New Mexico Actors Lab

Our Mission and History

Our Mission

New Mexico Actor’s Lab focuses on the work of the actor in plays that touch the heart and challenge the mind.  Our growing ensemble of professional actors, directors, and designers is dedicated to collaboration and experimentation, and to producing plays that touch the lives of our audience.

Our History

NM Actors Lab Exterior
Lab Exterior
NM Actors Lab Interior
Lab interior
The original 2012 ShakeScenes company
The original 2012 ShakeScenes company

Photo credit: Lynn Roylance

In the summer of 2012, a group of Santa Fe actors banded together under the artistic leadership of Robert Benedetti. They shared a passion for theater that addressed issues of social justice and celebrated the human spirit. Their first production was Santa Fe Shakescenes, a series of programs of scenes from Shakespeare arranged by Benedetti around topics like honor and love.

Two years later, in August 2014, Benedetti announced that he was forming a company to be called the New Mexico Actors Lab (NMAL), a name suggested by Nicholas Ballas, a former graduate student of Benedetti’s during his time as Dean of Theater at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). Many of those who had participated in Santa Fe Shakescenes were involved in the new company. Ballas, along with Jonathan Richards and Barbara Hatch, were the core of the new company. Its first production was to be A. R. Gurney’s Sylvia, mounted at the Santa Fe Playhouse, which Benedetti would direct. Skip Rapoport, also a student of Benedetti’s at CalArts, was Sylvia’s lighting designer and has designed the lighting for every NMAL production since.

In 2016, after incorporating as a non-profit, a home was found for a summer season of three plays at the Teatro Paraguas in the up-and-coming Rufina-Siler Arts District. It was a small theater seating no more than 60, but this was considered a plus by audiences for its intimacy. This first full season included Proof by David Auburn, Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhry, and Art by Yasmina Reza.  All of the plays were directed by Benedetti. The Board officers were Benedetti, President; Ballas, Vice-President; Jonathan Richards, Treasurer; and Barbara Hatch, Secretary; these were the only Board members initially. However, an Advisory Board of 13 prominent Santa Feans was appointed, and an Advisory Council of five well-known celebrity actors was added. A website was designed and linked to a ticketing system.

The second season in 2017 included The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, The Quality of Life by Jane Anderson, and Heisenberg by Simon Stephens. A winter series of monthly free play readings was also offered especially for our email subscribers. After directing all the plays to date, Benedetti shared the directing of The Quality of Life with Nico Ballas.

In 2018 NMAL expanded to four summer plays, offering Th eGin Game by D. L. Coburn, Rapture, Blister, Burn, by Gina Gianfriddo, and Ages of the Moon by Sam Shepard, all directed by Benedetti, and November by David Mamet, directed by Ballas. Benedetti and Ballas came to an agreement that they would become co-Artistic Directors. Also, this year a decision was made to expand the Board of Directors.

2019 saw Benedetti continuing to share directing duties. A Doll’s House, Part 2 by Lucas Hnath was directed by Benedetti, but No Man’s Land by Harold Pinter was directed by Ballas and Stop Kiss by Diana Son was directed by Barbara Hatch. Benedetti directed the final show, 4000 Miles by Amy Herzog. Also in 2019 it was decided that in 2020 Ballas would become Artistic Director and Benedetti’s title would be Founder/Managing Director. The play selection process would be mutual between Benedetti and Ballas with Ballas making the final selection and shaping the season.

Unfortunately, the 2020 season was shuttered by the Covid-19 Pandemic, but with the support of an enthusiastic audience base, generous individual donors, and a number of grants and loans from various governmental agencies, production was resumed in August of 2021 with a four-show season in a new facility in the same Rufina-Siler Arts District, inherited from the International Shakespeare Center, to be known as the Lab Theater (formerly the Adobe Rose/Swan.) The Lab Theater is a “black box” theater, dramatically more flexible, with movable risers for the seats, which allow each director to radically change the seating arrangement to fit the needs of each play. The number of seats is potentially (depending on the configuration) almost twice as big as at Teatro Paraguas. The 2021 season consisted of The Lifespan of a Fact by Karaken, Murrell, and Farrell and The Cradle Will Rock by Marc Blitzstein (NMAL’s first musical), both directed by Benedetti. Lungs by Duncan Macmillan, and Other Desert Cities by Jon Robin Baltz were both directed by Ballas.

The four-play format continued into the 2022 season with The Time of Your Life by William Saroyan, directed by Benedetti; God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza, directed by Ballas; The Children by Lucy Kirkwood, directed by Benedetti; and The Seafarer by Conor McPherson, directed by Matt Sanford. A special Valentine’s Day benefit that year was four performances of Love Letters by A.R. Gurney, read by Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter, the stars of the long-running TV show Family Ties. (Gross was a former student of Benedetti’s time as Head of Acting at Yale.)

In 2023, the season began with another generous Valentine’s Day benefit performance by Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter; this time it was Mark Twain’s The Diaries of Adam and Eve. The season was expanded to five plays offered in two “split” seasons: a spring season of Simpatico by Sam Shepard, directed by Ballas and Morning Sun by Simon Stephens, directed by Benedetti; the fall season consisted of Seascape by Edward Albee, directed by Ballas; The Nether by Jennifer Haley, directed by Zoe Lesser; and JQA by Aaron Posner, directed by Benedetti. It was intended that this split season format of five plays be the template for future seasons, allowing for the International Shakespeare Center—and other local theater groups—to lease the Lab Theater during off months. Benedetti announced his retirement as Managing Director at the end of 2023.

In 2024, Meredith Baxter and Michael Gross returned for a third benefit production, this time performing a staged reading of Lanford Wilson’s endearing love story, Talley’s Folly. Robert Benedetti directed the production which served to inaugurate the 10th anniversary season of New Mexico Actors Lab. The first two plays of the season, performed in repertory style, tackled some of the thornier issues of integrity and ignorance in academia with two powerful renditions of the professor/student conference gone bad in The Niceties (directed by Robert Benedetti) and Oleanna (directed by Suzanne Lederer).  The fall season offered four plays beginning with the world premiere of Carolyn Gage’s Georgia and the Butch, directed by Robert Benedetti as a staged reading. Lanford Wilson’s explosive drama, Burn This (directed by Nicholas Ballas). Zoe Lesser returned to direct Pulitzer Prize finalist Heroes of the Fourth Turning by Will Arbery. The season closed with Mat Smart’s Eden Prairie (directed by Nicholas Ballas). 

From the management side, Katie Olivant became Managing Director in January 2024, Emily Rankin was hired as Artistic Director to become formally effective in 2025, and the Board of Directors was increased in size to 10 members. 

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