Featured Theater Alum
Lee Mikeska Gardner (B.F.A., 1986)
Since graduation, Lee has been a director/actress/educator working in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan area and nationally for over 20 years. Her directing career spans from classical to contemporary works and plays in development. For the GMU Players Lee directed Last Supper by C. Evans Kirk and The Verge by Susan Glasbell with Lighting Design by Rick Davis.
As an Artistic Associate for Woolly Mammoth for 10 years, Lee has directed Fat Men In Skirts, Life During Wartime (Helen Hayes nomination for Direction), The Gene Pool, Goodnight Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet (Helen Hayes nomination for Direction), Watbanaland, Stop Kiss, The Chinese Art of Placement, Fuddy Meers, and After Ashley (Helen Hayes nomination for Direction) and performed in Birth and After Birth.
Other noted directing credits include such varied productions as The Cocktail Party for Washington Stage Guild, which earned a Theatre Lobby Award for Outstanding Production, The Butterfingers Angel…, Thom Pain (Based on Nothing) (named 2007 Outstanding Production by the Baltimore City Paper), Stones in His Pocket and Three Tall Women for Rep Stage; Bad Dates at Olney Theatre; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf for The Keegan Theatre (Washington, D.C. and Ireland), Poe and All That Jazz, for Charter Theatre, Machinal for American Century Theatre, Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie for The Kennedy Center; the world premiere of Learning Curves, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Nights Dream, Genet’s Deathwatch (co produced with ATW), and the critically acclaimed Equus at WSC, the all-male Les Liaisons Dangerouse and The Owl and the Pussycat for ATW.
As an actress, Lee is a recipient of a Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Actress for A House in the Country with Charter Theatre and three additional nominations for acting for A Taste of Fire (Charter Theatre), Stanley (Potomac Theatre Project), and Patient A (Freedom Stage). She most recently played Luisa in A Shayna Maidel at Rep Stage, Nina in Brooklyn Boy at Olney Theatre, Fran in Charter Theatre’s Short Order Stories and Hettie in WSC’s Two-Headed (a role she originated at the Shenandoah Playwright’s Retreat). Lee Other favorite roles include Susanna in Of A Sunday Morning for Charter Theatre, Tovah in Dreams in a Golden County for the Kennedy Center, Elizabeth in The Crucible for Keegan Theatre and Andrea in Tabletops for Round House Theatre.
Lee served as Executive Producer for Washington Shakespeare Company for 6 years, guiding them through a stabilization program after they nearly closed their doors in 2000. During Lee’s 10 years with Woolly Mammoth she served as a Resident Director, Assistant to the Artistic Director and founded the Woolly Mammoth Theatre School. She was Associate Artistic Director and Resident Director for the Shenandoah Playwrights Retreat for 6 years and currently serves an Artistic Associate with Charter Theatre. Lee served as Interim Managing Director for Actors’ Theatre of Washington on a volunteer basis and as the Managing Director at Rep Stage in Columbia, MD, which is the professional theatre in residence at Howard Community College. As a Strategic Consultant Lee has work with Washington Shakespeare Company, Susan Woodward Notkins Architects, Rep Stage, Ganymede Arts (formerly known as Actors’ Theatre of Washington) and Imagination Stage.
Besides her work as a Guest Artist at GMU, Lee has also worked at learning institutions across the country including University of Maryland – College Park, UVA – Charlottesville, Montgomery College – Rockville, Middlebury College, UNLV and University of Vermont. Lee is currently working on her M.F.A. in Acting at Catholic University in the Professional Track Program.
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