Core Ensemble & Resident Designers

is the co-founder of PURE Theatre. Acting credits at PURE include Fully Committed, The Trial of the Gentleman Pirate Stede Bonnet, Underneath the Lintel, The Christians, Glengarry Glen Ross, Penelope, Annapurna, A Behanding in Spokane, Superior Donuts, Up, The Pillowman, The Lonesome West, Cloud Tectonics, Eurydice, and The Tragedian. On television he has appeared on Ozark, One Tree Hill, Medicine Ball, Army Wives, and Reckless. Directing credits at PURE include Straight White Men, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Failure: A Love Story, Outside Mullingar, Clybourne Park, Good People, Tell, and Jesus Hopped the “A” Train. His feature film Steaming Milk won runner-up Best Actor and Best Director awards at the 1997 Seattle International Film Festival and was chosen as a Best of the Fest of The Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He is a two-time winner of the National/LAFF Screenwriting scholarship and winner of the 2010 Playwriting fellowship from the South Carolina Arts Commission. His plays, including Sic Semper Tyrannis, The Trial of the Gentleman Pirate Stede Bonnet, The Tragedian, Killing Chickens, Fairgrounds, What Comes Around, Tell, Cowboys, and Waffle Haus Christmas, have been produced in New York City, Seattle, Charlotte, Charleston and Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

David Mandel has been a PURE Core Ensemble Member since 2004, performing in THE LEHMAN TRILOGY, COMPULSION, HANGMEN, THE ABSOLUTE BRIGHTNESS OF LEONARD PELKEY, TRUE WEST (2004 & 2019), STRAIGHT WHITE MEN, CITIZEN: AN AMERICAN LYRIC, GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS, OUTSIDE MULLINGAR, RUSSIAN TRANSPORT, PENELOPE, CLYBOURNE PARK, THE MOTHERF**KER WITH THE HAT, TIME STANDS STILL, RACE, AWOL, LOW COUNTRY BOIL, KILLER JOE, THE LAST FIVE YEARS, THOM PAIN (BASED ON NOTHING), THIS IS HOW IT GOES, A NUMBER, AMERICAN BUFFALO, THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE (2004 & 2016) THE SEAFARER, and JESUS HOPPED THE “A” TRAIN, among others. He directed PURE’s productions of ANNAPURNA and GRACE. Before PURE, he worked three seasons with New Jersey Shakespeare Festival, spent a year as resident actor with the George Street Playhouse, and performed in various Los Angeles venues including the MET Theatre, HBO Workspace, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles Theatre Center, and the Egyptian Arena Theatre. David serves as PURE’s associate artistic director, resident photographer, and graphic designer. He is a graduate of Drew University’s theatre arts program with minors in writing and literature.

has been a PURE Core Ensemble Member since 2004. His PURE acting credits include The Lehman Trilogy, Compulsion, Hangmen, True West, Sweat (2019 Piccolo Spoleto Festival & 2018 MOJA Festival), Straight White Men, If I Forget, Father Comes Home from the Wars: Parts 1, 2 & 3, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, The Realistic Joneses , Rapture, Blister, Burn, Glengarry Glen Ross, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Russian Transport, Penelope, Clybourne Park, Good People, A Behanding in Spokane, In the Next Room (or the vibrator play), True West, Grace, Beauty Queen of Leenane, Grace, Man From Nebraska, Jesus Hopped the “A” Train, The Seafarer, Shining City, Up, The Pillowman, and American Buffalo. His playwright credits include Sam’s Corner, The Complete History of Charleston for Morons, Horse Tranqs & Carriage People, Holiday Shorts from the PURE Lab and Low Country Boil, which won Charleston City Paper’s Best Non-Piccolo Play of 2010. His directing credits at PURE include A Number, Killer Joe, Horse Tranqs & Carriage People, Love Song, Holiday Shorts from the PURE Lab, and Low Country Boil.

has been a member of Actors’ Equity Association since 1978, and his work in the professional theatre has taken him to a number of different parts of the U.S. where he has worked as an actor, director, stage manager, and also appeared in commercials and other projects in front of the camera. He taught acting and other courses as a Professor of Theatre at the College of Charleston. As a PURE Core Ensemble member, he has appeared in A Doll’s House, Part 2, The Royale, Our Mother’s Brief Affair, Glengarry Glen Ross, A Number, Shining City, The Seafarer, Time Stands Still, Red, and Tribes. He has an MFA in Directing from Western Illinois University and has directed the PURE productions of Hangmen, The Realistic Joneses, Man From Nebraska, and It’s A Wonderful Life; and has contributed the sound designs to many PURE shows including The Curious Case of the Watson Intelligence, Rapture Blister Burn, In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play), Time Stands Still, Tribes, and Penelope. Mark appears courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association.

is a member of the PURE Theatre Core Ensemble, having joined in 2011. His credits include The Lehman Trilogy, Ben Butler, The Agitators, The Royale, Father Comes Home from the Wars: Parts 1, 2 & 3, Marie Antoinette, Failure: A Love Story, The Motherf**ker with the Hat, and The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, among many others. He is a two-time KCACTF award-winning playwright. His film credits include the Emmy-winning CBS series The Inspectors, the Netflix original movie Naked, and Halloween Kills (2018). 

has appeared at PURE in Fool for Love, Straight White Men, If I Forget, The Christians, Failure: A Love Story, Outside Mullingar, Glengarry Glen Ross, Kicking a Dead Horse, Superior Donuts, Circle Mirror Transformation, Yankee Tavern, The Seafarer, Killing Chickens, and Man from Nebraska. He became a member of Actors’ Equity in 1974 and appeared with regional theatres in Providence, Rochester, Burlington, Baltimore, and Boston before moving to New York, where he spent 20 years working as an actor, dancer, director, designer, and playwright. He began his directing career in 1968 and has directed hundreds of productions, including Our Mother’s Brief Affair, Russian Transport, A Behanding in Spokane, and Time Stands Still for PURE. He also directed the the PURE Youth Company’s productions of Faces of Freedom and Code Red Lockdown. Among his writing credits are Last Rites (World Premiere PURE Theatre, August 2019) and The Fool’s Lear, which debuted at PURE in 2011. His published plays can be found at theplaysthething.info. He appears courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association. 

is a Core Member at PURE who holds an MFA in Acting from The Ohio State University. She has worked professionally with the Contemporary American Theatre Company, Total Theatre Company, Silver Phoenix Theatre Company, Hot City Theatre, Woolfe St. Playhouse, Threshold Repertory Theatre, South of Broadway Theatre Company, and others. As a Core Member at PURE she has directed Little Gem, The Lifespan of a Fact, The [curious case of the] Watson Intelligence, Rapture, Blister, Burn; Tribes; and In the Next Room (or the vibrator play). Recent acting credits at PURE include Tiny Beautiful Things, Sweat (2019 Piccolo Spoleto Festival & 2018 MOJA Festival), If I Forget, The Realistic Joneses, Marie Antoinette, Other Desert Cities, Good People, Faith Hope & Charity, and Up (PURE). Cristy is on faculty at the College of Charleston and  also serves as PURE’s  Resident Movement Coach.

PURE credits include Fun Home, Buyer & Cellar, The Christians, A Sudden Spontaneous Event, Other Desert Cities, Clybourne Park, Parhelia, Good People, and Next Fall. Brannen has also performed with What If? Productions in Amadeus and Thrill Me: The Leopold & Loeb Story. In 2017, Brannen also appeared in the storytelling showcase You’re Being Ridiculous at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago. Prior to moving to Charleston, Brannen was an actor in Chicago for several years. He served as the general manger for Bailiwick Repertory, where he also performed in several productions, including Parade (Jeff Award Winner for Best Ensemble and Musical Production), 108 Waverly, Southern Baptist Sissies, and numerous cabaret events. Other Chicago credits include Sunset Boulevard at Marriott Lincolnshire and King Lear at Chicago Shakespeare. Brannen was also an Ensemble Member with Hell in a Handbag Productions, a Chicago company dedicated to honoring 20th century film classics through original camp. Handbag productions included Poseidon! An Upside Down Musical, Scarrie!, Judy’s Scary Little Christmas, and the title role in Rudolph The Red-Hosed Reindeer. Brannen received his bachelor’s degree in acting from Marshall University in West Virginia and pursued graduate performance studies at Roosevelt University in Chicago.

(1978–2020) was PURE Theatre’s Playwright in Residence. His plays A Sudden Spontaneous Event and Folly Beach had their world premieres at PURE, and he curated and wrote for PURE’s 2014 Holiday Shorts. Solo plays: Stages, Silence of Lucky, Status Update, The Elephant in My Closet. NYC acting: Stupid F**cking Bitch by Lucy Alibar (EST/Youngblood), Binge (Slant Theatre Project). Regional acting: Hamlet (Shakespeare Project); The Tempest, Arms and the Man, Merry Wives of Windsor (Alabama Shakespeare Festival), Much Ado About Nothing (Warehouse Theatre). Film/TV: Turn (AMC), Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same (Sundance, MoMA). In 2013 David received a Young Alumnus Award from The College of Charleston School of the Arts. His solo play, Status Update, was named Best Touring Show of the 2010–2011 Dallas Theatre Season by the Dallas Theatre Critics Forum. BA: College of Charleston. MFA: Alabama Shakespeare Festival. 

is a Core Ensemble Member with PURE Theatre and has been since Season X. She is tremendously proud of her work at PURE and looks forward to each upcoming season. She was seen recently as Anne Marie in A Doll’s House, Part 2, Cynthia in Sweat (2019 Piccolo Spoleto Festival & 2018 MOJA Festival), Nina in The Royale, Scottie, the matriarch, in This Random World, Odd-See in the epic Father Comes Home from the Wars: Parts 1, 2 & 3; Wife in The Christians; 15 different characters in No Child, a one-woman show by Nilaja Sun; and Carole, in the world premiere of former student and PURE’s resident playwright David Lee Nelson’s A Sudden Spontaneous Event and of course, her first role for PURE, the cussing, drinking, smoking angel, Camae, in The Mountaintop. Her work in Charleston has included many of Shakespeare’s greatest male roles including Jaques, Polonius, and Prospero (name those shows!!) and a one woman show she wrote and performed handily called Moments of Joy. Additionally, Joy’s work as a director can be seen locally at the College in the Department of Theatre and Dance, where she has been a faculty member since 1994. Vandervort-Cobb’s voice pops up in the most unexpected of places: The U.S. Capitol Building, Disney’s Hall of Presidents, and in museums all across the country.

began her PURE adventure in Season 2, with Beauty Queen of Leenane—and reprised the role of Mag 11 years later, PURE’s 13th year, with the same cast and director. Other PURE adventures include A Doll’s House: Part 2, Colder Than Here, Rabbit Hole, Other Desert Cities, Good People, Outside Mullingar, Rapture, Blister, Burn, and Our Mother’s Brief Affair. Cynthia’s Maine adventures began as a founding member of Mad Horse Theatre Company, Portland, Maine, with starring roles over 12 years in Dangerous Liasons, A View From the Bridge, All My Sons, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Betrayal, King Lear, Hamlet, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, to name a few of her favorites. Preceding her move to Maine, Cynthia lived in New York, working successfully in commercials, voice overs and soap operas, while studying with Stella Adler, Robert Patterson (Meisner technique) and Tim Phillips. Regional credits include The Barter Theatre, Good Theatre (Portland, Maine), and new play developments with New York Theatre Workshop and Abington Theatre (New York). A long and proud member of Actors’ Equity Association and SAG/AFTRA since 1974, Cynthia and her husband Walt happily divide their time between Charleston and the coast of Maine.

is an alumna of the College of Charleston with a degree in Spanish. Having performed at Charleston’s Theatre 99, Camille moved to Chicago to study improv comedy and performed regularly at iO Theatre. After being accepted to the Atlantic Theatre Company’s conservatory program, Camille moved to Brooklyn, where she became a founding member of the Crashbox Theatre Company. She has been seen most recently in PURE’s productions of Fool for Love,  This Random World, The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence, Constellations, Failure: A Love Story, and Marie Antoinette. Camille is also a company member at Theatre 99, where she can be seen performing in Improv Riot, Daddy’s Girl, and Team Sound.

is a Core member at PURE, originally from Coventry, England. Scott was in drama school by the age of 11 and left home at 15 to play the Artful Dodger in the National UK tour of Oliver! and never looked back! European theatre credits include Shakespeare and Rock n Roll, Blood Brothers, Grease, Tommy and the West End productions of Starlight Express and Tommy. Since moving to the USA 20 years ago Scott has had a variety of gigs, from touring with The Who to skating full contact professional roller derby for the state of Florida on the TNT network. US theatre credits include My Fair Lady, Snowqueen, Brotherwolf for Triad Stage, Greensboro, Blood Brothers at the Walnut St Theatre in Philadelphia, and My Fair Lady and A Christmas Carol at the Flat Rock Playhouse. He has also been seen on One Life to Live (ABC), Eastenders (BBC), and The Bill (Thames TV) as well as many national and regional commercials. He regularly records voice-over spots for radio stations across the country. Scott will be seen as the lead role Mr. Frazier in the upcoming horror movie The Voidfinder. Recent PURE credits include Small Mouth Sounds, This Random World, The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence, and A Sudden Spontaneous Event.

received his BA in theatre from the College of Charleston and his MFA at Rutgers University. PURE credits include The Lifespan of a Fact, Straight White Men and Constellations. Other recent theatre credits include The Understudy, Our Town, and The Debate Over Courtney O’Connell of Columbus, NE.  TV/Film credits include Law & Order, Ashby, and East Bound & Down.

Classically trained, Douglas Scott Streater has played iconic roles from Shakespeare’s Malcolm to Malcolm X all around the world. With a BA in theater from the College of Charleston and having trained under Melvin Williams, Jeffrey Zeiner, and Eli Tray, he feels he has the tools necessary to embody any role. Douglas can most recently be seen in the Lifetime Channel’s Honeymoon from Hell in the role of Walter, and IFC’s Commuters in the role of Tommy. Douglas is an original cast member of Young Jean Lee’s The Shipment, which won international acclaim. Douglas Scott Streater is excited to have been a part of the world premiere of Raw Bacon from Poland by Guggenheim resident playwright Christina Masciotti. With PURE, Douglas has appeared in The Royale, Tiny Beautiful Things, and Denmark (Bearing Witness Series). 

is a senior at the College of Charleston majoring in Theatre and Arts Management. Credits with PURE Theatre include Sweat, Small Mouth Sounds, The Royale and Father Comes Home from the Wars: Parts 1, 2 & 3. He has performed in Trojan Women, By the Way Meet Vera Stark, and Superior Donuts at the College.

Previous productions at PURE include Rapture, Blister, Burn; Bad Jews, Slowgirl, A Behanding in Spokane, Circle Mirror Transformation, Ginger: A Hansel & Gretel Tale, Waffle Haus Christmas (2010 & 2011), HOGS, and Speech & Debate. She has also been seen in More Fun than Bowling at South of Broadway. Film and television work includes the award-winning Wise Kids, The Inspectors, and Standing Up (with Val Kilmer and Radha Mitchell).