Staff

Robin Lynn Smith
Artistic Director and Founding Partner
Robin Lynn Smith has worked for the past thirty years acting, directing and teaching in Chicago, Boston, Seattle, and New York where she directed Curse of the Starving Class Off-Broadway at the Promenade Theatre. She has directed in Regional Theatres and is presently directing Freehold’s Engaged Theatre Program which tours Shakespeare productions to prisons, projects, and tent cities, for which she has directed Julius Caesar, Othello, Cymbeline, A Winter’s Tale, The Tempest and The Merchant of Venice. At Freehold she directed the award winning production of Chekhov’s The Seagull, Three Sisters, An Altered Life, and Veronika Falling.

She was an Artist in Residence at the Seattle Repertory Theatre with Dan Sullivan, and directed several productions including Marvin’s Room, Frankie and Johnnie in the Claire de Lune, and City of Gold and the developmental workshop of Elizabeth Heffon’s New Patagonia. She has also directed in Seattle at ACT, On The Boards, The Empty Space, New City Theatre, Seattle Children’s Theatre, and Intiman where she is an Affiliate Artist with Bartlett Sher.

She has an MFA from NYU TSOA, and she is currently on the faculty of Cornish College of the Arts. She is featured in the book Acting Teachers of America, and she is a member of SDC. She is the 2008 recipient of The Gregory A. Falls Sustained Achievement Award. She was also recognized for her outstanding contributions and commitment to the Women’s Correctional Center of Washington with their Volunteer of the Year award in May 2009, and was honored by Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation, as a finalist for the 2010 Fichandler award which celebrates prominent achievement in the field, and recognizes directors and choreographers who are making a deep and extraordinary contribution to the region in which they live.

Zoe Fitzgerald
Managing Director
Zoe Fitzgerald has worked in Seattle as both a theater artist and administrator for over 10 years. She is a graduate of Emerson College, BFA Acting Program and received a Masters in Public Administration with a specialization in nonprofit management from Seattle University in 2009. As a company member of Live Girls! Theater she served in many different capacities including Literary Manager and Managing Director. During her tenure she created two on-going programs; The Bakery, a new works development series and Notorious Women, an educational outreach program for young women. Prior to stepping into a full time role as an arts administrator she worked for Getty Images as a project manager and data analyst, and RealNetworks' events and public relations team. Her short plays have been featured in Live Girls! Quickies, and 14/48 The World's Quickest Theater Festival. In 2007, her first full-length script GIRLS was commissioned and produced by Live Girls! She participated in ACT's Young Playwright's Program in 2006 as a teaching artist.  

George L. Lewis
Associate Partner
George Lewis has been working in the field of movement-based theatre since 1971. His background includes intensive study in Corporeal Mime in Paris with Etienne Decroux, circus skills and physical comedy at the French National Circus School, acting at the Pasqualini-Smith Studio in Seattle, Balinese Dance with I Made Djimat in Bali, and Meyerhold’s Biomechanics with Russian Master Teacher Gennadi Bogdanov. His work is deeply steeped in the tradition of ensemble work and original creation; he has performed and toured with Omnibus in Montreal, Theatre-Mime Mirage in Boston, the Boulder Mime-Theatre in Colorado, and the Sykes Group and threeCompany in Seattle. As a director, he has created movement driven productions of, amongst others, Shakespeare, Moliere, Thornton Wilder, Irene Fornes, and James Thurber. He has also served as movement director and/or co-creator of new work, bringing his unique understanding of choreographic concern, dramatic acting values and physical comedy skills to over fifty original works. 

His work as an actor includes the roles of Trigorin in Chekhov’s The Seagull, Pa in Wilder’s The Happy Journey, Joseph in Romulus Linns When the Lord Came to Sand Mountain, and the talentless dancer/would-be comedian in Saroyan’s The Time of your Life. Since 1978 George Lewis has been teaching acting, clown, mask, and physical theatre skills, at his own school in Boston, at colleges and universities across the U.S. and Canada. For the past three years he has been dividing his time between Seattle and Buenos Aires, where he also teaches Movement and Clown, and directs. He is one of the cofounders of Freehold Theatre Lab Studio.

Liza Comtois
Associate Partner
Liza Comtois is a Seattle based producer and dramaturg. Her producing credits include The West Side Story Project for the 5th Avenue Theatre, Invisible Ink and Project X: When the Comet Comes for House of Dames Productions and as the Forums Producer for the Seattle International Film Festival. Other experience includes work with ShadowCatcher Entertainment on Sherman Alexie’s Smoke Signals, the National Performance Network tour of O, Say a Sunset written and composed by Robin Holcomb and as Intiman Theatre’s Artistic Associate under Bartlett Sher. Liza’s dramaturgy credits include nine world premiere adaptations with Seattle’s Book-It Repertory Theatre, Milwaukee’s First Stage and AJ Epstein Presents as well as production dramaturgy for Intiman, ACT, Book-It Repertory Theatre, Strawberry Theatre Workshop and upstart crow. She was also dramaturg at the 2008 and 2009 Icicle Creek Theatre Festivals. Liza is a script evaluator for the Sundance Theatre Program and participated in their Summer Theatre Labs and White Oak Lab. She is currently Associate Producer at The Ethereal Mutt - Limited.

Gin Hammond
Associate Partner
Gin Hammond received her MFA from the American Repertory Theatre Institute at Harvard University/MXAT. She has performed nationally at theatres such The Guthrie, Arena Stage, The Longwharf Theatre, Seattle’s ACT, The Pasadena Playhouse, the ART, The Berkshire Theatre Festival and The Studio Theatre in Washington D.C., where she won a Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Lead Actress for her performance of The Syringa Tree. Internationally, she has performed in Russia, Germany, Ireland, Scotland and England. Ms. Hammond also received a Kathleen Cornell award, an AUDELCO nomination, and grants from Allied Arts, The Mayor’s Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, Artist Trust, and the NEA. 

Annette Toutonghi
Associate Partner
Annette Toutonghi worked with many local theatres including A Contemporary Theatre, On the Boards, Portland International Center for the Arts, Seattle Children's Theatre, The Empty Space Theatre, the 14/48 Theatre Festival, The Seattle Group Theatre, Intiman Theatre, and Book-It Repertory Theatre. Most recently she toured with Freehold's Engaged Theatre's production of Othello and played Essie in YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU at at the Seattle Repertory Theatre. Other performances include THE RICH GRANDEUR OF BOXING with Megan Murphy and Company at the National Center for Dance in Paris and THE WOMEN at ACT Theatre. She is a voice-over artist as well, credits include the Freddi Fish series, Pajama Sam and Sly Cooper: Honor Among Thieves. Annette received her B.A. from Middlebury College and her M.F.A. from the University of Washington's Professional Actor's Training Program.

Kate Gavigan
PR Manager
Kate Gavigan has been Freehold's PR Manager since 2007. Kate became fascinated by arts marketing while volunteering at The Empty Space Theatre.  The opportunity to continue to explore her interest in arts marketing and to apply that passion to Freehold, her favorite arts organization in Seattle, was a dream come true.  Kate is awed and inspired daily by the commitment and dedication Freehold students, faculty and other community members have to Freehold and is honored to be a part of this amazing group of people.

Lucinda Stroud
Registrar / Office Assistant
Lucinda Stroud is excited to be working with Freehold Theatre. She moved to Seattle only recently after graduating from the University of Puget Sound with a degree in Creative Writing. Although an English major, her love of theatre was kindled by her work in dramaturgy, sound design, and playwriting. She is currently working with Book-It Repertory Theatre as an artistic/literary intern for the 2009-2010 season.