Sheila Berotti moved to San Francisco in 1996 after graduating from Bard College with a degree in Drama/Dance. Sheila has trained with Theatre of Yugen since 1998 and became a company member in 2004. She has learned a number Kyogen roles, and is always eager to find the funny. Since 2002 she has assisted in the translation of the Kyogen Futari-bakama, appeared in Theatre of Yugen’s original adaptations of Old Man and the Sea, Don Q and was a core actor in last summer’s all-day theatre event The Cycle Plays.

You can also find Sheila at Pretzel's Yoga and Pilates where she attends and instructs classes. Go to www.pretzelsyoga.com for class schedule information.

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ELLEN BROOKS
Ensemble Member

Ellen has performed classical Japanese Kyogen with Theatre of Yugen since 1987, training and touring with Founder Yuriko Doi and other Japanese Masters. She appeared with Akira Matsui of Kita Noh in his American production of Beckett's Rockabye and with Ms. Doi, Kaz Tanahashi (Brush) and Haruyoshi Ito (Shintaido) at the Parliament of World Religions inÊChicago as well as in the company's fusion productions of Noh Christmas Carol, Elephant, The Imposter, The Dressing Room, Inugami (Dog God) and Purgatory. She adapted and directed Chekov's The Bear for the company in 2004. Ms. Brooks has taught Kyogen at the School of the Arts in San Francisco, for the American School of Japanese Arts and in college workshops.

She directed the Lamplighter/Opera West 2004 production of Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and designs stage lighting for many Bay Area companies at the Marines Memorial, the Herbst, Yerba Buena, the Alcazar, Eureka and Presentation Theatres, Mountain View Center, Dean Lesher Regional, Forest Meadows, Jarvis Conservatory and Napa Valley Opera House. In the Western repertory, Ellen recently appeared as Fraulein Schneider in Cabaret, as the Wife of Bath in Wife of Bath, The Musical and as Claudius in an all-woman production of Hamlet. She holds a Masters in Theatre from San Francisco State University in Directing and has twice been designated as an Artist in Residence by the California Arts Council.

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Julie Brown (Junior Ensemble Member) was born in Hawaii, but calls Kobe, Japan her home town. She has attended school in US, Thailand and Japan, and currently is a student in California State University East Bay studying Theatre and Dance. She has performed in Scapin, the Chea at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with the Theatre Department's international touring company, Aces Wild. She has studied Kyogen and Noh with Jubilith Moore, Yuriko Doi and Noh master Namiyoshi Masayuki.

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photo: Martin Cohen

YURIKO DOI
Founder & Artistic Associate

Yuriko Doi was born in Tokyo and introduced to the Japanese traditional theater of Noh and Kyogen at an early age. She earned M.A.s in Drama from Waseda University in Tokyo and San Francisco State University, and has studied with the most esteemed masters of Kyogen and Noh: Mansaku Nomura and Shiro Nomura in Japan. She founded Theatre of Yugen in San Francisco in 1978 where she served as its artistic director, teacher and producer of classical, contemporary and original fusion works of Japanese theater. Ms. Doi was a recipient of the CAC individual artist in residency, the NEA Folk Arts Fellowship, the NEA Expansion Arts, the Peninsula Foundation Grant for Individual Artist, and the Bay Area Theater Critics Circle Outstanding Achievement Award in Direction of Kokoro/True Heart, 1994.

Yuriko Doi has directed more than forty plays including: Kyogen comedies in English such as Tied to a Pole, The Persimmon Priest and Sweet Poison, the Noh play in English Sotoba Komachi,and the modern Noh plays Drifting Fires in 1993 (Janine Beichman) and Down the Dark Well in 1996 (Dr. Tomio Tada). Japanese contemporary plays include Shogo Ohta's Komachi Fuden (1986), Junji Kinoshita's Twilight Crane (1981), Shuji Terayama's Inugami (The Dog God)(1991), and Minoru Betsuyaku's Elephant (1995). Western plays using Japanese traditional theater technique and aesthetics include Sophocles' Antigone, Carol Sorgenfrei's Medea: A Noh Cycle Based on the Greek Myth, William Yeats' Purgatory (SF and National Tour, 1999), Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot (1984), Noh Christmas Carol (1993-7), and Masakatsu Gunji's Salome (Sarame Kyu Kyu No Dan) (1994) with Kabuki expert and director from Japan's National Theater, Masakatsu Gunji, and starring Kabuki actor, Kyozo Nakamura. In 1994 she also directed a premiere of Velina Hasu Houston's Kokoro/True Heart at Yugen's Noh Space as well as at the NYC Japan Society. As a guest director she has worked with TheatreWorks on Tea by Velina Hasu Houston in 1990, Fay and Michael Kanin's Rashomon in 1991, and as guest choreographer of W. Colin McKay's Nagasaki Dust (1994). In 1996 she joined the production of The Gate of Heaven by Lane Nishikawa and Victor Talmadge as a movement director at Old Globe Theatre, San Diego, CA., Annenberg Theatre in Philadelphia and Ford Theatre in Washington D.C. and A R Gurney's Far East (2001). Ms. Doi served as a consultant choreographer and Associate Director for TheatreWorks' Pacific Overtures (Menlo Park, CA).

In recent years Ms. Doi has developed her signature work involving the examination of blending other cultures with Japanese traditional theater styles. In 1997, she directed a most ambitious Kabuki-Flamenco collaboration of Carol Sorgenfrei's Blood Wine, Blood Wedding featuring La Tania, Jesus Montoya, Chuscales Valce, Kyozo Nakamura and Yumiko Tanaka from Tokyo. In 1999 she co-directed Amelia Lapena Bonifacio's "FilipiNoh", Sisa with Chris Milado. She has worked with playwright Erik Ehn in creating new works in contemporary Noh and Kyogen fusion style, such as the Kyogen play Bright and Gifted (companion piece to the FilipiNoh Sisa) and in an Asian adaptation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream presented at Mills College. In 1999 she taught at Colorado College where she directed Erik Ehn's Moon of the Scarlet Plums which then was developed into Crazy Horse, and performed at San Francisco's Japantown Peace Plaza (September 2001) as part of the 50th anniversary of the signing of the US-Japan Peace Treaty. In 2005 this production was re-staged again as The Moon of the Scarlet Plums and toured to Japan (Theatre X in Tokyo, World Expo of Aichi) and the US (Eliote, ME, Diego Rivera Theatre, SF and the World Festical of Sacred Music.)

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ERIK EHN
Artistic Associate

Since 1996 Erik Ehn has been collaborating on theatrical productions with Theatre of Yugen, first in revising a literal translation of a contemporary Noh play, Mumyo no I / Down the Dark Well, then with an adaptation of Jose Rizal's Noli Me Tangere. where Noh style was braided with Philippine material which was paired with an original Kyogen-style comedy, Bright and Gifted. In 2001 he worked closely with Doi and Noh composer Richard Emmert on a Noh piece honoring Crazy Horse, a fusion that blends Noh with Native American dance, singing, flute playing, and drumming. In 2003 he adapted and directed Frankenstein, which was restaged at Project Artaud in 2004.

Books include Beginner (Sun and Moon) and The Saint Plays (PAJ/Jophns Hopkins). Other plays include Heavenly Shades of Night Are Falling, No Time Like the Present, Wolf at the Door, Tailings, Ideas of Good and Evil, and an adaptation of Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury. These have been produced in San Francisco, Seattle, Austin, New York, San Diego, Dallas, Chicago and elsewhere.

He is co-founder and co-artistic director of the Tenderloin Opera Company, San Francisco (with Lisa Bielawa). He is a graduate of and member of New Dramatists. He has also worked as an actor and a director, often working collaboratively with collectives of writers, with choreographers, and with musicians. He has taught at University of Iowa, Santa Clara University, CA, Colorado College, Emerson, University of San Francisco, Cal Arts in Los Angeles and Princeton. He has directed at the Annex in Seattle and Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco.

Erik is currently Dean/Head of writing for perfromance, at California Institute of the Arts.

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JUBILITH MOORE
Joint Artistic Director

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Originally from Cleveland, Stephen first became interested in acting at a young age and pursued performance through high school during which time he received a number of scholarships to study acting at the Cleveland Playhouse. In 1997 Stephen returned to the performance arena and began studying acting again at City College of San Francisco and Studio ACT. Physical acting has always interested Stephen and while taking a Commedia Dell'Arte class he was introduced to Theatre of Yugen through a friend and immediately fell in love with the Noh and Kyogen forms. His first role was Taro-kaja in Noh Xmas Carol '99. He has also accompanied the ensemble on a number of short tours and recently performed in the opening ritual of last summer’s all-day theatre event The Cycle Plays. In January 2003 he premiered his solo piece RunEscapeEmbrace at Yugen Presents.

Stephen has been the resident light designer for Theatre of Yugen since 2002: The Clay Play; Norton, I; Frankenstein (for which he won a BACC award); The Old Man and The Sea and Don Q . Stephen has also designed for The 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors, Asian American Theatre Company, Amy Hill, Takami Craddock, Hiroko Tamano, Pauline oliveros, Strangefruit, Eri Majima, Ashpool and many other talented performers from the Bay area and beyond.

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Since 2002 Lluis has worked collectively with the artistic team to create the original experimental pieces The Clay Play (2002), Norton, I (2003), The Old Man and The Sea (2005), Frankenstein (as the Doctor in 2003, as the creature in 2004), toured to Japan in Moon of the Scarlet Plums (2005), adapted Don Q (2006) and was a core actor in last summer’s all-day theatre event The Cycle Plays (07/07/07).

Lluis' other notable roles include: Agamemnon in Clytemnestra by Tadashi Suzuki, Banquo in Shogun MacBeth, Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Yerba Buena Gardens, and Mercutio in Romeo & Juliet with SF Shakespeare Festival. Lluis has also directed Purgatory by Yeats, The Great American Cheese Sandwich by Burton Cohen, as well as directed, produced and performed in The Architect and the Emperor of Assyria by Fernando Arrabaal with his own company, Anhinga Productions.

In his spare time Lluis studyies languages, guitar and contemporary and classical Catalan theatre. His translations include Dotze Treballs by Lluisa Cunille, and Estrips by Toni Cabre.

Lluis oversees finances and technology for Theatre of Yugen and is the webmaster for this site.

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Libby Zilber holds degrees in Theater and French from Lawrence University (1982) and is a graduate of The Drama Studio of London at Berkeley (1985). She is a Joint Artistic Director along with Lluis Valls and Jubilith Moore for Theatre of Yugen where she began studying Noh and Kyogen with Founder Yuriko Doi in 1986. She has toured nationally with the company and their repertoire of Kyogen comedic plays in English. Experimental fusion productions include Shogo Ohta's Komachi Fuden (chorus/Nurse), a Kyogen-style Waiting for Godot (Estragon), Peter Whigham's English translation of Sotoba Komachi (Komachi), Janine Beichman's modern Noh play Drifting Fires (shite), and Erik Ehn's Crazy Horse/Moon of the Scarlet Plums (Assistant Director/Chorus).

As Joint Artistic Director, she spearheaded a collectively created original piece, The Clay Play, created the role of Elizabeth and Monster Bride in Erik Ehn's Frankenstein and danced the role of the Marlin in Jubilith Moore's adaptation of The Old Man and the Sea, and directed Don Q. She was a core actor for The Cycle Plays. Libby has also studied with Noh master Akira Matsui and Nohkan flute with Junko Shishido and Richard Emmert, and is an Affiliate Artist with Theatre Nohgaku.

Libby is in charge of Theatre of Yugen's marketing and development and is our resident graphics designer.

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Max
Ensemble Member

Max creates puppets and environments using materials as varied as fire, cloth, metal, papier-mache and plastic. She has worked as a puppeteer for Brooklyn's Art at St. Anne's and performed as a shadow puppeteer for the New Conservatory Theater. Original puppet productions in San Francisco include Killing Mom, Hop, Sweet Meat and The Sand Child, a solo shadow show. With Theatre of Yugen she has designed the set and props as well as performed as the guest puppetry artist in Theatre of Yugen's production of Frankenstein (for which she was nominated for a BACC award) and designed and manipulated puppets for The Old Man and The Sea, designed the set and props for Don Q, and was a core actor in The Cycle Plays.

Max also works as a lighting designer and stilt walker.

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Edward Schocker
Administrative Director

Since starting the Annual Music for People & Thingamajigs festival 10 years ago, Edward Schocker has been active in promoting and producing experimental arts events. He is one of the founding members of Thingamajigs.org (promoting musician and artists who work with made/found objects and alternate tuning systems). Edward is also an active composer/performer in the Bay Area and was awarded the NEA-Japan/US Friendship Commission Creative Artist Fellowship, allowing him to live and work in Tokyo for 2006. Most recently he has received a Meet The Composer "Creative Connection Grant" to give workshops and concerts in both North and South Cyprus in Fall of 2007. He has been Administrative Director Theatre of Yugen since fall of 2006.

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John is an actor/musician currently based in Tokyo. He has been studying and performing Noh for the past six years under the tutelage of Richard Emmert, Omura Sadamu and Akira Matsui. Apart from Noh, he has performed extensively as an actor in the New York City area, Europe, North America and Asia with a variety of companies. These include: Richard Foreman's Ontological Hysteric, Peter Schumann's Bread and Puppet, Min Tanaka's Maijuku and Michael Counts' Gale Gates et al, of which he was a founding member. His most recent credits include: the final performance of GAle GAtes et al entitled The World at the Whitney Museum in New York, Theatre Nohgaku's At the Hawk's Well, and an original piece entitled Home performed at Theater X in Tokyo as well as the role of Johanne in a Japanese language version of Salome. You can also hear him in the US as the voice of the Italian Iron Chef.

With Theatre of Yugen he has performed in Crazy Horse, and helped create Frankenstein and The Cycle Plays. He is the Managing Director and a founding member of Theatre Nohgaku.

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Beginning her musical education at age 6 in the basement of Stan Lunetta (timpanist, avant garde composer and early innovator in electronic music instrument building), Suki played her first orchestra pit at age 13 (CSU Sacramento, Fiddler on the Roof, principal percussionist), detoured into dozens of experimental, jazz and punk ensembles and for the past 14 years has lived in the Bay Area creating site-specific sonic collage. Her work with the Theatre of Yugen started in 2002 as guest composer and musician for Frankenstein and was co-Lead Composer with Allen Whitman for The Cycle Plays.

Most recently she curated The Illuminated Corridor, a nomadic public art project that creates streetscapes of live experimental music and performative projection. She is as a founding member of the sample sound project The Noodles, performs on mallet and toy percussion in the new music ensembles Moe!kestra! andDaniel Popsicle; and is the drummer in She Mob, the women-led post-punk band that came in 771st (tied with Michael Jackson) in the Village Voice 2002 Pazz and Jop Poll.

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Mei Ann Teo is a Singaporean director now based in San Francisco. Productions include: Waiting for Godot, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, The Good Woman of Setzuan, Our Town, Measure for Measure, The Misanthrope, Fiddler on the Roof, The Skin of Our Teeth, Twelfth Night, Porcelain, the Bay Area Premieres of Boy Gets Girl, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Bee-Luther-Hatchee, and the World Premiere of Middle Flight. She has trained as an actor in Singapore, in Viewpoints and Suzuki with Anne Bogart and the SITI Company, the DAH Teater of Belgrade, and with the Theatre of Yugen. She is currently the Resident Artist at Pacific Union College where she teaches and directs drama and was Dramaturg for The Cycle Plays.

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Allen Whitman has performed, recorded, produced, licensed and written music for over thirty years, touring Japan, Sweden, most of the lower 48 U.S. states, Alaska and Canada. He has worked in a wide variety of musical forms and with a wide variety of musicians including Helios Creed, Tiny Tim, The Inkspots and The Sandals. He produced the Million-Mom March benefit CD featuring Emmylou Harris, Ani DiFranco, Melissa Etheridge, Shawn Colvin, and others. He is a founding member of the San Francisco cult psychedelic surf band The Mermen. He has worked with playwright Erik Ehn on productions in both San Francisco and New York. He is co-creator of the instrumental dancehall CD "biL" and executive producer of "The Unfinished Tattoo," a spoken word CD of the life and times of Leon "Whitey" Thompson, ex-bank robber and former Alcatraz prisoner. He has released numerous other albums and performs sporadically around the San Francisco area with The Mermen & others. He was nominated along with co-composer Suki O’Kane by Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards (2004) for Best Original Score and Best Sound Design for their work with Theatre of Yugen’s Frankenstein. Allen was co-Lead Composer with Suki O'Kane for The Cycle Plays.

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