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| Meet the Actors Training Center's Instructors. |
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Carole Dibo has been a professional actress for over twenty-five
years. Carole has been directing and training and coaching teens for well
over a decade. Carole is also a well respected teacher and coach in Los
Angeles where she co-teaches with L.A. Casting Director, Deborah Dion and
teaches at Northwestern University. She has also worked as a Casting
Assistant for Tenner Paskal Rudnicke Casting and Steppenwolf Theatre Co. She
is one of the owners of the Wilmette Theatre and the Director of the Actors
Training Center. |
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Philip Markle is the Associate Director of the Actors Training Center and
designed its curriculum for elementary and middle school students. He has worked
professionally in Chicago and San Francisco as an actor, director, writer, and teacher of drama.
Philip has taught young actors for over eight years, specializing in improvisation, storytelling,
and creative drama, in San Francisco with A.C.T., Vector Theatre, and Marin Shakespeare, and
throughout North Shore school districts. He is currently an enthusiastic member of
Barrel of Monkeys (a performing arts group turning kids' stories into skits and songs)
and a proud graduate of Northwestern University. |
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Adam Belcuore
is an original founding member of Serendipity Theatre Company and currently serves as Director of Artistic Development. In 2003 he was honored by receiving the first SDCF Mike Ockrent Fellowship, through which he assisted Harold Prince on Steven Sondheim and John Weidman's new musical Bounce. He had previously assisted Mr. Prince on Carol Burnett and Carrie Hamilton's Hollywood Arms. He also served as assistant director to Kate Whoriskey on the Goodman's production of Regina Taylor's Drowning Crow and to Ross Shirley on Serendipity's production of The Day Maggie Blew Off Her Head. He is the executive producer of Serendipity's 2nd Story, a series devoted to the art of wine, music and storytelling. Other directing credits include: Delores Dogan, by Courtney Shaughnessy; Go!, by Jonathan Jacobs and the world premiere of Alcatraz, by Al Letizia. As a casting director, Adam has worked with Lookingglass, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Northlight Theater, and The Goodman Theatre, where he currently casts full time. |
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Emma Caywood is a Northwestern graduate with degrees in Theater, Gender Studies, and a certificate in Creative Writing for the Media. After graduation, she worked in Hollywood as a literary manager for Torque Entertainment and the director of the American Accolades Screenwriting Competition. She is a drama and writing teacher all over the city and the suburbs for ages 1 to 14, a playwright, a storyteller, an actress, and is studying to be a librarian. She grew up in East Wilmette and is a proud graduate of Central Elementary, Wilmette Junior High, and New Trier High School. |
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Katherine Conditt-Ladd is a professional actor, director and teacher. She has appeared on Broadway, in National Tours and at such local theatres as Goodman, Marriott and Organic. Katherine was also co-founder/Artistic Director of Cobalt Ensemble Theatre in Chicago which had a successful Jeff nominated 5 year run. Directing credits include: Cowboy Versus Samara - Silk Road, Feeding the Moonfish - Artistic Home, and three Chicago Premiers produced by C.E.T.; The Architect, Dream of a Common Language, and Waiting for Phillip Glass. Katherine also taught drama and directed at Lake Forest Country Day for four years and now continues to teach privately. |
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Deborah Dion Los Angeles Casting Director, has worked with
directors Tim Burton (American kid casting for Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory and additional casting on "Alice in Wonderland"), PJ Hogan (Peter
Pan, Unconditional Love), Lasse Hallstrom (Cider House Rules, Chocolat, The
Shipping News, An Unfinished Life), John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) and M.
Night Shyamalan (The Last Airbender, The Happening, Lady in the Water) among
others. She has devised an efficient and focused three day seminar for the
actor ready to take their on-camera audition and acting skills to a new
level. |
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An area native, Jess Jones has freelanced with O'Connor Casting and Claire Simon Casting,
assisted in producing multiple years of the Chicago Improv Festival (with whom is currently an Assistant
Producer), and worked as a freelance Casting Associate for various production companies and television
networks, including Bravo and Oxygen. She studied acting at Illinois State University and graduated from
the conservatory at Second City Training Center Chicago. She recently finished a most rewarding tenure with
Lily's Talent Agency working as an agent for their on-camera, voice over, and theatre department.
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Ryan Kitley has worked in Los Angeles
and Chicago for the past fourteen years as an actor, an improviser, a director, and an acting teacher. He has
an MFA in acting from the Theatre School at DePaul University. Film and television credits include Playboys,
San Gabriel, Dream Slashers, Soul Survivors, Barbershop II, Laqueus, The Heart of the Matter, Jimmy Kimmel
Live, Turks, and Early Edition, in addition to many commercials and industrials. Theatre credits include
major roles at The Matrix Theater, The Colony Theater, The Organic Theatre, Mercury Theatre, Chicago
Shakespeare Theatre, Shattered Globe Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Piven Theatre Workshop, Theatre at the Center,
Meadow Brook Theatre, Journeymen, Free Associates, and Talisman Theatre. Ryan received two Jeff Citation
nominations for his role as Nick in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Austin in The Big Funk. As an
improviser, Ryan has studied and performed at ImprovOlympic, The Second City Training Center, The Piven
Theater Workshop, and The Westside Eclectic. For the past ten years he has worked as a teaching artist for
various acting schools and programs in Chicago and LA.
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Janet Louer is a freelance Casting Director and co-Director of Eyes Wide Open and Double Shot Productions. Janet coaches privately and is on the faculty of DePaul Theatre School where she teachers "Audition". Janet was a Casting Associate in New York for film and television and worked at TNI casting Broadway Shows such as Elizabeth Taylor's LITTLE FOXES, WEST SIDE STORY and Sandy Duncan's PETER PAN. Ms. Louer has won a Joseph Jefferson Citation and has choreographed National Tours. |
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Michael McCracken
comes to ATC from the southeast where he has worked as a professional actor in
both Georgia and North Carolina. He has taught film production to improv to musical theater with
companies like The Atlanta Workshop Players and the state theater of North Carolina, The Flat
Rock Playhouse. He just finished working in the great city of Chicago with Route 66 theater
company on High Fidelity The Musical, and will be working on Silk Road Theater Projects' new
work-- DNA Trail, going up in March. He is also currently a team member of the Deltones,
an improvised musical at iO. |
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Doug McDade's professional acting career spans 30 years and over 60 stage
credits, as well as work in radio, television, film and commercials. He is
an original ensemble member of Chicago's critically acclaimed Shattered
Globe Theatre Company and currently serves as President and Managing
Artistic Director of The Gurnee Theatre Company, which he co-founded in
2001. Doug received a JEFF Award (non-equity wing) for Supppoting Actor,
five for Ensemble, and several nominations. He's performed with many Chicago
theatres including American Theatre Company, Bailiwick, Chicago Dramatists,
Light Opera Works, Next Theatre, Shattered Globe, Stage Left, and
Steppenwolf. |
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Jennifer Rudnicke and Mickie Paskal have been casting directors in Chicago for the past 15 years. They have cast for hundreds of commercial clients both regionally and nationally. Recent film credits include the upcoming Public Enemies starring Johnny Depp and Christian Bale and the recently released Express starring Dennis Quaid. Other credits include Road to Peridition, Fargo, What Women Want, Amityville Horror and Stranger Than Fiction. They have worked with film directors such as Michael Mann, Robert Altman, The Coen Brothers, Sam Mendes, Marc Forster and Harold Ramis. |
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Rachel Wilson has been
teaching theater and writing for more than ten years, creating original curricula for programs with After-School
Matters, Pegasus Players, Moraine Valley Community College, and STAR Education in Los Angeles, where she served as
Co-Director of the Literacy Department. She is a proud company member of Barrel of Monkeys where she serves as a
lead teacher, adapts students' writing for the stage, and regularly performs in the long-running hit, That's Weird,
Grandma! As a performer, she has also worked with the Neo-Futurists, Pegasus Players, Northlight, and the
Lecoq-based movement theater Sprung, among others. Her theatrical loves include physical theater, adaptation, and
devising new works with an ensemble. Rachel holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts program in Writing
for Children and Young Adults, and she graduated from Northwestern summa cum laude with Departmental Excellence in
Theater.
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Nili Yelin is a storyteller for kids and for adults. A
graduate of the Northwestern University theatre school, Nili spent twelve
years in New York as a working actress in theater, film and television. She
was a writer and performer for MTV Networks, appeared regularly on Saturday
Night Live and performed her own original stand-up comedy in clubs
throughout the East Coast. Since coming to Chicago, Nili has combined her
love of children and literature to create The Storybook Mom and encourage
children to develop their imagination through interactive storytelling,
crafts and dance. She also does voice-overs for commercials and industrials
for a variety of clients including Mercedes Benz, Sears and Advocate
Healthcare. Nili recently joined with the Crown Family Play Lab at the Field
Museum to do special events and is the narrator on the Field Museum's
children's podcasts. |
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Nikki Zaleski is a graduate of Northwestern University, majoring in Performance Studies and Gender Studies. She currently directs Sisters Empowering Sisters, a young women's social justice and leadership program housed by the Chicago Girls' Coalition. She also works for Redmoon Theater's Dramagirls and has taught drama in the Chicagoland area for Urban Gateways, About Face Theater, Kids CanDance, Creative Kids Corner, and Global Girls Inc. She is particularly interested in theater for social change and creating new work through movement, innovative storytelling and collaboration. |
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Philip Markle is performing Monday nights at 8 PM through August in "That's Weird, Grandma!" with
Barrel of Monkeys (an ensemble of actor-educators teaching creative writing in Chicago Public schools). Come see this highly
acclaimed showcase of original children's stories, enjoyable for all ages.
More info: www.barrelofmonkeys.org
Philip also is the Producer, Creator, and Performer of "Happy Karaoke Fun Time", a brand spankin-new musical improv
show in which we make up new lyrics to karaoke songs you know and love - everything from Journey to Lady Gaga.
For more info and to see videos online (including a Live Performance on WCIU Channel 26), go to
www.wesingyoulaugh.com
Deborah Dion running Los Angeles casting for Neil Burger's new feature "The Dark Fields" and for Bart
Freundlich's "Backwoods" at the moment. And she is using an ATC student, Gabriel Notrangelo, as her reader.
Doug McDade has been cast to understudy Tony Award-winning playwright Tracy Letts in the lead role of WHO'S
AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? at STEPPENWOLF THEATRE opening December 12. Doug is also slated to direct KITA Y FERNANDA by
TANYA SARACHO
for CLOCKWISE THEATRE COMPANY, which opens July 30th.
Emma Caywood's Theater for Young Audiences play, "Jungle Tales", will have a limited run May 22nd
(10:30am & 2:30pm), May 23rd (10:30am), May 29th (10:30am & 2:30pm), May 30th (10:30am) at Village Players Theater's
Studio Theater. It is a loose adaptation of The Jungle Books where a little girl gets lost in the world of the books,
and has to find her way back out. It is free to children, $15 for adult tickets, and is being performed by a
cast of mostly children, mostly in mask. More info and tickets: www.village-players.org/vpytc.html
Nili Yelin, also known as The Storybook Mom, will be hosting the Children's Stage at the Chicago
Tribune Printers Row Lit Fest June 12 and 13th.
Nili will be performing camp stories with author Diane Falanga at Lad and Lassie on Saturday May 15th at 11:30am and
June 3rd at 10:30 AM.
You can also catch Nili storytelling at the Hoot-A-Nanny on Friday May 21st from 6-8pm at Starland in Deerfield, IL.
More information at thestorybookmom.com.
Jess Jones has just finished Producing the Chicago Improv Festival. Next up, she will be a storytelling competitor
in WNEP Theatre's annual storytelling event. She is participating in the Maelstorm, their improvised story component,
where performers are given a prompt,10 seconds to think on it, and then have to tell a story on the topic. There are
3min, 2min, and 1min story rounds. The best man (or woman!) is declared winner. It will be at the DCA Theater -
Click here for details.
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