwriting at Harvard.

A.R.T.: The Seagull, Desire Under the Elms, Uncle Vanya, Marat/Sade and Mother Courage and Her Children. A.R.T. Institute: Spring Awakening, Alice vs. Wonderland (Moscow). He was the Director of the A.R.T. Institute and a faculty member from 2001–03. Theater work in his native Hungary includes Sophocles’ The Oedipus Cycle, Master and Margarita, Ghosts, The King Stag, A Streetcar Named Desire, Uncle Vanya, Baal, Mother Courage and Marat/Sade, among many others. He has directed several productions in Oslo, Norway and A Streetcar Named Desire for Arena Stage, Washington, D.C. His films include Opium (presented at various festivals in Europe and winner of several prizes), Woyzeck (Hungarian nominee for the Oscars), The Witman Boys (official selection of the Cannes Film Festival and winner of several awards), and Eyes of the Holocaust, a documentary film about the Hungarian holocaust produced by Steven Spielberg for the Shoah Foundation, presented at the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival. He is a member of the European
Film Academy.

Gideon Lester (Director, 08/09 Season) previously served as the American Repertory Theater's acting artistic director, associate artistic director, and resident dramaturg. His recent translations include Marivaux’s Island of Slaves (directed by Robert Woodruff at the A.R.T. in 2006) and La Dispute, Brecht’s Mother Courage, Büchner’s Woyzeck, and two texts by the French playwright Michel Vinaver, King and Overboard. His play Amerika or the Disappearance, adapted from Franz Kafka’s first novel, was staged at the A.R.T. in 2005, directed by Dominique Serrand. His other adaptations include Wings of Desire (the A.R.T. and Toneelgroep Amsterdam, 2006), Anne Frank, and Enter the Actress, a one-woman show that he devised for Claire Bloom. Born in London in 1972, Gideon studied English literature at Oxford University. In 1995 he came to the States on a Fulbright grant and Frank Knox Memorial Scholarship to study dramaturgy at the American Repertory Theater/Moscow Art Theater Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University. He teaches dramaturgy at the A.R.T./MXAT Institute for Advanced Theater Training and playwriting at Harvard.

A.R.T.: The Seagull, Desire Under the Elms, Uncle Vanya, Marat/Sade and Mother Courage and Her Children. A.R.T. Institute: Spring Awakening, Alice vs. Wonderland (Moscow). He was the Director of the A.R.T. Institute and a faculty member from 2001–03. Theater work in his native Hungary includes Sophocles’ The Oedipus Cycle, Master and Margarita, Ghosts, The King Stag, A Streetcar Named Desire, Uncle Vanya, Baal, Mother Courage and Marat/Sade, among many others. He has directed several productions in Oslo, Norway and A Streetcar Named Desire for Arena Stage, Washington, D.C. His films include Opium (presented at various festivals in Europe and winner of several prizes), Woyzeck (Hungarian nominee for the Oscars), The Witman Boys (official selection of the Cannes Film Festival and winner of several awards), and Eyes of the Holocaust, a documentary film about the Hungarian holocaust produced by Steven Spielberg for the Shoah Foundation, presented at the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival. He is a member of the European
Film Academy.

Csaba Antal (Mother Courage and Her Children) was resident set designer for Katona Jozsef Theatre, Budapest, and since 1989 has been a member of the Union de Théâtre de l'Europe in Paris. He has designed at the Théâtre National de Strasbourg; Piccolo Teatro de Milano; Fondatio Teatre Lliure, Barcelona; Baadisches Staatstheater, Karlsruhe; and taught at the Budapest Conservatory, in Strasbourg, France; in Giessen, Germany; Salzburg, Austria; and the Paris Conservatory, France. His opera designs include The Magic Flute, Wozzeck, Peter Grimes, Don Giovanni, and Electra in Hungary, Bluebeard's Castle in Athens, Greece, Don Carlos in Germany, The Flying Dutchman and La Vie Parisienne in Paris, The Rake's Progress, Madama Butterfly, Tosca, and Der Rosenkavalier in Italy. He is the recipient of numerous awards, and his works have been exhibited at the Prague Quadriennale and at the Triennale of Novi Sad, Serbia.

Prior to  Desire Under the Elms , Edit Szücs designed the costumes for the A.R.T.'s Uncle Vanya, Marat/Sade and Mother Courage and Her Children (2001 Elliot Norton Design Award). Her work includes Hungarian productions of Shakespeare's Hamlet and Titus Andronicus, Brecht's Mother Courage and The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Foster's Tom Paine, Ostrovsky's Tempest, Feydeau's A Flea in Her Ear, Bezeredi's adaptation of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, Brabal's Closely Watched Trains, Goldoni's Mirandolina, Bulgakov's Ivan the Terrible, Ödön von Horvath's The Return of Don Juan, and numerous plays by Hungarian playwrights for theaters in Budapest and other major Hungarian cities. Her work has been exhibited in Hungary, The Czech Republic, Germany, and France, and she is the recipient of design prizes in Hungary and abroad. She was a member of artist delegations to Romania and Serbia at the invitation of the European Theatre Union.

Lighting Designer John Ambrosone has designed over thirty productions for the American Repertory Theater, including Lysistrata, Absolution, Marat/Sade, Othello, Animals and Plants, Mother Courage (2001 Elliot Norton Design Award), The Doctor's Dilemma, Three Farces and a Funeral, Nocturne, Ivanov, The Cripple of Inishmaan, The King Stag, Boston Marriage, Charlie in the House of Rue, Valparaiso, The Marriage of Bette and Boo, How I Learned to Drive, Nobody Dies on Friday, Man and Superman, The Old Neighborhood, When the World Was Green (A Chef's Fable), Alice in Bed, Slaughter City, and Buried Child. On Broadway he designed The Old Neighborhood. Work in resident theaters includes the Alley Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre, the Coconut Grove Playhouse, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Walnut Street Theatre, Trinity Repertory Company, and Arena Stage. Mr. Ambrosone also has designed in Singapore, Moscow, Japan, Brazil, Taiwan, Mexico, Germany, and France.

Sound designs by David Remedios have been heard in Sexual Perversity in Chicago/The Duck Variations, Romance, Trojan Barbie, Endgame, The Seagull, The Communist Dracula Pageant, Let Me Down Easy, When It’s Hot It’s Cole, Cardenio, Julius Caesar, Copenhagen, Donnie Darko, A Marvelous Party, No Man's Land, Oliver Twist, Britannicus, The Onion Cellar, The Island of Slaves,  Orpheus X, Romeo and Juliet, No Exit, Three Sisters (2005), The Keening, Amerika, Olly's Prison, Desire Under the Elms, Dido Queen of Carthage, The Provok'd Wife (original music and sound), The Miser, A Midsummer Night's Dream (2003), Snow in June, Lady with a Lapdog, The Sound of a Voice, Pericles, Highway Ulysses, Uncle Vanya, Lysistrata, Absolution, Marat/Sade, Stone Cold Dead Serious, Enrico IV, Othello, Animals and Plants, The Doctor's Dilemma, Mother Courage and Her Children, Three Farces and a Funeral, Antigone, Nocturne, How I Learned to Drive, and Man and Superman. He has also toured regionally and internationally with the A.R.T.  Other credits include Farragut North and Yankee Tavern (Contemporary American Theater Festival), The Merchant of Venice (Actor’s Shakespeare Project), Ah, Wilderness! (CenterStage Baltimore), The Diary of Anne Frank (New Rep), The Scottish Play (La Jolla Playhouse), Leap (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park), Daughter of Venus, Action Jesus and Dressed Up! Wigged Out! (Boston Playwrights’ Theatre), Sideways Stories from Wayside School, All of a Kind Family and The Fabulous Invalid (Emerson Stage), Samson Agonistes (92nd St. Y), Our Town (Boston Theatre Works), Far East (Vineyard Playhouse), Only You (Efron Entertainment). Dance soundscapes include works for Concord Academy Dance, Snappy Dance Theater Company, and Lorraine Chapman.  Awards: 2007 Connecticut Critics Circle Award (No Exit, Hartford Stage), 2001 Elliot Norton Award (Mother Courage and Her Children, A.R.T.), seven Independent Reviewers of New England Award nominations.