Faculty
Bill Bleich is a screenwriter with over a dozen produced network television movies, features, mini-series and pilots to his credit. His telefilm, Deadly Messages, was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best Mystery. Other credits include: Good Cops, Bad Cops; Danger Island; The Midnight Hour; Smoky Mountain Christmas; Children of Stepford; Gladiator; The Hearse; When Dreams Come True and From The Dead of Night. He created the Universal syndicated television series Shades of L.A. and was on staff of the Showtime series Poltergeist: The Legacy. Bill has served in a producing capacity on many of his projects. In addition to screenwriting, his librettos for young people’s symphonies have been performed by numerous major orchestras and he has written stand-up comedy for David Letterman and others. Bill has taught screenwriting at the UCLA Extension Writers Program and the NYU Professional School. He has guest lectured at the Australian Film Television and Radio School, the University of Melbourne, and the University of Auckland in New Zealand. Bill is a graduate of the University of Michigan, the University of California Law School at Berkeley (Boalt Hall) and the UCLA School of Film and Television, where he earned his MFA in screenwriting. He is a lifetime member of the Writers Guild of America and a member of the California State Bar Association.
Shawn Douglass currently teaches Basic Acting. He holds an M.F.A. from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where he was a Hall Family Foundation Fellow. Shawn is currently an Artistic Associate with Remy Bumppo Theatre Company where he received an After Dark award for his portrayal of John Tanner in Man and Superman, and a Joseph Jefferson nomination for the role of Adolphus Cusins in Major Barbara. Shawn has also appeared with such Chicago companies as Northlight Theatre, Court Theatre, Apple Tree Theatre, Writers' Theatre and Chicago Shakespeare. Shawn has appeared in over twenty Shakespearean productions both in Chicago and at Shakespeare Festivals in Wisconsin (American Players Theatre), Iowa and Montana. His directing credits include Romeo and Juliet for Montana Shakespeare in the Parks, as well as Julius Caesar and The Diary of Anne Frank for Theatre at the Center in Munster, Indiana. 2005 acting credits include the title character in Humble Boy (Remy Bumppo) and Astrov in Apple Tree's production of Uncle Vanya. Shawn is currently co-adapting Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court for a reading at the 2005 Chicago Humanities Festival. He is a member of the Actor's Equity Association.
Paul Edwards (PhD Texas) is Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Performance Studies. He is the recipient of the prestigious 2002 NU Alumni Excellence in Teaching Award and he oversees the teaching of the department's introductory course 103 - The Analysis and Performance of Literature. His research and teaching are in the study of literature through performance (Shakespeare, 19th and 20th century European and American fiction) and the adaptation of fiction for stage and screen. He has directed more than forty original stage adaptations of fiction for campus and professional settings. His adaptation of John Barth's The End of the Road received a 1993 Joseph Jefferson Citation (for non-Equity production), and his adaptation of Geoff Ryman's Was received a 1996 Joseph Jefferson Award (for Equity production) and an After Dark Award. From the National Communication Association he has received two awards: in 1997, the Leslie Irene Coger Award, honoring lifetime achievement in performance, and in 2001, the Lilla A. Heston Award for outstanding scholarship in performance studies. Essays and monographs have appeared in such publications as Shakespeare Quarterly, Text and Performance Quarterly, and Theatre Annual.
Since receiving her MFA in screenwriting from Northwestern University, Kat Falls has had four screenplays optioned by independent producers and was hired to write a script for Disney Studios based on a pitch. She is a long standing member of the WGA. In 2009, she sold her YA novel, Dark Life, to Scholastic in a 2-book deal. Dark Life will arrive in bookstores in May 2010.
Rebecca Gilman is the author of Blue Surge, Spinning Into Butter, Boy Gets Girl, The American in Me, and The Glory of Living. Her plays have been produced at the Goodman Theatre, Lincoln Center Theatre, Royal Court Theatre, The Public Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, Manhattan Class Company, as well as other theatres around the country and abroad. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Prince Prize for Commissioning New Work, the Roger L. Stevens Award from the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright, and the George Devine Award. Ms. Gilman was named a finalist for the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for her play The Glory of Living, which received the American Theatre Critics Association’s Osborn Award, a Joseph Jefferson Citation, and an After Dark Award for New Work. In 2005, Ms. Gilman’s adaptation of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter premiered at the Alliance Theatre, and her adaptation of Ibsen’s A Doll House premiered at the Goodman.
Weiko Lin holds a B.A. in English and a M.F.A. in Film and TV from UCLA, where he was a Samuel Goldwyn Writing Award winner. Weiko started his career in the theater writing and directing plays and musicals produced at UCLA's Royce Hall, Veterans Wadsworth Theatre, and Century City Playhouse. His most recent play The Best Man world premiered at East West Players’ David Henry Hwang Theater. In film, Weiko recently wrote a dramatic feature for The Mark Gordon Company (Grey's Anatomy, Saving Private Ryan) and Reason Pictures (Son of Rambow) on which he will serve as executive producer. Currently he has a comedy and a TV pilot in development at Madhouse Entertainment (Stay, First Snow) and is developing an action thriller with Atlas Entertainment/Mosaic Media (The Dark Knight, Get Smart). As a Fulbright Senior Specialist, Weiko has taught screenwriting at Taipei National University of the Arts; he has also taught screenwriting at the University of California at San Diego and the University of California at Riverside. He is a member of the Writers Guild of America-West where he serves as co-chair of the Asian American Writers Committee.
Penny Penniston is a Chicago-area playwright. Her most recent play, Now Then Again, won a Joseph Jefferson Citation for "Best New Work" and was published by Broadway Play Publishing in the Fall of 2001. A screenplay adaptation of this play was selected for the 2005 Tribeca Film Institute / Alfred P. Sloan Foundation development program. As part of this program, Penny is developing the script under the mentorship of director/screenwriter Nora Ephron and Physicist Brian Greene. Previously, Penny co-authored The Roaring Girl with her husband, director Jeremy Wechsler. This adaptation of the 1611 comedy by Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker had its world premiere in Chicago with Shakespeare's Motley Crew in the Fall of 1999 and received a Joseph Jefferson nomination for "Best Adaptation."
Ana Puga received her B.A. from the University of Chicago and her M.F.A. and Doctorate in Fine Arts from the Yale School of Drama. She specializes in contemporary Latin American theatre. Besides literature and criticism, her interests include dramaturgy, translation, and performance. Her doctoral dissertation, Stages of Resistance: Three South American Playwrights, focuses on theatrical attempts to oppose dictatorship in Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile.
Ana Shapiro has been affiliated with Steppenwolf since 1995, serving as the original director of the New Plays Initiative, later joining the artistic staff as the resident director, and currently serving as an associate artist. Her recent Steppenwolf credits include I Never Sang For My Father featuring John Mahoney and the world premieres of Man From Nebraska by Tracy Letts, Until We Find Each Other by Brooke Berman, The Infidel and Purple Heart (also in Ireland) by Bruce Norris, and The Ordinary Yearning of Miriam Buddwing by Alexandra Gersten. Also at Steppenwolf, she directed The Drawer Boy by Michael Healey, Warren Leight's Side Man (also in Ireland, Australia and Vail, Colorado), and Richard Greenberg's Three Days of Rain. Other recent credits include The Drawer Boy for Papermill Playhouse, The Guys for Piven Theatre Workshop, Agnes of God at Indiana Repertory Theatre, A Fair Country at the Huntington Theatre Company, and The Infidel at Philadelphia Theatre Company. She has been a guest artist at the New School for Social Research, Columbia College, and the University of Illinois. Anna is a graduate of Columbia College and the Yale School of Drama and the recipient of a 1996 Princess Grace Award.
Regina Stewart is a network television writer-producer who has authored more than thirty episodic scripts and six original pilots. A graduate of the highly competitive Warner Bros Writers Workshop, her writing and executive producing credits include Empty Nest, The George Lopez Show, The Norm MacDonald Show, Still Standing and Dharma and Greg, for which she garnered two Golden Globe nominations and a People’s Choice Award. She is also the recipient of an Environmental Media Award and two SHINE awards for honest portrayal of teen sexuality issues in half-hour comedy. Regina has consulted on countless television pilots including The Big Bang Theory, and a number of feature film scripts. As a former board member of the Georgetown University Entertainment and Media Alliance, she made multiple appearances as a speaker and panelist. Through GEMA and the alumni career network, she continues to provide professional guidance to students and externs on careers in the entertainment industry as well as the writing life. Regina was an annual guest lecturer on the business of writing at the UCLA Extension Writers Program and a panelist at the William S. Paley Festival at The Paley Center for Media (formerly The Museum of Radio and Television) in Los Angeles. She is a longstanding member of the Writers Guild of America.
David Tolchinsky is a screenwriter (Sony Tristar's Girl) with screenplay commissions from such companies as MGM, USA Networks, Disney, Ivan Reitman's Montecito Pictures, Edward R. Pressman Film Corp, Addis-Wechsler/Industry Entertainment, and many other projects in development. Some of his work centers on teen subcultures such as heavy-metal fans, Florida surfer teens, teen groupies, and female football players, particularly in relation to social decay. He is also interested in horror, both psychological and physical. He has a secondary interest in sound design and has designed the sound for interactive computer environments and video installations which have been exhibited internationally. Recently, he co-curated The Horror Show at Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Programs in New York City. Currently, Tolchinsky is in post-production on a feature documentary he is co-producing with Debra Tolchinsky. He is also Chair of the Department of Radio-TV-Film, directs the highly regarded Creative Writing for the Media Program and has been recognized for his teaching, including being a recipient of the Charles Deering McCormick Professorship of Teaching Excellence.
Harvey Young's research and teaching interests include African-American theatre history, African-American performance studies, European and American theatre history, and American Cinema. He is currently revising the manuscript for his first book, Still Standing: Embodied Experience and Race Performance in the Diaspora. Prior to joining the Theatre faculty at Northwestern, Dr. Young taught courses in film history and film analysis at Ithaca College and the University at Buffalo. He is a Faculty Fellow of the Jones Fine and Performing Arts Residential College. Dr. Young also serves on the Board of Directors for the Yale Club of Chicago and the Black Theatre Association.
Mary Zimmerman received her BS, MA and PhD from Northwestern University. She is a member of the Lookingglass Theatre Company and is an Artistic Associate of the Goodman Theatre. She has earned national and international recognition in the form of numerous awards, including the prestigious John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship. She has won more than 20 Joseph Jefferson Awards for her creative work and received the Tony Award for Best Direction for Metamorphoses. Other acclaimed works include Journey to the West, The Odyssey, The Arabian Nights, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci and Eleven Rooms of Proust.VISITING ARTISTS TO NORTHWESTERN [SELECTED List]
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HEATHER ASH – TV writer, screenwriter (Stargate SG-1, Highlander 3) JANAE BAKKEN – Co-Producer and Writer for Scrubs HENRY BEAN – Writer/director, The Believer GRETCHEN BERG & AARON HARBERTS – Executive producers for Fox’s Pepper Dennis and the horror film Valentine ERIC BERNT – Screenwriter (Romeo Must Die, Virtuosity) GREG BERLANTI – Creator, Everwood and Jack and Bobby ZACH BRAFF – Writer/actor/director (Garden State, Scrubs) FRANK GALATI – Writer, The Accidental Tourist DARLENE HUNT – actor and TV writer (ABC’s Platonically Incorrect pilot) JEFF JACOBS – Agent, CAA TONY KUSHNER – Pulitzer-Prize winning playwright (Angels in America) JILL LEIDERMAN – Executive Producer, Jimmy Kimmel Live TRACY LETTS – Chicago-based actor and Pulitzer-Prize nominated playwright (Man From Nebraska) ATTICA LOCKE – Screenwriter, various Hollywood deals JOHN LOGAN – Screenwriter (The Aviator, Gladiator) WENDY MacLEOD – Playwright, TV writer, screenwriter (House Of Yes, Juvenilia, Schoolgirl Figure) LAVERNE MCKINNON – Head of New Dramatic Series, CBS DANA OLSEN – Evanston-based screenwriter (George of the Jungle) HAROLD RAMIS – North Shore-based director and screenwriter (Groundhog Day) SARAH RUHL – Playwright, Blackburn Award winner JOSH SHADER – executive for Terra Firma (Adam Herz’ company) NEIL THOMPSON – veteran TV writer (Happy Days, Night Court, 2004 Emmy for Malcolm in the Middle) DAVID ZUCKERMAN – former Director of Comedy Programs for NBC, current Co-Executive Producer for Fox’s American Dad |
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