THE SPONGEBOB MUSICAL

Stephen Hillenburg (1961–2018) was an American animator, marine biologist, and creator of the iconic Nickelodeon series SpongeBob SquarePants. Combining his background in marine science education with a passion for animation, he revolutionized children’s television with the underwater world of Bikini Bottom in 1999. He died from ALS, leaving a legacy as a beloved, creative, and gentle force in animation.

Kyle Jarrow wrote the book for The SpongeBob Musical (originally titled SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical), which premiered in 2017. His script earned him nominations for a Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, and Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Book of a Musical.

Tina Landau is an acclaimed director and writer who conceived and directed the critically acclaimed SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical (2017), earning a 2018 Tony nomination for Best Direction. She transformed the cartoon into a non-literal, “exploded-open” theatrical experience that blended high-concept, experimental staging with childlike wonder.

(she/her) Previously at Cygnet Theatre: Director – tick, tick…BOOM!; Choreographer – Follies, Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, Cabaret, Rock of Ages, Spamalot, and A Christmas Carol; Performer – Gypsy (June), Company (April), My Fair Lady, Man of La Mancha, Parade, and Cabaret. Choreography credits: Waitress at Moonlight Amphitheatre; Sweeney Todd at SDMT; Tarrytown and Gutenberg! The Musical! at Backyard Renaissance; Head Over Heels and Significant Other at Diversionary Theatre; Singin’ in the Rain at New Village Arts; Spamalot at Theatre at the Welk; Your Local Theatre Presents (Movement) at La Jolla Playhouse; A Doll’s House (Movement) at The Old Globe; Company at San Diego State University; and Alice by Heart at Palomar College. Directing credits: Beehive: The ‘60s Musical at Okoboji Summer Theatre; Little Women, tick, tick…BOOM!, and in a word for Carlsbad Playreaders; and Red Bike, Freaky Friday Urinetown, and James and the Giant Peach at Grossmont College. MFA Musical Theatre, San Diego State University. All my love to Juni, Sulley, and Bryan. www.katiebanville.com.

(he/him/his) Patrick is Music Supervisor and a resident artist at Cygnet Theatre. Select credits include: Cygnet: Follies, Oklahoma!, Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, Rocky Horror Show, Cabaret, Rock of Ages, Last Five Years, Shockheaded Peter, A Christmas Carol; Diversionary Theatre: Head Over Heels, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Eighty-Sixed; Lamb’s Players Theatre: Million Dollar Quartet, Oz, West Side Story, Les Miserables, miXtape; Grossmont Stagehouse Theatre: The Pirates of Penzance, Freaky Friday, James and the Giant Peach.

(she/her) Haley is from San Jose. She is excited for her first production at Cygnet and as an equity ASM. In her free time, she competitively dances ‘ori Tahiti with Hiva Katoa in La Mesa. Select Credits include: Red Taxi, Novios, Working Girl (La Jolla Playhouse), A Gentleman’s Guide To Love And Murder, A View From The Bridge (North Coast Repertory Theatre), The Play That Goes Wrong, People Where They Are, Bald Sisters (San Jose Stage), Mary Poppins (South Bay Musical Theatre), Hells Canyon, Napoli (UCSD).

Coleman is a director and theatre maker who relocated to San Diego in 2023 after several years in New York City. His work is collaborative, inventive, and rooted in love. In San Diego, he has worked as a director, designer, technician, and educator with organizations including Cygnet Theatre, Diversionary Theatre, Backyard Renaissance, Chalk Circle Collective, CCAE Theatricals, and CoSA. Most recently, he directed RENT at Diversionary Theatre. With SpongeBob, he completes his first full season at Cygnet as Sound and Video Supervisor. Special thanks to his wife, Bailey, and their puppy, Nino, honorary Assistant Foley Designer. @colemanrayclark

(he/him) Evan is thrilled, as always, to be back working at Cygnet! He previously designed Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Evita, and Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill for Cygnet. Other select design credits include working on Diversionary’s Rent as the Associate Sound Designer; Eighty-Sixed and The Mystery of Irma Vep (Diversionary); Beau Jest and Incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Help (North Coast Rep); Titus Andronicus and The Two Gentlemen of Verona (USD MFA/The Old Globe); A Streetcar Named Desire (Backyard Renaissance); [title of show] and The Thanksgiving Play (New Village Arts); and Emily Driver’s Great Race Through Time and Space (La Jolla Playhouse).

(he/him) Zachary is an award-winning scenic artist and fabricator who has spent over a decade convincing audiences that wood is marble and foam is…also marble. When not covered in paint, he enjoys pretending he isn’t thinking about texture techniques in everyday life. This is his first show with Cygnet Theatre and he is thrilled to be a part of this incredible team.

(he/they) Asher Feinstein is a 2nd-year Costume Design MFA candidate at San Diego State University. He earned his BA in Art and Theatre from Washington University in St. Louis. Some of their recent design credits include Twelfth Night (SDSU), The Medium (SDSU Opera), The Winter’s Tale (WashU PAD), God of Carnage (WashU PAD), and Assistant Designer on Rent (SDSU), A New Brain (SDSU), and Into the Woods (WashU PAD). Asher also recently worked at The Old Globe Theatre as a costume crafts and props artisan and will continue working there this summer. Asher is thrilled to be working on this project as the Assistant Costume Design Fellow and Crafts Artisan!

Jonathan is excited to be making his Cygnet Theatre debut! Credits include Galileo (world premiere, Berkeley Repertory Theater), Hippest Trip: The Soul Train Musical (world premiere, American Conservatory Theater), The Two Gentlemen of Verona, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (The Old Globe), Rhinoceros (Yale Repertory Theater), Don Giovanni, El Milagro Del Recuerdo (San Diego Opera). Education: MFA Stage Management candidate, Yale (David Geffen School of Drama); B.A., UC San Diego. He is also an alum of the USITT Gateway Mentorship Program (’23, St. Louis). All love to my family back home in Macau.

(he/they) @joshuahemingld across all socials. Joshua Heming is an Artist and Lighting Designer based in San Diego, CA. Design Credits include To My Girls (Diversionary Theatre), Other Desert Cities, tick, tick… BOOM! (Cygnet Theatre), In a Sunshine State, Love’s Labor’s Lost, A Raisin in the Sun (San Diego State University), Birds of North America (MOXIE Theatre). Associate and Assistant Design Credits include DMC Lighting Assistant for The Who’s TOMMY (Broadway, 2024), Associate Lighting Designer for Is It Thursday Yet? (PACNYC, 2023), All’s Well, Noises Off (The Old Globe, 2025), Follies (2025), Great Comet (2024) (Cygnet Theatre). Thank you to Jen for always supporting me.

Peter is always glad to be back designing Wigs and Makeup for any Cygnet show. Some of his favorite shows here have been Follies, Shockheaded Peter and every incarnation of A Christmas Carol. He is also glad to be back helping as Associate Costume Designer with Kelan. Peter has designed costumes for past productions of Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2009), and Shakespeare’s R&J. Peter has designed Wigs, Makeup, and a few costumes for theaters all over Southern California, as well as television, film, and theme parks. When Peter isn’t busy designing, he teaches makeup, wig construction, and period hair design at San Diego State.

(he/him) Scenic Design work includes Oklahoma!, Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 as well as Evita at Cygnet Theatre. Other Scenic Design credits include To My Girls, Merry Me (Diversionary); Sweeney Todd, The Addams Family, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Catch Me If You Can, Rent, A Christmas Story, Sister Act, Freaky Friday, Young Frankenstein, Bring It On (San Diego Musical Theatre); Cabaret (SDSU); and Million Dollar Quartet (Lamb’s Players). Originally from Dayton Ohio, he holds a BFA in Acting from Wright State University and an MFA in Scenic Design from SDSU.

Alyssa “Ajay” Junious is an interdisciplinary storyteller and wellness advocate from Oceanside, California. She is passionate about musical theatre as a space to explore her work as an actor, director, and choreographer, and believes in the communal power of storytelling to inspire connection and collective change. Ajay earned her BFA in Performance and Choreography, with a certificate in Arts Management, from the University of California, Irvine, and her MFA in Musical Theatre from San Diego State University, where she was honored with the Outstanding Graduate Award. Her credits include La Jolla Playhouse, Cygnet Theatre, Diversionary Theatre, San Diego Musical Theatre, Oceanside Theatre Company, New Village Arts, and Teatro San Diego. She is co-founder of Soultry Sisters Arts & Wellness Collective and founder of Continuum Arts & Pilates. A proud millennial who grew up watching SpongeBob SquarePants, Ajay is thrilled to return to Cygnet Theatre and collaborate again with director Katie Banville on The SpongeBob Musical, where “the best day ever” becomes a practice of choosing joy in uncertain times.

(he/him) Blake is a director, designer, and creative producer based in San Diego, where he serves as the Executive Artistic Director of Blindspot Collective. His award-winning projection and video designs have been seen in California, Texas, and New York, and this marks his fifteenth collaboration with Cygnet. Blake’s work also includes large-scale immersive projects, original musicals, devised theatre, and documentary plays that have been developed or commissioned by The Old Globe, La Jolla Playhouse, California Center for the Arts, Cygnet Theatre, New Village Arts, New York Theatre Barn, UC San Diego, and New York University. www.blakemccarty.com

Melody is a rising second year graduate student at San Diego State University. She is very excited to be assisting on SpongeBob. She holds a B.A. from the University of California San Diego.

(she/her) Kelan Yang holds an MFA in Costume Design from San Diego State University and a BA in General Theatre, also from SDSU. She works between San Diego and China, communicating strongly through visual language. Her costume design credits include Tomorrow, The Island Dies (SDSU), Her Rage (Fringe Festival), Six Characters in Search of an Author (SDSU), and Waiting for Godot (SDSU). Assistant credits include Oklahoma! (Cygnet Theatre), Merrily We Roll Along (SDSU), In a Sunshine State (SDSU), Mr. Burns, a post-electric play (SDSU), Cabaret (SDSU), and The Weight of Dreams (SDSU). She is grateful to the entire costume team—this production would not have been possible without their support.

Amanda is overjoyed to be back at Cygnet after designing Follies, Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet, Evita, Cabaret and Rock of Ages. Other recent Designs include: Proof, The Who’s Tommy (Broadway); The Heart, 3 Summer of Lincoln, Velour: A Drag Spectacular, The Ballad of Johnny and June, The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter Thompson Musical (La Jolla Playhouse); Noises Off, Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B, English, Dial M for Murder, Hair, Ebenezer Scrooge’s Big San Diego Christmas Show (The Old Globe), She has had the privilege of working on 20 Broadway productions. One of her most rewarding experiences has been assisting on Hamilton. She received her B.A. in Theatre from California State University Northridge and is the proud co-founder of The Howell Binkley Fellowship. amandazieve.com

(she/her) Theatre credits include: Cygnet Theatre: Angels in America, Parts I & II; North Coast Rep & Laguna Playhouse: A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder; San Diego Rep: A Doll’s House, Part 2, Fun Home, Detroit. La Jolla Playhouse: The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical (sub ASM), Kill Local, WithOut Walls Festival 2017, Tiger Style!, Kingdom City, El Henry (w/ San Diego Rep), His Girl Friday, Hands on a Hardbody. The Old Globe: Power New Voices Festival, Picasso at the Lapin Agile (sub ASM), Sense and Sensibility, The Metromaniacs (sub ASM), Arms and the Man. Production Coordinator: San Diego Theatres. Other credits: Spoleto Festival USA, La Jolla Music Society, San Diego Symphony, San Diego Opera, Pointeworks, San Diego Gay Men’s Chorus. M.F.A., Stage Management: UC San Diego. Proud member: AEA, IATSE 122.