SHARON EVANS

(Pictured with husband and partner John Regir)

Age: 43

Status: Artistic Director, Live Bait Theater

University/Training: School of the Art Institute of Chicago, BFA

Recent/Current Projects: Directing Mark Gagne’s solo show, Never The Straight Man; writing Blind Tasting, a new play about the wine world; overseeing Police-Teen Link, a program that brings together police and teens through theatre.

How has your training/college education helped prepare you for your career in theatre?: SAIC taught me how to think creatively and to employ a wide range of conceptual options when solving an artistic problem. Being an Art History minor taught me about the lives of artists and how their work is affected by their historical times and personal experiences.

Why did you choose to ply your craft in Chicago?: I’m originally from the East Coast, so I wanted to go to school and live some place different. I like producing work, not just writing. So I wanted to live where I could find reasonably priced space.

SEAN GRANEY

Age: 28

Status: Artistic Director, The Hypocrites

University/Training: BFA in Theatre from Emerson College, Boston, MA.

Recent/Current Projects: Just completed remount of The Cherry Orchard at Theater on the Lake; currently directing The Hypocrites’ fall production of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia.

How has your training/college education helped prepare you for your career in theatre?: It taught me that I was a bad actor and that I should find something else to do.

Why did you choose to ply your craft in Chicago?: Where else could a young, handsome, idealistic 22-year-old change the face of American theatre?

Age: 60

Status: Artistic Director of Victory Gardens Theater

University/Training: BA, DePaul University (1963); MA, Northwestern University (1965); Ph.D., Northwestern University (1969)

Recent/Current Projects: I will "return to the boards" this fall, performing the role of Hank in Jeffrey Sweet’s new play, Immoral Imperatives.

How has your training/college education helped prepare you for your career in theatre?: My years at DePaul and Northwestern gave me the opportunity to develop and explore my craft. My teachers provided me with guidance in a relatively safe environment.

Why did you choose to ply your craft in Chicago?: I’m a Chicago guy–born and bred. I’m proud to be an artist-citizen of this metropolis, where it is still possible to do ensemble work.

HALENA KAYS

Age: 27

Status: Artistic Director, Barrel of Monkeys; actor

University/Training: Northwestern University

Recent/Current Projects: Director, That’s Weird, Grandma, Barrel of Monkey’s at the Neo-Futurarium; actor, White Trash Wedding and a Funeral, Factory Theater at Angel Island. Correspondent for WTTW’s "Artbeat."

How has your training/college education helped prepare you for your career in theatre?: Northwestern is a liberal arts education as opposed to a conservatory program. That has proved useful to me as an actor, director and person. I had a great acting teacher and was able to take voice, movement and all of the basics of theatre training while also exploring other [departments] within the university, like history, science, philosophy and art.

Why did you choose to ply your craft in Chicago?: Chicago is a place where you can have an idea, find smart and talented people to collaborate with, work your ass off and be successful.

Age: 27

Status: Freelance Lighting Designer

University/Training: BFA in lighting design (1996) from The Theatre School at DePaul University

Recent/Current Projects: I just finished designing the entire Steppenwolf Studio season, including The Duel, The Ordinary Yearnings of Miriam Buddwing, Unbinding Isaac, and Uncle Vanya. Also recently designed Among the Thugs at the Goodman, The Incident at Next, The Action Against Sol Schumann at Victory Gardens, Terrible Girls at About Face, and Bog of Cats for Irish Repertory. Current projects include Mary Stuart with JoAnne Akalaitis at the Court Theatre, Absolution with Martha Plimpton at The Steppenwolf Garage and Waving Goodbye with Naked Eye Theatre Company at the Steppenwolf Studio (also a Naked Eye member).

How has your training/college education helped prepare you for your career in theatre?: DePaul instilled strong rendering, critical analysis and collaborative skills that helped make me an artist rather than a technician. My training has given me the necessary skills and vocabulary to enhance my communication with the director, playwright, actors and entire design team.

Why did you choose to ply your craft in Chicago?: I knew that Chicago would offer me the room to make mistakes and choices to grow as an artist. I also thought that I would find opportunities here as a young designer that I wouldn’t have access to in other cities.

JOEY WADE

Age: 28

Status: Freelance Set Designer

University/Training: I designed my own curriculum at a small college in Gainesville, Georgia. They had an acting program but no design program. They ordered the textbooks I requested, and I shadowed the professional designers who designed the mainstage shows there while I designed the studio shows.

Recent/Current Projects: Uncle Vanya for Steppenwolf Studio and Liquid Moon for Chicago Dramatists (opening in September). I also teach Drama Tech and Design to the high school level at Francis Parker School.

How has your training/college education helped prepare you for your career in theatre? My lack of a rigid program early on has helped me. Sometimes intensive training can be limiting. I have the freedom to design based on each individual experience rather than a certain institution’s or instructor’s preconceived notion of what design should be. I let my imagination run wild and tailor my creative style to the director and other designers for each project.

Why did you choose to ply your craft in Chicago?: In college, I read American Set Design 1 and 2, and was struck by the interview with Michael Merritt. He, too, was from a small town, had first found his home in theatre as an actor, and did not have a degree in theatrical design. Michael Merritt spoke highly of Chicago as a Mecca of great collaboration. My wife [actress] Laura Scott Wade wanted a bigger pond to swim in too, so we moved here in 1995.

Age: 36

Status: Artistic Director, cobalt ensemble theatre

University/Training: BA in Oral Interpretation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; four years Meisner training at The Actors’ Center, Chicago

Recent/Current Projects: Overseeing cobalt’s current production Alarms and Excursions at Chicago Dramatists. This summer I wrote and performed in a two-woman show called When We Were Superstars. Currently, I am acting in Feeling Sorry For Roman Polanski at the Rhinoceros Festival. I teach Meisner Technique and Beginning Scene Study at the Actors’ Center.

How has your training/college education helped prepare you for your career in theatre?: My liberal arts degree taught me how to read, analyze, research and interpret a script while the Actors’ Center taught me an extraordinary technique that I desperately needed. I have also learned that the training never stops. It is a process. There is always something more to explore.

Why did you choose to ply your craft in Chicago?: I was in college downstate in the mid ’80s, and I kept hearing about all the excitement in Chicago. Steppenwolf was exploding; John Hughes was making tons of movies here; Second City was feeding talent to LA and NYC. To this Midwest farm girl, Chicago was the epicenter, and I couldn’t wait to get here! Plus it’s a great place to have a career AND a happy family life.

Age: Early 30s

Status: Production Stage Manager, Steppenwolf Theatre

University/Training: BA in Theatre Arts from State University of New York, College at New Paltz.

Recent/Current Projects: Production Stage Manager for Mother Courage at Steppenwolf and also an Associate Producer for F’s 500 Clown Macbeth. I will be the Production Stage Manager for Northlight Theater’s A Skull in Conamara starting in early 2002.

How has your training/college education helped prepare you for your career in theatre?: I was fortunate to have gone to a small school, where we were able to create our own opportunities. I was able to work in many different areas of the theatre and assume as much, if not more, responsibility than I could handle. I learned that "No" was not [an acceptable] word.

Why did you choose to ply your craft in Chicago?: I wanted to come to Chicago because I wanted to work at Steppenwolf. I wanted to be able to build up my resume and take risks in a city that would allow, support and forgive me for my efforts.

MICKLE MAHER

Age: 38

Status: Ensemble Member, Theater Oobleck

University/Training: BFA from Bennington College, Bennington, VT

Recent/Current Projects: Three plays of mine, Tedium, The Hunchback Variations and An Apology for the Course and Outcome of Certain Events Delivered by Doctor Faustus on This His Final Evening are all being remounted in the next few months (Aug-Oct). An Apology is being produced by Oobleck at the NYC Fringe Fest; Tedium and Hunchback are going to be in this fall’s Rhino Fest. In the fall, An Apology and The Hunchback Variations will be published by Hope and Nonthings press. In October, I’ll be putting up in the Storefront Theatre a children’s show called Master Stitchum and the Moon. I wrote and am directing it.

How has your training/college education helped prepare you for your career in theatre?: For a theatre artist of limited abilities like myself, nothing is more important to develop than endurance. The best aspects of my college education and my years of doing work with the highly collaborative Oobleck have given me just that.

Why did you choose to ply your craft in Chicago?: From top to bottom, there’s no better town in the history of the world to be doing new theatre in than Chicago. Rent is cheap, and the reviewers and the audiences are–more often than not–amazingly there.

Age: 50

Status: Managing Director, Northlight Theatre

University/Training: University of Illinois at Chicago

Recent/Current Projects: Producing Northlight’s 2001-02 season, starting with Jim Post’s Mark Twain’s Adventures Out West in September.

How has your training/college education helped prepare you for your career in theatre?: I trained as a poet, which comes in handy at Board meetings when the budget is discussed.

Why did you choose to ply your craft in Chicago?: I was raised here and have lived here all but two lost years in Boston.

Age: 45

Status: Composer, Sound Designer and Partner with Milburn/Bodeen Music and Sound Design, L.L.C.; Resident Sound Designer, Goodman Theatre; Adjunct Faculty, The Theatre School at DePaul University.

University/Training: A band called Fugue; Columbia College, Chicago; University of Illinois at Chicago; and the School of Hard Theatrical Knocks, Chicago

Recent/Current Projects: One flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and August Wilson’s King Hedley II on Broadway; Romeo and Juliet at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton; The Visit at Goodman Theatre; and Glengarry Glen Ross at Steppenwolf Theatre

How has your training/college education helped prepare you for your career in theatre?: I try to use all my experiences in one way or another, but the few philosophy and political science courses I took encouraged me to analyze and problem solve. I have learned there is more than one creative solution to an artistic challenge.

Why did you choose to ply your craft in Chicago?: My work in theatre began almost accidentally, but it was here that it started and any work I do out of town is because of who I have had the privilege to work with here. The more my wife and I go away, the more we love our home.