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Featured Past Grads & Faculty/Staff
Paul Amandes is an actor-director-playwright-singer-guitarist-songwriter. The year 2006 has been about writing. He co-adapted and wrote original songs for Local Wonders, commissioned and produced by the Nebraska Repertory Theatre this summer. Local Wonders is based on the works of Nebraska native, Ted Kooser, US poet laureate from 2004 to 2006. A new production of Judevine by David Budbill with songs by Paul is currently in rehearsal at Nebraska . He’s finished a first draft of Instruction for The Serious Guitarist, a drama about music and lust. In addition, he has started work on four other scripts. Paul has been performing solo performance pieces all around Chicago including 2 runs with Blue Moon Studio Theater. His singer-songwriter act continues unabated as well.
Sharon Carlson is an adjunct professor of voice at both Roosevelt University and Columbia College Chicago. She has also been a spokesperson for WTTW for eleven years. A member of Actor’s Equity Association, she has appeared in scores of theatrical productions. Her most recent theatre credit includes Ravinia Music Theatre’s 2004 production of Sunday In The Park with George featuring Patti Lupone, Audra McDonald and Michael Ceveris. Her New York credits include Comedy of Errors (Geva); Celestina (Producers Club); and Hot Flashes On The Road to Spandex (The Duplex). She has appeared in numerous Chicago productions. Some favorite regional roles include Mrs. Lovett, Sweeney Todd (Human Race); Mama Rose, Gypsy; Frau Schneider, Cabaret (Skylight Opera); Ruth, The Pirates of Penzance (Lyric Opera Cleveland); Madame Arcati, Blithe Spirit ( American Theatre Center ), Kate, All My Sons (Peninsula Players); Grandma Kurnitz, Lost In Yonkers (Royal George). Other credits include A...My Name is Alice (Ivanhoe Theatre); The Sound of Music (Drury Lane Oak Brook); Once In A Lifetime (Court Theatre); Summer Stock Murder (Theatre Building). Ms. Carlson was Disney’s TV Talent Director for Out Of the Box for three years, as well as being an on-camera talent. Sharon has appeared in numerous TV and radio commercials, and has been honored with both a Jeff Citation and an Artisan Award. This classically trained singer writes and performs her Opera Satire productions nationally in concert and cabaret, teasing such operatic belles as La Triviata, Madama Butterball and Carmencita.
Kirsten Fitzgerald is a proud ensemble member of A Red Orchid Theatre; she was most recently seen there in The Sea Horse, for which she has been nominated for a Joseph Jefferson Award. Over the summer you may have seen her at the Royal George Theatre , in Leaving Iowa and later this fall you can catch her up at Next Theatre Co, in Christopher Durang's Miss. Witherspoon. At Columbia Kirsten teaches Voice I, Acting I:Basic Skills and Acting I:Scene Study. She also teaches at Acting Studio Chicago and manages Thresholds Theatre Arts Project; a project commited to sharing the rarely heard artistic voices of people living with mental illness.
Jeff Ginsberg spent the summer teaching with Susan Joy Padveen at the Columbia College High School Institute, and his fourth summer at The School at Steppenwolf. He is looking forward to three projects in 2007. He is thrilled to be working on Jean-Claude Grumberg's play, The Workroom for our Department's Mainstage-Season. The Steppenwolf group that he taught in 2005 have created an ensemble and have asked him to direct their first show. They have decided on Stephen Metcalfe's The Incredibly Famous Willy Rivers. It's about a John Cougar-like rock star attempting a comeback after an assassination attempt; colorful characters, good writing: Opening at the Viaduct in May '07. He has also been invited back to The Performing Arts Center at Oakton College (where he directed The Laramie Project in 2004) to stage Joshua Sobol's play Ghettoin November '07.
Joe Janes is working on Conrad Brunst presents...DANSE MACABRE, an improvised show done in the style of 1930's and 40's horror films. It's the fifth mounting of the show. His company, Teatro Bastardo, does it every Halloween. And there is usually a small run at Second City 's cabaret space. This year, we're doing a six week run, three shows a week, at the Atheneum. He also, has directed Some Jerk Stole Our Pants, a sketch comedy revue by Fool for Thought, presented at Donny’s Sky Box.
Caroline Latta had a busy and productive summer. In late May she took a group of faculty and students to Stratford, Ontario to see five Shakespearean plays in three days--a wonderful exciting time full of play going, and talks with actors and directors. In July she wrote an article for our own Columbia magazine, exploring with Barbara Robertson the role of Hermione in Shakespeare's Winter's Tale. In August she made two conference presentations: one at the 26th Annual Women & Theater Conference--she and Estelle Spector hosted nine Chicago women theater professionals in a Roundtable discussion on the opportunities/challenges the city has presented to these women. She also presented at the American Theater Higher Education 20th Anniversary Conference as part of a panel on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Acting. Finally she took a master class with Hollywood casting director Deborah Aquilla.
Clare Nolan is a member of Sweat Girls, which most recently performed at the Live Bait Filet of Solo Festival, Around the Coyote Arts Festival, and at the Acorn Theater in Three Oaks, Michigan . They are working on a new piece currently that should go up in the spring.
Scott Olson most recently appeared as Alex in The Cocktail Party with Caffeine Theatre and in Wintertime with Reverie Theatre. He has appeared with numerous theatres over the past 15 years including Zebra Crossing, Chicago Dramatists, Café Voltaire, Urbus Orbis, Chicspeare, and, for a year, as Tony in the long-running play Shear Madness. Scott is also an accomplished director. He has directed at Bailiwick, Boxer Rebellion, Synergy Therapy Theatre, Act One Studios, and most recently, Cotton Patch Gospel at Columbia College where Scott has been a faculty member for the last seven years. He also is on the teaching staff at Act One Studios.
Cecilie O’Reilly most recently performed as Winnie in Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days at the Prop Theater for Rhino Fest. She also did accents for Steppenwolf’s The Unmentionables this past summer, and will be doing accents for Milwaukee Rep’s Translations in December.
David Woolley is one of fourteen members of the the Society of American Fight Directors’ College of Fight Masters (since 1994). As a free-lance fight director, he has choreographed violence for over 300 productions in Chicago since 1982; beginning with Class Enemy at the Next Theatre; and the World and New York premieres of David Mamet’s Edmond. Woolley received a Joseph Jefferson Award (1988) for Consistent Excellence in Stage Combat Choreography (for his work in the “88 Chicago season) and the Off-Loop Theatre Award for Best Fight Direction 1991 (Les Liasons Dangereuse). A professional director/ actor/ and practioner of Theatrical Swordplay, he is now in his 20 th year as Artist in Residence at Columbia College of Chicago teaching stage combat for the actor and overseeing violence for their season of plays, as well as numerous directing projects and classroom scenes. Recent work includes: Henry IV parts 1 & 2 for the Lakeside Theater (Michigan); American Buffalo for Raven Theater; and his 17 th season as Guido Crescendo in Dirk and Guido: the Swordsmen! at the Bristol and Ohio Renaissance Faires (He’s Guido...)…Woolley also directed the Babes With Blades’ Affair of Honor: Satisfaction at the Viaduct Theater this past Spring (as part of the One Act Play competition, which he sponsored).
*- Denotes Liberace Scholar
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