Great Lakes Gender Parity in Theatre Conference
August 19, 2017
On the Campus of Oakland University - Rochester, MI
SPEAKERS AND PANELISTS
Carey Crim is an award-winning playwright and resident artist at The Purple Rose Theater Company. Her play, Conviction (23.5 Hours), premiered to critical acclaim at Bay Street Theatre starring Sarah Paulson, Garret Dillahunt and Elizabeth Reaser. It then opened at The Rubicon Theatre in Ventura, California where it was nominated for an Ovation award for best new play. Her earlier works, Growing Pretty, Wake and Some Couples May… all received world premieres at The Purple Rose Theatre Company. Wake received a West Coast Premiere at the SeaGlass Theatre in Los Angeles where it was a critic's pick. Carey has recently adapted it for the screen and it will begin filming in Long Beach, California in June of 2017. Her latest play Morning After Grace ran to sold out houses at The Purple Rose Theater Company starring Randolph (Randy) Mantooth. It is slated to run in several more theatres next season including Asolo Repertory Theater and Royal Manitoba Theater Centre. She is a three-time finalist for Miami City Theater’s short play competition and won the competition in 2011. She has been a finalist for The Heideman award and a three- time finalist in the Samuel French OOB festival. Her work has received productions and/or workshops at Pasadena Playhouse, Primary Stages, Luna Stage, Asolo Rep Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Miami City Theatre, Rubicon Theatre, Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre and The Purple Rose Theatre Company. Carey is a graduate of NorthwesternUniversity.
Billicia Hines is an assistant professor and is director of the Black Theatre Program at Wayne State University. Previously, she was director of theatre at Elizabeth City State University. She began her formal training in drama in the high school program at the North Carolina School of the Arts. Thereafter, she attended NC Agricultural & Technical State University in Greensboro, NC (BFA, professional theatre) and University of Missouri at Kansas City (MFA, acting). She is a certified teacher of the Michael Chekhov Technique from the Great Lakes Michael Chekhov Consortium, an organization in which she proudly holds the position of associate artist. Billicia has presented Michael Chekhov Acting Technique workshops throughout various universities and theatre conferences. Also, she has performed the one-woman shows, Hela: The Immortal Cell Line of Henrietta Lacks, Testimonies of Truth: Truth, Parks, and Giovanni, and “Flying on Broken Wings: A Journey through Domestic Violence”. She has also found time to do voice-over work, independent films and many other promotional videos. To know more, visit her website, www.billicia.com.
Roxanne Wellington is an Assistant Professor of Acting and Voice at the Conservatory of Theatre & Dance at Southeast Missouri State University. She has previously taught theatre at Central Michigan University, Oakland University and Wayne State University, specializing in movement and voice. She has presented theatre workshops at ATHE, SETC, and VASTA. Roxanne has also been a proud AEA member for over 20 years and has worked in theatres throughout the U.S., such the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, and P.S. 122 in New York. Representative roles include Lady Macbeth at the Meadow Brook Theatre, Blanche in A Named Streetcar Desire at Florida Atlantic Theatre, and originating the role of Virginia in The Wilma Theatre’s production of Age of Arousal. She has received Best Actress awards from the Detroit Free Press, The Detroit News, and Ann Arbor’s Wilde Award. Roxanne is a Pilates Method Alliance certified instructor, yoga enthusiast, and passionate humane society member.
Guy Sanville celebrated his 21st anniversary as Artistic Director of the Purple Rose Theatre Company this past May. He has directed over 50 productions for the Purple Rose. He has been nominated for the Finchberg award and has received many awards for his work including the Detroit Free Press Excellence in Theatre Award for Best Director five times. He has appeared in 10 plays for the Rose, most recently as Oscar in The Odd Couple and will appear as Michael in the Purple Rose production of God of Carnage directed by Lauren Knox this fall. He is a screenwriter and is involved in several projects for television. He is a proud member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, Actor’s Equity Association, the Screen Actors Guild and currently serves as Great Lakes Regional Vice President of the Literary managers & Dramaturgs of the Americas. He resides in Chelsea with his wife Nancee and daughter Rose.
Janice L Blixt has been the award-winning Producing Artistic Director of the Michigan Shakespeare Festival for 8 seasons where she has directed 14 mainstage productions including this season’s Julius Caesar and The Seagull and performed as Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew; and created, adapted, and directs the Festival’s highly successful Touring Company, the MiSFITs, who have played to more than 50,000 students in Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana. Her productions of The Winter’s Tale, The Importance of Being Earnest, and Henry IV have all won Wilde Awards for Best Productions, I addition to 3 other nominations, and her productions have numerous BroadwayWorld and other honors. Blixt has over 20 years of professional acting and directing experience having played many of Shakespeare’s great women including Lady Macbeth, Queen Elizabeth (Richard III), Beatrice, Titania, Kate (Shrew), Cleopatra, Dionyzia (Pericles), Isabella (Measure), Rosalind (As You), Lady Capulet and the Nurse, Portia, and all the female characters in productions of Twelfth Night. She is a director, actor, and classical theatre coach in Chicago where she founded A Crew of Patches Theatre Company, a day job for professional actors doing classical theatre, and has worked for many of the terrific theatres there.
Kitty Dubin is an award-winning playwright whose work been performed in theaters across the country. Her latest play, RIGHTS OF PASSAGE was her sixth world premiere and seventh production at the Jewish Ensemble Theatre
where she is Playwright-in- Residence. Other productions at the JET includeTHE BLANK PAGE, COMING OF AGE, THE DAY WE MET, CHANGE OFLIFE, DANCE LIKE NO ONE’S WATCHING, and THE LAST RESORT.Kitty has also received productions at the Purple Rose Theatre in Chelsea,MI, the BoarsHead Theatre in Lansing, MI. and the Live Oak Theatre in Austin, Texas. Her one act plays have been performed in numerous festivals and competitions including The American Globe Festival, Heartlande Theatre’s Play-by- Play Marathon, Tipping Point’s Sandbox Festival, Boxfest Detroit, The Vitality Festival, and the Samuel French PlayCompetition. She was awarded two individual artist grants from the Michigan Council for the Arts as well as a Jewish Woman in the Arts
Award. In addition, she has been a Lecturer for the past twenty years at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan where she teaches classes in beginning and advanced playwriting and has mentored many young playwrights. She is a long-standing member of the Dramatist Guild and hashad two articles published in their monthly magazine, THE DRAMATIST.
Esther Van Eek, a proud member of Associated Designers of Canada, has been working as a costume designer, milliner, props designer, assistant set designer, and illustrator in the US and Canada for many years. She holds a BFA in printmaking (‘83) and an MFA in Theatre Design (’06) graduating with distinction from The George Washington University. Van Eek has received awards for both costume design and theatre pedagogy, including an International Teaching and Learning conference award for “(Un)-learning: Rediscovering the Creative Self”. Selected design credits include Accomplice, Heroes, The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife, Parasite Drag (Shakespeare & Company, Lenox, MA); Tartuffe, Emma, Crimes of the Heart, Hedda Gabler, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (University Players, Windsor, ON); As You Like It (The Academy of Classical Acting, Washington, DC); The Glory of Living (Didactic Theatre, Washington, DC); The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow (Studio Theatre, Washington, DC). Van Eek joined the faculty of the School of Dramatic Art at the University of Windsor in 2006 where she teaches Costume Design I and II, Drawing for the Theatre, Rendering for the Theatre, and Stage Make-up, and mentors up-and-coming designers. She serves as faculty costume designer for the University Players and continues her artistic practice as a printmaker and painter.
Elspeth Williams (Designer and Technical Director) Elspeth's recent credits include designs for Williamston Theatre's A Painted Window and the JET's An Act of God. She holds an MFA from MSU and a BFA from the University of South Florida in Theatre Design. In her spare time she designs escape rooms.
Shelby Newport is the Chair and Artistic Director of the Department of Theatre & Dance at the University of Michigan-Flint. Shelby is also the Resident Costume Designer and an Associate Professor. She is currently serving as the Director of the International and Global Studies program at UM-Flint, in this role she helps faculty to develop study abroad courses. She received her M.F.A. from Purdue University and completed her undergraduate studies at Cornell College. She designs regionally at Tipping Point Theatre, Flint Youth Theatre, and is a Resident Artist at Purple Rose Theatre Company. Her designs have been seen internationally in London and Margate, England. More of Shelby's work can be viewed at www.shelbynewport.com<http://www.shelbynewport.com/>.
Nancy Lipschultz has worked as an actress in New York, California, regionally in Michigan, Texas and in her hometown of Chicago. She has also worked overseas in London and is a veteran of six Fringe festivals in Edinburgh, Scotland. In addition to appearing on stage she has worked on several feature films, in numerous industrial films, many commercials, as well as, on network television. Nancy holds an MFA in Acting from Wayne State University and has been a professor of Acting, Voice and Directing at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, Michigan State University, Ohio Wesleyan University, and was head of undergraduate and graduate voice for the actor at Wayne State University in Detroit. Nancy is the voice and dialect coach for all Indiana University productions and has also coached many professional productions including: the New York City Opera production of Dead Man Walking directed by Tony award winner Leonard Foglia, the National Tour of Kiss Me Kate, Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure and The Ladies Man for Indiana Repertory Theatre, Trip to Bountiful at the Meadow Brook Theatre, The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, and The Sound of Music at the Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre. She provides the voice for Lexus GPS systems for Inter Group Corporation from Tokyo, Japan. She recently appeared in the new play reading series at Victory Gardens Theatre in Chicago playing Essie in High Holidays by Alan Gross. Nancy is a member of the Screen Actors Guild, Actors Equity Association and VASTA.
Michelle Mountain has been a Resident Artist at The Purple Rose Theatre Company since 1998, working as an actor, director and teacher. Her regional work includes teaching, acting, and/or directing for the Seattle Children’s Theatre Company, the La Jolla Playhouse, the Women’s Project, Sledgehammer Theatre , Wild Swan Theatre, the Young People’s Theatre in Ann Arbor, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), U of D-Mercy, Albion and Adrian Colleges. Michelle received her MFA in Acting from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Carolyn Gillespie is Emerita Professor of the University of Michigan-Flint where she taught acting, directing, and literature for 24 years prior to her retirement in 2011. She chaired both the Department of Theatre and Dance, and Region III of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, and is the recipient of a pair of KCACTF Gold Medallions for her work with that organization. For her advocacy on behalf of women, UMF honored her with the Lucinda Hinsdale Stone and Dorothea Wyatt Awards. In retirement, she has been doing freelance work in acting and directing.
Lauren Knox is a Resident Artist at the Purple Rose Theatre Company, where she primarily acts, directs, and teaches. She came to the Rose as an apprentice in the fall of 2012 and was soon discovered for her acting talent. Lauren has appeared in such plays as Harvey (Nurse Kelly), 2AZ (Kelly), Steel Magnolias (Annelle), the Purple Rose Spring Comedy Festival: Lovers, Liars and Lunatics (Ensemble) and 33 Variations (Clara). She made her professional directing debut in the winter of 2016 with The Odd Couple and will direct God of Carnage in the fall. Her short piece, Trivial Pursuit, was also featured in the Spring Comedy Festival. Lauren annually teaches the Teen Intensive with her good friend Michelle Mountain and participates in various classes throughout the year. Outside of the Purple Rose, Lauren directs for the Wild Swan Theater and recently received the 2016 Best Theater for Young Audiences Wilde Award for her direction of Charlotte’s Web. Most recently, Lauren is working with the Dexter United Methodist Church to cultivate a higher level of professionalism and skill within their Worship Arts Ministry. Lauren holds a BFA in Acting and an English Minor from Oakland University and has studied Classical Greek Theatre abroad in Greece. Of this work she loves rehearsals, people, and finding the thing. She looks forward to collaborating with fellow sojourners and using what gifts we have for good.
Carla Milarch, is the founding Artistic Director of Theatre NOVA, Ann Arbor's home for new plays, and a former Artistic Director of the award-winning Performance Network Theatre. As a dramaturg, director and artistic director, she has brought over 25 brand new plays to world premieres, as well as hundreds to staged readings, including those at the Michigan Playwrights Festival, the Fireside New Play Festival, the National New Play Network (NNPN) National Showcase of New Plays, and the Kennedy Center's MFA playwright's showcase. She served as a board member on the NNPN for 10 years, and co-founded the Michigan Equity Theatre Alliance, on which she served as Board President from 2011-2014. Some awards include “Best Overall Season/Artistic Direction” from the Oakland Press, “Outstanding Contributions to an Ensemble” from The Detroit Free Press, “Most Valuable Performer” from the Oakland Press, and the Between the Lines “Angel” award for outstanding contributions to the LGBT community, as well as numerous awards for acting and direction. Carla started her career as an actress. By her early teens, Carla's love for the arts flourished and she was accepted to the world-famous Interlochen Arts Academy in the acting department. Attending high school with Jennifer Ehle and Elizabeth Marvel, and later college with Parker Posey, Seth Gilliam, and Reno Wilson at SUNY Purchase, Carla studied alongside some of today's most talented actors. Carla’s love and experience for both sides of the stage have taken her from producing theater at The Barn Theater in Port Sanilac Michigan, to co-founding a theater in Amarillo, TX with her Purchase classmates, to working at Bob and Harvey Weinstein's MiraMax Films in New York City, to helping establish Performance Network as an artistic leader in Michigan, to producing theater in a barn again, this time in the middle of a world class city, at Theatre NOVA. She is a proud resident of Ann Arbor, where she lives with her husband Phil Powers and son, William Tyrone, a proud producer of regional theater, and a proud advocate of the American New Play.
Julia Glander is happy to be participating in this discussion. Michigan audiences may recognize her from recent stage work in THE UNAVOIDABLE DISAPPEARANCE OF TOM DURNIN, CALENDAR GIRLS, GAMES AFOOT, and the title role in MARY STUART at Meadow Brook Theatre. Other Michigan credits include: SUMMER RETREAT and SHIRLEY VALENTINE (Lansing Pulsar Award) at Williamston Theatre, ELECTRIC BABY with Kickshaw Theatre, RIGHTS OF PASSAGE at The Jet, THE COCKTAIL HOUR, and as “Ann Landers” (Wilde Award) in LADY WITH ALL THE ANSWERS at Tipping Point Theater, among others. Julia has played many stages across the country: Off Broadway, Kennedy Center, Asolo Theatre, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and American Stage, from tiny intimate spaces to the massive Hollywood Bowl. As a director, her work has been seen at the Williamston Theatre, Tipping Point Theatre, and Performance Network. Film credits include: Batman v Superman, Highland Park, Trust, Salvation Boulevard, Pilot Error, Answer This! She has appeared in over twenty national commercials and voice overs and is a member of AEA, and SAG/AFTRA. She received her MFA at the University of Iowa, and BFA from Central Michigan University. Julia is also a part-time adjunct lecturer at Eastern Michigan University and Washtenaw Community College. She lives in Ann Arbor with her very artistic family.
David Vegh is an actor and director. He made his feature film debut in a scene opposite Tom Hanks in Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan. He has made guest appearances on over a dozen television programs, including "Grey's Anatomy", "Dexter", "House, M.D." and "Mad About You". He has the good fortune to perform opposite a number of Emmy, Golden Globe and Academy Award-winning actors, including Martin Landau, Helen Hunt, Jon Hamm and Hugh Laurie. On stage, he has worked at South Coast Repertory, The Cleveland Playhouse and the Chautauqua Theatre Company. He is an Assistant Professor at Case Western Reserve University where he teaches Acting for the Camera in the CWRU/Cleveland Playhouse MFA Acting program and a variety of undergraduate courses as well.
Sara Catheryn Wolf is a professional actor and director living in southeast Michigan. She is the Artistic Director for Water Works Theatre Co located in Royal Oak, Michigan, where she collaborates in producing Shakespeare in the park using local actors, designers, builders and directors in the summer. She received her BA in Theater Performance from Western Michigan University, and her MFA from Wayne State University’s Hilberry Repertory Theater. She was the recipient of the Detroit Free Press Theatre Excellence Award for performing in the Hilberry’s Tale of Two Cities, and also for the Hilberry’s production of The Marriage of Figaro. Recently she has been onstage in Capital at the Detroit Rep, and A Christmas Carol at Meadow Brook Theatre. She is currently working on WWTC’s 2017 season.
Karen Sheridan, professor of theatre, is an actress originally from Chicago, who came to Oakland after a year on the road as Cinderella’s Stepmother in Into the Woods. In Chicago, she played a host of roles and garnered two Joseph Jefferson Citations. In the Detroit area, she’s been recognized with a Detroit Free Press Best Supporting Actress Award for "Kate" in Dancing at Lughnasa and Oakland Press Awards for that play and her work in Angels in America at Meadow Brook Theatre. In the Lansing area, she recently received Lansing State Journal and City Pulse recognition (2016 Thespie and Pulsar Awards) for Best Actress in a Play for her work as "Betty" in the Michigan premiere of Chapatti at the Williamston Theatre.
Karen received her BA in Theatre from Loyola University of Chicago, spending one year at their Rome Center campus studying theatre and art history with Dr. Michael Fink and stone-carving with Peter Rockwell. She studied mime with Michael Thomas, Bud Beyer, Thomas Leabhart and in Paris with Etienne Decroux. Karen got her MFA from the Goodman School of Drama at DePaul University. She taught at both her alma maters, Stateville Correctional Facility and spent six years on the faculty at the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown College. Karen co-founded Oakland's Classical Theatre Study in Greece summer program and has written new versions of Medea (2011), Antigone (2013), Iphigenia (2015) and Electra (2017). She has directed these projects with Oakland students on the islands of Hydra, Spetses and Poros in Greece before returning for an on-campus run each post-Greece September.
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James R. Kuhl. James is in his 8th season as Tipping Point Theatre’s Producing Artistic Director. He received his BA in theatre from Alma College and his MFA in acting from Wayne State University. He completed the Purple Rose Apprentice program as well as a two-year Internship with Alma College where he helped teach classes. He is a past winner of the Heck Rabi Playwriting Competition as well as a Wilde Award and Pulsar Award Nominee. James has worked as an area actor with the Tipping Point Theatre, Purple Rose Theatre, Williamston Theatre, The Michigan Shakespeare Festival, Boarshead Theatre, Icarus Falling, Spotlight Theatre, Croswell Opera House, Magenta Giraffe, and the Summer Studio Theatre in Illinois. He has taught classes at Wayne State University as well as Eastern Michigan University.
As a casting director with Pound & Mooney Casting, Janet with her partner did the Michigan principle casting for over thirty movies, music videos, and commercials. Some credits include Gran Torino and Batman vs Superman. She worked for George Clooney, Drew Barrymore, Ryan Gosling, Clint Eastwood and Eminem. As a playwright, her pieces were performed in Detroit, Chicago, Palm Springs and New York. HONORS: A Bullet, A Bear – winner of The Palm Springs Playwright’s Circle Ten Minute Play Festival.Home Again – honorable mention in The New Merit Playwright Contest and
included in The Eileen Heckert Library of Plays. Birdies in a Nestie – published by Smith & Kraus in Best Stage Scenes of 1999 and Officer Justice and Party Store Prisoner in Smith & Kraus’ Best Monologues of 1999. She rewrote Home Again for film and directed it as a drama short which one the BEST ARTIST award from The Trinity International Screen Festival. This past fall, she wrote and produced Car Stars her musical tribute to Detroit including twenty three original songs. Her screenplay Elida’s Familia is being shopped in LA and she just finished Lies in the River a screenplay focusing on the Flint water crisis. Currently she is working on writing and producing a comedic short called Last Words.
Teri Clark Linden is an American Actress, Audiobook Narrator, Voice-Over Performer & Mom (order subject to change)! She has acted professionally in 50 plays and musicals, from Shakespeare directed by Shira Piven, to world premiers at Jeff Daniels’ Purple Rose Theatre Company (including Mitch Albom’s DUCK HUNTER SHOOTS ANGEL) and the Actors Theatre of Louisville Humana Festival of New Plays (directed by former London Globe Theatre Artistic Director, Dominic Dromgoole) to highbrow comedy appearing alongside TV’s LAVERNE & SHIRLEY stars Cindy Williams and Eddie Mekka in Detroit’s Meadowbrook Theatre’s premier of KONG’S NIGHT OUT. In film Teri has been directed by Christopher McQuarrie (JACK REACHER with David Oyelowo) J. J. Abrams (SUPER 8 with Kyle Chandler) Edward Zwick (LOVE & OTHER DRUGS with Jake Gyllenhaal) Daniel Barnz (WON’T BACK DOWN with Viola Davis ) and Elliot Lester in this year’s AFTERMATH, with Arnold Schwarzenegger. She founded TCVO Studio where she hosted and co-taught voiceover training events alongside top LA, NY and Chicago voice-over talent including Pat Fraley (BOX TROLLS, MONSTERS, INC., TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES) and Pamela Lewis (author, TALKING FUNNY FOR MONEY). To date, Teri has narrated around 150 audiobooks in all genres, many from her state of the art Whisper Room recording studio, and is a proud member of SAG-AFTRA, Actor’s Equity Association and the Audiobook Publisher’s Association. She calls Yellow Springs, Ohio home which she shares with one husband, one son, two cats and one German Shepherd Dog who owns them all. Please visit her website www.tericlarklinden.com.
David Wolber is an actor and director and was the Artistic Director at Performance Network Theatre from 2007 to 2014. Favorite shows he directed include "Dream Deferred: Detroit, 1967" which he co-devised with Megan Buckley-Ball and Dr. Xavier Nicholas (Best of Season 2016-17, It's All Theatre), "2.5 Minute Ride" by Lisa Kron (Best of Season 2016-17, It's All Theatre), "Katherine" by Kim Carney (Best of Season 2015-16, It's All Theatre), "Good People" by David Lindsay-Abaire, "Dead Man’s Shoes" by Joseph Zettelmaier (Best New Script-Wilde Award 2012), "The War Since Eve" by Kim Carney (Best New Script 2011-Wilde Award), Necessary Targets by Eve Ensler, The White Rose by Lillian Garret-Groag and many more. Favorite performances include "1984" by George Orwell, adapted by Michael Gene Sullivan, “Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery” by Ken Ludwig, "Leaving Iowa" by Tim Clue & Spike Manton (Best Comedy-Wilde Award,) “The Home Team“ by Kim Carney (Favorite Male Performer-Wilde Award,) and “Three Days of Rain“ by Richard Greenberg (Best Actor-Ann Arbor News, Best Ensemble-Oakland Press,) among many others. David has performed and directed shows at Meadow Brook Theatre, Theatre Nova, Performance Network, Tipping Point Theatre, Matrix Theatre, Jewish Ensemble Theatre, Williamston Theatre, Boarshead Theatre, Detroit Repertory Theatre and the Edinburgh Fringe in Scotland, as well as appeared in a handful of commercials and independent Michigan films. David is an alumnus of Wayne State's theatre program, and is a member of Actors’ Equity Association and Americans for the Arts, and has served on several committees for The Arts Alliance of Washtenaw County, the National New Play Network, the Cultural Alliance of Southeast Michigan, and the Ann Arbor Film Festival. David is proud to be an Associate Producer on Detroit filmmaker Jasmine Rivera's short independent film "American Prophet" and will be directing "The Revolutionists" by Lauren Gunderson at Theatre NOVA in August. Follow your path.
Dr. Jeanne Leep, PH.D. is a Professor and head of the acting and directing program in the Department of Theatre Arts at Edgewood College in Madison, Wisconsin. She received her Ph.D. in directing from Wayne State University and her M.A. from the University of Michigan in theatre studies. She has also studied at the Moscow Art Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. She is the author of Theatrical Improvisation, Short Form, Long Form, and Sketch-Based Improv. and the co-founder of River City Improv, a performance improvisational troupe based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Past directing credits include Metamorphoses, Our Town, The Arabian Nights, Love’s Labour’s Lost & Proof. A longtime member of the Association of Theatre in Higher Education, Dr. Leep serves as the Chair for the Acting Focus Group.
Edward Nahhat is a practicing attorney with Kemp Klein Law Firm, specializing in trial work and entertainment law.
Mr. Nahhat's Equity acting career included roles with Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Detroit’s Attic Theatre, Detroit Repertory Theatre, Fourth Street Playhouse, Performance Network, Purple Rose Theatre, and Arab Theatre Arts Guild. His original stage plays have been developed, presented or produced by Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Purple Rose Theatre, Boarshead Theatre, Planet Ant, Grosse Pointe Summer Stock and Mason & Miller (NYC). Mr. Nahhat directed the award-winning Midwest premiere of Heather Raffo’s 9 Parts of Desire starring Sarab Kamoo; he produced the first three seasons of Mitch Albom’s Ernie, and founded Water Works Theatre Company, celebrating 17 seasons of Shakespeare Royal Oak in the park. He has also directed the Drama Club plays at Royal Oak High School since 2008.
George Sanders is an Associate Professor of Sociology and is also affiliated with the Women and Gender Studies Program at Oakland University. His research examines the intersections of consumer society and subjectivity; and his primary teaching responsibilities include Sociology of Gender and Queer Social Theory.