Avital Shira & Oren Stevens

New York, NY, New York, United States

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“Still she haunts me, phantomwise, Alice moving under skies, Never seen by waking eyes” --  Through the Lookingglass, by Lewis Carroll Oren Stevens (playwright) The first play Oren Stevens directed was a semi-improvised tea party, starring himself and his siblings and abruptly truncated by their nine o’clock bedtime. Uncontrollably drawn to the theater, he acted in numerous shows (both professionally and with youth companies) from the time he was six, well into high school. Oren has always maintained that to work in the theater it is essential to have an understanding and respect for the work of every artist, and in high school he began taking on roles beyond acting: working with directors on scenic design, becoming the first student lighting designer at his school, and taking leadership roles during load-in and technical rehearsals. Never one to sit back and wait for opportunities, Oren worked with a local theater company to create a program where he produced, wrote, and directed a play, using local high-school actors. Before being whisked off to college, he upheld this program for two years, which produced the world premieres of Through a Glass, Darkly (which later became<a title="" href="http://www.oren-stevens.com/phantomwise-photos.html">Phantomwise</a>); and Esdras: Perished, Erred, and Sinned. As an undergrad at Yale University, Oren continued to explore, rigorously, every aspect of the theater. Beyond his continued directing and writing (both with the Yale Dramatic Association and independently), he produced a Mainstage production, and worked as a scenic and lighting designer and a master electrician. His directing and writing work draws on his experience working as an actor, designer, technician, producer and, of course, an audience member, to create plays that draw on all aspects of what theater is capable of; he strives to fully engage everyone in the building – from the star performer, to the sound board operator, to the young lady sitting at the end of the last row who has never been to a play before. Refusing to divorce passion and intellect, his theater invites analytical thought from those who wish to give it, but still thrives in a purely emotional engagement. He ardently believes that some of the most important choices are those that the audience doesn’t realize are affecting them. Currently, Oren is a Producing Associate at <a title="" href="http://www.p73.org/">Page 73 Productions</a> while working as a freelance director and playwright in New York. <a href="http://www.oren-stevens.com">www.oren-stevens.com</a> Avital Shira (director) Avital is a graduate of Yale University with a degree in Theater Studies and English.  At Yale, she directed three mainstage plays and a number of scenes and readings in workshops and studio productions.  She also served as the Executive Producer for her senior project, Much Ado About Nothing and co-produced Yale’s first undergraduate acting showcase in New York.  As the co-coordinator of Freshpersons Conferences, a pre-orientation program for incoming freshmen, Avital recruited an attendance of over 120 freshmen, managed a $30,000 budget and organized a staff of over thirty counselors.  It was also at Yale that Avital met Oren Stevens and fell in love with Phantomwise.  Sitting at an early reading, her imagination was captured by Alice’s story -- or rather, by the many Alices’ many stories.    Since graduating, Avital has spent the last two years working as a director and an assistant director across the country.  She has assisted directors including Michael Halberstam, Aaron Posner, Scott Wentworth and Jane Jones.  Avital also worked at the Metropolitan Group, a Portland-based strategic consulting firm, where she specifically focused on organizational development, marketing, and public relations.  Recently, Avital co-produced a workshop and staged reading of Portland-native Martha Jane Kaufman’s one-act, The Other Grace, which performed at Theater! Theatre! to a sold-out audience, filled so full that there were a dozen young people seated on the floor.    As a professional storyteller whose passion for stories dates back to her own father reading a hundred-year-old copy of Alice in Wonderland aloud to her at age five -- until he fell asleep and she kept reading, Avital has always been fascinated by the power of childhood stories to influence our adult lives and by the ways in which these narratives fall short.  Avital is deeply passionate about Phantomwise’s exploration of the power of storytelling as an escape, an entrapment, a delusion and a path to clarity.   <a href="http://www.avitalschoenberg.com">www.avitalschoenberg.com</a>

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