Stage Left Theatre

STAFF

ENSEMBLE

EMERITUS

BOARD

STAFF
Vance Smith, Artistic Director Laura Blegen, Managing Director Drew Martin, Casting Director Kevin Heckman, Co-Literary Manager Zev Valancy, Co-Literary Manager Kate Black, Company Manager Becky Blomgren, Casting Associate
ENSEMBLE Scott Bishop - Kate Black - Anita Chandwaney -Cat Dean - Melanie Derleth - Jason Fleece - Christine Gatto - Kevin Heckman - John Kohn III- Cory Krebsbach - M.E.H. Lewis - Drew Martin - Ian Maxwell - Brian Plocharczyk - Mark Pracht - David Rush - David M. Schmitz - Adam Smith - Chris Thompson - Zev Valancy -Greg Werstler

	Scott Bishop is a Chicago-based theatre teacher and director. His recent directing credits include Safe in LeapFest 6, The Deer And The Antelope Play at Riverfront Theatre in Rockford, IL, Arsenic And Old Lace at SummerPlace Theatre, How Gertrude Stormed The Philosophers Club at Bailiwick Theatre, Everything In 150 Pages for the n.u.f.a.n. Ensemble, and a staged reading of Why'd You Make Me Wear That Joe? for the International Festival of Women Playwrights. He has served as Theatre Director at three high schools, where he has directed productions of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, A Raisin In The Sun, and The Odd Couple among many others. With the aid of a Target Community Giving Grant, in 2004 Scott established an outreach program through which under-served youth were able to participate in creative drama workshops. He has also worked as assistant director on productions at the Griffin Theatre Company and Victory Gardens Theatre in Chicago, as well as South Coast Repertory Theatre, in Costa Mesa, CA. Scott holds an M.A. in Theatre from Northwestern University.

	Kate Black: After graduating in 2008 with a BA in theatre from Ball State University in Indiana, Kate moved to Chicago and made her city debut in Stage Left's production of After Ashley that fall. Shortly after, Kate was invited into Stage Left's ensemble and is now Company Manager. While in Chicago, Kate has worked with such companies as A Red Orchid Theatre, Strange Loop, and Chicago Dramatists- where she helped workshop a 2010 Leapfest script, Beaten. While theatre is a primary love for Kate, she has also done a few films including "Jared's Crush" with Play On Productions and she hosted a local TV series called Chicago/Live which showcased and supported the live local music scene, and aired on WJYS. Recently, at Stage Left Kate has been seen in Here Where It's Safe and Beaten. Favorite roles for Kate include: Skinhead Girl (Polaroid Stories), Dinah (Philadelphia Story), Julie (After Ashley), and Pumpgirl (Pumpgirl).

	Anita Chandwaney is a performer, playwright and director. Recently she played Uma in ensemble member MEH Lewis’ Here Where It’s Safe. Other Chicago credits include Pulitzer Finalist, Miss Witherspoon by Christopher Durang (Next Theatre), Haram Iran (Permoveo), Terror Act (Remy Bumppo ThinkTank), 3AM in Sketchbook (Collaboraction at Steppenwolf), Yoni ki Baat, Culture Clash and The Masrayana (Rasaka – for which she was Founding Executive Director). She has also worked with American Theatre Company, Lookingglass, Organic, Pegasus, Silk Road, Live, and Center Theatre. NYC work includes Ensemble Studio Theatre, Playwright’s Horizons and Open Eye New Stagings. Her first full-length play, Gandhi Marg, won 2^nd place in Writers Digest’s 75^th Annual Stage Play Competition and was a finalist for Chicago Dramatist’s Many Voices Project. Anita received a 3Arts Fellowship and has directed for Rasaka and Silk Road. Anita can currently be seen in The Good Soul of Szechuan at Strawdog.

	Cat Dean has been an ensemble member since 2002. Stage Left mainstage credits include: Here Where It’s Safe, The Day of Knowledge, Omniscience, Spare Change, Fellow Travelers, Echoes of Another Man, Cyber Serenade, and The Memorandum; as well as assistant director for Chagrin Falls. LeapFest credits include: Kingsville, A Fair Hope Memorial, and [off-night] Tens & Twenties. Other recent favorite projects include: Odin’s Horse with Infamous Commonwealth, where she performed on aerial silks; as well as the Deadline Workshop and Water at Chicago Dramatists, where she is an Associate Artist. Cat has also worked with Steppenwolf/First Look, Northlight, Griffin, Chicago Kids Company, The Side Project and Circle theatres among others. Cat is also an aerial/stilts performer and instructor.

	Melanie Derleth is a recent graduate of Indiana University. She was most recently seen in the Chicago Premiere of My Name is Rachel Corrie with Purple Bench Productions at The Artistic Home. At Indiana, some of her favorite roles include Lydia in Big Love, Aphrodite in Metamorphoses, Thomasina in Arcadia, Olivia in Twelfth Night, and Pearl in The Scarlet Letter. Melanie is from Deerfield, IL.

	Jason A. Fleece is a freelance director and theatre educator based in Chicago. As a director, Jason has a particular interest in musicals and in new play development. Favorite recent productions include The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee by Rachel Sheinkin and William Finn (Wilbur Wright Community College), "Something Old, Something New" and "Sinking Suspicions" as part of Mayfly: A Collection of New Plays by Jill Olson (Jillian Brown Productions), Jesus Hopped the A Train by Stephen Adly Guirgis (Village Players Performing Arts Center, Oak Park, IL) and Anna Is Saved by Jessica Cluess (Stage Left Theatre/LeapFest 6). Jason holds a B.A. in Theatre from Point Park University in his hometown of Pittsburgh, PA, and an M.F.A. in Directing from the Theatre School at DePaul University. Jason is proud to be an ensemble member with Stage Left.

	Christine Gatto was seen at Stage Left as Sophia in Fellow Travellers, and also in The Vow. Elsewhere, she was seen in Mary Arrchie's production of Shakespeare Kung Fu, and this past summer as Ariel in The Tempest at Talisman Theatre. She has worked with many theatres around Chicago, including Stage Left, Circle Theatre, Chicago Jewish Theatre, First Folio Shakespeare, Breadline, and Trapdoor. Favorite roles include Bailey in the world premiere of Strange Light at the Bailiwick Pride Series and Jackie in Kinder, Gentler. She holds an MFA in acting from Penn State University, a BFA from Northern Illinois University, and is a.

	Kevin Heckman has directed several of Stage Left's most memorable shows from the past five seasons, including the Midwest Premiere of Echoes of Another Man (Jeff Recommended), Chagrin Falls (Jeff Nomination - Best Production; Jeff Citation - Best New Work), Burying the Bones (Jeff Nomination - Best New Work), The Vow (Jeff Nomination - Set Design), The Memorandum (Jeff Recommended) and Cyber Serenade. Additionally, he's directed numerous readings for Stage Left and Chicago Dramatists along with the Jeff Recommended Feathers In The Wind at Chicago Jewish Theatre; Macbeth (April, 2009) and The Girl in the Iron Mask for Babes With Blades; and The Tempest and Two Gentlemen of Verona for Talisman Theatre. As an actor he's appeared in Spare Change, The (W)hole Thing, Good Woman of Setzuan and Sing For Your Supper at Stage Left along with appearances at Chicago Shakespeare, Apple Tree, Illinois Theatre Center, The Aardvark and Shakespeare's Motley Crew. He has designed lights for Stage Left's productions of Prairie Lights, Empty and Julius Caesar and won an After Dark Award for light design for his work on Bailiwick Repertory's production of Rope. He served as Artistic Director or Managing director of Stage Left from 2000 to 2008 and presently is the Managing Director at Next Theatre Company. Originally he hails from New England, growing up in Maine and attending school at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. Presently he lives in Evanston with his wife Christine, and their twin daughters, born in May of 2009.

	John Kohn III has designed lights for The Day of Knowledge, After Ashley, Omniscience, Spare Change, Live Girls, and In Times of War here at Stage Left, and served as Assistant Director for The Ruby Vector in LeapFest 6. His design work has also been seen at Redtwist Theatre in their productions of Proving Mr. Jennings, Equus, and Les Liaisons Dangereuses, among others. He is a graduate of Northwestern University.

	Cory Krebsbach has been a proud ensemble member since 2001. Stage Left mainstage credits include: M.E.H Lewis' Here Where It’s Safe as Zach, David Allan Moore's The Day of Knowledge as Alexsei, After Ashley as Roderick, Omniscience as Warren, Fellow Travelers as Peter, Mia McCullough's Echoes of Another Man as The Patient, Cyber Serenade as The Void , Chagrin Falls as Henry Harcourt and The Secret of the Old Queen as Chet. LeapFest credits include: Fellow Travelers, and The Human Capacity. Other Chicago projects include: The Play About A Squirrel in 2007's Rhino Festival, David Rush's Tying the Knot for Chicago Dramatists Saturday Series and Blindside for Stockyard Theatre Company at The Raven. Cory has also worked with Bailiwick Repertory, Rocky Mountain Repertory (Colorado), Bridgework Theatre Company (Indiana) and Human Race Theatre (Ohio). He holds a BFA in Acting from the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point. In addition to theatre, Cory also works with the University of Illinois at the Graham Clinical Performance Center as a Standardized Patient and continues to develop his love of food and entertaining with his pet project, Forque Catering.

	M. E. H. Lewis’s play Burying the Bones (Spring 2004) received an Equity Joseph Jefferson Award nomination for Best New Work. Her play Perfect World was produced in December at Chicago’s Infamous Commonwealth Theatre. Fellow Travellers won the Dayton Playhouse’s 2004 FutureFest competition , and received an April workshop production in Stage Left’s LeapFest and was a finalist in the Playwrights First Competition. Lewis’s first play, Charms for Protection, won the 1998 Julie Harris Playwriting Competition, and her second play, Float, opened the 2000 season at Melbourne’s renown New Theatre. Creole was a finalist in the 2004 SWTA New Play Contest. Ms. Lewis’s work has also been staged in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. She received a 2004 Artists Fellowship from the Illinois Arts Council, and past awards from the Tremain Foundation and PEN. She is a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists, an ensemble member of Stage Left Theatre, an American Theatre Company Relative, and a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Women’s Theatre Alliance, the Director/Playwrights Association of Chicago and The Playwrights Collective. Ms. Lewis is pleased to share Stage Left’s season with Mia McCullough’s beautiful play Echoes of Another Man.

	Drew Martin has worked for over 20 years in professional theatre as a director, producer, finance manager, designer, technician and educator. Shows he has directed in Chicago have been nominated for nine Joseph Jefferson Awards, winning five, including Outstanding Director for Leander Stillwell. His work includes the World Premieres of Prairie Lights, Police Deaf Near Far, Sing For Your Supper, Watchdog, Tasters Choice, Dapples and Grays, Rage of the Ages, Arthur’s Dream and Maxwell Street. Other directing work includes, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar, Out Of Spite: Tales of Survival in Sarajevo, Escape From Happiness, In White America, Theatre II, Bocon, We The People and Kid Dinosaur. He has also managed finances for several commercial and non-profit producers, including Court Theatre, Performing Arts Chicago and Perkins Productions/Royal George Theatre (including the Broadway production of I Hate Hamlet). He was Producer of two episodes of Magic Door Television Theatre and has taught theatre routinely in high schools and colleges. Drew was Artistic Director of Stage Left until 2000 and remains an active Ensemble Member. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College, where he also studied in London with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

	Ian Maxwell is a graduate of the Theatre Conservatory of the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. He was most recently seen as Alden Hammond in Stage Left's After Ashley. Other favorite roles include Wayne in Inspecting Carol, Angelo in Measure For Measure, Harold Akers in The Wild Duck, Pinchwife in The Country Wife, and Aguecheek in Twelfth Night.

	Brian Plocharczyk joined Stage Left after performing in LeapFests 1 & 3, playing Dirk in Somebody Foriegn, and Franz in The Human Capacity. Brian has since been seen on Stage Left's boards as Justin Hammond in After Ashley and George Ellis in Omniscience. His voice also made a cameo appearance in Leapfest 5 as a radio baseball announcer in The Fisherman. Some of Brian's favorite roles include Edward Hyde in City Lit's Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Eddie in Over the Tavern, at Theatre at the Center, Proteus in Two Gentlemen of Verona, at the Talisman Theatre, Mr. Mell in The Play's the Thing at the Theatre Building Chicago, and Hugo in the Goodman's staged reading of B.F.E. Brian has also been seen at Chicago Shakespeare-Short Shakes MacBeth and Romeo and Juliet, Lifeline-Velveteen Rabbit and Long Way from Chicago, Mary Archie -Richard II, The Royal George- Verbatim Verboten, and Chicago Jewish Theatre- Stroop Report and The Speaking Head. Brian is also a voice over and film actor in and around Chicago. In addition to his acting credits, Brian also teaches karate and choreographs violence for the stage and occasionally screen. Brian is an apprentice member of the United Stuntmens Association. For more information go to www.brianplo.com.

	Mark Pracht was raised in the mountains near Colorado Springs, Colorado. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Nebraska, Kearney, and was a company member of the Sheleterbelt Theatre in Omaha, Nebraska. During that time, he worked on seven world premiere productions, including his own play, Neon. He has also toured nationally as the ghost of Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol for The Nebraska Theatre Caravan. Since 2001, he has worked in the Chicago community, including Trap Door, Lifeline, and The Side Project. He also served as the Artistic Director of Brown Couch Theatre Company. Past productions include Stage Left’s The Day of Knowledge, Dashiell Hamlet at City Lit Theatre, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest with Open Eye Productions.

	David Rush has won several major awards, including the Los Angeles DramaLogue, several Jeffs and Emmys, and three After Dark Awards. Among his award-winning works are four produced by Stage Left – “Cuttings”, “Prairie Lights,” “Police Deaf Near Far,” “Leander Stillwell,” and “Dapples and Grays.” He is a resident playwright with Chicago Dramatists as well as an ensemble member of Stage Left. He currently heads the Playwriting Program at Southern Illinois University and was named Playwrighting Teacher of the Year, 2002-2003.

	David Schmitz is an accomplished director and theatre administrator and has been an ensemble member at Stage Left since 2002. During his tenure, he has directed Skin in Flames, Fellow Travellers, The Good Woman of Setzuan, and the musical Prairie Lights. Other directing credits include The Cherry Orchard, Our Town and The Diary of Anne Frank (Village Players Theatre), Buried Child, The Measures Taken and Trinkets (Roosevelt University), The Philadelphia and English Made Simple (The Brick Theatre Company), subUrbia and Marat/Sade by Peter Weiss (This Isn't Brain Surgery Theatre Company (TIBS) - Greeley, CO), and the world premiere of Hamlet Crucified (1999 Bailiwick Director's Festival). The former Artistic Director of the This Isn’t Brain Surgery Theatre Company (TIBS) in Greely, CO, David has also been on the Board of Directors for Katharsis Theatre Company, the Uptown Theatre Consortium, and was a member of the Finance Committee of the Village Players Theatre. David served as the General Manager for the Lookingglass Theatre Company, and presently is the General Manager at Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Mr. Schmitz holds a BA in Theatre from the University of Northern Colorado, and an MFA in Directing from the Theatre Conservatory at the Chicago College of Performing Arts, Roosevelt University.

	Adam Smith has designed sound at Stage Left for LeapFest 6 and The Day of Knowledge. His other recent credits include sound design for The Giver and Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry (T.Y.A. Series), Haywire! (Hell in a Handbag), 2006-2008 Ten Minutes, The Gathering Note, and Madwoman of Chaillot (A/I Company, Actors Theatre of Louisville); and assistant sound design for The Autumn Garden (Eclipse Theatre Co.). Adam is a founding member of LBK Productions and Off Target Productions.

	Zev Valancy has worked as dramaturg for The Day of Knowledge and assistant directed the LeapFest productions of The Fisherman and Hungry Ghosts, as well as serving as Stage Left's Literary Associate. Elsewhere in Chicago, he has dramaturged Theatre Mir's The Prisoner's Dilemma and The Arab-Israeli Cookbook, interned for Northlight and Apple Tree Theatre, and graduated from Northwestern University. He also writes theatre criticism for centerstagechicago.com and blogs at onchicagotheatre.blogspot.com

	Greg Werstler's Stage Left directing credits include After Ashley and Ruby Vector in LeapFest 6. Greg has worked as a theater administrator and director in Chicago for more than 10 years. He is the Managing Director of ComedySportz Theatre and recently completed a build-out of their beautiful new theater in Lakeview. Other directing credits include Rumors and Loveliest Afternoon for Eclipse Theatre Company, Voice of the Prairie and The Eight for Dolphinback Theatre (of which he was a founding member), A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Equity Library Theatre and Angels in America at Lake Forest College.