Staff

MARY WADKINS
Producing Director

Mary Wadkins is a professional actress, clown and dancer. She has performed extensively on stage in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. For the past ten years, she has performed The Belle of Amherst across the country and in Europe. Wadkins performed in the New York premieres of Joanna's Husband and David's Wife by Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey and in Washington Irving's Sketchbook by Frank Higgins. Favorite stage roles include Marlene in Caryl Churchill's Top Girls, Anya in Chekov's The Cherry Orchard, Sara in Eugene O'Neill's A Touch of the Poet as well as Isabelle in Wendy Kessleman's My Sister in This House and Leotine in Feydeau's 13 Rue de l' Amour both of which earned her Outstanding Performance of the Year nominations in San Francisco. In New York, she has performed clown on stage with the all-female troupe "Those in the Nose." Wadkins studied ballet and pointe for many years at New York's world-renowned dance studio "Steps", where her dance instructor, Kathryn Sullivan, choreographed two performance pieces specifically for her. Her film credits include principal roles in independent films On Avalon, Cruthers and American Blue Note. She worked on several Woody Allen films as well as the ABC television special The Ewok Adventure produced by LucasFilm. Mary was also a producer of The Gathering that ran on Broadway and starred Hal Linden. Currently she is a co-founder and producing director of Virginia Premiere Theatre.

ROBERT RUFFIN
Producing Artistic Director

Robert, a native of Mathews County, Virginia and a theatre professional for over twenty years, is a Founding member and former Artistic Director of The Metropolitan Playhouse of New York. Also in New York City, he co-created and produced Theater Without Borders (a joint American/Lithuanian performing arts project) and produced The Gathering (Off-Broadway starring Theodore Bikel; National Tour and Broadway starring Hal Linden). In 2001, Robert co-founded Virginia Premiere Theatre where he currently serves as its Producing Artistic Director.

Robert has written five plays produced on the New York stage (Valentine's Waltz, The Morality of Death: a grotesque burlesque, The Reluctant Raj, Untitled Edwardian and Pirates Blood), and authored two one-man shows (An Evening With the Great English Poets and The Great American Poets) that he currently tours in Virginia. A weekly columnist with The Wall Street Transcript for ten years, he recently wrote Ba-baaah and the Windigo, a children's play that toured the East Coast as part of America's 400th Anniversary Celebration. Also for America's 400th, he wrote 1781: An American Symphony (presented as a featured event for the 225th Anniversary of the Victory at Yorktown in 2006), Visions of Democracy for Jamestown's Grand 400th Weekend Celebration, America's 400th Anniversary Special for CBS syndication and wrote Winning Liberty Land (an original musical comedy commissioned by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation for America's 400th). Robert co-authored the play A Chesapeake Celebration (published by San Francisco Bay Press), a full-length stage adaptation of The Gift of the Magi that will premiere at VPT in November 2007 and is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.

As an actor, Robert has performed numerous roles in New York and regional theaters, including: Lee, Arthur Miller's biographical character in the New York revival of his The American Clock; Washington Irving in the New York premiere of Frank Higgin's Washington Irving's Sketchbook; The Narrator/Czech Men in the New York revival of Larry Shue's Wenceslas Square, which later toured Lithuania as part of an international theatrical project; and Weirdo and White King in the New York Premiers of Etched in Amber and Zugzwang. His classical work includes: Tartuffe, Henry IV, I, Hamlet, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Love's Labours Lost and with New York's Riverside Shakespeare Company; Richard II, Richard III, Macbeth, King John, Twelfth Night, Taming of the Shrew,. His film work includes Fidgit, in the film version of William Wycherly's The Country Wife, Dmitri in William Pace's independent swashbuckler Rivalry, and Satan in Apocalypse. Television appearances include leads in Family Possessions (movie of the week), Interpol, The New Detectives and FBI Files as well as numerous commercials. Robert has also performed in a Royal Command Performance for the English Monarchy and is a member of Actors Equity Association. Recently in Virginia, he played Dr. Livesay in Treasure Island and Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol with the Virginia Stage Company.

Robert has directed and taught theatre and theatrical combat throughout the country. In 2004, his fights were featured in Die Walkure at the Virginia Opera. He is formerly a professor of theatre at C.W. Post/Long Island University and has taught and lectured at many universities including NYU; Hofstra; SUNY(s) Purchase, Binghamton and New Paltz; CUNY; John Jay University; Keystone College; and William and Mary. In 1995, Robert received The Kennedy Center's Meritorious Achievement Award for his work in Theatre Education.

   Nicha Petrakos
   Director of Education

   Nicha spent 4 years in the Newport News public school system. Starting as a substitute teacher she worked her way up to Pre-K teacher. After one year of teaching at the elementary levels she took on the challenging position as head of the middle school magnet program for theatre. 

She spent two years at Huntington Middle School working with 6th-8th grade students to build a program unlike any Huntington had ever experienced. At the end of her first semester at Huntington she mounted "The Me Nobody Knows." After that she created a series of one act festivals that were presented for educational purposes throughout the school. She worked closely with the English teachers, and the school counselors to create shows that would summarize the significant SOL required readings for all grades. After two years with the magnet program she returned to her first love, the theatre. She is currently working with the Virginia Premiere Theatre Company in Williamsburg, Va.