Ensemble
DAWN BACH has been an Ensemble member of ATC since 1993. ATC audiences have enjoyed her performances in the critically acclaimed productions of Catch 22, Medea, A Stone Carver, as Edie in On The Waterfront, Mary in It's a Wonderful Life: a Live Radio Play, Sally in A Lie of the Mind, and Lottie in The Dark at the Top of the Stairs. Other Chicago venues include Northlight (Smoke on the Mountain, Cowgirls), The Goodman Theatre (A Christmas Carol), Buffalo Theater Ensemble, Next Theater, Bailiwick and Lifeline Theatre (A Cricket in Times Square, title role). She has also appeared in numerous commercials, and industrial and independent films. In a parallel life, Dawn is an accomplished violinist, singer and composer. Her style ranges from classical to country: she has sung the Mozart Requiem with the Leningrad Philharmonic, fiddled with The Blue Lincolns on their latest CD, and is a regular favorite at the ATCabaret. Her original scores and sound designs have been heard by audiences at Victory Gardens, Touchstone, Strawdog and at ATC in The Hairy Ape, Strictly Dishonorable, Two Rooms, Medea, and Toys In the Attic, for which she received an After Dark Award for Outstanding Original Music. She and her husband Rawl, and son Zachary are proud to call Chicago their home.
KAREEM BANDEALY joined the American Theater Company ensemble in 2008. He was last seen here in Oklahoma! as Ali Hakim (and Slim). Prior to that, he has worked at ATC on staged readings of Billy the Kid (Peanut) and Echoes of Another Man (Dr. Park). Chicago theatre credits include: Gas for Less and King Lear at Goodman Theatre; Short Shakespeare! Romeo & Juliet at Chicago Shakespeare Theater; 10 Acrobats in an Amazing Leap of Faith, Back of the Throat, and Our Enemies: Lively Scenes of Love and Combat at Silk Road Theatre Project; Wedding Play at About Face Theatre Collective; The Real Thing at Remy Bumppo Theatre Company; and several others. His regional theatre credits include: As You Like It, Romeo & Juliet, Jack and the Beanstalk, The Taming of the Shrew, The Winter's Tale, and Cyrano De Bergerac at Orlando Shakespeare Theater; Julius Caesar and Stuff Happens at Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre; and Love's Labour's Lost at Notre Dame Summer Shakespeare Festival. Film: In Plain Sight, Counting Backwards, Bodega, and Michael Keaton's The Merry Gentleman. Kareem has also been Associate Artist and a company member of Silk Road Theatre Project since 2007. He received his BFA in Theatre Performance from the University of Central Florida where, in 1999, he became the school's first national finalist for the Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival's Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship. In April 2007, he was profiled in Time Out Chicago as one of ten actors considered to be "ubiquitous on Chicago's stages."
ED BLATCHFORD
MATTHEW BRUMLOW joined the ATC ensemble in 2001 immediately following the critically acclaimed production of Catch 22 in which he played Milo Minderbinder and eleven other characters. He has ten ATC credits as an actor. Other favorite roles include Long in The Hairy Ape, the Mercenary in Kid-Simple, and Rodolpho in A View from the Bridge, for which he received a 2005 Joseph Jefferson nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. In Chicago, Matthew has worked with Writers' Theatre, Apple Tree, Northlight, Chicago Dramatists, Organic/Touchstone, About Face, PROP, Aardvark, Azusa Productions, and the premiere of the first American Girls Revue. Matthew also has five credits with Chicago Shakespeare Theatre and three credits with Shakespeare on the Green. He is particularly proud to have been in playwright Brett Neveu's first Chicago production The Last Barbecue as well as G. Riley Mills' world premiere of Raising Blue. Regional credits include work with Peninsula Players, Door Shakespeare, five productions with the marvelous Montana Shakespeare in the Parks where favorite roles include Tartuffe and Shylock, and a national tour of A Streetcar Named Desire with Montana Repertory Theatre in which he played Stanley. Matthew has been an acting mentor in Steppenwolf's Arts Exchange, he has studied with the Royal National Theatre in London, and he is a summa cum laude graduate of Lee University and Northwestern University.
KATE BUDDEKE is living in New York where she has appeared on Broadway in Carousel, Death of A Salesman, Gypsy and A Streetcar Named Desire. She recently completed film work on Choking Man with Mandy Patinkin and The Last New Yorker with Dominic Chianese. She also filmed an episode of The Sopranos and Law & Order CI. Her heart however remains in Chicago.
RICK CLEVELAND is a founding Ensemble member of American Theater Company. He was an Executive Producer and writer for all five seasons of HBO's Six Feet Under. In 2000, he won an Emmy Award and a Writer's Guild Award for his writing on The West Wing. His play Jerry and Tom, which had its world premiere at American Theater Company in 1995, was adapted as a screenplay and was an official selection at both the Sundance and Toronto Film Festivals in 1998. He was nominated for an Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America for his screen adaptation of John Grisham's Runaway Jury. As a playwright he has received playwriting grants and fellowships from the Kennedy Center's Fund for New American Plays, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller Foundation. As a freelance journalist he has written for the Destinations column of Outside Magazine and for the Sunday Magazine of the Chicago Tribune. He received his MFA from the University of Iowa's Playwright's Workshop in 1995. Rick is also a commentator for NPR's All Things Considered.
CASEY CAMPBELL is excited to be one of the newest ensemble members at American Theater Company. ATC credits include "It's A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play", "Vienna" at the Big Shoulders Festival, and the multi-Jeff nominated production of "Oklahoma" for which Casey received a Jeff nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Musical. Other Chicago credits include "Troilus and Cressida" at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre and "The Buddy Holly Story" at Drury Lane Oakbrook. Recently, Casey and his brother Chris produced/directed/edited and co-wrote an Independent Pilot entitled, "Reality Check". The pilot was an official selection/finalist for the Chicago Comedy Pilot Competition and features fellow ATC ensemble member Kevin R. Kelly. The pilot is currently being submitted to festivals in Los Angeles and New York as well. Casey hails from Bettendorf, Iowa and holds a BFA in Acting from The Theatre School at DePaul University.
DENNIS COCKRUM
LAURI DAHL
TOM GERATY
CHERYL GRAEFF, an Ensemble member of ATC for four years, has been in such hit shows as Orpheus Descending and the co-production with Teatro Vista of Living Out. Cheryl has been a resident of Chicago since 1993 and has performed throughout Chicago at places such as Victory Gardens, Chicago Dramatists, Famous Door Theatre, Court Theatre, Mary Arrchie, Strawdog, and Piven Theatre. She has also been in shows throughout the region at Kansas City Repertory, Milwaukee Repertory, Madison Repertory, and Nebraska Repertory. In 2004 she performed in the critically acclaimed production of The Fall to Earth by Joel Drake Johnson at Steppenwolf Theatre Company. This past year she worked with Will Ferrell in the film Stranger than Fiction which will be coming out in Fall 2006.
LINDSAY JONES is a composer and sound designer for theatre, film and television. He has composed and designed for world premieres of plays by Sam Shepard, David Mamet, A.R. Gurney, Terrence McNally, John Guare, Warren Leight, Lynn Nottage and many others. He has done numerous shows off-Broadway and in regional theatres across the US including American Conservatory Theatre, Center Stage, South Coast Repertory, Alliance, Ford's Theatre, Goodman, Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Old Globe and many others. Lindsay has received three Joseph Jefferson Awards and nine nominations, 2 ASCAP Plus Awards, an Ovation Award, and a Chicago Stage Talk Award, as well as nominations for Barrymore Awards, Austin Critics Table Awards and NAACP Theatre Awards, and was the first composer to win the Michael Maggio Emerging Designer Award.
KEVIN R. KELLY has been an Ensemble Member of American Theater Company since 1993. ATC productions: St. Scarlet, The Skin of Our Teeth, Scapin, Stalag 17, Flight of the Phoenix, One Day Only, On the Waterfront and Monsters III: The El Ride. He has also worked at many Chicago theatres including Bailiwick Repertory, Buffalo Theatre Ensemble, Circle Theatre, City Lit Theatre, Lifeline Theatre, Pegasus Players and Strawdog Theatre among others. Film Credits: American Dreamz, Bad News Bears, A Lot Like Love, Light it Up as well as many independent films; TV Credits: Prison Break, Charmed, The Inside, Boston Legal, 7th Heaven, Clubhouse (pilot), Spin City, Early Edition.
ED KROSS has been an Ensemble member of American Theater Company since 1998 and has been seen in Stalag 17, Scapin, The Threepenny Opera, Below the Belt, and A Lie of the Mind. His appearances in and around Chicago include Transference at the Mercury, I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change at the Royal George, A Funny Thing Happened... with Noble Fool at Pheasant Run, Enter the Guardsman at Northlight, The Wizard of Oz and The Princess and The Pea at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh at the Apollo, Do Black Patent Leather Shoes..., Some Like it Hot and Moon Over Buffalo at Theatre at the Center, and many shows and events with The Midnight Circus. He served as host for The Sing A-long Wizard of Oz at the Oriental Theatre in Chicago, and the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. On camera he's appeared in over 50 commercials, and shares one-on-one scenes with Tom Hanks in Road to Perdition and George Clooney in Ocean's 12.
JAMES LEAMING came to Chicago after receiving professional training at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco (classmate- Annette Bening). Briefly studied and performed at Second City (classmates Bonnie Hunt and David Pasquessi). Quit Second City to found the American Blues Theatre in 1985 (classmates-Bill Payne, Ed Blatchford and Rick Cleveland). In Chicago Jim has worked for Goodman, Steppenwolf, Victory Gardens, Body Politic, Northlight, Writers' and commercial producers Fox Theatricals, Big Leap Productions and Mercury Theater. After Dark Award- The Man Who Fell In Love With The Moon, Running With Scissors Theatre Co. Other favorite roles include: Yank in The Hairy Ape, Lewie in American Dead and nine characters in Catch 22 at American Theater Company, Ross in Spinning Into Butter- The Goodman, Michael in Someone Who'll Watch Over Me- Big Leap Productions, Charlie in The Foreigner- Peninsula Players in Door County, Wisconsin and Peter in Prelude To A Kiss- Fox Theatricals. He also performs in TV, film, voice-over and industrial/ corporate theater in the USA and internationally.
HEATHER MEYERS received her BFA from Millikin University and joined the ATC Ensemble in 1996. At ATC she has stage managed some 15 productions- beginning with Flight of the Phoenix through The Hairy Ape. Heather serves as the coordinator of the Relatives Program in ATC's Studio Series as well as Artistic Associate in 2005-6. Her favorite project is The Big Shoulders Festival- an annual short play fest celebrating Chicago which she created and began producing for ATC in 2003. While Heather has worked in theaters throughout the Midwest and has a variety of passions when it comes to creating art- she prefers to call ATC home.
JOE MINOSO is the new Associate Artistic director of Teatro Vista...theater with a view. He is currently at the Goodman theater with the Chicago Childrens Theater Production of Esperanza Rising and was recently seen at Yale Rep this past spring in the world premiere of Jose Rivera's Boleros for the Disenchanted. Other acting credits include: Fifo in Nilo Cruz's Park in our House, Erik is Teatro Vista's world premiere production of Jose Rivera's Massacre...Sing to Your Children at the Goodman Theater, George Gibbs in Our Town at Madison Repertory Theater, Samuel Horetensia and the Museum of Dreams at Victory Gardens, Officer Freddy Fernandez in Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner at Teatro Vista, Angelo in Short Shakespeare! Comedy of Errors at Chicago Shakespeare, Living Out at American Theater Company, a Teatro Vista co production, and Truffildino in The Servant of Two Masters at SummerNite. Regional Credits include Lenny in Marisol, The Laramie Project (NIU), among others. As a director he most recently directed Jen Barclay's Freedom NY (Remy Bumppo/Teatro Vista), Suzan-Lori Park's The End of the World in 365 days/365 plays series and has directed several student pieces including Two and Twenty, Balm and Gilead, and Suburbia. He was the assistant director for Teatro Vista's most recent main stage show Dreamlandia. He has a BFA in Acting from Adelphi University and an MFA in acting from Northern Illinois University.
JOHN MÖHRLEIN
JIM ORTLIEB
WILLIAM PAYNE is a co-founder and former artistic director of ATC. His credits at ATC include Dogman's Last Stand and Bad Moon by Rick Cleveland, The Hairy Ape ('87) and Desire Under the Elms by Eugene O'Neill, The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder and Quake by Melanie Marnich. He directed the Mexican premiere of work by Jose Rivera with the Centro Hellenico Teatro production of La Tectonica de Las Nubes (Cloud Tectonics) in Mexico City. His documentary about voting 50/50: The American Divide will premiere in 2006 and he is currently developing a screenplay with Kevin Kling based on his play The Education of Walter Kaufmann.
SUZANNE PETRI “Noted Chicago actress and cabaret darling,” Ms. Petri has brought her "marvelous voice... vivacious performance... wry sophistication" to dozens of Chicago stage productions from her Jeff-nominated performance in Zorba at Apple Tree to Malvolio in Twelfth Night at the Goodman. At American Theater Company she recently appeared in the Midwest premiere of Kid-Simple. Suzanne was also in The Hairy Ape, Two Rooms, A Lie of the Mind, The Threepenny Opera, and presented several musical tributes including 1940’s Holiday Radio Spectacular! She appears regularly at Cyrano’s Cafe Simone; A Parisian Cabaret. Suzanne is the president and a founding member of Chicago Cabaret Professionals. You can also catch her in the movie release Milwaukee, Minnesota.
KEITH PITTS has been a member of the American Theater Company Ensemble since 2001. Some of Keith’s best designs for ATC include EndGame, Two Rooms, American Dead, and Orpheus Descending. Other designs of Keith’s have been seen at theatres in the Chicago area and Door County Wisconsin. Designs include: Accidental Death of an Anarchist at The Next Theatre, Jammin’ with Pops and Vincent in Brixton (Jeff Nominated) at Apple Tree Theatre, A Dybbuk at Northwestern Theatre, Proof, A Man for All Seasons, The Last Night of Ballyhoo, Death Trap at Peninsula Players Theatre.
TANIA RICHARD joined the ensemble in 2008. As an actress, she has appeared on Broadway, at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, The Goodman Theatre, The Second City, The Children’s Theatre Company of Minneapolis, Portland Center Stage, and Chicago Dramatists. She was nominated for Best Actress by the Black Theatre Alliance for her performance in “Voyeurs de Venus” at Chicago Dramatists and received a Drammy nomination for her work in “Blues for An Alabama Sky” at Portland Center Stage. She is also a Resident Playwright and Associate Artist at Chicago Dramatists. Her award winning plays include “Happy.Go.Lucky.”, “How Far? Too Far?”, “Selecting Memory”, “Variations on a Theme”, and “Bitty Danvers’ Family Stump”, among others. Two of her monologues appear in “New Monologues for Women by Women” (2004 and 2005, published by Heneimann) Tania served as the Outreach Director at Chicago Dramatists and currently teaches improvisation and acting at The Second City, Columbia College and De Paul University. Her stepchildren Thomas and Nora and husband Bill welcomed baby Audra to the family in August of 2007.
SADIEH RIFAI
CARMEN ROMAN has been an Ensemble Member since 1991, and was the Artistic Director from 1993-97. National Tour: Angels in America Off-Broadway: The Iphigenia Cycle (Theater for a New Audience from The Court Theatre, Chicago), The Mysteries (Classic Stage Company), Paradise (Gary Allen productions), Regional: Orpheus Descending (American Theater Company, Chicago) Sonia Flew (The Huntington Theatre), According to Goldman (Philadelphia Theater Company) Electra (Hartford Stage Company), Big Love (The Wilma), Side Man (Steppenwolf, The Galway Festival, Galway, Ireland and The Melbourne Arts Festival, Australia) Wit, Black Snow, Brutality of Fact (The Goodman Theatre), Master Class (Northlight Theater and Columbia Artists Tour), Shadowlands (The Alliance Theater), Fen (Empty Space Theater), The Falcon (ACT, Seattle) Recent Workshops of note: Richard III at CSC, with John Tuturro, Coriolanus at The Public, Safe House at New York Theater Workshop with Kathleen Chalfant. Film/Television: The Falcon, (a co-production shot in Soviet Georgia), Marilyn (Short feature, Kevin Spacey Productions) “All My Children”, “Early Edition”, “Law and Order” ( Judge Einhorn, recurring), “Law and Order SVU.” Company Member: American Theater Company, Chicago and The Actors’ Center, New York . Awards and Honors: 2002 Fox Fellow, Sarah Siddons Award, Florence Herscher Award, Joseph Jefferson Awards for Master Class and Wit.
EDITHA ROSARIO
JOHN STERCHI has been an ATC Ensemble Member for 8 years and has appeared in 15 productions. Favorite roles at ATC include: Eddie / A View from the Bridge ( for which he received a Jeff Nomination for Best Actor), Teach / American Buffalo (appearing opposite Chicago favorite Mike Nussbaum), Jake A Lie of the Mind, Hanrahan / Below the Belt (After Dark Award Winner - Best Ensemble Acting), Mike / Working, and he also portrayed famed photographer Art Shay in his one-man show, Where Have You Gone, Jimmy Stewart. Other ATC credits include It's a Wonderful Life, The Threepenny Opera, Orpheus Descending and the musicalTintypes. Mr. Sterchi is no stranger to Chicago audiences, having appeared in Hearts / Northlight, David Copperfield / Steppenwolf, Pal Joey / Goodman, as well as, work at Lifeline, Body Politic, Profiles and Strawdog, among others. He has also worked regionally at Kansas City Rep., Madison Rep., The Kennedy Center and Red Barn Summer Theatre. Notable roles include: Morgan / The Drawer Boy, Moss / Gengarry Glen Ross and Juror #8 (the Henry Fonda role) in Twelve Angry Men, which he also adapted and produced. Film and TV credits include: The ABC Mini-Series Amerika, Indie films : Bound & Gagged, Till Death Do Us Part and most recently, Detective Moran in Streetthief, a new docu-drama shown at The International Chicago Film Festival and Tribeca Film Festival. But his most notable film appearance was "the pie eating cop in the diner," who gets gunned down by Jude Law, in The Road to Perdition, with Tom Hanks and directed by Academy Award winner, Sam Mendes. In addition to his many stage and screen credits, Mr. Sterchi has acted in numerous commercials and industrials, and as a voice-over artists has narrated over 300 children's books, training films and commercials. Also, a Director, his credits include Visiting Mr. Green, Catch a Falling Star and Kreskin Be Damned, an ATC Big Shoulders production. As an ATC Ensemble Member, Mr. Sterchi has served as the Ensemble Representative to the Board of Directors, a member of the Season Selection Committee, and as an Artistic Associate to Artistic Director Damon Kiely.
STEF TOVAR is thrilled to return to ATC in April for the premiere of Lisa Dillman's Half of Plenty--teaming up with John Mohrlein and Bill Payne TEN years since A Stone Carver. A company member since 1996, his roles at ATC also include Dobbit in Below the Belt (After Dark Award--Best Ensemble) Macheath in The Threepenny Opera, Man #1 in A Million Bells of Ocean and as a member of the ensemble of Quake. Stef won a Jeff Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Play for his performance of Vinal in Oliver Mayer's Blade to the Heat at Apple Tree, and worked steadily in Chicago for seven years at such theatres as Marriott Lincolnshire, Organic, Drury Lane, Victory Gardens and Northlight. He moved to Los Angeles in 2000 where he did commercials (Nexium, Travelocity, Ford Racing, AT+T "Emergency Call" and upcoming Walgreen's) television (Judging Amy and The Angriest Man in Suburbia) and film (Employee of the Month with Matt Dillon, which premiered at Sundance in 2001). Stef's most recent film, The Gymnast will have it's Chicago premeire Friday, November 10th as part of the Reeling Film Festival (www.thegymnastfilm.com). L.A. theater credits include George in Sunday in the Park with George, Jamie in The Last Five Years, Homer in Floyd Collins, Kip in Wonder of the World and Stine and in City of Angels. Stef and his wife Karen welcomed baby Samuel in March and recently left L.A. to once again call Chicago: Home.
GWENDOLYN WHITESIDE appeared at ATC in St. Scarlet, Augusta, Kid Simple, and Bus Stop. Elsewhere, she played Emily in Our Town at Indiana Repertory Theatre, Metamorphoses at Lookingglass Theatre Company, and Dream Boy at About Face Theatre. She’s performed at Northlight Theatre, Chicago Humanities Festival, Defiant Theater, Street Signs, and Los Angeles theaters. She can be seen in independent films and television shows (Cold Case, Six Feet Under, Dawson’s Creek, Jack & Jill, Cupid, and a recurring role on The Education of Max Bickford). She’s a graduate of Northwestern University and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her written work has been produced, published, and read at ATC, Mary Arrchie Theatre, All-Story: Zoetrope Writers’ Retreat, Waiting Room Magazine, Ink, Edinburgh College of Art, SAIC, and Powell’s Bookstore. She was a fiction finalist for Bomb Magazine’s annual prize (judged by A.M. Homes) and Glimmertrain Press. She’s received three Joseph Jefferson nominations and an After Dark Award.