Maegan McNerney Azar is grateful to be joining Lean as an ensemble member after directing Every Brilliant Thing and The Taming, almost appearing as Lina in Cry It Out, and being heard in the radio play version of A Christmas Carol. She is an actor, director, and teacher proudly based in Greenville, SC.

As a director, some of Maegan’s favorite credits include: Love & Information, John Proctor is the Villain, Daddy Long Legs, HAIR: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical, and Romeo & Juliet (co-directed with Thomas Azar) at Furman Theatre; Othello (co-directed with Anne Kelly Tromsness) and Julius Caesar for The Warehouse Theatre educational tour; and Sisters of Swing and smudge at Centre Stage South Carolina. Maegan is also a Movement Director whose work has been seen in Eurydice (Warehouse), Women of Lockerbie (Furman), and Twelfth Night (California Theatre Center).

As an actor, Maegan’s work has been seen in Sweat (Jessie), Angels in America Parts I & II (Harper), and The Merchant of Venice (Portia) at The Warehouse Theatre; Intimate Apparel (Mrs. Van Buren), Two Rooms (Lainie), and Identity Crisis (Marcia) at Centre Stage SC; and Black Comedy (Clea), Liberty Inn (Mirandolina), and Rough Crossing (Natasha) at California Theatre Center. She is a member of Actors’ Equity Association.

As an educator, Maegan is an Associate Professor of Acting & Directing and Chair of the Theatre Arts Department at Furman University. She earned the 2020 Excellence in Teaching Award from the South Carolina Independent Colleges & Universities. Her work focuses on inclusive pedagogy, solo storytelling, and ensemble-based physical theatre. She was a President of the Southeastern Theatre Conference (SETC) Executive Committee and a Past President of South Carolina Theatre Association (SCTA).

Maegan has an MFA in Acting Pedagogy from The University of Alabama and a BS in Theatre from East Tennessee State University. With love to Thomas, Tristan, and Benjamin always.

2024/25 season: What the Constitution Means to Me

Thomas Azar has appeared onstage at Lean in Barefoot in the Park, The Thanksgiving Play, Death of a Streetcar Named Virginia Woolf and The Lifespan of a Fact. He also appeared virtually in the developmental reading of Mitchelville and the online reading of Cry It Out.

Selected acting credits from South Carolina include Appropriate, In the Next Room (or the vibrator play), and Angels in America: Parts I & II (The Warehouse Theatre); The Scarlet Letter (South Carolina New Play Festival); Identity Crisis and The Fox on the Fairway (Centre Stage South Carolina); John Proctor Is the Villain (Clemson University); and This Is How It Goes (Furman University).

Elsewhere in the country, Thomas has performed with the Alliance Theatre, Mill Mountain Theatre, California Shakespeare Theater, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, California Theatre Center, Magic Theatre, and Actor's Express. His short film credits include In a Room at the Edge of Infinity and No Ordinary Love, and he starred in the pilot of Divided States.

Thomas's fight choreography has been seen on the stages of Lean, The Warehouse Theatre, Centre Stage South Carolina, California Theatre Center, Furman University, and very nearly at Clemson University but for a global pandemic.

At home in Greenville, South Carolina, Thomas is one half of the parenting duo to an amazing kid, pup, and hamster. With love to Maegan, Tristan, and Benjamin (and Hampsty).

2024/25 season: A Christmas Carol

Megan Bowers is an actor/comedian based in New York City. She is an ensemble member of LET after appearing as in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, The Underpants, Tribes and Bad Dates.

Favorite credits include: Wren in Five Lesbians, Matt Damon in Matt and Ben, Little Sally in Urinetown, Nellie in Floyd Collins, and Bunny Lingus in Saucy Jack and the Space Vixens.

When she's not performing sketch and improv comedy at such venues as Carolines on Broadway, the UCB Theater or the basement of a tile shop, she can be seen hosting at The Ride. 

In 2015, she was honored to perform at the NY Comedy Festival, and to be named third on her mother's "comics to watch" list.

Terry Cermak is a founding ensemble member of LET and has designed lighting and scenery for The Glass Menagerie, The Waverly Gallery and The Clean House, scenery for The Underpants, Buyer and Cellar, Tribes, Constellations, Who Am I This Time?, Bad Dates and Art as well as lighting for A Dolls House Part 2 , If You Forget Me, The Christians and Death of a Streetcar Named Virginia Woolf.

After starting out in the burgeoning West Coast regional theatre scene, he spent 9 years at Richmond’s TheatreVirginia as Technical Director, Lighting Designer and Production Manager. He spent 11 years as Production Manager for the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, where he designed lights for the premiere productions of A Lesson Before Dying and Fair and Tender Ladies. Born in Chicago, he returned to work at the Goodman Theatre, where he was the Production Manager for world premieres of works by August Wilson, Carol Burnett, and Stephen Sondheim, and he designed lighting for The Guys directed by Robert Falls. He has been affiliated with the Arts Center of Coastal Carolina for over 16 years and designed lights and/or sets for more than 40 productions, including Les Miserables, Aida, 42nd Street, and Singin’ in the Rain.

Terry lives in a cottage on the Carolina Coast with beautiful wife and artist Cynthia, their dog, and two cats. Together they forage a life out of theatre, art, music, books, food, libations, and nurturing each other. Their creative endeavors are inspired by and dedicated to the memory of their son Henry.

Zach has been a part of the Lean Ensemble family since 2015 and is thrilled to continue working with the many talented artists that make up this incredible company. 

Among his favorite credits:  Tribes, Guys and Dolls, As You Like It, The Last Five Years, Shopping & F&%king, The Glass Menagerie, The Andrews Brothers, Macbeth, No Exit, Cloud 9, and also various dance workshops and concerts.

Originally from Indiana, Zach has been working professionally in stage management for over a decade. When not in the rehearsal room, Zach enjoys spending time with his cat, Dahli and going on day trips to Savannah. He is currently the Technical Director at Marion University.

Clifton “Chip” Egan is dean emeritus of the College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities at Clemson University. He received his BA in theatre from Hanover College and his MFA in scenography from Northwestern University. Chip began his academic theatre career at Clemson University in 1976 eventually serving as chair of the department of performing arts for nine years during which time the Robert Howell Brooks Center for the Performing Arts was planned and constructed. He is a past president of the South Carolina Theatre Association and the Southeastern Theatre Conference (SETC) and currently serves on the SETC Nominations Committee.

Chip is now a freelance director/actor/designer who works regularly at the Warehouse Theatre and Centre Stage in Greenville, SC. For Lean he has directed Other Desert Cities and Ripcord. He recently served as the Interim Director of the Clemson University Emeritus College as well as Interim Artistic Director of The Warehouse Theatre. He and his wife, Diane, have two married children and five grandchildren.

Directing The Diviners at the Circle Rep in New York in 1980 was the most high powered gig Tom ever had. The script was by Jim Leonard, who'd been Tom's student at Hanover College. When Jim began writing Tom advised he look for guidance to the plays of Lanford Wilson, a founder of Circle Rep. Through delightful coincidence, Lanford was dramaturge for the New York production.

In 2010, when Tom staged Talley's Folly in Indiana, in an "Author's Note" Lanford opined:

I'm thrilled to hear Tom will be directing my play. It was great fun hanging out with Jim Leonard and Tom and the "Diviner's" cast--lord, how many years ago? A time I look back on very fondly! And Tom worked such a magical spell on The Diviners--his is a talent and sensitivity I'll be happy to take advantage of for Talley's Folly."

Best review Tom ever got.

Barbara Farrar is no stranger to Hilton Head audiences. Between 2001 and 2014 she acted twelve major roles at the now defunct SCRC--among them Wit, Doubt, Foxfire, Yellow Dog Crossing, Rabbit Hole, and most recently, The Cocktail Hour and Skull in Connemara. Most of these were directed by her husband, Tom Evans.

Barbara has worked in theatre as an actor, director, acting coach, or administrator for fifty-odd years. In 1992, to advance her career she settled in New York City. In 1996, she was cast as a Broadway stand-in for Estelle Parsons in the two-character play, Grace and Glorie. Playing opposite Lucie Arnaz, Barbara went on for Estelle for thirty percent of the run. In the summer of 2014, Barbara turned her 11th performance of Grace at the Shuler Theatre in Raton, NM, where she also played 'Lady Bracknell' in The Importance of Being Earnest.

Bill is honored to be returning to Hilton Head as an ensemble member of the Lean Ensemble Theater, where he appeared in The Importance of Being Earnest and The Underpants. At the invitation of Blake White, he enjoyed working with the South Carolina Repertory Company where he appeared in The Seafarer, Golf With Alan Shepard, The Cocktail Hour, Skull in Connemara and Park Your Car in Harvard Yard.

Bill has appeared in numerous theaters in New York City and upstate NY where he lives with his wife and family. Favorite roles include: Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha, Orgon in Tartuffe, George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

Off ­Broadway credits include: Dr. Lanyon in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Basil in The Diviners and Caesar in Julius Caesar.

marcus d. harvey is known to Lean Ensemble audiences as Serge in Art and Pastor Paul inThe Christians. He was heard in our radio play version of A Christmas Carol. marcus also directed our radio play version of Noel Coward’s Private Lives as well as the mainstage production of The Mountaintop.

marcus is a NYC area based award-winning actor, director, writer and educator holding his MFA in Acting from Brooklyn College, MA in Dramatic Writing for Social Change from NYU and dual undergraduate degrees in Dramatic Arts and Performance Studies from UNC-Chapel Hill.

As an actor, he has performed for such companies as Lean Ensemble (Hilton Head, SC) Triad Stage (Greensboro, NC) , The Old Vic (London, UK), Playmaker's Rep (Chapel Hill, NC), Illinois Shakespeare Festival, WAM Theatre (Lenox, MA), and TADA! Theatre (New York). He has been on the small and big screen.

As a director, he has directed at Passage Theatre (Trenton, NJ), Bernards High School (Bernardsville, NJ), The Egg (Albany, NY), National Black Theatre/Harlem9 (Harlem, NY), Hillcrest High School (Queens, NY), LaGuardia Community College (Queens, NY), Marymount Manhattan College (New York City), The Potomac Project (New York City). Next up: Chisa Hutchinson’s Surely Goodness and Mercy in March 2021 at Passage Theatre Company (Trenton, NJ)

As a writer, he has written two solo shows, Are We Not Men? and baba. He is currently at work on his first full length play centered around black men and suicide/depression.

marcus is looking forward to leaning into the artistic community on Hilton Head Island. Learn more about marcus at www.themarcusdharvey.com

2024/25 Season: Skeleton Crew

Taylor Harvey is delighted to join Lean Ensemble Theater as an ensemble member. Taylor has been seen on the Lean stage in The Clean House, A Doll’s House, Part 2, The Humans, The Thanksgiving Play., Educating Rita, and Arround the World in 80 Days.

Based in NYC, she has performed Off-Broadway in First Love at the historic Cherry Lane Theatre. Regional theater highlights include The Heart of Robin Hood and Twelfth Night (Door Shakespeare), Coriolanus and As You Like It (Great River Shakespeare Festival), The Sound of Music and The Doll People (Hope Summer Repertory Theatre), Two Gentlemen of Verona (Jungle Theater), Sherlock Holmes and the Ice Palace Murders (Park Square Theatre), and Nine (Spinning Tree Theatre).

She is a graduate of the University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theater BFA Actor Training Program.

www.taylorharveyonline.com

Maggie Kettering has directed Educating Rita and The Thanksgiving Play, and was seen on stage in Outside Mullingar here at Lean. Regional directing credits include Baskerville and The Stranger at Peninsula Players and Emma at Door Shakespeare. She was a company member for over 6 seasons at Great Lakes Theater, and has worked with St. Louis Repertory Theater, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Northlight Theatre, House Theatre (Joseph Jefferson Nomination), Shakespeare Theatre Company, TimeLine Theatre, Delaware REP, Irish Theatre of Chicago, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival, Texas Shakespeare Festival, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Virginia Shakespeare Festival, Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Warehouse Theatre, and Delaware Theatre Company, among others. Maggie is a resident of Chicago, an Ironman finisher, and has a BA, an MFA, and is working on an MS to become an CCC-SLP. One day she hopes to have all the letters of the alphabet.

2024/25 season: A Christmas Carol, Summer, 1976.

Nora Leahy, a Chicago-based theatre artist, is thrilled to be an ensemble member with LET. She is the playwright behind 2019’s world premiere of If You Forget Me, played Laura in The Glass Menagerie and served as resident costume designer for the 2015/16 season.

As a playwright, her work has been developed and/or produced at The Shuler Theater (Raton, NM); The New Colony (Chicago, IL); The Greenhouse Theater (Chicago, IL); Victory Gardens (Chicago, IL); and Jackalope Theatre Company (Chicago, IL). Her play THE BRIDGE was a finalist for the 2017 Woodward Newman Drama Award. Nora currently serves as the Managing Director of Jackalope Theatre Company in Chicago, and was named one of "The 50 People Who Really Perform for Chicago" by Newcity Stage in 2019.

www.noraleahy.com

Katherine Nora LeRoy-Lawson is an actor, director and educator. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Theatre from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University and a Master of Fine Arts in Acting from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln.

She has received a Meritorious Achievement Award for Excellence in Direction from the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF).

LeRoy-Lawson’s acting career spans over 20 years, with roles on off-off Broadway, in regional theatre, and in film and television. Some theatre credits: Around the World in 80 Days, Mitchelville, Doubt , Good People (Lean), For Colored Girls, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, A Raisin in the Sun, In the Next Room, the 13th of Paris, Speech and Debate, Unnecessary Farce, Pretty Fire, The Ladies Man, Omnium Gatherum, Wit, among others. Notable television and film credits include Sundance’s Hap and Leonard, TV One’s Not Again, among others.

2024/25 season: Skeleton Crew

Ian McCabe is an actor, writer and director. Ian has studied comedy, writing, and clown in Chicago and Philadelphia. Ian has appeared in Chicago's The Waltzing Mechanics, Process Theatre Group, Caffeine Theatre, NewBeast Theatre Works and First Folio Theatre.  Other regional credits include Cardinal Stage, Two Pigs Productions, Southeastern Summer Theatre Institute, The Shuler Theater, South Carolina Repertory Company, Actors Theatre of Indiana and Bloomington Playwrights Project.

He is also an experienced teaching-artist and community engagement professional. Ian is proud to be a founding ensemble member with Lean Ensemble, where he is the former associate artistic director and began the education program. Ian has directed LET's productions of The Underpants and Tea at Five and appeared in Tribes, Constellations and The Importance of Being Earnest.

Matt Mundy is a founding ensemble member of LET and has been seen in The Glass Menagerie,The Underpants,Buyer and Cellar, Good People,Who Am I this Time?, Every Brilliant Thing and Art.

A New York resident, some of his recent credits there include: Midsummer Night's Dream (NY Classical Theatre), New York Water (Depot Theatre), Swiss Family Robinson (NYMF), The Baby Dance, Othello (Barrow Group Theatre), Romeo & Juliet, Much Ado (Pearl Theatre Co.), In a Heartbeat (Schicker Prod.), Irrationals (Shenango Prod.), Killgore! (Upright Citizens Brigade).

Other fun regional and touring shows include, A Prayer for Owen Meany (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park), Brighton Beach Memoirs (Portland Stage), The Glass Menagerie (Shuler Theater), You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown (Two River Theatre Co), Red, The Last Five Years, Foxfire (SCRC), Reel Music (Florida Studio), I Hate Hamlet (Cape May Stage), WB Concerts' Euorpean Tour of Grease!

Matt is a founding member of Core Artist Ensemble, NYC. A voice over artist, he also has a few silly characters floating in commercials around the country. Also, he can never sufficiently thank his dear family and friends, always leaning forward with their love and support. But he tries. MattMundy.com

2024/25 season: A Christmas Carol

Director of Lean Lab & New Play Development

Nick Newell, a founding ensemble member of LET, has appeared in God of Carnage, Good People and Who Am I This Time? and directed The Waverly Gallery and Buyer & Cellar. Nick also founded and serves as director of LET's new play initiative, Lean Lab.

He co-founded the Hilton Head Island New Play Festival, and was the Artistic Director of the Book Players. His Off-Broadway credits include: Taming of the Shrew and Elvis People.

His regional theatre credits include shows at Trinity Repertory Company, American Repertory Theatre, Dorset Theatre Festival, Chester Theatre Company, New York Stage and Film, Mill Mountain Theatre, Actors Shakespeare Project, Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre and South Carolina Repertory Company.    

His film credits include: Neo Noir (Sundance Selection) and Locked In (with Eliza Dushku).

Nick directed the world premieres of Sheet Cake Sliding at Theatre of NOTE in Los Angeles and The Baristas at SCRC.  He is a Professor of Theatre at Georgia Southern University and is a graduate of the Moscow Art Theatre School and Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University. 

Sarah Newhouse is delighted to join Lean Ensemble Theater as ensemble member after having directed If You Forget Me and appearing in Good People, The Waverly Gallery ,Tribes and Other Desert Cities.

She is a founding company member of the Actors’ Shakespeare Project, with whom she has performed more than twenty roles in 11 years. Some of her favorites productions include King Lear, Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice, Medea, Twelfth Night, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Taming of the Shrew, and The Comedy of Errors. She has performed throughout New England at such venues as American Repertory Theater (The King Stag), Boston Playwrights (The River Was Whiskey), Central Square Theater (Distracted), The Charles Playhouse (Shear Madness), Gloucester Stage (The Norman Conquests), Lyric Stage Company (Lost in Yonkers), New Repertory Theatre (DollHouse), and Stoneham Theatre (Miracle on 34th Street), and most recently Puck in Midsummer Night's Dream with ASP. She has also been fortunate to have travelled as far as Taiwan and Moscow with international play festivals.

While living in NYC, Sarah worked at Playwrights’ Horizons, Kraine Theatre, Manhattan Punch Line, & LaMama, Etc., to name a few. Film credits include ‘Feathers’, ‘The Legend of Lucy Keyes’, ‘Dischord’, ‘Beneath Contempt’, and ‘Bleed For This.' Ms. Newhouse is a graduate of Hampshire College and the A.R.T. Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University. She currently serves on the board of directors of the Theatre Community Benevolent Fund, and lives in Watertown, MA with her husband & son.

2024/25 season: Summer, 1976

Tony's regional theatre credits include productions at The Warehouse Theatre, SC Repertory Company, Lean Ensemble Theater, Center Stage SC, Cincinnati Playhouse, Huntington Theatre Company, Shuler Theater, Berkshire Theatre Festival, and four seasons as Resident Lighting Designer at Actors Theatre of Louisville.  

His NY theatre credits include off-off-Broadway scenic and lighting designs with Eleventh Hour Theatre Company at The Culture Project for La Mama and Medicine Show.  

He is a member of United Scenic Artists and the resident design staffs of The Warehouse Theatre and Lean Ensemble Theater.  He teaches stage lighting, stage management, and computer drafting in the Performing Arts Department at Clemson University where he also serves as Director of Theatre.

For Lean, Tony has designed scenery and lighting for God of Carnage and lighting for Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, The Underpants, Buyer & Cellar, Tribes, Constellations, Tea at 5, Good People , The Importance of Being Earnest, Who Am I This Time? Bad Dates, Barefoot in the Park , The Humans, The Thanksgiving Play, Art, Other Desert Cities, Doubt. Educating Rita, The Lifespan of a Fact, The Mountaintop, Outside Mullingar, Around the World in 80 Days, & Fun Home .

2024/25 season: Skeleton Crew

Resident Dramaturge

Katie Rasor has been the dramaturg for LET's The Glass Menagerie, The Waverly Gallery, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, The Underpants, Buyer & Cellar, Tribes, The Clean House, Constellations, Tea at 5, Good People, The Importance of Being Earnest, as well as all programming for Lean Lab. Other dramaturgy credits: Baristas at the South Carolina Repertory Co; Three Sisters, Not Waving, and Home at the Williamstown Theatre Festival; Copenhagen and The Onion Cellar at the American Repertory Theatre; Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado About Nothing at the Actors Shakespeare Project; Sheet Cake Sliding at Theatre of NOTE; and Write Now at Indiana Repertory Theatre.

She co-founded the Hilton Head Island New Play Festival, which she wrote about for The Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy. She holds an MFA in Dramaturgy from the American Repertory Theatre/Moscow Art Theatre School Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University and a BA from Hanover College.

Katie has served as a Teaching Fellow at Harvard University, a Visiting Assistant Professor at The University of Evansville, Hanover College, and Bridgewater State University, and is the Dramaturgy Advisor at Georgia Southern University.

Libby is thrilled to join the ensemble with Lean, having previously appeared in Ripcord, Cry it Out, The Underpants, If You Forget Me and The Thanksgiving Play. For Lean she also directed Around the World in 80 Days and Art.  Other South Carolina credits include Inherit the Wind with the Arts Center of Coastal Carolina, A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Shakespeare Rep, and Irena’s Vow with Centre Stage.  Favorite credits include Viola in Twelfth Night, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, and Rosaura in Life is a Dream.  

Libby holds a BFA from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and an MFA in Performance from the University of Georgia.  Outside of her collegiate training, Libby has studied acting on three continents, including a stint at the Bali Conservatory in Indonesia.

Libby is an Assistant Professor of Acting and Directing in the Department of English, Theater, and Liberal Studies at the University of South Carolina at Beaufort.  Her emphasis in her teaching and research is the promotion of theater skills as life skills, including extensive work with simulated patient programs.

Libby lives in Bluffton with her husband, George, and their precocious sons, Marlowe Barrett, & Garrick.

2024/25 season: Master Class

Amanda Sox is an actor, director, and teaching artist based in Greenville, SC. She holds a BFA in Theatre Arts with an emphasis in Acting from Elon University, where she also studied directing and costume design. She trained in improv and sketch comedy at The Groundlings School in Los Angeles as well as Upright Citizens Brigade LA. Amanda was the director of Lean’s Cry it Out & the Assistant Director of A Doll House, Part 2. Select directing credits include: 44 Plays for 44 Presidents, and A Marriage Proposal. Select acting credits include: The Cake (Jen) and In The Next Room, or The Vibrator Play (Catherine Givings) at The Warehouse Theatre; The Importance of Being Earnest (Gwendolen), Who Am I This Time? (Kate), Proof (Claire) at Lean Ensemble Theater; Constellations (Marianne), Moonlight and Magnolias (Ms. Poppenghul) at Mill Mountain Theatre; A Christmas Carol at Virginia Stage Company; Night of The Iguana at Berkshire Theatre Festival; Rough Magic at The Hangar Theatre. Amanda has produced and co-produced theatre in Seattle and The New York International Fringe Festival. She was a costume design assistant for Bob, Elemeno Pea, and Heist! at Actors Theatre of Louisville. Select costume design credits include: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Spartanburg Little Theatre), and The Odd Couple (Mill Mountain Theatre). She is a teaching artist for The Warehouse Theatre in Greenville, SC.

Prentiss is thrilled to be an ensemble member with LET after appearing in Tribes and Constellations and assistant directing Good People.  A native of Greenville, SC, she serves as a teaching artist for The Warehouse Theatre and the Metropolitan Arts Council there.  At the Warehouse, she has been seen in In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play, Twelfth Night, All My Sons and Eurydice. Other upstate credits include The Last Night of Ballyhoo (Centre Stage).  Regional Credits: The Burial at Thebes, A Christmas Carol, and Tiiny Disasters at The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, and The Winter’s Tale, Much Ado About Nothing, and Pericles with the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival in New York.  She is a graduate of the SC Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities, and received a BFA in Acting from the prestigious University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theater BFA Actor Training Program. 

Jim Stark is a founding LET ensemble member known to Lowcountry audiences from his work with South Carolina Repertory Company in such shows as A Final Evening with the Illuminati, A Night in November, Gutenberg! The Musical! and Seeing Red: A Story of Vincent Van Gogh. For LET, Jim appeared as Vanya in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike and Velasco in Barefoot in the Park.

He has worked as an actor, director, teacher and fight director for theaters from HHI to Boston to New Mexico. Jim is a SAFD Certified Teacher of Stage Combat.

Jeffrey Scott Watkins is a founding ensemble member of Lean Ensemble Theater, where he has been seen on stage in God of Carnage (Alan) and The Waverly Gallery (Howard). 

Jeffrey's Broadway credits include: Les Miserables (Couferac). National Tours: Jesus Christ Superstar (Pilate), Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Pharaoh) and Les Miserables (Grantaire). Locally, he has performed at South Carolina Repertory Company In The Pavilion (Peter), Oh Coward (Man 1) and Venus in Fur (Thomas). He has also performed at the Arts Center of Coastal Carolina in Some Enchanted Evening, Mame, Razzle Dazzle, Cole, The Full Monty, Hooray for Hollywood, Spamalot and 42nd Street. 

His film roles include: Loving Generously and Leading Generously (Eddie) and a starring role in the independent feature Perfect Cowboy (Tyler). 

He would like to thank his wife Kathleen, and his two proudest productions, Caleb and Dillon, who have changed his world.

Peggy Trecker White has been working in professional theatre for over 25 years. She is a proud graduate of the University of Michigan with a BFA in Musical Theatre. While on tour with the 2nd National Tour of Miss Saigon, Peggy decided to further her training and went on to earn an MFA in Acting from  ART & Moscow Art Theatre's Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University.

Regional theater credits include American Repertory Theatre, Interlochen Shakespeare Festival, The Warehouse Theatre, Reprise! Broadway's Best, Michigan Opera Theatre, Ordway Music Theatre, South Carolina Repertory Theatre, NY Fringe Festival, the Piccolo Spoleto Festival and Lean Ensemble Theater.

She has performed internationally in Abu Dhabi, Russia, Germany, Italy and Switzerland. Favorite roles include: Katharine Hepburn in Tea at Five, Desiree Armfelt in A Little Night Music, Gertrude in Hamlet, Marty in Circle Mirror Transformation and Ben Affleck in Matt & Ben.

She is the Director for the Intermediate Musical Theatre Production at Interlochen Center for the Arts Summer Camp and recently assistant directed the opera Il Viaggio a Reims in Kiel and Lubeck, Germany as well as Verona, Italy.

Peggy is a founding ensemble member of Lean and has appeared in God of Carnage, Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike, Tea at 5, A Dolls House Part 2 , The Christians, Doubt, Death of a Streetcar Named Virginia Woolf,The Taming and Fun Home. She has directed The Humans, Bad Dates, Constellations as well as the benefit reading of Love, Loss, and What I Wore.

2024/25 season: Master Class

Founding Artistic & Executive Director

Blake White founded Lean Ensemble Theater in the winter of 2015 as a celebration of theater-- the artists that create it as well the patrons who support it. Directing credits for Lean include Proof, The Lifespan of a Fact, Death of a Streetcar Named Virginia Woolf, Barefoot in the Park, A Doll’s House Part 2, Good People, The Clean House, Tribes, Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike, The Glass Menagerie, and God of Carnage. On stage, Blake has appeared in Around the world in 80 Days, Ripcord, Art, The Humans, Who Am I this Time?, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Underpants and The Waverly Gallery.

Elsewhere as a director, Blake has staged productions of Shear Madness (Southeastern Summer Theatre Institute), All My Sons (The Warehouse Theatre), The Lonesome West (Brown County Playhouse), The Glass Menagerie, Boeing Boeing (The Shuler Theater), Matt and Ben, The Pavilion, The Savannah Disputation, The Lady With All the Answers and Venus in Fur (South Carolina Repertory Company).

As an actor, he has been seen on the stages of Actors Theatre of Louisville, Actors Workshop of Boston, The Shuler Theater, Brown County Playhouse, South Carolina Repertory Company, Cider Mill Playhouse, among others, as well as several off- and off-off and not close to broadway companies. Blake has also provided spoken word narration in concerts with the Hilton Head Choral Society and the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra. 

Blake is a member of the Stage Directors & Choreographers Society, Actors Equity Association, and serves on the boards of Lean Ensemble Theater, the Beaufort County Alcohol & Drug Abuse Board & the Arts Council of Hilton Head Island.

2024/25 season: What the Constitution Means to Me, A Christmas Carol

Mimi Wyche is delighted to join LET as an ensemble member, after appearing as Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest and Ethel in Barefoot in the Park. Mimi has performed on Broadway, in fifteen Off-Broadway productions, and in over thirty regional plays and musicals. Highlights include Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd at the Guthrie Theater, MN; The Duchess in Once On a Summer’s Day at Ensemble Studio Theater, NY; and as The Subscriber in “ the Race To Urga” at the Mitzi Newhouse Theater, NY. She has worked with such directors as John Guare, Trevor Nunn and Julie Taymor, and as soloist in Meredith Monk’s Carnegie Hall premiere. Trained as a classical singer, Mimi has sung with opera companies, symphonies, and performance art productions across the country. She has written six one-woman shows, one of which, Eaten Alive, toured colleges in the US and Canada for five years. Mimi is currently working on a new piece entitled: Depression!: The Musical.

Jenny, an LET founding ensemble member, was in Leans's inaugural production of God of Carnage, as well as The Glass Menagerie, Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike, The Clean House, Good People, The Importance of Being Earnest, A Dolls House Part 2, If You Forget Me and The Christians.

Previous productions include: To Kill a Mockingbird, Arts Center of Coastal Carolina; Moonlight and Magnolias, SCRC; Into the Woods, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Annie, Main Street Youth Theatre; and The Glass Menagerie, The Shuler Theater.

Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, Jenny holds a masters degree in education and is a middle school English teacher when she is not acting.

When not on stage or in the classroom, Jenny tries to keep up with her four very busy children and her fabulous husband.