Faculty

• Janae Bakken
• Bill Bleich
• Jay Bonansinga
• Thomas Bradshaw
• Aaron Carter
• Rives Collins
• Zayd Dohrn

• Shawn Douglass
• Paul Edwards
• Kat Falls
• Harry Godinez
• Cindy Gold
• Rebecca Gilman
• Weiko Lin

• Mia McCullough
• Laura Schellhardt
• Dave Tolchinsky
• Carla Waddles
• Harvey Young
• Mary Zimmerman
• Past Faculty
• Visiting Artists

Janae Bakken began her television career as production staff for Caroline in the City. In 2000 she moved to Malcolm in the Middle as writer’s assistant and wrote two episodes in the third season.  She started at Scrubs in 2001 as a writer, and by the end of the series, she had worked her way through the ranks all the way to co-executive producer. She also served as the co-executive producer for Gary Unmarried. Janae is an alumna of Northwestern University.

Jay Bonansinga (MFA, Columbia College Chicago) is the author of seven acclaimed suspense novels, as well as three original screenplays currently in development in Hollywood. Jay has collaborated with such major film directors as George Romero (Night of the Living Dead) and Mary Lambert (Pet Semetary) has been published by major players such as Penguin Books, Simon & Schuster, and Warner Books. He has been a finalist for a Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel, and was awarded the prestigious silver plaque at the Chicago International Film Festival for his directing.

Aaron Carter is a new play developer, literary manager and playwright who has served as the literary manager at Victory Gardens Theater for nearly four years. There, he played a key role in the IGNITION Festival, and was involved in the production of The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, Year Zero, Love Person and Living Green, among others. As a new play developer and dramaturg, he has worked with many theatres and labs including WordBRIDGE, the Kennedy Center, Timeline Theater, Route 66 and Chicago Dramatists. His latest play, Start Fair in the Common Race, was presented in a workshop production in the "What's Next Lab" at Next Theater in Evanston.

Rives Collins is the Chair of the Department of Theatre at Northwestern University. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Colorado College, he received his MFA in Child Drama from Arizona State University. Recent directorial efforts include: The Secret Garden, How Can You Run With A Shell On Your Back?, The Orphan Train, Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, Children of Eden, To Kill A Mockingbird, And Then They Came For Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank, Into the Woods, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, and Salt and Pepper.

Shawn Douglass (MFA, University of Missouri-Kansas City) teaches Basic Acting. Shawn is 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 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.

Kat Falls (MFA, Northwestern) started out as a screenwriter but is currently writing middle grade and young adult novels. Her debut novel, Dark Life (Scholastic Press, May 2010), has deals in eighteen international markets and is in development at Disney with Image Movers and the Gotham Group producing, and Academy Award-winner Robert Zemeckis attached to direct. Dark Life was featured on The Today Show when it was selected as the July 2010 pick by Al Roker for “Al's Book Club for Kids.” In 2011, Dark Life was named to the master list for Florida’s statewide reading initiative, The Sunshine State Young Reader’s Award; nominated for Vermont’s Dorothy Canfield Fisher Book Award 2011/2012; and Kat was awarded a Juvenile Literary Award by The Friends of American Writers’. The sequel, Rip Tide, was released by Scholastic Press in August, 2011. Both books were awarded the designation, "A Junior Library Guild Selection." Kat is currently working on a dystopian YA trilogy, The Fetch, acquired by Scholastic Press in a 3-book deal for publication beginning in Fall 2012.

Henry Godinez A leader in Chicago Latino theatre and The Resident Artistic Associate at the Goodman Theatre, Born in Havana, Cuba, Godinez is the director of the Goodman's biennial Latino Theatre Festival featuring international, national and local Latino theatre companies. At the Goodman he has directed the world premieres of Karen Zacarías' Mariela in the Desert, Regina Taylor’s Millennium Mambo and Luis Alfaro’s Straight As A Line. Also at Goodman, he has directed The Cook by Eduardo Machado, Electricidad by Luis Alfaro, Zoot Suit by Luis Valdez, Sam Shepard’s Red Cross (one of the five short plays in Regina Taylor’s Transformations), the Goodman/Teatro Vista co-production of Jose Rivera's Cloud Tectonics and the Goodman’s production of A Christmas Carol from 1996-2001.

Cindy Gold  An active member of AEA and SAG, Cindy has worked off-Broadway in New York and regionally at Cape Rep Theatre in Cape Cod, Massachusetts; Madison Repertory Theatre and the Peninsula Players in Wisconsin; Shakespeare Sedona in Arizona; the Alabama Shakespeare Festival; the Boston Shakespeare Company; and several professional improvisation groups, most notably Mental Floss in Miami and the Next Move in Boston. She'll appear in the new TNT series, Leverage this season, and has appeared on Miami Vice and The Guiding Light, as well as a number of national commercials for television and radio. She has directed at Rivendell Theatre Ensemble in Chicago, The Coconut Grove Playhouse Summer Conservatory in Miami, The Lyric Stage in Boston, The Festival of Southern Theatre in Mississippi, and the 13th Street Theatre in New York City, among others.

Weiko Lin (MFA, UCLA) 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 last play The Best Man premiered at East West Players' David Henry Hwang Theater. In summer 2010, his newest play 100 DAYS had its first Chicago staged reading at Silk Road Theatre Project. In film, Weiko wrote a dramatic feature for The Mark Gordon Company (2012) and Good Worldwide, Inc. (The Messenger). He also has a comedy with Madhouse Entertainment (The Bounty Hunter) attached to produce. Currently, Weiko is developing a crime thriller remake with Atlas Entertainment (The Dark Knight). As writer/producer, he optioned the English language remake rights of the biggest Taiwanese box office hit Cape No. 7 of which he is currently adapting. As a Fulbright Senior Specialist, he has taught screenwriting at Taipei National University of the Arts; he has also taught at University of California at San Diego and University of California at Riverside. A member of the Dramatist Guild of America and Writers Guild of America-West, Weiko serves as co-chair of WGA's Asian American Writers Committee.

Mia McCullough is the author of over 20 plays and 9 screenplays, some of which were written when she was studying in the Creative Writing for the Media program at Northwestern in the early 90s. Her plays have been produced in Chicago at Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago Dramatists, and Stage Left Theatre, as well as around the country at such theatres as The Old Globe and Mo’olelo Performing Arts Company in San Diego, InterAct in Philadelphia, and Actors Express in Atlanta. She has been the recipient of various awards including the American Theatre Critics Association’s Osborn Award, a Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work, and first prize in the Julie Harris Playwriting Competition. Ms. McCullough also teaches playwriting workshops in Chicago Public High Schools through Chicago Dramatists’ Outreach program.

Laura Schellhardt (MFA, Brown University) has participated in the new play series at The Goodman, Northlight Theatre and Trinity Repertory Company as a reader of new plays, an assistant director and a director of development. She directed and taught theatre at the Piven School for Drama in Evanston for 4 years, and she was Education Director for both The Happiness Club - a Chicago based character education program, and for The Manton Avenue Project a similar program in Rhode Island. She is the founder of Kaleidoscope Kids, a theatre school for children, which opened its doors in 2000. Original works include On Yellow Winds, The K of D, Searching for Lochness, Inheritance, Je ne sais quoi, Shapeshifter and Courting Vampires. Her book, Screenwriting for Dummies was published in 2008 by Wiley Publishing.

Carla Waddles has been working as a television comedy writer in Los Angeles for the past 13 years. She has written on and produced such shows as For Your Love (Warner Bros.), That’s So Raven (Disney), Half & Half (UPN), The Bill Engvall Show (TBS), and the Fresh Beat Band (Nickelodeon). Currently, she is developing a half-hour comedy pilot with Jerry Weintraub’s production company. One Love, an independent half-hour comedy she created, is slated to premiere Fall 2011. She holds a B.S. from Northwestern in Journalism, an M.A. in Advertising from Michigan State and an MFA in Screenwriting from USC.

Harvey Young (Ph.D., Cornell) is a specialist in Black theatre and performance. He is the author of Embodying Black Experience: Stillness, Critical Memory, and the Black Body and the co-editor, with Ramon Rivera-Servera, of Performance in the Borderlands. He is vice president for research and publications of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education.

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.

John Green’s play, THE LIQUID MOON, was first produced at Chicago Dramatists where it won Chicago’s Jeff Award and After Dark Award for best new play. It subsequently produced at the Barter Theatre, nominated for the Pulitzer and published in the anthology, “New Plays from Chicago.” His musical, LET IT PLAY, was first produced at Chicago's Body Politic Theatre and then moved to the 78th Street Playhouse in Manhattan. The short and full length versions of his play, TWILIGHT SERENADE, were both published by the Dramatic Publishing Company and was recently optioned for film by Top Tog Films in L.A. John's play, HIDING, was a finalist in the national Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival One Act Play Contest. MENTOR was performed at Manhattan’s Cherry Lane Theatre as part of the Fresh Fruit Festival and nominated as Best Writing. He is a resident writer with Chicago Dramatists. As an actor, John won the Joseph Jefferson Award (OF MICE AND MEN) and was nominated two other times. He has appeared in film, television and on stages across the United States and Europe.

David Kukoff, a 16- year veteran of the entertainment industry, has 11 produced film and television credits to his name, including the production polish on the hit Nickelodeon film “Clockstoppers.” In addition to his numerous Disney-related projects, Kukoff has sold and rewritten feature film projects at every studio in town, has worked in conjunction with producers Brain Grazer (“A Beautiful Mind,” “Cinderella Man”) and Gale Anne Hurd (“The Terminator,” “The Incredible Hulk”), and has held television development deals at Twentieth Century Fox Television and Touchstone Television.

Brett Neveu recent productions include Gas for Less with the Goodman Theatre and Weapon of Mass Impact with A Red Orchid Theatre. His work has also been produced by The Royal Shakespeare Company, Strawdog Theatre, TimeLine Theatre Company, American Theatre Company, Spring Theatreworks, Aardvark Theatre and 29th Street Rep. Recent films include The Earl with Sikorafilms and Exit, Clowny with Jon Pon Flims. He is the recipient of the Goodman Theatre's Ofner Prize for New Work, the Emerging Artist Award from The League of Chicago Theatres and has developed plays with The New Group, The Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, Victory Gardens, The 42nd Street Workshop, The Marin Theatre and is a resident-alum with Chicago Dramatists.

According to Elaine Romero, she has led "a writer’s life." She saw Disneyland with the King of Zululand, learned Transcendental Meditation from the family Guru, and once fed the poor with Mother Teresa in Paris. Elaine’s work has been developed, produced, and commissioned(*) by such theatres as Goodman Theatre, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts*, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Alley Theatre*, Magic Theatre*, Orlando Shakespeare Theatre, InterAct Theatre Company*, Curious Theatre Company*, Kitchen Dog Theater*, Urban Stages, Women’s Project and Productions, Working Theater, Short+Sweet Festival, (Australia), InspiraTo Festival (Toronto). Sample publishers: Simon and Schuster, Samuel French, Vintage Books. Residences: Sundance Playwrights’ Retreat, Voice & Vision, Orchard Project. Sample awards: $100,000 TCG/Pew National Theatre Artists in Residency grant, NEA/TCG Theatre Residency Program for Playwrights, National New Play Network’s New Play Commission. Elaine co-chaired the National Association of Latino Independent Producers’ (Board) National Conference with Frida Torresblanco (PAN’S LABYRNITH). TV: CBS Diversity Institute’s Writer’s Mentorship Program, NBC’s Writers on the Verge Program. Film: LA Film School, Latino Producers’ Academy, Latino Writers’ Lab. Elaine has a script in development with Back Fence Productions. She is collaborating on a spec with Steve Barancik. She holds a BA from Linfield College (Summa Cum Laude) and an MFA from UC Davis.

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.

Barbara Wallace and Tom Wolfe have written together for nearly 20 years. Their plays include Early and Often, which ran at the Famous Door Theatre in Chicago in 2000-2001 and The Great Society, also a Famous Door production in 2003. Barbara and Tom have also written for television. They wrote an episode of Murphy Brown and then, in the next three years, worked on staff at three other shows before spending the past eight or nine years writing commissioned pilots. They also wrote the series Welcome to New York.