SF Shakespeare Festival

Carl Holvick is the Education Director and a Resident Artist with the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival. He has participated in all of the various programs with SF Shakes including performing in Free Shakes and Shakespeare on Tour. As an actor, Carl has worked with the Shotgun Players, Cutting Ball Theater, San Jose Stage Company, Pacific Repertory Theater, Playwright's Foundation, Marin Shakespeare Company, Impact, Just Theatre, Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor, Playground, and Word for Word. Carl earned a double B.A. degree from UC Berkeley in Theatre and Political Science. He thanks his wife, Ashley, for showing him what true love means.

Lauren Spencer is grateful to speak these beautiful words with these beautiful people. A Bay Area based actor and singer, you may have seen Ms. Spencer recently in Blackademics and The Late Wedding at Crowded Fire Theater Company. Other recent credits include: Party People  (u/s Berkeley Rep), A Maze (Just Theater), Troilus And Cressida (Impact Theater), Good Goods (Crowded Fire Theater Co.), and Our Practical Heaven (Aurora Theater Co.). She is proud to have also worked with Magic Theater, Cutting Ball, Playwright's Foundation, Boxcar Theater, Playground, Townhall Theater Company, and the African American Shakespeare Company. You can see her this fall in Shotgun Player's production of The Rover (Oct. 15 - Nov. 15 ). Please visit laurenspencer.weebly.com.

David is a Bay Area actor and teaching artist. A Resident Artist of the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, David has performed in numerous Free Shakespeare in the Park productions as well as the SF Shakes School Tour, and has taught in the Midnight Shakespeare program along with other in-school residencies. As an actor, David has worked with several regional and local theaters, including Crowded Fire Theater, Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Marin Shakespeare Company, Word for Word, Just Theater, and Marin Theatre Company. David also teaches with Tomorrow Youth Repertory, and has worked as a Teaching Artist at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. David is a proud graduate of UC Berkeley and its Theater and Performance Studies program.

Sean Garahan is an actor and a proud member of the SF Shakes Resident Artist Company. He’s also a teacher, tour manager, house manager, stage technician, occasional director, and all around theatre lover. Acting is his first and truest passion - and he is excited to be back on stage playing Paris in this summer’s production of Romeo and Juliet. Sean has a BA in Theatre from Emerson College and is an EMC member of Actor’s Equity.

Carla is excited to be a part of The Winter's Tale. This marks her third outdoor show with SF Shakes, starting with Kate in The Taming of the Shrew and last year as Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet. Last seen as Gonzala in The Tempest with Cal Shakes, Carla has also performed with Shotgun Players, Crowded Fire, Playground, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, and the SF Mime Troupe in the Bay Area to name a few. Carla is a certified fight instructor and a founding member of Dueling Arts San Francisco. She is a proud member of Playground and a Resident Artist with the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival.

Regina Morones is excited to be making her Bay Area comeback as Benvolio in SF Shakes' Romeo and Juliet. She's a Bay Area native who's happy to be home again after being away getting a B.A. in Theatre Arts at Clark Atlanta University and completing an M.F.A. in Acting at the University of Iowa. Her passion is to continue to create and be a part of theatre that uplifts the marginalized by planting seeds of hope, tolerance, and change to promote healing and unity in her community. Her professional credits include Silo Tree and Four Stories at the Iowa New Play Festival, The Story of Me & You at The Good Works Play Festival in Atlanta, Meet The Past at the Atlanta History Center, More Than Petticoats at the Tabard Theatre, and Poison Places: Teens Living in the Age of AIDS at the Oakland Ensemble Theatre. Special thanks to SF Shakes for welcoming her home with open arms and kind hearts!

Gwen Loeb is delighted to be making her SFSF debut. Recent productions include: Mrs. Bennett in Pride & Prejudice at Livermore Shakespeare; Pauline in A Bright New Boise and Babette in The Arsonists at Aurora Theatre Company; Columbina in Truffaldino Says No at Shotgun Players; Judy in Sleeping Cutie, an original PlayGround musical; Principal and soloist in the new musical Can You Hear Me Baby at the Unicorn Theatre with Jayne Atkinson-Gill; and Flo in the movie The Boat Builder with Christopher Lloyd. Gwen is a 15-year Company Member of PlayGround and a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association.

Phil (he/him) is a director, actor, stage manager, teacher, a member of Actors Equity Association, and formerly the Education Director for SF Shakespeare Festival and a member of the Resident Artist Company. He has performed with Shakespeare on Tour (Macbeth) and Free Shakespeare in the Park (The Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, The Winter’s Tale and King Lear), was Assistant Director for A Midsummer Night's Dream. Other companies Phil has appeared with include Shotgun Players, Central Works Ensemble and Lamplighters Music Theatre, where he is also on staff. Phil has directed musicals, operas and operettas around the Bay Area for companies such as Altarena Playhouse, Berkeley Opera, Pocket Opera, Lyric Theatre of San Jose, and Lamplighters.

Michael J. Asberry is honored to make his SF Shakespeare Festival debut. He most recently appeared in The Whipping Man with the Sacramento Theater Company. Other productions include Landless (AlterTheater); Fences (Marin Theatre Company); Seven Guitars (Artists Repertory Theatre - Portland, OR); San Francisco's Best of PlayGround Festival 16; Day of Absence, Fabulation and King Hedley II (Lorraine Hansberry Theatre); Topdog/Underdog (6th Street Playhouse); Superior Donuts (TheatreWorks); and Satellites (Aurora Theatre). Michael's resume also has several television, film and voiceover credits.

Valerie Weak’s previous appearances for SF Shakes include The Comedy of Errors (Adriana/Jailer) and Much Ado about Nothing (Ursula) in the parks as well as A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Helena/Quince) for Shakespeare on Tour. Valerie has acted with many Bay Area theaters, including CenterREP, Shotgun Players, and Marin Shakespeare Company. A few favorite roles include Toby Belch in Twelfth Night for Impact and the title role in Macbeth for Women’s Will, the Bay Area’s now disbanded all-female Shakespeare company. Valerie trained with Anne Bogart and SITI company in New York and is a member of Actor’s Equity and Theatre Bay Area. www.valerieweak.com

Recent productions: Three Sisters (Vershinin; Dir. Kim Rubinstein), She Stoops to Conquer (Jeremy; Dir. Penny Metropulos), The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window (Wally; Dir. Joshua Kahan Brody), Lear by Young Jean Lee (Edgar; Dir. Will Garrett Detlefsen), The Marriage of Bette and Boo (Karl; Dir. Kim Walsh ), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Bottom; Dir. Kate Jopson). My training includes undergraduate courses at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), and in 2014 I received a full merit scholarship to train with the British American Drama Academy during their summer in Oxford intensive. I recently received my BA from UCSD.

Henry Alper is thrilled to be making his SF Shakes debut as a performance intern. He has participated it Bay Area Shakespeare Camps since first grade, his most recent roles including Hamlet in Hamlet, Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, and Petruccio in The Tamer Tamed. He is entering tenth grade at Henry M. Gunn High School. He would like to thank the entirety of SF Shakes and his loving family for their support.