Faculty
TAPS Faculty
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TAPS Resource Faculty
TAPS Lecturers
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Instructors
Claudia Allen, playwright-in-residence at Victory Gardens, teaches at the University of Chicago and Lake Forest College and was also a writer-in-residence/visiting professor at Western Michigan University in 2003. A Jeff Award-winning writer, her plays include The Long Awaited, Still Waters, Raincheck, Ripe Conditions, and Hannah Free, and have been produced nationally and internationally. The Long Awaited and Still Waters both won Joseph Jefferson Awards for new work (she was the first woman ever to win in that category, now the only to win twice). Her work has been published by Chicago Plays, Dramatic Publishing, Applause Books and Third Side Press; has been collected in a volume called She’s Always Liked the Girls Best; and has been included in DUO! Best Scenes for the 1990’s. Chicago Magazine chose her as “Best Playwright” in their 1999 “Best of Chicago” issue.
Tom Burch is University Theater’s Director of Design. Previous teaching credentials include Georgetown College(KY), North Park and DePaul Universities as well as Northwestern from which he received his MFA in Stage Design in 2003. Chicago design credits include shows for Apple Tree, Lifeline, Timeline, Bailiwick, Light Opera Works, House Theatre, greasy joan, Theatre on the Lake, Reverie, Northlight, and Chicago Shakespeare, among others. He’s the recipient of a Joseph Jeffereson Citation, two After Dark Awards, and was named the 2005 Michael Maggio Emerging Designer in Chicago.
Heidi Coleman, Director of University Theater, Director of Undergraduate Studies, Theater and Performance Studies has worked professionally as a director and dramaturg in New York City, San Francisco as well as Chicago. She has collaborated with Anne Bogart, Andrei Serban, and Tina Landau; taught within Columbia University’s Theater MFA and English departments, and has most recently participated in Steppenwolf’s First Look Series. She has curated UT’s New Work Week, co-curated The University of Chicago Presidential Fellows in the Arts Program, and initiated UT’s summer arts residency program, Summer Inc. Her work focuses on the integration of theory and practice, in both artistic and programmatic arenas.
Robert C. Goodwin, University Theater’s Director of Outreach, is a professional actor, arts educator, and director. He holds an MFA in Acting from The Theatre School-DePaul University has performed in off-Broadway, theatre and has been seen in national and regional commercials. Mr. Goodwin has been involved in the origination, management and instruction of arts programming in a variety of institutions throughout the Midwest and in New York City. Mr. Goodwin is also the co-founder of the ‘ready arts incubator’ (RAI), a performing arts organization that provides theatre training to the Chicago community.
Sean Graney, Artistic Director and Founder of The Hypocrites and has directed all but two of The Hypocrites 20 productions. His current production of Death of a Salesman has received excellent reviews. He has won a Joseph Jefferson Citation and After Dark Award as Director of Machinal by Sophie Treadwell. As a playwright his plays have received productions in Boston and Chicago. Including The 4th Graders Present an Unnamed Love-Suicide with The Side Project, En Mortem with Flush Puppy Productions, and Requiem in a Light-Aqua Room with Terrapin Theatre. He has recently taught at The Theatre School at DePaul University and Columbia College.
Chloe Johnston, University Theater’s past Director of Outreach, is also a writer and performer in Chicago who has appeared with Steppenwolf Theatre, Organic Theatre, CollaborAction, Chicago Dramatists, and Lookingglass Theatre. She is an ensemble member of the Neo-Futurists where she performs regularly in “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind” and recently created “The Emmett Project.” She is currently working towards her Ph.D. at Northwestern University.
Sandra Kaufmann (Choreographer) Her work has been featured in New York City at Dance Theater Workshop, the Merce Cunningham Studio, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Ohio Theater, and the Theatre of the Riverside Church among others. She also creates for dance video and for several regional dance companies. Sandra danced for The Martha Graham Dance Company and served as the Artistic Director of The Martha Graham Dance Ensemble. She pioneers kinesthetic education reform utilizing movement to teach core curriculum focused on science and has conducted hundreds of workshops at colleges, universities, dance academies and public schools. Sandra served on the faculty of Barnard College, The Martha Graham School and New York University. She received Dance Magazine Foundation’s Jean Gordon Scholarship, and Harkness Dance Foundation, Bossak/Heilbrun Foundation and Tidmarsh Arts Foundation have supported her work.
Jenny Magnus, co-founder of The Curious Theatre Branch, co-curator of The Rhinoceros Theater Festival, co-founder of The Curious School. She has written 4 plays, 23 performance works, countless songs, has had work produced at Museum of Contemporary Art, Steppenwolf Theater, Chicago Cultural Center, Gallery 37 Storefront Theater, Theater on the Lake, as well as many small theaters in Chicago, and has toured the US and Europe. She was named among the Artists of the Year by the Chicago Tribune in 1998, has been on the New City Chicago list of 50 most influential artists for 3 years (2001-2003), received artists fellowship from Illinois Arts Council (1997), and has released 4 CD’s. She is currently Adjunct Professor in the Department of Interdisciplinary Arts at Columbia College, has taught at the School of the Art Institute, the Metropolitan Correctional Center, and University of Illinois-Chicago.
Susan Messing, a New Jersey native, is a graduate of Northwestern University. She has performed for over eighteen years with Chicago’s iO Theatre, and created and teaches their Level Two Curriculum which is used in Chicago and LA’s iO West. At the legendary Second City, Susan wrote and performed in two mainstage revues and directed their National TouringCompany. Susan is a founding member of the infamous Annoyance Theatre where she has created roles in over thirty original productions, including Co-Ed Prison Sluts, The Miss Vagina Pageant, and Your Butt. In addition, she conceived, co-adapted (with Mary Scruggs) and directed the critically acclaimed What Every Girl Should Know…An Ode to Judy Blume for the Annoyance stage, where she also continues to teach. Susan is an adjunct professor for Loyola and DePaul University’s Theatre Departments. Her standup act with her puppet, Jolly, has been featured at the HBO/US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, and on Comedy Central’s Premium Blend and NBC’s Late Friday. You can hear her voice on radio and TV ads. Susan has been cut from several blockbuster films, but her recent movie role in Let’s Go to Prison! as a bad stripper in a halo brace is sure to be a crowd pleaser if it doesn’t end up on the cutting room floor. Her daughter, Sofia Mia, is very three, very ridiculous, and very awesome.
David New has been a professional actor for 17 years, appearing in over 70 productions at theaters in Chicago, New York and regionally throughout the United States and Canada. He received his BFA from The Goodman School of Drama/DePaul University in 1987. He has also worked in television and films. He is a member of Actor’s Equity Association, Canadian Actor’s Equity Association, Screen Actor’s Guild, and the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists. David New is a multiple Joseph Jefferson Award nominee/winner. He is the recipient of the Sarah Siddons Award, and is currently a Chicago Associates of the Ontario Stratford Festival Fellow.
Pamela Pascoe has worked extensively with immigrant populations in theatrical settings, and has performing credits including Broadway and national productions, Off-Broadway venues, and premiere regional theaters across the country. She has taught theater technique and history at institutions including the Berkshire Theater Festival and Touro College in New York City.
John Petrakis is an associate adjunct professor in the Film, Video and New Media Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he has been teaching screenwriting since 1993. He Is Currently Teaching A Lecture Class At The Gene Siskel Film Center At Saic On “The History Of The European Art Film.” Previously, John taught screenwriting at Chicago Filmmakers, The Center for New Television and the Chicago Dramatists Workshop. John Was A Regular Film Reviewer For The Chicago Tribune For 10 years, Including Three Years Writing The Weekly “Screen Gems” Column. He Currently writes film essays for “Christian Century Magazine.” He was the lead critic at New City from 1988 through 1993. John is a member of the Writers Guild of America, East. His script for “Song of Songs”, directed by Peter Bogdanovich, played on Showtime as part of its “Picture Windows” series.
Daniel Stearns, University Theater’s Production Manager, has numerous acting and vocal coaching credits at UT. He has consulted on Slavic languages with choirs and soloists around Chicago. His production credits include work at Court Theatre, Chicago Opera Theater, Light Opera Works, greasy joan & co., Theater on the Lake, Writers’ Theatre, and Pocket Opera Company. His translation of L. Andreev’s He Who Gets Slapped was recently performed in Victoria, BC, under the direction of Brian Richmond and will be published in 2006. His current projects include a new translation of M. Gorky’s The Lower Depths and a stage adaptation of Hero of Our Time by M. Lermontov.
Tiffany Trent has directed and/or costume designed with MPAACT, ETA, Youth Theater Workshop at Chernin’s Center for the Arts, Neo-Futurists, and Chicago Dramatists, where she is an Associate Artist and teaches in the youth outreach program. Recently directed pieces were with Pegasus Players’ 2005 and 2006 Young Playwrights’ Festivals. Script development workshops include Alabama Shakespeare Festival and New Harmony Writers’ Project. She has an MFA in Directing from Carnegie Mellon and is a co-founder of the ready arts incubator, a performing arts training company.
Michelle Tesdall is based in Chicago and has been designing costumes for both theatre and dance for over 10 years. Regionally, she has worked with Victory Gardens Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, Next Theatre, About Face Theatre, Irish Repertory Theatre, Rasaka Theatre, Greasy Joan & Co, Lifeline Theatre and Eclipse Theatre. She has worked with Williamstown Theatre Festival, Orlando Repertory Theatre, Child’s Play Theatre in Phoenix, AZ and Off-Broadway on Adam Rapp’s play Red Light Winter at the Barrow Street Theatre. She has worked closely with choreographers such as Billy Siegenfeld, Lisa Wymore, Melissa Thodos and Ann Reinking as well as having had the pleasure of designing Frank Galati and Stephen Flaherty’s Loving Repeating: A Musical of Gertrude Stein. Michelle has studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has a MFA from Northwestern University in Stage Design.
Molly Brennan, Adrian Danzig and Leslie Danzig are members of 500 Clown whose shows Macbeth, Frankenstein and Christmas have played on and off in Chicago for the past 6 years and now tour to theaters and universities nationally and starting in June, internationally. One or more of them have trained in clown and physical theater with Jacques Lecoq, Philippe Gaulier and Ronlin Foreman, among others, and work for The Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit. Molly performs with the House Theatre (Jeff Award) and Barrel of Monkeys, and appeared in Tina Landau’s Theatrical Essays at Steppenwolf. Adrian was a founding member of Redmoon, an early Neo-futurist and has performed with Lookingglass, Second City, the Goodman and at various NYC and Chicago theaters. Leslie has toured nationally and internationally with NYC’s Elevator Repair Service, has worked at a lot of Chicago and NYC theaters, and is completing her PhD in Performance Studies at Northwestern. For more info on 500 Clown and what we do and who we are, check out www.500clown.com.
Beau O’Reilly, Chicago playwright and performer, is a co-founder of Curious Theater Branch. O’Reilly has written 17 plays in the last 12 years, and he has appeared in over 30 plays as an actor, as well as administrating, directing, and producing for Curious Theater Branch. O’Reilly has also been the main producer of the Rhinoceros Theater Festival. He has taught at Curious School and is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the School of the Art Institute.