A new stage in life

San Francisco Gate: "Seated within California Shakespeare Theater's large, west Berkeley warehouse rehearsal space, Timothy Near is taking a break in the midst of working on 'Uncle Vanya,' which she's directing as the company's third offering this season. It's not as if Near is a newcomer to either Anton Chekhov or 'Vanya.' She's worked on the script before, in a very different context, and her staging of Chekhov's 'The Sea Gull' was one of many high points of her more than two decades as artistic director of San Jose Repertory Theatre, which she is leaving at the end of the 2008-09 season."