I was born and raised in Gages Lake, Illinois and reside in Chicago with my husband Chris and Abbies the cat. I spent the 2017-18 school year in Cambridge, Massachusetts to attend the Harvard Graduate School of Education to study for my Ed.M in Arts in Education. I recently wrapped up consulting projects for Harvard's Derek Bok Center for Teaching & Learning, Harvard's Phillip Brooks House Association and co-facilitating at Lincoln Center Education's summer labs.
I served as Northlight Theatre's Director of Education from 2013 until the summer of 2017. Before that, for three years I was Northlight's Education Associate/Camp Director, and spent the three prior summers as the camp's Senior Camp Director. I created and developed Northlight's Speak Up! theatre for social change program for students in elementary, middle, and high school. In 2015 I was awarded Northlight's Evie Award rewarding passionate and extraordinary service. As a Teaching Artist I worked as a Lead Teaching Artist with Steppenwolf Theatre Company for nine seasons and helped facilitate their Teaching Artist training and professional development workshops. During the 2016-17 school year I taught a Teaching Artist Seminar and Practicum course at University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Between 2008-2016 I also worked with the education programs at Writers Theatre (Glencoe, IL), Chicago Public Library, American Theatre Company, Chicago High School for the Arts, Dream Big Performing Arts Workshop, Redmoon, and the Los Angeles-based Fringe Benefits. I co-authored an essay written about my experiences conducting theatre for social justice institutes with Fringe Benefits published in Staging Social Justice: Collaborating to Create Activist Theatre (SIU Press). As a graduate of Miami University's Theatre program, I have returned to work with The Walking Theatre Project, a theatre for social change organization I co-founded in 2005 and to teach classes in 2008, 2012, and 2017. I completed the inaugural Lincoln Center Education Teaching Artist Training Program in 2014 and am a 2015 graduate of the Teaching Artist Development (TAD) Studio at Columbia College where I created a Teaching Artist Resource Hub as part of the first TAD Alumni Special Projects Lab. I spent 2016-17 mentoring two arts administrators as a Field Leader for Ingenuity, Inc.'s Partnerships & Professional Learning Panel. My artistic home is with the Chicago-based Genesis, where I am a deviser, performer, curator and producer of experiential performances and events. My work has also been seen at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Links Hall, Chicago Theatre Marathon (inaugural), South Side Story Club, Chicago Artists Month and the Chicago Home Theatre Project. I have collaborated with Dandelion Theatre, Vintage Theatre Collective, Red Tape, and Tympanic Theatre Company and curated multidisciplinary arts events for Genesis, Harvard, Around the Coyote, and Tympanic. |