Vitalist Theatre

Returning Vitalist Artists

	Robin Metz
	(Co-Founder/Producer/Contributing Poet) is the author of numerous poems, stories, and non-fiction appearing in magazines ranging from The Paris Review, International Poetry Review, Epoch, ArtLife, and Abiko Quarterly (Japan) to Other Voices and Illinois Issues. His volume of poems, Unbidden Angel, the first volume from the grief-cycle, The Reply of the Tongues, was awarded the Rainer Maria Rilke International Poetry Prize. Subsequently, Unbidden Angel was selected as one of twenty-five recommended books by The White House (Clinton) Commission on Complementary and Alternative Health and was nominated for the London (UK) Guardian Book of the Year Award. In conjunction with the first and second printings of Unbidden Angel, he has completed a reading tour of more than fifty American cities, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New Orleans, Boston, Milwaukee, and Chicago, and twelve nations, including Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Czech Republic, Kosovo, and Cuba. The recipient of numerous awards and grants, including an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, he is Director of the Program in Creative Writing and Philip Sidney Post Professor of English at Knox College.

	Elizabeth Carlin-Metz
	(Co-Founder/Artistic Director/Director) has worked for over 30 years in professional theatre. She served as an assistant director at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles where she assisted Ariel Dorfman on the premiere of his play Widows adapted from his novel with Tony Kushner. She was a directing associate at the California Shakespeare Festival where she directed As you Like It. Other directing credits include The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol, The Mill on the Floss and Floating Rhoda and the Glue Man for VITALIST THEATRE, the American collegiate premieres of Anna Karenina and War and Peace by Helen Edmundson, and The Love of the Nightingale, Romeo and Juliet, Pygmalion, Macbeth, Woman In Mind, and her own adaptations of Henry V Parts 1& 2 performed at Manchester Metropolitan University (UK). As a voice director, Liz has worked at Seattle Repertory Theatre, Tacoma Actor’s Guild, and Steppenwolf (Chicago and Off-Broadway). She spent four years as the resident director of voice and one summer as the director of the apprentice workshop at Williamstown Theatre Festival, where she also directed Shakespeare and Moliere with the Act One Company. She is an associate professor of theatre at Knox College.

	Jaclynn Jutting
	She collaborated as Associate Director on Mother Courage and Anna Karenina, assistant directed King Lear, and stage-managed The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol. Jaclynn has also directed with Around the Coyote Theater Festival and with Greasy Joan & Co., where she is also a company member. Past credits with Greasy Joan & Co. include directing excerpts from Euripides’ Helen, commissioned by the University of Chicago, and stage and production management on Dreams of Desire, Lady From the Sea, The Nose, The Oresteia and this fall’s Woyzeck at Live Bait. Jaclynn’s third play, Normalacy won the 2000 Davenport playwriting award. She is a 2000 graduate of Knox College, where she received her B.A. in English-Creative Writing and Theatre.

	Kelly Hogan
	has associate produced and created the role of Second Maggie for Vitalist's critically acclaimed The Mill on the Floss, and whipped up another Storm for them in Eve Ensler’s Floating Rhoda and the Glueman. More recently for VITALIST, she associate produced Theatre d’Complicite’s adaptation of John Berger’s The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol. The recipient of a B.A. from Knox College and an M.A. recipient in Performance Studies at Tisch/NYU, her Chicago acting credits include Chicago Dramatists, Body Politic, Raven, and Court, among others. With Frump Tucker Theatre Company, she has resided as dramaturg and directed productions of Eric Overmyer’s In Perpetuity Throughout the Universe and Maria Irene Fornes’ The Conduct of Life. Her most recent acting work has been for Live Bait Theater as a live blonde Lana Turner in Death on a Pink Carpet, and as Miranda, a role she created for Sharon Evans’ 2003 Jeff Citation recipient for best original work, Blind Tasting.

	Lori Myers
	Has been seen in VITALIST’s production of The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol and as Mother in their inaugural production, The Mill on the Floss. She has worked with Lee Breuer and Leslie Mohn at the Kennedy Center, the MADAYS Theatre Company in London, in Chicago with Bailiwick, the Hypocrites, Shattered Globe, Redmoon Theater, and strange, egg-throwing performance art companies in endless club basements and storefronts in Chicago and Rhode Island. She has her M.A. in Performance Studies summa cum laude from the University of London, Goldsmith’s College. Lori would like to dedicate her performance to the last of the Great, Tough, Smart Broads: Virginia Curtis. She would like to thank Liz and Robin for this amazing opportunity.

	Rom Barkhordar
	He was seen in Vitalist’s Mother Courage, and Anna Karenina in the role of Stiva. Previously with Vitalist, he played Edgar in King Lear and Henri Cabrol in the 2003 production of The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol. Other Chicago theatres he has worked with include, Timeline, Steppenwolf, Defiant, Naked Eye, Greasy Joan & Co. and Writer’s Theatre. Rom is also an ensemble member with Eclipse Theatre Company and does voiceover work for Midway Games on their Mortal Kombat title. Rom lives in Chicago with his fiancée, Maren, and their three cats.

	Winston Evans
	Was last seen in Mother Courage and her Children, and as Levin in Anna Karenina and Edmund in King Lear. He was previously seen as Jerry and William in a New Horizons Ent/Prop Theatre co-production of the comedy, I’m a Female, Seeking a Male. Other Chicago credits include the role of Charon in the world première of Fieldhouse Lab’s, Orpheus Now ; Sir Richard Burton, the Victorian explorer, in Walkabout Theater’s critically acclaimed world première, The Unembarrassed Mind; the Citizen of Angiers and Hubert in Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s, King John; Archie in Walkabout’s popular site-specific play, Downsize, and Traven in Black Forest Theater’s, Another Korea Revisited. Film credits include the part of Ivor Luper in Peter Greenaway’s fascinating biopic, The Tulse Luper Suitcases and Dai in the Oscar-nominated Welsh film, Solomon and Gaenor. Many thanks to Liz for another wonderful opportunity and to his beautiful wife, Mary Ann, for her constant support: diolch yn fawr Cariad Mawr!

	Vincent L. Lonergan
	Vincent has been seen in Mother Courage, played Karenin in Anna Karenina, and Gloucester in the Vitalist production of King Lear. Vincent most recently played the role of Gepetto in Quest Theatre Ensemble’s production of The People’s Pinocchio. Vincent is a company member of the Signal Theatre Ensemble, with whom he performed the role of Mr. Hardcastle in She Stooops to Conquer, and Leonato in Much Ado About Nothing. He has worked in many Chicago theatres including; onetheatre in the role of Buddy Fidler in City of Angels, Pegasus Theatre in the role of Cooly in Any One Can Whistle, Metropolis Theatre in the roles of Egeus and Peter Qunice in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the roles of Beggar and Old Joe in A Christmas Carol. Vincent has also worked for The Bailiwick performing the role of Gustav in The Christmas Schooner, TinFish Theatre playing the roles of Leporello in Don Juan in Chicago, Li Lien-Ying in Empress of China, and the Master in Jacques and His Master.

	Craig Choma
	Craig designed the set and lighting for The Mill on the Floss, set for Floating Rhoda and the Glue Man, lighting for King Lear, and set for Anna Karenina and Mother Courage. Craig’s other Chicago designs include the set for Death and the Maiden for Timeline Theatre Co. and designs for a number of other theatres on productions including Pippin, Night Sky, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Museum. Craig is Associate Professor of Theatre and the resident designer and technical director at Knox College, where he has been teaching for the past 10 years. Some of his favorite designs at Knox include The Skriker, Noises Off, A Moon for the Misbegotten, As You Like It, The Grapes of Wrath, War & Peace, Arcadia, Macbeth, Three Days of Rain, and Lysistrata. Craig received his BA in Theatre and Philosophy from Knox College, and dual Master of Fine Arts degrees at Carnegie Mellon University in Scenic Design and Lighting Design.

	Richard Norwood
	Recent designs include Monsieur Chopin at American Repertory Theatre, Cambridge; Monsieur Chopin at the Royal George Theatre, Chicago (world premiere) starring Hershey Felder and directed by Joel Zwick; Power for Remy Bumppo directed by James Bohnen. Richard has designed Mother Courage, Anna Karenina and The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol for Vitalist Theatre. He is the resident designer for Trapdoor Theatre, and Zephyr Dance and has designed over 50 shows for Trapdoor, including: Nana, Katzelmacher, Quills, Morocco, Baal, Lebensraum, Polaroid Stories, Orpheus Descending, and Squat! Richard has designed over 20 shows for Defiant Theatre including A Clockwork Orange, Titus Andronicus, Dope!, Cleansed, Godbaby, Action Movie; The Play, and Red Dragon. He holds the position of Lighting Supervisor at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Performances Programs.

	Alison Greaves
	Aly has designed costumes for Vitalist Theatre productions The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol, King Lear, Anna Karenina and Mother Courage. A proud Knox College theatre alumna, Aly received her MFA in Costume Design at Carnegie Mellon University. She now works in the theatre department at the College of Dupage and is a company member at Strawdog Theatre. Strawdog credits include the forthcoming Marathon 33, Three Sisters, Tooth of Crime, Detective Story, True Ballad of Fall’s Blessings, Impossible Marriage, Fuddy Meers, Puntilla and His Man Matti, Julius Caesar at TOTL, and Spring Awakening. Aly has also designed costumes for Uma’s Recent Tragic Events and Violet Hour, Silk Road’s Ten Acrobats, Buffalo Theatre Ensemble’s Temporary Help and Communication Doors, and Lakeside Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, Merry Wives of Windsor, and Henry IV.

	Gregor Mortis
	Gregor has designed for Vitalist's Mother Courage and Anna Karenina. As a founding member of the Defiant Theatre Company, Gregor won many awards as a Sound Designer and Composer. His most recent Jeff Award Citation was in 2004-2005 for Defiant’s Action Movie: The Play. Other Defiant designs include: Action Movie: The Director’s Cut, Sci-Fi Action Movie: In Space Prison , Ubu Raw, The Mystery Of Irma Vep, Caligula, God Baby , Phaedra’s Love, The Birthday Party, Hamlet, The Quarantine , Victoria Station, and The Dumbwaiter. Currently, Gregor is an ensemble member and casting director for Strawdog Theatre Company, where he designed and/or composed music for: Julius Caesar (also at Theatre On The Lake), Wireless: Radio Theatre, The Green Bird, Return To The Howard Bowl, & Disco Pigs. Other designs and compositions include: Among The Dead (Factory), When Circus & Theatre Collide and The Big Bang (Midnight Circus), Standing On My Knees (Mary Arrchie), Steel Kiss and Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll (The Journeymen), Faith and The Good Thing (Bailiwick), The Stranger, Dark Ride, and Beauty, Insanity, & Varieties Of The Flesh. Gregor’s newest fulltime gig is being the Asst. Audio Engineer for Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

	Rachel Sypniewski
	Shows Rachel has stage managed include Anna Karenina with Vitalist Theatre; Careless Love and 1984 with Theatre Entropy; Sylvia and Absurd Person Singular with Will Act for Food: Splintered Idylls with Tangerine Arts Group, Filet of Solo Sampler and Paramount Girl with Live Bait Theatre; Southern Baptist Sissies, To Bitter and Back, and Being Beautiful with the Bailiwick. Rachel is currently the production manager for Theatre Entropy. In addition to her work as a stage manager, Rachel also has extensive experience as a costume designer. Past designs include Kiss Me Kate and Macbeth with the Chicago Academy for the Arts, Serpent Woman with Tantalus Theatre Group, The Kentucky Cycle, Savage in Limbo, and The Sign in Sydney Brustein’s Window with Infamous Commonwealth Theatre; A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Vieux Carre with Will Act For Food; The Glass Menagerie with the Hypocrites; White Suit Science with the Magpies; and Relatively We with Open Eye Theatre. Forthcoming projects include the costume designs for Intimate Apparel, The Wiz, and Hedda Gabler at the Chicago Academy for the Arts and stage management for Two Rooms with Theatre Entropy. Rachel is currently a rental stylist at Broadway Costumes, Inc. She holds a BA in Theatre from Knox College. Much love to the family.

	Bethany Woodard
	Bethany served as the Assitant Director on Mother Courage, and as Assistant Stage Manager on Anna Karenina. She holds BAs in Theatre and Creative Writing from Knox College. Undergraduate directing and assistant directing work includes The Skriker, Eastern Standard, Dancing at Lughnasa, Lysistrata, and original student scripts. In Chicago she was Assistant Director on The Skin of Our Teeth for Backstage Theatre Company and she will AD on Black Caesar for Pegasus Players this winter. Stage management credits include Ah, Wilderness!, interning for the David Mamet Festival, and Crumbs From the Table of Joy at the Goodman Theatre.

	Kyle Anderson
	is excited to be working with Liz Carlin Metz again after last summer’s production of The Laramie Project in Galesburg, IL. He served on that show as light designer, master electrician, and technical director. He is much relieved that Lear has more division of labors, as this way he gets to work with some fine technical talent, and being exhausted beyond imagination is only fun to a certain degree. Since coming to Chicago in August of 2003, Kyle has served as master electrician on Collaboraction’s The Haunting on Marcey Street, lighting designer for American Demigods’ Lysistrata 3000, and lighting designer for Know Laughing Matter’s Improv Standup.

	Ron Naversen
	is head of Design and Production for the Theater Department at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He received his M.F.A. in Scene Design from Carnegie-Mellon University and his B.A. in Theater from Miami University of Ohio. Ron also earned his Ph.D. in Theater History and Criticism at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and upon graduation was invited to become their faculty scenic designer. Ron maintains a freelance career designing for university and professional theaters including the VITALIST THEATRE, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Nebraska Repertory Theater, New Harmony Theater, The Muny Opera, Theater Project, and New Theater companies of St. Louis. Ron has traveled and studied theater in England, Romania, Hungary, Russia, Poland, Great Britain, Japan, and most recently Bali where he learned traditional mask carving and shadow puppetry. Ron has been studying and collecting masks from all over the world and is in the process of developing an international and interdisciplinary mask exhibition and conference at Southern Illinois University Carbondale in 2005.

	Lori and Rob Reed
	http://www.reedstudios.net/

	Heather Courtney
	Heather is a 2006 graduate from Knox College (Theatre/Psychology), where she received Honors in Theatre and the Linda Elizabeth Karger Award In The Theatre Arts. While at Knox, she worked with Chicago companies Local Infinities and Anatomical Theatre, directed The Exonerated, and stagemanaged numerous productions. She would like to thank her family and friends for their love and support.

	Helen Drysdale
	Helen is a 2005 graduate of Knox College where she studied theatre and arts administration. Her favorite roles at Knox include Andromache in The Trojan Women, Black Annis in The Skriker, and Emily Dickinson in her self-directed senior capstone experience, The Belle of Amherst. Other directing experience includes Proof and assistant directing The Laramie Project with Elizabeth Carlin-Metz. In Chicago she has associate produced A Child’s Christmas in Wales for Remy Bumppo Theatre Company and now works in the marketing department at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Special thanks to her family, Liz, Jax, and especially John.

	Tara Weeks
	Tara served as the associate producer of marketing and public relations for Anna Karenina, The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol, and King Lear and was consulting producer on Mother Courage. She spent her first two years in Chicago in the marketing department at Chicago Shakespeare Theater on Navy Pier and currently works in sales while continuing to freelance in theatre. Tara studied under both Liz and Robin Metz, including the memorable London Arts Alive course and trip, at Knox College where she earned her B.A. in English Literature and appeared in Harbach Theatre productions, most notably as Lise in Helen Edmundson’s War and Peace. Tara made her stage debut at the age of 3 ½ months in a Christmas pagent in the role of the Baby Jesus.

	Jeremy Clark
	Born and raised in Montana, Je- remy received his B.A. in Media and Theatre Arts and his B.S. in Elementary Education from Montana State University. He also holds an MFA in Acting from Purdue University. He has worked with several companies around the country, including the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Sacred Fools Theatre Company in Los Angeles, and The Shadow Ape Theatre Company in Indianapolis. Jeremy also spent three sum mers touring with Montana Shakespeare in the Parks. Some of his favorite roles include Picasso in Picasso at the Lapin Agile, John Merrick in The Elephant Man, Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, and Nikos in Big Love.