Adelina Feldman-Schultz (she/her) is a casting director, actor and PHR Certified Human Resources Professional with an emphasis on Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion within organizations. She is the proud producer of the annual Chicago Theatre Access Auditions and co-Program Manager of anti-Racism training and Casting Assistant with The Chicago Inclusion Project. Casting credits include projects with Teatro Vista, Sideshow Theatre, UrbanTheater Company, Adventure Stage Chicago, Something Marvelous, Firebrand Theatre, and more. Adelina serves as casting director and a company member of Firebrand Theatre and is represented by Shirley Hamilton Talent.

Originally from Detroit, Arti Ishak is a multidisciplinary artist and community organizer. Recent acting credits include Kiss (Haven), Witch and Buried Child (Writers Theatre), Men on Boats (American Theater Company), Venus in Fur (Circle Theatre), Fantastic Super Great Nation Numero Uno (Second City), and A Story Told in Seven Fights (Neo-Futurists). TV credits Chicago Med (NBC). As a filmmaker, Arti wrote and directed short film "Shukran Bas," a satire about Arab American representation. Arti has served on the board of the Muslim Writers Collective’s Chicago chapter and is currently a staff member with The Chicago Inclusion Project. She is one of the founding organizers with MENASA MidWest, an action network and advocacy group for Middle Eastern, North African, and South Asian American artists working in theater, film, and television. She is represented by Paonessa Talent Agency.

artiishak.com

Hanna Kime (she/her) is a Chicago-based playwright. Recent works include The Best Damn Thing (2021 O’Neill Finalist, Selected for the Up: Renewal Reading Series), The Targeted (2020 O’Neill Finalist, 2021 BAPF Semifinalist), and Now More Than Ever (Produced by St. Louis Actors Studio, Winner of Oklahoma City Rep’s Stage@Home New Voices Contest). Her full length works have been read or developed with Steep Theatre, UP Theater, Jackalope Theatre, Sideshow Theatre, The New Coordinates, Broken Nose Theatre, and First Floor Theater, where she is a company member. Outside of her own writing, Hanna works as a dramaturg and teaching artist. Currently, she is working as a Scriptshare reader with Playwrights Realm in New York. She served as First Floor Theater’s Literary Manager from 2018-2020. She graduated from the University of Chicago in 2018 with degrees in English and Gender and Sexuality Studies.

Walt McGough is a Boston-based playwright (by way of Pittsburgh and Chicago). In Boston, he has held fellowships with both the Huntington and New Repertory Theatre Companies, and was a finalist for the 2016 Dramatists Guild Lanford Wilson Award. His plays include Non-Player Character, Chalk, The Farm, Priscilla Dreams the Answer, Pattern of Life, Dante Dies!! (and then things get weird), and The Haberdasher. He has been produced in Chicago with Sideshow, Red and Tympanic Theatre Companies, and around the country he has worked with with companies such as San Francisco Playhouse, The Lark, New Rep, the Kennedy Center, NNPN, Boston Playwrights Theatre, Fresh Ink, Sideshow, Chicago Dramatists, and Argos. In 2015, his play Advice for Astronauts was selected as the winner of the Milken Playwriting Prize. He has served on the staff at SpeakEasy Stage Company in Boston and Chicago Dramatists, and is a founding ensemble member of Chicago’s Sideshow Theatre Company. He holds a BA from the University of Virginia, and an MFA in playwriting from Boston University.

waltmcgough.com

Megan is a founding ensemble member for Sideshow Theatre, where she also served as the company's executive director from 2007 - 2016. While in Chicago, she directed world or Chicago premieres with Sideshow Theatre (Chalk, Tyrant, The Burden of Not Having a Tail, Theories of the Sun, Ekphrasis: Cave Walls to Soup Cans) and as a guest artist at Southern Illinois University (Joan's Laughter), worked with 20% Theatre, and sketch comedy at iO Chicago. While in Los Angeles, Megan directed with Theater of Note (Welcome to the White Room), Chalk Rep (Art Works/Art Words, Flash Festival 2016), and Echo Theater (Endlings staged reading, Things That Are Round staged reading). She also partnered with a group of six playwrights for eight months to develop new plays that received public readings in LA and New York. Megan now resides in Jersey City, overlooking Manhattan, working and raising her family during COVID-19.

With Sideshow, Karie performs (The Burden of Not Having a Tail; Tyrant; Idomeneus; Everything Freezes; Ekphrasis), directs (Strangerland), and emcees (Rockke L Squelch, Mistress of Ceremonialisms for the Chicago League of Lady Arm-Wrestlers; Mariafe Ariadne Buckford-Westington-Washington-Taylor-Clais at the yearly Sideshow Gala). Karie is also an artistic associate with The Ruckus, with whom she performed/devised 15 Minutes and directed/devised Common Hatred. She holds a BFA from NKU, an MFA from UVA, and a PhD from OSU. Her research interests include audience, creative placemaking, and performance art.

kariemiller.com

Krystal Ortiz is a Cuban-American actor, singer, and playwright originally from Miami, FL. She has performed all over Chicago at theaters such as Victory Gardens, Teatro Vista, The House, Sideshow Theatre Company and others. Krystal enjoys many types of performance whether as a vocalist in a band, a dancer in the Fly Honey Show, or the occasional dalliance with clowning. As a playwright, Krystal is developing Los Frikis -- a historical musical centering the Cuban punk rock community in the 80s & 90s. Krystal is an alumnus of New World School of the Arts and The Theatre School at DePaul University, and is represented by Stewart Talent.

krystalortiz.com

Tina Muñoz Pandya (she/her) is an actor, musician, and teaching artist originally from Washington, DC. You may have seen her onstage at Court Theatre, Theatre Wit, Jackalope Theatre, The Hypocrites, Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago Children's Theatre, Steep Theatre, Shattered Globe Theatre, and The House Theatre of Chicago, among others. She also enjoys taking her talents on the road, and has flexed her Shakespeare muscles while touring with the National Players and Montana Shakespeare in the Parks. She's also been fortunate enough to travel to some truly awesome regional theatres in DC, New York, and LA as part of The Hypocrites' wildly popular Gilbert and Sullivan repertory. A cellist and singer by training, so far she has learned to play the accordion, ukulele, spoons, and musical saw while doing these shows and is constantly adding to her musical arsenal. She sometimes guests with a few bands around the city on different instruments, and teaches with Chicago Children's Theatre. When she's not running around doing all that, you can find her cooking, watching British crime dramas, experimenting with accents, or recording for various different podcasts and radio plays. Check out her voice work, in all its silly glory, in the Chicago-based audio drama The Vanishing Act!

Gabrielle Randle-Bent is a scholar, director, and dramaturg. She has a dual BA degree in drama and sociology from Stanford University and an MA degree in performance as public practice at The University of Texas at Austin. Her recent collaborations include co-directing We Are Proud to Present a Presentation… by Jackie Sibblies Drury at Steppenwolf for Young Adults. She served as the dramaturg and AD for Court Theatre’s production of Oedipus Rex directed by Charles Newell and dramaturg for For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow is Enuf directed by Seret Scott. In Chicago, she has dramaturged and directed for Sideshow Theatre, Victory Gardens, Chicago Dramatists, Northlight and the Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts. Gabrielle is an active member of the Black Theatre Association Focus Group for the Association for Theatre in Higher Education and has served two terms as its graduate representative. She was featured in American Theatre’s "Role Call: People to Watch." She is a fifth year PhD candidate at Northwestern University. Her ongoing dissertation project is titled “On the Possibility of Blackness and the Inevitability of Revolution: How Black Feeling Changed the World.” In September 2020, she completed a fellowship year at the University of Chicago where she was the inaugural Court Theatre Research Fellow.

Shariba Rivers (she/her) is a Chicago-based actor who has most recently performed with Hedgepig Ensemble Theatre (in cooperation with Classical Theatre of Harlem) in their Expand the Canon series reading of Foriwa. She has also been seen in four of Sideshow Theatre Company’s House Party readings, most recently The Whisperer's Apprentice. In the past year, she has worked at Goodman Theatre, TheatreSquared (Fayetteville, AK), Artemisia Theatre, Street Corner Arts (Austin, TX) and others. Pre-pandemic performances include The Tasters (Rivendell Theatre) and Hoodoo Love (Raven Theatre), for which she earned a Jeff nomination and a BTAA nomination. Shariba voices one of the main characters, Lily Harper, in the audiodrama, Unwell: A Midwestern Gothic Mystery, for which she won an AudioVerse award. Her TV/film credits include Chicago Fire, Empire, Chicago PD, Chicago Med, and The Chi; she has just recently filmed her first feature film. Shariba is represented by Gray Talent Group.

sharibatheactor.com

Netta Walker is a Jeff Award-winning actress and multidisciplinary artist who values collaboration in its truest form - so she is incredibly excited to be joining the Sideshow ensemble! Seen in such Chicago productions as truth and reconciliation (Sideshow), Yen (Raven Theatre, Jeff Award for Best Supporting Performer), How to Defend Yourself (Victory Gardens), Hamlet (The Gift), No Child (Definition Theatre), Continuity (Goodman), Great Expectations (Remy Bumppo/Silk Road Rising), and in various staged readings and workshops around town. TV/Film credits include The Big Leap (FOX), Chicago Fire (NBC), Come as You Are (Featured at SXSW). Represented by Paonessa Talent Agency and MRK Management. “Everything I do, I do for Tony Walker.”

Patrick Agada’s Chicago credits include: Pipeline, The First Deep Breath (Victory Gardens); The Brothers Size (Steppenwolf); Something Clean (Jeff nomination, Sideshow/Rivendell), You for Me for You (Sideshow); Dutch Masters (Jeff Award, Jackalope Theatre); Choir Boy, The Play About My Dad (Raven Theatre); Superior Donuts (Open Door Theatre); Dunsinane, Q Brother’s Christmas Carol, Shakespeare’s Greatest Hits (Chicago Shakespeare Theater); Jabari Dreams of Freedom (Chicago Children’s Theatre). Regional credits include Blue Man Group (Astor Place Theatre). TV credits include Chicago Fire. Patrick is represented by DDO Agency

Kathleen is a Sideshow artistic associate whose previous work with the company has been as playwright (Theories of the Sun and Tyrant) and co-director (Tyrant). She lives most of the year in Washington, D.C., where she has acted with 1st Stage, Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, Catalyst Theatre, Cherry Red, Glamonstrosity, Olney Theatre, Studio Theatre, Studio Theatre Secondstage, Theater Alliance, Washington Shakespeare Company (now WSC AvantBard), and Washington Stage Guild. MFA, Catholic University of America; graduate of the Studio Theatre Acting Conservatory.

Mallory Raven-Ellen Backstrom (she/her) creates Fairy Tales for Sun-Kissed Women, an anthology of short stories and a series of immersive audiobooks. A mixed-media artist, writer, and intuitive healer. She is a member of the Goodman Theatre Playwrights Unit and a semi-finalist for The Athena Project Plays in Progress. Mallory’s first play, Cephianne’s Reflection, was a finalist for the National Playwrights Conference. She is also the recipient of the Tutterow Fellowship through Chicago Dramatists. Her play A Laying on of Hands was featured in The Story Theatre’s New Play Festival. Mallory’s witchy fable about womb magick and breaking generational curses, Once in a Bleu Moon, was showcased by Sideshow Theatre in the House Party Series. The Bright Light of the Soul was workshopped by The New Coordinates Theatre. Mallory is a contributing playwright to The Refracted Theatre Company’s podcast, The Swell. And she was hailed as a “craftsman of the English language” by Windy City Reviews for her debut novel, Reasons for Being. Mallory has guest lectured at the University of California-Davis and Illinois Humanities. Her artwork has been exhibited at The Freedom and Movement Gallery and The Breathing Room.

mallorybackstrom.com

@FairyTalesForSunKissedWomen

Sam Boeck's (he/him) Chicago credits include Graveyard Shift (Goodman) The Tempest (Commission Theatre); Dutch Masters (Jackalope Theatre); Witch (Writers Theatre); Insurrection: Holding History (Stage Left); Grapes of Wrath, Richard III (The Gift). Regional credits: An Enemy of the People (LA Theatre Works) and Gus’s Fashions and Shoes (VS. Theatre). TV/Film: Unusual Suspects, August: Osage County, The Veil. Sam is represented by Shirley Hamilton Talent.

samboeck.com

J. Nicole Brooks (nom de guerre Docta Slick) is an actor, author, director, educator, Taurus and gremlin born on the West Side and raised on the South Side of Chicago. An award winning playwright, resident artist with Lookingglass Theatre Company, and deeply connected to theatre collectives throughout the U.S. On the screen Brooks can be seen starring opposite Chris Rock in series 4 of Fargo, the upcoming Candyman directed by Nia DaCosta and recurring roles on several network television shows.

Olivia Canaday (she/her) is an actor, director, and writer, from St Louis, Missouri. Sideshow credits include: The Whisperer's Apprentice directed by Sydney Charles. She appears in the upcoming short film "A Yellow Circus" written by Ashli Rene Funches. Directing credits include: The Quill Reading Series, The October Storm (Raven Theater). Assistant director credits include: The Last Pair of Earlies (Raven Theatre), Long Time Since Yesterday (The Theatre School DePaul). She is represented by Gray Talent Group. And is excited to join the Sideshow Theatre family!

Sydney Charles (she/her) is very grateful to be joining this powerful group of art makers and visionaries as an artistic associate with Sideshow Theatre Company. She is also a company member with Firebrand Theatre, the world’s first Equity musical theatre company committed to employing and empowering women. Chicago credits include: Her Honor Jane Byrne (Lookingglass Theatre Company), Duchess! Duchess! Duchess! and Wally World (Steppenwolf Theatre); Theatre for One: Here We Are and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (Court Theatre); I Hate It Here!, Lottery Day and Father Comes Home from the Wars Parts 1, 2 & 3 (Goodman Theatre); The Color Purple (Drury Lane); Nina Simone: Four Women (Northlight Theatre); Flyin' West (American Blues Theater); The Wiz (Kokandy Productions); and Dessa Rose (Bailiwick Chicago). Regional credits include I Hate It Here (Studio Theatre). Television credits include South Side, The Chi, Shameless, The T and The Haven. Her other work includes assistant director and dramaturg for Bug (Steppenwolf Theatre), associate director for His Shadow (16th Street Theater); and associate director for The Shipment (Red Tape Theatre). She is the recipient of 3Arts "Make a Wave" award, a Black Theater Alliance Award, Chicago Reader's "Best Stage Performer" runner-up, a four-time Jeff Award nominee and has been featured twice as part of NewCity's "50 Players of the Year." Proud member of AEA and SAG-AFTRA. Represented by Stewart Talent.

Gina is a proud artistic associate of Sideshow, where her credits for dramaturgy include Caught, The Burden of Not Having a Tail, The Ugly One, and Theories of the Sun. She has also worked on Mine (The Gift), The Petrified Forest (Strawdog), and The Dream of the Burning Boy (The Clarence Brown Theatre in Knoxville). She is assistant professor of theatre history and dramaturgy at the University of Tennessee.

Micah Figueroa (he/him) is Chicago-based actor, director, choreographer, and teaching artist. As a director, he most recently directed the Zoom recording of Makasha Copeland’s Fabuloso! at Sideshow, and was the assistant director for Act(s) of God at Lookingglass Theatre. He has been a combination of fight, intimacy, movement, and circus director variously at Steep, Haven, First Floor, UIC, Texas Christian University, Northbrook, and Walkabout Theatres as well as Dallas Theatre Center, and Shakespeare Dallas among others. As a Chicago actor, he was most recently Bottom and Demetrius in DREAM with Chicago Shakespeare Theatre and has performed at Chicago Children’s, Writers, and Lookingglass Theatres. Regionally Micah has performed at Arena Stage, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Shakespeare Dallas, Theatre Three, Kitchen Dog, Dallas Theatre Center, Alliance, and South Coast Rep Theatres. Micah holds a degree in theatre studies (directing and playwriting) from Southern Methodist University, and attended the British American Drama Academy in London, England.

Brynne Frauenhoffer is a Chicago-based playwright. Her full-length production credits include Vape Naysh (First Floor Theater) and Bury Me (Dandelion Theatre). Other full-length development: Pro-Am (Sideshow Theatre; selected for The Kilroys List 2020); Synchronicity (Salt Lake Acting Company; Semi-Finalist for the 2018 O'Neill National Playwrights Conference); The Young Ones (First Floor Theater; Jackalope Playwrights Lab); Pizza Hut Heartbreaker (Commission Theatre); Age Play (The New Colony); Sh*tty Christians (Prop Thtr). She co-founded the Wampus Cat Collective with a group of fellow playwrights, has worked as a script supervisor for Rivendell Theatre and Chicago Dramatists, and profiled Chicago theatremakers for Perform.ink. Her current play-in-progress is titled Faculty (or, The Opposite of Oleanna).

brynnefrau.com

Jyreika Guest is an actor, dancer, poet, and intimacy director based in Chicago. She's also the creator of Black Queer+ Voices which is a virtual open mic. Chicago credits include: Lindiwe (U/S Steppenwolf); Frankenstein (Remy Bumppo); columbinus (The Yard Theatre Company); In the Blood and I Saw Myself (Red Tape Theatre); The Fly Honey Show (The Inconvenience); The Wiz (Kokandy Productions); Octagon (Jackalope Theatre Company); The Adventures of Robin Hood (Filament Theatre). Intimacy direction credits: Sheepdog (Shattered Globe); Intimate Apparel (Northlight Theatre); The Tasters (Rivendell Theater Ensemble); The Children of Edgar and Nina (The Neighborhood Theatre); Hoodoo Love (Asst., Raven Theatre); The First Deep Breath (Asst., Victory Gardens). She is proudly represented by Shirley Hamilton Talent.

David Lawrence Hamilton's credits include: The Bottle Tree and The Firestorm (Stage Left Theatre); HeLa, truth and reconciliation, Antigonick and The Golden Dragon (Sideshow Theatre); Down Range (Genesis Theatrical Prod); CCX (Modofac Production); A Lesson Before Dying (Lincoln Square Theatre); and To Kill a Mockingbird (Chase Park Theatre).

Noël Huntzinger is a Sideshow artistic associate and has been working with the company since 2012. Favorite spots she has designed include Goodman Theatre, Chicago Lyric Opera Unlimited, Boise Contemporary Theatre, Filament Theatre, About Face Theatre, Pride Arts Theatre, Interrobang Theatre Ensemble, A-Squared, Muse of Fire, Shattered Globe Theatre, and Collective Theatre Ensemble. Noël is a design advisor at The DePaul Theatre School. In addition to theater, she has designed pieces for choreographers Ginny Sykes, Wendy Clinard, the George Balanchine Trust, and the Antony Tudor Trust. Film design credits include Olympia and Cliff. Noël is a graduate of Oklahoma University.

noelhuntzinger.com

Ann James has appeared in Sideshow’s productions of HeLa, truth and reconciliation, Caught, Antigonick, Maria/Stuart, and Idomeneus. She has also worked with Chicago Shakespeare, Goodman, Jackalope, Raven, Silencio and Trap Door theaters, and narrated performances of How the Grinch Stole Christmas with The Lakeview Orchestra. James is the founding director of Chicspeare Production Company, which makes Shakespeare’s works accessible to persons of all ages and backgrounds; the name reflects its commitment to both the City and the Bard. She is represented by Shirley Hamilton Talent.

Nina's credits with Sideshow include Chalk, Stupid Fucking Bird, The Ugly One and Heddatron. Nina was most recently seen in The Other Place (Profiles Theatre). Other credits include: Golden Boy (Griffin Theatre Company-Jeff Nomination for Best Supporting Actress); Bedroom Farce, After the Fall, Candles to the Sun and Democracy (Eclipse Theatre Company); Our Town (Lookingglass Theatre Company); Sketchbook 7 - "It's About Time" (Collaboraction) and work with About Face Theatre, Timeline, and Steep Theatre. TV/Film credits include Chicago PD, The Secret Santa, and The Discovery Channel. Nina is a proud graduate of the School at Steppenwolf and Millikin University. She is represented by Stewart Talent and an artistic associate of Sideshow Theatre. Love to Dad, Mom, Patrick, Erin and Erik.

Sarah Price is a Chicago-based actor, voiceover artist, and comedian. Chicago theatre credits include X and Mai Dang Lao (Sideshow Theatre Co.), The Wolves (Goodman Theatre), Harvey (Court Theatre), Earthquakes in London (Steep Theatre), You on the Moors Now (The Hypocrites), The Sweeter Option (Strawdog Theatre Co.), Carlyle (Goodman Theatre, New Stages), Monstrous Regiment (Lifeline Theatre), Solstice (A Red Orchid Theatre), and Northanger Abbey (Remy Bumppo Theatre Co.). Regional credits: A Midsummer Night's Dream (Indiana Repertory Theatre), With Love and a Major Organ (Boise Contemporary Theater). TV: Chicago Fire (NBC). Sarah is also a stand-up comedian, and hosts and produces The Missy, a monthly comedy show, with Helen Joo Lee. She also plays Augie Eckhardt in The Vanishing Act Podcast, and is a 2020 Audio Verse Awards Finalist for Best Leading Role in a New Audio Production. Sarah is a graduate of The Theatre School at DePaul University, the Improv Training Program at iO, and Second City's Conservatory.

sarahpricechi.com

Ellen Willett is thrilled to be working with Sideshow again after such fun with Antigonick, Mai Dang Lao, The Happiest Place on Earth, You for Me for You, and Tilikum. She is an artistic associate with Sideshow, Steep, and Remy Bumppo, a company member with The Inconvenience, and regularly makes theatre and events with the talented folks at Definition, The Fly Honey Show, Strawdog, the Grant Park Music Festival, and many more. For fun, she plays hockey with the South Side Storm, fosters hound dogs, and takes any opportunity to sail on the lake.

With Sideshow, Karie performs (The Burden of Not Having a Tail; Tyrant; Idomeneus; Everything Freezes; Ekphrasis), directs (Strangerland), and emcees (Rockke L Squelch, Mistress of Ceremonialisms for the Chicago League of Lady Arm-Wrestlers; Mariafe Ariadne Buckford-Westington-Washington-Taylor-Clais at the yearly Sideshow Gala). Karie is also an artistic associate with The Ruckus, with whom she performed/devised 15 Minutes and directed/devised Common Hatred. She holds a BFA from NKU, an MFA from UVA, and a PhD from OSU. Her research interests include audience, creative placemaking, and performance art.

kariemiller.com

Karen Walters is Senior Director, Compensation for USG Corporation, where she is responsible for the strategy, design, implementation, and administration of base pay, short-term incentive, long-term equity, and recognition programs. Responsibilities span domestic and international locations as well as executive compensation, proxy reporting, Board matters and other total rewards matters. Prior to joining USG, Karen worked for a number of large companies such as Aon Hewitt, Arthur Andersen, Sears and Sprint. Karen is a former executive board member of the Chicago Compensation Association (CCA).

Karen is an active member of the Conference Board Council on Compensation, National Association of Stock Plan Professionals (NASPP), Global Equity Organization (GEO), Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM), WorldatWork and International Foundation of Employee Benefits Plan.

Karen received her MBA from University of Notre Dame and holds a BS from Westminster College. She is an equestrian enthusiast and passionate about travel, skiing and the theatre (of course!).