Jiehae Park's PEERLESS to Make World Premiere at Yale Rep This Fall

Yale Repertory Theatre presents the world premiere of PEERLESS by Jiehae Park, directed by Margot Bordelon, November 27-December 19 at Yale Repertory Theatre (1120 Chapel Street). Opening Night is Thursday, December 3. The cast of PEERLESS includes Teresa Avia Lim, Christopher Livingston, Caroline Neff, JD Taylor, and Tiffany Villarin.

PEERLESS features scenic design by Christopher Thompson, costumes by Sydney Gallas, lighting by Oliver Wason, sound by Sinan Refik Zafar, projections by Shawn Boyle, vocal coaching by Walton Wilson, dramaturgy by Amy Boratko and Ashley Chang, casting by Tara Rubin Casting, and stage management by Victoria Whooper.

In an ordinary Midwestern high school, twin sisters M and L are competitive with everyone -- except each other. When the failsafe combination of perfect academics,killer extracurriculars, and calculated self-identification fails to impress The College's early-decision admissions board, they hatch a sinister Plan B to secure their future. Jiehae Park's PEERLESS is a blisteringly funny new comedy about the unbreakable bond between sisters whose vaulting ambition will not be deferred at any cost.

Development and production support are provided by Yale's Binger Center for New Theatre.

Tickets for PEERLESS range from $20-98 and are available online at yalerep.org, by phone at (203) 432-1234, and in person at the Yale Rep Box Office (1120 Chapel Street). Student, senior, and group rates are also available.

ABOUT THE CAST:

TERESA AVIA LIM (L) is making her Yale Rep debut. Her theatre credits include originating roles in Water by the Spoonful (Hartford Stage), Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them (Actors Theatre of Louisville/Humana Festival of New American Plays), and Concerning Strange Devices from the Distant West (Berkeley Rep); Awake and Sing! (National Asian American Theatre Company); Macbeth (The Public Theater's Mobile Shakespeare Unit); 4000 Miles (Long Wharf Theatre); Seminar (Philadelphia Theatre Company); Lorenzaccio, Pericles, Macbeth, and The Tempest (Shakespeare Theatre Company). Television and film credits include Blue Bloods, Limitless, Unforgettable, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, and Dispatched. Teresa trained at Yale School of Drama, where she was an inaugural recipient of the Jerome L. Greene Scholarship.

CHRISTOPHER LIVINGSTON (BF) is making his Yale Rep debut. His New York credits include PEERLESS (Cherry Lane Theatre Mentor Project), The Urban Retreat (The Public Theater), and The Architecture of Becoming (Women's Project Theater). His regional credits include Leftovers (Eugene O'Neill Theater Center); The Imaginary Invalid, The Pirates of Penzance, Hamlet, Henry IV Part I, Party People (Theatre Bay Area Award nomination) all at Oregon Shakespeare Festival; The White Snake (OSF, Berkeley Rep); The Whipping Man (Portland Center Stage); Romeo and Juliet (Virginia Stage Company); Black Nativity (Intiman Theatre); Sankofa (The Moore Theatre); and Youth Ink! Theatre Festival (McCarter Theatre Center). Film and television credits include Service to Man and Unforgettable. Audio recording: Oregon Shakespeare's production of Hamlet (Grammy nomination). Education: BFA, acting, Rutgers University.

CAROLINE NEFF (DIRTY GIRL) is making her Yale Rep debut. She was recently seen on Broadway in Airline Highway. Select Chicago credits include Airline Highway, The Way West, Three Sisters, Annie Bosh Is Missing, Where We're Born (Steppenwolf Theatre Company); A Brief History of Helen of Troy (Jeff Award for Best Actress), The Knowledge, Harper Regan, In Arabia We'd All Be Kings (Steep Theatre); The Downpour (Route 66); Port (Griffin Theatre); 4000 Miles (Northlight Theatre); and Moonshiner (Jackalope Theatre). Film and television credits include Chicago Fire, Chicago PD, Open Tables, and Older Children. She is a proud company member of Steep Theatre in Chicago and holds her BA from Columbia College in Chicago.

JD TAYLOR (D) is making his Yale Rep debut. Recent theatre credits include Victoria Stewart's Rich Girl (The Old Globe); The Understudy by Theresa Rebeck (McCarter Theatre); Ed in the world premiere of Ed, Downloaded (Denver Center Theatre); Leslye Headland's Bachelorette (Studio Theatre); Red (Asolo Repertory Theatre and Maltz Jupiter Theatre); She Stoops to Conquer (Williamstown Theatre Festival); I Hate Hamlet (Dorset Theatre Festival), Missed Connection (Samuel French Short Play Festival winner); Ground Up Production's world premieres of Rubber Ducks & Sunsets (Gene Frankel Theatre) and Letter From Algeria (Abingdon Theatre); and many development workshops and readings with O'Neill Playwrights Conference, Sundance Theatre Lab, Classic Stage Company, Ars Nova, Soho Rep., Lark Playwrights Workshop, Berkshire Playwrights Lab, and TheatreWorks USA. Television and film credits: Elementary, The Good Wife, The Mend (SXSW Film Festival Grand Jury Award nominee), Therefore I Am, Welcome to New York, and Lewis Black Drama Queen. MFA, NYU's Graduate Acting Program.

TIFFANY VILLARIN (M) is making her Yale Rep debut. New York credits include PEERLESS (Cherry Lane Theatre Mentor Project), Figaro (The Pearl Theatre Company), The Winter's Tale (Hang a Tale), Dream Acts (Re/Union Company), Gentrifusion (Red Fern Theatre Company), Resurrection (Diverse City Theater), Six (Second Generation/2G), and Nina in National Asian American Theatre Company's vaudeville-inspired version of The Seagull. Her other theatre credits include The Grown Up (Actors Theatre of Louisville/Humana Festival of New American Plays, 2014); and in Chicago: Ghostwritten (Goodman Theatre), Naomi Iizuka's Concerning Strange Devices from the Distant West (Timeline Theatre), David Henry Hwang's Golden Child (Silk Road Rising), The Search for Odysseus (Adventure Stage), and 365 Days/365 Plays (Remy Bumppo Theatre). Film and television: The Blacklist (recurring), Gotham (co-star), and Certainty (supporting). Also, Sundance Theatre Lab 2007: Ghostwritten and Ann Marie Healy's Have You Seen Steve Steven? Ms. Villarin has a BFA in acting from The Theatre School of DePaul University. She is also a member of The Actors Center.

ABOUT THE CREATIVE TEAM:

JIEHAE PARK (PLAYWRIGHT) is a writer and actor based in New York. Her work has been produced or developed through the Cherry Lane Mentor Project, Playwrights Horizons, Soho Rep.'s Writer/Director Lab, Berkeley Rep's Ground Floor, The Public Theater's 2015 Emerging Writers Group, New York Theatre Workshop, Dramatists Guild Fellowship, Ojai Playwrights Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, 52nd Street Project, The 24 Hour Plays on Broadway, and the amazing Ma-Yi Writers Lab. Her plays have won the Leah Ryan Prize and Princess Grace Award, and were included in two years of the Kilroys List. Commissions: Playwrights Horizons, Actors Theatre of Louisville/Humana Festival of New American Plays, McCarter Theatre. Residencies: MacDowell, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and McCarter/Sallie B. Goodman. As a performer Jiehae has appeared at La Jolla Playhouse, Studio Theatre, Tiny Little Band (Prelude and Cloud City), REDCAT, and Ripe Time/The Play Company (February 2016). She received her BA in theatre from Amherst College and her MFA in acting from UCSD.

MARGOT BORDELON (DIRECTOR) is a New York-based freelance director. Her recent projects include Anna Ziegler's A Delicate Ship for Playwrights Realm and workshop productions of PEERLESS by Jiehae Park for the Cherry Lane Mentor Project and Okay, Bye by Joshua Conkel for Steppenwolf Theatre Company. In New York, she's directed for Clubbed Thumb, Ars Nova, Target Margin, The Playwrights Realm, The Bushwick Starr, Theater Masters, Stella Adler Institute, and AracaWorks. Margot moved east after spending six years in Chicago working as a director, writer, and performer. She is a founding member of Theatre Seven of Chicago and spent four seasons working at Lookingglass Theatre, where she served as Literary Manager and Company Dramaturg. She received her BFA in theatre from Cornish College of the Arts and her MFA from Yale School of Drama, where she directed Sagittarius Ponderosa by MJ Kaufman, Cloud Nine by Caryl Churchill, and This. by Mary Laws.

CHRISTOPHER THOMPSON (SCENIC DESIGNER) is a third-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where he has designed Preston Montfort-An American Tragedy and The Master and Margarita. Other designs include He Left Quietly (SummerWorks Performance Festival, Toronto and Yale Cabaret); The Untitled Project, The Zero Scenario (Yale Cabaret); Midsummer, Love Holds a Lamp in This Little Room, A Map of Virtue, We Are Proud to Present a Presentation..., Middletown (Yale Summer Cabaret); Class (Penguin Rep); Proof, An Ideal Husband (Sink or Swim Rep); Cosi, The Woman Standing on the Moon (Urban Stages); Lady Windermere's Fan, Bronx Kiss (Purchase Repertory Theatre); and The Mock Tempest (Shakespeare Santa Cruz). His assistant and associate credits include Owners (Yale Repertory Theatre), the 2014 Carlotta Festival of New Plays (Yale School of Drama), the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting, New Year's Eve in Times Square, Macy's Holiday Windows, and For Colored Girls (Tyler Perry Studios). He holds a BFA in scenic design from SUNY Purchase College. CTSetDesign.com

SYDNEY GALLAS (COSTUME DESIGNER) is a third-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where she has designed the costumes for Deer and the Lovers and Don Juan. Other credits include The Hotel Nepenthe (Yale Cabaret); The Orpheus Variations (Deconstructive Theatre Project; The Public Theater's Under the Radar Festival); Bastianello and Lucrezia (Urban Arias); Macbeth for iBook (New Book Press); Leave the Balcony Open (New Feet Productions); As You Like It, Fefu and Her Friends, The Tempest (The New School); Ivanov, The Ghost Sonata (Columbia University); Future Anxiety (#serials@theflea, The Flea); After Robert Hutchens, When the Tanks Break, and A Map of Virtue (Williamstown Theatre Festival). Sydney is also the co-creator of The Missing Pages of Lewis Carroll, a new play that premiered at Pasadena's Boston Court this year. She has assisted costume designers including Gregg Barnes, Gabriel Berry, David Farley, Jane Greenwood, Susan Hilferty, and Ann Hould-Ward at institutions such as Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Public Theater, and New York City Opera. She is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and Playwrights Horizons Theatre School. SydneyGallas.com

OLIVER WASON (LIGHTING DESIGNER) Selected credits include Erismena (Yale Baroque Opera); Daphnis et Chloé, Kafka Fragments (Heartbeat Opera); Tar Beach (Luna Stage); PEERLESS (workshop, Cherry Lane); Grace and the Other Room (TBG Theatre); A Little Night Music (Berkshire Theatre Festival); Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Yale Rep, Berkeley Repertory Theatre); Sunday in the Park with George, Sagittarius Ponderosa, House Beast, Julius Caesar. (Yale School of Drama); Tartuffe, In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel (Yale Summer Cabaret); Pierrot Lunaire, The Small Things, The Island, and Christie in Love (Yale Cabaret). His work has also been seen at HERE Arts Center, the Incubator Arts Project, Paradise Factory, The CSV Cultural Center, La MaMa E.T.C., and The Cherry Pit, among others. Oliver is a graduate of Hunter College and Yale School of Drama. oliverwason.com

SINAN REFIK ZAFAR (SOUND DESIGNER) is a third-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where his credits include The Master and Margarita. He is a sound designer, aural collagist, composer, actor, and clown. A Bay Area native who was based in the Los Angeles area for several years, his recent work includes A New Saint for a New World (Yale Cabaret); O, Fallen One (Curly Cue & Co); and Blood Knot (Lounge Theatre). Other work includes Woyzeck (Illyrian Players); Julius Caesar (Griot Theatre of the West Valley); Hello Again, The Misanthrope directed by Keith Fowler, Jane Eyre directed by Annie Loui, A New Brain (University of California, Irvine); How I Learned to Drive (Nixon Theatre); and In Arabia We'd All Be Kings (The Little Theatre). Sinan graduated with a BA in drama with honors in sound design from the University of California, Irvine.

SHAWN BOYLE (PROJECTION DESIGNER) returns to Yale Rep after designing the projections for last season's world premiere of Elevada. Additional credits include Bird Fire Fly, THUNDERBODIES (Yale School of Drama); Pierrot Lunaire (Yale Cabaret); La Bôite à Joujoux, Spiegel im Spiegel (Yale School of Music); The Nutcracker (Grand Rapids Ballet); The Witches of Eastwick (Ogunquit Playhouse); City of Angels (Goodspeed Musicals); Lover's Tale, The Who's Tommy, K2, Red Remembers (Berkshire Theatre Group); Singin' in the Rain, and My Mother's Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding (Merry-Go-Round Playhouse). He holds a BFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, an MFA from Yale School of Drama, and is a member of United Scenic Artists 829, Projection and Lighting. ShawnEdwardBoyle.com

WALTON WILSON (VOCAL COACH) is Chair of Acting at Yale School of Drama. He was trained and designated as a voice teacher by Master Teacher Kristin Linklater and was trained and certified as an associate teacher by Master Teacher Catherine Fitzmaurice. He also studied with Richard Armstrong, Meredith Monk, and Patsy Rodenburg. As a voice/dialect coach, his New York credits include The Violet Hour and Golden Child on Broadway; the world premiere productions of The Laramie Project and The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later, and Endangered Species. Regional credits include productions at Actors Theatre of Louisville, American Repertory Theater, Long Wharf Theatre, McCarter Theatre, Shakespeare & Company, and Williamstown Theatre Festival. At Yale Rep, he has served as voice and dialect coach for Accidental Death of an Anarchist, In a Year with 13 Moons, A Doctor in Spite of Himself, Autumn Sonata, Battle of Black and Dogs, Notes from Underground, Boleros for the Disenchanted, The Evildoers, The Unmentionables, The Cherry Orchard, The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow, The Black Monk, Medea/Macbeth/Cinderella, Betty's Summer Vacation, The Birds, and Richard III.

FAY SIMPSON (MOVEMENT DIRECTOR) is the Artistic Director and co-founder of Impact Theatre, whose original productions include D-Train, Degas' Little Dancer, Research & Development, Kurt's Wife: A Story of Lotte Lenya, The Marital Bliss of Francis and Maxine, Triptych, Trapped in Seven, and Grey Gone. Impact's on-going Veterans Project: Leaving Theatre is dedicated to awakening audiences to the needs of our homecoming soldiers. As artist-in-residence at Stella Adler Studio of Acting last year, she developed and co-produced SCOTTY, inspired by Raymond Carver's short story, A Small, Good Thing. She has developed a unique physical training method for the actor called Lucid Body and has taught this process at Yale School of Drama, The New School, Michael Howard Studios, The Studio/NY, Marymount Manhattan College, and currently as an Associate Arts Professor at NYU's Graduate Acting Program. She teaches and coaches privately at the Lucid Body House on Lexington Ave. The Lucid Body: A Guide for the Physical Actor was published in 2008. Fay is a member of The Actor's Center. lucidbody.com

RICK SORDELET (FIGHT DIRECTOR) Theatre credits include 65 Broadway productions and 60 productions on five continents in hundreds of cities around the world including Misery starring Bruce Willis, Cymbeline for The Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park, Big Love for Signature Theatre, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, Waiting for Godot, No Man's Land, and Ben Hur Live (Rome, European Tour). Opera: Cyrano starring Placido Domingo (Metropolitan Opera, The Royal Opera House, La Scala), and Don Carlo and Cold Mountain (Santa Fe Opera). Film: The Game Plan, Dan in Real Life, and Hamlet. Rick was Chief Stunt Coordinator for Guiding Light for 12 years and One Life to Live, representing over 1,000 episodes of daytime television. Rick sits on the board of the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey and teaches at Yale School of Drama and HB Studio. He is a recipient of an Edith Oliver Award for Sustained Excellence from the Lucille Lortel Foundation and a Jeff Award for Best Fight Direction for Romeo and Juliet (Chicago Shakespeare Theater). Rick has created the new stage combat company, Sordelet INK, with his son Christian Kelly-Sordelet. They have over thirty years of action movement experience for film, television, and stage. sordeletINK.com

AMY BORATKO (PRODUCTION DRAMATURG) is the Literary Manager at Yale Rep and has previously served as dramaturg on the Yale Rep productions of Indecent, War, The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls, Dear Elizabeth, The Realistic Joneses, Good Goods, Belleville, Autumn Sonata, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Battle of Black and Dogs, Compulsion, Notes from Underground, A Woman of No Importance, Eurydice, and The Cherry Orchard. Other dramaturgy credits include The Time of Your Life, The Summer People, Romeo and Juliet, The War Is Over (Yale School of Drama), as well as Voice and Vision's ENVISION Retreat at Bard College. She has been a teaching fellow at Yale College and Yale School of Drama and was a managing editor of Theater magazine. A graduate of Rice University, she received her MFA in dramaturgy and dramatic criticism from Yale School of Drama.

ASHLEY CHANG (PRODUCTION DRAMATURG) is a third-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where her graduate work focuses on ancient Greek theatre and ecological performance. She has been a script reader for film at Abbot Entertainment, as well as for The Public Theater in New York and Yale Repertory Theatre. She has interned at The Public, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, and abroad in Berlin, where she assisted at Art Laboratory Berlin, a small, multimedia art gallery, and for Plan B Performance, a performance art duo. Ashley graduated from Stanford University, where she received a BA with honors in English literature and philosophy. She plans to lead a collective in the Bay Area committed to experimental art and sustainable living.

TARA RUBIN CASTING (CASTING DIRECTOR) has been casting at Yale Rep since 2004. Selected Broadway: School of Rock; Bullets Over Broadway; Aladdin; A Time to Kill; Big Fish; The Heiress; One Man, Two Guvnors (U.S. Casting); Ghost; How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying; Promises, Promises; A Little Night Music; Billy Elliot; Shrek; Guys and Dolls; The Farnsworth Invention; Young Frankenstein; The Little Mermaid; Mary Poppins; LES MISERABLES; Spamalot; Jersey Boys; The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee; The Producers; Mamma Mia!; The Phantom of the Opera; Contact. Off-Broadway: Love, Loss, and What I Wore; Old Jews Telling Jokes. Regional: The Kennedy Center, La Jolla Playhouse, Dallas Theater Center, The Old Globe, Westport Country Playhouse, Bucks County Playhouse. Film: Lucky Stiff, The Producers.

VICTORIA WHOOPER (STAGE MANAGER) is a third-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where her credits include Deer and the Lovers, Measure for Measure, Paradise Lost, and The Commedia Project: Altogether Reckless. At Yale Repertory Theatre she was the assistant stage manager for War. She also stage managed The Untitled Project (Yale Cabaret); served as the stage management intern at Chicago Shakespeare Theater; was the lighting intern at Oak Park Festival Theater in Oak Park Illinois; and was the Production Stage Manager at Triton College. Victoria holds a bachelor's degree in theatre arts from Dominican University, where she was the 2011 recipient of the Sister Gregory Duffy award of excellence and dedication in theatre.

ABOUT YALE REPERTORY THEATRE - Yale Repertory Theatre, the internationally celebrated professional theatre in residence at Yale School of Drama, has championed new work since 1966, producing well over 100 premieres-including two Pulitzer Prize winners and four other nominated finalists. Twelve Yale Rep productions have advanced to Broadway, garnering more than 40 Tony Award nominations and eight Tony Awards. Yale Rep is also the recipient of the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre.

Established in 2008, Yale's Binger Center for New Theatre has distinguished itself as one of the nation's most robust and innovative new play programs. To date, the Binger Center has supported the work of more than 50 commissioned artists and underwritten the world premieres and subsequent productions of 21 new American plays and musicals at Yale Rep and theatres across the country -- including this season's Indecent created by Paula Vogel and Rebecca Taichman, PEERLESS by Jiehae Park, and The Moors by Jen Silverman.

For more information, including a complete list of Yale Rep commissioned artists, visit yalerep.org/center.

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