Principal Team

The California International Theatre Festival team:

LINDA PURL, Founding Festival Director/President

Linda began her career in the theatre in Japan, where she was raised and became the only foreigner to have trained at the Toho Geino Academy. Her studies continued at LAMDA and later at both the Neighborhood Playhouse and Lee Strasberg Institute. Stage credits include Broadway’s Tony nominated The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; Getting and Spending; Off Broadway: The Baby Dance; Hallelujah, Hallelujah! Regional work: the original production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Dinner With Friends, Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville; Getting and Spending, Old Globe Theatre; The Road To Mecca (with Miss Julie Harris), The Baby Dance, Long Wharf; John Brown's Body, Lobero Theatre; Nora (with Michael York), All the Way Home (with Miss Kim Hunter), The Three Penny Opera (with Miss Betty Buckley), The Baby Dance (also at the Pasadena Playhouse), Williamstown Theatre Festival; The Real Thing, Hedda Gabler, Mark Taper Forum Rep; Beyond Therapy, Romeo and Juliet, L.A. Public Theatre; A Doll's House, Allied International Productions; The Man Who Could See Through Time, South Coast Repertory; The Merchant of Venice, Globe Theatre; Grease, Sacramento Music Theatre; On a Clear Day, San Bernardino Civic Light Opera; Oliver, The King and I, Toho Imperial Theatre, Tokyo; Love Letters with both Stacey Keach and Desi Arnaz, Jr.; Tusitala Berkshire Theatre Festival; Little Foxes, Footfalls, The Diary of Anne Frank, A Streetcar Named Desire, Rubicon Theatre Company;  The Guys,  Berkeley Rep; Mariana Pineda, Santa Fe Opera; Seven Deadly Sins, Princess Grace Theatre, Monaco; Phaedra in the inaugural performance of the Getty Classical Arena; The Glass Menagerie, Cleveland Playhouse.

Linda has received six Dramalogue Best Actress Awards and two Dramalogue Awards as Best Producer. She has received two Santa Barbara Independent Awards and is a three time nominee of the Los Angeles Drama Critic's Award for Best Actress. She is the recipient of the Connecticut Critics' Award for Outstanding Performance in a Play.

As a main stay of television, Linda has starred in over 40 television Movies-of-the-Week, although is probably best known as Charlene Matlock from the series Matlock and as Ashley Pfister, Fonzie’s fiancée, from Happy Days. Linda recently played recurring roles on The Office as Helene Beasley, and on the Showtime series Homeland as Elizabeth Gaines. She will soon appear on HBO's True Blood. TV highlights have been Born Free, The Last Days of Pompeii (with Sir Laurence Olivier), The Manions of America (with Pierce Brosnan), Like Normal People the award winning docu-drama about a mentally challenged couple. Linda's feature film credits include Disney's Mighty Joe Young, The Walking Major (with Toshiro Mifune) and Leo and Loree (produced by Ron Howard).

Linda tours with her solo concert Come Rain or Come Shine nationally and internationally. Additionally she is currently touring in a centenary salute to Great American songwriter Johnny Mercer with Lee Lessack and Rhapsody for Two, a dancing tribute to romance from the '40s with Kevin Spirtas. Linda's recordings include "Alone Together" and "Out of this World – Live with Special Guest Artist Desi Arnaz, Jr." She served as Founding Executive Director of the Colorado Festival of World Theatre and Festival Director of the 2008 Rubicon International Theatre Festival.

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SAMANTHA KADEN, Associate Producer/Company Management

Samantha Kaden is a senior at UCLA’s School of Theater Film and Television. She is a Theater major with an emphasis in Stage Management. At UCLA she has Stage Managed Last Autumn, Much Ado About Nothing, and The 25th Annual Putnam Country Spelling Bee. She spent her freshman year of college at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She worked at the Rubicon Theater Company for five years. While there she was the Production Stage Manager for Seussical: The Musical, Bye Bye Birdie, Our Town, A Midsummer Nights Dream, and Footloose, as well as Assistant Stage Manager on Little Women. She has also worked on Rubicon’s productions of One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, Man of La Mancha, and Hamlet, and Will Roger’s America.

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JULIET NAULIN, Associate Producer/Audience Development, Marketing

Juliet Naulin is a Performing Arts major with an emphasis in Theatre at California State University of Channel Islands. She will be graduating in spring 2011. Juliet worked as an Apprentice during the 2010 CITF season and is now continuing work with the festival in the areas of audience and donor development. Her love of theatre blossomed in high school although she had been acting since the age of four. Growing up in a family of industry professionals and artists has given her a wide and varied array of interests and experience and she is very excited to be working with the California International Theatre Festival for their 2011 season.

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SARAH BOONE, Consulting Producer

Sarah joins CITF from Florida where she is currently the Executive Director of Theatre Jacksonville, one of the oldest continuously producing theatres in the country.  Sarah has had a diverse career in television, radio and theatre as a performer, director, producer and manager.  She graduated from Florida State University with a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and landed her first job as a TV news announcer and commercial producer in northeast Florida before joining ABC Radio National News in New York as an editorial assistant.  She continued her theatrical training in NY studying acting with HB Studio founder Herbert Berghof and musical theatre with Tony award-winning actress Donna McKechnie.  A Rotary Foundation graduate scholarship took her to Scotland’s Glasgow University where she studied contemporary French theatre.  A variety of roles on several Florida stages followed including Sarah Brown in Guys and Dolls, Hope Harcourt in Anything Goes, Rose in A Shayna Maidel, and Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker.  Sarah was honored to win a theatre teaching fellowship at American University in Washington, DC where she served as an acting instructor in the undergraduate drama program and earned a Master of Arts in Arts Management and Communications with an emphasis in film production.  This degree led to positions as Special Projects Manager at LA’s Geffen Playhouse and Senior House Manager at New York's Westside Theatre.  Sarah has overseen the production of more than 60 plays, musicals and concerts during the past 15 years.  In addition to her producing credits, she has also continued to create and perform in a series of cabaret shows which have included appearances in Florida and in New York at The Duplex, Don’t Tell Mama and The Triad.

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BARBARA HOLMES, Development Associate

Barbara Holmes A graduate of the University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, where she earned a Bachelor of Education with distinction, specializing in Language Arts and Reading.  Over her nearly three decades as a teacher she taught all subject areas in the elementary grades.

From the onset of her career, she became an advocate for the importance of the arts in the education of the whole child. Barbara served as the Lead Teacher for the Alberta School Improvement Initiative from 2006-2009. This put her in charge of mentoring and coaching colleagues in best teaching practices focused on enhancing student skills in aural listening, decision-making, spatial reasoning, kinesthetic movement,  and oral communication; all of which supporting the research that the development of these skills through the arts correlates to academic success in areas such as reading, mathematics, language development, communication skills, and critical thinking.

She is thrilled to be involved with CITF and is grateful for the opportunity to support such a spectacular international event.

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DAVIDSON & CHOY PUBLICITY, Press Representatives

Headed by Judi Davidson and Tim Choy, Davidson & Choy Publicity is one of this region’s leading firms specializing in publicity for the performing arts, entertainment, culture, restaurants and special events. The firm has experience with a wide range of clients -- including on-going organizations, Los Angeles and national touring theatre productions (both long runs and limited engagements in all sized venues) dance, opera, music, authors, and major arts festivals. Since 1992, Davidson & Choy publicity has represented Cirque du Soleil in Los Angeles, including Saltimbanco, Alegria, Quidam, and recently Corteo in Los Angeles and Orange County, and Mystere and Nouvelle Experience in Las Vegas. Current and recent clients include Dance at the Music Center, Opera Pacific, RICHMARK Entertainment at the Wadsworth and Brentwood Theatres, Disney Parks, Walking With Dinosaurs – The Live Experience currently on a national arena tour, Reprise! Broadway’s Best, American Ballet Theatre and Alvin Ailey American Dance. Also the Los Angeles engagements of The Lion King, Hairspray, Mamma Mia!, The Producers and Wicked at the Pantages Theatre. Davidson & Choy represented the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival, The Los Angeles Festival, UK/LA Festival and The World Festival of Sacred Music. Authors include Judith Krantz, John Lahr, Lawrence Bergreen and Richard Matheson.

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EDWARD PADILLA, Intern

Edward Padilla received his BA in Performing Arts with an emphasis in Theatre from California State University Channel Islands. Right after graduation he became an Apprentice for CITF’s 2010 season where he learned acting techniques not typically taught at a university. While attending CSU Channel Islands he acted & directed in the annual spring productions, and returned as the Dramaturge & Marketing Assistant for the 2011 Spring Production, post graduation. A few months after he started working as an intern for CITF handling administrative work as well as researching target audiences in Ventura County for the 2011 season performances in Ventura.

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