Artistic Director
Rachel Macklin (email / bio)

Artistic Director
Ross Peabody (email / bio)

Associate Artistic Director
Shana Solomon (email / bio)

Technical Director
Heather L. Edwards (email / bio)

Artistic Associate
Dawn Elane (email / bio)

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Rachel Macklin (Producing Artistic Director) holds a BFA from NYU (Playwrights Horizons/Experimental Theatre Wing). She has accumulated NYC theatre credits as an actor, producer, director, playwright, dramaturg, makeup designer, and stage manager. She directed OTE's acclaimed debut production of Shakespeare's Antony & Cleopatra, wrote and performed Committed in March of 2003, and and directed Sharkey’s Night for New Journeys in September of 2003. Currently, she is the Artistic Associate and Literary Manager of Jean Cocteau Repertory, where her credits include Lysistrata (assistant director/dramaturg), Lorca's Dona Rosita the Spinster (dramaturg) and Jean Genet's The Maids (assistant director) and readings of The Snows of Kilimanjaro (director) and Arthur: The Begetting (director). Other credits: John Patrick Shanley's Women of Manhattan (director) and readings of Manuel Puig's Kiss of the Spider Woman (director), Yasmina Reza's Art (director) and Jose Rivera's Cloud Tectonics (director). She also runs the Cocteau's highly successful New Classics Reading Series program. Through the NCRS, she has worked with such artists as Daphne Rubin-Vega, James Magruder, Curt Columbus, Will Pomerantz, Joseph Goodrich, Dan O'Brien, Ellen Lauren, Liz Duffy Adams, Tim Vasen and more. Rachel is also a member of Feed the Herd Theatre Company, where she associate directed Platonov! Platonov! Platonov! for the Stampede Festival in 2004. She received her BFA from NYU. She is directing OTE's production of Shakespeare's Othello for the Cocteau's Off Off Bowery Festival in July 2005.

Ross Peabody (Artistic Director) began producing theater professionally in 1998. As the Associate Program Director, Associate Producer, and Literary Manager for The Ensemble Studio Theatre/ Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Project for Science & Technology. In his nearly 3 year tenure at EST, Ross associate produced 2 main stage productions, and the EST/Sloan Project First Light Festivals '99 and '00. The Festivals included a combined 2 fully staged workshop productions, nearly 20 staged readings, and an additional set of reading series' that numbered nearly 50 readings. He also produced the day-long event Creating Copenhagen at the CUNY Graduate Center in 2000, which included dozens of artists and scientists involved in 10 conferences and symposiums at the Center. Mr. Peabody also administered the day to day activities of the Project which commissioned, in his 2 years, over 70 artists, to the tune of nearly $150,000. He was also personally involved in the development of dozens of these scripts as dramaturg, research assistant, assistant director, director and/or full producer, working with artists such as David Mamet, Arthur Giron, Elyse Singer, Paul Mullen, Chris Ceraso, Cassandra Medley, David Zellnick, and Susanna Speier, to name only a few. As a member of Feed the Herd Theatre Company, Ross has been active as director, producer, writer, and/or designer since 1999. Shows include: The Blank Line, MuchAdo.com, Tequila Dreams, the Harvest '99 Festival, Harvest 2000, Seven Seconds, 3 Plays, 3 runs of I Dreamed of Dogs, and the Stampede Festival 2004 (52 full acts in 5 weeks). As a member of Usonian Theater Company, he associate produced 2 runs of nine eleven by Susanna Speier; one at Here Arts Center, and a second for a national arts conference on the effects of Sept. 11 on the downtown arts community at the Marriot World Trade Center. He has been a professional box office and marketing consultant for The Culture Project, The Foundry Theatre, Arts at St. Ann's, and the Jack H. Skirball Center for The Performing Arts. Ross holds a BA in theater arts from Marymount Manhattan College, has written 5 plays (2 fully produced), and directed 18 in the last 8 years in NYC.

Shana Solomon (Associate Artistic Director) is a recent graduate of NYU. With OTE, she directed Committed in March of 2003, and did the scenic and lighting design for July's production of Losing Ground. Her NY directing credits include Feed the Hole (AD), War, Stage Directions, and Stick and Stones. She has stage managed Machinal, The Little Prince, M. Butterfly, Squatters, The Train Play (ASM) and Change the Beds and Dance (ASM). She is currently working on a movement piece in Queens.

Heather L. Edwards (Technical Director) recently assistant stage managed the New York premiere of Silence (Synapse Productions) and will stage manage the world premiere of Ronan Noone's new play, Blowin, at the Boston Playwright's Theatre this winter. She has served as technical director, stage manager, lighting designer or set designer for numerous productions including Crazed Women: The Bakkhai, The Wizard of Oz, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Angels in America, Part 1, Nuraldeen's Lifetime, Hayavadana, Arcadia, and The Inspector General.

Dawn Elane (Artistic Associate) has choreographed the fights as well as performed in Odyssey's debut production of Antony & Cleopatra. She has worked with a wide variety of theaters, from regional and touring companies to community and Off Broadway. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and French from the University of Minnesota. Before moving to New York, her work included a directing internship with Garland Wright at the Guthrie Theater, a position as Assistant Director for Germinal at Theatre de la Jeune Lune, and touring as a director/performer for seven months with Prairie Fire Theater company. She first directed in New York at Pulse Ensemble's Opal series, and has directed for the Spotlight On series at Raw Space, as well fight directing for OTE. She has taught theater and drama classes, as well as fitness classes, and has performed with the Inwood Shakespeare Festival and in productions for New York Fringe Festival, the Jekyll and Hyde Club and various interactive Murder Mysteries. She is currently Assistant Directing for the Lady Cavaliers' Women at Arms Festival.